@benjbrantley.bsky.social
"Awe allows for a neurobiological reset." Oh, so that' why I get the shivers (or "skin orgasms") watching Malinin and company. Kelly Corrigan winningly explains the physiology of watching the Olympics and why it's good for you in stressful times.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/o...
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/o...
Opinion | Please Pass the Awe
www.nytimes.com
February 11, 2026 at 4:05 PM
"Awe allows for a neurobiological reset." Oh, so that' why I get the shivers (or "skin orgasms") watching Malinin and company. Kelly Corrigan winningly explains the physiology of watching the Olympics and why it's good for you in stressful times.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/o...
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/o...
It is the 99th birthday of the wondrous Leontyne Price. Celebrate by listening to her feasting on the pain and passion in Verdi or capturing lost time in Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915." These are sounds to wrap yourself in against the cold.
February 10, 2026 at 10:21 PM
It is the 99th birthday of the wondrous Leontyne Price. Celebrate by listening to her feasting on the pain and passion in Verdi or capturing lost time in Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915." These are sounds to wrap yourself in against the cold.
Yes, I know they're unloved by many, as carriers of ticks and devourers of shrubs. But my heart still flutters when I wake up to the vision of these elegant beings in my backyard. I feel as if I've somehow slipped into Narnia.
February 10, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Yes, I know they're unloved by many, as carriers of ticks and devourers of shrubs. But my heart still flutters when I wake up to the vision of these elegant beings in my backyard. I feel as if I've somehow slipped into Narnia.
Somewhere in this picture is a driveway. It is 5 degrees Fahrenheit at 2 p.m. in Columbia County, and the (newly fallen) snow is blowing like sand in a desert dust storm. And yet I continue to drink my coffee iced.
February 7, 2026 at 7:49 PM
Somewhere in this picture is a driveway. It is 5 degrees Fahrenheit at 2 p.m. in Columbia County, and the (newly fallen) snow is blowing like sand in a desert dust storm. And yet I continue to drink my coffee iced.
And this is what our corner of the world is going to look like for the foreseeable future. Remember melting?
February 3, 2026 at 9:31 PM
And this is what our corner of the world is going to look like for the foreseeable future. Remember melting?
A quiet that roars: Lesley Manville and Robert Icke took me through the creation of a monologue in Icke's "Oedipus" that elicits the most thrilling sound to be heard in a theater: that of an electrified silence.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/t...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/t...
January 31, 2026 at 2:17 PM
A quiet that roars: Lesley Manville and Robert Icke took me through the creation of a monologue in Icke's "Oedipus" that elicits the most thrilling sound to be heard in a theater: that of an electrified silence.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/t...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/t...
Look closely at what appear to be giant boot prints here. They are in fact twin beds for deer -- the hollows made by creatures who sleep in the snow. I shudder -- or shiver -- to think upon it. Such delicate looking animals, but obviously very hardy.
January 29, 2026 at 10:24 PM
Look closely at what appear to be giant boot prints here. They are in fact twin beds for deer -- the hollows made by creatures who sleep in the snow. I shudder -- or shiver -- to think upon it. Such delicate looking animals, but obviously very hardy.
And this is the view at twilight. The hills beyond have disappeared into all that white. With twelve more hours of snow to go.
January 25, 2026 at 10:16 PM
And this is the view at twilight. The hills beyond have disappeared into all that white. With twelve more hours of snow to go.
This after a mere four hours of snowfall. With 17 more hours to go. I have put down the pen and taken up the shovel as a full-time occupation.
January 25, 2026 at 5:30 PM
This after a mere four hours of snowfall. With 17 more hours to go. I have put down the pen and taken up the shovel as a full-time occupation.
I bought this paperback when I was 10 years old and have reread it more often than any other novel. I somehow expected it to be the story of my life; it turned out that it kind of was. Anyway, I still use it as a moral compass. I photographed it in a dusty Havishamesque corner.
January 23, 2026 at 9:07 PM
I bought this paperback when I was 10 years old and have reread it more often than any other novel. I somehow expected it to be the story of my life; it turned out that it kind of was. Anyway, I still use it as a moral compass. I photographed it in a dusty Havishamesque corner.
What it's like to be a prisoner of snow. The view from our living room window.
January 20, 2026 at 9:09 PM
What it's like to be a prisoner of snow. The view from our living room window.
CBS News = See BS News? Go, Nikki Glaser!
January 12, 2026 at 1:24 AM
CBS News = See BS News? Go, Nikki Glaser!
Hyper-intensity in one hyper-intense closeup after another -- from the second row, no less. "Marty Supreme" was nearly sold out this afternoon so I watched it within spitting (sweating) distance of the screen. Exactly the right way to see it. As Sandler would say, "CHALAMET!"
