Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Five-Star Chiffon 2025


Songs (235)/Albums (94)

Thirty-something musicians commandeered my ears this year with genre-agnostic albums (the sonic perfection of Rock A Bye Baby, Glimmer of God by Jean Dawson, my favorite, which blends decades of various musical influences; the confessional Lost Americana by mgk; Something Beautiful by Miley Cyrus; and Lux by Rosalía) as well as returns-to-form (Mayhem by Lady Gaga and The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift) although I found the latter less consistently interesting than the other four.  Does this mean Chiffon is growing up?  Not really, because Lola Young, a 24-year-old whose talent seems to have been at least temporarily derailed by demons, claims the #1 song this year with  "Post Sex Clarity," although I played "Cathedral," "Life of Ophelia" and "Orpheus" almost as much.  BTW, Taylor Swift, the self-proclaimed English teacher, alludes to classical literature far more proficiently than the sobered-up mgk, but his lyrics elicit an empathy that the smartest woman in pop music seems to have lost with her world domination and engagement.  Also, sequence is important to Chiffon which is why Lily Allen's "P***y Palace," the flip side of a much lower-wattage celebrity romance, follows "Ophelia."

"Of the undiscovered country" by Max Richter (from Hamnet)
"DEAD" by Sudan Archives
"Room of Fools" by FKA Twigs
"Jealous Type" by Doja Cat
"No Champagne (6am)" by Cautious Clay
"Crumb" by Antony Szmierek
"Don't Let Me Drown" by Burna Boy (from F1)
"Don't Wanna Cry" by Selena Gomez & benny blanco
"we never dated" by sombr
"Prize Fighter" by Jean Dawson
"Shapeshifter" by Lorde
"Zombie" by YUNGBLUD
"Slow Down & Shut Up" by King Princess
"Everybody Scream" by Florence + the Machine
"Bonnet of Pins" by Matt Berninger
"Fist" by Mya Folick
"twilight zone" by Ariana Grande
"Archangel" by Olly Alexander
"Sunset Blvd" by Selena Gomez & benny blanco
"My World" by Conan Gray
"Secrets" by Miley Cyrus (featuring Lindsay Buckingham & Mick Fleetwood)
"Remember My Name" by Sam Fender
"Cathedral" by Kesha
"orpheus" by MGK
"Henry, come on" by Lana del Rey
"Dancing in the Club" by This Is Lorelei & MJ Lenderman (MJ Lenderman version)
"Oh My Days" by Orville Peck
"Fire" by Alessia Cara
"Serious" by Indigo De Souza & Mothé 
"Too Pretty for Buffalo" by Baby Nova
"Post Sex Clarity" by Lola Young
"Wonderful Life" by Tom Odell
"Song for Henry" by Loren Kramar (from On Swift Horses)
"The Fate of Ophelia" by Taylor Swift
"P***y Palace" by Lily Allen
"Shadow of a Man" by Lady Gaga
"Lovin Myself" by Ava Max
"Walk of Fame" by Miley Cyrus (featuring Brittany Howard)
"End of Summer" by Tame Impala
"Let's Ride Away" by Avicii (featuring Elle King)
"Telia" by mOat & Helsloot
"Kimpton" by Barry Can't Swim & O'Flynn
"Love Shop" by YOTTO & Something Good
"Last Forever" by Bob Moses
"Even in Arcadia" by Sleep Token
"Chemistry" by Gigi Perez
"Fruit Bat" by Of Monsters & Men

Books (25)

It's so hard to pick a favorite in this category; there's nothing quite like a long-overdue reading of a classic, from both female and male perspectives (George Eliot and Thomas Hardy).  And then there's the discovery of an heir apparent to an old favorite (Joshua Cohen/Philip Roth) and the resonance that comes from reading male authors who write about semi-contemporary lives, whether they be gay or straight, fictional or biographical (Alan Hollinghurst and Dan Nadel).  But this year the girls edge out the boys with writing about topics that quickened my septuagenerian pulse:  Miranda July's WTF feminism, which made me question if I really do know women at all and Curtis Sittenfeld's fairy tale, set in the world of Saturday Night Live, which perfectly mirrored my own fantasies of professional success and fairy tale love.


Movies (92)

I won't rehash movies released just last year, except to say that nearly all were the equal of two old favorites (Midnight Cowboy and Gods & Monsters) which hit harder when I rewatched them decades after they were made, and are emblematic of filmmaking that values adult emotional engagement over big box office returns. In Better Man, perhaps 2025's most creative risk, director Michael Gracey and Robbie Williams allowed an ape to take the British pop star's greatest hits to ecstatic new heights, especially in "Rock DJ," which made me happier than anything else I saw on screen in 2025.  Mickey 17 is the first great film of the Resistance and its poor performance at the BO suggests our worldwide nightmare is far from over.  Kudos to the Film Forum for screening J'Accuse, a brilliant film that the very cancelled Roman Polanski made about the Dreyfus Affair several years ago (an aside: in a sign of how censorious our times have become in some respects, no one batted an eye when Polanski directed Tess, Thomas Hardy's tale of a nymphet milk maid's "seduction" in 1979; on the other hand, look at Sorry, Baby which characterizes the ego destruction caused by sexual assault in a nuanced way that would been inconceivable as recently as the end of the 20th century). Nouvelle Vague offers a knowing and accessible romp through the French New Wave, even for someone who far preferred the sexual chemistry between Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo to Jean-Luc Godard's guerrilla filmmaking, plus it offers very persuasive evidence that Richard Linklater may be the most versatile movie director of our time.  

But for now, Sentimental Value and Marty Supreme, for entirely different reasons are my favorite movies of 2025.  Like Jay Kelly, Sentimental Value addresses the collateral damage of a successful dad prioritizing his career over his daughters but whereas Noah Baumbach's Netflix streamer offers mostly star power, Joachim Trier's Norwegian movie does an extraordinarily deep--and rewarding--dive into tortured family dynamics. The exhilarating energy and unpredictability of Marty Supreme reminds me a lot of Anora, last year's entirely deserving winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Both movies, named for their title characters and anchored by what may very well be career-best performances from their pole-dancing and ping-ponging stars, depict young and not always sympathetic New Yorkers on the make. Their subcultures, populated by supporting casts every bit as indelible as Mikey Madison and Timothée Chalamet, may be different (contemporary Russian emigres on Coney Island vs post-World II Jews on the Lower East Side) but their determination to leave behind humble beginnings by any means necessary is identically immigrant American.  Religious, racial and historical themes--brought to vivid life with an undeniably sweet (!) Holocaust memory and a humiliating encounter in the living room of a Heritage American, played to perfection (oblivious or ironic, I'm not sure which) by a capitalist reality television star--give Marty greater heft but don't weigh it down.  Instead, they provide indie filmmaker Josh Safdie an even better shot at winning Hollywood's top directing prize than Sean Baker had with Anora.

Anora (T)

(T) denotes film seen in theaters too often with assholes, young and old, who can't resist looking at their phones although in another indication of Marty Supreme's non-stop, immersive appeal, due in no small part to Jack Fisk's gritty and realistic period production design, I didn't have to reprimand anyone.  If he wins an Oscar, he and wife Sissy Spacek will finally have his and hers for their mantle!  They met on the set of a top candidate for my all-time favorite movie, Carrie.

Theater (14)

Two terrific shows on this modest list (Saturday Church and Liberation), were directed by the same woman, Whitney White, who really knows how to keep things moving, and whose work showcases the importance of community and reslilience while living in an unsympathetic world.  Prince Faggot provocatively examined a controversial "what if?" scenario, exposing the hardships of unimaginable privilege while giving eloquent voice to the downtrodden who still manage to find greater fulfillment.  And despite its uninhibited depiction of interracial mansex, Jordan Tannahill's thoroughly modern conceit seemed tame in comparison to Robert Icke's devastating update of Oedipus, a classic 500 years older than Christ.  As the merch says, "Truth is a motherf**cker."


