The Broadway musical astonishes us by its continued existence. Thrown off balance first by the talkies, then by television—not to mention the pop-music revolution of the sixties, which quickly made its narrative style (set, scene, song, repeat) seem dated... See more
Illustration by Ben Kothe; Source photographs from Getty What are we to make of the promised new American passport? And what was wrong, one might ask, with the old one? Though nearly half of all U.S. citizens seem never to have held, or even applied for a... See more
Follow An Ode to the Ampersand Adam Gopnik Fri, August 21, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC 7 min read Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. An Ode to the Ampersand The words of a language are its characters; its grammar shapes their c... See more
The words of a language are its characters; its grammar shapes their community. Punctuation is left to provide the ceremonies of language: joining and divorcing its parts, fine-tuning its relationships, revealing its hidden connections. The period, for in... See more
St. Paul Remade Human History. How Did He Do It? If Western civilization were asked, in the terms of the old Reader’s Digestcolumn, to name the Most Unforgettable Character It Ever Met, it would surely answer, with a single, sighing voice: Paul. Not Sir P... See more