January 11, 2026 at 8:35 PM
Hyper-intensity in one hyper-intense closeup after another -- from the second row, no less. "Marty Supreme" was nearly sold out this afternoon so I watched it within spitting (sweating) distance of the screen. Exactly the right way to see it. As Sandler would say, "CHALAMET!"
Farewell to Tina Packer, the English-born founder of Shakespeare & Company. Visiting her theater in Lenox, Mass., was long one of my summer highlights. Her work brimmed with energy, wit and a vital command of the language that made Shakespeare make sense to anyone who listened.
January 10, 2026 at 7:10 PM
Farewell to Tina Packer, the English-born founder of Shakespeare & Company. Visiting her theater in Lenox, Mass., was long one of my summer highlights. Her work brimmed with energy, wit and a vital command of the language that made Shakespeare make sense to anyone who listened.
I step out of the subway at nightfall, and this is the first thing I see.
January 10, 2026 at 4:37 PM
I step out of the subway at nightfall, and this is the first thing I see.
This makes my heart sing.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/t...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/t...
Handing Out Free Tickets, Mamdani Says Theater Should Not Be ‘a Luxury’
www.nytimes.com
January 10, 2026 at 4:09 PM
This makes my heart sing.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/t...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/t...
I'm a bit late to the skate party. But I would like to thank Jacob Tierney for creating a show that a lot of us turned out to really need. I never expected to identify with, much less cry for, two hockey bros -- or that romance TV could honor its genre and still feel truthful.
January 8, 2026 at 10:33 PM
I'm a bit late to the skate party. But I would like to thank Jacob Tierney for creating a show that a lot of us turned out to really need. I never expected to identify with, much less cry for, two hockey bros -- or that romance TV could honor its genre and still feel truthful.
The first moon of 2026. It looks like it's burning, doesn't it? On the ground, all is cold -- really, really cold.
January 1, 2026 at 10:24 PM
The first moon of 2026. It looks like it's burning, doesn't it? On the ground, all is cold -- really, really cold.
Farewell to Jacqueline de Ribes, the French countess who became a fashion designer and a swan-necked emblem of a rarefied, vanishing elegance. I knew her a bit in Paris in the 80s, and her rigor of style was set off by a schoolgirl's joie de vivre. She giggled (elegantly).
December 31, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Farewell to Jacqueline de Ribes, the French countess who became a fashion designer and a swan-necked emblem of a rarefied, vanishing elegance. I knew her a bit in Paris in the 80s, and her rigor of style was set off by a schoolgirl's joie de vivre. She giggled (elegantly).
Farewell to 2025, a year of many horrors and an inkling of hope. May that balance shift, please, in 2026.
December 31, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Farewell to 2025, a year of many horrors and an inkling of hope. May that balance shift, please, in 2026.
Farewell, my comrades. The snow is falling fast and thickly.
December 27, 2025 at 2:12 AM
Farewell, my comrades. The snow is falling fast and thickly.
There comes a moment for me every December, when family ghosts hover insistently, when floodgates open into a rush of tears. Today, that catharsis was triggered by Bess Wohl's wonderful "Liberation," which exults in the power of theater to imagine and connect with the past lives that shaped our own.
December 22, 2025 at 12:00 AM
There comes a moment for me every December, when family ghosts hover insistently, when floodgates open into a rush of tears. Today, that catharsis was triggered by Bess Wohl's wonderful "Liberation," which exults in the power of theater to imagine and connect with the past lives that shaped our own.
An energizing double header off-Broadway yesterday: a sweet, cozy "Baker's Wife" (my first) with Ariana DeBose soaring through "Meadowlark"; and a fast, flashy "Richard II," with Michael Urie, who speaks the speech with athletic brio, as a hedonist king who loses his right to party.
December 21, 2025 at 2:43 PM
An energizing double header off-Broadway yesterday: a sweet, cozy "Baker's Wife" (my first) with Ariana DeBose soaring through "Meadowlark"; and a fast, flashy "Richard II," with Michael Urie, who speaks the speech with athletic brio, as a hedonist king who loses his right to party.
Something solid and bright shines through the stage fog of O'Neill's "Anna Christie" at St. Ann's Warehouse: Michelle Williams. She endows the title role of a lost woman among loutish men with sensitivity, complexity and a dawning proto-feminist conviction; she earns her rebirth.
December 20, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Something solid and bright shines through the stage fog of O'Neill's "Anna Christie" at St. Ann's Warehouse: Michelle Williams. She endows the title role of a lost woman among loutish men with sensitivity, complexity and a dawning proto-feminist conviction; she earns her rebirth.
I got to hang out with my new favorite couple.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/t...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/t...
Carrie Coon and Tracy Letts Want to Get Under Your Skin
www.nytimes.com
December 19, 2025 at 5:48 PM
I got to hang out with my new favorite couple.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/t...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/t...