Innholdsfortegnelse for March 13, 2023 i The New Yorker

Rachel Aviv (“Marriage of the Minds,” p. 34), a staff writer, won the 2022 National Magazine Award for profile writing. She is the author of “Strangers to Ourselves.” Masha Gessen (“News in Exile,” p. 20), a staff writer since 2017, was the recipient of the 2017 National Book Award for nonfiction for “The Future Is History.” Their latest book is “Surviving Autocracy.” Adlan Jackson (The Talk of the Town, p. 16) is a writer and editor at Hell Gate. Diana Ejaita (Cover) is an artist. Her new children’s book, “A Day in the Sun,” comes out in May. Billy Collins (Poem, p. 61), a former U.S. Poet Laureate, has published more than a dozen books of poetry, including, most recently, “Musical Tables.” Kelefa Sanneh (Pop Music, p. 70), a staff writer…

The coming months bring intimate club shows, splashy arena concerts, and one lightning-rod event that has already commanded attention from the Senate Judiciary Committee. That would be Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, demand for which overwhelmed pitiable Ticketmaster and, in Congress, suggested a new third rail of American politics: don’t dare raise the ire of Taylor Swift fans. Those fortunate enough to surmount ticketing hurdles descend upon MetLife Stadium (May 26-28), where the millennial lodestar welcomes a slate of openers, including indie phenom Phoebe Bridgers. The young and ticketless might find a sympathetic ear in their fathers, whose own version of Taylor Swift—Springsteen, Bruce—rankled fans by pricing his tour’s tickets not for the world’s workers but for its bosses. Onstage, however, Springsteen’s repertoire excludes wrong moves. He steers his fabled E…

Performers such as the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the one-handed pianist Paul Wittgenstein famously expanded their instruments’ repertoires by commissioning new works—a tradition that is alive and well this season. The flutist Claire Chase marks the first decade of “Density 2036”—a genre-redefining project to commission a new flute program every year until, yes, 2036—by revisiting eight previous entries and unveiling two new ones, at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and at the Kitchen’s Westbeth space (select dates May 18-25). Also at Carnegie, Alisa Weilerstein, a cellist of depth, fire, and sinew, shares the first chapter of her own original series, “Fragments,” in a production by Elkhanah Pulitzer (April 1). The Crossing and the Philadelphia Orchestra partner on the choral piece “Vespers of the Blessed Earth,” which John Luther Adams, who…

The lives of artists, whether real or fictional, inspire a wide range of movies this season, including the historical drama “Chevalier” (April 21), directed by Stephen Williams. It’s a bio-pic about Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (played by Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), a Black composer and violinist who rose to fame in France just before the Revolution. Kelly Reichardt’s latest film, “Showing Up” (April 7), stars Michelle Williams as a sculptor whose exhibition gives rise to conflicts with friends and family; Hong Chau, André Benjamin, and John Magaro co-star. In “Paint” (April 7), directed by Brit McAdams, Owen Wilson plays a TV-famous painter in a Vermont town who faces competition in work and love from a younger artist. Hilma af Klint, the Swedish abstract painter and spiritualist, is the subject of…

In 1969, the N.Y.P.D. arrested a group of Black Panther Party members in a series of predawn raids. Twenty-one people were charged with planning bombings across the city and assassinations of police officers. During the many months that the arrested were held, the Panthers fought back, in part, with art—posters, paintings, and flyers. The other day, a curator named Espranza Humphrey was inspecting a particularly psychedelic print in a storage room of Poster House, a museum in Chelsea. In the piece’s center was a black-and-white figure with an Afro and a yelling mouth. A spiral of yellow and red squares radiated from an outstretched fist, and fluorescent-pink letters spelled out “Power to the People” and “Free the New York Panther 21.” “One of the women accused was Afeni Shakur, which…

