The 11.20.22 Issue

Highlights

Ukraine’s 15,000-Mile Lifeline
How the country’s vast rail system has helped it withstand an invasion.
By Sarah A. Topol
CreditAdam Ferguson for The New York Times
‘How Did This Man Think He Had the Right to Adopt This Baby?’
Army Rangers killed her parents. A Marine is raising her in America. But her Afghan family says she was taken under false pretenses.
By Rozina Ali
CreditPhoto illustration by Vanessa Saba
How Do You Write Plays for a Divided Country? Listen Carefully.
Will Arbery’s work challenges us to slow down, even when dealing with the pressures of political and social discord.
By Chloé Cooper Jones
CreditErik Madigan Heck for The New York Times
Talk
Brian Eno Reveals the Hidden Purpose of All Art
“I’m absolutely fascinated by this question, because I think I have an answer, and I don’t think it has ever been well answered.”
By David Marchese
CreditPhoto illustration by Bráulio Amado

Is It OK That My Wife Posts Photos of Her Breastfeeding Our Son?
The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on weighing the risks of sharing an intimate family moment online.
By Kwame Anthony Appiah
CreditIllustration by Tomi Um
The Ethicist
This Is What Your Thanksgiving Meal Is Missing
Yotam Ottolenghi thinks American holiday meals are bland. These flavor-packed brussels sprouts will liven yours up.
By Yotam Ottolenghi
CreditChris Simpson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas.
EAT
The End of ‘Atlanta’ Changes Everything
Donald Glover’s masterpiece was a different kind of prestige TV. It never explained itself, and was all the better for it.
By Niela Orr
CreditPhoto illustration by Najeebah Al-Ghadban
Screenland
The Desert Changed My Life. It Can Change Yours, Too.
In the Mojave, humans are reminded of our smallness, our naïveté, our transience.
By Meg Bernhard
CreditJohn Francis Peters for The New York Times
Letter of Recommendation
It Was Her Third Visit to the E.R. What Was Causing Her Abdominal Pain?
Scans and a surgery didn’t show any abnormalities. Her neurologist had a surprising theory.
By Lisa Sanders, M.D.
CreditPhoto illustration by Ina Jang
Diagnosis

Poem: Self-Portrait as Collected Bones [Rejoice, Rejoice]
Michael Wasson’s poem uses the self-portrait to investigate identity within the legacy of colonialism and erasure of the Indigenous body.
By Michael Wasson and Victoria Chang
CreditIllustration by R. O. Blechman
Poem
Judge John Hodgman on Klingon Cat Names
A couple disagrees on what to call their new pet.
By John Hodgman
CreditIllustration by Louise Zergaeng Pomeroy
Judge John Hodgman