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Issue No. 23

The View from Here

Paul Newman was a man of many parts: Oscar-winning actor, race-car driver, political activist, environmentalist, and philanthropist. But he used to say that one of his proudest achievements was discovering his name on Nixon’s “enemies list.”…

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Mein Campf! The scandalous Hitler-diaries fiasco nearly brought down three major news organizations

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Small Talk
“Ironically, all the guys from the hunting lodge were on the ‘Nice’ list.”

Far-Left = Left Out The collapse of Labour is a stark reminder of what will go wrong when a party (that’s you, Democrats) puts ideological purity above people and pragmatism

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“How Do I Sew a Button On?” For Gen Z: the hottest college trend? “Adulting” classes, where kids learn skills Mommy and Daddy forgot to teach them

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The Eyes and Ears of Expressionism

Need a breather from December’s unrelenting holiday cheer, not to mention sugarplums? The Metropolitan Opera offers an ideal respite with its new production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, which premieres this coming week. A new Wozzeck is a highlight on any cultural calendar, and this iteration is designed and directed by the celebrated South African artist William Kentridge, whose recent work at the Met has included lively, image-soaked productions of two other 20th-century operatic cornerstones, Berg’s Lulu and Dmitri Shostakovich’s The Nose.

Running concurrently at the Neue Galerie, just across Central Park, is an essential exhibition of work by the German Expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. READ ON

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Tower Room, Fehmarn (Self-Portrait with Erna), 1913. An homage to Expressionism comprises a major Kirchner retrospective, on through January 13 at the Neue Galerie, and a new production of Wozzeck, opening at the Metropolitan Opera on December 27.

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Discover

Impeachment-Palooza With disequilibrium the order of the day, some podcasts make smart, entertaining sense of it all

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Small Talk
“What I’m hearing is that you love them, but, in the future, you’d like me to prioritize bags of money.”

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Saving Whales Is More Important than Planting Trees

Restoring them to their pre-hunting numbers could capture 1.7 billion tons of CO2 annually
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Must-See Events

Why Are We Still Loving Friends? It’s the most streamed show on Netflix. Teenagers quote its jokes—even though it is 25 years old. So what explains its appeal?

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Style

Luck of the Draw At a dinner with a trio of muses, lively conversation and impromptu sketching are both on the menu


Prima Time Francesca Hayward arrives in Cats, Coppélia, and Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words

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Small Talk
“I just got something off his registry.”
Travel

The Underground The retro grandeur of Soviet-era metro stations


EPISODE V: “Nothing Changes in Palm Beach” A little more correspondence from Lansy Everett, formerly of the New York Herald Tribune, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar

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Master and Commander The U.S.S. Lincoln projects American sea power on a small speck off the coast of Newfoundland

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Little Woman Florence Pugh is a kick playing the least likable March sister in Greta Gerwig’s film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel

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Style

No, Virginia, There Isn’t a Santa Claus! Revisiting a Spy piece that proved, once and for all, scientifically, what no child wanted to hear

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Apollonia Poilâne The woman behind the legendary Paris bakery recommends the best cookbooks

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Books

Pravda Ha Ha: True Travels to the End of Europe

by Rory MacLean
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The Mutations

by Jorge Comensal
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The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture

by Orlando Figes
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Small Talk

First Impressions A new book remembers more than a decade spent in the orbit of Beckett and de Beauvoir. Here, its author describes her early encounters with the literary stars

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Best

Mother Superior

The “Annunciation” refers to the moment in the New Testament when an angel pays a visit to a young woman of Nazareth and “announces” that she will give birth to the child of God. The angel is Gabriel. The child is Jesus. The woman is Mary, or Maria, or Miriam. Greeks call her Theotokos, or “God-bearer.” Muslims recognize Maryam, for the episode is recorded in the Koran. Generations of Catholic schoolchildren, hastily praying the Hail Mary, called her “Holy-Mary-Mother-of-God”—and the words of the prayer, murmured in church or declaimed over the school P.A. system, are the ones Gabriel is said to have uttered 2,000 years ago: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” READ ON

Giovanni di Balduccio’s Annunciation (circa 1334) was recently acquired by the Getty Museum, in Los Angeles, where it is now on view.

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Discover

A Designer at His Peak Take it from Daniel Craig: Massimo Alba’s molto stylish micro-chalet is a store to fly for

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A Very Air Mail Holiday Alessandra Stanley’s ideal salmon canapé

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Small Talk
“Oh wow, Countdown to End Times calendar. No, Dean, I don’t already have one. Um, Happy New Year to you too.”

“While doing research on the British florist Constance Spry, who did the flowers and, surprisingly enough, co-created the chicken recipe for Queen Elizabeth’s 1953 coronation lunch, I was struck by Elizabeth’s radiance and grace as she prepared to take the crown.”
Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Deputy Editors

Chris Garrett Michael Hainey George Kalogerakis Nathan King

Design Director

Angela Panichi

Chief Technology Officer

John Tornow

Books Editor

Jim Kelly

Arts Intel Report Editor

Laura Jacobs

Style Editor

Ashley Baker

Articles Editor

Ash Carter

Senior Editor

Julia Vitale

Columnists

Cazzie David Emma Freud Walter Isaacson
Pico Iyer John Lahr James Wolcott

Photo Director

Ann Schneider

Cartoon Editor

Bob Mankoff

Music Supervisor

Randall Poster

Assistant Editors

Elena Clavarino Clementine Ford Alex Oliveira

International Editor

Isabelle Harvie-Watt

London Editor

Bridget Arsenault

Copy Editor

Adam Nadler

Photo Editor

Emine Gozde Sevim

Production Editor

H. Scott Jolley

Associate Editor

Elinor Schneider

Chief Operating Officer

Bill Keenan

Chief Marketing Officer

Emily Davis

Brand Partnerships

Anjali Lewis

Financial & Business Operations

Marc Leyer

Integrated Marketing Manager

Madeline Spates

Intern

Eshaan Jain

Issue No. 23
December 21, 2019
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Issue No. 23
December 21, 2019

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