The actor Jane Lynch (sixty-two, ostrich-tall, short platinum hair in meringue-like peaks) met up with a friend, the podcast host George Hahn (fifty-two, clean-shaven, smart peacoat), at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-second Street the other day. “I love your hair!” Lynch exclaimed. “Who did it for you?” Hahn ran his fingers through his boingy coif. “Oh, this bar-ber I went to,” he said, drawing out the word. He offered Lynch his arm, and they strolled into Central Park. “I wanted to sit in a barber’s chair, you know?” he continued. “The sound of clippers! The dude chitchat! I love the smell of Barbicide and Pinaud. It makes me want to wear Sansabelt pants.” “The training they have to have to become a barber?” Lynch said. “They’re not fucking around.” “The best…

Not long ago, I suited up in a white coat and safety goggles and entered a quiet laboratory where an experiment at the frontiers of science and parenthood was under way. A young engineer with a tidy beard escorted me past rows of benches to a large freezer. He opened it to reveal an array of ice-caked steel drawers and, wearing blue Cryo-Gloves (reverse oven mitts, essentially), removed a small bottle from the chill, which measured minus eighty degrees Celsius. At the bottom of the bottle, two hundred and fifty millilitres of liquid had formed a shallow, colorless puck. I was visiting Biomilq, a startup, founded by Leila Strickland and Michelle Egger, that is working to produce lab-grown breast milk. Biomilq’s headquarters are in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, a…

In 1971, the feminist art historian Linda Nochlin challenged centuries of chauvinism with a groundbreaking essay titled “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Nochlin, who died in 2017, would have been gratified by the lineup at New York City’s museums this spring, as women take center stage. In “Sarah Sze: Timelapse,” the Guggenheim presents a series of site-specific installations by the brilliant American artist, who calibrates countless elements (found, sculpted, painted, video-based, printed, sonic, drawn, and architectural) into intricate works that seem to unfold as viewers discover them. The always cosmic dimension of Sze’s art assumes epic proportions via a live feed of the moon, cycling through its phases, projected onto the curved façade of the museum’s Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building. (Opens March 31.) The British-born, New York-based…

I’ll start with the cocktails at Eyval, a Persian restaurant that opened last year—and so should you. Gin tends not to agree with me, and yet I couldn’t help but steal sips of a friend’s orange-blossom Negroni, a cold and viscous concoction that lingered on my tongue and in my memory (I can taste it now!), the intoxicating, floral perfume of the orange-blossom water achieving thrilling alchemy with the herbal gin, bitter Aperol, and sweet vermouth. For myself, I ordered a Conference of the Birds—a sour-candy-like mix made with more orange-blossom water and Aperol, plus vodka, lemon, and honey—and the tart, smoky Limoo Margarita, featuring mezcal infused with limoo amani (dried lime), an ingredient used in Iran in soups and stews, the rim of the glass coated in coarse salt…

On December 1st, TV Rain, an independent Russian television station that had been banned from Russian cable and satellite channels, was in its fifth month of broadcasting from Riga, the capital of Latvia. Most of its journalists had fled Moscow during the first week of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, dispersing to Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Israel, and elsewhere, only to discover in exile that, to much of the world, they represented a country waging genocidal war. Banks wouldn’t accept them as clients, landlords wouldn’t rent to them, and residents in Tbilisi and other cities painted “Russians go home” on street corners. Early on, two Baltic states were exceptions: Lithuania, which had long served as a base for Russia’s political opposition, and Latvia. Last March, the country’s foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs,…

ACROSS 1 ___ sniping (baiting someone with an irresistibly interesting problem, as coined in the Web comic “xkcd”)5 Pair at a cocktail party?10 Lady Gaga, to her Little Monsters14 Cookie that’s the “dirt” in dirt pudding15 Golfer Palmer, familiarly16 N.Y.C. home of “The Persistence of Memory”17 Some mobile food venders19 “Frozen” reindeer20 Flavor of some green candy21 Pare22 Frequently, to Milton23 Amphibious D Day craft, briefly24 Wrote (down)26 National chain that sells climbing shoes27 Shaver’s option28 Put some groceries away?29 Place where local government limits coöperation with immigration agents33 Subreddit where posters ask whether they acted appropriately in a given situation34 Food-delivery service35 Make a mistake36 Day divs.37 Football-field divs.38 Souped-up car40 Tajikistan or Turkmenistan, once: Abbr.41 Baking-sheet spray44 Fiona of “Killing Eve”45 “Hamilton,” essentially48 State of mind49 Any of…

