Culture

The Metafictional Ingenuity of “My First Film”

The Metafictional Ingenuity of “My First Film” 1

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Some filmmakers have remade their own films, others have made adapted works they created in other media, many have made films about filmmaking, and many more have dramatized their private lives.…

Out of the Sky

Out of the Sky 3

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The Irish-born photographer Andrew McConnell first started going to Kazakhstan because he wanted to see a Soyuz space capsule fall out of the sky. At the time, in 2015, the capsule,…

Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art

Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art 26

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story In 1953, Roald Dahl published “The Great Automatic Grammatizator,” a short story about an electrical engineer who secretly desires to be a writer. One day, after completing construction of the world’s…

The Mute Spectacle of Bianca Censori

The Mute Spectacle of Bianca Censori 28

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story I’m going to be straight here: I love celebrities. I love thinking about them, reading about them, and writing about them. There’s also little that brings me more pleasure than spotting…

Matt Rife’s Sleepless Summer

Matt Rife’s Sleepless Summer 33

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story For an entertainer, a casino gig is a double-edged sword. It can be a lucrative booking, a sign that you’ve entered a rarefied tier of bankability. But casino crowds can be…

Charles Addams’s “Ascent”

Charles Addams’s “Ascent” 35

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Comedy—the theme of this year’s Archive Issue—is forever present in the work of the late cover artist Charles Addams. This image originally ran, without a title, as the cover of the…

A Drag Story Hour Simply Observed in “It’s Okay”

A Drag Story Hour Simply Observed in “It’s Okay” 40

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Watch “It’s Okay.” In late December, 2022, when demonstrators gathered outside a public library, in Queens, to protest a Drag Story Hour, the filmmaker and investigative journalist David France was present…