Streaming (49)

Four HBO series, two vintage and two current, proved that escapism remains the most effective way to cope with our current state of affairs, which Marc Maron skewered perfectly in Panicked. Girls and Looking, which turned myopic narcissism into comfort food, debuted before the slow but steady flush of the American experiment down the toilet. History's long lens, a uniformly delightful cast, the inimitable wit of Julian Fellowes and the costumes of Kasia Walicka-Maimone make the excessive wealth and (mostly) white social climbing in The Gilded Age go down deliciously, while Industry, whose uncertain initial run was crippled by the pandemic has morphed into an over-the-top take, as addictively entertaining as it is unabashedly cynical, on what happens when self-interest trumps all.  If tragic documentary is your thing, look no farther than PeeWee Herman As Himself or OJ Simpson: Made in America, both of which indict the social climate that celebrated their cult- and crowd-pleasing talents. The Narrow Road to the Deep North woke me up to the fact that Jacob Elordi is this generation's Marlon Brando.  Taylor Kitsch played a reluctant hero in the ultra-violent American Primeval that both red and blue America could love (thank you Peter Berg), just as Sterlin Harjo created a white savior character for Ethan Hawke in The Low Down that even the wokest person could excuse for his good, if often ineffectual intentions. If Lena Dunham's new limited series didn't rise to the giddy heights of Girls, which sagged a little in later seasons, it reminded me of a mantra coined by a weed-loving guy I knew in college:  enough is enough, but Too Much is just right thanks to the opposites-attract chemistry of its leads, Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe.  And who cares if The Bear is a drama or a comedy?  It still navigates heretofore unexplored territory on television and if it occasionally takes a bumpy detour, just sit back and enjoy the scenery with a terrific cast, now sadly minus one, working at the top of their game.

Amazon

Life After Life
The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Apple

Mr. Scorcese

HBO

PeeWee Herman As Himself
Looking
The Gilded Age
Marc Maron:  Panicked
Industry
Girls

Hulu

The Bear
The Lowdown

Netflix

American Primeval
OJ Simpson:  Made in America
Too Much

Exhibitions (28)

Partial knee-replacement surgery and recovery reduced my museum going by half in 2025. I'll let the varied art works speak for themselves except to say that my trip to Northern Italy increased my appreciation of Renaissance and religious art exponentially, and that I wish I had seen Vaginal Davis do her thing when she and the other Afro Girls opened for the Smiths way back in the 80s.  Who knew that cranky old Morrissey once contractually insisted that only drag artists be given that showcase?


Prior Five-Star Chiffon:

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What They Said: 2025



January

“But what I’m attracted to in hip-hop, what I’m attracted to in punk music, even rock ’n’ roll, is this kind of unabashed, ‘we’re stupid enough to try anything’ energy.' And I think it maybe started in the ’50s when kids first started making their own music. I think that’s a gift. No one else can reproduce that. And I think it has a window,” said André 3000, age 49.  (NY Times, 01.02.25)

“Hashtag-resistance has turned into hashtag-capitulation,” said David Urban, a longtime Republican strategist and Trump ally. “The pink-pussy hats are gone, and they’re replaced by MAGA hats worn by Black and brown people.” (NY Times, 01.20.25)

“Innocent people are being pardoned in the morning, and guilty people are being pardoned in the afternoon,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, and a member of the Jan. 6 committee, said in an interview. “It is strange to receive a pardon simply for doing your job and upholding your constitutional oath of office. But the incoming administration has been consistently leveling threats.”  (NY Times, 01.21.25)

“If this is the full-grown thing, it [monarchy] has to be a lot less high-toned and regal than they feared,” said Gene Healy, the senior vice president for policy at the Cato Institute. “Boogieing with the Village People? Signing stacks of executive orders and pardons in a hockey stadium? There’s a heavily camp aspect to Trump’s performance of the presidency that monarchical metaphors miss.” (NY Times, 01.23.25)


February

“We’ve even got a mission statement now,” said Logan Lane, the Luddite Club’s founder, who is studying Russian literature at Oberlin College. “We like to say we’re a team of former screenagers connecting young people to the communities and knowledge to conquer big tech’s addictive agendas.” (NY Times, 01.23.25)

“Trump’s plan changed the subject from politics to what happens to the people,” Elliot Abrams, a past adviser to Republican presidents, said. “He spoke about how Gazans live now, and could live so much better in the future, and he did not demonize Gazans. So his plan is a reminder that the two-state solution is just foreign ministers shouting at each other, and it’s no solution at all.” (NY Times, 02.08.25)

