Arts & Life

Dear listeners, This week, there has been joy neither in Mudville nor in Queens — home of the New York Mets, a team enjoying a catastrophically disappointing 2023 season. The Mets began the year with high hopes for a deep postseason run and with an even higher payroll (somewhere near …

Dear listeners, Happy August. It’s the month of out-of-office auto replies, finally breaking heat waves, and — if the songs about August are to believed, anyway — waning summer romances. After an especially brutal July, we’re finally enjoying some pleasant summer weather here in New York. I’m celebrating by going …

Dear listeners, A long awaited day has finally arrived: the cinematic collision of matter and antimatter represented by the two biggest and perhaps most thematically divergent summer blockbusters opening on the same date. To all who celebrate, a very happy Barbenheimer to you. The conversation around “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” runs …

Dear listeners, If you’re anything like me, you’ve already spent way too much of this summer in airports.* Flight delays are up, and the recent spate of severe weather hasn’t exactly helped. This means you’re going to need something to listen to while killing time in the terminal. Brian Eno …

Dear listeners, Last weekend, I traveled to Toronto to catch the first North American date of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour. I returned home feeling like the human incarnation of the starry-eyed emoji (so many sparkles!) and with a new appreciation for “Renaissance,” the loose and sprawling album that Beyoncé released …

July 13, 2023, 11:17 a.m. ET July 13, 2023, 11:17 a.m. ET Members of the actors’ union came out to support the television and movie writers who went on strike in May.Credit…Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock Though Hollywood had been bracing for a writers’ strike since the beginning of the year …

July 12, 2023, 10:30 a.m. ET July 12, 2023, 10:30 a.m. ET “Succession,” a two-time best drama winner, appears to be a lock for an outstanding drama nomination at the Emmys this year.Credit…Macall B. Polay/HBO Last year, the HBO hit “Succession” led all series with the most nominations for the …

Dear listeners, Whenever I put together one of these monthly collections of “songs you should hear now,” culled from our weekly new music Playlists, my brain leaps to the “Now That’s What I Call Music!” font. Do you remember those compilations? I’m guessing you do, because a quick scan of …

Dear listeners, At last, the season of late sunsets, languid beach days and endless barbecues is upon us. This calls for a playlist. Today’s genre-crossing collection could definitely work as a soundtrack to your upcoming Fourth of July party, and there are a few references to Independence Day sprinkled here …

Dear listeners, For six of the past seven summers, I’ve spent a long weekend visiting college friends in northern Ohio — a part of the country with which I was previously unfamiliar but has now come to feel like a home away from home. A highlight of these trips is …