The New Yorker

Joshua Yaffa (“The Captive City,” p. 30), a contributing writer to the magazine, published “Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia” in 2020. Jill Lepore (Comment, p. 11) is a professor of history at Harvard. Her books include “These Truths: A History of the United States” and “If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future.” Ben Taub (“In Search of the Sublime,” p. 40), a staff writer since 2017, won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Ana Juan (Cover) has contributed more than twenty-five covers to The New Yorker. She is the illustrator of the children’s-book series “Fairyland.” Campbell McGrath (Poem, p. 34) will publish his twelfth book of poetry, “The Radiance Archive,” next year. Doreen St. Félix (On Television, p. 68), the magazine’s television critic, became a staff writer…

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER I admired Amy Davidson Sorkin’s fine piece on the Republicans’ shameful, bigoted manhandling of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court (Comment, April 18th). Sorkin quotes a phrase—“Ain’t I a woman?”—that was long held to have been spoken by Sojourner Truth, in an 1851 speech in Akron, Ohio. Yet, as I revealed in my 1996 biography, “Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol,” Truth never uttered those words. The phrase originated with Frances Dana Gage, a white abolitionist, women’s-rights advocate, and journalist, who, in an article written twelve years after the speech, put “Ar’n’t I a woman?” in Truth’s mouth. (Gage was rebutting a careless essay by Harriet Beecher Stowe, in the April, 1863, issue of The Atlantic Monthly, which depicted Truth as quaint and,…

MAY 18 – 24, 2022 The group exhibition “Set It Off,” opening on May 22 at the Parrish Art Museum, in Watermill, New York, is curated by Deux Femmes Noires, a.k.a. the collector Racquel Chevremont and the artist Mickalene Thomas (pictured above). The show’s six participants—Leilah Babirye, Torkwase Dyson, February James, Karyn Olivier, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Kennedy Yanko—are unified by their dynamic approach to a wide range of mediums, from painting and sculpture to sound and installation. As New York City venues reopen, it’s advisable to confirm in advance the requirements for in-person attendance. THE THEATRE American Buffalo David Mamet—whose “American Buffalo,” from 1975, is now in revival on Broadway, directed by Neil Pepe—has quite publicly, over the years, devolved into a paranoiac crank. Not long ago, in an appearance on Fox News, he…

In the fall, HBO will release the second season of “The Vow,” a documentary saga about the so-called “executive success” organization NXIVM, which evolved into a nefarious sex cult—an abusive sorority that used a cautery iron to brand female members with the initials of the group’s leader, Keith Raniere. How did things up in Albany go so very wrong? Answers can be found in the popular and wildly compelling podcast “A Little Bit Culty,” hosted by two former high-ranking NXIVM members, Sarah Edmondson and Anthony (Nippy) Ames. They met and were married while in NXIVM, and are jointly pursuing a new mission: to get people out of cults, and to provide an open channel where former cult members can discuss what they went through. Their podcast, now in its fourth…

My kingdom for a torta, a style of Mexican sandwich I’ve long believed deserves broader adulation—puffy roll, quesillo (Oaxacan string cheese), avocado, fresh chili, onion, refried beans, and a mainevent ingredient, such as milanesa de pollo (fried chicken cutlet), carnitas, or even chilaquiles with a fried egg, for a breakfast of champions. There are plenty of tortas to be found in New York City, but they’re rarely afforded the spotlight. Is it possible that their moment is nigh, thanks to Tony Ortiz, the Brooklyn-based chef behind Chile Con Miel, a self-described “online platform and brand that explores ancestral Mexican food practices through a queer lens”? Last month, two of Ortiz’s Super Tortas were added to the roster at Hungry House, a platform that explores the possibilities of takeout and delivery. The…

“Every American will see where every senator stands,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, said last week, in calling for a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act. The bill would have banned nearly all restrictions on abortion, making it the most permissive abortion bill ever to be considered in Congress. There was no chance that it would pass. In September, it passed only narrowly in the House, and along party lines. (No Republican voted for it, and only one Democrat, Representative Henry Cuellar, of Texas, voted against it.) And on Wednesday, as expected, it failed in the Senate, 49-51, short not only of a simple majority but, more important, of the super-majority of sixty votes required to overcome the inevitable filibuster. Why hold the Senate vote? The roll call didn’t,…