Red Bathrobe

You’re standing in the doorway in my red bathrobe, one arm stretched out into the sun, a cigarette burning at the tip. You’re leaning on the jamb, talking about ghosts or contrails, the loneliness of Tony Soprano, the compound eye of the housefly. And so, Beloved, I can’t tell you it’s useless— despite your intentions, the smoke billows in. I...

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Six Books That Music Lovers Should Read

Music, of all art forms, is uniquely tied up with memory. It’s stitched into the fabric of daily life: Think about the mixtape you made for your first crush, the pop star whose posters were plastered in your teenage bedroom, the album that got you through your divorce, the jam band whose tour you followed across the country. All provide tantalizing...

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Climate Relief Can’t Wait for Utopia

Since the 1960s, fighting for the environment has frequently meant fighting against corporations. To curb pollution, activists have worked to thwart new oil drilling, coal-fired power plants, fracking for natural gas, and fuel pipelines. But today, Americans face a climate challenge that can’t be solved by just saying no again and again.Decarbonizing...

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Three Conversations With Donald Trump

“Can you believe these are my customers?” Donald Trump once asked while surveying the crowd in the Taj Mahal casino’s poker room. “Look at those losers,” he said to his consultant Tom O’Neil, of people spending money on the floor of the Trump Plaza casino. Visiting the Iowa State Fair as a presidential candidate in 2015, he was astounded that locals...

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The Bonfire of the Headscarves

No one can predict how a revolution starts. Nor can anyone know when one injustice will be what causes a people’s fury to overcome their fear. In 2011, in Tunisia, a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, sparked an uprising by setting himself on fire. In 2022, in Iran, the death in police custody of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, has brought Iranians...

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Hilary Mantel’s Art Was Infused With Her Pain

“Once the queen’s head is severed, he walks away. A sharp pang of appetite reminds him that it is time for a second breakfast, or perhaps an early dinner.”These are the first two sentences of T​he Mirror and ​the Light, the third volume of Hilary Mantel’s ​trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell and the last book she published before she died on Thursday...

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How I Finally Learned My Name

The email came from a stranger. “Dear Mr. Temple,” it said. “My name is Andrea Paiss, and I live in Budapest, Hungary. I do not know whether I write to the right person. I just hope so.” It reached me in San Francisco on January 1, 2020, and told of a “Granny,” then 92, who wanted to know what had happened to her cousin Lorant Stein. Andrea had found...

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Did a Famous Doctor’s COVID Shot Make His Cancer Worse?

On September 22 of last year, Michel Goldman, a Belgian immunologist and one of Europe’s best-known champions of medical research, walked into a clinic near his house, rolled up his sleeve, and had a booster shot delivered to his arm. He knew he’d need it more than most.Just a few weeks earlier, Michel, 67, had been to see his younger brother, Serge,...

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Is AI Art a ‘Toy’ or a ‘Weapon’?

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our coverage of The Atlantic Festival. Learn more and watch festival sessions here. Earlier this year, the technology company OpenAI released a program called DALL-E 2, which uses artificial intelligence to transform text into visual art. People enter prompts (“plasticine nerd working on a 1980s computer”) and...

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Geek Wars

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Pop-culture franchises such as Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones—which grew this year to include Amazon’s The Rings of Power and HBO’s House of the Dragon,...

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