“In a slow, unfocused sort of way,” writes Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic, “Russia is sliding into what can only be described as a civil war.” Revolutions are indifferent to augury. They never occur when, or how, the self-proclaimed experts predict. Still, for all the punditry over the weekend, and all that to come in the weeks ahead, I think Applebaum’s comment here sets the right tone.

I disagree with the Economist’s Lexington correspondent (or, at least, the editor): our cultural fixation on the multiverse is not an “escape” but a sign of progress. The youngest among us are not obsessed with talking about mental health because they are any more broken than their forebears—though, the damage from helicopter-parenting is unique and will haunt them forever—but because they are the first group of people in our modern civilization to have both the self-awareness and the time to look back over their shoulder, take stock of how we got here, and ask what it means.

Judd Apatow talks to Mel Brooks in the latest issue of the Atlantic.

Don’t blame me for the mayoral byelection result, Toronto—I voted for three racoons in a tench coat.