The Magazine
September 27, 2021
Reporting
American Chronicles
An Ex-Drinker’s Search for a Sober Buzz
Can the booming market for non-alcoholic drinks offer a safe way to return to the bar?
Onward and Upward with the Arts
Richard Neutra’s Architectural Vanishing Act
The Austrian-born designer perfected a signature Los Angeles look: houses that erase the boundary between inside and outside.
Profiles
Harris Reed’s Gender-Fluid Fashion
The British-American designer is helping such celebrities as Harry Styles and Solange play with stereotypes of masculinity and femininity.
Annals of Medicine
The Struggle to Define Long COVID
Patients and skeptics are squaring off. Can research heal the rift?
The Critics
On Television
“Reservation Dogs” Is a Near-Perfect Study of Dispossession
Chips are the least of what has been stolen in Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi’s heist comedy, shot in the Muscogee Nation.
Books
Joy Williams Does Not Write for Humanity
In a new novel, the author’s dark, surprising language mourns for the world we’ve demolished.
Books
Briefly Noted
“Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth,” “Savage Tongues,” “Three Girls from Bronzeville,” and “Home, Land, Security.”
Books
Percival Everett’s Deadly Serious Comedy
The novelist has regularly exploded our models of genre and identity. In “The Trees,” he’s raising the stakes, confronting America’s legacy of lynching in a mystery at once hilarious and horrifying.
The Current Cinema
The Uncanny Valley of “I’m Your Man”
Maria Schrader’s film, starring Dan Stevens as a robot designed to be the perfect man, confirms comedy as the playground of philosophy: nothing is funnier or more stirring than the sight of somebody learning how to be.
The Talk of the Town
Margaret Talbot on the future of abortion rights; the Sopranos’ forefathers; poetry for the public; Leslie Jones gets groceries; antics at the Emmys.
Poetry in Motion
Sharing a Bike Lane with Emily Dickinson and Maya Angelou
László Jakab Orsós, a curator at the Brooklyn Public Library, pedals around Brooklyn blasting poetry and political speeches from the back of his single-speed bicycle.
New Start
Glam-Room Dish with Leslie Jones
The comedian, late of “Saturday Night Live,” discusses her new gig hosting “Supermarket Sweep,” and her strategy of taking fashion cues from Monty Hall.
Sketchpad
Untelevised Moments from the Emmy Awards
Don’t miss Ted Lasso’s mustache running wild in the gifting suite!
Comment
The Supreme Court and the Future of Roe v. Wade
Abortion rights may hinge on a case involving a Mississippi law—and the errors of fact and judgment in the state’s brief are staggering.
Prehistory Dept.
Alessandro Nivola’s “Sopranos” Time Travel
The actor who plays Dickie Moltisanti in the prequel movie “The Many Saints of Newark” visits the old stomping ground of Richie (the Boot) Boiardo, the mid-century mafioso who loosely inspired the series.
Cartoons
1/11
“It’s meatless Monday. You don’t have to hunt, but I must gather.”
Cartoon by Victoria Roberts
Fiction
Fiction
Desire
Puzzles & Games Dept.
Poems
Poems
Half-Life in Exile
Poems
I
Goings On About Town
Tables for Two
Chinese Dishes from Fertile Jiangnan, at CheLi
The East Village restaurant serves drunken crab, smoked fish, and other specialties, some of which were, according to lore, born of a Qing-dynasty emperor’s tours of the region south of the Yangtze River.
Classical Music
The Met Opera Opens with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones”
The first show in the fall season, based on Charles M. Blow’s memoir, is set to music by Terence Blanchard and stars Will Liverman.
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