Lena Dunham’s Next Move

Plus: Joe Biden fights back; leading the Smithsonian through the culture wars; and France’s election shock. View in browser | Update your preferences Tuesday, July 9, 2024 In today’s newsletter, Lena Dunham is a recovering workaholic, and then: • The President fights back—but against whom? • How Lonnie G. Bunch III is transforming the Smithsonian • The shocking results of the French election Lena Dunham’s Change of Pace From her home base in London, the “Girls” creator is working on a new semi-autobiographical TV series and finishing up a memoir. But, she says, “I definitely don’t want to be my own muse.” Photographs by Charlotte Hadden for The New Yorker Lena Dunham has always been a city person. She made a quintessential New York show in the twenty-tens, and is now living an expat existence in North London with her husband, Luis Felber. She sat down with Rachel Syme, over avocado salad and potato rösti at a brasserie near her home, to talk about Taylor Swift, the “Girls” resurgence among Gen Z viewers, her upcoming self-referential show starring Meg Stalter, writing about sex, and more. “For better or worse, I’ve never been obsessed with other people’s perceptions of me,” Dunham says, “but I have always been obsessed with being able to do my thing.” Read the interview Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » More from the Interviews Issue The New Yorker Interview How Lonnie G. Bunch III Is Renovating the “Nation’s Attic” The secretary of the Smithsonian discusses topics including tense panda negotiations, his first job after graduate school, show-and-tell, accusations of anti-white racism, his Jersey roots, and his creed—“Thou shalt not tattle, whine, or pout.” The Smithsonian, Bunch notes, “has always been able to rise above the political moment.” By Julian Lucas Further reading: In 2016, Vinson Cunningham reported on Lonnie Bunch’s leadership in the construction of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a Smithsonian Institution on the National Mall, in Washington, D.C. The museum, Cunningham wrote, “will need to borrow the tactics of art: a long and steady gaze, a bravery uncommon in bureaucracy, and a conception of experience not as a lens but as something that we must continue, indefinitely, to excavate—interpreting as we dig.” If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter, please share it. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up. From the News Desk Daily Comment Joe Biden Is Fighting Back—but Not Against Trump, Really In his efforts to demonstrate vigor, is the President finding his voice or losing his way? By Benjamin Wallace-Wells Daily Comment What Lessons Do the Stunning Results of the French Election Offer? President Macron’s gamble in fighting the far right has to be declared, if not a success, at least not an absolute failure. By Adam Gopnik Fun & Games Dept. Crossword A Chatty Puzzle Today’s theme: Any last words? By Emily Carroll Shouts & Murmurs A Quick Refresher on the High-School Math You’ve Forgotten It’s good to know pi to at least twenty decimal places, in case a math sergeant ever asks you to drop and give them twenty digits of pi. By Adam Douglas Thompson Daily Cartoon Tuesday, July 9th By Ivan Ehlers 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. Con Ed keeps asking us to use as little energy as possible, but for many people it is hard to imagine a time before air-conditioning. In the late nineties, Arthur Miller described the un-cooled world of his youth. “Every window in New York was open, and on the streets venders manning little carts chopped ice and sprinkled colored sugar over mounds of it for a couple of pennies,” he writes. “We kids would jump onto the back steps of the slow-moving, horse-drawn ice wagons and steal a chip or two; the ice smelled vaguely of manure but cooled palm and tongue.” 🧊 Today’s newsletter was written by Hannah Jocelyn. What did you think of today’s newsletter? Let us know. If you like the daily newsletter, browse more New Yorker newsletters. You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the daily newsletter from The New Yorker. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2024. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.