World
The Artificial State
“Jacob Javits of New York is the first United States senator to become fully automated,” the Chicago Tribune announced in 1962 from the Republican state convention in Buffalo, where...
Barry Blitt’s “Tightrope”
As the 2024 Presidential race nears its end, the country seems more and more divided, with democracy hanging in the balance. For the cover of the November 11, 2024,...
Helen, Help Me: What If You’re Dining with a Jerk?
We don’t always get to choose our dining companions. What’s the right move when you’re seated next to a boor at a restaurant to which you’d like to return?...
Dorothy Parker and the Art of the Literary Takedown
When I think of Dorothy Parker’s hangovers, and I do, the image that comes to mind is that of the U.S.S. Arizona. A sunken battleship resting at the bottom...
How Far Can Political Ads Go to Swing the Vote?
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago—sun high, wind cool—I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the...
In “Juror #2,” Clint Eastwood Judges the System Harshly
It’s commonplace to acknowledge Clint Eastwood as one of the most distinctive and original political filmmakers. What’s surprising about his new film, “Juror #2,” is that the politics it...
The Banality of Online Recommendation Culture
In the 2010s, affiliate marketing became a dominant strain of online business models. The Wirecutter, which sold to the Times in 2016, made money by driving its visitors to...
How Binyavanga Wainaina Wrote About Africa
Not long ago, I saw an article that would have both delighted and exasperated the late Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina. “Entrepreneurs are planning autonomous ‘charter cities’ as an answer...
Lorenzo Mattotti’s “Strides”
On Sunday, November 3, 2024, more than fifty thousand people from all over the world will participate in the New York City Marathon—an event that many New Yorkers deem...
The Mystery of Three Hundred Bodies in the Woods
How should the living treat the dead? More specifically, what should we do with their bodies, and why? The answers to these questions, like the mysteries of death itself,...
