PFBNOW ADVENTURES!

 

 

 

  “I think it was just really hard for people to allow me to be somebody who isn’t joyfully tripping through Manhattan,” Sarah Jessica Parker says, of her roles after Carrie Bradshaw—but she hasn’t felt the urge to escape her association with the character.       Why Sarah Jessica Parker Keeps Playing Carrie Bradshaw. In all of her professional endeavors, including the “Sex and the City” franchise, Parker considers herself a “bitter ender.”

 

  Jon Hamm’s performance in “Your Friends and Neighbors” is the show’s main asset. Otherwise, it’s “more notable for its shortcomings than its pleasures,” Inkoo Kang writes.

 

 

 

  Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book reveals that many insiders had concerns about Joe Biden before his 2024 Presidential debate. Could reporters have pushed harder to get more of the story sooner.

  What is the most uninformative statement that people are inclined to make? The philosopher Agnes Callard’s nominee would be “I love to travel.” “This tells you very little about a person, because nearly everyone likes to travel; and yet people say it, because, for some reason, they pride themselves both on having travelled and on the fact that they look forward to doing so,” Callard writes. Travel gets branded as an achievement: see interesting places, have interesting experiences, become interesting people. Is that what it really is? “Travel turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best,” Callard argues. “If you think that this doesn’t apply to you—that your own travels are magical and profound, with effects that deepen your values, expand your horizons, render you a true citizen of the globe, and so on—note that this phenomenon can’t be assessed first-personally.” On a Memorial Day weekend expected to break travel records.

 

 

 

  Morgan Wallen presents himself like some guy you ran into at Home Depot. But he may be the most commercially successful musician of his era: each of his past two albums spent at least a 100 weeks hovering near the top of the Billboard chart. This week, he released his fourth album, “I’m the Problem,” which features 37 songs and 50 songwriters. “His connection to his audience may be broad, but it is not anonymous,” Amanda Petrusich writes. “His point of view is precisely defined: God, Chevy, girls, booze.” Wallen has been releasing music for nine years, and most of it is “alarmingly interchangeable,” Petrusich notes. “There are no major stylistic shifts in his catalogue, merely a statement (and restatement) of purpose: love hurts, whiskey helps.” On “I’m the Problem,” Wallen holds true to his calling: singing about the ways love can sour. “The music here is capably performed but utterly faceless; Wallen is focussed on storytelling, and his milieu is catastrophic heartache,” Petrus...

  “New York abides by its own set of Newtonian laws,” Alexandra Schwartz writes. “For every complaint that someone makes about the city, someone else has an equal and opposite complaint.”

 

  Republicans have painted their deportation push as a measure being obstructed by out-of-touch liberals siding with criminals. This rhetoric underscores “that the goal of mass deportation is part of a cruel and performative politics,” Jon writes. The Real Audience for Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Spectacles A plan to deport people to countries that aren’t their home is cruel, performative politics—whether it works or not.

 

 

 

 

Beginning in the 1960s, a German sexologist was allowed to place foster children under the care of pedophiles. Why did the government support his experiment?   The German Experiment That Placed Foster Children with Pedophiles. With the approval of the government, a renowned sexologist ran a dangerous program. How could this happen?

 

 

  In Canada, Donald Trump doesn’t sound like a troll, Adam Gopnik writes. “He sounds like a threat.” How the 2025 Canadian federal election was won and lost on Trumpism and its perils.         What Canadians Heard—and Americans Didn’t. The Canadian federal election, on Monday, which culminated in Mark Carney’s retention of the Prime Ministership, was won by defying Trumpism.

  Since defending Young Thug in his criminal trial, the lawyer Brian has modelled for the rapper’s fashion brand and had a Drake song named after him. Diddy took note; in April, he hired Brian for himself.       A Lawyer Freed Young Thug. Now He’s Defending Diddy. Since the Young Thug trial, Brian has modelled for the rapper’s fashion brand and had a Drake song named after him. Sean Combs took note.

  Trump has pushed the boundaries of executive power while empowering Elon Musk and DOGE to pare back the federal government. “This juxtaposition—and apparent contradiction—seems to be everywhere at the moment,” Jon Al writes.

  Aisle: You want to be in and out of this aircraft A.S.A.P. Middle: You’re a terrible planner. Like, your accountant can’t stand you. Just kidding, you don’t have an accountant.

  People who love Phish do so with a devotion that is quasi-religious—deep, eternal, and rhapsodic. People who dislike Phish do so with equal fervor. Amanda Petrusich profiles the singular band.         After Forty Years, Phish Isn’t Seeking Resolution. People who love Phish do so with a quasi-religious devotion. People who dislike Phish do so with an equal fervor.

  More than any literary prize or celebrity book club, the school syllabus shapes American reading. “The Great Gatsby” is one of the most frequently assigned texts—but its place in the high-school canon was hardly inevitable.