Today's Liberal News

Megan Garber

What Matthew Perry Knew About Comedy

In a sixth-season episode of Friends, members of the group make what they consider to be a horrifying discovery: Chandler Bing can’t cry. The revelation comes through a fluke (they’re watching E.T. and, confronted with the adorable alien, Chandler’s eyes stay dry). But the situation, as it so often does on Friends, quickly escalates. Before long, Joey is accusing his best friend of being “dead inside.” Monica is interrogating her husband, trawling for tears.

The Candy You (Probably) Won’t Get to Try

A car stopped at a red light, next to a line of people that snaked around the block. The kid in the passenger seat rolled down the window and shouted the obvious question: “What’s this for?” He got a quick reply, if not a full explanation: “It’s the mustard Skittles, man!”This week, to promote its new, limited-edition flavor—a collaboration with French’s mustard—Skittles turned candy into an event in downtown Washington, D.C.

The Everyday Genius of Shakespeare in Love

Earlier this year, Google introduced a chat application powered by artificial intelligence—an experimental competitor to ChatGPT and a tool that it hoped, per its marketing copy, would “be a home for your creativity, productivity and curiosity.” Understanding that some potential users might be less sanguine about a technology that blurs the line between the augmentation of human intelligence and the obsolescence of it, Google gave its new bot a canny name: Bard.

The Real Lesson of The Truman Show

Truman Burbank, the unwitting star of the world’s most popular TV show, is supposed to be an everyman. The Truman Show is set in an island town, Seahaven, that evokes the prefab conformities of American suburbia. Truman is a brand in a setting that is stridently generic. Since his birth, he has navigated a world manufactured—by Christof, the creator of his show—for lucrative inoffensiveness.

The Real Hero of Ted Lasso

Ted Lasso, like an athlete meeting the moment, peaked at the right time. The show premiered during the waning months of Donald Trump’s presidency; against that backdrop, its positivity felt like catharsis, its soft morals a rebuke. Soon, Ted Lasso was winning fans and Emmys. Articles were heralding it as an answer to our ills. The accolades recognized the brilliance of a show that weaves Dickensian plots with postmodern wit. But they were also concessions. Kindness should not be radical.

Road Rage Is Relevant Again. SNL Just Proved It.

Here’s one more piece of evidence that the ’90s have returned: Road rage is back in style. Stories of people who turned traffic frustrations into acts of violence were mainstays of that decade, rendered in news and in pop culture. A little bit true crime, a little bit morality tale, they captured the moment’s creeping suspicion that life was much less stable than it might have seemed.

George Santos, the GOP’s Useful Liar

After President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address last night, George Santos offered his appraisal of the proceedings. “SOTU category is: GASLIGHTING!” the representative pronounced in a tweet.The review was curious, coming as it did from a man who has fabricated much of his own biography.

A Grim New Low for Internet Sleuthing

On November 13, 2022, four students from the University of Idaho—Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Madison Mogen—were found dead in the house that the latter three rented near campus. Each had been stabbed, seemingly in bed. Two other students lived in the house, and were apparently in their rooms that night; they were unharmed.From the public’s standpoint, the case had few leads at first: an unknown assailant, an unknown motive.

The SNL Sketch That Perfectly Mocks Our Upside-Down Reality

Earlier this week, Merriam-Webster announced its 2022 word of the year: gaslighting. The dictionary’s selection of the term—defined as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for one’s own advantage”—was in part a response to public demand: Searches for gaslighting rose by 1,740 percent over the past 12 months. That interest might reflect the fact that gaslighting describes so much, so efficiently.

Make America Remember Again

“There were officers on the ground,” Caroline Edwards testified Thursday evening, during the first public hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the events of the January 6 insurrection. The Capitol Police officer was describing the violence she observed as she attempted to defend the building from the mob. She described her fellow officers, outnumbered and outmatched: “They were bleeding,” she said. “They were throwing up.

Make America Remember Again

“There were officers on the ground,” Caroline Edwards testified Thursday evening, during the first public hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the events of the January 6 insurrection. The Capitol Police officer was describing the violence she observed as she attempted to defend the building from the mob. She described her fellow officers, outnumbered and outmatched: “They were bleeding,” she said. “They were throwing up.

The Amber Heard–Johnny Depp Trial Is Not a Joke

The first time it happened, she said, she thought it was a joke. On the stand in her defamation trial a few weeks ago, the actor Amber Heard shared her account of the first time her now-ex-husband, Johnny Depp, allegedly hit her. She’d asked him about one of his tattoos: the one on his bicep (the one he’d famously had edited) that to her looked like a muddle of black ink. The tattoo spelled out wino, she said he told her.

Knocked Up and the American Impulse to Edit Out Abortion

Early in Knocked Up, Ben Stone (played by Seth Rogen) tells his friends that a one-night stand has ended in pregnancy. Ben’s friend Jonah (Jonah Hill) offers him advice on the matter. “It rhymes with shma-shmortion,” Jonah says. “I’m just saying … you should get a shma-shmortion at the shma-shmortion clinic.”Knocked Up is now 15 years old. It premiered in 2007, a product of raunch culture and one of its bards, the director Judd Apatow.

The Great Fracturing of American Attention

Last month, as Delta Flight 1580 made its way from Utah to Oregon, Michael Demarre approached one of the plane’s emergency-exit doors. He removed the door’s plastic covering, a federal report of the events alleges, and tugged at the handle that would release its hatch. A nearby flight attendant, realizing what he was doing, stopped him. Fellow passengers spent the rest of the flight watching him to ensure that he remained in his seat.

