Style

The Art of Authentic Engagement in the Digital Age
Something is interesting about how people present themselves online. There’s a moment when someone realizes they’re being recorded, and their demeanor suddenly changes. They put on what I call...
The World That ABBA Made
There is probably not a second that goes by without an ABBA song being played somewhere in the world. A remix of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”...
Haim Sets Off on a Rampage
This month, Haim—a three-piece rock band from Los Angeles, featuring the sisters Danielle, Alana, and Este Haim—will release “I Quit,” its fourth album and a carnal, sure-footed rebuttal of...
James Frey’s New Cancelled-Guy Sex Novel Is as Bad as It Sounds
The author page of “Next to Heaven,” James Frey’s new novel, breathlessly notes that Frey “was called America’s Most Notorious Author by Time Magazine and the Bad Boy of...
Catherine Lacey’s Infinite Regress
A Möbius strip, a looped surface with a single continuous side, is often formed by cutting a long, thin piece of paper and joining its ends with a half...
A Forgotten Surrealist’s Paintings Return to New York
When Ford returned to his gallery, he entered Orlik’s name into Artnet, the art-price database. His search yielded barely any results. According to Pietruszka, Orlik had exhibited his work...
What’s Happening to Reading?
What do you read, and why? A few decades ago, these weren’t urgent questions. Reading was an unremarkable activity, essentially unchanged since the advent of the modern publishing industry,...
Apocalypse No: “The Life of Chuck” Stumbles at the Finish Line
It’s impossible to discuss “The Life of Chuck” without revealing the ending, because that’s where the movie starts. It’s built backward, as is the Stephen King novella on which...
Why Donald Trump Is Obsessed with a President from the Gilded Age
Late in his life, McKinley reconsidered protectionism. He was reëlected in 1900, and by his second Administration he felt that the United States should greet globalization by entering foreign...
The Atomic Bombs’ Forgotten Korean Victims
Tanaka Terumi was thirteen years old when the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, in August, 1945. The blast knocked him unconscious. After he came to, he...