Category Archives: Talk of the Town

José Andrés Feeds Ron Howard, Then Feeds Him Some More

May 23, 2022 New Yorker cover
May 23, 2022

Feed the World
José Andrés Feeds Ron Howard, Then Feeds Him Some More
by Patrick Radden Keefe

The two friends discuss their new documentary, “We Feed People,” and how the chef’s World Central Kitchen has served twenty million hot meals to displaced Ukrainians since February.

A Secret Voyage Across the Seven Seas of Central Park

April 4, 2022 New Yorker cover
April 4, 2022

Explorers Club
A Secret Voyage Across the Seven Seas of Central Park
by Ben McGrath

Two urban Shackletons braved the elements for a clandestine, moonlit canoe excursion down each of the Park’s waterways, from the Harlem Meer in the north to the Pond in the south, dodging the police and “Star Wars” reënactors along the way.

A Sense of Where He’s Been

January 24, 2022 New Yorker cover
January 24, 2022

A Sense of Where He’s Been
by Thomas Beller

Bill Bradley, a staid member of the rarefied (the Rhodes Scholarship), the very rarefied (the U.S. Senate), and the super-rarefied (the Knicks’ two championship teams), premières his autobiographical one-man Broadway show, “Rolling Along.”

David Byrne Does Broadway on the Fly

January 17, 2022 New Yorker cover
January 17, 2022

David Byrne Does Broadway on the Fly
by Rich Benjamin

When COVID sidelined cast and crew of “American Utopia,” Byrne offered ticket holders a refund or the option to attend a reimagined performance with whatever cast members could cook up in a few days.

When the Man in Black Met the Guys in Tie-Dye

November 8, 2021 New Yorker cover
November 8, 2021

When the Man in Black Met the Guys in Tie-Dye
by Nick Paumgarten

Owsley Stanley, the legendary Grateful Dead soundman and LSD chemist, left behind thirteen hundred reels of live recordings from his sonic laboratory, including a newly released recording of the night Johnny Cash came to town.

On Air with the Greatest Radio Station in the World

August 23, 2021 New Yorker cover
August 23, 2021

On Air with the Greatest Radio Station in the World
by David Owen

WPKN-FM—on which you can hear a Stevie Wonder song performed by an all-women jazz septet or twenty minutes of Tuvan throat singing—moves to a new location in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Questlove Remembers the Black Woodstock

July 12 & 19, 2021 New Yorker cover
July 12 & 19, 2021

Questlove Remembers the Black Woodstock
by Bruce Handy

In his fight against Black erasure, the Roots drummer, who has amassed two hundred thousand LPs (plus bags full of “Soul Train” VHS tapes), makes his directorial début with “Summer of Soul,” about the mostly forgotten series of concerts in Harlem, in 1969.

The entire Talk of the Town

July 5, 2021 New Yorker cover
July 5, 2021

Face Time

August 24, 2020

Brave New World
The Samuel Johnson of Emoji

Jeremy Burge isn’t like other tech C.E.O.s. He has never raised money, he has no employees, and his official title is Chief Emoji Officer. But he still deals with controversy, such as demands for a Kurdish-flag emoji and for more emoji skin tones.

by Leo Mirani

A Half Century of Sondheim Collaborations

March 18, 2019

The Boards
A Half Century of Sondheim Collaborations
Paul and Alex Gemignani, a father-and-son conductor-singer duo, kibbitz about their long-running engagement with the composer in “the house that ‘Gypsy’ built.”
by D. T. Max