The world right now might be best described as inundating. There is too much happening, in too many places all at once, to even attempt to catalog or make sense of it all. It can be disorienting. It can be disconcerting. It can be so overwhelming that it’s hard to see much more than a little piece of it.
These glimpses, though, are important. It has been said—over and over—that these are unprecedented times. But history has rarely unfolded in predictable waves of progress and regression, doing and undoing. More often than not, it’s our collective response to change that leads us to regroup, pick up the pieces, and rebuild things differently. History is human, part of the story we tell ourselves about who we are, and how we process it (or don’t) in real time has bearing on our understanding of that larger narrative.
What’s so special about that narrative is that it belongs to us. We are the ones who author it. As James Baldwin wrote in his era-defining 1962 novel Another Country (and, as it happens, in the pages of this very magazine): “We are the time.”
Kyle Abraham
Dancer & Choreographer
One of the dance world’s true originals choreographs an original work for Harper’s Bazaar—and our times
Mira Jacob
Writer & Illustrator
Contemplating the weight of our current moment, in words and pictures
Fran Lebowitz
Writer & Public Speaker
On nostalgia, AI, revenge, RFK Jr., and why there is no “now” now
Madeline Bach,
a.k.a. the Frosted Hag
Cake Artist
A creator of extraordinary iced confections makes us a cake—and finds beauty and joy in the mess of life
Willy Chavarria
Fashion Designer
On remembering to honor your saints and to stop and smell the roses
Danez Smith
Poet
A new elegy for an uncertain age
Lorna Simpson
Artist
On always being ready to seize the day—whatever it holds
Leila Mottley
Novelist & Poet
A brief history of now
Torrey Peters
Novelist
Advice for revising (and finding) the plot in real time
Rashid Johnson
Artist
On the power in being present
Ethel Cain
Musician
How to see the forest through the very tall trees
I’m very fascinated by indoor-outdoor spaces because of how disorienting they are. For example, the old-timey street scene in the House on the Rock in Wisconsin: Something indoor made to represent something outdoor feels incredibly dreamlike to walk through. On the inverse, outdoor spaces that happen to feel indoor are equally magical. The southern live oak, with its vast crown spread and downward swooping branches, creates a sort of semi-enclosed temple when many of them grow close to each other. A walk through a grove of live oaks almost feels as though you’re walking through a grand hall. In North Florida, as well as other places around the Gulf bowl, there are many (but never enough) dirt roads with thick canopies of these oaks draping their limbs over the path. It creates, especially at night, a dense tunnel of foliage, decorated with tuft after tuft of Spanish moss. Driving through these tunnels at any time of day is one of my favorite experiences, and it’s one of the most surefire ways to spark some sort of idea when I’m feeling burnt out. The oaks grow up, up, up, and out, out, out, and back down again to love me. I love my live oaks.
Vauhini Vara
Writer & Editor
What 100 women told me about now: an investigation
Martine Syms
Artist
A prose poem
José Andrés
Chef & Humanitarian
On planning now for what’s next, on Earth and beyond
To be honest, I’m not usually thinking about now. For me, “now” is almost too late. I want to know what is next, what is over the horizon. Lately, I have been looking to the stars. Actually, ever since I was a boy, I’ve loved to look up at the night sky above, imagining all of the possibilities. As a chef, I’ve spent my life focused on not only feeding the few but also feeding the many, from the 12 people sitting at Minibar, my Michelin-starred restaurant in Washington, D.C., to the thousands trying to recover after a natural disaster. I am driven by the challenges of feeding humanity here on Earth, but I am also fascinated by the possibilities of feeding humanity beyond the stars. We have to start understanding how these boundaries can actually become opportunities.
Looking beyond the horizon has led me and my team to some amazing collaborations. A few years ago, we worked with Axiom Space to bring new foods, like Spain’s famous paella Valenciana, to the International Space Station. Led by Charisse Grey, the chef who runs our research and development team at José Andrés Group, we created nutrient-rich and delicious meals to be shared by the astronauts during their stay on the space station.
After a lot of research, testing, and tasting, these meals were prepared on Earth and packaged to send to space on the Axiom Mission 1. Now, Charisse and the R&D team are working with engineer Jim Sears, the inventor of an entirely new piece of cooking technology called the SATED cooking appliance, which is designed to cook in zero gravity. We’re trying to make cooking in space a reality! The idea is that astronauts on longer space missions—like a future mission to Mars—can cook for themselves, using Jim’s technology and recipes that my team has developed. The ability to make home-cooked meals will not only keep them fed, it will help make sure that they don’t feel homesick on months- or years-long missions. If we are sending brave astronauts beyond the horizons of where humanity has traveled before, we have to equip them with the tools to take care of themselves—their bodies as well as their minds. This sort of thinking will help us here on Earth as well.
Delaney Rowe
Actress, Comedian, & Creator
A handy guide to handling a breakup on social media
