Professional Documents
Culture Documents
9, 2017
JANUARY 9, 2017
PROFILES
Tad Friend 32 California Dreamin
The director Mike Millss nostalgia trips.
A REPORTER AT LARGE
Nicholas Schmidle 38 Can Football Be Saved?
A high-school experiment to make football safer.
FICTION
Yiyun Li 60 On the Street Where You Live
THE CRITICS
BOOKS
Joan Acocella 66 Gregor Henss Nicotine.
69 Briey Noted
Jerome Groopman 70 Charles Fernyhoughs The Voices Within.
MUSICAL EVENTS
Alex Ross 74 The super-virtuosity of Daniil Trifonov.
POEMS
Ellen Bass 26 After Long Illness
John Kinsella 58 Milking the Tiger Snake
COVER
Jorge Colombo Waterways
DRAWINGS Will McPhail, Kim Warp, Liam Francis Walsh, Joe Dator, David Sipress, Paul Noth, Jack Ziegler, Tom Chitty,
Roz Chast, P. C. Vey, Tom Toro, Seth Fleishman, Drew Dernavich
SPOTS Greg Clarke
The future belongs to
those who change it.
LIMITED-EDITION CONTRIBUTORS
T-SHIRTS
Take a page out of Nicholas Schmidle (Can Football Be Ian Frazier (High-Rise Greens, p. 52)
Eustace Tilleys stylebook with Saved ?, p. 38), a staff writer, is a Fer- recently published Hogs Wild: Se-
exclusive shirts featuring our ris Professor of Journalism at Prince- lected Reporting Pieces, and is work-
signature typeface. ton this spring. ing on a book about the Bronx.
Jerome Groopman (Books, p. 70), the John Kinsella (Poem, p. 58) is the
Recanati Professor of Medicine at author of, most recently, the poetry
Harvard, has written several books, collection Firebreaks.
the most recent of which is Your
Medical Mind: How to Decide What Alex Ross (Musical Events, p. 74), a staff
Is Right for You, with Dr. Pamela writer, is the author of The Rest Is
Hartzband. Noise and Listen to This.
Jelani Cobb (Comment, p. 19) teaches Yiyun Li (Fiction, p. 60) is the author of
in the journalism program at Colum- several books. An essay collection, Dear
bia University. Friend, from My Life I Write to You
in Your Life, will be out next month.
Jena Friedman (Shouts & Murmurs,
p. 31) is a comedian and lmmaker. Joan Acocella (Books, p. 66) has written
Her standup special, American Cunt, for The New Yorker since 1992.
will be available on iTunes later this
month. Jorge Colombo (Cover) is an illustra-
tor, photographer, and graphic designer,
Kelefa Sanneh (Secret Admirers, p. 24) and the author of New York: Finger
is a staff writer. Paintings by Jorge Colombo.
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THE MAIL
WHATS IN A WORD? Trump was a candidate, the tweets
were good for an eye roll, but, now
Hilton Als, in his review of the play that he has been elected, this one-
Sweet Charity, takes the director way communication should be re-
Leigh Silverman to task for her se- garded for what it is: tweets between
riousness of purpose (Dear Heart, Trump and his followers. The role
December 5th). The problem is of the media is to hold politicians ac-
that shes too serious about theatre; countable, through accepted means:
she wants her shows to countto interviews and press conferences,
have a moral purpose, he writes. even talk shows. Trump is able to
Sometimes a play is just a play, avoid these platforms precisely be-
and not all of her productions can cause the media covers his tweets. If
bear the weight of her imperative. newspapers and magazines refused
Throughout the review, Als stops just to do so, he would lose much of his
short of telling Silverman, Smile ability to manipulate his coverage.
more! Have we really not moved be- Not much would be lost and, in my
yond this tired critique of womens opinion, there would be a whole lot
work and ambition? How can The gained.
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New Yorker justify taking aim at a Beth Cahn
woman because she wants her work Richmond, Calif.
to matter? This unexamined clich
is disheartening, and diminishes both SEX AND PRIVACY
Als and your publication. A play
is just a play, perhaps, but the truth Margaret Talbots article on the law-
is that plays matter. Words mat- yer Carrie Goldberg, a leader in the
ter. Evenor, perhaps, especially eld of sexual privacy, reveals the
yours. complexities of adjudicating revenge-
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Bess Wohl porn cases in the evolving world of
New York City online harassment (Taking Trolls to
Court, December 5th). I so appreci-
MEDIA UNDER TRUMP ated Talbots lionization of extraordi-
nary attorneys like Goldberg, who
In Amy Davidsons Comment on have devoted an entire practice to this
Donald Trumps transition team, she issue. While Talbots article focusses
uses the term alt-right to describe on victims of online humiliation, cur-
the rhetoric of Trumps chief strate- rent laws offer protection to those
gist, Steve Bannon (December 5th). who fear they may become victims.
While Im generally supportive of Even threatening to expose explicit
peoples efforts at self-appellation, it photographs is, under existing ha-
is the duty of everyone who objects rassment and extortion laws, often
to white-supremacist ideology to re- a crime. Individuals seeking orders of
sist this groups efforts at mainstream- protection, or restraining orders, can
ing its positions. In practice, this ask the judge to include a provision
means referring to those connected that forbids the dissemination of pri-
to it as the so-called alt-right, or vate media to third parties.
else explicitly noting their ties to Clara Platter
white-supremacist ideologies by New York City
calling them white supremacists or
white nationalists.
Elizabeth Armstrong Letters should be sent with the writers name,
Ann Arbor, Mich. address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
Davidson, like many other journal- any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
ists, quotes a Trump tweet. When of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
Lee Fields has earned the grit that coats his voice. With more than four decades of wear, his imperfectly
preserved instrument might sound familiar to devotees of Stax and Chess. The North Carolina native,
who plays Irving Plaza Jan. 7 with his band, the Expressions, is more revisionist than revivalist, perform-
ing as if the horns and Rhodes pianos of soul music had never given way to disco. His latest side, Special
Night, arrives via Big Crown Records, a budding Greenpoint soul label pressing seven-inch singles.
ART
1
ered costumes frolicking in a field of sunflow-
ers; one wields a butterfly net. Two vitrines
contain ephemera, including a handwritten an-
nouncement for screenings of Smiths scathing,
thinking as it prepares to expand its building prescient 1968 film, No President, which in-
MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES with an eye toward a more muscular history corporates found footage of the 1940 Republi-
of art. Through March 12. can nominee, Wendell Willkie, whose then un-
Metropolitan Museum conventional political rsum included a stint
Jerusalem, 1000-1400: Every People New Museum as C.E.O. of a utilities company. This exhibi-
Under Heaven Cheng Ran: Diary of a Madman tion in a commercial gallery might well have in-
In this captivating show of some two hundred The young Chinese artist had never visited furiated the notoriously prickly, anticapitalist
objects from the era of the Crusades, there are New York before filming the fifteen disjunc- artist, but its welcome fare in this bleak pre-
manuscripts, maps, paintings, sculptures, archi- tive, often jejune videos in his first U.S. mu- inaugural season. Through Jan. 14. (Marlborough,
tectural fragments, reliquaries, ceramics, glass, seum show. On the largest screen, tourist- 545 W. 25th St. 212-463-8634.)
fabrics, astrolabes, jewelry, weapons, and, espe- standard shots of Times Square are backed by
cially, booksin nine alphabets and twelve lan- a man half singing, half speaking Allen Gins- Masao Yamamoto
guages. The works, from sixty lenders in more bergs Howl; other screens feature a couple Avian photography is a tradition perched be-
than a dozen countries, express the Jewish, Is- having sex in the shower, a gentleman in Ray- tween science and art, but Yamamoto leans
lamic, and Christian cultures of the time, the Bans that reflect the Manhattan skyline, and heavily in the latter direction with these sen-
three great Abrahamic faiths sharing a city holy a shucked oyster on a fire escape. Two films, sitive, impressionistic prints. His small, tran-
to them all, when they werent bloodily con- one shot on the Williamsburg Bridge and the scendent pictures feature cranes in empty
testing it. The installation is lovely: rooms in other on Staten Island Bay, feature Americans fields or doves soaring above petal-bedecked
gray and blue are filled with a cumulative haze speaking halting Mandarin. If Chengs images ponds. Swans get lost in the snow thanks to
of spotlights, designed not for drama but for are undemanding, his seamless integration of low-contrast exposure: birds and precipitation
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ease of attention; the show, though immense, life in two global superpowers has some more resolve into a vaporous beige. Some prints, in-
wont exhaust you. The aesthetic appeal of the bite. Through Jan. 15. cluding one of an owl looking away from the
exhibits is continual and intense, but concen- camera, Garbo-style, are mounted on kakejiku,
tration on it can feel disrespectfully indulgent. the hanging scrolls usually reserved for ink
Message, not medium, is the motive of even GALLERIESUPTOWN paintings; others are subtly numinous, flecked
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the most decorative work, in which visual plea- with whispers of gold paint. Through Jan. 28.
sure serves to enhance belief and, perhaps, to William Christenberry (Richardson, 525 W. 22nd St. 646-230-9610.)
give a foretaste of paradise. Partly, this is true A visual poet of the American South, Chris-
of all properly regarded medieval art and de- tenberry died in late November, three weeks
sign, from the time before Giotto and Duccio after the opening of this understated knockout GALLERIESDOWNTOWN
began insinuating personal style into painting. of a show, which pairs photographs of the same
Most of the work in the show is not credited to sitesramshackle buildings and fecund land- Anna Glantz
a named artist. An exception is Sargis Pidzak, scapes in his native Alabamain summer and These mannered paintings seem to have roots
an Armenian who made superb illuminations winter. The attention that Christenberry paid in high-school surrealism, vintage sci-fi book
for a Gospel book dated 1346. Another illus- to his subjects, which he often photographed covers, and video-game worlds. Retrovertigo
tration, in a beautiful Italian Torah, of sacrifi- years apart, bordered on the devotional. Here, is a bizarre scene framed by imagery of crum-
cial rites in the courtyard of the Temple, is at- his deceptively modest images are poignant bling bricks: a trumpet screws itself into the
tributed to the place-holding Master of the monuments to the passageand the ravages earth while a person hangs onto it for dear life.
1
Barbo Missal. Through Jan. 8. of time. Through Jan. 21. (Pace/MacGill, 32 In Mike Kelley Winter, the head of the leg-
E. 57th St. 212-759-7999.) endary late artist floats in a pastel landscape in-
Museum of Modern Art terrupted by starbursts and a stick-figure dog.
A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the While certain motifs recurnotably stone-
Russian Avant-Garde GALLERIESCHELSEA work, animals, pumpkins, and gobletseach
History is not a constant march forwardit meticulous painting suggests its own uncanny
can stand still for decades and then, as it did in Rita Ackermann narrative. The young artists deft, if stilted,
Russia a hundred years ago, explode in a flash. The Budapest-born, New York-based artists re- collision of illustrational styles is either ad-
This extensive showcase, featuring more than cent series, Stretcher Bar Paintings, reveals mirably confident or perplexingly dogged, de-
two hundred and sixty works, sets the formal signs of support that are usually concealed. One pending on your point of view. But the onei-
experiments of early Soviet artLyubov Po- messy red monochrome beckons with a mon- ric non sequiturs in her pictures linger in the
povas geometric prints, Gustav Klutsiss ag- tage of coquettish nudes, its surface subtly im- minds eye. Through Jan. 15. (11R, 195 Chrystie
gressive photocollages, the thick-slashed ab- printed with the cruciform of its stretchers. St. 212-982-1930.)
stractions of Natalia Goncharovawithin a In the series Kline Rape, big, Ab Ex-y ges-
framework of political upheaval. Formal in- tures struggle against Ackermanns long-term Duane Linklater
novation, it proposes, not only reflected re- style of airy figuration. The outlined images of The artist, who is Omaskko Cree, from Moose
bellion but was intertwined with it. Kasimir girls, which have been a hallmark of her work Cree First Nation, in northern Ontario, has
Malevich is well represented, both by his Su- since the nineteen-nineties, rise to the top in installed a disparate array of intriguing ob-
prematist squares and by later, propaedeutic Kline Nurses, in which two neon-pink silhou- jects in an austere, layered, and quietly con-
charts mapping the development of modern- ettes, sporting bobs and fetishlike uniform caps, frontational show titled From Our Hands.
ist style; the real star here, though, is his dis- are fluidly limned over brash swaths of black. Beaded mitts and slippers made of caribou hide
ciple El Lissitzky, whose geometric Prouns Through Jan. 14. (Hauser & Wirth, 548 W. 22nd and rabbit fur by Linklaters late grandmother,
precede bold book covers, multiple-exposure St. 212-977-7160.) Ethel, and a buoyant clay animation piece by his
photographs, and an audacious lithograph, twelve-year-old son, Tobias, join his own enig-
made for the Committee to Combat Unem- Jack Smith matic sculptures. The gallerys south walls are
ployment. Everything on view is from the Artaudian venom and derelict drag are soul stripped of their drywall, exposing a network of
museums collection, and perhaps a full-dress mates in the radical oeuvre of the under- bright steel studs underneath. These industrial
exhibition would have integrated films more ground-cinema hero, best known for his exper- stripes are also the basis for the series Unti-
unexpected than Man with a Movie Camera imental masterpiece from 1963, Flaming Crea- tled Problems, which combines gypsum, faux
and Potemkin, two unimpeachable classics tures. This small show shines a light on Smiths fur, and carpet in seemingly effortless ways;
easily accessed on YouTube. But this sort of feverish output in other media, including vivid the artist renders each column wholly unique
historically grounded, cross-media presenta- marker drawings on paper napkins, collaged fly- and oddly human. Through Feb. 18. (80WSE, 80
tion is precisely how the museum should be ers, and color photography. Posthumously pro- Washington Sq. E. 212-998-5747.)
Made in China
The Wakka Wakka ensemble created this con-
sumerism-minded puppet musical, in which a
middle-aged American woman with a penchant
for big-box stores falls in love with her Chinese
neighbor. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th St. 212-279-4200.
Previews begin Jan. 10.)
Orange Julius
Dustin Wills directs Basil Kreimendahls play,
about the transgender child of a Vietnam vet
who is suffering from the effects of Agent Or-
ange. (Rattlestick, 224 Waverly Pl. 212-627-2556.
Previews begin Jan. 10.)
The Present
Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh star in the
Blueprint Specials will be staged on the hangar deck of the Intrepid, with a cast of thirty-four. Sydney Theatre Company production of Andrew
Uptons play, based on an early Chekhov work
(known as Platonov) and directed by John
G.I. Jive written in 1944 for the newly formed
Crowley. (Ethel Barrymore, 243 W. 47th St. 212-
Womens Army Corps, in which the god- 239-6200. In previews. Opens Jan. 8.)
Rare Second World War musicals
dess Athena descends from Mt. Olympus
resurface, at Under the Radar. Yours Unfaithfully
to enlist as a private. The Broadway actors
The Mint stages a comedy by Miles Malleson,
A few years before writing Guys and Laura Osnes and Will Swenson will lead published in 1933 but never produced, about a
Dolls, which premired in 1950, Frank a cast of thirty-four, consisting of both depressed writer (Max von Essen) whose wife
tries to reignite their marriage. Jonathan Bank
1
Loesser put his sizable talents to work for civilians and military performers, whom
directs. (Beckett, 410 W. 42nd St. 212-239-6200.
Uncle Sam, when the U.S. Army hired Ridgely found through veterans groups In previews.)
him to collaborate on a series of musicals by way of Army Entertainment, the
to be performed by and for the troops. modern-day equivalent of Special Ser-
NOW PLAYING
Commissioned by the Special Services vices. Theyll be joined by a fourteen-piece
Division to boost morale, these Blueprint jazz orchestra and eleven dancers from The Bands Visit
Specials came with a script, a score, and the Limn Dance Company, who have How do you make a musical comedy about
boredom, drabness, and disappointment? This
instructions for easy assemblage. (The reconstructed original Blueprint ballets delightful new show, adapted from the 2007
gags and situations are of the type to hit by the choreographer Jos Limn. (non-musical) filmabout an Egyptian police
the GI funnybone. . . . The scenery can Blueprint Specials is one of the more band that travels to Israel to play a concert but
ends up stranded for a night in the wrong town
be knocked together in a jiffy from scrap eye-catching entries in this years Under in the middle of nowheretoys with that co-
materials found in even the loneliest out- the Radar festival ( Jan. 4-15), the Publics nundrum to hilarious and often hypnotic effect.
post.) Loesser, who had been writing showcase of experiments from here and Tony Shalhoub gets top billing for his unshowy
performance as the bands repressed conductor,
lyrics for Hollywood before the war, cut abroad, which heats up the otherwise but the star is Katrina Lenk, as Dina, a world-
his teeth crafting songs for camp shows chilly theatre scene each January. Club weary local who shows him the sights, such as
like About Face and Hi, Yank!; a 1951 Diamond, by Nikki Appino and Saori they are. David Yazbeks songs are charming,
Tyler Micoleaus lighting is precisely evoca-
Billboard prole proclaimed that the Tsukada, also repurposes an old art form, tive, and Scott Pasks rotating sets are inge-
army made a composera one-man in a darker story about the Second World nious. But it all works because David Cromers
songwriterout of Frank Loesser. War. The play begins in Tokyo in 1937, as direction is patient enough to allow the silence
and space in which intimacy blooms. (Atlantic
Many of the scripts were lost to time, a noted Benshi live-narrates a silent lm, Theatre Company, 336 W. 20th St. 866-811-4111.
but the director Tom Ridgely, of the the- then skips ahead ten years, when the same Through Jan. 8.)
atre troupe Waterwell, has unearthed four man survives as a street performer under
COIL 2017
of themall composed principally by American occupation. For more modern
ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE RIFKIN
Dear Evan Hansen pendable. Rachel Brosnahan is a very good Des- Suicide Lynn Redgrave. Through Jan. 8. The
This new musical (directed by Michael Greif, demona, and its her strength and clarity that Color Purple Jacobs. Through Jan. 8. The Dead,
with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Jus- make Craigs Iago mad with jealousy. But its a 1904 American Irish Historical Society. Through
tin Paul and a book by Steven Levenson) has cold rage, which makes it that much more scary, Jan. 7. The Encounter Golden. Through Jan.
a long stretch of brilliance, but it is ultimately while the complicated innocence of Oyelowos 8. Falsettos Walter Kerr. Through Jan. 8. Fin-
undone by pop psychology. Evan (Ben Platt) is Othello draws us in moment by moment with- ians Rainbow Irish Repertory. The Front Page
seventeen and in high school. Shyness causes out sacrificing the characters mighty power or Broadhurst. Holiday Inn Studio 54. In Tran-
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his shoulders to hunch up, and he avoids eye his self-protective wit. (New York Theatre Work- sit Circle in the Square. Les Liaisons Dange-
contact with any interlocutor, even his mother, shop, 79 E. 4th St. 212-460-5475.) reuses Booth. Through Jan. 8. Martin Luther
Heidi (Rachel Bay Jones). A classmate, Connor on Trial Pearl. Natasha, Pierre & the Great
(Mike Faist), crosses a line, and, in the after- Comet of 1812 Imperial. Oh, Hello on Broadway
math of his actions, the musical becomes a pro- ALSO NOTABLE Lyceum. Othello: The Remix Westside. The
found evocation of how the need to belong can Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart The Heath
be as ugly as the need to exclude. Platts charac- The Babylon Line Mitzi E. Newhouse. A at the McKittrick Hotel. Sweet Charity Per-
terization is almost beyond belief, one of those Bronx Tale Longacre. Chris Gethard: Career shing Square Signature Center. Through Jan. 8.
supersonic performances that make you sit up
in your chair. The holes in the formulaic second
half dont so much diminish his performance as
smudge it a little, like a beautiful charcoal draw-
ing thats been handled too much. (Reviewed
DANCE
in our issue of 12/19 & 26/16.) (Music Box, 239
W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.)
God of Vengeance
Were it not for Paula Vogels new play Inde-
cent, which masterfully tells the backstory be- American Dance Platform premires, encore presentations, exhibitions, and
hind Sholem Aschs God of Vengeancewhose Alicia B. Adams, the vice-president of interna- discussions, and at least one party. The best bets
main claim to fame is a Broadway run halted for tional programming and dance at the Kennedy are Mercurial George, a volatile reckoning with
obscenity, in 1923the earlier show would be for- Center, has selected eight companies for this one- identity by the Canadian choreographer Dana Mi-
gotten by all but theatre historians. Now we can week festival, arranged in rotating double-bill pro- chel; Cage Shuffle, in which Paul Lazar recites
see what the fuss was about, thanks to New Yid- grams. The most intriguing of them pairs the San randomly selected one-minute stories by John
dish Rep, which is presenting Aschs 1907 melo- Francisco-based group RAWDances Double Ex- Cage while performing choreography by Annie-B
drama in its original language. As it turns out, posure, which was created by twelve choreogra- Parson; and an evening of danced monologues by
the plot point that caught the vice squads at- phers (Ann Carlson and David Roussve among Meg Stuart, a noted American artist whose career
tentiona passionate lesbian kiss between the them), with Agua Furiosa, an Afro-Cuban riff has transpired mostly in Europe. (Various locations.
daughter of a brothel owner and one of her fa- on racism, drought, and The Tempest by Con- 212-352-3101. Jan. 5-10. Through Jan. 12.)
thers employeestakes up only a small part. tra-Tiempo, from Los Angeles. And any visit by
What drives the story is the way men use tradi- Ragamala Dance Company (in a split bill with Contemporary Dance Showcase: Japan +
tion and religion to bolster their status and con- Davalois Fearon Dance), an excellent Indian- East Asia
trol women. Eleanor Reissas production can be American ensemble out of Minneapolis, is always This showcase offers a sampling of the newest
awkwardly earnest, and the acting is often ten- welcome. (Joyce Theatre, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th St. of the new in the experimental performing-arts
tative, yet the show is a fascinating curio. (La 212-242-0800. Jan. 4-8.) scene in Japan and the Far East. Most of these
Mama, 74A E. 4th St. 800-838-3006.) artists are unknown here, so the audience has no
COIL 2017 idea what to expect. The current edition includes
Gorey: The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey The dance selections of P.S. 122s multidisci- a duet by Un Yamada, set to the 1923 Stravin-
The writer and illustrator Edward Gorey spe- plinary festival include Basketball, the latest sky ballet Les Noces, a high-tech collaboration
cialized in locating humor in peril and gloom; in duet by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith, capti- between the Canadian audiovisual composer
his life, he could accurately be labelled a hoarder vating performers whose attunement to each other Navid Navab and the dancer Akiko Kitamura,
and a loner, yet his personality brimmed with in- can be engrossing. In Meeting, the Australian and works by choreographers from Korea and
spirations and enthusiasms. The playwright and choreographers Anthony Hamilton and Alisdair Taiwan. (Japan Society, 333 E. 47th St. 212-715-
director Travis Russ has devised a brilliant solu- Macindoe move robotically while surrounded by 1258. Jan. 6-7.)
tion for dramatizing this contradictory and soli- sixty-four mechanical instruments: pairs of pen-
tary man: three actors, all of them excellent and cils and bells, triggered electronically. (Various lo- Stam-Pede
in perfect tune with one another, play the artist cations. 212-352-3101. Jan. 4-10. Through Jan. 22.) A broad definition of percussive dance is pro-
simultaneously at three different ages, delivering moted in this annual showcase. This years par-
a collective autobiographical monologue, some- Vicky Shick / Another Spell ticipating companies range from the Irish and
times delightedly affirming each others accounts, January has become the month of revivals. This modern of Darrah Carr Dance and the modern
sometimes gently contradicting them. Gorey may week, Danspace revisits Vicky Schicks Another and tap of the Bang Group to the tap and quirk-
be the only character onstage (unless you count Spell, a typically delicate and nuanced work from iness of Off Beat and its tall-enough-for-the-
his overstuffed old house on Cape Cod, which is last year, which creates a quiet dreamscape filled N.B.A. choreographer and star, Ryan P. Casey.
