Category Archives: Culture

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 13, 2024

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The New Yorker (May 6, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Mark Ulriksen’s “Shotime” – For many fans, the real harbinger of spring is the beginning of baseball season.

Hilton Als on the Sui-Generis Films of Charles Atlas

Hilton Als on the Sui-Generis Films of Charles Atlas

Also: “Uncle Vanya” and “Staff Meal” reviewed, superstar pianists at Carnegie Hall, and more.

Are We Living Through a Bagel Renaissance?

Are We Living Through a Bagel Renaissance?

A new wave of shops has made its mark across the country—and shaken New York’s bagel scene out of complacency.

By Hannah Goldfield

What Sleepy Trump Dreams About At Trial

What Sleepy Trump Dreams About At Trial

Mashed-potato nightmares! Kafka in the Oval Office! And other things going through the mind of the nap-happy ex-president in court.

By Barry Blitt

The New York Times Magazine – May 5, 2024

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (May 4, 2024): The latest issue features…

‘I Will Never Forget Any of It’: Brittney Griner Is Ready to Talk

In an interview, the basketball star reveals her humiliation — and friendships — in Russian prison, and her path to recovery.

By J Wortham

On the March afternoon when I met Brittney Griner in Phoenix, the wildflowers were in peak efflorescence, California poppies and violet cones of lupine exploding everywhere. Griner was in bloom too. She was practicing with some local ballers brought in by her W.N.B.A. team, the Mercury, to prepare its players for the start of the season in May. On the court, Griner was loose, confident, trading jokes with the other players between runs.

When a Bunch of Bloody Yanks Came for English Soccer

Spectators at a Premier League match between Aston Villa and Bournemouth in Birmingham in April.

American investors are gobbling up the storied teams of the English Premier League — and changing the stadium experience in ways that soccer fans resent.

National Geographic Traveller – June 2024

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National Geographic Traveller Magazine (May 2, 2024): The latest issue Explore 17 unique ways to get out and about in Paris as it celebrates its Olympic year with the June 2024 issue. Plus, take a look beyond the resorts of Phuket, go on a wild adventure in Albania and discover the long-flourishing desert community of Scottsdale, Arizona.

From sailing its scenic waterways to cooling off in open-air pools or stepping back in time on a historical walking tour, there’s no shortage of ways to enjoy Paris as it welcomes the warmer weather. One of Europe’s most majestic and storied capitals, with plans to turn it into one of continent’s greenest well underway, this is a city best explored outdoors.

Also inside this issue:

Phuket: Divine gastronomy and spirited religious festivals define Thailand’s largest island
Albania: Home to Europe’s first wild river national park, this adventure hub is the Balkans’ best-kept secret
Algeria: Slip into a landscape of ochre citadels, nomadic peoples and volcanic plateaus
Scottish Isles: Experience the nation’s wave-rattled northern and western fringes with these daring itineraries
Valletta: Whether on a church ceiling or in a subterranean necropolis, art can be found all over the Maltese capital
Scottsdale: This Arizona city’s past, present and future are bound to the mountains and the desert
Northern Lanzarote: Forget the beach resorts — this island’s northern reaches are ripe for adventure
Mumbai: In this vast city, a love of street food is as immovable as the streets themselves
Santiago: Hang behind in the Chilean capital to discover museums, street art and characterful hotels

Previews: Country Life Magazine – May 1, 2024

Country Life Magazine (April 30, 2024): The latest issue features

Local distinctiveness

  • Kate Green and Agnes Stamp take a geological tour of our islands to dig out what makes them special; granite country, chalk downland, The Fens, Wealden clay, Welsh slate, Yorkshire mill-stone grit, The Highlands and Cotswold limestone
  • Matthew Rice sketches the myriad architectural styles
  • Mark Diacono rubs the soil between his fingers
  • Victoria Marston wraps her tongue around dialects
  • Harry Pearson downs a pint or three of local ale
  • And finally, the ultimate quiz

Et in Arcadia ego

For Constable, the countryside was a lover, for Samuel Palmer, it offered an escape from the real world and for Paul Nash it held an inescapable lure. Michael Prodger examines the effect of British landscapes on art