“I was 100 percent behind him as a Canadian,” Joe Butler, a Canadian trucker said. “Now I just shake my head and say: Where are you going?” he said. “You just went and completely kicked us in the nuts. It’s scary.” (NY Times, 02.09.25)

“The direction to dismiss without prejudice [federal corruption charges] is not a reprieve for Mr. Adams,” wrote Zellnor Myrie, a Democratic primary candidate for mayor, “it is a gun to the head of the legitimate democratic governance of the City of New York.”(NY Times, 02.12.25)

“The final art product is merely the doo-doo, the refuse, the detritus of the creative experience,” David Edward Byrd said in his book, Poster Child: The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd.  “The golden moments in my life have always been the personal, magical world of the ‘Aha!’ moment.” (NY Times, 02.14.25)

“No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” wrote Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor on the federal corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City,” in his resignation letter.  (NY Times, 02.15.25)

“Satisfying the economic and emotional needs of this group [middle- and lower-class voters] is always the ostensible source of legitimacy of the antidemocratic movement, but it is never the actual goal,”  writes Katherine Stewart in Money, Lies, and God:  Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy. (NY Times, 02.22.25)

“The promise of Biden, for his supporters, was to get rid of the element of politics that Trump represented,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor at Princeton who organized “The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden: A First Historical Assessment.” “Not only did he not do that, but it’s not a successor to Trump that wins the election — it’s Trump”  (NY Times, 02.27.25)


March

“We are not neighbors, we’re roommates,” said Agustin Barrios Gómez, a former Mexican congressman and a founding member of the nonprofit Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. (NY Times, 03.05.25)

“I wasn’t skin-deep gorgeous,” recalled Tim Curry about his Broadway debut in The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50 years ago.  “I was gorgeous in attitude. And I was gorgeous, I think, in a certain kind of courage. It took a certain amount of courage to do the show in the first place, let alone translating it to New York.” (NY Times, 03.08.25)

“This [Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum’s tariff negotiations with the U.S.) is like a real life episode of ‘The Apprentice,’” said Mexican political analyst Carlos Bravo Regidor, referring to the 2000s reality series starring Mr. Trump. “The purpose of the whole show is to survive until the next episode, and she has been able to do that so far.” (NY Times, 03.15.25)

“People underestimate Canadians,” said Graydon Carter. “They mistake politeness and conviviality for weakness. Canadian winters are so brutal that after generations and generations of surviving those winters, Canadians have spines of steel. [Trump] would be wise to stay away from this in the same way Hitler made a mistake charging into Russia. If he does it in the winter, he’s going to lose. Canadians are good on ice.” (NY Times, 03.16.25)

“Democrats won the people who watch cable news and read newspapers,” said Representative Sara Jacobs (36) of California. “We lost the people who don’t feel like they’re part of politics at all. And so, how do we go to them, instead of keep trying to force them to come to us?” (NY Times, 03.16.25)

“[Doing it myself] felt very ’90s,” said Chris Wilcha, a 53-year-old film and TV director in Los Angeles. “It was that indie rock model: Get in the van, tour with the thing, get bodies in the seats. It made no money. But what it did do — and this is what I believe as a Gen X creative person — it confirmed my belief that continuing to make stuff is the path forward.” (NY Times, 03.30.25)

“What counts in Trump world are power and interests,” said Célia Belin, the head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign relations. “For Europe the choice may come down to this: Show teeth or give him what he wants.” (NY Times, 03.30.25)


April

“You never know when you’re in a golden age,” writes Graydon Carter, former editor of Vanity Fair, in his memoir.  “You only realize it was a golden age when it’s gone.” (NY Times, 04.06.25)

“Nobody who is that rich and powerful has behaved that outrageously,” said John Gorenfeld, a software engineer who helped start a London-based group called Takedown Tesla. “There’s something campy and ridiculous about Musk’s brand of toxicity. And it opens up a real space to ridicule.” (NY Times, 04.07.25)

