| | | In today’s newsletter, Inkoo Kang on the year in TV. But, first, a new kind of prosthetic limb depends on carbon fibre and computer chips—and the reëngineering of muscles, tendons, and bone. Rivka Galchen reports. Plus: • The disappointment of Spotify Wrapped
• Kendrick Lamar had a great year
• Are you overreacting? | | | | | Rivka Galchen
Staff writer As a kid, I found a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat charming and adorable. But when a magician would say, “Think about a number,” and then, after a bit of chatty buildup, tell me that I was thinking about the three of clubs—and I was!—that mind-reading was thrilling. The paper in Nature Medicine that inspired my piece in this week’s issue was titled, with the classic flat affect of scientific journals, “Continuous Neural Control of a Bionic Limb Restores Biomimetic Gait After Amputation.” It describes a leg prosthesis that can move as a brain wants it to move, one that follows the directions of both the conscious and the unconscious. Or, you might say, a leg that can read its user’s mind. There was no “magic trick” I was more keen to understand. As is often the case in science, learning in detail how something works doesn’t diminish the feeling of mystery but instead expands and refines it. Visiting Hugh Herr’s Biomechatronics Group at M.I.T.’s Media Lab—where they are working on mind-reading appendages—was the beginning of a redirection of my wonder. When I started reporting this story, my attention was on marvels made of wires and metal. Soon my focus shifted to the more awesome and everyday capacities we tend not to notice—those of the human body, and the human mind. | | | | | Dept. of Reflection |  2024 in Review The Best TV Shows of 2024 In an otherwise bleak year for television, a few truly great entries shone all the more brightly. By Inkoo Kang |  2024 in Review Kendrick Lamar’s Year on Top What has made Lamar both fascinating and a bit dangerous is the fact that he doesn’t seem to desire anything that his peers have. By Hanif Abdurraqib | | | | | | | | The Lede | Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today.  Illustration by Nicholas Konrad / The New Yorker Spotify Wrapped disappointed this year. Users criticized the app’s use of A.I., its alleged distorted data, and its uninspired presentation. “To dispirited fans,” Brady Brickner-Wood writes, “Spotify Wrapped suddenly seems less like an honoring of personal taste and more an ingenious user-generated content farm that benefits the bottom line and brand recognition of a corporation chiefly concerned with profit margins and squashing its competition.” Read the story » | | | | | Our journalism relies on your support. If you believe in fearless, fair, and fact-checked reporting, please subscribe today. | | | | | | Joshua Rothman | |  Illustration by Josie Norton “In an increasingly provocative world,” Joshua Rothman writes, “many of us seek to manage our emotions.” The Internet, with Reddit forums such as r/AmIOverreacting, offers places to channel our reactivity. Mindfulness helps, too. Rothman reflects on how modern life has become dense with reactivity—and with solutions to it. Read the column » Joshua Rothman’s column, Open Questions, publishes every Tuesday. | | | |  | If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter, please share it. Was it forwarded to you? Sign up. | | | | In the News | | The poet Nikki Giovanni died yesterday, at the age of eighty-one. She had been contributing poems to the magazine for decades, including her most recent, “The Sterling Silver Mirror,” from last week’s issue. | | | | Culture Dept. | Books Paul Valéry Would Prefer Not ToIn his early novella, “Monsieur Teste,” the great French poet created an alter ego even more aloof and elusive than he was. By Benjamin Kunkel | | | | | Fun & Games Dept. |  Crossword A Moderately Challenging Puzzle Baseball’s Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp or Sugar Land Space Cowboys: seven letters. By Erik Agard |  Daily Cartoon Tuesday, December 10th By Lars Kenseth | | | | |  | 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. “Tenth of December,” a short story by George Saunders published in the magazine in 2011, follows a “pale boy with unfortunate Prince Valiant bangs and cublike mannerisms” on a frosty day as he attempts to retrieve Suzanne Bledsoe, a new girl in homeroom, from the creatures who have kidnapped her. The creatures, called Netherworlders, “planned to use her to repopulate their depleted numbers and bake various things they did not know how to bake.” 🥧 | | | | Hannah Jocelyn contributed to this edition. | | | | | | | |
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