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      Cobie Smulders Communes With Sharks

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      She plays a deliciously coldblooded Ann Coulter in “Impeachment.”A white shark nudged closer, gliding just above the actress Cobie Smulders, like a fan asking for a selfie. Ms. Smulders welcomed the intrusion. “This is cool,” she said, rapt, as the shark slid past in the waters of the New York Aquarium.Ms. Smulders, adored for her nine seasons on the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” has loved aquariums for as long as she can remember. As a mermaid-obsessed child in British Columbia, she visited the Vancouver aquarium often and spent weekends on her father’s sailboat, wondering about the life below the water’s surface. The University of Victoria accepted her to its marine biology program.But a few months before school began, she fell in with some theater actors and deferred for a year. And then another year. And then another.An avid scuba diver and an ambassador for Oceana, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans, Ms. Smulders never gave up on the water. She participates in beach cleanups near the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, the actor Taran Killam, and their two daughters. And she campaigns against the single-use plastics that clog waterways.“It’s a human conversation that needs to be talked about more loudly,” she said.She still has mermaid fantasies. “I still think it could be a possibility,” she said. And she still loves aquariums, though only those that favor conservation.Ms. Smulders studied marine biology before she became an actress.  Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesOn a recent trip to New York City to promote the FX limited series “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” she took a car to Coney Island to visit the aquarium’s shark exhibit.She breezed in from the boardwalk just before noon, showing her vaccine card to a giddy employee. “I thought I recognized you!” the woman said as she checked Ms. Smulders’s ID. Rather than dressing for the beach, Ms. Smulders had chosen a monochrome look: belted black Chanel blazer, black jeans and black boots with stamped metal buckles that shone in the October sunlight. Pearls plucked from some very talented oysters hugged her neck.In the first building, she cooed over yellow snappers and pointed out some angelfish, then admired the stripes on some zebrafish. “Mother Nature knows what’s up,” she said approvingly.A cow nose ray caught her eye, as did a yellow rose goby. “I want to be the person who gets to name these,” she said. “You can have a lot of fun with that job.”Ms. Smulders, 39, seems to have fun with most jobs. On “Impeachment,” which revisits the impeachment of Bill Clinton, she plays the right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, a member of the Elves, a group of conservative lawyers who advised Paula Jones’s team.With hair like a Westminster-winning Afghan hound, legs like the Eiffel Tower and a voice as clipped and polished as a high-end manicure, her version of Ms. Coulter finds pleasure everywhere she goes, usually because she brings multiple bottles of wine along. And yet she remains as coldblooded as the aquarium’s sharks.“You’re all too nice,” her Ms. Coulter says of her fellow Elves during a late-night strategy scene.Initially, Ms. Smulders had resisted the role. The “Impeachment” producers had approached her a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the first in which Ms. Smulders, a proud Canadian who recently became an American citizen, could vote. Ms. Smulders votes a liberal ticket, so sharing head space with Ms. Coulter, who has written books such as “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism,” didn’t seem healthy or fun.But Mr. Killam was already attached to the series as Steve Jones, Paula Jones’s husband. And “Stumptown,” the moody procedural on ABC in which Ms. Smulders starred, was canceled because of the pandemic, freeing up her schedule.“Isn’t it just so peaceful here?” Ms. Smulders said of the shark exhibit.  Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesSo after Donald Trump lost the election, Ms. Smulders taped an audition. Playing an ultraconservative — especially an ultraconservative with a miniskirt wardrobe and a champagne habit — no longer felt so dark to her.“She’s the only one who can actually have any fun,” Ms. Smulders said of her character. “This confidence that this woman has, to be able to walk into a room and think you’re the smartest person in the room, that you’re the most powerful person in the room, that is the polar opposite of me and my life.”In the shark building, which Ms. Smulders had entered after passing a harbor seal (“Hi, friend!”) and a waddling penguin (“You can do it, buddy!”), it was clear where the power lay. Crawling into a tunnel just past the coral reef section, she marveled at the zebra sharks and bamboo sharks swimming just inches away. “I want to set up a little cot in there,” she said when she emerged. “Waking up to that? Heaven! Heaven!”Not everyone enjoys intimate encounters with fish that might find you delicious, but Ms. Smulders does. On a recent family trip to Oahu, she went for a cage dive with huge Galápagos sharks. “That was a crazy thing,” she said. She enjoys humbler marine life, too. Polyps are an obsession, as is algae, which has a mutualistic relationship with reefs.Further into the shark exhibit, past a re-creation of a shipwreck, Ms. Smulders stopped at Hudson Canyon’s Edge, a dramatic wall of water. She admired the rays, floating past like cheerful ghosts, and a whiskered fish that swam beneath them. “I love a little mustache on a fish,” she said. A loggerhead cruised by, pausing to admire her Tod’s bag. Sharks surrounded her, some of them grinning toothily. Ms. Smulders smiled at each predator.“Isn’t it just so peaceful here?” she said. More

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      Late Night Savors What’s Left of Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Plan

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      Trevor Noah said the excision of family leave meant that “America will remain the only nation in the world where women try to give birth during their lunch break.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Built to ScaleLate-night hosts covered the latest in President Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan on Thursday, or what is left of it.“A lot of what was originally there is now gone,” Trevor Noah said. “Like free community college is out, and so is paid family and medical leave, which means America will remain the only nation in the world where women try to give birth during their lunch break.”“Oh, and Medicare won’t cover the cost of dental or vision care for seniors but it will cover hearing. Which makes sense. You know Biden made sure that that stayed in. When you got a president that whispers as much as he does, you’ve got to make sure people can at least hear him.” — TREVOR NOAH“But don’t worry, moms, you don’t have to go into work while you’re in labor — just Zoom in from the birthing room.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“President Biden met today with House Democrats to discuss his health care spending proposal in the infrastructure bill, which is now down to a 30-day trial for WebMD plus, and they’re going to paint some tunnels on a rock, like Wile E. Coyote.” — SETH MEYERS“The plan features subsidies for child care and universal preschool for more than six million 3- and 4-year-olds, to which parents everywhere replied, ‘But what about 2-year-olds who could pass for 3? Please — I can’t watch any more ‘Peppa Pig.’ My toddler has adopted an English accent, and won’t let me eat bacon.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s insane. Everyone deserves the right to be at home with their families and children. And besides, in my experience, the more time you spend with your kids, the more desperate you are to go back to work.” — SETH MEYERS“Free vision care for anyone with perfect 20/20 eyesight. A 1 percent tax hike on billionaires for each trip to outer space. Guaranteed child care for children ages 3 to 4, provided by children ages 5 to 6. For anyone who wants to attend community college, a free copy of ‘Community’ Season 1 on DVD. If anything falls off of a crumbling bridge or overpass and hits you, you get to keep it. For women who have just given birth, a big scoop of Turkey Hill’s Rocky Road ice cream. In lieu of paid leave, they added two more take-your-child-to-work days. Any 12 albums for just one penny. Student-loan forgiveness: You still have to pay it back, but we’ll forgive you for making the mistake of taking one out. Universal wealth care: one extra digit in each American’s Social Security number. Guaranteed pre-K for wacky adult children whose hotel-magnate fathers paid their way through elementary and high school but now would like to prove themselves as competent, functioning adults in order to take over the family business. You can use the bathroom if you asked nicely. Everyone is eligible to receive $1 million from a billionaire, in exchange for just one night with your wife. One free month of Tubi. They’ll throw a traffic cone next to the pothole on your street if you quit whining about it. And finally, a new houseboat for Joe Manchin.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Meta Edition)“Yeah, Facebook changed their name. In response, Spectrum was like, ‘We used to be Time Warner; people still hate us.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, ‘Meta,’ as in when I joined Facebook, I ‘Meta’ lot of crazy people.” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, ‘Meta,’ as in your Aunt Gloria saying, ‘I Meta guy on Facebook who says the vaccine made his balls magnetic.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This feels like when there’s an E. coli outbreak at a pizza place and they just change the name from Sal and Tony’s to Tony and Sal’s. Same gross owners.” — JIMMY FALLON“Companies often change their name to help their image and since it’s up for grabs, Johnson & Johnson is now Facebook & Facebook.” — JIMMY FALLON“The company says, ‘The name Facebook is not going away, but from now on, we are going to be Metaverse first, not Facebook first.’ But don’t worry — the self esteem of teenage girls will always be last.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingDesus and Mero get to the bottom of why Black people love Dave Grohl, with guest Dave Grohl.Also, Check This OutAnya Taylor-Joy, left, and Thomasin McKenzie in “Last Night in Soho.”Parisa Taghizadeh/Focus FeaturesTwo young women from different eras form a psychic bond in Edgar Wright’s thriller “Last Night in Soho.” More

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      Val Bisoglio, Oft-Cast Character Actor, Dies at 95

