Rats were leaving Manhattan, hurrying across the bridges in single-file lines. Some went to Westchester, some to Brooklyn. It was the pandemic, and the rats, which had been living off the nourishing trash of New York's densest borough for generations, were as panicked about the closure of restaurants as we were. People were eating three meals a day at home, and the rats were hungry.
Most people recognize this feeling, even if they don't quite know what to call it. You cancel plans because being around others sounds exhausting. The quiet feels like relief. Then, a day later, you feel flat, lonely, or strangely restless. When you do see people again, you enjoy parts of it, but notice how quickly your energy runs out. For many people, this rhythm feels sharper and harder to interpret than it once did.
I can't help but think of this time a year ago when I was looking forward to a party we'd planned. I didn't know it was the last one we'd host for so long. When I look back at what I cherish and miss the most about what we did during pre-pandemic life, gatherings small and large are high on the list.
On Tuesday, Alex Lieberman, an entrepreneur who cofounded Morning Brew, Tenex, and Storyarb, wrote on X that he is "floored" that the majority of job candidates he interviews don't send thank-you notes afterward. "Back when I was interviewing for jobs, it was one of the biggest faux pas to not send a thank you email. Like instant disqualification," he wrote.
50 Blue Moon Ethan Hawke plays with campy brilliance and criminal combover the lyricist Lorenz Hart as he spirals into vinegary jilted despair after his split from Richard Rodgers in this latest collaboration with Richard Linklater. Read the full review. 49 Happyend Dysfunctional Happyend Teen romance and paranoid surveillance collide to dysfunctional effect in Neo Sora's beguiling debut feature set in an oppressive near-future Japan. Read the full review.
When Violet and I finally decided to get married, I was in the middle of a depression so deep it had developed into something more like psychosis. I felt like I was pretending to be myself. I don't mean I was playing "the role" of the husband-to-be, the good son, the whatever. I mean I was going around thinking, What would I do right now if I were Malcolm?
The end of the year is upon us, and it's filled with the usual sights, sounds, and smells. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, hot spice cider brewing on the stove, bells jingling, and of course, gamers arguing around the table. If you are reading this article, you are either a gamer or are getting ready to shop for one on your list. And if you aren't sure what to get them this year, the BGQ crew is here to help.
When we bought a home in Kenwood, a nearby neighborhood in the Maryland suburbs that felt like a Norman Rockwell painting brought to life, we thought we'd be there forever. Then, the coronaviruspandemic hit. The quiet of those months made the ache of distance sharper: birthdays on Zoom, grandparents waving through screens, cousins growing taller without us there to notice.
"So I went in, and nobody was there. And it was transformational," Isaak said. "You walk into that space, and you know you are someplace else. And if you're lucky, you can relinquish all the baggage that you're carrying and just be in that place."
See them at low tide, scallop shells glittering on a scallop-edged shore, whittled by water into curvy rows the shape of waves that kiss the sand only to erode it. Today I walked that shoreline, humming, Camino Santiago, the road to St. James's tomb, where pilgrims traveled, scallop badges on their capes, and chanted prayers for a miracle to cure disease.
In writer / director Julian Glander's new animated sci-fi feature Boys Go to Jupiter, a young gig worker named Billy 5000 ( Planet Money's Jack Corbett) hoverboards his way through life in Florida with only one thing on his mind: he needs $5,000 and is willing to deliver as much food as it takes to make the cash. At first, the delivery guy's semi-magical, "let's get this bread" style of thinking seems to stem from his fixation on a hustlebro streamer's videos.
In Houston, 7% of all listings are at risk of selling for less than homeowners bought them for. This is nearly double the share last year and the fifth highest among the top 50 metros.
During the 2020 lockdowns, comedy transformed as comedians turned to social media, leading to a resurgence of sketch comedy and viral content.
Gethan Dickâs dystopia begins at Elephant and Castle in London, revealing underlying truths and the fragility of civilization amidst a relentless pandemic and societal decay.
In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry articulates that painâs resistance to language not only makes sharing experiences of suffering difficult but also actively destroys the very language we use to convey them.
Los Angeles restaurants continue to face difficult headwinds, starting in 2020 with the onset of a global pandemic, exacerbating with the Hollywood labor strikes in 2023.