evoked in such loving detail that it deserves its with seven efficiently moving and vaguely mys- (Symphony Space, Broadway at 95th St. 212-864-
own billing), but presenting his life in triplicate terious women. As they go about their business 5400. Jan. 8.)
is like taking a familiar melody and assigning it sometimes in intimate proximity, often alonethey
an unexpected set of chords. (Sheen Center, 18 seem to enact private stories and rituals: spinning Works & Process / Pontus Lidberg
Bleecker St. 212-925-2812.) in tight circles, shuffling on tiptoe, caressing, or The Swedish-born Lidberg is best known for his
simply basking in one anothers company. (Dans- 2010 dance film, Labyrinth Within, a collabo-
Othello pace Project, St. Marks Church In-the-Bowery, Second ration with Wendy Whelan that he later devel-
David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig play the Moor Ave. at 10th St. 866-811-4111. Jan. 5-7.) oped into an immersive stage work. His style
and Iago, respectively, in Sam Golds interesting is poetic and meditative, with emphasis on the
version of Shakespeares poem about possession, American Realness beauty and vulnerability of the human body. This
race, and jealousy, and its those two stars, work- This annual festival of avant-garde performance, winter, he will make his first work for New York
ing without vanity, who do so much to increase long based at Abrons Arts Center, now has a sec- City Ballet, with a score commissioned from the
our understanding of the language. Set in var- ond home at Gibney Dance, where the festivals prominent composer David Lang (The Little
ious contemporary Army barracks, the produc- founder and director, Thomas Benjamin Snapp Match Girl Passion). At the Guggenheim, Lid-
tion closes the viewer into a world where male- Pryor, has recently been put in charge of perfor- berg shows a few excerpts and talks about his ap-
ness is the dominant force, and where women mance and residency programming. The schedule proach with Whelan, who moderates. (Fifth Ave.
are either put on a pedestal or considered ex- is as packed as ever: five world premires, six U.S. at 89th St. 212-423-3575. Jan. 8-9.)
Kiera Duffy takes the leading role in Breaking the Waves, a new opera by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek, based on the Lars von Trier movie.
In Extremis spied as a double agent during the First cruel scenes night after night, at times in
World War. the nude. Nonetheless, the desperate sce-
Women of indestructible spirit dominate
Breaking the Waves had its premire nario of self-destruction and redemption
this years Prototype Festival.
at Opera Philadelphia in September. The seems to be a projection of Besss will to
Several decades after Catherine libretto, by Royce Vavrek, is based on Lars believe, her reshaping of the fabric of the
Clment wrote Opera, or the Undoing von Triers 1996 lm, which, like other world. Mazzolis score supports that dy-
of Women, a classic feminist critique, von Trier works, has drawn accusations of namic by wedding strong lyric invention
women still frequently come to grief on misogyny because of its brutal treatment to an unsettled, insidiously dissonant
opera stages. The form cant seem to dis- of the principal female character. Bess, a chamber-orchestra texture that evokes the
pense with what Clment describes as a member of a strict religious community jagged beauty both of Skye and of Besss
punitive adoration of female singers: on the Isle of Skye, marries an oil worker inner landscape. Benjamin Britten is a
They suffer, they cry, they die. Yet mod- named Jan; when he suffers a paralyzing palpable inuence, particularly in thrash-
ern tales of doomed heroines tend to accident, he asks her to have sex with other ing orchestral tempests and some melis-
reect a more progressive, critical sensi- men. Bess becomes convinced that by matic, Peter Quint-like writing for tenor.
bility, particularly when female composers abasing herself to the point of death she Yet Mazzoli absorbs these and other ele-
take the helm. Such revisionism could will cure him. Her scheme succeeds, ments into her own spare, propulsive voice.
almost be the theme of this years Proto- through a supernatural logic reminiscent Langs Anatomy Theater, which was
type Festival, which, in the past four years, of the redemptive self-sacrices of various rst seen at L.A. Opera in June, offers
has become essential to the evolution of Wagner heroines. As with Wagner, we won- some of the grisliest images ever shown
American opera. On the bill are Missy der whether Besss act conrms or tran- in an opera house. But the composer han-
ILLUSTRATION BY TOM HAUGOMAT
Mazzolis Breaking the Waves ( Jan. 6-9), scends stereotypes of feminine devotion. dles the material with an eerie grace, cre-
about a Scottish wife who sacrices herself In Mazzolis opera, such issues quickly ating space for another courageous solo
to aid her maimed husband; David Langs recede: we trust that the lead character is turn. The mezzo-soprano Peabody South-
Anatomy Theater ( Jan. 7-14), which not undergoing degradation for the sake well also spends much of the evening
shows the dissection of an eighteenth- of male fantasy. The story is no less harrow- naked, lying on a table and singing as
century English murderess; and Matt ingits perhaps more so, given that Kiera examiners scour her body for signs of evil.
Markss Mata Hari ( Jan. 5-14), about the Duffy, who sang the lead in Philadelphia They nd none, and she goes on singing.
seductive Dutch dancer who allegedly and reprises it at Prototype, must act out Alex Ross
opera/musical-theatre piece Anatomy Theater cal legacy of his Appalachian heritage. Ameri-
stages the confession, execution, and public dissec- can Songbook III: Unto These Hills is one such
Metropolitan Opera tion of a convicted murderess in eighteenth-century treasure, which will be brought to life by the
Bartlett Sher, a major director of the Mets Peter England. The works lurid libretto (co-written by mezzo-soprano Elspeth Davis, the pianist Erika
Gelb era, adds to his tally with a straightforward Mark Dion) comes to life in haunting, darkly funny Dohi, and Sandbox Percussion in a concert thats
take on Gounods loftily romantic Romo et Ju- recitatives set against a post-minimalist accompani- part of Trinity Churchs January festival of new
liette, with Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo ment that thumps, groans, and heaves; Bob McGrath and early music. Jan. 4 at 5. (St. Pauls Chapel, 209
(an electric combination when they were paired in directs, and Christopher Rountree conducts. Jan. 7-8 Broadway. No tickets required.)
1
Massenets Manon) as its ill-fated lovers; Gian- and Jan. 10 at 8. Through Jan. 14. (BRIC Arts, 647 Ful-
andrea Noseda conducts. Jan. 4 and Jan. 10 at 7:30 ton St., Brooklyn.) (prototypefestival.org.) Bargemusic Here and Now Festival
and Jan. 7 at 8. With its whimsical menagerie of The winter edition of this semiannual new-music
puppets and liberal sprinkling of Masonic symbols, jamboree is filled with works by several nota-
Julie Taymors production of Mozarts The Magic ORCHESTRAS AND CHORUSES ble composer friends of the barge, including
Flute returns to the Met for a round of family- premires by David Del Tredici, Harold Melt-
friendly performances. The abridged, English- New York Philharmonic zer (Preludes), Dalit Warshaw, David Taylor,
language staging stars a talented young cast led Except for a stiff introductory blast from Berlinin and David Leisner (Vapors); the performers
by Christopher Maltman, Jessica Pratt, Ben Bliss, the form of Kurt Weills Little Threepenny Music, include Taylor (on trombone), Warshaw (on
and Janai Brugger; Antony Walker. Jan. 5 at 7:30. for windsAlan Gilberts next round of concerts piano), the violinist Mark Peskanov, and the
This is the final performance. The companys four- with the Philharmonic delves deeply into the mu- violist Mark Holloway. Jan. 4-6 at 7:30. (Fulton
month-long test of the durability of Puccinis ever- sical heritage of Vienna. Emanuel Ax will be the Ferry Landing, Brooklyn. bargemusic.org.)
green romance, La Bohme, continues in the New distinguished soloist in the world premire of the
Year. This time, the youthful cast is headed by Ailyn Piano Concerto by HK Gruber, a grand old man of Bang on a Can: Peoples Commissioning
Prez, Susanna Phillips, Michael Fabiano, and Ales- Viennese composition whose music harbors an anar- Fund Concert
sio Arduini; Carlo Rizzi. Jan. 6 at 7:30. The be- chic streak that Weill might well admire. Schuberts With the organization entering its thirtieth
loved tenor Plcido Domingo continues his vocal comparatively innocent Symphony No. 2 in B-Flat year, the BOAC All-Stars offer their annual
1
descent into baritone territory as the king of Bab- Major completes the program. Jan. 5 at 7:30 and Jan. concert of crowdfunded commissions, which
ylon in Verdis Nabucco, bringing natural gravi- 6-7 at 8. (David Geffen Hall. 212-875-5656.) was going strong long before Kickstarter was a
tas but little bite to the role. There are, however, glimmer in anyones eye. This iteration brings
superb performances from Liudmyla Monastyrska, new works by Nico Muhly, Anna Thorvalds-
Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas, and Dmitry Belos- RECITALS dottir, and Felipe Waller, in addition to pieces
selskiy; James Levine emphasizes the scores beauty by the masters Philip Glass, Michael Gordon,
as well as its might, turning the famous Va, pen- Times Arrow Festival: George Crumb Julia Wolfe (Believing), and David Lang. Jan.
siero (sung with golden tone by the Met chorus) Crumb, long an American icon, has married the 9 at 7:30. (Merkin Concert Hall, 129 W. 67th St.
into the works centerpiece. Jan. 7 at 1. This is the influences of Debussy and Bartk to the musi- 212-501-3330.)
final performance. Bartlett Shers first production
for the Met, a fleet-footed and sun-soaked Il Bar-
biere di Siviglia, remains his best thus far. Three
full-voiced singersPretty Yende, Peter Mattei,
and Javier Camarenahead up the cast as Rossi-
MOVIES
1
nis lovable rapscallions; Maurizio Benini. Jan. 9
at 7:30. (Metropolitan Opera House. 212-362-6000.)
shouldering a burden of plot beneath which other Gnecco), whose poetry would later earn a Nobel seventeenth century, is the closest thing to it. Two
directors would sag. The source is an unlikely one: Prize, but who begins the film, in 1948, as a mem- Portuguese priests, Sebastio Rodrigues (Andrew
three stories by Alice Munro, which follow a sin- ber of the Chilean senate; as a Communist, he finds Garfield) and Francisco Garrupe (Adam Driver),
gle figure through motherhood and loss. Julieta himself scorned by the recently elected President. have heard rumors that their teacher and confessor,
played in her youth by Adriana Ugarte and as an The dismissal becomes a witch hunt, with Neruda Father Cristvo Ferreira (Liam Neeson), a mis-
older woman by Emma Surezis a teacher of clas- sly, grand, lecherous, and overweightfleeing from sionary in Japan, has betrayed his Christian faith,
sical literature and myth. She has a child by a man one safe house to another, lovingly supported by his and they travel to search for him. En route, they
whom she meets on a train (the scene is much lust- wife (Mercedes Morn) and harried by an irrepress- learn of the bloody persecution that Christians
ier than it is on the page) and moves to be with him ible policeman (Gael Garca Bernal). Much of this face in Japan, and when theyre smuggled into the
on the coast. But one sorrow after another inter- story, including the journey over the Andes into Ar- country they, too, face the authorities wrath. Ro-
venes, and it is only in maturity, after a chance en- gentina, is a matter of record, but other parts, like the drigues is the protagonist of this picaresque epic
counter, that she starts to solve the puzzle of what character of the cop, were brewed up for the sake of of oppression and martyrdom, which Scorsese in-
feels like a broken life. Even then, the film is sur- the movie. The result is both highly unreliable and geniously infuses with tropes from classic movies,
prisingly open-ended; it leaves you wondering what enjoyably persuasive; we are lured into Larrans as in the mannerisms of a good-hearted but weak-
mysterious path Almodvar will take next. Fans imaginings, such as a final showdown in the snow, willed Christian (Yosuke Kubozuka) and a brutal
will rejoice in the return of Rossy de Palma, one much as Nerudas devotees succumb to the decla- but refined official (Issey Ogata), whose intricate
of his muses, although the role she plays herea mations of his verse. In Spanish.A.L. (1/2/17) (In discussions of religion and culture with Rodrigues
frizzy-haired Mrs. Danversmay come as a shock. limited release.) form the movies intellectual backbone. Many of
In Spanish.Anthony Lane (Reviewed in our issue of the priests wanderings have the underlined tone
12/19 & 26/16.) (In limited release.) Passengers of mere exposition; but as Rodrigues closes in on
This science-fiction drama has the substance and Ferreira the movie morphs into a spectacularly dra-
La La Land the tone of a Twilight Zone episode while offer- matic and bitterly ironic theatre of cruelty that both
Breezy, moody, and even celestial, Damien Cha- ing a too-good-to-spoil and too-evil-to-believe plot exalts and questions central Christian myths. It
zelles new film may be just the tonic we need. The twist thats the movies raison dtre. Sometime in plays like Scorseses own searing confession.R.B.
setting is Los Angeles, with excursions to Paris and the future, a private company offers paying custom- (In limited release.)
