The Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) talks to David Remnick about her first solo museum exhibition, Astro Noise, which channels her investigations of government surveillance into immersive installation art. A group of jazz musicians recall how David Bowie found them in a hole-in-the-wall club and enlisted them to create Blackstar. And the poet Brenda Shaughnessy reads Hilton Als a poem about living in a loft full of lesbians, back when New Yorkers could still afford to smoke.
Illustration: Rebecca Mock