| | | In today’s newsletter, the critic Justin Chang recommends another movie you might enjoy if you like “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” But, first, David Sedaris’s story about his visit to the Vatican. Plus: • Bill McKibben tours a flowering solar field
• An election analyst on Black support of Trump
• Lead poisoning in Oakland’s schools | | | | | I thought that the e-mailed invitation was spam. “Nice try, Russia,” I said to my laptop screen. But the Pope really did want to meet with comics and humorists.  Illustration by Mikel Jaso; Source photographs from Getty In June, with three days’ notice, David Sedaris was summoned to the Vatican to meet the Pope—along with Stephen Colbert, Tig Notaro, Whoopi Goldberg, and a hundred or so other notable names. The visit is not what he’d imagined it would be, but he turns the trip around with an outing, accompanied by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, to a centuries-old, bespoke tailoring business that’s been dressing the Pope and his associates for generations. There he buys a black cassock—“It takes ten pounds off!”—complete with a Roman collar and two fascias. The only remaining question? What to wear underneath. Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | | | | From the News Desk |  Q. & A. How Kamala Harris’s Coalition Changes the Race for CongressThe elections analyst Dave Wasserman assesses Black support for Donald Trump and explains a state-level primary that’s a national bellwether. By Isaac Chotiner | | | | | | The Lede | A daily column on what you need to know.  Photograph by Christof Stache / AFP / Getty Bill McKibben visits a solar field in Vermont, where a company called Bee the Change has planted pollinator-attracting plants in the rows between the panels. Flies, wasps, hornets, and hummingbirds flit among goldenrod, mountain mint, evening primrose, black-eyed Susan, echinacea, and joe-pye weed. “The theory is that we face two crises—climate change and the rapid loss of biodiversity,” McKibben writes, “and that the same patch of land might be used to address them both.” Read more » | | | |  | If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter, please share it. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up. | | | | | | | Our Columnists |  Fault Lines What Do Progressive Parents Owe Their Public Schools? A lead-poisoning scandal in Oakland underscores a growing sense of hopelessness among families who are committed to school integration. By Jay Caspian Kang |  Letter from Biden’s Washington Can Red-Baiting Save Trump’s Flailing Campaign? On “Comrade Kamala” and the ex-President’s last-century approach to winning in 2024. By Susan B. Glasser | | | | | The Critic Recommends | | Justin Chang
Staff writer  A still from David Lowery’s “A Ghost Story.” | Photograph from A24 / Entertainment Pictures / Alamy One of the sneaky pleasures of Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice” (1988) and its new sequel, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which I reviewed this week, is that, beneath their gleefully macabre comic trappings, they’re both fundamentally movies about marriage—what it means to be joined with, or cut off from, a soulmate, in the great beyond or in the earthbound here and now. David Lowery’s quietly haunting independent drama “A Ghost Story” (2017) achieves a sparer, more sombre exploration of the same idea, with deadpan comic flourishes of its own. For much of the movie, we are following a recently deceased man (Casey Affleck), as he silently wanders the home he once shared with his wife (Rooney Mara); in a way, they share it still, but she can no longer see him. We can see him, though, as he wears a white sheet with two holes for eyes—a Halloween-costume notion of a ghost, but one that deepens, rather than diminishes, the poignancy of the couple’s separation. Lowery’s filmmaking is modest in its means, exquisite in its effects, and utterly wrenching in its totality; he’s made an intimately scaled love story that pries open a window to eternity. | | | | Culture Dept. | On Television Monkey Business in “Chimp Crazy”People who claim to love chimpanzees the most are examined in the new HBO docuseries. By Vinson Cunningham | | The Wayward Press The Magazine for Mercenaries Enters Polite SocietySusan Katz Keating, the editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune, discusses how she’s changing the publication and assesses the threat of political violence. By Mark Yarm | | | | | Fun & Games Dept. |  Mini Crossword A Bite-size Puzzle Trash-can-dwelling grouch with a pet worm named Slimey: five letters. By Kate Chin Park |  Daily Cartoon Friday, September 6th By Ali Solomon | | | | |  | Name Drop: Can you guess the identity of a notable person—contemporary or historical—in six clues? Play a quiz from our archive » | | | | | P.S. New York Fashion Week starts today. Almost a decade ago, the photographer Lauren Lancaster shadowed four male models as they were shuttled from their temporary rental apartment, in Bushwick, to castings, fittings, and shows throughout the city. The result is a behind-the-scenes look at some very nice people to look at. 📷 | | | | | | | |
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