The Magazine
March 15, 2021
Reporting
Letter from Malibu
A Shooter in the Hills
Who was behind the mysterious attacks in the California wilderness?
A Reporter at Large
The Rise of Made-in-China Diplomacy
While political leaders trade threats, the pandemic has made Americans even more reliant on China’s manufacturers.
The Political Scene
What Is Happening to the Republicans?
In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past.
Dept. of Business
What Happens When Investment Firms Acquire Trailer Parks
The financial industry’s pursuit of profits from mobile-home communities is undermining one of the country’s largest sources of affordable housing.
The Critics
The Art World
The X-ed Out World of KAWS
Using cartoons such as “The Simpsons” or characters of his own devising, the artist KAWS makes work that sails beyond kitsch into a wild blue yonder of self-cannibalizing motifs.
A Critic at Large
How Octavia E. Butler Reimagines Sex and Survival
The parasites, hybrids, and vampires of her science fiction make the price of persisting viscerally real.
Books
How Much of Your Stuff Belongs to Big Tech?
In the digital era, the old rule book on ownership doesn’t work anymore. But beware of what’s replacing it.
Pop Music
Genre Is Disappearing. What Comes Next?
As record stores close and streaming algorithms dominate, the identities that music fandom supplies are in flux.
On Television
Queen Latifah Obliterates Trumps n’ Musks in “The Equalizer”
The CBS crime procedural is a gimme for an audience who’d die to have this therapeutic queen dismantle racial capitalism in one fell girl-boss swoop.
The Talk of the Town
Nick Paumgarten on a year of COVID lessons; new beginnings; assembling a first draft of lockdown history; reopening cinemas; if this were the Second World War.
Intermission Dept.
A Movie Theatre Returns from the Longest Intermission Ever
Three hundred and fifty-one days after the closing credits of “Sonic the Hedgehog,” employees at a Queens multiplex prepare for reopening and get to popping thirty-five pounds of popcorn.
Rearview Mirror
A Year After Pearl Harbor, a Year into COVID
They rationed sugar; we hoarded toilet paper. In December of 1942, in a time different and not so different from today, Americans took stock of sacrifice, grief, duty, and irretrievably ripped stockings.
As It Happens Dept.
The Race to Collect COVID Ephemera Before It’s History
The New-York Historical Society has spent the pandemic year scrounging for tomorrow’s museum artifacts, including homemade masks, store-closure signs, and a street artist’s portrait of Dr. Fauci as Mr. Spock.
Checking In
As Told To: An Unhoused High Schooler’s New Nest
A year ago, fifteen-year-old Camilo was living in a shelter without Wi-Fi. He catches us up on his year in quarantine, his rescued pet pigeons, and his search for home and friends.
Comment
New York’s Year of COVID
There is plenty to be anxious about as people emerge from their pandemic confinement. But here in the city there are green shoots.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
Macmuffin: A Tragedy
Cartoons
1/17
“Maybe we don’t need to go out. I can use vegetable oil instead of olive oil for the biscotti.”
Cartoon by Michael Maslin
Fiction
Fiction
The Shape of a Teardrop
Puzzles & Games Dept.
Poems
Goings On About Town
Classical Music
“Musical Storefronts” Brings Live Music Back to the City
In the Kaufman Music Center’s series, through the end of April, vacant retail spaces on the Upper West Side become stages for local musicians.
Tables for Two
Fany Gerson’s Craveable Doughnuts and Mexican Brunch
At her new shop, Fan-Fan Doughnuts, in Bed-Stuy, the chef offers pastries that practically quiver with joy; at El Newyorkino, in Red Hook, it’s huevos divorciados and challah French toast with cajeta.
Mail
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.