New York Magazine – July 08, 2019

THE APPROVAL MATRIX Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.

80 new york | july 8–21, 2019

lowbrow

brilliant

despicable

highbrow

PHOTOGRAPHS: MTA/FLICKR (BYFORD); COURTESY OF OMA NEW YORK (NEW MUSEUM); GENE SCHIAVONE (MARK MORRIS); FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH

OFFICE (JOHNSON); AMMIABC/WIKIMEDIA (PARADE); RUSSIAN COMMUNITY COUNCIL OF THE

USA (MURAL);

ROSALIE O’C

ONNOR (ABT); GAGE SKIDM

ORE/WIKIMEDIA (SWALWELL); PATRICK MCMULLAN (BRAUN, DERN, WILLIAMSON);

MAURIZIO CATTELAN ARHIVE (GUGGENHEIM); JOAN MARCUS (PUBLIC THEATER); NIKE (SNEAKERS); DARDARCH/WIKIMEDIA (GAUFF); SERENAWILLIAM

S/INSTAGRAM (WHEATIES); NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (RAMSAY); MARC PIASECKI/GETTY IMAGES (DION); LILNASX/INSTAGRAM (LIL NAS X); KIMKARD

ASHIAN/INSTAGRAM (KARDASHIAN); MICHAEL TAPP/FLICKR (CROPSE FLOWER); MIAMIALEJANDRO/

TWITTER (KNICKS); MARCGOEHRING/INSTAGRAM (GOING OUT TOP); ALI GOLDSTEIN/NETFLIX (ONE DAY AT A TIME); VIC MENSA/YOUTUBE (CAMP AM

ERICA); RENNER4REAL/TWITTER (RENNER); EDDY CHEN/HBO (ZENDAYA); RICHARD BARTZ/WIKIMEDIA (WASP); PATRICIA GUILLORY/WIKIMEDIA (IGU

ANA); MTV (DURAN); BACKGRID (DICAPRIO)

Governor Cuomo reportedly set

to bureaucratically kneecap the MTA’s

earnest Brit wonk-chief Andy Byford.

Established oracle of doom

Nouriel Roubini predicts a

global recession’s a-coming.

San Francisco to cover

up a 1930s left-wing

mural for being un-woke

by today’s standards.

Cynical narcissist Boris

Johnson is somehow

the perfect possible ruler

of Brexitannia.

Who is Eric Swalwell and why

was he yelling so much?

Tech bros paying

$30 per month for

... fancy Gmail?

Arizona’s Republican governor, so offended by

the Betsy Ross–sneaker kerfuffle he tweets that

Nike can forget state subsidies for its factory.

Netflix version of The Prom casts a bunch

of movie stars; we brace for lowered keys

and shorter dance breaks.

The New Museum’s slick, necessary Rem Koolhaas–

designed expansion will finally solve the

narrow-stairs–and–not-enough-elevators problem.

David Cale’s vividly

musicalized memoir

We’re Only Alive for

a Short Amount of Time

at the Public Theater.

15-year-old Cori “Coco” Gauff,

Wimbledon’s youngest-ever

qualifier, beats this year’s

oldest competitor, Venus

Williams, in her first match ...

Presumably inspired

by Maurizio

Cattelan’s golden

toilet, Guggenheim

workers unionize.

The Oklahoma! revival cast

recording: Finally, Rodgers and

Hammerstein you can have sex to.

Lisa Taddeo’s intimate, prismatic

investigation of female sexuality,

Three Women.

Lara Williams’s bacchanalian

debut novel, Supper Club,

will leave you panting and ravenous.

At Mostly Mozart in Lincoln

Center, Mark Morris

sweats it out with Sports

et Divertissements.

Misty Copeland and David

Hallberg keep Swan Lake

swimming along at ABT.

Laura Dern and Marianne

Williamson used to

be roommates in L.A.

Who did the dishes?

What did they talk about?

Summer is here, and summer-fun fan Leonardo

DiCaprio gets hit on the head with a volleyball.

Céline Dion has chills,

and they’re multiplyin’.

Going-out tops for men

are here, per the spring

2020 runways in Paris.

... But Serena Williams

gets a Wheaties box.

93Punx and Vic Mensa’s sly white-

kids video about the immigration

crisis, “Camp America.”

One Day at a Time

saved by Pop TV. Yeeehawcomes out.! Lil Nas X

... But with KD

and Kyrie Irving

headed to Brooklyn,

at least there’s

someone to root for.

Ikea’s Soffa Sans font

made of couches.

No assembly required.

HBO somehow got

Zendaya to make a

dick-pic-taking PSA

on Euphoria.

Remy Duran, unbothered

Casanova of MTV’s

hot-messy Are You the One.

There’s a climate-

change-related plague

of 15,000-wasp super-

nests in Alabama ...

The New York Botanical

Garden’s “corpse flower”

is in bloom. It smells like rotting

meat, just like the subway!

Scooter Braun,

welcome to Taylor

Swift’s extensive

list of enemies.

Confirmed: No stars

want to play for James

Dolan’s Knicks ...

Kim Kardashian reaps the

benefits of bad press for

naming her new shapewear

line Kimono, then changes it.

The city’s response to a truck

running over yet another cyclist:

ticketing cyclists!

In other pestilence news,

cockroaches are evolving to

become “nearly

impossible” to kill with

traditional pesticides.

Jeremy Renner singing

has big Kim Cattrall

scatting energy.

National Geographic released

a trailer for Gordon Ramsay’s

travel show, further proving

it should not exist.

The NXIVM sex-cult case,

which has always sounded sort

of like a Lifetime-movie plot,

is becoming a Lifetime movie.

... And there’s a plague

of iguanas ravaging

Florida.

Gerrymanderocracy

gets okayed by the

Supreme Court.

Street-party fatigue!

After WorldPride and the

Fourth of July, can New Yorkers

please have our city back?

Grubhub’s practice of creating

websites for restaurants that did

not ask for them, reportedly to

drive up its own commissions.