This Friday night at 7, the Morgan Library & Museum will hold a special screening of “Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird,” a documentary, directed by Steven-Charles Jaffe, about the life and work of the New Yorker cartoonist of the gleefully macabre bent. Wilson and the director will be on hand for a Q. & A. after the screening (which is being presented in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition “On The Money: Cartoons for The New Yorker”). Meanwhile, we have some new work by Wilson: he illustrated this short animated adaptation (also directed by Jaffe) of “It Was a Dark and Silly Night,” a story by Neil Gaiman, the author of (among many, many other works) “Coraline,” a movie which was recently celebrated in these pages by David Denby.
Goings On
What we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week, online, in N.Y.C., and beyond. Paid subscribers also receive book picks.
Our Local Correspondents
Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation
How bots, mercenaries, and table scalpers have turned the restaurant reservation system inside out.
By Adam Iscoe
Profiles
Padma Lakshmi Walks Into a Bar
Since leaving “Top Chef,” Lakshmi has found herself in a period of professional uncertainty. What better time to try standup comedy?
By Helen Rosner
Annals of Gastronomy
A Martini Tour of New York City
My month of vermouth-rinsing and fat-washing.
By Gary Shteyngart
Our Local Correspondents
Donald Trump Is Being Ritually Humiliated in Court
At his criminal trial, the ex-President has to sit there while potential jurors, prosecutors, the judge, witnesses, and even his own lawyers talk about him as a defective, impossible person.
By Eric Lach