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      He was seen on “Quincy, M.E.” and “The Sopranos.” He also memorably played John Travolta’s father in “Saturday Night Fever.”By 1986, after 30 years in the business, Val Bisoglio had made such an impression as a character actor that Danny Arnold, a producer casting a new police series called “Joe Bash,” wrote in a casting notice for a particular part simply that he was looking for “a Val Bisoglio-type.”Mr. Bisoglio saw the notice and figured that he was probably as good a Val Bisoglio-type as anybody. He called Mr. Arnold and landed the role, a desk sergeant.“Joe Bash” was short-lived, but the anecdote shows just how much Mr. Bisoglio was able to do with an Everyman-ish face, a distinctive voice and a versatility that enabled him to play cops, tough guys, bartenders, judges, fathers.He was perhaps best known for portraying the father of John Travolta’s character in the film “Saturday Night Fever” in 1977 (he whacks Mr. Travolta upside the head several times in a memorable dinner scene) and the owner of a restaurant preferred by the title character, a medical examiner played by Jack Klugman, on the television drama “Quincy, M.E.” from 1976 to 1983. But from the 1960s through the ’80s, television viewers were likely to encounter him in a seemingly endless list of guest roles.“If it was a popular TV show,” his wife, Bonnie (Ray) Bisoglio, said in a phone interview, “he was on it.”Mr. Bisoglio, right, with Jack Klugman in an episode of “Quincy, M.E.” He played the owner of a restaurant, and Mr. Klugman played a medical examiner. “Whenever the writers find they’re a little short of time after they wrap up the case,” he explained, “they write in a little scene at the restaurant.”United Archives via Getty ImagesMr. Bisoglio died on Oct. 18 at his home near Los Olivos, Calif. He was 95.His wife said the cause was late-onset Lewy body dementia, which had been diagnosed a year ago.In an interview with The Daily News of New York in 1977, when he was early in his run on “Quincy” (he eventually appeared in the vast majority of the show’s 148 episodes), Mr. Bisoglio gave himself a nickname of sorts that was a reference to his “Quincy” role but could well have applied to much of a career in which he specialized in making a memorable impression in a brief amount of time.“Whenever the writers find they’re a little short of time after they wrap up the case,” he explained, “they write in a little scene at the restaurant. It’s only one minute or two, at the most. So I’m the one- or two-minute man.”Italo Valentino Bisoglio (pronounced bee-ZOL-yoh) was born on May 7, 1926, in Manhattan. His father, Mario, was a greengrocer during the Depression, then worked in construction, and his mother, Virginia (Gallina) Bisoglio, did piecework sewing. Both had emigrated from the Piedmont region of northern Italy.Growing up in New York, he said, he was more interested in going to vaudeville and other theaters than in going to school; he dropped out after 10th grade and at 16 made his way to Los Angeles, where he lived for a while, also spending time in Las Vegas. But he came to acting late; first he worked at various jobs, including, in his early 20s, selling water-softening devices, which made him a significant amount of money.“It went through my hands faster than water could soften it,” he told The News, largely because he developed a fondness for gambling.Ms. Bisoglio said that migraine headaches helped drive her husband to take acting classes as a form of tension-relieving therapy. He studied with Jeff Corey, a character actor who after being blacklisted in the 1950s became a well-regarded acting teacher, and by the early ’60s Mr. Bisoglio was back in New York and establishing himself as a theater actor.At the Off Broadway Sheridan Square Playhouse in 1965, he was part of a production of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” that also included Robert Duvall, Jon Voigt, Susan Anspach and Richard Castellano, all then still early in their careers. The next year he made his only Broadway appearance, in Frederick Knott’s “Wait Until Dark,” playing a con man (Mr. Duvall played another).He began to find television work as well, appearing in episodes of “Bonanza” and “Mayberry R.F.D.,” among other shows, and in 1969 he landed a recurring role on the soap opera “The Doctors.” By the ’70s he had residences on both coasts to accommodate his increasingly busy TV and stage careers.Mr. Bisoglio tended to be offered roles as mobsters and other heavies — he held up Archie Bunker and family in a 1972 episode of “All in the Family” — but, as his wife said, “he yearned for roles where he could show something else,” and he turned down the thug parts when he could. Partly, he said, that was because they stereotyped a particular sort of Italian, one not representative of his family’s origins; his mother bristled whenever he took such a part.“She doesn’t cook much pasta,” he told United Press International in 1977. “We northern Italians in the Po Valley area eat mostly rice. We’re from peasant stock.”But, he told The Daily News, he also disliked such roles because they reminded him of his time as a gambler.“When I was a New York gambler I had to mix with those tough guys,” he said. “God, they were tough. Their arms were like iron. Their necks were like iron. Now it’s embarrassing for me to play them.”That said, his final credits were in three episodes of “The Sopranos” in 2002, playing a character named Murf who was part of Junior Soprano’s crew. But Mr. Bisoglio said he always enjoyed the chance to play comic roles.In the early 1980s, for instance, he was in several episodes of “M*A*S*H,” playing a cook named Pernelli. In one, Alan Alda’s Hawkeye lectures him at length on how to delicately prepare the perfect French toast. Mr. Bisoglio then ignores him and dumps all the ingredients, including the bread, into a giant pot.Another role that took Mr. Bisoglio a long way from Italian stereotypes came in 1979, when he played an erudite Indian chief named Gray Cloud in the comic western “The Frisco Kid,” with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford. George American Horse, an actual American Indian, was an adviser on the film, and in 1978 he told The New York Times that, the uncomfortable cross-cultural casting notwithstanding, Mr. Bisoglio’s portrayal was a welcome change from “the stoic Indian sitting on his pony with his arms crossed and wearing war paint.”Mr. Bisoglio’s marriage to Joyce Haden was brief and ended in divorce. He and Ms. Bisoglio married in 1996. In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Joseph Bisoglio and Scott Chapman. More

