Books & Culture
“The Burning Bed” Recalls the Case That Changed How Law Enforcement Treats Domestic Violence
The new documentary looks at the landmark case of Francine Hughes and examines the inequalities in the criminal-justice system’s treatment of women who kill in self-defense.
- Culture Desk
A Lighthouse for Magazines
Casa Magazines is a living shrine to print culture in New York City.
- Annals of Inquiry
Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media
How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times.
The Latest
How to Draw a Child
In a new video, the New Yorker cartoonist shares the secrets of drawing convincing youngsters who don’t look like your great-uncle Carl.
“The Old Guard,” Reviewed: Warriors Who Can Never Die, or Free Themselves from Genre Constraints
Gina Prince-Bythewood’s occasionally poignant drama, on Netflix, seems interested in its characters’ inner lives only as a pretext for advancing the action.
A Visitor to Ireland Finds Ballet in the Ancient Sport of Hurling
In a new book, “People of the Mud,” the photographer Luis Alberto Rodriguez creates a choreography of bodies at work and at play.
“USA v Scott” and the Fight to Prove That Humanitarian Aid Is Not a Crime
The short documentary highlights the moral questions facing an Arizona community when Scott Warren was prosecuted for bringing water to migrants in the desert.
How Virginia Woolf Kept Her Brother Alive in Letters
For Woolf, correspondence became a way to transcend a climate of illness—to envision a future she couldn’t see.
The Critics
My Mother’s Dreams for Her Son, and All Black Children
She longed for black people in America not to be forever refugees—confined by borders that they did not create and by a penal system that killed them before they died.
Frank Kameny’s Orderly, Square Gay-Rights Activism
An astronomer for the Army Map Service was an unlikely, but crucial, combatant for erotic freedom.
The Lockdown Lessons of “Crime and Punishment”
A college class weathering the pandemic finds Dostoyevsky’s savage inwardness and apocalyptic feverishness uncomfortably resonant.
“Mr. Jones” Remembers When Stalin Weaponized Famine
The horrors of the Holodomor, in which millions of Ukrainians starved, are dramatized, but not inflated, in Agnieszka Holland’s new film.
Goings On About Town
HAIM’s Carefree and Comfortable New Album
“Women in Music Pt. III” gives the impression that the three sisters recorded it while lounging in the breeze.
New York City’s Cornucopia of Bread to Go
Rye ficelles from Bien Cuit, bâtards and miches from She Wolf, a speakeasy-style bakery with cardamom buns on demand, and more reasons to ditch your sourdough starter.
An Installation by Felix Gonzalez-Torres Honors Sweetness and Loss
The artist’s simple and radical piece—a pile of fortune cookies, free for the taking and replenished when depleted—is being re-created worldwide through July 5th.
Photo Booth
A Visitor to Ireland Finds Ballet in the Ancient Sport of Hurling
In a new book, “People of the Mud,” the photographer Luis Alberto Rodriguez creates a choreography of bodies at work and at play.
Podcasts
Hasan Minhaj, Kenan Thompson, and Laura Marling Walk Into a Festival
Two comedians and a folk singer on their lives and art.
Video
The Vintage Shop that Captured the New York City Spirit
Selling a flashy mix of vintage and couture, Allan & Suzi's shop was a destination for designers, club kids, and fashion freaks in a city that was always changing around it.