Boulder City, and the time is roughly now, though ers the chance to colonize a planet in distant space.
the movie, like its hero, hankers warmly after more The autopiloted flight takes a hundred and twenty Summer
melodious times. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a years, during which time the five thousand-plus set- ric Rohmers 1986 drama, blending fiction and
jazz pianist who dreams of opening a club but, in tlers and crew members are kept in suspended-an- documentary with a graceful splendor, may be the
the meantime, keeps himself afloat with undigni- imation pods that prevent them from aging. But finest example of his supple yet severe artistry.
fied gigsrolling out merry tunes, say, to entertain after an unforeseen calamity only thirty years into Delphine (Marie Rivire) is a stubborn Paris sec-
diners at Christmas. Enter Mia (Emma Stone), the journey two travellers, Jim (Chris Pratt), a me- retary whose instinctive negativity is put to the
an actress who, like Kathy Selden in Singin in chanical engineer, and Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), test when her vacation plans are spoiled two weeks
the Rain, is waiting for that big break. Haltingly, a writer, are awakened too soon and face a lifetime before her planned departure. Rohmer turns her
they fall in love; or, rather, they rise in love, with a as the only two functioning humans aboard the ef- tentative visits to family and friends in search of
waltz inside a planetarium that lofts them into the fectively empty spacecraft. (Theres also a bartender new vacation options into an ethnographic study
air. The color scheme is hot and startling, and the named Arthurplayed by Michael Sheenbut hes of French leisure habitsas well as an Impression-
songs, with music by Justin Hurwitz and lyrics by actually an android.) The director, Morten Tyldum, ist celebration of the natural habitats and archi-
Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, ferry the action along. thrives on the peculiarities of the spaceships ameni- tectural glories around which theyre organized.
If the singing and the dancing lack the otherworldly tiesthe holographic greeters, the waitstaff robots But the pleasures of new places and new friends
rigor of an old M-G-M production, that is delib- with French accents, the implacable food dispens- clash with Delphines inchoate longings and with
erate; these lovers are much too mortal for perfec- ers, the swimming pool with a cosmic viewand the her resistance to social conventions and, indeed,
tion.A.L. (12/12/16) (In wide release.) most engaging drama arises not from the pairs rela- to decision-making. The films original title, Le
tionship but from the dangers of losing gravity. As Rayon Vert (The Green Ray), is that of a novel
Live by Night for the big, crude, and ugly twist, its just a prefabri- by Jules Verne, which intrudes surprisingly on
Ben Affleckas director, screenwriter, and star cated think piece. With Laurence Fishburne, as an- the action, and which, like the storys many strik-
revels in the juicy historical details of this Prohibi- other human who must make the supreme sacrifice ing coincidences, lends it a retrospective sense of
tion-era gangster drama (adapted from a novel by for the benefit of the movies white heroes.R.B. destiny. As Rohmer rapturously proves through
Dennis Lehane) but fails to bring it to life. He plays (In wide release.) the adventures of his quietly rebellious protag-
Joe Coughlin, a disillusioned First World War vet- onist, the negative of a negative is a positive. In
eran and small-time Boston criminal who tries to Paterson French.R.B. (Metrograph; Jan. 10.)
keep apart from both the citys Irish gang, run by Al- The new Jim Jarmusch film stars Adam Driver as the
bert White (Robert Glenister), and its Italian one, title character; to call him the hero would be some- 20th Century Women
headed by Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone). But, thing of a stretch. He is a bus driver living in Pat- In Santa Barbara in 1979, Dorothea Fields (An-
after being brutally beaten for romancing Alberts erson, New Jersey, with his wife, Laura (Golshifteh nette Bening) presides, with genial tolerance, over
mistress, Emma Gould (Sienna Miller), Joe goes to Farahani), and their dog, Marvin. In idle moments, a mixed household. She is in her mid-fifties, with
work for Maso in Tampa, taking over the rum racket during the evening or on his lunch hour, Paterson a teen-age son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), who is
and falling in love with a local crime lord, Graciella writes poems, not for publication but as if to grat- nurturing an interest in feminism, and a couple of
Suarez (Zoe Saldana), a dark-complexioned Cuban ify some private compulsion or demand. Not that lodgersAbbie (Greta Gerwig), a russet-haired
womanand their affair provokes the wrath of the they seem to cost him much in terms of emotional photographer with violent tastes in music, and the
K.K.K. The drive for power, the craving for love, the turmoil; we hear him recite them in a frictionless more serene William (Billy Crudup), whose talents
hunger for revenge, and a rising sense of justice keep calm while the words appear patiently onscreen. range from meditation and effortless seduction to
the gory and grandiose gangland action churning (The verses are by Ron Padgett, although the pre- fixing the ceiling. Mike Millss movie, like his ear-
and furnish a hefty batch of plot twists and rever- siding spirit is that of William Carlos Williams.) The lier Beginners (2010), is a restless affair, skipping
sals of fortune. But Afflecks flat and flashy story- movie follows Patersons lead, guiding us through between characters (each of whom is given a potted
telling omits the best and the boldest behind-the- successive days and noting the minor differences be- biography) and conjuring the past in sequences of
scenes machinations that Joe and his cohorts pull tween them. Regular scenes in a bar or on a bench stills. Plenty of time is also devoted to the friend-
off, depicting instead the noisy but dull fireworks are barely ruffled by incident, and the only gun that ship, threatened by looming desire, between Jamie
that result.R.B. (In wide release.) is pulled turns out to be a replica. Even as the film and Julie (Elle Fanning), who is older and wiser
flirts with dullness, however, it starts to wield a hyp- than he is, but no less confused; at one point, they
Neruda notizing charm, and Jarmusch has few peers nowa- take his mothers cara VW Beetle, naturally
Another new bio-pic, of sorts, from Pablo Larran, days in the art of the runningor, in his case, gen- and elope. Amid all that, the movie belongs unar-
whose Jackie is still in theatres. Once again, the tly strollinggag.A.L. (1/2/17) (In limited release.) guably to Bening, and to her stirring portrayal of a
angle of approach is oblique, avoiding the standard woman whose ideals have taken a hit but have not
procedures of the genre, although in this instance Silence collapsed, and who strives, in the doldrums of mid-
there is an extra dash of playfulness and mischief. Martin Scorsese has never made a Western; his ad- dle age, to defeat her own disappointment.A.L.
That certainly fits the subject, Pablo Neruda (Luis aptation of Shusaku Endos 1966 novel, set in the (12/19 & 26/16) (In limited release.)
Sam Amidon
This genial indie-folk singer, banjoist, and fid-
dler grew up in Vermont with expansive tastes
that included an appreciation for Dock Boggs,
Elvin Jones, and the drone violinist Tony Con-
rad. In 2010, Amidon moved to England with his
wife, the singer-songwriter Beth Orton, where
he has tuned in to the work of pioneering six-
ties British folk revivalists like the singer Anne
Briggs and the song collector and singer Shir-
ley Collins. Amidon, meanwhile, maintains his
own commitment to heterodoxy, which has been
marked by collaborations with gifted improvis-
ers like the Americana-tinged jazz guitarist Bill
Frisell and the multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Is-
maily, his longtime cohort. For this show, part
of the NYC Winter Jazzfest, Amidon takes his
folk-improvisation hybrid one step further, in-
viting the free-jazz drummer Andrew Cyrille to
open with a brief solo performance and asking a
slew of guest improvisers, including Ismaily, the
Ramble Jon Krohn, who produces and d.j.s as RJD2, mans the sound system at Brooklyn Bowl on Jan. 10. guitarist Marc Ribot, and the trombonist Cur-
tis Fowlkes, to contribute embellishments to his
affecting, gravelly songs. (Le Poisson Rouge, 158
New Routes of melody ripped from fuzzy soul and
Bleecker St. 212-505-3474. Jan. 9.)
jazz records, punctuated by kick and
As young producers redene fame, RJD2
snare drums that swung with urgency; Blonde Redhead
remains heard and not seen. Last year, the modish archival label Numero
most vitally, he articulated a style with-
Group released Masculin Fminin, a thirty-
Hip-hop producers have long had to out saying a word. Instead of pitching seven-track, four-LP boxed set of the pre-
conjure up a voice to build recognition: beats to established rappers, he signed Giuliani recordings of this long-standing New
Dr. Dre and Kanye West learned to rap; to the independent label Denitive Jux York indie-rock act. Despite their recent canon-
ization, Blonde Redhead have always seemed like
Mike Will Made-It and Metro Boomin and released an instrumental album of outsiderseven in the eighties, their songs re-
added sonic name tags to their beats. his own, then still a novel proposition flected a cosmopolitan view of downtown no-wave.
But in recent years amateurs have in hip-hop. Deadringer, which arrived (At that time, the group consisted of two Japanese
women and a pair of Italian brothers.) The early
emerged at the fore via new channels. in 2002, was at once a landmark record music remains energetic and sharp, while hinting
SoundCloud, the audio-hosting service, for the producer-as-artist and a gold at the sophisticated art pop they would eventu-
has provided young beatsmiths with a mine for licensors: tracks including ally perfect on their 2004 masterpiece, Misery Is
a Butterfly. This week, the group performs that
social network all their own, where they Ghostwriter and Smoke & Mirrors album in full, backed by the sprawling American
share mixes and build followings with- became inseparable from the countless Contemporary Music Orchestra. (Le Poisson Rouge,
out the need for a rappers endorsement, television spots they scored, including 158 Bleecker St. 212-505-3474. Jan. 8.)
gaining micro-fame in the process. ads for Acura, Saturn, Adidas, and Wells Celebrating David Bowie
Policy updates suggest the company is Fargo. Krohns work became ubiquitous This tribute concert, billed as A Very Special
smartly turning its attention toward even as he remained unrecognizable to David Bowie Concert with Bowie People Playing
Bowie Music Bowie Style, honors what would
this organic community: SoundClouds all but fanatic beat nerdsin 2007, have been the late auteurs seventieth birthday.
founder and tech manager, Eric Wahl- when his instrumental A Beautiful Bowies closest friends have assembled the musi-
forss, recently explained to the German Mine was tapped as the theme song for cians with whom he collaborated most frequently
to perform the music they wrote and recorded to-
magazine Groove that the service would Mad Men, millions heard his work gether across forty years and several tours. The
no longer terminate accounts for up- without ever knowing his name. event is part of a benefit tour, which includes stops
loading copyrighted samples. Krohn loads hundreds of beats and in London, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Tokyo. For
this New York date, the core ensemble includes
Ramble Jon Krohn, who produces thousands of samples into Brooklyn Mike Garson, Adrian Belew, Angelo Moore, of
and performs as RJD2, didnt enjoy such Bowl on Jan. 10, where hell deconstruct Fishbone, and Bernard Fowler, of the Rolling
ILLUSTRATION BY BENDIK KALTENBORN
luxuries, but his hybrid positioning as a and reassemble the collages found on Stones, among more than seventy musicians, all
playing in support of local charities. (Terminal 5,
producer and a commercial artist made his March album, Dame Fortune. 610 W. 56th St. 212-582-6600. Jan. 10.)
