Features

Karen and Liza

Karen Finley, notorious in the nineties for provocative shows featuring yams and chocolate in unusual places, is back. Her medium this time?

The Writing Life

While aspiring writers—and surely New York has more of them per capita than any other city in the world—have a better chance than ever of winning the literary lottery for a first novel, there’s a downside to the supersized advance: It can kill your career. Plus: A tip sheet to getting ahead no matter what kind of writing career you’re after. And writers Jonathan Franzen, Jeffrey Eugenides, Tom Wolfe, and others talk about how they got the write start.

Departments

Letters

Readers sound off on Hillary Clinton, Dominick Dunne, Martha Stewart, and more.

Smart City

Best of New York

Do most dog runs make you want to run? Here, one that’ll be a pleasure for both you and your pooch.

Best Bets

From sleek mobiles to the season’s sexiest halter top, dress-up gear for you and your pad

Test Drive

The great margarita shakedown

Sales & Bargains

Hip hats, haute linens, and bridal gowns galore

Intelligencer

Intelligencer Column

Naomi Campbell, Bono, Posh Spice, and more!

Sci Thigh

The latest advance in Brazilian waxing is—zap!—Brazilian lasers.

Times for a Change

If you were made editor, what would you do first?

Rocky Mountain Fervor

McMansions on the Shawangunks?!? Ulster County revolts against its local squire. By Ralph Gardner Jr.

Poison-Penmanship

Dating a writer and seeking revenge? Write back!

New York Minute

En garde, Howard Dean! Chris Heinz is helping his stepfather, John Kerry, maintain a financial edge (for now . . .) in the presidential race.

Cornice Restoration

A building inspector tells me that the cornice of my brownstone is about to break off and clobber someone. Who can replace architectural details?

Columnists

The Bottom Line

Time to believe: Five ways to put the new bull market to work for you

Naked City

Inside the mind of the married man’s mistress

Sly Fox

Every studio has a mini-studio to make cheaper, quirkier films (and keep talent happy), but none have done it as cunningly as Fox has with Fox Searchlight.

Critics

Movies

Filmmakers respond passionately to 9/11; Johnny Depp goes for broke in the wildly entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean

TV Notes

John Leonard reviews The Six Wives of Henry VII, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and more.

Art

A cynically anti-American exhibition at the Whitney does little more than recycle clichés

Architecture

At Artists Space, Zaha Hadid shows how she is liberating architecture from the confines of classical ideals

Underground Gourmet

Lunchbox Food Co. takes diner dining to a whole new level

Top Five

Ways to Celebrate Central Park's 150th Birthday

A few of the many ways to celebrate Central Park’s 150th summer.

Alternatives to Plain Ol' Vanilla

Cold And Bold: This year’s new ice-cream flavors are anything but plain-vanilla.