Arts & Culture
DEEPFAKES—DIGITAL CREATIONS in which people appear to be saying and doing things they never did or said—have been around for a while now, mostly as jokey, obviously satirical clips on the internet. In the past decade, the technology has been widely used in entertainment. Carrie Fisher was faked into Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. A hologram of Tupac Shakur headlined the 2012 Coachella festival, one of Whitney Houston is about to play Vegas, etc. But this year, in Roadrunner, a documentary about the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, a line was crossed.
Unsung Belonging
Serenade is a collaborative album dedicated to LGBTQIA+ youth of faith. Produced by Gretta and Kyle Miller of the band Tow’rs, this multigenre and multiartist project explores the “hope and heartbreak” of living as a queer person of faith. Beloved Arise Media.
I WOULDN'T WISH on anyone the narrative dilemma facing the writers of United States of Al. The CBS show is a buddy comedy about a young Afghan man who finally gets a visa to come to the U.S., thanks to a Marine, Riley, for whom he was an interpreter during the Afghanistan War, whose life he saved, and with whom he’s living in the States. But United States of Al’s second season, with an Oct. 7 premiere, may need to encompass even more grief than its predecessor. The U.S. has withdrawn from Afghanistan, and the Taliban has taken over. We’ve seen the video of Afghan people trying to hold on to a U.S. military plane as it takes off, the clip ending right before some of them fall. Human remains were later found in the plane’s wheel well. What will happen when United States of Al’s protagonist sees that video?
ONE DOES NOT need to look hard to find a new myth forming about the great beyond. The narrative is that space travel will solve our woes—specifically the woes of racial capitalism. And this myth is appearing everywhere, in reality and fiction.
Take, for example, billionaire Richard Branson’s comments before Virgin Galactic’s suborbital mission in early July.
“Imagine a world where people of all ages, all backgrounds from anywhere, of any gender, or any ethnicity have equal access to space,” Branson told the press. “And they will in turn, I think, inspire us back here on Earth.”
Branson and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos are in a 21st century space race, trying to justify their extreme spending to commercialize the cosmos with the idea that space travel can dissolve a litany of struggles.
The new space race is not so different from the first—the winner advances their power and reach. Between the 1950s and 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union raced to space, then to the moon, largely for the same reason. The U.S., it might be said, won the space race by being the first to the moon (and we are still the only nation to have ever put people on the moon).
But what if things were different? This is the question explored by For All Mankind (Apple TV+), which released its second season in April. It is an exploration of a world in which the Soviets win the race to the moon, thereby extending the space race in perpetuity. The first season takes place in the ’70s, the second jumps to 1983, and the decade-jump trend will continue for all seven seasons, according to the creators.
“Trying to make our lives meaningful all the time is so stupid,” says Kate Bowler. “We can’t make every minute into a moment. Sometimes you just have to pay bills and show up for your friend and listen to her talk again about whether she should dump her boyfriend — and she should — and be in a faculty meeting and be in traffic.”
While living on a farm in Georgia, I signed up to take care of the goats. It was the only farm chore that allowed me to sleep in. The duties were odd and specific: I had to check their butts for signs of dysentery and their eyes — which, like sheep, can see in every direction at the same time — for infection. For weeks, I fed one goat a whole head of molasses-soaked garlic every day to cure her of mastitis. But mainly, I just counted them. Which is harder to do than you might imagine.
I have always been fascinated by heists. Maybe it was a youthful desire to sneak out and trick my parents (a desire that led me to failure every single time). Maybe is was the bravado and beauty of Neal Caffrey (played by Matt Bomer) on White Collar. Whatever it was, it was a fascination I put to rest as I matured to value integrity and simplicity.
A biopic about Tammy Faye Messner, better known as Tammy Faye Bakker, is ripe for caricature. That face, covered with a rainbow of lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara. That voice, with its exaggerated Upper Midwest accent. Those televangelism broadcasts, where puppet shows and hymns were followed by direct pleas for money from Tammy Faye and her first husband, Jim Bakker. She’s an easy figure to ridicule. But The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a new biopic that shares its name with Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s 2000 documentary, blessedly avoids this trap.
On launch day, Meghan Fitzmartin, one of the writers for the issue (along with Joshua Williamson, Matthew Rosenberg, and Chip Zdarsky) tweeted, “My goal in writing has been and will always be to show just how much God loves you. You are so incredibly loved and important and seen…”
I often think about utopias as I unload the dishwasher.
How we respond to an emergency says a lot about who we are. This week, faith-based groups started organizing for disaster relief before Hurricane Ida even made landfall, while health clinics in Texas did their best to help everyone they could before a new law imposed a state-wide ban on abortions.
With his knife, brightly colored paper, and the meditations of his heart, Benjamin PowerGriffin cuts “what prayer feels like, or what I yearn for it to feel like,” he said.
The only solution to this noisy world is good noise from people who are attuned to the world’s hurt.
Lost in much of the promotional hype leading up to Solar Power was the quiet news that in the interim between her previous album and her latest, Lorde had started therapy. Famously private, she didn’t share much more than that, but she doesn’t need to — and anyway, the new sonic landscape of the album speaks for itself. Whereas the propulsive and explosive beats of Melodrama mirrored the rhythm of thoughts racing out of your control, the bubbly basslines of Solar Power reflect the steady progression of growth she’s experienced in the years since.
Whenever I am writing, editing, or reading, it feels wrong to be without a cup of coffee (black, no sugar). I know I am not the only editor who feels this way. [Editor’s note: Can confirm] Also, I feel confident in speaking for the editorial team when I say the 10 stories we have picked for you this week are best enjoyed with a piping-hot cup of joe.
Questions to help you use your privilege for the flourishing of all.
Christianity leaves a lot to interpretation — both biblically and apparently, culinarily.
Respect is a must-see work, moving in its revelation of a superstar whose glow many of us have seen, the shadows surrounding them more hidden from view. Ms. Franklin was not just an incredible singer but also a civil rights activist like her father.
The absurd hope found in Zillow-ing during the pandemic.