World
How to Figure Out Your Life
The English writer Oliver Burkeman’s “Meditations for Mortals” introduces itself as a kind of handbook on how to cultivate more joy by acknowledging that “you’re never going to sort...
The Brilliance and the Badness of “The Sun Also Rises”
The second sentence is “Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.” Even to my...
In “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” Character Development Returns to Westeros
“A new ‘Game of Thrones’ series!” you might be thinking. “Time to unroll my map of Westeros.” Well, unroll away—but “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” despite its name,...
Alex Honnold and Netflix Team Up for a Corporatized “Free Solo”
In Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s Oscar-winning 2018 documentary, “Free Solo,” the world-class rock climber Alex Honnold expresses reservations about being shot by a film crew while he...
“Infinite Jest” Has Turned Thirty. Have We Forgotten How to Read It?
In 2023, the writer Patricia Lockwood chafed at Wallace’s supposed sainthood in a long piece for the London Review of Books. The essay, in its ambivalence, did things other...
Easter Island and the Allure of “Lost Civilizations”
She also formed a bond with a Rapanui prophetess named Angata, the leader of an uprising against the sheep-ranching operation then dominating the island, which took place during the...
Witnessing Another Public Killing in Minneapolis
“They killed another guy,” someone announced, in my group chat. That message was followed quickly by a link to a video, shot from behind a pane of glass, level...
Wild Cherry Is Ready for Its Closeup
This could have easily been chaos, but it reads as mere idiosyncrasy, thanks to the sheer force of Wild Cherry’s appeal as a place to while away a few...
The Cruelty and Theatre of the Trump Press Conference
Playacting for journalists standing in an unruly huddle just off camera, Trump asked questions of the oilmen, wondering how soon they could suck the ground under Venezuela dry. “And...
William Eggleston’s Lonely South
Eggleston, however, used color in a different way: he employed the bright shock effect of advertising—Drink Coca-Cola! Drive this Buick!—but separated it from capitalism. There’s so much junk in...
