Where the Streets Have One Name
What is the best way to honor a man like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? Photographs from a cross-country trip to document streets named after the American icon.
art
A collection of 74 issues
In Her Own Skin
A longtime leader of New York’s performance art world, Martha Wilson’s photographs exist as proof of her experiments with multiple identities.
Paris, Exposed
The layout of the French capital is famous for its density and opaqueness. Under attack, suddenly transparency is the norm.
The Writing of Art
Protesters are clashing in the street over paintings. What is it, whether in art or literature, that makes one thing better than another?
City to Rapper: Drop Dead
This summer’s ongoing war between Chief Keef and Rahm Emanuel is as much about urban history as holograms.
This Was No Accident
Forty years after Jaws, why the very first blockbuster should be considered art—and how it helped one man to survive.
The Orchestra Checks Its Email
A day in the life of a professional orchestra—coffee, practice, social media, tuxedo—leading up to a performance.
Union Square Sports Bar
An adventure of food and drink in San Francisco naturally expands to include Ornette Coleman, Mexican wedding cookies, and a pet monkey admiring the ocean.
Editors’ Favorites From 2014
The staff choose their most-liked pieces published in 2014: a painting expedition through the Underground Railroad, a personal memory of Vivian Maier, and a restaurant review that isn’t a restaurant review.
The Kings of Simcoe County
At an Elvis festival in rural Canada, scores of tribute artists (not "impersonators") pay homage to the King. When searching for the meaning of it all, try not to overthink it.
Painting the President
Twice the official portraitist of George W. Bush, painter Robert Anderson explains what it’s like to build a relationship with a president, separate the man from the legacy, and struggle with his smirk.
Like Pushing an Elephant Into a Volkswagen
Writers who haven’t quit their day jobs, who cram in the writing hours around full-time work, discuss juggling office life, family, and creativity.
The Retreat
How to spend a holiday alone and not get lonely, with adventures in BBQ, books, rummage shops, and cabin porn.
Alternate Forms for Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18
The Bard’s most famous sonnet very nearly wasn’t a Shakespearean sonnet. Rejected pairings of content and form, from rondelet to an acrostic hiding his name.
Outside
Outsider artists draw outsider patrons, some who smell like horses. Not even the art gallery world’s aura of intimidation will keep them away.
Remnants of the Underground Railroad
The Thirteenth Amendment passed 150 years ago, abolishing slavery. Today, little of the Underground Railroad still remains. A painter hits the road to discover what’s intact.
Game Face
Even someone who writes erotica for a living has to find ways to get through moments of shame.
Who Goes There
The Heartbleed Bug exposed a well-known secret: Passwords suck. But that’s really nothing new—just ask the Romans. Explaining the password’s past and future.
Demolish Me
The present-day lust for ruins is nothing new. In fact, it’s nearly as old as any ruins themselves. From a flattened Louvre to Percy Bysshe Shelley, a journey to the dawn of ruin porn.
Chrissy Smoked
Twice a year, a group of friends gathered in a coal-mining pocket of Pennsylvania—friends in their twenties with fragile identities, who didn’t know yet what would happen.
Private Eye
Her neighbors remember her as “the bag lady,” but Vivian Maier was secretly a street photographer who would leave behind an artistic trove that captured the public’s imagination.
The Unofficial Roger Ebert Reader on Addiction
When Roger Ebert died, America was deprived of one of its finest critics. We also lost one of our best writers on addiction.
The Misplaced Birthday of President George Washington
The truth behind Washington’s Birthday, President’s Day, Presidents’ Day, or whatever the hell you want to call it, as briefly explained by puppets.
Tale of the Transcription Tape
Sometimes a love scene calls for [WHIMPERS], sometimes it needs [YELPS], but knowing which one to use makes all the difference. The secret life of a professional closed captioner.
The Bolshoi in the Dark
Rough waters for Russia’s fabled Bolshoi Theatre have prompted soul-searching among the country’s dancers, officials, and fans.
Whither Greatness
Economic recession. Climate disaster. Chaos in the Middle East. The world cries out for leaders who will face our biggest dilemmas, and all we get are short-sighted narcissists. Where are the great leaders of today?
Cool Colors
This summer in Manhattan, it was important to wait in line for an hour to see light designed by James Turrell. Many bought the hype. Many were angry afterward.
It’s the End of the World as We've Known It
Good old Earth was nearly destroyed, almost extinguished, and threatened with slaughter every hour in cinemas this summer. And yet, here we are. Our film critics pinpoint the collapse of the apocalypse genre.
