World
King Princess’s Homecoming
After the Civil War, the German-born Jewish businessman Isidor Straus moved with his family to New York City. Straus was enterprising and handsome, with small round spectacles, an angular...
There Is More to French Opera Than “Carmen” and “Faust”
Virginia Woolf, in her essay “The Lives of the Obscure,” savors the potential fascination of reading authors whom posterity has cast aside: “One likes romantically to feel oneself a...
The Iranian Revolution Almost Didn’t Happen
Strange to think, but there was a time when the United States’ most steadfast ally in the Middle East was Iran. In 1953, the C.I.A. had backed a coup...
Amy Sherald’s “Trans Forming Liberty”
The cover of the August 11, 2025, issue, by the artist Amy Sherald, is a portrait of the trans model and performance artist Arewà Basit. The art work is...
How the Poet James Schuyler Wrung Sense from Sensibility
The American poet James Schuyler composed his first significant poem during a nine-week stay at the Payne Whitney Westchester psychiatric clinic, in White Plains, New York, in late 1951....
Three Plays on the Pancake
Pancake Soufflé at Pitt’sIt’s arguable that this dish, the flagship dessert at chef Jeremy Salamon’s proudly kitschy Red Hook restaurant, isn’t actually a pancake: no pan, no cake. But...
Sterling K. Brown’s Upstanding Archetype
There’s a certain face that only Sterling K. Brown can make. It is yoked to no particular emotional state, and emerges just as often when the actor is conveying...
The Banal Provocation of Sydney Sweeney’s Jeans
Two American blondes have recently hawked denim. Beyoncé, an ambassador for Levi’s, dressed in outlaw drag, arrives at a semi-deserted laundromat. She slinks out of her 501s, revealing her...
At the Edge of Life and Death in Ukraine
In June, 2023, a Russian Iskander ballistic missile blew apart Ria Lounge, a popular pizza restaurant (and one of the few that remained open) in Kramatorsk, a city in...
Watching the “King of the Hill” Revival from Texas
I came to “King of the Hill” late, during the COVID pandemic. The animated hit co-created by Mike Judge ran for thirteen seasons starting in the late nineties. I’d...