The Duchess of Marlborough’s favourite painting

The ceramicist chooses an evocation of her childhood

Let us now praise the Nanny State

We should embrace Mary Poppins-esque common sense, believes Carla Carlisle

The legacy

Kate Green salutes the 10th Duke of Beaufort on the eve of the Badminton Horse Trials that set British riders on their gallop to three-day-eventing victory

Cometh the ice men

Don’t cast those jumpers out just yet, advises Lia Leendertz

Interiors

Get ready for the warmer weather with Amelia Thorpe’s pick of outdoor furniture

London Life

  • Royal photographs
  • All you need to know about cloth, cheese and Trafalgar Square
  • Jack Watkins tells the tale of Covent Garden
  • Adam Hay-Nicholls relishes the roar of engines in Savile Row

Up hill and down dale

Kathryn Bradley-Hole finds that formality is leavened by verve and personality in the gardens of Dalemain at Penrith, Cumbria, where the blue poppies bloom

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson gathers bunches of fresh watercress

Native herbs

Unmistakeable in scent, versatile in use, wild garlic is a forager’s dream, but don’t let dairy cows graze it, warns Ian Morton

Travel

  • Mark Hedges escapes to our nearest paradise, the Isles of Scilly
  • Tom Parker Bowles feasts on a proper club sandwich
  • Pamela Goodman dares to swim the Dordogne

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell takes her time choosing the latest wonderful watches unveiled in Geneva

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 6, 2024

Sonny Rollins plays the saxophone on the Brooklyn Bridge.

The New Yorker (April 29, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Faith Ringgold’s “Sonny’s Bridge, 1986” – The late artist’s work recalls her pioneering spirit through vivid, inventive designs.

Teresita Fernández’s Shifting Sculptural Landscapes

Also: Kamasi Washington, “The Outsiders” reviewed, Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival, and more.

The Return, Again, of the Power Lunch

Four Twenty Five, a luxe new dining room from the mega-restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten, takes square aim at the expense-account crowd.

Donald Trump’s Sleepy, Sleazy Criminal Trial

The most striking aspect of the former President’s hush-money trial so far has been that, for the first time in a decade, Trump is struggling to command attention.

Previews: Country Life Magazine – April 24, 2024

Country Life Magazine (April 24, 2024): The latest issue features

The summer Season

  • Ben Lerwill looks forward to high-speed sporting action
  • Tom Chamberlin and Sophia Money-Coutts reveal how to keep your cool when the heat is on
  • Hetty Lintell presents glorious ensembles for hot days
  • Paul Henderson asks top chefs for their picnic picks
  • Julie Harding meets the wicker weavers
  • Harry Eyres and the Country Life tasting team find English fizz in sparkling form

Every picture tells a story

As the National Gallery counts down to its 200th anniversary, Carla Passino delves into the fascinating stories behind 10 paintings in the collection

John Booth’s favourite painting

The chairman of the National Gallery board of trustees picks an exquisite, skilful work that resonates with deeper meaning

The private made public

In the second of two articles, John Goodall investigates the 20th-century evolution of Stansted Park in West Sussex

Luxury

Hetty Lintell reveals the secret to staying fresh faced and fashion artist David Downton shares a few of his favourite things

The legacy

Octavia Pollock hails the talented Stevenson clan, who saved countless lives at sea thanks to their prolific lighthouse building

Interiors

Giles Kime on how decorative frames can give a room an extra edge and Arabella Youens on the creation of a family kitchen

Processions, proclamations and punishment

Time has not been kind to way-side crosses, once beacons of the British landscape. Lucien de Guise follows a trail of destruction

Supporting acts

Amelia Thorpe selects the best structures for growing climbers

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson gets creative with fresh, cooling spearmint

Dropping down to Derwentwater

Lakeland fells form a dramatic backdrop to the captivating Arts-and-Crafts garden at High Moss in Cumbria, finds Non Morris

Satan on six legs

Crushing one is said to absolve you of all your sins, but the Devil’s coach horse beetle is also the gardener’s friend, says Ian Morton

Flying between extremes

A booming bittern and a colossal crane make it a memorable return to the Norfolk Broads for John Lewis-Stempel

Blessed among plants

It may be named after the Virgin Mary, but, warns Ian Morton, there is a hint of the profane about lady’s mantle

Native herbs

John Wright reveals how the pretty, but unpalatable ground ivy found its true calling as an ingredient in the brewing of ale

The New York Times Magazine – April 21, 2024

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (April 19, 2024):The Modern Love issue features…

Online Dating After 50 Can Be Miserable. But It’s Also Liberating.