“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” wrote Harvard president Alan M. Garber in a letter refusing to accede to demands by the Trump administration. (NY Times, 04.17.25)

“People say they want change in the Democratic Party, but really they want change so long as it doesn’t potentially endanger their position of power,” said David Hogg, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. “That’s not actually wanting change. That’s selfishness.” (NY Times, 04.17.25)

“Everyone was going crazy with seaweed a few years ago, and now no one is talking about it,” said Victoria Blamey, a Brooklyn chef who grew up in the beef-loving culture of Chile and Argentina. “It’s the steakhouse vibe: ‘I really don’t care about plant-based. I just want to have my steak and drink my Burgundy.” (NY Times, 04.23.25)


May

“He’d say [Pope Leo XIV, then a missionary in Peru] that a homily should be short and to the point, like a miniskirt,” said Elsa Ocampo, 81, a volunteer at the Our Lady of Montserrat church in Trujillo. (NY Times, 05.18.25)

“If you’re a Southern boy, if it moves and it’s not supposed to, you use duct tape,” said Ed Smylie said in a documentary about saving the lives of Apollo 13 astronauts after an in-flight explosion imperiled their air supply. “That’s where we were. We had duct tape, and we had to tape it in a way that we could hook the environmental control system hose to the command module canister.” (NY Times, 05.20.25)

“If there’s one word that just comes out of this whole episode as it relates to Trump world and Biden world, it’s the poison of loyalty in democracy,” said former Representative Dean Phillips, who campaigned unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024.  “Loyalty to a person rather than a constitution.” (NY Times, 05.20.25)


June

“If I’d been straight, I would have been an entirely different person. I would never have turned toward writing with a burning desire to confess, to understand, to justify myself in the eyes of others,” Edmund White wrote in City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and 70s. (NY Times, 06.05.25)

 “The Republicans are scared, the Democrats are stunned and leaderless, but I cannot imagine there will not be a reaction. The American people are facing one of the great challenges of the 21st century, as great as that confronting the French in 1940, when they had to decide whether to join the Resistance or not,” observed Claude Malhuret, 75, a French senator and former mayor of Vichy. (NY Times, 06.12.25)

“I use slivers of soap, I reuse paper clips, I use the backside of memos,” Leonard Lauder, one of America’s hundred richest men, told The Times in 2004. “You can take the child out of the Depression, but you can’t take the Depression out of the child.” (NY Times, 06.17.25)

“Great architecture or not, that violent sacrifice, exacted from the buildings and people of a peaceful city, transfigured the towers and exalted them. If we value everything according to our feelings, it seems certain that the destruction of the World Trade Center will stand in memory and sorrow alongside the bombing of Dresden and the explosion of the Parthenon,”observed architect and author Nathan Silver. (NY Times, 06.24.25)

“It’s officially hot commie summer,” hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb posted on Twitter after Zohran Mamdani appeared to win the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. (NY Times, 06.26.25)


July

“If you’re going to spend an eternity,” Pete Hamill, a writer who chose to be buried near Boss Tweed in Green-Wood Cemetery, once explained, “better with a rogue than with a saint who would drive you into slumber.” (NY Times, 07.13.25)

“Fashion lives on the edge of tomorrow, driven not by what we know but the thrill of discovering what’s next,” wrote Balenciaga designer Demna on a note that he left on every chair at his final fashion show for the company. (NY Times, 07.13.25)

“There’s a difference between spending time and killing time,” said Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, deriding You Tube, his top competitor in the streaming wars,. “We’re in the how-you-spend-time business.” (NY Times, 07.15.25)

“Who could ignore quiche, a dish that is, today, “embodied” with queerness?, writes gay cookbook author Lukas Volger. “In 1948, it was just another recipe in the women’s pages of newspapers. But by the second half of the century quiche had became such a fixture of gay brunching that matters reached a tipping point. The widespread homophobic backlash was neatly captured by the 1982 publication of Bruce Fierstein’s tongue-in-cheek look at masculinity, Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.” (NY Times, 07.20.25)

“It could be seen as Pollyanna today, but Pollyanna’s about the edgiest, most punk-rock thing you can be,” director James Gunn said. “I think the fine line is finding the humor in a person without making fun of him, because I think it’s honorable the way Superman is. I wish more people were more like that.” (NY Times, 07.26.25)


