At the upfronts I always learned something too about what the American people want: heartwarming dramas, women’s stuff, sports, heroism, complex characters, real people, guilty pleasures, eye candy, names they can trust, ambiguous villains, simple comedies, hipster hipness, good old-fashioned values, edginess, upscaleness, satire, science fiction, girls, boys, Latinas, crime procedurals, urban sitcoms, aspirationalism, a way to express their anger.

The sound hole in a cello, an upper-case Caslon Old Style S, an approaching swan, a swiftly twirling sea lion reversing direction, fifty elephants with heads touching the ground as honoring majesty in Thailand—these symbolize fashion rightness as unfreakishly right as Siam is distant from Manhattan.

the stroke of death

On Tuesday, Netanyahu and his wife toured Shanghai’s Ohel Moshe synagogue in the Hongkou district that was home to many of the 18,000 Jews granted refuge in Shanghai from the horrors of Nazi persecution.