The Magazine
October 31, 2022
Reporting
A Reporter at Large
Will Sanctions Against Russia End the War in Ukraine?
D.C. bureaucrats have worked stealthily with allies to open a financial front against Putin.
Onward and Upward with the Arts
A Unified Field Theory of Bob Dylan
He’s in his eighties. How does he keep it fresh?
Annals of Politics
The Democrats’ Midterm Challenge
In competitive races across the country, candidates are downplaying ideology in favor of kitchen-table issues.
The Sporting Scene
Toto Wolff, the Compulsive Perfectionist Behind Mercedes’s Formula 1 Team
Mercedes drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, dominated the world’s fastest motorsport for a decade. Now they can’t win a race.
The Critics
Books
Outbreaks and Uprisings in Orhan Pamuk’s “Nights of Plague”
When an epidemic comes to an enchanting Mediterranean island, the political consequences are as momentous as the medical ones.
Books
Briefly Noted
“American Midnight,” “Kiki Man Ray,” “Haven,” and “Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies.”
Pop Music
Will Sheff’s Lament for a Starry-Eyed Rock-and-Roll Dream
On “Nothing Special,” the artist, now forty-six, surveys the ecstasies and the devastations of getting older and giving up on some things.
Musical Events
Is the New York Philharmonic’s Swanky New Space Falling Short?
The renovated David Geffen Hall looks better, but the acoustics leave a mixed impression.
Books
How Samuel Adams Helped Ferment a Revolution
A virtuoso of the eighteenth-century version of viral memes and fake news, he had a sense of political theatre that helped create a radical new reality.
The Art World
Two Views of New York, from Edward Hopper and a Historic Black Gallery
Museum shows capture the great realist painter’s vision of the city and, at Just Above Midtown, the work of artists of color from the seventies and eighties.
The Theatre
“Topdog/Underdog,” Back on Broadway, Still Has Its Eye on the American Long Con
The director Kenny Leon puts a realistic spin on Suzan-Lori Parks’s allegorical tour de force.
The Talk of the Town
Evan Osnos on Xi Jinping’s world view; the inflation detector; a mentorship platform; actors on ice; remembering Peter Schjeldahl.
Secret Mission Dept.
Among the Undercover Inflation Trackers
A trip to the store with one of the secretive bureaucrats who fan out across America recording how much the price of milk or doggy day care has risen.
Breaking in Dept.
Protégé Reinvents the Demo Tape
A startup promises to match would-be stars with mentors such as DJ Khaled and Will Smith—like a mashup of MasterClass and Cameo. Can Jason Alexander help an aspiring Costanza make it in acting?
The Boards
Curtain Call, with Zamboni
Victoria Clark and the cast of “Kimberly Akimbo” turned into rink rats to prepare for their Broadway opening.
Comment
Xi Jinping’s Historic Bid at the Communist Party Congress
In his efforts to escape the “cycles of order and disorder, rise and fall” that China’s emperors could not, is Xi himself slipping into them?
Postscript
Remembering Peter Schjeldahl, a Consummate Critic
A voice is what he always had: distinct, clear, funny. A poet’s voice—epigrammatic, nothing wasted.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
Other Things It Takes a Village to Accomplish
Need a large baby lifted? Want to reassure a jittery couple whose car has broken down outside a scary motel? Trying to feed a hungry giant?
Cartoons
1/17
“Well, it will just have to wait.”
Cartoon by Mick Stevens
Fiction
Fiction
Narrowing Valley
“The man and wife and kids in the Winnebago are moving west. The story moves west with them. All stories around here move west.”
Puzzles & Games Dept.
Poems
Goings On About Town
Movies
Monster Movies Galore, on the Criterion Channel
The streaming service’s Halloween-ready roster includes “Cat People,” “Nosferatu the Vampyre,” and “The Bride of Frankenstein.”
Tables for Two
A Korean Utopia to Go, at Little Banchan Shop
In Long Island City, Hooni Kim, of Danji, offers a wide array of the Korean sides known as banchan, plus soups, stews, marinated meat to cook at home, and a selection of made-to-order dishes.
Mail
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.