August

“By being vulnerable, he [Marc Maron] invites others to do the same. It has made his impending departure from podcasting a sad event for comedy nerds,” writes critic Jason Zinoman. (NY Times, 08.04.25)

“The United States has destroyed the global trade system it created and left nothing in its place but a set of ad hoc arrangements,” said Edward Alden, a trade expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “For trade, the result will be long-term instability that will be bad for business, bad for consumers and bad for global growth.” (NY Times, 08.02.25)

“[NY governor Kathy Hocul] has demonstrated an ability to work with men in power that, I think, has to do with her personal skills. She has total control over her ego,” said Kathryn Wylde, who leads the Partnership for New York City. “She doesn’t come off as a threat, but she’s tough as nails.” (NY Times, 08.16.25)

“You know, there’s a certain point at which you don’t want to hear ‘Happy Birthday,’” Donald Trump said when he turned 78. “You just want to pretend the day doesn’t exist.” (NY Times, 08.20.25)

 “Tons of food has gone into Gaza but Hamas savages stole it, ate lots of it to become corpulent,” Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, wrote on X, echoing Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s criticisms on social media. (NY Times, 08.24.25)


September

“Ukraine must become a steel porcupine, undigestible for potential invaders,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, recently said about the country’s arms build-up, which is expected to cost $1billion every month. (NY Times, 09.03.25)

“Oh, the family and the food and the helicopters,” Mary Guibert recalled dreamily about being invited to the Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston wedding, after the actor had optioned Jeff Buckley’s life story. “It was pretty amazing to be sitting at a table where you know everyone’s name because you’ve either seen them in a film or you’ve bought their music and they don’t know you and you say, ‘I’m Jeff Buckley’s mom,’ and they go, ‘Oh, my god!’” (NY Times, 09.04.25)

“I see the house [where she had lived since 1965] as a vessel for an ongoing autobiographical exercise,” art world power broker Barbara Jakobson told New York magazine in 2021. “I keep the transformation as proof of life.” (NY Times, 09.07.25)

“I wonder how men would have reacted if their penis size had been posted along with their pictures,” actress,  pin-up and Playboy model June Wilkinson (43-22-37) once asked. “Now that I am thinking about it, what a great idea.” (NY Times, 09.14.25)

“[Andy Warhol] became the model for how to be weird at the center of the high bourgeois society,” said artist Peter Halley. (NY Times, 09.19.25)

“Who cares if you die broke if you made something that you think is beautiful?” asks director Francis Ford Coppola in a documentary about Megalopolis, his eyewateringly expensive flop. (NY Times, 09.19.25)

“Museums exist in the real world,” Glenn Lowry, outgoing director of the Museum of Modern Art told donors at a retirement dinner in June. “They are willful efforts to imagine the world, through objects and programs that reflect their beliefs and commitments. In the months and years ahead, we will have choices to make that are consequential, perhaps more so than at any other time since the Second World War. If we believe in a museum that celebrates the values of pluralism, that honors freedom of expression, and protects minority rights and dissent,” Lowry went on, “then we will have to actively defend our values. If we want a museum that will collect and display the most daring and challenging artists of our time, then we will have to fight for that. If we want a museum that is a home for artists, scholars, curators and visitors from around the world, then we will have to speak out loudly for that.” (NY Times, 09.21.25)


October

“A lot of the people who do this [Middle East peace negotiating] are history professors, because they have a lot of experience, or diplomats. It’s just different being deal guys — just a different sport,” Jared Kushner claimed after helping to broker a cease-fire in Gaza.  (NY Times, 10.11.25)

“We now have a paradigmatic Gaza generation like we had a Vietnam generation and a Pearl Harbor generation,” said Shibley Telhami, a pollster and scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Maryland. “There’s this growing sense among people that what they’re witnessing is genocide in real time, amplified by new media, which we didn’t have in Vietnam. It’s a new generation where Israel is seen as a villain. And I don’t think that’s likely to go away.” (NY Times, 10.12.25)

