PFBNOW ADVENTURES!

 

 

  “SWAG” reveals a revitalized Justin Bieber in full command of his unique musical talents. “The record delivers on years of promise and potential; it feels, miraculously, like his long-awaited magnum opus,” Brady Brickner-Wood writes.

  David Sedaris bumped into a few hiccups while making his way back to New York City, following a vacation on a small island in Maine with his longtime partner, Hugh. Thunderstorms in the New York area led to the last-minute cancellation of their flight, so the pair opted to drive back to the city—with a fellow stranded passenger. Had Sedaris proposed earlier that he invite the stranger to come with them to New York, Hugh would have said no. But the woman, who had to be at work the next morning, was “so grateful that there was really no way for him to back out,” Sedaris writes. In a new Personal History, Sedaris writes about the pains and pleasures of travelling with Hugh and what he learned about himself and the stranger he invited along on their long, strange journey from Maine to New York.

  Last week, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. signed off on a memo that not only concluded that there was no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered but also stated that federal investigators found no support for the claims that he blackmailed powerful people or maintained a list of clients. Trump, who indicated on the campaign trail that he would be open to releasing Epstein-related files, now sounds incredulous that people are still talking about them. In a post on Truth Social, he dismissed the story, calling it something “nobody cares about.” “And yet, by this point, many of Trump’s supporters had established that they still care very much about Epstein, and were not willing to move along,” Jon Al writes. “If the Epstein blowup is revealing of Trump’s base—indicating that its worship of him is not unconditional but predicated on the idea that he’s a tribune of the people seeking to expose nefarious élites—it is also revealing of Trump himself, and his relationship to co...

  “How are we meant to feel about things that we both love and oppose?” Molly Ringwald wrote, in 2018. “What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it?”

  Norman Foster shares with Steven Spielberg an ability to deliver “massive blockbusters that are also aesthetically successful,” a fellow-architect said.

 

 

 

  The most recent installments in the “Superman” franchise—Zack Snyder’s diptych “Man of Steel” (2013) and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016)—had hectic, howling, near-apocalyptic sense of tragedy, but James Gunn’s vision is “bright, chipper, and sentimental,” Richard Brody writes. “The world may be going to hell, but the writer and director James Gunn has graced it with a sunshine ‘Superman.‘ ” Gunn—who not only wrote and directed the new movie but is also a co-chairperson of DC Studios at Warner Bros.—applied the formula that served him so well with his three Marvel “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies to his début in the DC universe. Like those films, which established Gunn as an industry leader in the field of spectacular big-budget fantasy, “Superman” is a group movie in which the interactions of many characters, with their gibes and quips and whimsical bonhomie, decorate the churning action, offering catchy distractions but little substance.

  Elon Musk announced last weekend that he intends to found an “America Party” in the wake of his public feud with Donald Trump and furious criticism of Republicans’ deficit-exploding megabill. “The bad news for Musk is that a critical mass of Americans are not actually hungering for a moderate party to occupy a triangulated lane between the Democrats and the Republicans,” Jon Allsop writes. “The good news for Musk is that he isn’t really in ‘the middle,’ either.” It’s not yet clear that Musk will follow through on his promise—yet the idea might just be worth taking seriously. “Even if third parties are generally a losing proposition, Musk’s sheer financial firepower could give him a better chance than most of making it work—especially if one takes a modest view of his likely objectives. And, whatever he does next, his recent maneuvers already point to some important truths about where America’s partisan battle lines are drawn, and how little sense they make.” Read m...

 

 

 

  “It’s one of the wonderful lessons about saying yes when life presents these opportunities to you,” Paul McCartney writes, on meeting his Beatles bandmates. “You never know where they might lead.”

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