PFBNOW ADVENTURES!

  Participants at a tenants’ union meeting were asked to write down what a “world without rent” would look like. “I’d been contemplating the question of whether to rent or buy, and here were people who were saying: *neither*,” Jennifer Wilson writes.

  Uncertainty is Donald Trump’s brand. But what if he already told us exactly what he’s going to do? @sbg1 writes about how it may be time for America—and the rest of the world—to come to terms with the idea that Trump might really mean what he says. Uncertainty Is Trump’s Brand. But What if He Already Told Us Exactly What He’s Going to Do? “Tariff Man” is gonna tariff—and other lessons from the predictably unpredictable President’s return to power.

  “That was the problem with women falling out of love; the veil of romance fell away from their eyes, and they looked in and could read you.” Read a short story by Claire Keegan, from 2022.   “So Late in the Day” “That was the problem with women falling out of love; the veil of romance fell.

  In the past seven weeks, Donald Trump has been hard at work on his long-standing pet project: decimating free and fair elections. And, as with the rest of the President’s calamitous agenda, he is doing it in full view of the American people. Trump Is Still Trying to Undermine Elections. Now that Trump has installed election deniers throughout his Administration.

  Lady Gaga’s new album is a work of self-citation, rummaging around in her own past for inspiration. It’s also, somehow, “the freshest collection of songs she has released in years,” Rachel Syme writes.

  Intramural fights consume A.I. doomers and boomers. “But from a distance they can look like two offshoots of the same tribe: people who are convinced that A.I. is the only thing worth paying attention to,” Andrew Marantz writes.

  Revisit John Updike’s exuberant account of Ted Williams’s last game with the Boston Red Sox, at Fenway Park, in 1960.  Boston Fans Bid Kid Adieu. From 1960: John Updike watches Ted Williams’s last game with the Boston Red Sox, at Fenway Park.

 

  As a player for U.S.C. basketball, JuJu Watkins seems to have an eye on retribution: she hates to lose to you once and refuses to lose to you twice, Louisa Thomas writes. JuJu Watkins Is the Moment. The U.S.C. basketball star’s magnetism is generated by nowness, by the way she seems to embody an ever-refreshing present.

  “It’s probably her spacey air of mystery and reserve as well as the street chic that keep causing people to ask, ‘Who is that girl?’ ” In 1994, Jay McInerney wrote about how Chloe Sevigny, with her street-smart style and down-low attitude, became Manhattan's It Girl. At the time, Sevigny was fresh off an appearance in a Sonic Youth video, and had just been cast by the photographer Larry Clark in his new movie, “Kids.” “She’s definitely the girl of the moment,” said Walter Cessna, a writer for Paper. “All the kids think she’s the shit, all the store owners think she’s the shit. What’s interesting about Chloe is she spans both scenes, the whole grunge thing and the whole rave thing. Chloe really is the symbol for all those kids. But she does keep to herself.” Go back to the scene of New York City in the 90s with McInerney’s profile of the rising star.    

  Mirra Andreeva won the Indian Wells Open today, beating out the No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka. With her preternatural poise and uncanny on-court intelligence, the 17-year-old has joined the ranks of her idols and toppled them, Louisa Thomas writes.    

  During the pandemic, housing prices soared and owners saw their home values nearly double overnight. Popular culture both facilitated and reflected that shift, with shows that primed us to see homes not as places to live in but as assets to buy and sell.

  When someone stole the chalk-plaster Elvis bust from Great Jones Street a few years ago, a lot of people viewed it as a sign that the old East Village was officially dead. It started out in the Great Jones Café, a gathering spot for the downtown arts scene in the 80s, and after the café closed, in 2018, it continued on in a new restaurant there called Jolene. Following the unusually brazen theft, Gabriel Stulman, the restaurant’s owner, decided to rally the community to find the bust with a post on Instagram. He knew the bandits’ identities; in his posts, he included a snapshot of the pair, their faces concealed by colorful circles, along with a threat. “If these crooks don’t return the sculpture of Elvis that they have stolen in the next 24 hours, we’ll let you know exactly who they are and where to find them,” he wrote. It’s not that people hadn’t stolen from restaurants before. But the Elvis, whether because of its doe eyes or the way it had become part of East ...

 

  The classical pianist and best-selling author Jeremy Denk recommends musical books that grapple with the cultural and political divisions in the United States.   Jeremy Denk’s Musical Account of American Divisions. The award-winning pianist on the relationship between music and politics—and on five books that hold them in tension.