The Magazine
November 10, 2025
Goings On
Goings On
Winter Culture Previews
What’s happening this season in music, movies, television, dance, art, and theatre.
The Talk of the Town
Jelani Cobb on the attack on equal rights; a mobster grandfather; America and Versailles; Ira Sachs’s Peter Hujar; an oyster hunt.
Comment
Voting Rights and Immigration Under Attack
The President’s goals were clear on the first day of his term, when he issued an executive order overruling the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright-citizenship clause.
Bling Dept.
Mobsters We Have Seen on High
The jewel heist at the Louvre reminded Brooklynites of the time, in 1952, when two bejewelled crowns were swiped from a beloved local church—the one with a Mob boss on the ceiling.
The Boards
Miss America Meets the Queen of Versailles
Cassie Donegan dreams of making it to Broadway. After seeing the new musical “The Queen of Versailles,” she got some tips from an old pal, the “Wicked” alum Kristin Chenoweth.
The Pictures
The Remarkable Quotidian of Peter Hujar
In 1974, the photographer described his day to a journalist: a shoot with Allen Ginsberg, a chat with Susan Sontag. The delayed result: “Peter Hujar’s Day,” a film by Ira Sachs.
Missing Mollusks Dept.
Staten Island’s New Oyster Cult
New York Harbor was once jammed with bivalves. Now the Billion Oyster Project seeds breakwaters with baby shellfish—not for eating but for purifying the local waters.
Reporting & Essays
Personal History
Who My Child Was and Would Be
When Nat transitioned, I learned that when someone you love changes, you change, too.
Annals of Artificial Intelligence
The Case That A.I. Is Thinking
ChatGPT does not have an inner life. Yet it seems to know what it’s talking about.
A Reporter at Large
The Runaway Monkeys Upending the Animal-Rights Movement
“I wasn’t fooled by these walls of my body / but loved them touched.”
Profiles
Joachim Trier Has Put Oslo on the Cinematic Map
His new film, “Sentimental Value,” is another intimate character study set in the Norwegian capital. His approach to directing is as empathic as his films.
Takes
Takes
Ed Caesar on Nick Paumgarten’s “Up and Then Down”
A story about a man trapped in an elevator for forty-one hours has just the right amount of anxiety.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
The Doctor’s Plan
I know why I’m here today, Mr. Secretary. An inquiry? Right. It’s a setup, but I got this place surrounded with nurses, and every last one knows how to apply a tongue depressor.
Fiction
Fiction
“Mother of Men”
I saw someone coming toward me through the twilight on the road ahead, a skinny man in a glowing white shirt, and dread rushed into me.
The Critics
Books
Anthony Hopkins’s Beckettian Memoir
The actor recalls his life, from provincial Wales to Hollywood, in stop-start rhythms with curt, unflinching reckonings.
Books
A Bulgarian Novelist Explores What Dies When Your Father Does
Writing about a son’s vigil at his dying father’s bedside, Georgi Gospodinov examines what parents and their children reap and sow.
Books
Briefly Noted
“The Fort Bragg Cartel,” “We Survived the Night,” “The Mind Reels,” and “Pick a Color.”
On and Off the Menu
The Surprising Endurance of Martha Stewart’s “Entertaining”
Home-cooking culture has leaned into the loose and unfussy. Stewart’s 1982 classic, newly reissued, makes the case for hosting as an endurance sport.
Musical Events
At Ninety, Arvo Pärt and Terry Riley Still Sound Vital
Both composers remain intriguing outliers, notable for the stubbornness with which they have held to their youthful convictions.
The Theatre
Laurie Metcalf’s Stunning Return to Broadway in “Little Bear Ridge Road”
The playwright Samuel D. Hunter tailors a family drama to the actress’s specific gifts; at Powerhouse: International, the artist Carolina Bianchi explores violence against women.
Poems
Poems
“The World Was All Before Them”
“I wasn’t fooled by these walls of my body / but loved them touched.”
Poems
“On Being Watched from Above”
“They see everything not only from the air but from the side and rear. / To help you stay invisible these tips have been compiled.”
Cartoons
Puzzles & Games
The Mail
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. 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.