THE APPROVAL MATRIX Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.
88 new york | july 22–august 4, 2019
lowbrow
brilliant
despicable
highbrow
PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF FOSTER + PARTNERS (TULIP); BANK OF ENGLAND (TURING); COLUMBIA PICTURES (FACEBOOK); JOAN MARCUS (MOJADA, CHEKHOV); BILL DE BLASIO/FACEBOOK (DE BLASIO); SCALLEJA/WIKIMEDIA (DEAN & DELUCA); PIERRE LE HORS, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MARLBOROUGH, NEW YORK AND LONDON (COX); GOOD DEED ENTERTAINMENT (FIRECRACKERS); NETFLIX (13 REASONS WHY); LOUISELINTON/INSTAGRAM (LINTON); KARWAI TANG/GETTY IMAGES (FEDERER); RE_DAILYMAIL/TWITTER (BEYONCÉ AND MEGHAN); LILNASX/TWITTER (AREA 51); RUBENDIAZJR/TWITTER (CITI BIKE); BELLE.DELPHINE/INSTAGRAM (BELLE DELPHINE); KYLIEJENNER/INSTAGRAM (JENNER); ED SHEERAN/YOUTUBE (BIEBER); MEGAN ELICE MEADOWS/WIKIMEDIA (LIL WAYNE); COUNTESS LUANN/YOUTUBE (JOVANI); LEEFROMAMERICA/INSTAGRAM (TILGHMAN).Dale Peck’s queerer-than-thou
Trump bars federally funded New Republic satire of “Mary Pete.”
family-planning clinics from
abortion referrals, despite abortion’s
remaining legal—for now.After the FTC fined Facebook
$5 billion, its shares went up, which
means Zuckerberg learned a lesson. A billionaire hedge-funder is using an illegal curb
cut to give himself his own
private parking spot
in the West Village.“Send her back!”
is the new “Lock her up!”Con Ed celebrates
the anniversary of
the 1977 blackout
with a ... blackout.Meanwhile, as Times
Square went dark,
de Blasio was off in Iowa.
Greedy landlords
strike back, sue
to destroy rent
regulation.Broadway actors
perform on the
streets during
the blackout.Dean & DeLuca’s
on its deathbed.The Nickel Boys,
Colson
Whitehead’s
novel about
the inseparability
of cynicism and
idealism.Jia Tolentino’s essay
collection Trick Mirror:
Reflections on Self-Delusion.Mojada, Greek myth
meets current
American migrant
tragedy, at the Public.Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow
Moscow Moscow millennializes
Chekhov with Rodarte and Cats
Tony Cox’s drug-troubled “Shadow sweatshirts at MCC Theater.
Bathing” show at Marlborough gallery.Jasmin Mozaffari’s gripping, controlled
teens-on-the-edge film Firecrackers.Roger Federer’s
stressed-out
wife, Mirka,
is extremely
relatable.Meghan Markle meets her
longtime fan Beyoncé.Shallow, hot people make
out on Love Island.Internet-famous “weird elf
kitty girl” Belle Delphine sells
her bathwater to “THIRSTY
gamer boys” in brilliant troll.Smoothie-bowl queen
Lee Tilghman gets bowl
cut, returns to Instagram.Why did it take this long to
change the graphic and, to a
depressed teen, potentially
glamorizing suicide scene
from 13 Reasons Why?Peak summer:
Justin Bieber
dancing in
an ice-cream-
cone suit.Lil Wayne and
Blink-182’s strange-
bedfellows tour.FaceApp, which shows you what you look
like old and wrinkly (which Russian
developers, uh, aren’t using to improve
their facial-recognition database?).Citi Bike makes it to the Bronx!Prom-dress purveyor Jovani’s rise
to RHONY fame, instead of taking the
more traditional RHONJ route.The feud between
Kylie Jenner and
the influencer
who claims
to have invented
being naked in
a big straw hat.Treasury Secretary
Mnuchin’s actress wife,
Louise Linton, is filming
a “sex thriller” with
Chuck Bass.The long, deep new escalators of
the Second Avenue Subway keep
mysteriously breaking down.Starbucks’ Tie-Dye
Frappuccino: nothing but
a naked plea to appease
the Bernie-bro voter.The 1.5 million–plus people who
told the internet they plan to
storm Area 51 seem to scare the
military. Better hide the aliens!Tennessee police warn
that flushing drugs could
lead to “meth gators.”Trade show CES to
allow sex tech on a
trial basis. Who’s in
charge of cleanup?Barbie goes mumblecore?
Greta Gerwig and Noah
Baumbach write Margot
Robbie’s Barbie movie.The is-it-actually-cute?
To y Story tie-in Forky had
to be recalled for being a
choking hazard.Apple’s new falafel
emoji looks more
like poop than the
actualp
emoji.In other good-for-the-
Brits news, Alan
Turing—World War II
hero who ended his
life persecuted for
being gay—will be on
the new £50 note.London’s mayor
nips Lord Norman
Foster’s 1,000-foot-
tall “tulip” tower in
the bud for being
too stupid-
looking. If only our
city could do that.The heroic
firefighters who
risked their lives
to keep Notre
Dame from
collapsing (which
it almost did).And, with the
heat wave, it could
go out again.