The New Yorker

Kelefa Sanneh (“Pop Up,” p. 42), a staff writer since 2008, is the author of “Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres.” JiaTolentino (“Front Man,” p. 26) became a staff writer in 2016. Her first book, the essay collection “Trick Mirror,” came out in 2019. John Seabrook (“The Trials of Ed Sheeran,” p. 18) has published four books, including, most recently, “The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory.” Hila Blum (Fiction, p. 60) is the author of “How to Love Your Daughter,” which won the 2021 Sapir Prize. Hanif Abdurraqib (Pop Music, p. 84), a contributing writer at the magazine, is a poet, an essayist, and a cultural critic. Jena Friedman (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 25), a standup comic, is the author of “Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera.”…

ABORTION AFTER ROE I am an abortion provider based in Buffalo who was interviewed by Eyal Press for his article about Planned Parenthood’s treatment of independent abortion clinics (“The Planned Parenthood Problem,” May 15th). As Press notes, I am the only out-of-hospital provider of comprehensive second-trimester-abortion care in the area. A few days before Press’s article was published, I received a letter from a law firm that represents Planned Parenthood of Central and Western New York. The letter threatened legal action against me for alleged defamatory statements that were published on the Web site of my practice, Buffalo Women Services. At the time, the site included statements about Planned Parenthood’s clinical offerings which contained information that had been corroborated by a Planned Parenthood employee. All of this information had been there for…

MAY 31 – JUNE 6, 2023 The Memphis rapper GloRilla, braced by a resonant voice and a punchy repertoire, strode triumphantly into the summer of 2022 with “F.N.F. (Let’s Go),” a liberated, no-scrubs anthem that announced her star potential. Now Grammy-nominated and with a Top Ten single to her name, GloRilla sets out to conquer yet another summer—starting with Hot 97’s Summer Jam, at UBS Arena on June 4. The packed lineup also includes Cardi B, Ice Spice, Coi Leray, Lola Brooke, and a celebration of hip-hop’s fiftieth anniversary. As ever, it’s advisable to check in advance to confirm engagements. THE THEATRE Bernarda’s Daughters Diane Exavier’s drama, inspired by Federico García Lorca’s “La Casa de Bernarda Alba,” is set entirely within an Edwardian house in Brooklyn’s gentrifying Flatbush neighborhood. The play’s single location belies its…

Nora Ephron’s iconic romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally,” from 1989, posed the age-old question of whether a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman can ever be just friends—and came down staunchly on the side of “nope!” “Platonic,” a new comedy series on Apple TV+, goes the other way. The show, created by Nicholas Stoller, stars Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen (reunited after playing a married couple in Stoller’s “Neighbors” films) as Sylvia and Will, a pair of old drinking buddies who have fallen out of touch. In the meantime, their lives have accrued emotional mass: Sylvia is married with children and feeling restless, Will is schlumping through a painful divorce. When the two reconnect, they give each other permission to lean into improvidence; they get high, they destroy property,…

At 9 P.M. one recent Saturday at Superiority Burger, the chef Brooks Headley was ricocheting around the dining room. A profile in GQ revealed that he clocked about thirty-five thousand steps, or roughly seventeen miles, each night. And who could blame him? For six years, he spent the majority of his time in the three hundred square feet of the restaurant’s original location. Earlier this year, he relocated to the relatively sprawling space that, for decades, had housed the Odessa Restaurant, a beloved East Village greasy spoon. The original Superiority Burger offered just six dishes, plus specials and desserts. (Headley began his kitchen career as a fine-dining pastry chef.) All of it, including the eponymous burger, was vegetarian; a lot was “accidentally vegan.” Everything popped. The move, theoretically, might have overwhelmed…

Presidential campaigns are usually launched in a bright burst of hope. Slick videos are posted, bus tours of the hinterlands are announced, e-mails seeking donations flow into in-boxes like the tide. The candidacy of Governor Ron DeSantis, of Florida, contains some extra, darker emotional layers: defensiveness, a bristling ideological fixity, an undercurrent of dread. In a new poll, DeSantis is down nearly forty points to Donald Trump among Republican primary voters. Yet this month DeSantis set out on the trail—a barbecue joint in Iowa, the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, New Hampshire—hoping to make a good first impression on voters who do not follow politics obsessively and who may have missed the latest fallout from the arcane war he insists on prosecuting against the Walt Disney Corporation. Then, on Wednesday evening,…