The Magazine
April 18, 2022
Reporting
Annals of Communications
Can the BBC Survive the British Government?
In its hundredth year, the broadcaster maintains a near-total reach—and faces a threat to its existence.
Personal History
With Father-and-Son Writers, Who Gets to Tell the Family Story?
A relationship reconsidered by reading between the lines.
Letter from Kyiv
The Holocaust Memorial Undone by Another War
After eighty years, the site of a mass execution of Jews was about to be commemorated. Then Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
American Chronicles
A Lake in Florida Suing to Protect Itself
Lake Mary Jane, in central Florida, could be harmed by development. A first-of-its-kind lawsuit asks whether nature should have legal rights.
The Critics
Books
The People Who Decide What Becomes History
However fastidious they may be about facts, historians are engaged in storytelling, not science.
The Theatre
A “Hamilton” for the Suffrage Movement
Shaina Taub’s new musical follows Alice Paul’s tireless quest to win American women the vote.
Musical Events
The L.A. Master Chorale’s Pyramids of Sound
The adventurous vocal ensemble turns precision into wonder.
A Critic at Large
Race, War, and Winslow Homer
The artist’s experiences in the Civil War and after helped him transcend stereotypes in portraying Black experience.
Pop Music
Orville Peck’s Lonesome Country
On his new record, “Bronco,” the singer grapples with heartache, depression, and restlessness.
The Current Cinema
The Restless Youth of “Paris, 13th District”
The laconic cool and fleeting hookups of Jacques Audiard’s film belie a surprising warmheartedness.
The Talk of the Town
Amy Davidson Sorkin on confirming Justice Jackson; graft art; in need of a name; Trump iambs; so smooth.
Dept. of Cultivation
The Four-Hundred-Year-Old Fruit That Built New York
On Governors Island, the artist Sam Van Aken is installing the Open Orchard, a grove of the antique fruit trees—peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries, apples, pears, persimmons, and almonds—that used to grow all over the city.
London Postcard
The Greatest, Most Beautiful Play Ever, with the Possible Exception of Shakespeare
How the playwright Mike Bartlett melded Trumpisms with the language of the Bard for “The 47th.”
Grooming Dept.
Equal Skin-Care Rights Now!
The C.E.O. of the cosmetics company QMS, which sells bovine collagen, wants men to follow the lead of Daniel Craig, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Timothée Chalamet, who’ve used his products to smooth their faces.
Dept. of Monikers
For Sale: Baby Names, Lightly Used
For fifteen hundred dollars, Taylor A. Humphrey, a professional baby namer, will create a bespoke list of options, parsing the semiotics of Isla vs. Calliope and Ansel vs. Balthazar.
Comment
The Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings May Be Only the Beginning
The final Senate confirmation vote of 53–47 sparked joy and relief that the ugly part was over, at least for Jackson. The rest of the country may not be so lucky.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
Things I Don’t Have Room for as a Mother
Cartoons
1/13
“No matter how early we leave, it seems we always hit traffic.”
Cartoon by Michael Maslin
Fiction
Comic Strip
Collective Shame
Fiction
Just a Little Fever
“She was always racing for the end of the story. She always wanted to get started on the next thing.”
Puzzles & Games Dept.
Poems
Goings On About Town
Tables for Two
Early American Aesthetics at the Commerce Inn
At their new West Village restaurant, the tastemakers Jody Williams and Rita Sodi pull off Shaker furniture, jugged rabbit, and rarebit, thanks to their culinary chops and playful curiosity.
The Theatre
“The Skin of Our Teeth,” Reinterpreted
In Lincoln Center Theatre’s revival of Thornton Wilder’s allegorical comedy, which tells the story of human history through the Antrobuses of New Jersey, the Everyman family embodies the Black experience.
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