The Magazine
October 25, 2021
Reporting
A Reporter at Large
How an Adoption Broker Cashed In on Prospective Parents’ Dreams
In just a few years, a Michigan woman took in millions of dollars, faking adoptions and ruining families’ lives along the way.
Letter from Moscow
A Black Communist’s Disappearance in Stalin’s Russia
What happened to Lovett Fort-Whiteman, the only known African American to die in the Gulag?
American Chronicles
Can MasterClass Teach You Everything?
Studies suggest that it takes at least a decade to achieve real expertise. The company promises transformation in a few hours.
The Critics
On Television
The News, According to Charlamagne tha God and Jon Stewart
A shock jock joins the commentariat as a semi-serious race whisperer; a satirist turns sage.
The Theatre
“Is This a Room” and “Chicken & Biscuits” Bring the Unexpected to Broadway
A thrilling dramatization of the interrogation of the whistle-blower Reality Winner and a crowd-pleasing family comedy both rise above their pre-Broadway origins.
The Art World
“Greater New York” Confirms Rather Than Surprises
MOMA PS1’s survey show of New York artists could use a watchword related to “avant-garde”—perhaps whatever the French for “sideways-garde” might be.
Books
Briefly Noted
“I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness,” “Happy Hour,” “Walk with Me,” and “Man Ray.”
Books
The Many Wars of Pat Barker
Celebrated for her First World War trilogy, Barker has been reimagining the Trojan War through the eyes of its female victims. But what happens when gritty realism meets myth?
Books
The Miracle of Stephen Crane
Born after the Civil War, he turned himself into its most powerful witness—and modernized the American novel.
The Talk of the Town
Amy Davidson Sorkin on the 2022 midterms; mistaken for a fugitive; Black on Broadway; entrepreneurial ethics; on the air in the desert.
Mojave Postcard
Live from the Mojave, It’s Desert Weirdness
For his cult radio show, “Desert Oracle,” Ken Layne channels Mark Twain and Tom Waits to spin tales of weird pets, scorching weather, and U.F.O.s.
Outreach Dept.
Bringing Barbershop Talk to the Stage
To plug Keenan Scott II’s new play, “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” the producers sent a mobile barbershop around the city, in an attempt to diversify a Broadway audience that, Scott says, often doesn’t include Black people like him.
Good Intentions
Stanford Takes on the Techlash
With more and more students becoming dorm-room C.E.O.s, three professors cooked up an ethics class for the coding set.
Comment
The G.O.P.’s Race to Out-Trump the Trumpists
The midterm elections are approaching, and the Republican Party is heading into them with the former President as its leader.
Look-Alike Dept.
Bounty Hunting for Brian Laundrie in a Land of Doppelgängers
Amateur sleuths have speculated that the fugitive is on the run on the Appalachian Trail—bad news for the archetypical long-distance hiker: skinny, pale, bald, and bearded.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
How to Care for Your Bigfoot: A Guide
Cartoons
1/15
“You’re right—bad things do happen when you relax.”
Cartoon by Colin Tom
Fiction
Fiction
The Umbrella
Puzzles & Games Dept.
Poems
Poems
Continuity
Goings On About Town
Tables for Two
The City’s Only South African Restaurant and Bar
Kaia Wine Bar, Suzaan Hauptfleisch’s Upper East Side institution, serves South African wine alongside elk, bobotie, Gatsby sandwiches, and bunny chow.
Art
The Conceptual and Empathetic Art of Gillian Wearing
The British artist’s bronze homage to Diane Arbus is unveiled in Central Park, and the Guggenheim opens the retrospective “Gillian Wearing: Wearing Masks.”
Mail
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