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      6 TV Tie-In Podcasts to Enhance Your Next Binge

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      Who’ll be the last one standing in “Succession”? Is “The Good Place” heaven or hell? These are the audio companions to keep the conversation going around some of your favorite shows.For a true TV devotee, watching the latest episode is just the beginning. Depending on the show at hand, there are plot twists and character revelations to dissect, theories to discuss and historical context to plumb. Fans have been gathering online to do all this since before the turn of the century, but in recent years, shows have started producing their own post-episode debriefs.Starting in the early 2010s, the TV “after-show” became a subgenre. Immediately after a new episode aired, a host would interview the stars and creators about what just happened, in programs like AMC’s “Talking Dead” and “Talking Bad,” HBO’s “After the Thrones,” and more recently Netflix’s “The Netflix Afterparty.” But as Hollywood seems to be realizing, the format works just as well (if not better) in audio form.As a result, there’s now a huge selection of official tie-in podcasts for your favorite TV shows. Some of these offer real added value, while others are skippable puffery. These six are worth your time.‘HBO’s Succession Podcast’Since fans of HBO’s towering, dramatic family tragicomedy have had to wait a full two years for new episodes, audio stepped in to fill the void. Beginning last summer, the host Roger Bennett (best known for the soccer podcast “Men in Blazers”) conducted interviews with the “Succession” ensemble, diving into the psychology of the power-hungry, emotionally stunted Roy clan. Now that the long-awaited third season has finally debuted, the podcast has switched up its format, swapping out Bennett for the veteran Silicon Valley journalist Kara Swisher (host of The New York Times podcast “Sway”). The focus now is less on the show itself, and more on the realities of the kind of power it depicts — Episode 1 features a conversation with Jennifer Palmieri, a former White House communications director, who weighs in on a politically charged moment from the season premiere. Though it may not please every fan, this shift in focus sets it apart from other tie-in podcasts.Starter episode: “Rich Doesn’t Equal Smart (With Jennifer Palmieri)”‘The Crown: The Official Podcast’One of the great pleasures of watching Netflix’s richly drawn royal drama “The Crown” is looking up the real historical events portrayed in each episode, and identifying what’s fact versus fiction. Hosted by the Scottish broadcaster Edith Bowman, this companion podcast helps to scratch that itch, offering additional context on the research that goes into depicting figures like Princess Diana and the divisive British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Each episode features Bowman alongside a variety of guests from the cast and creative team, who share behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the vast scale of the production. Sadly for fans of Claire Foy’s era, the podcast didn’t debut until Season 3 of the show, but will continue through its already-confirmed fifth and sixth seasons.Starter episode: “Episode 1: Goldstick”‘Better Call Saul Insider Podcast’Way back in 2009, when podcasts were still niche and held no interest for TV networks, the team behind AMC’s then under-the-radar drama “Breaking Bad” started putting out a roundtable podcast called “Breaking Bad Insider Podcast.” As the series gradually snowballed to become one of the most iconic series of all time, the podcast remained charmingly unchanged — with Kelley Dixon, an editor on both dramas, and Vince Gilligan, the creator of both, hosting an affable weekly chat about every aspect of the production. This dynamic continued with the introduction of the also acclaimed prequel series “Better Call Saul.” The hosts genuine warmth and camaraderie distinguishes this from many similar roundtable-style podcasts, and their insights into the nitty-gritty of production are invaluable for fans and aspiring creatives alike.Starter episode: “101 Better Call Saul Insider”‘The Good Place: The Podcast’There are layers upon layers to peel back in Michael Schur’s existential NBC sitcom “The Good Place,” which follows a ragtag group of recently deceased characters trying to navigate a zany afterlife where the rules keep changing. So it’s not surprising that the show makes ideal fodder for a podcast, which is hosted by the actor Marc Evan Jackson (best known to fans for playing a mysterious demon named Shawn). Offering episode-by-episode conversations spanning the entire series, the podcast features a revolving door of actors, writers and producers, as well as set decorators, props masters, and costume and production designers.Starter episode: “Ch. 1: Michael Schur”‘Late Night With Seth Meyers Podcast’Late-night talk shows aren’t generally first in line to get the podcast treatment, but this is less of a companion show than an alternative way to enjoy Meyers’s incarnation of “Late Night,” on NBC. New episodes typically drop two or three times a week, and feature highlights from the satirical nightly show, including