The Magazine
July 21, 2025
Goings On
Goings On
Conor McPherson’s Reliable Treasure
Also: the Wu-Tang Clan’s epic journeys, Chanticleer at Caramoor, the summer-vacation films of Jacques Rozier, and more.
The Food Scene
A Thrilling Italian American Joint Points Backward and Forward
JR & Son is a new-old establishment that conjures the past while deliciously disrupting expectations.
The Talk of the Town
Elizabeth Kolbert on Trump and the Texas floods; belly of the beast; Airbnb’s next frontier; Martha Stewart meets her superfans; lifeguard drones.
Comment
Flash Floods and Climate Policy
As the death toll climbs in Texas, the Trump Administration is actively undermining the nation’s ability to predict—and to deal with—climate-related disasters.
Ratings Roundup
Trump Flunks the Kitchen Test
The President’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, got hit with the lowest health-inspection score in its county. How does it compare to a local Ecuadorian joint with a similar rating?
Dept. of Unicorns
Airbnb Gets Experiential
Busting out of the accommodations game, the tech giant is now hawking experiences. Massage, haircut, Jet Ski, anyone?
Aficionado Dept.
Martha Stewart Among the Superfans
The domestic goddess, Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, and former inmate let a handful of faithful hoi polloi poke around her Westchester estate and make their very own Martha moments.
On the Beach
Not Drowning but Waving, at a Drone
On Rockaway Beach, the whirring robots have been used to spot sharks and riptides for years. This summer, they’re delivering lifesaving flotation devices directly to floundering swimmers.
Reporting & Essays
The Sporting Scene
The Annual Agony of Yearning for a Homegrown Wimbledon Champion
Each year, Britain sends forth its best young men and women, no matter how good at tennis they actually are.
Personal History
What I Inherited from My Criminal Great-Grandparents
In working through the Winter case files, I often felt pinpricks of déjà vu: an exact turn of phrase, an absurdly specific expenditure.
A Reporter at Large
Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War?
With global conflicts increasingly shaped by drones and A.I., the American military risks losing its dominance.
Profiles
A Family Doctor’s Search for Salvation
Instead of turning inward after the death of his son, Dr. Greg Gulbransen turned outward: toward documentary photography and people whose lives he might be able to save.
Takes
Takes
Paige Williams on Marquis James’s Preview of the Scopes Monkey Trial
When a high-school teacher in Tennessee agreed to be prosecuted for teaching evolution, The New Yorker, still in its first year, sent a reporter.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
The Diary of Anna Franco
Señor Larry David is nice to have allowed me and my family to hide from ICE in his attic. But why does he yell at the TV all the time?
Fiction
The Critics
A Critic at Large
A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem
The discomfort of loneliness shapes us in ways we don’t recognize—and we may not like what we become without it.
Books
A Memoir of Working-Class Britain Wrings Playfulness from Pain
The writer Geoff Dyer unravels a tale in which the intricacies of model airplanes and the comic horrors of school lunch mingle with something darker.
Pop Music
Ryan Davis’s Junk-Drawer Heart
The artist’s album “New Threats from the Soul” is suffused with listlessness and yearning, dark jokes, and wordy disquisitions on desire.
On Television
“Too Much” Remixes the Rom-Com
In her new Netflix show, Lena Dunham revitalizes the genre by delving into her characters’ pre-meet-cute pasts—and all the attendant emotional baggage.
The Current Cinema
The Simplistic Moral Lessons of “Superman”
In James Gunn’s reboot of the franchise, the titular hero’s credo is as shallow as it is broad.
Poems
Poems
“Girlfriends”
“Now we’re older we know who’s gotten sober / or been bitten by God or chewed and discarded / under a dirty bus shelter.”
Cartoons
Puzzles & Games
The 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.