Songs in the Key of Eno
Much to the chagrin of his former 25-year-old self, a man in his forties—with no singing experience outside the shower—joins the village chorus. Terror, learning, and intense joy, all while making Brian Eno proud.
Art of the Steal
Western museums aren’t exactly known for possessing sterling records when it comes to acquiring the treasures of foreign countries. So when the Met is pressured to return its valuables, a mea culpa seems due.
Here's the Thing About Silver Linings
The Oscars are consistently irrational, but we wanted more for David O. Russell's fantastic Silver Linings Playbook. Film critics David Haglund, Pasha Malla, and Michelle Orange discuss why the movie so divided critical opinion, and became such a hit with audiences.
Announcing the 2013 Tournament of Books
The ides of March may be four months away, but a certain rooster is sick of waiting. Introducing the finalists and judges for TMN's ninth annual Tournament of Books, presented by NOOK® by Barnes & Noble.
Mikhail Shishkin
This is it, friends—the last round of our Reading Roulette series of contemporary Russian literature in translation, with one shot left in the chamber. But we’ve saved the best for last.
The Master and Moviemaking
Once again, we convene our film scholars, plus critic Michelle Orange, to discuss a major movie: “The Master,” by Paul Thomas Anderson—a masterpiece of craftsmanship, or merely an exercise of cinema and violence with no story in the center?
For the Price of a Dime
Since the 1980s, changing social mores, rising gas prices, and advancing technology have resulted in an information gap just screaming to be studied. A guide to demystifying songs from the ’80s for later, digitally native generations.
Rhythm in Disguise
Musical therapists can improve patients’ cognitive functioning and motor skills. But sometimes the battle is to keep a mind intact. Avant-garde composition and EKG techno in a London care center.
Go Away
Artist colonies are mysterious places. Available only to a select few, supposedly teeming with alcohol, affairs, and creative hoodoo. But the rumors aren't true—they just lack detail. Scenes and lessons from three residencies.
Uncanny Kingdom
Our film scholars and Wes Anderson watchers, along with movie critic Michelle Orange, evaluate the filmmaker’s latest release, “Moonrise Kingdom,” where people get struck by lightning as a matter of course.
Hammer of the Dads
Joining a band at middle age can feel like a juvenile, shameful pursuit, until you consider all the gear you get to buy. A report on purchasing earplugs and playing live—but why are the crowds so small?—when you're 40.
Burn All the Liars
An unfinished autobiography and a 1980s biopic turned Frances Farmer, one of the great golden-era stars, into a lobotomized zombie. The main trouble: Frances Farmer wasn’t lobotomized. An investigation to set one of Hollywood’s most convoluted stories straight.
Call and Response
Sometimes a book appears in your life and starts to pester you. The characters act like your friends. Events occur in the plot that reappear inside your home. It’s enough to drive a man to wonder which world is more real, until danger appears.
The City Is Wilder and Kinder Than You Think
Situationist invades Hoxton... Street poems arouse Londoners... Public discourse colored by disfigured Futura... Robert Montgomery’s street poems have something to say to you.
Arbotchery
An illustrated catalog of abuse taking place across the country, in cities large and small, where trees are being hacked, whacked, and chopped into unnatural shapes in the name of power.
How to Paint an Oak Tree
A man who spent three years painting the same English tree repeatedly—in all weather, day and night—explains how exactly, and why.
Look at This Fucking Hipster Basher
Never mind news articles that link economic woes to a culture shift, the report of the hipster’s death is an exaggeration.
It Is My Wish
Some hope for peace, others for environmental protection—and that’s because TED Prize wishes aren’t often granted to neoconservatives.
How to Blow Glass
Those who can’t do, learn. In this installment of our series in which the clueless apprentice with the experts, we visit a glass-blowing studio in Brooklyn.
How to Give a Tattoo
Those who can't do, learn. In this installment of our series in which the clueless apprentice with the experts, we pick up a long-sought skill from Brooklyn tattoo artist Duke Riley--who also plays canvas.
Fate of the Art
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we help a young man, struggling with maturity, accept the garbage that’s otherwise known as most of contemporary art.
Canine to Five
Every dog has its day, but as the first to join New York’s elite National Arts Club, Tillie the artistic Jack Russell terrier seems to be having quite a few.
Chicken
Don’t know art but know what you like? How would you like to buy some art and never receive it? Falling for a painting and getting something unexpected in return.
