Agnes Walden is a teacher, but her paintings won’t teach you a thing. She speaks lucidly about painting with the off-the-cuff exactitude of an expert, but her paintings are inscrutable. […]
COLLAGE
Astonishing Propositions of Momentary Liberation
LaRissa Rogers reveals the threats that lurk in what looks like beauty
The kids are at play. They’re on swings and trampolines. These contraptions allow them to fly, even if only for split seconds. They’re resisting gravity, getting out from under its […]
QUEER ‘I’
The Shameless Plan for a ‘New Fire Island’
An idea for a ‘gay paradise’ provokes ire — and unflattering reflections
If you’ve heard of it, then you probably already hate it. You’ve groaned and eye-rolled about it. So has the Provincetown Business Guild: in an Instagram post, the Guild wrote, […]
MEET THE MAKER
For Vintage Purses, a Second Life
How Lucy Siegel saves leather goods from untimely endings
Lucy Siegel’s obsession with salvaging vintage leather goods began at the swap shop at the transfer station in Wellfleet. There, four years ago, browsing with her sister, she found an […]
PORTALS
In Poland With Abraham Storer
In a solo show, the painter finds flashes of recognition in the unfamiliar
Abraham Storer was standing in a cemetery in Gliwice, Poland in the fall of 2020. He wasn’t there to mourn but to paint — positioned with easel, canvas, and palette […]
TELEVISION
The Curse Tells Unnerving Truths
The show on Paramount Plus paints a brutal portrait of two newlywed gentrifiers
The Curse, the latest wild-card creation from director Nathan Fielder now streaming on Paramount Plus, is a show about the two worst people in the world: newlyweds Whitney and Asher […]
CELEBRATIONS
An Encyclopedic Mind for People
Jill Stauffer, the first executive director of the Provincetown Commons, will retire in February
After four years as the first executive director of the Provincetown Commons, Jill Stauffer is retiring, set to leave the organization in late February. “She is so hard-working,” says Rebecca […]
1990
The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: The ’90s
The photographs, thousands of them, all make the same assertion: It was better back then. The young were younger, happiness was happier, beauty more beautiful. The best of times. “If […]
QUEER ‘I’
At My Doorstep
On reconciling fear and pride
I first saw Provincetown when I was 16. I came for a few hours with my parents on my father’s highlighter-yellow boat, a midlife-crisis acquisition we rarely made use of. […]
BATTLEGROUND
Britney Spears’s Search for Decency
The pop singer’s memoir is a graceful retelling of traumatic truths
People have always felt free to say whatever they want about Britney Spears’s personal life. This was true at the beginning of her career when she was in her teens […]
SALT OF THE EARTH
A Warm Salad Stars the Joni Mitchell of Legumes
The chickpea becomes glamorous lavished in olive oil, onions, and herbs
When I turned 21, I started cooking with a zeal and self-importance that almost made up for how unnatural the whole enterprise was for me. I’d meticulously, maniacally dice onions […]
WOMEN’S WEEK
Suzanne Westenhoefer, Better Now
The trailblazing comedian brings her funny stories back to Provincetown
Eight years had gone by since she graduated from college, and Suzanne Westenhoefer realized that, despite all the intention-setting, she had done almost nothing to get work as an actor. […]
COCKTAIL HOUR
In Defense of a Drink That’s Pretty, Tart, and Juicy
A Cosmo is for when you need to find the ingenue in you
I’ve been shamed by more bartenders than I can count for ordering a Cosmopolitan. Most of the time, it’s been done with a quick but telling glance, though at my […]
QUEER ‘I’
Ta-Ta for Now to All That
A writer reflects on returning to Provincetown after a year away
It is a showy move to begin a personal essay with a Virginia Woolf quote, but I am a showy person. So, here is Woolf: “What does it mean, then? […]
WRITING THROUGH THE PAIN
Cookie Mueller’s Carefree Misadventures, Carefully Told
In a new edition, a collection becomes a memoir of a life lived without hesitation
Cookie Mueller and her friends were cold. They were in Provincetown, it was the winter of 1970, and Mueller, who is best known for acting in John Waters’s films, and […]