inroads others would unwittingly follow. Throughout his sixth release, Krohn
After making a name for himself in conducts a tangle of space funk and PWR BTTM
Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce, a guitarist-drummer
Columbus, Ohio, cutting up records on atmospheric, choral electronica, doing duo, make knotty, snotty garage pop thats down-
turntables in local d.j. battles, he bought the work of the best producers even in right vital. Bruce, an affecting lyricist, gives their
a sampler in 1997 and began imitating loose momentsnding, and guiding, brimming theatre punk a lively humor and a dark
edge: We can do our makeup in the parking lot /
the sounds he heard churning from the meaningful connections. We can get so famous that we both get shot / But
coasts. Krohn offered catchy, achy loops Matthew Trammell right now Im in the shower, he sings on Dairy
Queen. On their newest single, Projection, the Fitzgeraldin what would have been her hun- trumpeter Mike Rodriguez and the saxophonist
Bard alums sober up, taking on the tortured pur- dredth yearas well as to her own family roots, Dayna Stephens. (Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh
view of a protagonist who feels shunned by the with the Simply Ella project. Fitzgeralds vo- Ave. S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037. Jan. 3-8.)
world beyond his bedroom, and sees no option luminous repertoire, which touched on as many
but to stay inside. Catch them for two nights at of the Great American Songbook standards as New York City Winter Jazzfest
Joes Pub, performing in floral dresses and gobs of possible (with plenty of supplementary mate- Anyone willing to dart through the cold from
glitter; a sort of drag-in-drag gimmick made for- rial filling in the gaps), will offer Carter more one jam-packed venue to the next at this now
givable by their stone-serious talent. (Joes Pub, than enough touchstones with which to honor firmly established festival, currently celebrating
425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. Jan. 7 and Jan. 12.) the great lady. (Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St. 212- its thirteenth iteration, will be rewarded with a
576-2232. Jan. 5-6.) firsthand account of jazz in the post-millennial
Thou era. The marathon programs on Jan. 6-7 include
Perhaps its time to give doom metal a try. For Anat Cohen Tentet performances by Jason Moran, Donny McCaslin,
those willing to overlook the genres stoner ni- Wielding her clarinet and saxophones in the ser- Mary Halvorson, Kneebody, Kris Davis, and An-
hilism and satanic posturing (and, of course, the vice of traditional jazz, post-bop, Brazilian, and drew Cyrille (the festivals artist-in-residence),
acrid odor of its most committed practitioners), Middle Eastern musical strains, Anat Cohen is and a swath of ECM Records artists, including
it provides a clenched, cynical take on New Age. a present-day multicultural wonder. Her tentet, Bill Frisell and Ravi Coltrane. (Various locations.
After a decade spent hammering it out in the a consortium of strings, horns, percussion, and winterjazzfest.com. Jan. 5-10.)
underground-metal circuit, this slow-handed keyboards, will provide a sufficiently broad can-
Baton Rougean sludge outfit has emerged as one vas for her far-flung tones. (Jazz Standard, 116 Kendra Shank and Geoffrey Keezer
of the styles key ambassadors. Smeared, apocalyp- E. 27th St. 212-576-2232. Jan. 7-8.) Shank, a vocalist of imaginative latitude, has
tic guitar riffs buoy Bryan Funcks grim, screech- found a duo soul mate in the veteran pianist
ing vocals, which invoke classic black-metal sing- Fred Hersch Trio Keezer, as demonstrated on the new recording
ers while sidestepping any hint of Dungeons and This prime pianists instrumental touch only Half Moon. Investigating worthy, under-the-
Dragons. His punishing songs are grounded in strengthens his acute composing and band- radar material (including work by such jazz lu-
reality, and written in droning long form; for the leading skills. See all three forces in play at this minaries as Abbey Lincoln and Cedar Walton),
right pair of ears, they can be downright medita- six-night stand, where Hersch expands his in- Shank and Keezer find mutual inspiration in in-
tive. (Saint Vitus, 1120 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn. valuable triowith the bassist John Hebert and tuitive surprise. (Mezzrow, 163 W. 10th St. mez-
saintvitusbar.com. Jan. 6.) the drummer Eric McPhersonto include the zrow.com. Jan. 9.)
Title Fight
Title Fight is among the rare bands that make
good on their efforts to sustain themselves within
a tight-knit community, both personally and mu-
sically. They play a melodic offshoot of the sub-
urban Pennsylvania hardcore sound, which has
only got heavier and rangier in their fourteen
ABOVE & BEYOND
years together, captivating their core fan base
and intriguing curious onlookers. The bands last
release, Hyperview, from 2015, was its first on
ANTI Records, cementing its expanding audi-
ence after a set at Coachella the prior year. This
show is part of a short Northeastern tour of in-
timate venues with limited capacity, and fea-
tures two quality openers: Give, which deliv-
ers an update of D.C. hardcore, and Westpoint,
a relatively young band reimagining the grunge
of their youth. (Knockdown Center, 52-19 Flush-
ing Ave., Maspeth, Queens. 347-915-5615. Jan. 5.)
Three Kings Day Parade our understanding of real and fake news today.
Whitney For many New Yorkers, the holiday season During the Cold War, the C.I.A. infamously col-
The guitarist Max Kakacek, formerly of the Smith doesnt end with the calendar year. El Da de luded with literary magazines, making changes to
Westerns, and Julien Ehrlich, the onetime drum- los Reyes, which marks the adoration of Jesus works by Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton,
mer for Unknown Mortal Orchestra, came to- by the Three Wise Men, gives children one last and Richard Wright, among others. In Finks:
gether to form this soft-psychedelic outlet to chance at gifts, on the twelfth day of Christ- How the CIA Tricked the Worlds Best Writers,
satisfy more cerebral impulses. Honeyed tim- mas. For the fortieth annual Three Kings Day Joel Whitney and Lisa Lucas examine the neuter-
bres smooth out their back-road-folk influences Parade, in East Harlem, families are invited to ing of literary dissent in a bygone era, and con-
in songs about heartache and home towns. De- join a morning procession through the neigh- sider its implications for our brave new world.
spite the slim lineup, Whitney composes ambi- borhood, starting on the corner of 106th Street (52 Prince St. 212-274-1160. Jan. 5 at 7.)
tious arrangements that add in warm string and at Lexington Avenue and ending at 115th Street
horn sections, pastel bridges, and swelling, shout- at Park Avenue. Attractions include camels, 92nd Street Y
along choruses: Golden Days crams in guitar colorful puppets, musical performances from E. L. Doctorow, the Bronx-born novelist and
and brass solos, but Ehrlichs soft-whine vocals local bands, and traditional Puerto Rican food. playwright, twisted history to his whim in en-
keep the song delicate and compact. Whitneys El Museo del Barrio, which hosts the parade, grossing fictional narratives like Ragtime
album Light Upon the Lake was released last offers free admission throughout the day. (El and Billy Bathgate. More than a year after
1
June by the Indiana label Secretly Canadian, home Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Ave. elmuseo.org. his death, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Don DeLillo, and
to soul stirrers like Anohni and the War on Drugs. Dec. 6 at 11 A.M.) Jennifer Egan pay tribute to the writer in cele-
After hosting a string of ripping local shows last bration of his posthumous Collected Stories,
ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO AMARGO
year, the group returns to the city for an evening which arrives on Jan. 10. The volume contains
1
of ambling AM-radio rock. (Rough Trade NYC, READINGS AND TALKS fifteen stories written between the nineteen-
64 N. 9th St., Brooklyn. roughtradenyc.com. Jan. 5.) sixties and the early twenty-first century, se-
McNally Jackson lected and revised by Doctorow himself, shortly
In the past half century, as media and publish- before his death, including Heist, the short
JAZZ AND STANDARDS ing have advanced and transformed at break- story that was expanded into his best-selling
neck speeds, so, too, has partisan propaganda. City of God, and Liner Notes: The Songs
Regina Carter Indeed, government and literatures relation- of Billy Bathgate, an amendment to his be-
Carter, an imaginative, conceptually minded vi- ship has only evolved, and sifting through past loved crime epic. (1395 Lexington Ave. 212-415-
olinist, pays tribute to a legendary singer, Ella methods of shaping public opinion may sharpen 5500. Jan. 9 at 7:30.)
COMMENT
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
n December 6th, less than a month after the election, Last summer, the A.C.L.U. issued a report highlighting
O Vice-President Joe Biden, who was in New York to re- the ways in which Trumps proposals on a number of issues
ceive the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award, for his would violate the Bill of Rights. After his victory, the
decades of public service, used the occasion to urge Amer- A.C.L.U.s home page featured an image of him with the
icans not to despair. I remind people, 68 was really a bad caption See You in Court. In November, Trump tweeted
year, he said, and America didnt break. He added, Its as that he would have won the popular vote but for millions of
bad now, but Im hopeful. And bad it was. The man for illegal ballots cast. This was not just a window into the con-
whom Bidens award was named was assassinated in 1968. spiratorial and fantasist mind-set of the President-elect but
So was Martin Luther King, Jr. Riots erupted in more than a looming threat to voting rights. Ten days after the elec-
a hundred cities, and violence broke out at the Democratic tion, the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund released a state-
National Convention, in Chicago. The year closed with the ment opposing the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions, of
hairbreadth victory of a law-and-order Presidential nomi- Alabama, as Attorney General, based on his record of hos-
nee whose Southern strategy of racial politicking remade tility to voting rights and on the fact that hed once brought
the electoral map. Whatever innocence had survived the unsubstantiated charges of voter fraud against civil-rights
tumult of the ve years since the murder of John F. Kennedy activists. But, with a Republican majority that has mostly
was gone. shown compliance with Trump, despite his contempt for the
It was telling that Biden had to sift through nearly a half norms of democracy, the fear is that he will achieve much
century of history to nd a precedent for the current mal- of what he wants. Even if he accomplishes only half, the
aise among liberals and progressives, but the comparison landscape of American politics and policy will be radically
was not entirely tting. Throughout Richard Nixons Pres- altered. This prospect has recalled another phenomenon of
idency, Democrats maintained major- the nineteen-sixties: the conviction that
ities in both the Senate and the House democracy is in the streets.
of Representatives. The efforts of the Movements are born in the mo-
antiwar movement to end American ments when abstract principles become
involvement in Vietnam had stalled, concrete concerns. MoveOn arose in
but Nixons rst years in office saw response to what was perceived as the
the enactment of several progressive Republican congressional overreach
measures, including the Occupational that resulted in the impeachment of
Safety and Health Act and the Clean President Bill Clinton. The Occupy
Air Act, as well as the formation of movement was a backlash to the nan-
the Environmental Protection Agency. cial crisis. The message of Black Lives
ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL
In 2016, the Republicans won the Matter was inspired by the death of
White House, maintained control of Trayvon Martin and the unrest in Fer-
both chambers of Congress, and se- guson, Missouri. Occupys version of
cured the ability to create a conserva- anti-corporate populism helped to cre-
tive Supreme Court majority that could ate the climate in which Senator Ber-
last a generation or more. Donald nie Sanderss insurgent campaign could
Trump, a man with minimal restraint, not only exist but essentially shape the
has been awarded maximal power. Democratic Party platform. Black Lives
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 19
Matter brought national attention to local instances of po- outrage and more like a preview of what the next four years
lice brutality, prompting the Obama Administration to launch may hold. Unlike the specic protests that emerged during
the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and helping defeat the Obama Administration, the post-election demonstra-
prosecutors in Chicago and Cleveland, who had sought tions have been directed at the general state of American
relection after initially failing to bring charges against po- democracy. Two hundred thousand women are expected to
lice officers accused of using excessive force. assemble in front of the Capitol, on January 21st, the day
Last July, when the Army Corps of Engineers gave nal after the Inauguration, for the Womens March on Wash-
approval for the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, ington. Born of one womans invitation to forty friends, the
members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, anxious that event is meant as a rejoinder to the fact that a candidate with
the pipeline would threaten their water supply, started an a troubling history regarding womens rightsone who ac-
online petition and led a lawsuit to halt construction. Thou- tually bragged about committing sexual assaulthas made
sands of activists, including members of Black Lives Mat- it to the White House.
ter, and two thousand military veterans went to Standing The rst Inauguration of George W. Bush, in 2001, saw
Rock, to protest on the Siouxs behalf; last month, they en- mass protests driven by the sentiment that the election had
dured rubber bullets and water hoses red in freezing tem- been stolen. The protests that greet Trump will, in all prob-
peratures. On December 4th, the Army Corps announced ability, exceed them: some twenty other groups have also ap-
that it would look for an alternate route. But, since Rick plied for march permits. Given his history with African-
Perry, Trumps choice for Energy Secretary, sits on the board Americans, Muslims, Latinos, immigrants, unionized labor,
of Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipe- environmentalists, and people with disabilities, it is not hard
line (and in which Trump, until recently, owned stock), pro- to imagine that there will be many more to come. The Con-
testers are settling in for a long winter. gress is unlikely to check the new President, but democracy
In that context, the waves of protests in Portland, Los may thrive in the states, the courts, the next elections, and,
Angeles, Oakland, New York, Chicago, and Washington, lest the lessons of the sixties be forgotten, the streets.
