The New Yorker June 27, 2022

Dexter Filkins (“Party Crasher,” p. 28) is a staff writer and the author of “The Forever War,” which won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Jeannie Suk Gersen (“Keep Out,” p. 24), a contributing writer to the magazine, is a professor at Harvard Law School. Etgar Keret (Fiction, p. 52) published the story collection “Fly Already” in 2019. He writes the newsletter “Alphabet Soup.” Kristen Roupenian (Books, p. 61) is the author of “‘Cat Person’ and Other Stories.” She is working on a novel. Anthony Lane (The Current Cinema, p. 68) has been a film critic for The New Yorker since 1993. His book “Nobody’s Perfect” is a collection of his writings for the magazine. Deborah Landau (Poems, p. 35) directs the Creative Writing Program at New York University. Her poetry collections include “Soft Targets”…

COUCH TALK Alexandra Schwartz, in her article about the documentary series “Couples Therapy,” which features the psychoanalyst Orna Guralnik, emphasizes the importance of Guralnik’s charisma to her public persona (“Real Talk,” May 23rd). In a scene describing a couples-therapy session, Schwartz quotes from a lengthy monologue in which Guralnik lays out the dynamics of the couple’s relationship. Many therapists, myself included, see their role very differently—to facilitate clients’ own understanding of their emotional lives, rather than to sketch it out for them. Guralnik’s style, while entertaining and well suited for television, may not capture the actual norms of contemporary psychotherapy. Nancy SaundersMedia, Pa. Schwartz writes that “the promise of confidentiality” in psychotherapy “is sacred.” But there’s reason to be skeptical that treatment remains private. For instance, as more of Sigmund Freud’s letters are…

JUNE 22 – 28, 2022 Lincoln Center once again turns its stately campus into a playground for all to enjoy, hosting concerts, dance classes, readings, and even, on July 10, a mass wedding ceremony for those that were cancelled during the pandemic. The centerpiece of its Summer for the City programming (through Aug. 14) is the Oasis, a giant dance floor under the stars, where, beneath a ten-foot disco ball, people can dance the night away to electro-pop (Ultra Naté and Bright Light Bright Light, June 23), merengue típico (MaxBanda, July 7), and much more. As New York City venues reopen, it’s advisable to confirm in advance the requirements for in-person attendance. ART Ellie Ga This Stockholm-based American artist relies on both personal experience and archival research in her riveting visual essays. In her new…

The claim that monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is inherently unhealthy has been thoroughly debunked—and dismissed, by anyone paying close attention, as thinly veiled racism. MSG, a salt that’s extracted from fermented crops such as sugarcane and corn, is used as a flavor enhancer in many Asian cuisines, but it also occurs naturally in foods including tomatoes and Parmesan cheese, accounting for the sensation known as umami. It’s as harmful as table salt, maybe even less so—it contains about a third of the sodium. Still, a stigma persists: I recently saw a Chinese takeout menu promising that the food was made without it. That’s one approach a restaurant can take. Another is to flip the script. At Bonnie’s, in Williamsburg, the cocktails include an MSG Martini, made with a healthy shake of…

At a press conference last Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, made a statement that was significant but also oddly cryptic. He acknowledged that there had been an effort to “come to an outcome after these horrible school shootings,” which had resulted in a “coming together,” he said, “behind a framework.” He added, “For myself, I’m comfortable with the framework, and, if the legislation ends up reflecting what the framework indicates, I will be supportive.” Then he stepped away from the microphone, having avoided using the word at the heart of the matter: “guns.” One might not have known, listening to him, that ten Democratic and ten Republican senators—enough, in the evenly divided Senate, to survive a filibuster—had negotiated what could be the most meaningful gunsafety law to get…

Fanny Herrero is, accordingto Madame Figaro, “the most famous of French showrunneuses.” Not long ago, there was no such thing as a French showrunneuse, or, for that matter, a French showrunneur—“a new profession, like a troll or a taster of organic bread, but more useful,” Les Echos noted in March. Herrero is best known for her work on “Call My Agent!” (the original French title is “Dix Pour Cent”), which became a huge international hit after Netflix bought it from the public broadcaster France 2. She quit the show after three seasons, in 2018, citing a work environment that could have perhaps benefitted from a shouty negotiation or two (when Herrero asked for extra help after the show took off, the producers said sure, but someone would have to pay…