Meyers’s opening monologues, interviews and signature recurring segments like “A Closer Look.” Guests run the cultural gamut — interviews from the last few weeks include Senator Elizabeth Warren, the cast of “Ted Lasso,” and Meyers’s onetime “SNL” colleague Colin Jost. Some episodes of the program are devoted to a sub-podcast, “Late Night Lit,” which features the “Late Night” producer Sarah Jenks-Daly discussing books and interviewing authors. Throw in the odd behind-the-scenes segment with Meyers and the producer Mike Shoemaker, and there’s something here to entertain just about anyone.Starter episode: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren | Southwest Contradicts Fox News, Says Chaos Not Caused by Vaccine Mandate: A Closer Look”‘The Chernobyl Podcast’If you devoured HBO’s riveting 2019 mini-series “Chernobyl” but skipped the tie-in podcast, you’re missing out on the full experience. Peter Sagal, best known as the host of NPR’s beloved quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!,” led this five-part conversation with the “Chernobyl” writer Craig Mazin, who co-hosts the long-running screenwriting podcast “Scriptnotes.” Their combined audio experience is evident in their effortless back-and-forth, which blends behind-the-scenes anecdotes with fascinating historical insights into the 1986 nuclear disaster and its fallout. Mazin’s enthusiasm for the subject matter is palpable, and the episode-by-episode discussion allows for a detailed breakdown of key moments. If you’re the kind of die-hard TV fan who pines for DVD audio commentaries, this is the next best thing.Starter episode: “1:23:45” More

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      Late Night Supports Democrats’ Plan to Tax the Richest of the Rich

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      “So that includes Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Flo, the Progressive Insurance lady,” Jimmy Fallon joked of the billionaires’ tax.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Champagne ProblemsOn Wednesday, Senate Democrats introduced a tax proposal targeting America’s 700 richest people: billionaires.“So that includes Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Flo, the Progressive Insurance lady,” Jimmy Fallon joked.“It’s tough for billionaires. If you’d like to sponsor one, you can make a difference for just $34 million a day.” — JIMMY FALLON“You know cash is tight for billionaires when their flights in space have to lay over in Cleveland.” — JIMMY FALLON“But by this afternoon, Democrats scrapped the tax on billionaires and now they might tax millionaires instead. When they heard that, Kim and Kylie were like, ‘Yes!’ while Khloe, Kourtney and Kendall were like, ‘No.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Senator [Ron] Wyden wants to pay for the Biden agenda with something called the billionaires’ income tax. Now the details are a little complex. Let me try to explain it: Billionaires, there’s this thing called taxes, and you should pay any.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The proposal affects only people with a billion dollars in assets or those earning more than $100 million in income three years in a row. OK, here’s a simple way to see if it affects you: Take your spare super yacht to your third house that’s on the private island shaped like your own head; look in your garage. If there isn’t a spaceship in there, you’re fine.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Calling it a ‘billionaire income tax’ was smart branding by the Democrats, because Republicans are going to sound pretty out of touch if they oppose it, which they immediately did.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Shots for Kids Edition)“Last night, an F.D.A. panel gave the green light to the Pfizer vaccine for kids between the ages of 5 and 11. That’s right. That’s right, kids’ vaccines are the best way to prevent the two things parents fear the most: Covid and home-schooling.” — JIMMY FALLON“In a few weeks, you’re going to see bouncers outside Chuck E. Cheese checking vaccine cards.” — JIMMY FALLON“Hey, kids, guess who gets to go to the doctor twice in the space of three weeks? And, don’t worry, he will stab you!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Kids could get the shot as soon as next week. Great timing, right after they go door to door on Halloween.” — JIMMY FALLON“Now kids can forget about Covid and worrying about that and go to spreading every other disease known to man.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Here’s how the vaccine will work: Older kids can get Pfizer, younger kids can get Moderna, and the middle child can get Johnson & Johnson.” — JIMMY FALLON“Some parents said that they aren’t sure if they’re comfortable giving their kids the vaccine, then they went back to feeding them Dunkaroos for breakfast.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee touched on the big business of death and funerals on this week’s “Full Frontal.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightJohn Leguizamo will catch up with Stephen Colbert on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutAbba in 1979; the band members’ digital avatars will be modeled on their looks from that year.Sobli/RDB and ullstein bild, via Getty ImagesAfter 40 years, Abba is releasing a new album, which all four original band members somehow made in secret. More

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      Netflix Series Stirs Debate About the Lives of Ultra-Orthodox Women

