Waking Up from the American Dream

Plus: Masha Gessen on the Sackler family and their own; the Beethoven Year; and have we already been visited by aliens? View in browser | Update your preferences Personal History Waking Up from the American Dream Growing up undocumented, I learned that the price of my innocence was the guilt of my parents. By Karla Cornejo Villavicencio Books Have We Already Been Visited by Aliens? An eminent astrophysicist argues that signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life have appeared in our skies. What’s the evidence for his extraordinary claim? By Elizabeth Kolbert Our Columnists The Sackler Family and Mine The descendants of the Purdue Pharma founders debated over WhatsApp. Meanwhile, bottles of painkillers accumulated in my medicine cabinet. By Masha Gessen Cultural Comment Keep Beethoven Weird We’ve put the scowling composer in a box. By Alex Ross Dept. of Guts An Untested Source of Pandemic Data? The Sewer By looking at what people flush down their toilets, Biobot Analytics can track the spread of COVID-19. By Sheelah Kolhatkar Dept. of Invention How Jacob Collier Found a Key That Doesn’t Exist The British singer, who has three Grammy nominations for “Djesse Vol. 3,” met Quincy Jones after his chord-happy reboot of a Stevie Wonder song went viral. By Sarah Larson Cover Story Barry Blitt’s “A Weight Lifted” The artist discusses visual metaphors for America, the longevity of political cartoons, and Trumps elsewhere, for this week’s issue of the magazine. By Françoise Mouly Humor from The New Yorker Daily Shouts Twenty-seven MAGA Definitions to Send It Off Mar-A-Gulago Awaits—Make America Great Again (simply by going away). By Jay Martel Blitt’s Kvetchbook Trump’s Boundless Benevolence . . . and you get a pardon, and you get a pardon, and you get a pardon! By Barry Blitt Daily Cartoon Tuesday, January 19th By Hartley Lin This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To insure delivery, we recommend adding newyorker@newsletters.newyorker.com, to your contacts, while noting that it is a no-reply address. Please send all newsletter feedback to tnyinbox@newyorker.com. For more from The New Yorker, sign up for our newsletters, shop the store, and sign in to newyorker.com, where subscribers always have unlimited access. Contact us with questions. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.