The TV Show for the Age of Conspiracism

This article contains spoilers through the ninth episode of Yellowjackets Season 1.The Ouija board brands itself as a “mystifying oracle,” an ornately silk-screened conduit to the past and the future. I know it mostly from childhood sleepovers.

The Sly Sunniness of Betty White

In 1973, before the series’ fourth season, the producers of The Mary Tyler Moore Show discussed the casting of a new character they were soon to introduce. Sue Ann Nivens, the host of the Happy Homemaker program on the fictional WJM-TV news station, would be cunning and cutting and a foil for her colleague Mary’s adamant optimism.

The Sly Sunniness of Betty White

In 1973, before the series’ fourth season, the producers of The Mary Tyler Moore Show discussed the casting of a new character they were soon to introduce. Sue Ann Nivens, the host of the Happy Homemaker program on the fictional WJM-TV news station, would be cunning and cutting and a foil for her colleague Mary’s adamant optimism.

Joan Didion Was Our Bard of Disenchantment

In 1988, Joan Didion joined a scrum of reporters on the tarmac of the San Diego airport to witness the writing of the first draft of history. The assembled journalists were trailing the Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. She was trailing the journalists. Didion watched as a baseball was procured, a staffer tossed the ball to the candidate, he tossed it back—and as the cameras dutifully captured the exchange.

The Holiday-Rom-Com Fantasy Has Nothing to Do With Romance

Phylis Mitchell is a woman who is transformed, through the magic of the holidays, into a drill sergeant. Early on in The Christmas House, an already classic Hallmark rom-com, she enlists her husband and two adult sons in her mission to revive an old family tradition: creating the aggressively festive home that gives the movie its title. Phylis (played by Sharon Lawrence) devotes herself to the cause with comic zeal.

Market-Speak Is the Love Language on Succession

This article contains spoilers through the eighth episode of Succession Season 3.Last month, as fears about inflation filled the American news, Elon Musk sent out a tweet. “Due to inflation,” his brief missive went, “420 has gone up by 69.”Musk being Musk, the note caused a flurry of speculation.

The Loss at the Heart of Guy Fieri’s Entertainment Empire

In 2007, in one of the first episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Guy Fieri visited Patrick’s Roadhouse, a railway-station-turned-restaurant in Santa Monica, California. The diner’s chef, Silvio Moreira, walked Fieri through the preparation of one of Patrick’s most notable dishes, the Rockefeller—a burger topped with mushrooms, sour cream, jack cheese, and … caviar.

You Can’t Make Succession Without Breaking a Few Gregs

This story contains spoilers through the fourth episode of Succession Season 3.It’s morning in New York, and Greg Hirsch has been summoned to the home of his great-uncle, Logan Roy. Greg, despite the hour, is having a drink. (Logan had insisted; flustered, Greg had asked for a rum and Coke.) He hadn’t expected the breakfast booze to be so potent. Greg deals with this situation as he deals with most situations: awkwardly. “Strong.

Saturday Night Live Turns the Big Lie Into a Big Farce

In late October 2020, just before the election that would remove Donald Trump from office and install his Big Lie, Saturday Night Live aired a fake public-service announcement. “Do we want four more years of Donald Trump, or a fresh start with Joe Biden?” the show’s cast members asked. “Can we survive four more years of scandal, name-calling, and racial division?” But then the ad took a turn.

How Gunther Broke the Fourth Wall

In a Season 4 episode of Friends, Ross is about to get married (again). At his bachelor party, Joey and Chandler argue over who will serve as his best man. Their bickering devolves into pettiness, until a fed-up Chandler makes an announcement about one of their guests, the barista at their favorite coffee shop: When he gets married, Chandler says, he’ll just ask Gunther to be his best man.

The Great Novel of the Internet Was Published in 1925

Adam Maida / The Atlantic
In September, The Wall Street Journal published a report, based on leaked documents, describing Facebook’s awareness of the harmful effects one of its platforms was having on young people. “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” the company’s internal research revealed. “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves.

Jeopardy, a Place Where Facts Used to Matter

Every once in a while, after a commercial break on Jeopardy, Alex Trebek would make an announcement: The judges, he’d say, had done more research. Having consulted an atlas, an encyclopedia, or Google, they’d realized that their initial assessment of a contestant’s answer had been wrong. They would now make things right. In an instant, the dollar-based score on the affected contestant’s podium would change. And then the show, its error thus corrected, would go on.

The Leisure Class Always Wins

This article contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of The White Lotus. “This is a lot of pineapple. Not subtle with the theme.”Midway through The White Lotus, Mike White’s acerbic satire on HBO, the socialite mother of a guy on his honeymoon pays her son and new daughter-in-law a surprise visit. The drop-in is partly the result of her inability to stop meddling in her son’s life.

The Sad Irony of Andrew Cuomo’s ‘Love Gov’ Persona

On Etsy and similar sites, you can purchase a mug bearing the smiling face of Andrew Cuomo and the coinage that summarized his fandom: Cuomosexual. You can buy a prayer candle featuring the New York governor in a beatific pose. Or a throw pillow. Or one of many T-shirts, some bearing images of him, one featuring a list:
☐ Single.
☐ Taken.
☑️  Mentally Dating Andrew Cuomo.
The objects read as relics of a time both recent and removed. They also read as mistaken.