I don't think my late parents cheated on one another, but I can't ask them anymore, can't say, But come tell me now this time for real, now that I'm old enough. As far as I know, they didn't cheat. As far as I know, my mother never cried in a car on the way to her favorite restaurant, like a friend of a friend's mother, who I call the Lorax. The Lorax's husband told her to get dressed up and pick out the place she wanted to go to, when he had not done so in months, and she spent her fifty-six-year-old day preparing her face, creaming her body, hooking a bra, and doing that thing that women do, touching a part of ourselves we imagine being touched later by a man. In the car on the way to the favorite restaurant, the Tom Waits song "Shiver Me Timbers" came on. "I'm leavin' my family / I'm leavin' all my friends / My body's at home / But my heart's in the wind." Her husband said, Turn it off. Turn it off now. She said why, even though she already knew, it was up in her throat like a horse vitamin. She said, If you are about to say something that's going to crush me, then don't take me to my favorite restaurant and do it to me over wine. Pull over, be a man, and do it now. This story always upsets me. Not because I imagine my parents in these roles. But because I wonder what they'd think if they knew I've been the other woman. |
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| How the Secret Service Handling of Jan. 6 Looks to a Former Agent |
Since the most recent hearing of the January 6 Committee, a lot of talk has focused on new revelations about Vice President Mike Pence's Secret Service detail—namely, that they were concerned enough while holed up with him inside a Capitol under mob attack that they tried to get in contact with their families to say goodbye. But the role of the Secret Service more generally through those fateful days came under the microscope last week with revelations that the agency has failed to produce text records from January 5 and 6, telling the committee that they were lost in a reset of agency systems. We asked Jim Helminski, who was with the Secret Service for the better part of three decades, what exactly he thought was going on here. |
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When I Watch The Bear, I See My Life |
In the last episode of The Bear, Carmy, the chef at the center of the show, is speaking at an Al-Anon meeting. He's there because of his brother, Michael, an addict who killed himself and left Carmy his restaurant. The seven-minute monologue meanders through familiar territory. How food was central to his life and his relationship with his family, and how cooking professionally in fine dining restaurants became a way to try and reconnect to his estranged brother, to raise his self-esteem, to find his place in the world. His description of professional cooking—"My skin was dry and oily at the same time and my stomach was fucked and it was … everything"—hits home. And then he stares at the camera with sad blue eyes and says something unexpected. "I felt like I could speak through the food, communicate through creativity… The deeper into this I went and the better I got, and the more people I cut out, the quieter my life got. And the routine of the kitchen was so consistent and exacting and busy and hard and alive and I lost track of time and he died." I stopped and rewound and watched it again. And again. This was my life. My everything. |
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The Best Books of 2022 (So Far) |
Congratulations, dear reader: we've made it to another great season in books. Whether you read like the wind this spring or fell short of your goals, summer is peak reading season, meaning that it's a new lease on life, a new you, and a whole new slate of releases to devour. Whether you're looking to understand our current moment through rigorous nonfiction or escape it through otherworldly plots, 2022's crop of titles offers something for readers of every persuasion. Our favorite books of the year so far run the gamut of genres, from epic fantasy to literary fiction, and tackle a constellation of subjects. If you want to read about spaceships, talking pigs, or supervillains, you've come to the right place. |
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The smoking wife gestures to the side of the house, where a gate is propped open. "Meet me in back," she says, and quickly closes the front door. The pool guy crosses the yard toward the open gate. He is nonplussed. The pool guy has seen it all. He comes after the party, after the algae bloom, after the divorce. (Mike took care of the pool, I wouldn't know where to start.) He comes when the cover is torn, when the lining is cracked, when the pump has leaked all over the Tesla charging station. (You'll be hearing from my lawyer.) |
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Elon Musk Wanted to Buy Twitter. Or Did He? |
Elon Musk would like to get out of his agreement to purchase Twitter. Many in the business press initially reported that Musk had "terminated" the deal, which is a headline that may have pleased Musk but that Twitter's lawyers would take issue with. He does not have the unfettered power to terminate a binding contract he signed with another party, though this mishigas is likely to put such basic concepts to the test. There seem to be a few possible scenarios for the outcome: 1) Twitter wins its suit against Musk. He has to buy Twitter for $44 billion. 2) Musk gets out of the agreement and pays the stipulated $1 billion penalty to Twitter. 3) Musk gets the agreement thrown out and pays nothing. 4) Twitter and Musk come to a settlement where he buys Twitter for less than $44 billion. 5) Twitter and Musk come to a settlement where he pays a larger penalty than $1 billion. |
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