A D Day Journey in the Spirit of A. J. Liebling
When, on the evening of June 5, 1944, troops set out from the south coast of Britain for what would be a decisive assault on the European mainland the following morning, A. J. Liebling, a writer for The New Yorker who had been among those covering the war in France and elsewhere, was among them.…
Amber Gray’s Ferocious Twist on the Goddess Persephone in “Hadestown”
Persephone, the Greek goddess of harvest and fertility, and a daughter of Zeus, is walking through a garden plucking wildflowers one day when Hades, the god of the Underworld, whisks her away to his subterranean realm. There, Persephone and Hades strike a deal; she can return to the land above for six months every year,…
Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Debate About the Best Way to Get Donald Trump Out of Office
As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi roamed Normandy on Thursday (she had brought along a contingent of dozens of members of Congress for the official commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of D Day, including veterans from both sides of the aisle), her party was debating what it meant to want someone behind bars. Was…
How Fetal Personhood Emerged as the Next Stage of the Abortion Wars
The line for which the Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., is best known is also his ugliest: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” He was referring to a woman named Carrie Buck, her mother, and her daughter, in the case of Buck v. Bell, from 1927, which held that it was constitutional for…
The Best Episode of the New “Black Mirror” Is a Princess Tale Starring Miley Cyrus
“Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” is the pick of the litter of the fifth season of “Black Mirror.” The episode, directed by Anne Sewitsky and written by the series’ creator, Charlie Brooker, is a self-aware princess tale in triplicate. With a clarity that excuses its thematic obviousness, it explores a few overlapping visions retailed by…
The Michelin Guide’s Not Entirely Welcome Return to L.A.
In 2008, during a period of global expansion, the Michelin guide, the revered French handbook of great restaurants, launched a new edition dedicated to the city of Los Angeles. The following year, after only two L.A. guides had been published, Michelin withdrew its attention from the city. The organization behind the guide blamed its departure…
What HBO’s “Chernobyl” Got Right, and What It Got Terribly Wrong
Svetlana Alexievich, the Russian-language Belarusian writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2015, for her work with oral history, has said that the book she found easiest to report was her book about Chernobyl. (Its English title, depending on the translation, is “Voices from Chernobyl” or “Chernobyl Prayer.”) The reason, she said, was…
Donald Trump’s Royal Treatment
Veni, vidi, tweeti. Thus would Donald Trump, in all modesty and likelihood, sum up the tremendous events of the past two days. His presence in Britain, on a state visit, has been the usual low-key affair; according to some reports, his entourage numbers no more than a thousand. Having landed in Air Force One, he…