FROM THE MAGAZINE

October 2024

Spectator Editorial

The meme election

The Kamala Harris campaign clearly isn’t about policies or speeches; it’s about willing her presidency into existence

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

Diary

Do I have too many friends?

We’ve been at our villa in the south of France for nearly three months this summer and during that time we have hosted thirty-four guests

By Joan Collins

From the Magazine

Campaign 2024

Facing down the Democratic legal tsunami

To say that the prosecutions are ‘dubious’ is to belittle the unsettling power of dubiety

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Media

The rise of BlueAnon

Unhinged left-wing conspiracy theories have entered the mainstream

By Amber Duke

From the Magazine

Economics

The academic legacy of Donald J. Harris

Beneath Kamala Harris’s performative shifts lies an economic and social philosophy handed down by her father

By Marc Oestreich

From the Magazine

Campaign 2024

Tim Walz’s Minnesota vibes

The vice presidential candidate’s biographical points have significant political resonance in 2024

By Ben Domenech

From the Magazine

Media

Inside the unlikely success of Patrick Bet-David

The YouTuber and entrepreneur has improbably emerged as one of the most prominent voices in right-wing media

By Aidan McLaughlin

From the Magazine

Media

Forget about the Trump assassination attempt

An incurious media memory-holes the MAGA rally shooting

By Drew Holden

From the Magazine

Politics

What does Appalachia mean?

J.D. Vance has put a regional identity created by politics at the center of the election

By James S. Robbins

From the Magazine

Family

There is always Hope

Pets are woven into the fabric of your life — but more than that, your life revolves around them

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Letters

Letters from Spectator readers, October 2024

Californication and tiring of travel

By The Spectator

From the Magazine

China

Russia and China’s purely pragmatic love-in

The reality of the new Sino-Russian pact may be less threatening — and more complex — than it appears

By Owen Matthews

From the Magazine

Campaign 2024

The pro-life problem

Abortion opponents will have to bring about a change in the public’s values as profound as the one wrought by supporters of same-sex marriage

By Daniel McCarthy

From the Magazine

Middle East

Black Sunday: reckoning with October 7 a year later

In the end, our ability to hold fast may prove to be the most important weapon of all

By Uri Kurlianchick

From the Magazine

Education

How Ancient Greece handled riots

The ancients had neither police nor prisons

By Peter Jones

From the Magazine

Europe

The end of the Orbán era

A rising right in Europe marks the end of the Hungarian’s outsized influence

By Will Collins

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Book Review

Michael Richards’s memoir is heavier on introspection than laughs

Entrances and Exits shows the Seinfeld actor’s clever, energetic, dissatisfied, self-critical mind at work

By Christopher Sandford

From the Magazine

Book Review

Charles Baxter’s Blood Test is a necessary novel

The novel’s central conceit serves as a sharp satire of our data-driven, algorithmic age

By Sam Forster

From the Magazine

Book Review

Will Self’s impressive paean to his mother’s frustrating life in the US

In Elaine, Self has shown that understanding is possible, across generations and across time

By Philip Womack

From the Magazine

Book Review

Back to the birth of the Greenwich Village music scene

David Browne’s latest book pivots around 1961

By Philip Clark

From the Magazine

Film

Caligula’s second wind

The notorious film may be the most expensive, most unpleasant adult movie ever made

By Alexander Larman

From the Magazine

Film

The world needs more Lars von Triers

The director has spent his time pushing the boundaries of cinema to the extreme

By Amelia Butler-Gallie

From the Magazine

Music

Bud Powell should be a household name

He cherished the few joys in his life and celebrated them through his innovative approach to the piano

By Harry Cluff

From the Magazine

Art

Böcklin brings out the dead

A Swiss Symbolist haunted by the beyond

By William Newton

From the Magazine

Books and Arts

This month in culture: October 2024

Our staff picks what to watch out for this October

By The Spectator

From the Magazine

Life

Life

My parental lobotomy

In my experience anterograde amnesia is just as essential to the creation of new life as wine

By Billy McMorris

From the Magazine

London Life

The thrill of being recognized

There are writers and journalists who get public recognition all the time. Alas, I’m not one

By Cosmo Landesman

From the Magazine

American Life

A matter of presidents

The fringes of fame, the outer purlieus of power, are always much more interesting than the epicenter

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Prejudices

The Basement Government

If the Washington elite had its way, every national government from now until Doomsday would be another Popular Front

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Life

Eighty years on, Smokey Bear has aged like a fine oak

These days, he has been modernized into a sleek, digital, AI-looking creature

By Teresa Mull

From the Magazine

Life

The return of CRT TVs

For enthusiasts of retro video games and other esoteric media hobbies, what others see as trash is their treasure

By Oliver Jia

From the Magazine

Place

Place

Falling in love with Montana

After ten days in the state, New York City’s Chinatown felt and smelled like a rotting fishbowl

By Orson Fry

From the Magazine

Place

The vision behind Woolsery

What happens when a Silicon Valley tycoon decides to revive a down-on-its-luck English village?

By Estella Shardlow

From the Magazine

Place

Rwanda to Uganda: a cross-border quest

Tracking mountain gorillas with my dad

By Amy Rose Everett

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Food

In praise of Halloween food

It’s all about the candy

By Kate Andrews

From the Magazine

Food

Culling cookbooks

I have never been able to give away any cookbook that either family or friends have presented to me with love

By Calla Jones Corner

From the Magazine

Drink

Kombucha future: my scoby is taking over my life

When I’m old, I won’t have arthritis, and my blood pressure will be the cynosure of three counties

By Jane Stannus

From the Magazine

Drink

Prosecco goes posh

The perfect marriage of fun and chic hails from Italy

By Kathleen Willcox

From the Magazine

Drink

Shaking up the mojito

It’s decadent, spicy and boozy as hell; what’s not to love?

By Ross Anderson

From the Magazine

Drink

Portuguese wines are back

The wines of Portugal have entered, or reentered, public consciousness in a stately manner

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

And Finally

And Finally

What I learned from my time in Taiwan

The country is much more than a geopolitical hotspot or even a stable Asian democracy we’ve committed to help

By Elisenne Stoller

From the Magazine

And Finally

What’s the right way to voyage?

My husband has ordered a copy of Craig Brown’s new book

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine