Strange things are happening up in the sky. First, a windstorm blows in, so powerful that roof after roof is torn from its joists and sails off into the night; the few brave souls who venture outdoors fill their pockets with iron and brass to keep from being swept away. No sooner does the gale die down than a flock of wild birds materializes overhead-"wild" not only because they are untamed but also because they are outlandish. Some fly upside down; others have dense, tangled fur, like bison; still others have no bodies at all, only magnificently ornamented tails, like peacocks. After the birds, a comet appears on the far edge of the firmament, destined by its trajectory destroy our planet. Every night, people gather to gape at it, and, every night, the sky across which it courses grows less familiar and more dazzling-filled with distant nebulae and exploding suns and roamed by the constellations, as if they have finally been freed from their ancient curses.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 25, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 25, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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INSIDE JOB-"Hit Man"
Years before Hannah Arendt coined, in the pages of this magazine, the phrase \"the banality of evil,\" popular films and fiction were embodying that idea in the character of the hit man. In classic crime movies such as \"This Gun for Hire\" (1942) and \"Murder by Contract\" (1958), hit men figure much as Nazis do in political movies, as symbols of abstract evil.
WHATEVER YOU SAY
Rereading Jenny Holzer, at the Guggenheim.
SUBCONSCIOUSLY YOURS
Does every generation get the Freud it deserves?
BY A WHISKER
Louis Wain and the reinvention of the cat.
Beyond Imagining
Bessie, Lotte, Ruth, Farah, and Bridget, who had been lunching together for half a century, joined in later years by Ilka, Hope, and, occasionally, Lucinella, had agreed without the need for discussion that they were not going to pass, pass away, and under no circumstances on.
STATES OF PLAY
Can advocates use state supreme courts to preserve-and perhaps expand-constitutional rights?
THE LONG RIDE
The surf legend Jock Sutherland's unlikely life.
ARE WE DOOMED?
A course at the University of Chicago thinks it through.
GOD EXPLAINS THE RULES OF HIS NEW BOARD GAME
Guys, want to play this new board game? It’s called Life. No, it’s not “one of God’s impossible-to-understand games that take three hours to learn.” It’ll be fun, I promise!
RED LINE
With the election approaching, the U.S. and Mexico wrangle over border policy.