The Magazine
December 7, 2020
Reporting
Brave New World Dept.
What if You Could Outsource Your To-Do List?
Virtual assistants are one click—but often one continent—away. A new industry for bringing order to our work lives could shift the order of our workforce.
Portfolio
The Race to Make Vials for Coronavirus Vaccines
A Corning factory in upstate New York is running around the clock to help meet the urgent demand.
A Reporter at Large
When One Parent Leaves a Hasidic Community, What Happens to the Kids?
The irreconcilable differences between Orthodoxy and secularism increasingly end up in court.
Letter from Los Angeles
Using the Homeless to Guard Empty Houses
As the pandemic makes an already terrible housing crisis worse, a new version of house-sitting signals a broken real-estate market.
The Critics
Books
Why New York’s Mob Mythology Endures
We hang on to legends of the Mafia’s inner workings as parables for the wider world.
Musical Events
What Does It Mean to “Reimagine” an Orchestra Season?
With live performances constrained by the pandemic, musical ensembles are streaming productions for listeners curious enough to seek them out.
Books
Briefly Noted
“Wintering,” “We Keep the Dead Close,” “Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino,” and “Music for the Dead and Resurrected.”
A Critic at Large
What Henry Adams Understood About History’s Breaking Points
He devoted a lifetime to studying America’s foundation, witnessed its near-dissolution, and uncannily anticipated its evolution.
On Television
“Roadkill” Offers the Fantasy of Politics as Usual
The British political thriller, full of small-bore scandals and Victorian twists, can hardly compete with reality.
The Current Cinema
Economic Ruthlessness on the Open Road in “Nomadland”
In an almost-true story of older Americans living in their vans, Frances McDormand plays a woman who is both free spirit and labor-market refugee.
The Talk of the Town
David Remnick on the cost of Trump’s war on the press; the value of a life; the treasures of Frank Zappa’s vault; a Coney Island school’s COVID lawsuit; Tobias Menzies.
Social Contract Dept.
The Brooklyn School Suing the C.D.C.
Coney Island Prep’s lawsuit alleges that the government’s incompetence in dealing with COVID is not just destructive—leaving people dead and making it hard for many others to do their jobs—but also illegal.
Dept. of Values
COVID Goes to College
An economics professor, comparing lives saved with the cost of the shutdown, asked students, How much is a life worth? One answered twenty-four thousand dollars.
Legacies
The Treasure in Frank Zappa’s Secret Subterranean Vault
Taking a break from “Bill & Ted,” Alex Winter dug into the rock star’s archives to make a documentary that frames him as a First Amendment culture warrior in the tradition of Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.
The Firm
Tobias Menzies of “The Crown” Crashed on Helena Bonham Carter’s Couch Before Lockdown
Prior to playing Prince Philip, the British actor took on Wallace Shawn’s “The Fever,” Brutus, and a cursed bridegroom in “Game of Thrones.”
Comment
The Cost of Trump’s Assault on the Press and the Truth
The President is being forced to give up his attempt to overturn the election. But he will continue his efforts to build an alternative reality around himself.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
Raised by Wolves
Cartoons
1/12
“You know times are tough when a rugged voice saying ‘We’re all in this together’ dubbed over footage of an S.U.V. snaking down a mountain road is comforting.”
Cartoon by Lila Ash
Fiction
Comic Strip
A Cheery Story
Fiction
Dietrologia
Poems
Goings On About Town
Classical Music
A Prisoners’ Chorus in “Breathing Free”
The Heartbeat Opera’s new streaming show pairs excerpts of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” with spirituals and works by Black composers to consider the racial disparities in classical music and the prison system.
Tables for Two
In Greenpoint, Edy’s Grocer Offers Lebanese Food with a Nod to the Polish Past
When the pandemic hit, the chef Edouard Massih took over his friend and neighbor’s Polish deli, turning it into a bright and cheerful shop and café serving both Lebanese and Polish packaged goods, plus meze, sandwiches, and ready-to-heat dishes.
Mail
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