D.C., in the days after the election look less like spontaneous Jelani Cobb
UP LIFES LADDER Theres a large difference between The students stuck to the N.Y.U.
CYBERKIDS the hacking competitions that we do for building or to their hotel, next door. Wang
fun and actually setting up securities or and his Stuyvesant teammate, Nobel
trying to break into them to test them, Gautam, milled around trying to spot
Kenzie Togami, a senior with shaggy name tags they recognized from online
black hair, said. communities. (Not a single high-school
Prater had persuaded Togami to join girl took part in this years competition.)
the hacking club their freshman year. On a normal Saturday, Wang might
hortly after Election Day, be- Its not like criminal hacking, Prater be with his robotics team at a karaoke
S fore the interference of Russian hack- explained. That said, real-life hack- parlor in Queens, where he lives. But
ers became front-page news, a group of ing is super cool. They discussed a for the Dos Pueblos students C.S.A.W.
thirty-one high-school students gathered hacking hero, George Hotz, who, in presented a rare opportunity to social-
at N.Y.U.s Tandon School of Engineer- 2007, at the age of seventeen, became ize face-to-face. Back home, Grosen
ing, in Brooklyn, for Cyber Security the rst person to carrier-unlock an said, we hang out online. He cited the
Awareness Week. Their mission: to solve iPhone. Hed made a surprise appear- asymptotic increase in homework as
a murder mystery involving a ctional ance at C.S.A.W. three years earlier. break approaches.
Presidential race by analyzing digital ev- Wait, I missed meeting Geohot? Another factor is college applica-
idence of security breaches. In the prompt Prater asked, using Hotzs online han- tions, Prater said. When thats done, I
given to the students, a candidate named dle. A Stuyvesant senior named James denitely want to hang out.
Candice Deyte collapses and dies onstage Wang pointed out that Hotz also goes In the lobby, government agencies
at an event where she was to discuss im- by Tom Cr00se. like the D.H.S. and the N.S.A. had set
portant cyber topics with a famous I dont know if Id exactly call him a up recruitment booths for the col-
hacker named Pat Rogers. Using a trail celebrity, Paul Grosen, a lanky blond lege-age competitors, and top-tier col-
of clues that included Deytes smartwatch, sophomore on the Dos Pueblos team, lege scouts had pamphlets for the high
leaked e-mails, and Rogerss computer, said. Hes really smart. But morally . . . schoolers. Togami, who plays the viola,
teams of pubescent cyber-forensic inves- Hes denitely infamous, Prater said. said that he planned to go to Carnegie
tigators were tasked with determining the The Dos Pueblos kids didnt have Mellon.
culprit. (The hacker did it.) much good to say about New York City, Youre going to jinx it, Kenzie! Prater
During a break, a trio of teammates agreeing that there is too much construc- yelled. Apply rst.
from Dos Pueblos High School, in tion. Its like dodging bullets on the Conversation turned to cybersecurity
Goleta, California, decompressed. street! Grosen said. in the news. When someone mentioned
I think we were doing all right, I hate smoking, Togami added. So Julian Assange, Grosen offered a thumbs-
Kenyon Prater, a restless senior, said. many people smoke here. up and a grin.
20 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017
Wait, you actually like Julian As- which include the fall of Saigon and Healy twisted a strand of his long
sange? Prater asked. the near bankruptcy of New York City, dark hair, which was worn in an aspar-
To a certain extent, Grosen said, do not overly concern the bands front agus-going-to-seed style on top of his
backpedalling. I dislike his persona. man, Matty Healy, who was born in head. My existential crisis is lived out a
O.K., but hes been accused of rape, 1989 and grew up in Manchester, U.K. lot onstage, he went on. The other day
Prater argued. I like Snowden more Nevertheless, on a recent visit, Healy in Orlando, I said, I think I might be-
than Assange. Assange has this thing, gamely agreed to walk the winter blocks lieve in God. And then I left it for a
like, everything is fair game. Snowden around his East Village hotel in search couple of songs, and then I said, No, I
has more of a morality behind what of the 1975 that New Yorkers of a cer- dont actually really know.
hes doing. tain age remember. He soon found him- The 1975s name comes from a hand-
What about the question of Russian self in a caf, Physical Graffitea, at 96 written inscription that Healy found
hackers meddling in the election? St. Marks Placethe building that, to- in a copy of On the Road. The book
Togami was careful. Its not always gether with No. 98, appeared on the
possible to tell where something comes cover of Led Zeppelins 1975 album,
from, because people can use proxies Physical Graffiti. Healy wore a long
and pretend theyre in another coun- wool coat, a red sweater with white rose
try, he said. You can kind of guess patterns on it, and different-colored
and speculate. They all agreed that socks. He is twenty-seven years olda
government security is bad in the U.S., fatal age for some of his rock-star pre-
in part because the smartest computer decessorsbut while vampire-pale and
scientists take better-paying jobs in the thin, Healy looked healthy. (Ive
private sector. stopped doing drugs! he declared, after
Grosens older brother John, who par- pausing to read a plaque at 57 Great
ticipated in C.S.A.W. competitions in Jones, the Warhol-owned building
high school, had returned as a freshman where Jean-Michel Basquiat died, at
at M.I.T. Hed already cultivated a kind twenty-seven, in 1988.)
of jaded wisdom. The stuff you hear What does concern Healy is the
about, like the D.N.C. e-mails, are just problem of how to be a rock star for
really, really trivial things, he said. Like, people who dont buy that anymore.
oh, they left the default user name and Choosing a table in the corner, he ex-
password open. plained how he goes about this delicate The 1975
I dont have any evidence myself, task. For every rock-star move I make
but if the agencies are saying the D.N.C. onstage, I do penance, he said. He was given to him by the painter David
leak was orchestrated by the Russian brought his palms together piously. I Templeton, in Dei, the famous artists
government Im inclined to believe will have these true moments of em- colony, where Healys mother and step-
them, Prater said. bracing the fucking situation I am in father stayed when Healy was nineteen
As we all know, Putin loves Trump, and being what people want me to be, and impressionable. You know what
Paul Grosen said. He brought up the but then immediately followed by feel- its likeI was swept away in the dec-
possibility of escalating security threats. ing like a fraud, and that vulnerability adence of it, he said, his long ngers
The Russians denitely have the capa- being experienced and bought back into uttering around his face.
bility, given how horrible our security is. by the fans. He sipped his English Graffitea didnt have much of 1975
Worldwide, weve created this beau- breakfast tea. Because the only place to offer, so the party headed west. Healy
tiful thing, Prater said. And then there that kind of ego is allowed nowadays is received several text messages from
1
are a lot of holes. hip-hop. It is simply not allowed in peo- George Daniel, the 1975s drummer and
Carrie Battan ple who are in a rock band. electro-sound-maker, with whom he
Healys rock-star problems are com- writes the songs. George is kicking off
THIS CHANGING WORLD pounded by the fact that he grew up about the Grammys, he noted. The
LE TEMPS PERDU privileged and connectedwhich is nominations had come out that morn-
a challenge, especially for me, because ing, and the 1975 was nominated for
my parents are famous in the U.K. Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition
(His father, Tim Healy, is an actor, and Package, but not for its music. I dont
his mother, Denise Welch, is a former want a Grammy for a fucking box,
host on the British equivalent of The Healy said, with a sardonic laugh.
View.) Record labels want that kid He turned into the former CBGB,
hatever attractions the 1975, from Sheffield with his T-shirt hang- on Bowery, now a John Varvatos
W a British rock band, holds for its ing off him, he said. So weve just had store. He had never been inside be-
many fans, a shared interest in the year to be cleverer than that and speak to fore. This was CBGBwow! he
1975 is probably not among them. Cer- the broad middle class, whose search said, skirting the menswear and the
tainly the events of that nadir of a year, for identity is just as strong. merch (including lots of boxed sets) to
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 21
look at the photographs on the walls. furniture removal, Zach Cohen, the deal was off. I told them, Im giving
He peered at a shot of the Sex Pis- twenty-nine-year-old owner of its New it to you for nothing. You got to be
tols performing in 1976. Nothing about York City franchise, said the other day, kidding me!
Johnny Rottens aggressively careless in his Long Island City office. Were The Salvation Army has this atti-
posture conveyed penance, vulnerabil- passionate about donation. Cohen tude, Cardona said as he and Brad-
ity, or any of the other things Healy added that he was an accountant until ley maneuvered the sofa through the
has to worry about. He could just go he realized he wasnt passionate about front door. Except the one on Twenty-
about the business of being a rock star. taxes. Junkluggers, which aims to nd third Street, which is run by a very nice
Wheres our CBGB? Healy asked, new homes for all your unwanted junk woman.
shaking his head sadly. Gone with the (for a non-trivial fee of between two Later that day, Angela Kelly, the nice
1
rest of 1975. hundred and a thousand dollars, plus woman who manages the Twenty-third
John Seabrook tax), was founded by Zachs brother, Street Salvation Army thrift shop, wel-
Josh, in 2004, after an elderly neigh- comed the gray Ultrasuede sleep sofa,
ONE MANS TRASH DEPT. bor in Faireld County, Connecticut, overlooking the scratch but giving the
OUT WITH THE OLD offered to pay him a hundred dollars mattress a once-over (many organiza-
to get rid of a couch. In those days, the tions will not accept mattresses for
Dodge Durango that Josh and Zach bedbug and ick reasons). Yall got to
borrowed from their mother played a put those legs back on, she told Car-
central role. Today, the company oper- dona and Bradley as they lifted the piece
ates in ten states, takes in eight million off the truck. I dont have man help
dollars annually, and owns a eet of today. The sisters would be sent a tax-
his is the year you swear you are gleaming chartreuse trucks. deductible receipt.
T going to eat less saturated fat, learn Cardona and Bradleys rst schlep of Have Cardona and Bradley ever
Latin, enjoy life to the fullest, blah blah the day was an easy one: no stairs, no pi- brought home swag acquired on the
blah. Chances are you will do none of anos (hard to give away), no dead cats job? We arent allowed to keep some-
the above. But if your to-do list in- (harder) or human skulls (a pair discov- thing unless the customer gives us per-
cludes getting rid of your old stuff to ered by Luggers cleaning out the home mission, Cardona said, explaining that
make room for new stuff, help is on of a deceased man one Halloween were a Lugger must offer an item to three
the way. One morning not long ago, bequeathed to the police). Two sisters charities before dropping it off at head-
Mike Cardona and Darryl Bradley, were disposing of their old living-room quarters. Cardona counts among his fa-
both thirty-three and dressed in black furniture to make room for a new set vorite freebies a table made from a tree
T-shirts, cargo pants, and baseball caps, being delivered that afternoon. Their fa- trunk and a violin. Bradley once nabbed
showed up at a one-bedroom apart- ther, supervising the goings and com- a frozen-smoothie-maker and a Pink
ment near Sutton Place to pick up a ings while his daughters were at work, Floyd boogie board. Last year, he was
sleep sofa, love seat, sideboard, and ot- said that he had called the Salvation named Lugger of the Year, an award
toman. The two men are employees of Army for a pickup, but theyd detected based partly on the number of dona-
the Junkluggers, the Robin Hood of a scratch on one of the sofa legs, and the tions secured. The honor comes with a
Verizon tablet.
On the way to job No. 2a pied--
terre on the Upper West SideBradley
recounted how, a few days earlier, he and
a colleague had mistakenly taken a statue
from a large apartment in midtown and
donated it to a church. Fortunately, when
the mixup was discovered, the piece had
not yet been sold. That statue had to
be seventy-ve pounds. It was awesome,
he said. Did you ever hear of Reming-
ton? The Bronco Buster?