You know so much more about yourself and your desires when you’re older that dating apps — even with all their frustrations — can bring unanticipated pleasure.

Can a Sexless Marriage Be a Happy One?

A photograph of a miniature model with two beds separated by a door.

Experts and couples are challenging the conventional wisdom that sex is essential to relationships.

The Poems That Taught Me How to Love

Lessons from Pablo Neruda’s mind-bending verse.

By NICHOLAS CASEY

Previews: Country Life Magazine – April 17, 2024

Country Life Magazine – April 16, 2024: The latest issue features:

Where the wild things are

Archibald Thorburn’s talent for capturing the essence and atmosphere of Nature set him apart from his contemporaries, as Charles Harris discovers

A (crab) apple a day

The mainstay of jam and jelly may have been the fruit that tempted Adam and Eve, suggests Ian Morton

The sound of centuries past

From theorbo to the viola da gamba, ancient musical instruments hold a fascination for a growing number of today’s players, finds Henrietta Bredin

Smart Thinking

James Alexander-Sinclair visits a home near Godalming, Surrey, where a blank canvas has been transformed into a beautiful, functional garden

The legacy

Sir John Soane’s acrimonious fall out with his favourite sons was their loss and the nation’s gain, declares Agnes Stamp

A hungry heart

Holly Black examines the stellar career of Wassily Kandinsky, who pioneered two major artistic movements in turbulent times

Arts & antiques

Carla Passino meets ‘ice queen’ Polly Townsend, who spent five fascinating weeks as an artist-in-residence in Antarctica

Christopher Price’s favourite painting

The Rare Breeds Survival Trust CEO selects a magical work that celebrates food production as well as the wonder of nature

From royal favourite to stranger’s heir

John Goodall charts the rise of Stansted Park, West Sussex, from medieval hunting lodge to spectacular country house

Too divine

A quartet of actresses take the plaudits from Michael Billington in leading roles ranging from Charlotte Brontë to Sarah Siddons

Culture/Politics: Harper’s Magazine – May 2024

HARPER’S MAGAZINE – April 15, 2024: The latest issue features The Life and Death of Hollywood – Film and television writers face an existential threat; The Race for Second Place – The Republican primaries as farce

The Life and Death of Hollywood

Photo illustration by Nicolás Ortega

Film and television writers face an existential threat

by Daniel Bessner

In 2012, at the age of thirty-two, the writer Alena Smith went West to Hollywood, like many before her. She arrived to a small apartment in Silver Lake, one block from the Vista Theatre—a single-screen Spanish Colonial Revival building that had opened in 1923, four years before the advent of sound in film.

Smith was looking for a job in television. She had an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and had lived and worked as a playwright in New York City for years—two of her productions garnered positive reviews in the Times. But playwriting had begun to feel like a vanity project: to pay rent, she’d worked as a nanny, a transcriptionist, an administrative assistant, and more. There seemed to be no viable financial future in theater, nor in academia, the other world where she supposed she could make inroads.

The Race for Second Place

Illustration by Nate Sweitzer

The Republican primaries as farce

by Kyle Paoletta

On the Saturday before the Iowa caucuses, the super PAC supporting Florida governor Ron DeSantis staged a “drop by” for the candidate at its headquarters in West Des Moines. Outside the modernist office park, much of the Upper Midwest was under a deep freeze brought on by a low-pressure system that had deposited more than a foot of snow in advance of a surge of arctic air that brought the wind chill into the negative thirties. Despite the atrocious road conditions, DeSantis was keeping his schedule as a “special guest” of the Never Back Down PAC, beginning the day at the far western end of Iowa, in Council Bluffs, and concluding it three hundred miles east, in Davenport.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – April 22, 2024

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The New Yorker (April 15, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Ana Juan’s “Clickbait” – The artist captures the mesmerizing—and distracting—glow of modern entertainment.

Can the World Be Simulated?

Video-game engines were designed to closely mimic the mechanics of the real world. They’re now used for movies, TV shows, architecture, military trainings, virtual reality, and the metaverse.

Are Flying Cars Finally Here?

They have long been a symbol of a future that never came. Now a variety of companies are building them—or something close.

By Gideon Lewis-Kraus