“As we watch Mr. Trump lay waste to multiple generations of conservative dogma, it starts to become clear that ideology of any kind is inadequate to capture what is happening in the electorate,” writes Michael Hirschorn, the chief executive of Ish Entertainment.  “Perhaps it’s time to turn the perspective from horizontal to vertical and start looking at politics not through the prism of left/right but instead top/bottom: the elites versus everyone else.” (NY Times, 10.14.25)

“It’s as if on a street appeared consumers who were blind, with no taste buds and a stomach made of iron,” said Maurizio Carta, Palermo’s official in charge of urban planning. “Businesses took advantage.” (NY Times, 10.19.25)

“Nixon tried to keep his criminality secret, and the Bush administration tried to keep the torture secret, and that secrecy acknowledged the norm that these things were wrong,” said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and former top Justice Department lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “Trump, as he often does when he is breaking law or norms, is acting publicly and without shame or unease. This is a very successful way to destroy the efficacy of law and norms.” (NY Times, 10.26.25)


November

“A trained-by-Dietrich dresser can function very nicely as handmaiden to a female impersonator of Sophie Tucker,” wrote Maria Riva, biographer of her mother, Marlene Dietrich.  (NY Times, 11.04.25)

“My experience of politics in the last nine years has been a lot of people being mean to each other on Twitter,” said Katie Riley, Deputy Campaign Manager for Zohran Mamdani. “We wanted people to get out in the world together in real spaces.” (NY Times, 11.06.25)

“There are only two places in the world where that jacket could possibly belong,” Liza Minnelli said of Judy Garland's sequined garment. “With my family or at Carnegie Hall. So I’m glad it will finally be there, where Mama made it a part of her legacy.”  (NY Times, 11.16.25)

“What OpenAI is engaged in is the most dramatic case of ‘Fake It Until You Make It’ that we have ever seen,” said Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson. “They are making huge commitments that they literally can’t afford.” (NY Times, 11.23.25)

“Why an icon?” actor Udo Kier, annoyed by how he was often described. “Why gay? Do they write in papers ‘a straight icon?’” (NY Times, 11.27.25)

“Why would you want to remove something because somebody broke the law and did something destructive?” said Laurie Olin, a Philadelphia-based landscape architect whose résumé includes the redesign of Bryant Park in New York, the gardens around the Getty Center in Los Angeles and Apple’s campus in Cupertino, Calif. “I don’t mean to sound heartless, but what are you going to do about people behaving stupidly [a teenager fell to his death after climbing the Seattle Gas Works, a fenced landmark]?” (NY Times, 11.29.25)

“With creators no longer required to pursue artistic excellence,” W. David Marx writes in Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century, “culture became a lowest-common-denominator battle for attention.” (New York Times, 11.29.30)


December

“Most of the images we see of the world are some form of propaganda,” British photographer Martin Parr told The Times of London in 2013. “Photography is about selling things, selling concepts. We’re so used to this now, so paralyzed by it, that when you actually see real people, they strike you as being strange and different. You should ask yourself why we are so used to seeing glamorized pictures of what people think they should look like.

“Even the simple family album is an idealized form,” he continued, “because you use it to sell an idea of your family as perfect: everyone’s smiling and having a great time, children are never crying. It’s the same with Facebook: Everyone’s always happy. So when I take pictures of real life, people say they look a bit weird.” (NY Times, 12.11.25)

 “No chemo,” Barry Manilow shared on Instagram, announcing his surgical treatment for lung cancer. “No radiation.  Just chicken soup and I Love Lucy reruns.” (NY Times, 12.24.25)

“I have drawers full of MetroCards that have, like, 10 cents on them,” said Kerri O’Connell, a native New Yorker and accessories designer who marked the demise of the MetroCard after 30 years with a MetroCard belt buckle. “Every jacket I have has a MetroCard in its pocket,” she said with a laugh.  (NY Times, 12.27.25)

“Political leaders, statesmen, who once served as a firebreak against baser instincts increasingly see an opportunity to look receptive to the base — so they add kindling instead,” Renee DiResta, an associate research professor at Georgetown University, wrote in a newsletter on Substack. 
(NY Times, 12.27.25)

