The Magazine
April 21, 2025
Goings On
Goings On
The Pop Heartthrob Nick Jonas on Broadway
Also: Whitney White in “Macbeth in Stride,” Ani DiFranco’s dramatic return, Takeshi Kitano’s inventive new film, and more.
The Food Scene
Crevette Makes Great Seafood Look Easy
A new restaurant from the team behind Dame and Lord’s doesn’t so much enter the seafood conversation as elegantly commandeer it.
The Talk of the Town
Benjamin Wallace-Wells on Trump’s tariff chaos; the Great Depression recalled; Crumb on comics; on not doing Method; David Byrne fills up space.
Comment
What the World Learned from Donald Trump’s Tariff Week
The danger behind the President’s posturing is that, by so emphatically insisting on America’s indispensability, he may be undermining it.
Been There Dept.
Living Through the Market Crash? Ask a Centenarian
Charlie Duncan, a hundred-and-five-year-old Georgia resident, recalls the mood in 1929.
Dept. of Art Objects
R. Crumb Looks Back
The underground-comic artist visits the Whitney with his biographer, Dan Nadel, and considers some old friends: his own psychedelic skulls, placemat sketches, and muscly women.
Outer Borough
Michael Gandolfini Worries About Brawn and Bravado
To prepare for his role on the TV show “Daredevil: Born Again,” the son of Tony Soprano gave Staten Island a try.
Good Ideas Dept.
David Byrne Takes the Stairs
The Talking Heads front man brought his acrylic markers to the Pace gallery recently to make some art—dancing ovals, a glamorous blob—on the stairwell walls.
Reporting & Essays
Annals of Higher Education
What Comes After D.E.I.?
Colleges around the country, in the face of legal and political backlash to their diversity programs, are pivoting to an alternative framework known as pluralism.
Dept. of Labor
How to Survive the A.I. Revolution
The Luddites lost the fight to save their livelihoods. As the threat of artificial intelligence looms, can we do any better?
A Reporter at Large
Starved in Jail
Why are incarcerated people dying from lack of food or water, even as private companies are paid millions for their care?
Profiles
After Forty Years, Phish Isn’t Seeking Resolution
“The new air is empty, and who knew / we’d miss even what afflicted us?”
Takes
Takes
Steve Martin on Marshall Brickman’s “Who’s Who in the Cast”
From Brickman, I learned that satire can be friendly, even cheerful, and that anything was a suitable target.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
Bagels, Ranked
Jalapeño and Cheddar: This is not a bagel. This is what you order to signal to the guy at the counter that you need him to call a cop.
Fiction
Fiction
“Jenny Annie Fanny Addie”
“Terminator 2” was a good choice. Throughout the whole movie I forgot about the groping.
The Critics
Books
Does a Fetus Have Constitutional Rights?
After Dobbs, fetal personhood has become the anti-abortion movement’s new objective.
Books
Briefly Noted
“The Maverick’s Museum,” “The Franklin Stove,” “The Dream Hotel,” and “Hunchback.”
Books
The “Lady Preacher” Who Became World-Famous—and Then Vanished
Aimee Semple McPherson took to the radio to spread the Gospel, but her mysterious disappearance cast a shadow on her reputation.
Musical Events
Kurt Weill Kept Reinventing Himself
Fresh New York stagings of “The Threepenny Opera” and “Love Life” show off the composer’s daring and range.
The Current Cinema
“The Shrouds” Is a Casket Case—and an Unsettling Vision of Techno-Paranoia
In David Cronenberg’s film, billed as his most personal work, Vincent Cassel plays a grieving husband who has devised a novel way of never letting go.
Poems
Cartoons
Puzzles & Games
The Mail
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