World
The Composer Making a Hip-Hop Musical About Anne Frank
A few years ago, Andrew Fox was struck by a transcendently bad idea. He would turn the story of Anne Frank into a satirical hip-hop musical: intersectional, inclusive, and...
Does Olivia Nuzzi Make Good Copy?
In addition to not being a tell-all, “American Canto” is not a book about Trump, nor is it about politics, as Nuzzi establishes in an author’s note. Rather, “it...
The High-Born Rebel Who Took Up the Cause of the Commoner
Much like her childhood identification with communism, her writing began as something of a joke. She was utterly devoted to the Party’s ideals, but she also had a keen...
The Best Albums of 2025
Looking back at the songs I played the most in 2025, I can sense my own hunger for music that felt wounded, carnal, unfamiliar, tactile, and askew—far from the...
“An Enemy of the People” Becomes a Spanish Opera
Perhaps Rigola should have been more willful in his handling of the text, since his libretto unfolds more like a selection of highlights from the play than like a...
How Noah Baumbach Fell (Back) in Love with the Movies
It was somewhere on a deserted highway in Ohio at about 4 A.M., with a rain machine, while I was shooting “White Noise.” I think I felt, Oh God,...
A Holiday Gift Guide: Presents for Music Lovers
It’s easy to think of music as ephemeral and essentially free, rather than a thing you can dotingly select, acquire, and present to your nearest and dearest. Yet music...
Louis C.K.’s Next Chapter
These days, C.K. occupies a strange place in the culture. He is in a cancellation limbo, joined by the likes of Chris Brown and Andrew Cuomo. C.K. isn’t too...
God Bless “A Christmas Carol,” Every One
There is a street in Naples, Via San Gregorio Armeno, where you can find shop after shop presided over by artisans whose specialty is building Nativity scenes out of...
“The Secret Agent” Is a Political Thriller Teeming with Life
Meanwhile, a real shark has washed ashore; the movie’s MacGuffin is a human leg found in the creature’s belly. To investigate, the city’s wily and pompous chief of police,...