Last collection of the day: a down-
town penthouse loft where a few trees,
some ceramic planters, and ten gar-
bage bags of dirt needed to be removed
from a rooftop patio. Some people
will look at this job as just hauling
junk, Bradley said as he drove down
Varick Street. But were so much more
than that.
Due to a power loss, this train will be replaced by a wave of rats. Patricia Marx
THE FINANCIAL PAGE which people now respond to corporate statements or sig-
SHOP TILL THEY DROP nals. You can see it as the next logical step in the evolu-
tion of whats sometimes called political consumerism. In
the past few decades, weve grown accustomed to holding
corporations responsible for their labor practices and en-
vironmental records. So its not surprising that they are
ere always hearing about restorms of protest, being called to account for their real or imagined political
W but they seldom involve actual re. In November, messages.
though, people who owned New Balance sneakers began If we are indeed entering a Trump-fuelled era of con-
setting them alight, posting videos of aming footware to sumer activism, its bad news for companies. Boycotts are
social media, and calling for a boycott of the company. Like not just futile griping; they often work. The U.F.W., Green-
so much else these days, its because of Trump. The night peace, and anti-Nike boycotts were all successful. A study
that he was elected, a New Balance spokesman told the by Brayden King, a professor at (aptly) the Kellogg School
Wall Street Journal, With President-elect Trump, we feel of Management, found that, during high-prole boycotts
things are going to move in the right direction. The spokes- between 1990 and 2005, a companys stock price fell, on
man was actually making a fairly limited point about trade average, every day that the boycott was in the news. King
policy. Trump has promised to scrap the Trans-Pacic Part- also found that more than a third of the boycotted compa-
nership, a deal secured by President Obama that would re- nies ended up changing their behavior in response to the
duce trade barriers between many protest. Perhaps his most striking nd-
Pacic Rim countries. That suits New ing was that boycotts usually had only
Balance, which still manufactures some a small impact on sales. Bad publicity
of its shoes in the U.S., but good luck and worried stockholders were enough
trying to communicate such subtleties to bring a company to heel.
in the current climate. New Balance Thanks to social media, boycotts are
suddenly found that its support for easier to organize than ever. They used
American workersP.R. gold, you to face a classic collective-action prob-
would have thoughthad led it into lem: taking part makes sense only if
contentious territory. everyone else is. Unlike a street pro-
New Balance hasnt been the only test, a boycott isnt inherently visible:
corporate victim of a hyperpolarizing you cant really watch someone not
election season. After Pepsis C.E.O., buying Frosted Flakes. Now you can
Indra Nooyi, said that company em- see how many people have signed on-
ployees were crying after Trumps vic- line pledges, and view videos of burn-
tory, conservatives called for a boycott. ing sneakers. All this helps project a
(The cause was aided by a viral fake- feeling of momentum and critical mass,
news story claiming that Nooyi had which in turn attracts more participants.
told Trump supporters to take their The obvious solution for corpora-
business elsewhere.) A couple of weeks later, Kelloggs be- tions is to say nothing controversial. But in the Trump
came the target of a conservative boycott, for yanking its era a truly neutral position is hard to nd. Pepsis Nooyi
advertising from Breitbart News. has agreed to join Trumps so-called Strategic and Pol-
Theres a long history of corporate boycotts: the labor icy Forum, a group of C.E.O.s who will meet with him
movement used them during strikes at the turn of the twen- periodically. Does that mean Pepsi will go from being
tieth century, and theyve been common since the nine- the target of conservative attacks to being the drink of
teen-sixties. But, until now, boycotts have usually been choice for the alt-right? Kelloggs stopped advertising on
staged in response to specic corporate practices. The United Breitbart after being spotlighted by Sleeping Giants, a
Farm Workers, in the mid-sixties, organized the famous social-media campaign that is pushing brands to cut their
grape boycott in order to get farmers to stop relying on un- ties to the site. But, in trying to avoid one consumer back-
derpaid, non-union workers. Greenpeace organized a boy- lash, Kelloggs walked straight into another. Companies
cott of Shell, in 1995, to stop the company from dumping are used to facing pressure over where they advertise. But
an old oil platform at sea. And, in the nineties, Nike faced now they have to worry about where they dont adver-
a boycott over its reliance on sweatshop labor. tise, too. Trumps victory has created a political realm in
By contrast, the Trump boycotts, from both the left and which tens of millions of people feel that if youre not
the right, have been driven by issues extraneous to the tar- with them youre against them. Thats a curse for com-
CHRISTOPH NIEMANN
gets core business practices. There are antecedents: a few panies that aim at a mass market, Americas traditional
years ago, L.G.B.T. activists went after Chick-l-A after strength. Its hard to be all things to all people in an us-
its president voiced his opposition to gay marriage. But versus-them world.
theres something new about the speed and ferocity with James Surowiecki
SECRET ADMIRERS
races and ethnicities. Decius identied
himself as a conservative, but he saved
much of his criticism for house-broken
The conservative intellectuals smitten with Trump. conservatives, who warned of the per-
ils of progressivism while doing noth-
BY KELEFA SANNEH ing in particular to stop it. Electing
Trump was a way to take a stand against
both ambitious liberalism and in-
sufficiently ambitious conservatism.
The essay was meant to provoke
conservatives, and it succeeded. Ross
Douthat, of the Times, responded that
Decius had underestimated the likeli-
hood that a Trump Presidency would
damage both the country and the move-
ment. On Twitter, Douthat wrote, Id
rather risk defeat at my enemies hands
than turn my own cause over to a in-
competent tyrant. The Web site of
National Review, the eminent conser-
vative magazine, published a series of
critiques, including one by Jonah Gold-
berg, who called Deciuss central met-
aphor grotesquely irresponsible. No
doubt Goldberg expected that, before
long, he would be able to reminisce about
that strange week, near the end of an
endless campaign, when a blogger using
a pen name was the most talked-about
conservative columnist in America.
But for conservative intellectuals,
as for so many others, November 8th
did not mark a return to normalcy. A
day and a half after Donald Trump
was elected President, he ew from
New York to Washington to meet
he most cogent argument for of inaction were surely so. Decius sought with President Obama at the White
T electing Donald Trump was made to be clear-eyed about the candidate House. Afterward, Obama expressed
not by Trump, or by his campaign, but he was endorsing. Only in a corrupt his hope, however faint, that Trumps
by a writer who, unlike Trump, betrayed republic, in corrupt times, could a Presidency would be successful. In
no eagerness to attach his name to his Trump rise, he wrote. But he argued response, Trump expressed his belief,
creations. He called himself Publius that this corruption was also evidence previously undisclosed, that Obama
Decius Mus, after the Roman consul of a national crisis, one that could be was a very good man. At the same
known for sacricing himself in bat- addressed only by a politician unteth- time, about two miles east, in an au-
tle, although the author used a pseu- ered to political piety. The author hailed ditorium at the headquarters of the
donym precisely because he hoped not Trump for his willingness to defend Heritage Foundation, the well-con-
to suffer any repercussions. In Septem- American workers and Americas bor- nected conservative think tank, a hand-
ber, on the Web site of the Claremont ders. Trump, he wrote, alone among ful of prominent conservatives gath-
Review of Books, Decius published The candidates for high office in this or in ered onstage to try to gure out their
Flight 93 Election, which likened the the last seven (at least) cycles, has stood place in this new political order. Just
country to a hijacked airplane, and ar- up to say: I want to live. I want my about every seat in the auditorium was
gued that voting for Trump was like party to live. I want my country to live. taken, one of them by Edwin Meese,
charging the cockpit: the consequences By holding the line on unauthorized Attorney General under President
were possibly dire, but the consequences immigration and rethinking free trade, Reagan, who was in the front row, and
whose phone was almost certainly
A small group of thinkers argue that Trumpism could be more than a political slur. the source of a pleasant symphonic
24 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT
ringtone that briey intruded upon Thats true, Goldberg replied, Take a break from the stresses
the proceedings. chuckling. Tell my wife I love her, if of daily life. Hear the whistle of
Jim DeMint, the former senator I suddenly disappear. VWURQJZLQGVWKHDSSLQJRI
from South Carolina, is the president The speakers at Heritage that day SUD\HUDJVDQGWKHLQWHUSOD\
of sound and silence from the
of the foundation, and he was jubilant. differed in the degree of optimism they
highest mountains in the world.
DeMints current job, like his old one, allowed themselves. All of them believed
requires a degree of ideological exi- that Trump would likely nominate a Sacred Spaces: Himalayan
bility, and he had forged a close rela- suitably conservative judge to ll An- Wind & the Tibetan Buddhist
tionship with Trump. In March, Her- tonin Scalias seat on the Supreme Court. Shrine Room Installation by
itage published a list of eight worthy But when the host asked whether Trump Soundwalk Collective
nominees for the Supreme Court; when might be more sensitive and self-
Trump released his own list, in May, it restrained than Obama in the use of
included ve judges from the Heritage executive power, the room erupted in
slate. Addressing the audience, DeMint laughter. Yoo didnt dismiss the idea. He
looked like a man who had won a long- imagined Trump, on the rst day of his
shot bet. What just happened, in this term, repealing all of Obamas executive
election, may have preserved our con- orders and agency regulationsan im-
stitutional republic, he said. perious way to make the Presidency less
Some of the people onstage werent imperial. Goldberg, by contrast, insisted
so sure. One of them was Goldberg, that, despite Trumps declarations of par-
who had had an eventful year: his tisan fealty, he was at heart a lifelong
response to Decius was only one in Democrat from New York who likes to
a series of acerbic essays that had cut deals. He argued that conservatives
established him as a leading light of should make it their mission to keep
the #NeverTrump movement, a group President Trump in lineto insure that
of normally reliable partisans who said he has to deal with us and get our ap-
they could imagine voting for just about proval on the important things.
any Republican candidateexcept But why should Trump now heed a
one. This was in some sense a protest political movement that was unable to
movement, albeit one led by a polit- stop him? In May, he told George Steph-
ical lite. Its ranks included both anopoulos, Dont forget, this is called
National Review and its chief rival, The the Republican Party. Its not called the
Weekly Standard, as well as most of the Conservative Party. During the cam-
leading conservative newspaper col- paign, Trump declared himself a con-
umnists, countless scholars and policy vert to some conservative causes, like
wonks, and, quite possibly, the two Pres- the pro-life movement, while unapol-
idents Bush, both of whom declined ogetically spurning others: he excori-
to endorse Trump. Goldberg once called ated the Republican Establishment,
Trumpism a radiation leak threaten- took a skeptical view of free trade and
ing to destroy the G.O.P. and com- free markets, and shrugged at gay mar-
pared the candidate to a cat trained riage and transgender bathroom guide-
to piss in a human toilet. (Its amaz- lines. Trumps popularity was undimmed
ing! Its remarkable! he wrote, mock- by these transgressions, which led Rush SACRED SPACES:
ing those impressed by Trumps oc- Limbaugh to suggest, in one memora-
casional displays of political poise. ble broadcast, that the Republican con- HIMALAYAN WIND
Yes, yes, it is: for a cat.) At the Her- servative base is not monolithically con- NOW ON VIEW
itage event, though, Goldberg tried servative. If liberals were shocked, on
to be magnanimous in defeat. I am Election Night, to realize that they were THE RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART
entirely open to giving Donald Trump outnumbered (in the swing states, at 150 WEST 17TH STREET
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10011
the benet of the doubt, he said. least), then many leading conservatives RUBINMUSEUM.ORG
The #NeverTrump thing is overby must have been even more shocked to
denition. discover, throughout the year, that their
Sitting next to him was John Yoo, movement was no longer theirsif it
who was a prominent Department of ever had been. We have grown accus- Sacred Spaces: Himalayan Wind LVPDGHSRVVLEOHWKURXJKWKHJHQHURXV
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vously at Goldberg, Yoo said, I dont tive bubble: the results showed how
know if its over for him, though. sharply the priorities of the movements
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 25
leaders differed from those of their pu-
tative followers.
Now that Trump is the President- AFTER LONG ILLNESS
elect, plenty of prominent conserva-
tives are hoping that he will govern as My wife calls. She left the eggs
a reliably conservative Republican. shed gathered in a small tin pail
Decius, the faceless blogger, is hoping
instead that Trumps Presidency will and would I bring them in
mark the dawn of a new kind of con- so the dog doesnt eat them. Or maybe
servative movement. He is one of a
handful of pro-Trump intellectuals who he already has. Theyre by the shed
have been laboring to establish an ideo- where were trying to trap the rat
logical foundation for the political ten-
dency sometimes known as Trumpism. or maybe by the greenhouse.
