Features

Diamond in the Mud

Just two decades on, the reality-TV genre is running out of appealing stars, plagued by people who have assiduously studied how to be a personality. In Shain Gandee, star of Buckwild, MTV struck the authenticity mother lode, until the show became a real-life tragedy. By Benjamin Wallace

Oprah’s Aha! Year

Oprah Winfrey on saving her network�and letting go of the imperative to uplift constantly. By Josef Adalian

�Never Stops, Never Stops. Headache. Help.�

Some people living near wind turbines say they’re making them sick; others feel nothing, which, for the sufferers, can be almost as maddening. By Kristen French

The Plot to Kill Obamacare

With the October 1 implementation of the Affordable Care Act looming, conservatives are doubling down on their efforts to stop it yet again. A diagnosis of their peculiar (but not completely illogical) obsession. By Jonathan Chait

Intelligencer

A Bull in Pyongyang

How real is Dennis Rodman’s �basketball diplomacy�?

Classic Meets Plastic

Iris Van Herpern explains her surrealist costumes for the New York City ballet.

When Buildings Attack

Buildings protect people and their things from the violence of nature�except when they don’t.

75 Minutes With Caroline Gorman

The daughter of Morgan Stanley’s low-key CEO takes the spotlight.

Columns

Tale of One or Two Cities

Who, between Joe Lhota and Bill de Blasio, is the uniter, and who’s the divider? Depends on whom you ask.

Strategist

Best Bets

A combination colander-bowl, the Strand gets a pop-up shop, ambidextrous scissors, and more.

The Look Book

�What I do is art�shaping the body, it’s all about symmetry.�

The Urbanist’s Warsaw

Where to down vodka, trawl three eras of collected art, and take a walking tour of the local hipsterbia in Poland’s quietly booming capital.

Fashionables

Wrists get serious hardware with silver cuffs.

The Restaurant Review

The Elm is Paul Liebrandt's fairy-tale forest.

In Season

Labor Day doesn't mean the end of summer, as this corn salad shows.

Rye’s Rise

These new loaves are more than just a caraway-studded vehicle for pastrami.

Culture

The Way to the Podium

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kerry Washington, and other nominees on the scenes that earned them Emmy nods.

Conclusion Impossible

The difficulties of writing a satisfying series finale.

�We Live in a Toxic Sarcophagus�

Radical filmmaker Adam Curtis storms the Armory with Massive Attack (and the BBC archive).

The Book Review

Once Stephen King's sequel to The Shining stops being awful, how good does it get?

The Architecture Review

The first of the 1,000-footers stomps onto 57th Street.

The Movie Review

Hugh Jackman takes the law into his own hands (and then whacks Paul Dano with it) in Prisoners.

To Do: September 18�25, 2013

25 things to see, hear, watch, and read.

Departments

Comments: Week of September 23, 2013

Readers sound off on Michael Bloomberg’s legacy and Mike Daisey’s controversy.

The Approval Matrix: Week of September 23, 2013

Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.