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Today in The New York Review of Books: an anonymous dispatch from Tehran; Pablo Scheffer watches the new generation of tennis stars; Bill McKibben defends Stars and Stripes from Pete Hegseth; Andrew Katzenstein listens to Firesign Theatre’s comedy records; Cathleen Schine reads Steve Stern; Lauren Kane goes to the Cloisters to look at smutty medieval art; and, from the archives, Michael Kimmelman on Andre Agassi.
Anonymous
From the Rooftops of Tehran
We in Iran own our grief, mourning all by ourselves.
Pablo Scheffer
The Tennissance
Two young tennis stars have revived the sport by embodying the sort of athletic-aesthetic duality that made Nadal and Federer so fascinating.
Bill McKibben
Syphoning Morale
The attack on the independence of Stars and Stripes is a window into Hegseth’s unaccountable military.
Andrew Katzenstein
‘Not Insane!’
The Firesign Theatre, a comedy group formed in the 1960s, created surreal albums that mixed satire and science fiction, and inspired a generation of misfits.
Cathleen Schine
The Possibility of Humor
In his novel A Fool’s Kabbalah, Steve Stern writes in a manic whirl of disturbing and hilarious images as he follows the great historian of Jewish mysticism Gershom Scholem on his journey to gather up the remains of a vanished civilization.
Lauren Kane
Indecorous Decorations
Medieval ideas about sex and love, both rowdy and reverent, are recorded on objects meant for everyday use.
Free from the Archives
In today’s newsletter, Pablo Scheffer writes about the end of the Nadal–Federer era of men’s tennis, and the beginning of a new marquee rivalry: Sinner–Alcaraz. A generation ago, in the Review’s June 24, 2010, issue, Michael Kimmelman looked back at the last epochal shift in the sport, when Nadal and Federer eclipsed Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras’s 1990s rivalry.
Michael Kimmelman
Deuce!
The art of tennis, somewhat less obviously, depends on how players shape points by moving the ball around the court to make it arch and zig, devising patterns that from a spectator’s perch map crisscrossing lines. The fan’s pleasure, after a particularly good exchange of shots, stems from redrawing those lines as a memory, every point, like every creative mark on a page with a pencil, being slightly different. Within sameness, there is variety, artists have proved. Athletes have, too.
Recently in the Review
Fintan O’Toole
Signifying Absolutely Nothing
Trump’s war of choice in Iran is a performance of horrific military strength that betrays a stark political weakness.
Yi-Ling Liu
Shenzhen Express
“A chief feature of China’s engineering state is its ability to deliver one crucial thing: material improvements through public works.… Guizhou, though one of China’s poorest provinces, seemed to offer better infrastructure than America’s richest regions.”
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