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The New Yorker
Shouts & Murmurs

A Vaccination Parable

By Steve Martin and Harry Bliss
August 4, 2025
Published in the print edition of the August 11, 2025, issue.

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Steve Martin is an actor, a musician, and a writer. His memoir about his career, “Number One Is Walking,” was illustrated by Harry Bliss.
Harry Bliss has contributed cartoons and covers to The New Yorker since 1998. He is the author, with Steve Martin, of “A Wealth of Pigeons.” He also wrote the memoir “You Can Never Die” (2025).
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Sketchpad
“And Just Like That . . . ,” the Lost Season
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“I used to sit for hours / at an electric typewriter. / I remember well its hum.”
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Sketchpad
New Coins in the Crypto Reserve
Forget gold. Time to stock up on Eggcoin (very valuable) and Scamcoin (not a scam).
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Those filthy, degenerate daisies have grown back.
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Date Ideas for Couples in Long-Term Relationships
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“My ambition to be done with ambition / suffered a setback at my father’s funeral.”
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“You mysterious cruel hand, / you cold dropped and not-yet-dropped rain.”
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Several factors were examined to determine that you are the epicenter of a phenomenon that swallows up the possibility of romantic love like a black hole sucking in light.
By Zoe Pearl
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