Reporting
- American Chronicles
Will Trump Burn the Evidence?
How the President could endanger the official records of one of the most consequential periods in American history.
- Letter from California
How a Deadly Police Force Ruled a City
After years of impunity, the police in Vallejo, California, took over the city’s politics and threatened its people.
- Annals of Activism
How to Stop a Power Grab
As democracy hangs in the balance, activists are drawing lessons from the study of civil resistance.
- A Reporter at Large
The Underground Movement Trying to Topple the North Korean Regime
Adrian Hong says he leads a group of “freedom fighters” conducting a revolution. Has the U.S. already betrayed them?
The Critics
- On Television
Royal Competition in “The Crown”
The show depicts not only how the Empire has crumbled but its descent into a kind of domestic crumminess.
- Books
Wikipedia, “Jeopardy!,” and the Fate of the Fact
In the Internet age, it can seem as if there’s no reason to remember anything. But information doesn’t always amount to knowledge.
- Books
How Paul Celan Reconceived Language for a Post-Holocaust World
His poems, now translated into English in their entirety, are an invitation to a new kind of reading.
- Books
Briefly Noted Book Reviews
“Recasting the Vote,” “What Becomes a Legend Most,” “The War of the Poor,” and “The Office of Historical Corrections.”
- The Current Cinema
“Mank” and the Making of “Citizen Kane”
David Fincher’s bio-pic takes a dreamy look at the show-biz myths surrounding the uneasy collaboration of Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles.
The Talk of the Town
Steve Coll on why Trump is still refusing to concede; ballot-counting in Philly; wreckage on the 7 train; a missing Jacob Lawrence; Cazzie David’s anxiety.
- Comment
What Does Trump Get Out of Contesting Biden’s Win?
The election was not close, and the President’s claims of voter fraud are merely a distraction from his many recent failures.
- Philadelphia Postcard
A Philadelphia Local Is Unamused by the Fuss
Biden supporters blast music, Trump supporters wave signs that read “Stop the Cheat,” and the people of Philly have had enough.
- Under the Streets
The Mystery of the 7 Train’s Broken Windows
Who’s been smashing the ballistic safety glass in the cars, messing with the line’s usually excellent M.D.B.F. (mean distance between failures)?
- At the Museums
A Missing Jacob Lawrence Painting Reappears After Decades
How an Upper West Sider learned that the picture on her living room wall was wanted over at the Metropolitan Museum.
- The Other Coast
Cazzie David’s Existential Dread
On a stroll through the Hollywood Forever cemetery, the daughter of the “Seinfeld” creator Larry David discusses her new book of essays about self-doubt, anxiety, and other youthful preoccupations.
Shouts & Murmurs
- Shouts & Murmurs
First Lines of Rejected “Modern Love” Essays
Of all the Etsy shops in all the towns in all the world, she bought used baby shoes from mine.
Cartoons
Fiction
- Fiction
“The Old Man in the Piazza”
“This little piazza in this little town contains a sage of such profundity that he can resolve all your disagreements on the spot.”
Poems
- Poems
“We Feel Now a Largeness Coming On”
“Do you see how mighty you’ve made us, / all these generations running?”
- Poems
“Back from the Cannery”
“The women at our house worked in the cannery / and, afterward, at home.”
Goings On About Town
- Night Life
A Three-LP Set of Sonny Rollins, Liberated from the Studio
On Record Store Day (Nov. 27), Resonance Records is releasing “Rollins in Holland,” a set of the saxophone master’s expansive concert and radio performances from 1967.
- Tables for Two
Eleven Madison Park’s Foie-Gras-Stuffed Chicken To Go
In the upheaval of the pandemic, the chef Daniel Humm converted his kitchen into a commissary for an organization that feeds New Yorkers in need—and converted fine dining into takeout for the one per cent.