“The individual has to yield,” Robert Moses once argued, “to the advantages and needs of the majority of people.” (NY Times, 12.29.25)

“E.V.s have become such a partisan thing that they’re not defined as cars,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who leads the EV Politics Project and EVs for All America, which aim to make electric cars less political. “It’s like we’re having political fights over toasters.” (NY Times, 12.30.25)

 

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Wednesday, December 24, 2025

Ghosts of Christmas Past

A lifelong obsession with an artist, enabled by digital technology, led to what eventually became my defining activity in retirement: photographing holiday windows in (mostly) New York City, and sharing them with family, friends and (former) colleagues.  Here's a look back at two decades of favorites, 57 images drawn from a conservative estimate of more than 3,000 taken over 20 years.

2006 

To say that I was gaga when Simon Doonan, the creative director at the now defunct Barney's New York on Fifth Avenue, proclaimed "Happy Warholidays" would be serious understatement.  This window features children's drawings of Andy.


And here's Edie Sedgwick wearing Campbell's soup can earrings.  Nobody dressed windows with more sass and class than Doonan.  We met once in Central Park and had a delightful chat about Imelda Marcos and her shoes, recorded in my journal of course.  He's now married to Jonathan Adler.


At first, my holiday photos project was pretty casual.  Tradition, creativity or humor were the primary criteria.


2008

I only wish I'd been more diligent from the outset about identifying the stores or places where I took the photos.  I'm pretty sure these were Louis Vuitton windows.


2009



I actually had this photo printed as a holiday card.  So analog!


2011

Simon Doonan at Barney's again, this time celebrating Lady Gaga, then at the white-hot peak of her musical fame with the release of "Born This Way," a rockin' anthem for the new millennium.



Bergdorf Goodman's windows are always spectacular even if usually devoid of tradition.


This could only be Christian Louboutin.


Lily Pulitzer, Madison Avenue
Macy*s Herald Square
Tiffany never lets size ever become an impediment to the display of its costly jewelry. Their exquisite windows dominate my favorites.


2012

Tiffany's


Retirement gave me a lot more time to hunt down windows all over the city and to organize the photos into categories.  I called this collection "Where's Santa?" because it seemed the season's jolliest man was MIA. 

Madison Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue
For a significant indicator of "inclusivity" (and disposable income!), male couples had to look no further than Tiffany's.  New York State had legalized gay marriage in 2011; the Supreme Court would follow suit four years later.


Bergdorf Goodman
Seeking a DIY approach, I expanded my search to Williamsburg for the first time.


Soho
2015

There's a reason tourists love to visit Manhattan during the holidays.  It's truly magical.

Madison Square Park
West 57th Street
Rockefeller Center/St. Patrick's Cathedral
Rockefeller Center Skating Rink
I do love an abstraction.


2016



Upper West Side
Brookfield Place
Thom and I took Magda and Joe to Howard Beach, a Queens neighborhood known for its Christmas decorations.


2017

You can't beat Hermes for stylish weirdness!


Barney's
Madison Avenue
Rest in peace, Aladdin Sane.

Lower East Side

Coach, Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue, which faces the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, projected the same light show on its facade for many years . . . 


but even the simplest decorations can mark the season.

Greenwich Village
2019

Tiffany's
Madison Avenue
Central Park
One World Trade Center
Louis Vuitton, Fifth Avenue @ 57th Street

2020

The pandemic force-fed me my future


. . . in a community where the Christmas decorations, often inflatable, don't change much from year to year.  Still, the distinctive mailboxes in Lake Worth Beach can be quite charming.

Lake Worth Beach, FL


Fifth Avenue
Lego, Rockefeller Center
Central Park Christmas Market
Herald Square
By now, I'll admit, a kind of nostalgia for the city where I have lived since 1974, crept onto the list of criteria for these photos.  What was once a mecca for strivers and struggling artists has become the playground for the One Percent.  Here's hoping our new mayor can do something to change that.

West 88th Street
Macy*s Herald Square

2023

Washington Square Park
Madison Avenue
Madison Square Park
Jackson Square, Greenwich Village


Santa's back (kinda sorta).  And it's a wrap!

Christmas Store, West 34th Street


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