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      The show, “My Unorthodox Life,” tracks the world of Julia Haart, who fled a religious community she found repressive. But some in the community she left say they feel misrepresented.MONSEY, N.Y. — Even at the most liberal flanks of the ultra-Orthodox community here there are daily moments where women live quite differently from men.At synagogue, they must pray in segregated balconies or curtained-off sections. They are prohibited from becoming rabbis and are cautioned against wearing pants, or singing solo or dancing in front of men, lest they distract the men from Torah values.But do they go to college, have careers, watch television, enjoy their lives?Yes, say women of the Yeshivish community in this suburban hamlet 30 miles north of Manhattan, some of whom are upset by how they are portrayed on Netflix’s popular reality series “My Unorthodox Life.”The nine-episode show tracks the world of Julia Haart, 50, who fled Monsey in 2012 and became a successful fashion and modeling executive. Haart paints a dismal picture of her old ultra-Orthodox life, portraying it as oppressive, suggesting women are deprived of decent educations and are basically allowed just one purpose — to be a “babymaking machine.”In the show, Julia Haart describes her former life in an ultra-Orthodox community as repressive, and rejoices in the freedom she feels now that she has left it behind.   Olivia Galli for The New York Times“The women in my community are second-class citizens,” she says in one episode. “We only exist in relation to a man.”It is an image that is rejected by women like Vivian Schneck-Last, a technology consultant who has an M.B.A. from Columbia University and worked as a managing director at Goldman Sachs. She feels Haart diminishes the intellectual and professional strides that women in the community have made.“People in Monsey are upset because she has misrepresented what Orthodox people and particularly Orthodox women are all about,” Schneck-Last said.Roselyn Feinsod, an actuary and partner in the giant accounting firm of Ernst & Young who was once friendly with Haart, said she and her daughter graduated from the same girls high school as Haart, Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley, and that most of its graduates now go on to college. Defying stereotypes of ultra-Orthodox women as unworldly, Feinsod said she has run seven marathons and biked 100 miles around Lake Tahoe.“Monsey is a beautiful community with educated people respectful of each other,” she said.Reactions to the show, both positive and negative, have spread beyond Monsey. The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel and lohud.com, which covers an area that includes Monsey, all featured articles about the debate. Critics and supporters of the show have posted videos on YouTube.Under the hashtag #myorthodoxlife, women have described their own successful careers and general satisfaction with the religious life.Roselyn Feinsod, who was once a friend of Julia Haart, said the show misrepresents the career opportunities available to ultra-Orthodox women like herself, a partner at a major accounting firm.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times“People were beyond upset, people were personally insulted,” said Allison Josephs, the founder of the Jew in the City website, who said people posted complaints on the site, which she created to change negative perceptions of religious Jews. “Pretty much every Jew I encountered was feeling, ‘Can you believe what they did to us again?’”Haart defends her depiction as accurate and says she has heard from many ultra-Orthodox and formerly ultra-Orthodox women who agree with her that the community represses women.“Everything about your story resonated so deeply with me,” one woman wrote in a message on Haart’s Instagram page. “I too left the Orthodox community and had to start over after struggling for so long with being unhappy.”Several people familiar with the ultra-Orthodox community wrote directly to The Times to express their support for Haart’s perspective, including Tzivya Green, a former member of the same Yeshivish community in Monsey.“Women are still told to keep quiet and, taught from a young age, that men hold all the power,” Green wrote. “We are taught to never go against a man’s word. Men are everything and women are nothing.”Haart describes the criticism as a personal attack that distracts from the sense of female empowerment she hopes to promote. Since leaving Monsey she has created her own shoe business and is now chief executive of the Elite World Group, among the world’s largest modeling agencies. Her show was just picked up for a second season.Haart agreed to address the debate over her show in an in-person interview if it could be filmed as part of her show. After The Times declined that arrangement, she and The Times were unable to agree on an alternative.Monsey is home to a variety of Orthodox Jews — some modern, some Hasidic and some of the ultra-Orthodox variation that Haart was part of, known as Yeshivish. Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesThough she did not respond to written questions from The Times, saying she had addressed them in prior interviews, she did provide her perspective by pointing out remarks she has made on social media and also by releasing a statement. It said in part: “My sole purpose in sharing my personal story is to raise awareness about an unquestionably repressive society where women are denied the same opportunities as men, which is why my upcoming book and season 2 of my show will continue to document my personal experience that I hope will allow other women to insist on the precious right to freedom.”There are communal pressures in Monsey against television-watching as a waste of time, as the show depicts. The role of women as mothers and homemakers is prized. Though some scholars argue it should not be interpreted as a slight, a prayer in which men thank God for not making them a woman is recited each morning.Still, several women interviewed in Monsey said the show’s perspective is often dated, sometimes exaggerated and conflates the multiple strains of Orthodox Judaism practiced in Monsey.The hamlet of Monsey derived its name from the Munsee branch of the Lenape Native Americans who populated the area before the arrival of Dutch and British colonists. Monsey has become a metonym for the Orthodox Jews of Rockland County, who represent more than a quarter of its population and gather at more than 200 synagogues and roughly half that many yeshivas. Their arrival converted Monsey, a one-stoplight town with a single yeshiva in 1950, into a place populated by a variety of Orthodox Jews — some modern, some Hasidic and some of the ultra-Orthodox variation that Haart was part of, known as Yeshivish or Litvish (Lithuanian), and within those groupings, several gradations or sects of each.That diversity, perhaps not as multicolored as Joseph’s coat, is nonetheless visible on the streets where thick-bearded men in black silk robes and cylindrical fur hats known as shtreimels mix with clean-shaven men in Polo shirts and chinos, recognizable as observant only by their skullcaps.Haart has spoken in interviews about the gradations of Judaism, but some critics of her show say it does not do enough to depict the variations of Orthodox Judaism.  Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesHaart has acknowledged in media appearances and other settings that there are “gradations of Judaism,” and that others from her community may not share her perspective. At its best, she acknowledged in a TV interview with Tamron Hall, her religion fosters an appreciation of charity, of kindness.But critics say those nuances are not captured on the show, where she uses terms like “brainwashed” and “deprogram” to describe ultra-Orthodox life in Monsey in ways that suggest it is more a cult than a personal choice. They say they worry the show describes strictures more typical of, say, the Brooklyn-based Satmar Hasidim, not the less stringent community of which she was part.For example, while the show accurately presents television as frowned upon in Yeshivish circles, they say it doesn’t make clear that many people, including Haart, owned one. (Haart acknowledged on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” that she had a television in her later years in Monsey and said she lied about it to school officials who otherwise would not have admitted her children.)And yes, as Haart explains on the show, some in the community are not crazy about women riding bikes because the pedaling might expose their knees. But the critics said the show does not make clear that women, including Haart, still rode bikes, in modest attire. (Haart posted about her family bike rides on her Instagram account earlier this month.)Though Haart has said she feels she was deprived of an education by a subpar school system, several women said she was a brilliant, top-notch student who could have attended college without any problem, or stigma, had she decided to.“She was very popular, had every opportunity, a leader in the class, and now she’s turned it into some persecution situation,” said Andrea Jaffe, a certified public accountant and former American Express executive who said that for many years she lived across the street from Haart.Haart, left, reaching out to her daughter Batsheva. Haart has said providing her children with a less restricted way of life was one motivation for her decision to leave Monsey.  NetflixMuch of the Netflix show concerns Haart’s relationship with her four children, three of whom retain various ties to Orthodoxy. (Haart is divorced from their father, but has since remarried. Both men appear on the show.) In Monsey, where religious traditions prescribe the patterns of daily life, her candid discussions with the children about her own sexuality, and theirs, run counter to the norm.Feinsod, a mother of four, said she was offended by what she characterized as Haart’s effort in front of a national audience to draw her children away from an observant life.“It’s fine for her to make choices, but for her to try and force the children’s hand in front of an audience of millions of people is disappointing,” she said.Of course, freeing her children from what she describes as the stifling imprint of ultra-Orthodoxy is exactly what Haart embraces as her mission.“I lived in that world and it’s a very small and sad world, a place where women have one purpose in life and that is to have babies and get married,” she tells her 14-year-old son, Aron, in the second episode.She says that, for her, the low-cut tops she favors are not just gestures of style, but emblems of freedom, of a woman controlling her own body and how it is presented.Netflix declined to comment on reactions to its show, which is at least the third it has presented in recent years about Orthodox life. “Unorthodox,” a mini-series, focused on another woman’s flight from her Brooklyn Hasidic community.The Israeli family drama “Shtisel” has been applauded by many in the Orthodox world for its subtlety, rounded characters and humor.Several women who have lived in Monsey or spent considerable time there said that kind of nuance is missing from Haart’s show, which they said gives no sense that some women cannot only avoid misery, but thrive, while maintaining ultra-Orthodox values.“There’s no monolithic Monsey,” Josephs said.Additional reporting by Colin Moynihan. 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      What Is Your Favorite Abba Memory?