Centers of Unlearning
If relics like tractors and antique toilets deserve museums, why not creationism? And why stop there? A guide to upcoming halls of wisdom.
Guilt (September)
The conclusion to our writer's saga of contemporary fatherhood, where all is revealed and most are forgiven, including a postscript with advice for new parents.
Jack (August)
Surviving the delivery is one thing; living through weeks of midnight feedings, particularly when emergencies strike, is much worse. Our writer discovers the ancient conspiracy that keeps expectant parents in the dark.
Past Due (August)
Finally, it's time. Mommy's off to the hospital, and Daddy, after months of careful training, completely forgets what he's supposed to do. The newest chapter in our writer's saga of contemporary paternity.
Due Date (July)
The baby’s late. Life is hell. When the neonatalist tells him to relax and make love, is our writer, the contemporary father, prepared to take his sensible advice? No. Of course not. Resume panic.
You Betrayed Me (June)
Striving to be a good father also means being a good husband. And while co-attending birthing classes is a smart idea, our writer learns that springing a surprise baby shower--and not warning his wife about the stain on her top--is not.
Stocking Up (May)
When a child is on the way, the last months can seem agonizingly slow. So does it help, when you're finally ready, to have your mother suggest you and your wife are ambivalent about the whole baby thing?
I Abandon the Mother of My Child (April)
As the big day nears, anxieties grow sharper, and even a bad episode of ER becames fraught with symbols. Add in a business trip halfway across the world--can our almost-father handle the stress?
Option C (March)
Pregnant mothers have extraordinary needs—love, support, removal of strangely repugnant odors—but it’s the fathers who are needy. Another chapter in our writer's illustrated chronicle of worry.
One in 285 (February)
Discovering the sex of your unborn child is a cause for celebration, and then baskets of new and unexpected anxieties. A new chapter in our writer's pursuit of fatherhood.
How About Those Knicks? (January)
Your child's tastes--for a particular brand of peanut butter, or milk, or religion--are up for grabs once she's out of the womb. But what happens if she turns into a Knicks freak, Mr. No-Sports-Knowledge-Whatsoever? More notes on our writer's long nine months.
A View From the Crow's Wood
You would've paid more attention in history class if they taught you what early Dutch settlements were really like. An opportunity to sift through the artifacts at an 18th century Hudson Valley home reveals a way of life that is as odd as it is oddly familiar.
Mad Dog (January)
Our children are unique composites of our genes and our mate’s—noses, hairlines, and tennis serves. Unfortunately, the kid can also get saddled with Uncle Tom’s halitosis. Another installation in our writer's saga of birth.
Cup-a-Soup and Candy Canes (December)
Part of becoming a father is accepting responsibility for how another person turns out. But can you hold your own family responsible too? And is it smart to gather them all on a cruise to find out? Our writer continues his illustrated saga.
Dead Rabbit and Beyond (November), Part II
Leaving New York for Ohio, even for a short time, is an exercise in real-estate envy and relaxation, except for all those drunk cowboys. Our writer continues his tale of pregnancy with a new episode about patience and gunfire.
Dead Rabbit and Beyond (November)
You can have a successful career in your thirties and still pretend you’re 18, carousing at clubs and sleeping on a futon. But to have a baby at the same time? Our writer continues the Peanut with a new installment on adulthood.
Plan 9 (September)
Attention men: Want to have a child? Then you better come up with a plan for making sure you accomplish the vital first steps. Our chronicler of technical wherewithal brings us a new episode of the Peanut.
An Introduction
There are hundreds of wonderful books on motherhood for women; there are zero decent books on fatherhood for men. Our contributing illlustrator starts a new series, to continue here every other week, about fatherhood. Welcome to the Peanut.
Street Art
It’s art, it’s play, it’s political protest—no matter what it’s called, street art is all around us, changing the face of our cities when no one’s looking. So what is it exactly? We round up some of the legends of the scene to talk about the history of street art, and where it’s headed next.
The Complicated Art of Chelsea
New York's art world is made of fanatics, freaks, and the ultra-rich. In a quest to convert a rich friend to patronage, we begin to doubt the faith.
Designer Kidnappings
New York has a service for every customer, even those who want to be kidnapped.
Bienvenue au Musée Renteria
Like many modern painters, the extremely famous Renteria had issues with women. Our writer shares a guide he picked up at Renteria’s museum.
Emme Stone
The five questions for illustrator and web designer Emme Stone.