Oh, Winter!
Shouts & Murmurs
Subtle Behavior Changes When My Roommates Are Out of Town
Binge-watching TV without embarrassment, trying not to die, and other ways to fill the alone time.
By Jason Adam Katzenstein
How to Write a New Yorker Cartoon Caption: Bill Hader Edition
Bill Hader tries his hand at The New Yorker’s cartoon-caption contest. He makes his directorial début with the pilot of “Barry.”
Photo Booth
A Limousine Driver Watches Her Passengers Transform
In the eighties, the photographer Kathy Shorr became a chauffeur, capturing working-class New Yorkers on their way to new lives.
By Alexandra Schwartz
The Lede
An Arson Attack in Puerto Rico
A violent act on New Year’s Day allegedly committed by a tourist highlights rising tensions between the island and the mainland United States.
By Graciela Mochkofsky
On Television
The New Season of “Severance” Is All Work and No Play
The sci-fi series was hailed as a dark, timely satire of office life—but its return is bogged down by abstract ethical conundrums and rote emotional ones.
By Inkoo Kang
The Weekend Essay
What’s a Fact, Anyway?
Journalists put more stress on accuracy than ever before. The problem is, accuracy is a slippery idea.
By Fergus McIntosh
Books
Yukio Mishima’s Death Cult
The writer spent his life cultivating beauty—on the page and in the mirror—only to end it with a samurai-style suicide. Both acts spoke to a long-standing obsession.
By Ian Buruma
The Front Row
The Empty Ambition of “The Brutalist”
Brady Corbet’s epic takes on weighty themes, but fails to infuse its characters with the stuff of life.
By Richard Brody
A Reporter at Large
How Religious Schools Became a Billion-Dollar Drain on Public Education
A nationwide movement has funnelled taxpayer money to private institutions, eroding the separation between church and state.
By Alec MacGillis
Open Questions
Why Are We Tormented by the Future?
Caught between competing impulses, we praise living in the moment while obsessing about what’s to come.
By Joshua Rothman