Things are humming at New York City Ballet, where, in addition to its current resident choreographer, Justin Peck, the company is bringing on the globe-trotting Alexei Ratmansky as an artist-in-residence. Two of Ratmansky’s works, the imagistic “Pictures at an Exhibition” and the rollicking sea-adventure ballet “Namouna, a Grand Divertissement,” return as part of the spring season (David H. Koch Theatre, April 18-May 28). N.Y.C.B. also unveils a new ballet by the young Canadian Alysa Pires and another by Christopher Wheeldon. In more good news, dance companies are finally touring again. The National Ballet of Canada (City Center, March 30-April 1), whose most recent visit was in 2016, returns with a triple bill that includes Kenneth MacMillan’s 1966 “Concerto,” coolly abstract and set to Shostakovich, and Crystal Pite’s sweeping “Angels’ Atlas”—dance’s…

On August 6, 2015, Donald Trump appeared at the first Republican Party primary debate of the 2016 Presidential cycle, hosted by Fox News. Bret Baier asked all the candidates onstage if they would endorse the eventual Republican nominee, whomever that might be, and rule out running as an Independent. Trump alone declined, stating, “I cannot say.” Come next August, another season of Republican Presidential-primary debates is set to begin, and candidate Trump is again a seismic force of instability in the G.O.P. Last week, the Republican National Committee chair said that, during the 2024 cycle, all participants in its televised primary debates should first sign a “loyalty pledge” promising to support whichever candidate is finally selected to take on the Democratic nominee—presumably Joe Biden. Trump has not indicated that he…

The private-aviation market has cooled since the pandemic boom time. Every rich person seems to be unloading the family plane. But it’s not all bad news: often, the sellers are also buyers, looking to upgrade to something bigger than their neighbor’s Dassault Falcon 900EX or Bombardier Challenger 300. The other day, at Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey, eight miles from midtown, a would-be buyer looked over some gently used merchandise. His sales guides were Don Dwyer and Don’s little brother, Mike, who arrived by air in their blue-and-white Daher TBM 700 single-engine turbo-prop. Conditions: significant wind shear, gusting to thirty-four knots from the northwest. Moderate turbulence. Don, who is sixty-five, was manning the flight controls. Mike, sixty-four, sat co-pilot, offering counsel: “O.K., Tiger! Ride ’em, cowboy!” After touchdown, Don said,…

ChatGPT enables users to ask questions or tell a story, and the bot will respond with relevant, natural-sounding answers and topics.—Quoted in Forbes. Hi, Chat, A friend gifted me a fancy designer bucket hat that she swore she didn’t want anymore. Then we had a misunderstanding, and she ghosted my birthday party. Then I blocked her. And put a potato in her tailpipe. And slept with her ex. Can our friendship be saved? If not, do I have to give back the hat? WHY are there suddenly so many different kinds of Oreos? What are Birthday Cake Flavor Creme Oreos really like? Occasionally sampling a blueberry in the produce section is one thing—and, before you say a word, have you seen the price of blueberries lately? If I’m plunking down…

No one has ever been able to explain exactly why Richard Wagner had such a shuddering impact on nineteenth- and twentieth-century culture, to the point where he became the subject of a somewhat unhinged international cult. Perhaps the most plausible reason has to do with the cascading power triggered by his command of music and words alike. The value of his literary output remains a matter of debate; nonetheless, his dramatic texts, which include the librettos of all thirteen of his operas, have a style indisputably their own, combining extravagant rhetoric with fail-safe narrative structures. Many composers after Wagner wrote their own librettos; few could match his furious double focus. Stephen Sondheim is the most conspicuous modern example, though he almost certainly would have hated the comparison. Kate Soper,…