In bookstores in Rome, you can buy a poster headed, in English, i have a dream. It has nothing to do with Martin Luther King Jr. or the civil-rights struggle, instead…

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From “Hollywood on the Line,” which appeared in the January 1984 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The complete article—along with the magazine’s entire 173-year archive—is available online at harpers.org/archive. Union politics…

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The Republican primaries as farce

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Wherein the author spends a decade acquiring knowledge of country and/or western music, Elvis’s stillborn twin, Bidenomics in the wild, bathroom cruising, wax statuary, race relations, and the soul of the nation

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How private equity shapes a ski town

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I’m a father now. Please, hold your applause. As I write this, my son is fifteen days old, and I’m staring into the soft hurricane whorl of his hair, thinking…

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On Kafka

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“Effusion,” “Fluxitecture,” “Haven,” and “Heart(h),” photographs by David Garland, whose work is on view this month at Headstone Gallery, in Kingston, New York © The artist. Courtesy Headstone Gallery, Kingston,…

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Adapted from “The Diplomatic Path to a Secure Ukraine,” a paper that was published in February by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. More than two years into Russia’s invasion,…

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From a civil complaint filed in February against Albuquerque Public Schools, in New Mexico. On the morning of May 2, 2022, a teacher brought two swords with her into her…

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From This Strange Eventful History, which will be published this month by W. W. Norton. He could hear his wife, Barbara, now in the other room, getting ready for his father’s funeral.…

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From God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin, edited by Hilton Als, which was published in March by Dancing Foxes Press and the Brooklyn Museum. I met…

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From an affidavit filed in 2022 by an FBI agent in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. In November 2023, “J.B.,” the defendant, was sentenced to eighteen…

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From The Core of an Onion, which was published in November by Bloomsbury. James Beard once wrote, “I can easily make a whole meal of onion sandwiches, for to me…

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From Strangers in Light Coats: Selected Poems, 2014–2020, which was published in November by Seagull Books. Translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger. I was born into the Christian households…

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From transcripts of calls made to the Welsh Ambulance Service in 2023.   operator: Tell me exactly what’s happened. caller: Yesterday evening, we had some kebab, and I might have…

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From descriptions that appear on the websites of former jails that have been converted to hotels. liberty hotel, boston In 1973, prisoners incarcerated in the Charles Street Jail revolted because…

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Billie’s Blues My father’s birth name was James Brown. Changing his surname was his expression of solidarity with Billie Holiday, and mandatory if he wanted to make it as a…

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MAGA meets the Age of Aquarius

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Sparkling City with Egg Monuments #2, by Lari Pittman © The artist. Courtesy Lehmann Maupin In 2023, the hottest year on record, the number of unprovoked shark attacks remained level,…

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See the solution to last month’s puzzle.

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When Guatemalan adoption became big business

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Because I’ve written about government conspiracies, I sometimes hear from crazy people. “Only the intervention of AI can stop Man from creating Hell cybernetically,” one wrote recently. “It would be…

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Years later, my grandmother would still tell people that I learned to swim in a movie star’s pool, though she always said this with the same slanted tone and pinched…

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Decrypting the correspondence of Mary, Queen of Scots

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Can a city stop a housing crisis?

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