| | | | | Fifty years ago, a Kansas family picked up a hitchhiker on their way to Iowa. What happened on that drive became part of literary history.  Illustration by Nicholas Konrad / The New Yorker “On the evening of April 20, 1972, Craig and Janice Eckhart loaded several bags of luggage into a Buick in Wichita, Kansas, and put their two daughters—four-year-old Lori and year-old Cindy—in the back seat,” Ted Geltner writes. Along the winding and treacherous road through Missouri toward Iowa, the family picked up a hitchhiker—a young man, rain-soaked, bound for Iowa City. In an artful and engrossing essay, Geltner pieces together what happened next—how a traumatic car crash unfolded, who the hitchhiker eventually became, and how the Eckharts fared in the following years—and unravels the afterlife of the event in literature and film. Let’s just say it involves the writer Denis Johnson, a short story that was published in The Paris Review in 1989, and a meeting of strangers, fifty years after the crash. —Jessie Li, newsletter editor | | | | | Join us in New York City all weekend for conversations, performances, and more, featuring leading talents including the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Seats remain for a few select events. See the lineup and get tickets. | | | | From the News Desk |  A Critic at Large Has the C.I.A. Done More Harm Than Good?In the agency’s seventy-five years of existence, a lack of accountability has sustained dysfunction, ineptitude, and lawlessness. By Amy Davidson Sorkin | | | | | Letter from Biden’s Washington Will Abortion Be Enough to Save Democrats in November?With Republicans strong on the economy, it’s not clear how much any other issue will matter. By Susan B. Glasser | | Annals of Technology How NASA Launched Its Asteroid KillerThe DART mission, in which a spacecraft knocked an asteroid off course, is a rehearsal for saving the world. By David W. Brown | | Politics and More Podcast Pro-Life, with One Exception—for Herschel WalkerThe Republican Party’s support for the football star’s Senate campaign—even after an abortion scandal—shows that, on the right, personal conduct matters far less than retaking power. | | | | | | | Culture Dept. |  Tables for Two Rejoicing in the Return of Great N.Y. Noodletown The beloved fifty-eight-year-old Chinatown Cantonese restaurant has reopened after a renovation. The roast duck, salt-baked soft-shell crab, and ginger-scallion noodles taste better than ever. By Hannah Goldfield |  Our Columnists How Netflix’s “Mo” Evades the Usual Representation Traps A lesser show might have tried to make the titular character a bit more likable, or, perhaps, implanted within him a desire to explain his culture to the rest of the world. By Jay Caspian Kang | |  The Current Cinema The Persuasive Potency of “Decision to Leave” With a restraint absent from Park Chan-wook’s early work, this tale of a cop obsessed with a female suspect is a true romance that verges on the tragic. By Anthony Lane |  The Front Row “Triangle of Sadness,” Reviewed: We’re on a Yacht and We’re Puking Ruben Östlund’s class satire strains to look more audacious than it is. By Richard Brody | | | | | Fun & Games Dept. |  Name Drop Play Today’s Quiz Can you guess the notable person in six clues or fewer? By Will Nediger |  Daily Shouts Pavlov’s Neighbor Has Had It “Every day, for months now, I have watched you lead a pack of dogs into your laboratory, only for the dinging to commence.” By Nate Odenkirk | |  Crossword A Themed Puzzle Today’s theme: An exercise in futility. By Emily Carroll |  Daily Cartoon Friday, October 7th By Drew Dernavich | | | | | | P.S. “In 1994, when I was five years old, I appeared in a children’s production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Cats,’ in Houston, playing a nondescript black chorus cat with the noncanonical moniker of Peaseblossom,” Jia Tolentino writes, on the baffling cultural phenomenon of the musical “Cats,” which opened on Broadway forty years ago today, and enjoyed a run of nearly eighteen years. The initial response to the musical was mixed—the Boston Globe wrote, sparingly, “ ‘Cats’ is a dog.”—but, Tolentino notes, “this didn’t matter: the show minted money.” 🐱 | | | | Today’s newsletter was written by Jessie Li. | | | | | | | |
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