The New Yorker

A cartoon by Colin Tom. #NewYorkerCartoons See all the cartoons from this week’s issue: https://lnkd.in/gUDsDi3f

A month-long series now getting under way at MOMA, does more than just present extraordinary (and extraordinarily rare) Portuguese movies that happen to share a language and a culture. “It is also the record of an intrinsically political cinema that emerged during a fraught and defining era of the nation’s history, beginning in the mid-’60s,” Richard Brody writes. The series features Portuguese directors who have made their names on the international scene, such as Manoel de Oliveira, Pedro Costa, and Miguel Gomes, but it also brings to light many others, of lesser acclaim but comparable achievement. Read Brody’s review: https://lnkd.in/gSkMZdsX

Donald Trump’s four years in the White House provided ample evidence that some billionaires could wield extraordinary influence if the former President is re-elected. Many of them had been granted significant access to the White House; some were expected to be considered for senior roles in a second term. “It’s transactional, but their end of the bargain is a lot different than just having access to the President of the United States,” a Princeton historian said. “They see Trump as their instrument. This is an investment for them to take power.” Trump’s billionaires—many of whom have made their fortunes as hedge-fund managers, activist investors, and corporate raiders—tend to be highly motivated ideologues and individual operators. In March, Elon Musk met with Trump to discuss a broad advisory gig for the tech billionaire on matters such as immigration and the economy. Even as Trump’s momentum faded after Kamala Harris entered the race, most of the billionaires on his side were sticking with their choice. “Do they have buyer’s remorse? No,” one veteran Republican fund-raiser said, in August. For this group, Harris was never a conceivable option. “They view her as even further left than Biden from a policy perspective,” he said. “There wasn’t an alternative to not be for Trump—the alternative would be for no one.” Susan B. Glasser reports on the billionaires backing Donald Trump—and what they expect to get in return: https://lnkd.in/gMRxRGw6

A cartoon by Sarah Kempa. #NewYorkerCartoons See all the cartoons from this week’s issue: https://lnkd.in/gAZNeCJ9

On the new Political Scene, Jessica Pishko, who recently published a piece about the devastation left behind by Hurricane Helene, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss conspiracy theories that have emerged in the storm’s wake. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gr-n6t9t

Hearing Mayor Eric Adams and his allies begin to mount a defense of his conduct, Eric Lach thought of George Washington Plunkitt, a Hell’s Kitchen “ward boss” at the turn of the 20th century who was “perhaps the most eloquent philosopher of corruption America ever produced.” Lach writes about the renewed relevance of the 1905 book “Plunkitt of Tammany Hall”—a collection of 21 “very plain talks on very practical politics” supposedly delivered by Plunkitt—which still explains a lot about New York City politics and human behavior, generally. https://lnkd.in/g888AdyD

Less than three weeks before Election Day, Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump by fewer than three points in national polls. Because Republicans have a structural advantage in the Electoral College, this means the Presidential race is a pure tossup. To talk about the election, Isaac Chotiner speaks with Nate Cohn, who oversees the Times’ polling operation, about why Republicans have been making voter-registration gains, what we can learn from the Times’ large new poll of Black and Hispanic voters, and how pollsters are trying to predict what voter turnout will be this year. Read the interview: https://lnkd.in/gUNdrHj3

When the high-end ladder manufacturer Henchman’s inaugural Topiary Award launched in March, the company received more than 70 entries in two categories: home gardener and professional. Photographs submitted by contestants revealed topiary everywhere from suburban hedges to the expertly maintained acreages of stately homes. Among the entries were a tractor, two dogs, and a vast, smiling frog, which had been tightly clipped out of boxwood. The topiarists themselves included a dog groomer who’d transferred her skills to create a topiary peacock and a professional gardener who’d spent a decade cutting his hedge into the shape of the New York City skyline. The standout professional was a topiarist named Harrie Carnochan, who maintained an immaculate formal garden at Pitshill, a neoclassical mansion in West Sussex. As for the home gardeners, 74-year-old David Hawson in Aberdeenshire, in the northeast of Scotland, had created a spectacular topiary display in his garden from yew saplings he’d planted some 45 years ago. Cut out of the hedge was not a single shape but an entire series, including a whale, two sharks, a cresting wave, and a boat with a man standing on deck, forming an extensive tableau from “Moby-Dick.” Sophie Elmhirst writes about the history of topiary in the U.K. and how theis recent contest gave topiarists a chance to display their art and creations to the world: https://lnkd.in/gRgsQZi4

Two new stage revivals explore different versions of Americana. Kenneth Lonergan’s “Hold On to Me Darling,” starring Adam Driver, is a discursive, queasily romantic comedy about the emptiness of American celebrity. Meanwhile, Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”—starring Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, and Katie Holmes—is a bare 110 minutes, “but even when it isn’t going lickety-split the show makes us feel the swiftness of life,” Helen Shaw writes. Read her review of the two shows: https://lnkd.in/gKW8W6y5

With “Death of a Salesman,” Arthur Miller took American theatre into new territory. The playwright, who was born on this day in 1915, reveals in his notebooks how he did it. https://lnkd.in/gyhNzq_s