6 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
13 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Elizabeth Kolbert on Biden’s environmental initiatives;
public art for the pandemic; landmarking and Trump;
Kim Hastreiter’s new newspaper; David Duchovny.
LETTER FROM MOSCOW
Joshua Yaffa 18 Five-Month Plan
Russia’s race to create a COVID vaccine.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Nathan Heller 25 Tips for Public Speakers
AMERICAN CHRONICLES
Kelefa Sanneh 26 The Color of Money
The making of a Black capitalist utopia.
A REPORTER AT LARGE
Sarah Stillman 32 The Damage
Tracking Trump’s assault on immigration.
ANNALS OF GEOGRAPHY
David Owen 42 Promised Land
Maps to help the Catholic Church fight climate change.
SKETCHBOOK
Paul Rogers 49 “Paul and Audrey”
FICTION
Ben Okri 52 “A Wrinkle in the Realm”
THE CRITICS
BOOKS
Jill Lepore 55 The cyberweapon arms race.
Louis Menand 59 Understanding Mike Nichols’s career.
Adam Gopnik 65 What Lucian Freud saw in bodies.
67 Briefly Noted
Dan Chiasson 70 “Come-Hither Honeycomb,” by Erin Belieu.
POP MUSIC
Amanda Petrusich 72 Dusty Springfield, revisited.
ON TELEVISION
Alexandra Schwartz 74 “Call My Agent!,” “The Bureau.”
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Anthony Lane 76 “The Little Things,” “Supernova,” “Two of Us.”
POEMS
Charles Simic 37 “There Is Nothing Quieter”
Joyce Carol Oates 44 “This Is Not a Poem”
COVER
Christoph Niemann “Wooster Street”DRAWINGS Ellis Rosen, Matilda Borgström, Liza Donnelly, Michael Maslin,
Elisabeth McNair, Zachary Kanin, Liana Finck, Edward Koren, Carolita Johnson, Roz Chast, Ali Solomon,
Jeremy Nguyen, Drew Dernavich, Frank Cotham, Will McPhail S POTS Marie-Helene Jeeves