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      Next month the Swedish band will release its first new album in 40 years. We want to hear what its music means to you.When did you first hear a song by Abba?Since shimmying onto the international stage with “Waterloo” in 1974, the band has become a ubiquitous part of global pop culture.Before going on indefinite hiatus in 1982, Abba — named for its members, Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — released eight studio albums and some of the catchiest pop songs of all time, which reached No. 1 across the world. Just hearing song names like “Dancing Queen,” “Take a Chance on Me” and “Mamma Mia” can be enough to have Abba’s upbeat choruses in your head for the rest of the day (you’re welcome!).In the decades since, the Abba phenomenon has continued: In 1999 the musical “Mamma Mia!” came to London’s West End, and then Broadway and stages around Europe. Two star-studded film versions followed.Now, for the first time in four decades, the group has released new music, and a 10-track album, “Voyage,” is coming on Nov. 5. And beginning next spring in a custom-built London venue, the group will present a new live show, performing as high-tech avatars intended to replicate how its members looked in 1979.So although Abba’s music has never been far away, Sweden’s best-selling band is definitively back. To commemorate this moment, we want to hear about what Abba means to you.Has it formed the soundtrack to your life? Do certain songs take you straight back to moments of joy, sadness or singalong? Have you visited the Abba museum in Stockholm? Has your relationship with different tracks changed over the years? We’d also love to see photos that show your fandom.Your submissions may be included in our future Abba coverage.What does Abba’s music mean to you?The Swedish quartet is releasing its first new album in four decades. We want to hear from its fans. More

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      Quel est votre meilleur souvenir d’Abba?

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      Le mois prochain, le groupe suédois sort son premier album depuis 40 ans. Comment leur musique a-t-elle compté pour vous? Envoyez-nous vos témoignages.De gauche à droite: Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog et Bjorn Ulvaeus, les membres du groupe Abba.Tt News Agency/ReutersQuel est votre premier souvenir d’Abba ?Depuis “Waterloo” et son irruption spectaculaire sur la scène internationale en 1974, le groupe occupe une place incontournable dans la pop mondiale.Jusqu’à 1982 et sa mise en retrait pour une durée indéterminée, Abba — nommé d’après ses membres Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus et Anni-Frid Lyngstad — a produit huit albums studio et quelques-uns des tubes les plus accrocheurs de l’histoire, numéros 1 des classements mondiaux. “Dancing Queen”, “Take a Chance on Me”, “Mamma Mia”: l’évocation de leurs noms suffit à vous mettre d’humeur joyeuse une bonne partie de la journée (il n’y a pas de quoi!).Le succès du phénomène Abba ne s’est jamais tari : En 1999, la comédie musicale “Mamma Mia!” conquiert d’abord le West End à Londres, puis Broadway avant de se propager aux théâtres d’Europe. Et son adaptation au cinéma affiche deux grandes stars de Hollywood.Après 40 ans de silence, le groupe a sorti de nouveaux morceaux et, le 5 novembre, lancera un album de 10 titres, “Voyage”. À partir du printemps prochain, dans un théâtre conçu sur-mesure à Londres, le groupe se produira en ‘live’ sous forme d’avatars high-tech de leur apparence en 1979.Si la musique d’Abba n’a jamais disparu, c’est un véritable retour que fait le groupe le plus vendeur de Suède. Pour célébrer l’événement, nous aimerions savoir ce qu’Abba signifie pour vous.Leurs tubes ont-ils été la bande-son de votre vie ? À quels moments de joie, de tristesse ou de tubes chantés à tue-tête vous ramènent-ils ? Avez-vous visité le musée Abba à Stockholm ? Comment votre ressenti des différents titres a-t-il évolué au fil du temps ? Nous aimerions aussi voir, si vous en avez, vos photos de fan d’Abba.Certaines de vos contributions seront incluses dans nos reportages à venir sur Abba.Que représente pour vous la musique d’Abba? Le quatuor suédois sort son premier album depuis 40 ans. Nous aimerions savoir ce qu’en pensent ses fans. More