Summer he was 9
going on 10, suddenly
he had one:
chin tucked
into the leading shoulder,
the body at once lifted high
and crouched;
something in the thighs
was attached
to the ground
yet there was an upward
determination in the elbow—
a boy could be pulled
skyward and earthward at once,
could be, like the bat,
expectant, not quite still,
quivering with intent
to circle and strike a note;
his hands fused to the wood
and wrists braced as though
screwing tight or about to
unscrew the lid of a jar
(

Last month, the French striker Kylian Mbappé recorded the 22nd goal of his World Cup career during the bronze-medal match, establishing himself, at the age of 27, as the greatest scorer in tournament history. Even though the French national team, Les Bleus, failed to win the championship, Mbappé has become one of the country’s two most celebrated figures.

At 10 p.m. in early July, Long Island was sweltering under a heat dome. As bedroom lights dimmed and heavy clouds rolled in, a raccoon ambled onto the porch of a split-level home, found a crack in a sliding door, and slipped inside. He tongue-polished a lasagna tray on the floor near the kitchen counter before waddling back into the damp fug of the summer night.
Soon after, a raccoon with a facial scar and a thin tail entered, ate a snack, and flopped down for a nap.

Last May, President Trump held an “intimate” dinner at his members-only golf club in Virginia for the top-220 investors in $TRUMP, a meme coin he launched days before the start of his second term that, by the end of 2025, would generate $636 million for him. About 100 protesters gathered outside in rain jackets, baseball caps, and muddy sneakers to confront the dinner guests arriving in shiny dress shoes, tuxedos, and black Cadillac SUVs.

The conductor is a con artist. Or: The conductor is God. Musicians frequently encounter both of these extreme views of music’s most mysterious profession. It’s not surprising that conductors elicit suspicion as well as adulation. The very act of conducting—waving a wand to summon ravishing or ethereal or earsplitting sounds—can look like either inexplicable magic or embarrassing nonsense, a kind of tuxedoed air guitar.