Culture

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The Italian finds me on the second day. Most of the men who like my profile don’t stand out in any particular way. Most are not very attractive, either, but the…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Helen ShawStaff writer You’re reading the Goings On newsletter, a guide to what we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week. Sign up to receive it in your in-box. If you…

Do you want the state to have a monopoly on violence or not? Credit: Patrick Thomas The U.S. has a knack for adopting failed policies from abroad five to fifteen years after their expiration date passes: France’s war in Vietnam;…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story If you’ve heard “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity single by the American super-duper group U.S.A. for Africa, you might be forgiven for wondering why a documentary about it, recently…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story What’s the problem with talking heads? What other part of the body do critics want to see talking? I’m suspicious of movies that rely on silence as a sign of mystique;…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story My first memory in life is of my father moving out. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a carriage house on a quiet, dead-end lane in…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The documentarian Nicola Fegg came across Valeria’s videos, and found them “completely charming—and also really weird.” When Russian bombs struck Ukraine two years ago, Valeria Shashenok, a twenty-year-old aspiring fashion photographer,…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Cindy Sherman, the grande dame of the Pictures Generation, has a new show up at Hauser & Wirth’s recently opened space in SoHo—a collection of wacky, digitally collaged character studies, which…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Not long ago, I randomly opened Vaclav Smil’s recent book “Size: How It Explains the World.” The first paragraph I read, in a chapter about good and bad design, concerned rubber…

The legal landscape for home births varies by state, leaving some moms outside the law. Credit: Jared Cummings After two years working in a labor and delivery unit as a surgical tech, Carlie Smith knew she didn’t want to give…