WE’VE DEVOTED an issue to New York City and visited the West Coast many times, but don’t wish to fall into the familiar trap of neglecting the part of…More

“BLACK LIVES MATTER” started as a slogan, a response to a spate of police killings of unarmed black men in 2014, a rebuttal to the message that Black lives were expendable. The slogan turned into a movement, re-awakened last year by the murder of George Floyd, and the phrase “BLM” came to mean more than “Please don’t kill us.” It’s a reminder of the vast contributions that African-Americans have made to every field of endeavor.

THE working title for this issue was “Who’s Zooming Whom?” with apologies to Aretha Franklin, who had a hit song by that name in the 1980s (minus a “g”…More

SO, A NEW LOGO and a new cover design. The old heading, which spelled out our name in full, lasted for 25 years and served us well. But it was time for a change.

From the Editor

BY “MYTHOLOGIES” I mean something like what Roland Barthes had in mind in his book by that name: not myths in the sense of tall tales but something closer to metaphors or theories used to explain natural or social phenomena. Modern mythologies tend to be wrapped in a patina of science, or perhaps pseudo-science, as various accounts arise to explain, say, homosexuality or gender variance.

ON JUNE 15th, in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 6-to-3 vote that discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal.

THIS WOULD normally be our quadrennial Election Issue, which in the past (starting in 1996) always led with an essay by former Congressman Barney Frank. Producing this issue was always a challenge, as it goes to press in late July, and a lot can happen in three-plus months even in an ordinary year.

THIS ISSUE’S THEME does not refer to the long-running Off-Broadway play The Fantasticks but instead to a collection of writers and artists who might better be described as “fantasists”: those…More