Just a reminder that my courteous, well-dressed, low-volume newsletter—announcing new pieces of my writing, my occasional public appearances, and nothing else—has been compelled to change platforms. It is now on Substack, and you can sign up here.

I always say the MOST special thing about The New Yorker is that you can read something from fifteen, thirty, seventy years ago, and find it to be as fresh and engrossing and funny and worth your time as a piece from Monday. This is the best periodical archive in the world.

There ought to be a word for the great American tradition of generating an idea you know is ridiculous during the final countdown to a meeting, just to hold space and to show that you are, perhaps, doing something. Feignstorming?

Unexpectedly heartbroken by the death of Tom Stoppard. He was—as a writer with a high-flying career, but also as an artist—the real thing.

A real and alarming loss for CBS News, or any operation. Dickerson is both an irrepressibly responsible journalist and one of the most patient and good-faith colleagues in the industry.

Full Self Driving Supervised drives like the best chauffeur imaginable Try it yourself at a nearby Tesla location

From this week's @newyorker anniversary issue: me on the paragraph-level genius of E. B. White.

The last time I remember seeing portrait banners of this size, no joke, was celebrating Michael Tilson Thomas's arrival as music director of the San Francisco Symphony. A long way, in all respects, from here.

The Glib, Asinine Artlessness of Web Headlines has become too much. Can we go back already to when headlines were good? Who on Earth wants these?

My colleague @zhelfand gets New Yorker fact checking right in this delightful history.

My theory that issues cropping up in San Francisco show up in other major cities two or three years later holds. Here's my @NewYorker piece on the crime-and-collapse narrative that became a political tool there after the pandemic.

I've noted that in "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968), the title character, superrich, described as a man who "has everything," is said at one point to have a net worth of $4 million—around $30 million today. Easy to forget how recently and how wildly the top bracket has ballooned.

I'll just observe that the now-aging idea that people can't deal with traditional textual journalism, want "other platforms," etc., has always been wisdom flowing from the top down, not the ground up. (Can also report public transportation continues to be full of people reading.)

Sleigh the season with the most personal gift around. Get them a Cameo video!

What I find I want in this hard time is sumptuous works of art, patiently and beautifully made, filled with human contact and light—a reminder of what we had and could maybe have again.

In this week's Shouts & Murmurs, an important report from me with details about the new James Bond.

A really lovely writeup of the Martin Amis event a bunch of us did onstage at 92Y a couple of weeks ago, from the Paris Review.

Move fast, ask nothing, learn nothing, break things, go home.

This is this evening, and Salman Rushdie is joining us, too. Looking forward.

A quick note that I'm due to join Jennifer Egan, Jeffrey Eugenides, Lorrie Moore, James Wood, and other bright lights onstage at 92NY next month for an evening of tribute to Martin Amis. Omnia omnibus; consider coming if you can.

Today's news is an important show of strength from Harvard and its leadership in the face of the Administration.

.@nathanheller on Donald Trump’s favoritism grift: the more you give to some people while excoriating others, the more you can manage to take. https://t.co/js3CY8Xa5M

Powerful institutions are bartering their strength away by playing for Trump’s favoritism, but now is not the time to make sacrifices to get ahead, @nathanheller writes.