Politicians, as a rule, do not trouble I walk out in my robe and slippers, crushing
themselves overmuch with the opin-
ions of intellectuals, and Trump is un- some mint which rewards me
usually untroubled by debates about with its sharp identity. And there
political philosophy. But these intel-
lectualsa group that includes anon- is the pail by the coop.
ymous bloggers and prominent aca- And there are two eggs, cold and whole
demicsmaintain that he does have a
distinctive world view. In their argu- with a fleck of wood shaving stuck to one,
ment, his unpredictable remarks and as though a child had just begun
seemingly disparate proposals conceal
a relatively coherent theory of gover- to decorate it, maybe making a horse
nance, rooted in conservative political with a tiny fetlock.
thought, which could provide an anti-
dote to a Republican Party grown rigid Ellen Bass
and ineffective.
Charles Kesler, a political-science
professor at Claremont McKenna and were among the early adopters, mainly Trump crowd will come around. In
the editor of the Claremont Review of because Trump gave voice to their be- the day, some of the people who were
Books, calls Trumps election a liberat- lief that unauthorized immigration conservatives didnt think much of
ing moment for conservatism, an over- was one of the countrys biggest prob- Reagan, either, he says.
due repudiation of conservative lites lems. But, among conservative pun- The differences, of course, are plen-
and orthodoxy. The irony is that the dits more broadly, skepticism of Trump tiful. Not only was Reagan a two-term
modern conservative movement co- was so widespread that it began to governor of California; he also ran
hered, in the nineteen-sixties and sev- threaten the business model of cable- for President with considerable sup-
enties, as a rebellion against a Repub- news networks. CNN dealt with this port from the conservative movement,
lican establishment that it considered problem by hiring Jeffrey Lord, an ob- which was emerging as the dominant
out of touch. Now, according to a small scure columnist and former Reagan intellectual force in American poli-
but possibly prescient band of pro- aide who had met Trump in 2013 and tics. His conservative coalition brought
Trump intellectuals, it is happening been a supporter ever since. Lord was together free marketeers, military
again. They suspect that Trump, de- genial but unyielding in his defense of hawks, and Christian activists; it is
spite his self-evident indiscipline, may Trump, and he became one of the sea- partly thanks to him that those three
prove to be a popular and consequen- sons most unlikely new television stars: groups came to be regarded as natu-
tial President, defying his criticsmany he is sixty-ve and lives in Camp Hill, ral allies. Trump was not tied to any
of them conservative. They think that Pennsylvania, where he takes care of prexisting political movement, or to
Trumpism exists, and that it could en- his mother, who is ninety-seven; every any rm ideological commitments.
dure as something more substantive weekday, CNN sends a car to drive Before launching his campaign, in
than a political slur. him nearly two hundred miles to Man- June, 2015, he had been a Democrat
hattan, and back again. Lord still calls (for most of his life), a potential Re-
t was not impossible, during the himself a Reagan conservative, but he form Party candidate (during a brief
I campaign, to nd prominent Trump says his belief in Trumps political in- irtation with Presidential politics, in
2000), and, starting in 2011, a kind of
supporters, even setting aside mem- stincts has been bolstered by a series
bers of his immediate family. Populist- of private conversations. He has come conservative gady, obsessed with the
minded commentators like Ann Coulter, to regard Trump as a serious guy, and fallacious idea that Obama was not
Michael Savage, and Laura Ingraham he suspects that some of the #Never- born in America. Throughout the
26 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017
campaign, he seemed to get all of his eign policy. After Andrew Sullivan,
information from the cable-news the pioneering blogger, published a
channels that spent so much of their widely read New York story suggesting
time covering him, which created an that Trump might be just the kind of
eerie and sometimes unsettling feed- tyrant against whom Plato once warned, journey into the
back loop. Decius responded with an essay that ancient world
So it was something of a surprise was nearly as long and much more ab- over 120 tours with
when, this past February, an academ- struse. He argued that Sullivan had leading archaeologists
ically inclined online publication ap- misread Plato, and proposed, not very Exclusive access to the sites
peared, full of erudite arguments in reassuringly, that in our current polit- where history was made...
favor of Trump. It was called the Jour- ical climate an overdue recognition of pompeii
nal of American Greatness, in tribute the peoples sovereignty might en-
to Trumps pledge to Make America tail, for a time, more control and less crete
Great Again, although its sensibility freedom in certain areas. Like virtu-
was more tweed jacket than red base- ally everything written in the Journal,
sicily
ball cap. A charmingly bare-bones site, this essay expressed seemingly sincere dordogne
hosted at a lowly blogspot.com Web convictions in a faintly ironic tone,
address, it evoked an earlier, nerdier which was disorienting: we didnt re- & many more
version of the Internet, and its wry ally know who these people were, or
tone seemed calculated to contrast how serious they were, even though - from as little as $895
with the bombastic style of its cho- the political movement they sought to expert-led | small groups
sen candidate. This was where Pub- explicate was anything but marginal. special access -
lius Decius Mus began his career, Then, in June, the Journal signed off toll-free 1-888-331-3476
alongside a handful of other writers, and deleted its archives, declaring that tours@andantetravels.com
most of whom adopted Latin pseudo- it had been an inside joke, which, in andantetravels.com
nyms. The hidden identities of Decius the course of a few months, attracted We can arrange your international air -
and the other Journal contributors a large following, and ceased to be a contact us for more details
may have made the essays more se- joke. In this last respect, the Journal
ductive, by making their authors seem had more than a little in common with
like fugitives, desperate to stay one the man who inspired it.
step ahead of the ideological author- Evidently, Decius was not quite pre-
ities. Their facelessness also conveyed pared to quit the debate. That may ex-
a faint sense of menace, as if these plain why, in September, he published BPD is a disorder,
were the distant, Plato-quoting cous- The Flight 93 Election. It may ex- not a destiny.
ins of the balaclava-wearing hooligans plain, too, why he agreed to meet, a
who are a regular presence at nation- Treatment for women with BPD at U.S.
few weeks after Trumps election, on
News Top Ranked Psychiatric Hospital
alist marches throughout Europe. the condition that his pseudonymity
The Journal eventually published a be maintained. He chose a private club 855.707.0520 mcleangunderson.org
hundred and twenty-nine articles, the in midtown, where he had been at-
rst of which acknowledged the per- tending a lecture. (He hastened to point Ohana Family Camp in Vermont
versity of the project: out that he was not a member him-
Swim Archery
It may seem absurd to speak of Trumpism self.) Then he strolled over to a suit- Sail Tennis
when Trump himself does not speak of Trump- ably anonymous location: the tatty food Kayak Hiking
ism. Indeed, Trumps surprising popularity is court in the basement of Grand Cen- Canoe Biking
perhaps most surprising insofar as it appears tral Terminal, where he endeavored to Ohanacamp.org (802) 333-3460
to have been attained in the absence of any- fold his long legs beneath a small table.
thing approximating a Trumpian intellectual
persuasion or conventionally partisan organi- The man known as Decius was tall
zation. Yet, Trumps unique charisma notwith- and t, a youthful middle-aged pro-
standing, it is simply impossible for a candi- fessional dressed in a well-tailored gray
date to have motivated such a passionate suit and a pink shirt. He has worked
following for so long by dint of sheer person- in the nance world, but he talked about
ality or media antics alone.
political philosophy with the enthusi-
At times, the authors even sought asm of someone who would do it for
ADVERTISEMENT
to separate Trump from Trumpism, fun, which is essentially what he does.
suggesting that the candidate was a Before he began to speak, he held out
powerful but inconstant champion of an iPhone showing a picture of his
his namesake philosophy, which Decius family: if he was unmasked, he said,
summarized as secure borders, eco- his family would suffer, because he
nomic nationalism, interests-based for- works for a company that might not newyorkerstore.com
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 27
want to be connected to an apostle of plaints about inequality are calculated tive stateand desperately need more
Trumpism. to mask the Partys true identity as unity.
It is not necessarily absurd for the political home of the cosmopoli- Decius takes perverse pride in hav-
Decius to suggest that he might suffer tan lite. But he suggests that a gov- ing been late to come around to Trump;
a fate like that which befell Brendan ernment might justiably hamper as a populist, he likes the fact that ev-
Eich, who resigned under pressure international trade, or subsidize an eryday American voters recognized
from Mozilla Corporation, the tech ailing industry, in order to sustain par- Trumps potential before he did. When
company he co-founded, after he was ticular communities and particular Decius started paying serious atten-
discovered to have donated to an anti- jobs. A farm subsidy, a tariff, a tar- tion, around January, he discerned the
same-sex-marriage initiative. By ob- geted tax incentive, a restrictive ap- outlines of a simple and, in his view,
scuring his real name, Decius is also proach to immigration: these may be eminently sensible political program:
claiming a new kind of civil right, one defensible, he thought, not on nar- less foreign intervention, less trade,
often claimed by political activists in rowly economic grounds but as ex- and more immigration restrictions.
the era of social media: the right not pressions of a countrys determination Decius cited, as one unlikely precur-
to be doxedthat is, not to have ones to preserve its own ways of life, and sor, the 2004 Presidential campaign of
online activity linked to ones offline as evidence of the fundamental prin- Dick Gephardt, the Democratic con-
identity. ciple that the citizenry has the right gressman, who ran as a erce opponent
Decius is a longtime conservative, to ignore economic experts, especially of NAFTA and other free-trade agree-
though a heterodox one. He had grown when their track records are dubious. ments. (During one debate, Gephardt
frustrated with the Republican Par- (In this respect, Trumpism resembles argued, We have jobs leaving South
tys devotion to laissez-faire econom- the ideologically heterogeneous pop- Carolina, North Carolina, Missouri
ics (or, in his description, the free ulist-nationalist movements that have my home statethat originally went
market ber alles), which left Repub- lately been ascendant in Europe.) Most to Mexico; theyre now going from
lican politicians ill-prepared to ad- important, he thinks that conserva- Mexico to China, because they can get
dress rising inequality. The conser- tives should pay more attention to the the cheapest labor in the world in
vative talking point on income in- shifting needs of the citizens whom China.) In his Flight 93 essay, Decius
equality has always been, Its the government ought to serve, instead of called Trump the most liberal Repub-
aggregate that mattersdont worry, assuming that Reagans solutions will lican nominee since Thomas Dewey,
as long as everyone can afford food, always and everywhere be applicable. and he didnt mean it as an insult.
clothing, and shelter, he says. I think In 1980, after a decade of stagnation, Trump argues that the government
that rising income inequality actually we needed an infusion of individual- should do more to insure that workers
has a negative effect on social cohe- ism, he wrote. In 2016, we are too have good jobs, speaks very little about
sion. He rejects what he calls puni- fragmented and atomizedunited for religious imperatives, and excoriates
tive taxationlike many conserva- the most part only by being equally the war in Iraq and wars of occupation
tives, he suspects that Democrats com- under the thumb of the administra- in general. Decius says that he isnt
concerned about Trumps seeming fond-
ness for Russia; in his view, thought-
less provocations would be much more
dangerous. In his telling, Trump is a
political centrist who is misconstrued
as an extremist.
There is a reason for that, of course.
Trump has routinely said things that
would, in previous elections, have been
considered scandalous and disqualify-
ing. His outlandish and often incom-
patible claims, along with his refusal
to admit mistakes, make it impossible
to determine which of his notions are
likely to become policies, and can fos-
ter the sinister impression that, as Pres-
ident, Trump will be accountable to
no one, not even himself. Decius says
that he learned to accept what he calls
Trumps unconventionality as a can-
didate, and maintains that his sup-
port never wavered, even when Trump
said things that he found indefensible.
Do you have anything with a view of God? (The worst, Decius says, was Trumps
suggestion that Gonzalo Curiel, a fed- lished a taxonomy of the alt-right that white, or even explicitly so. Francis once
eral judge presiding over a fraud case included Richard Spencer, a self- wrote that he wanted to ght for the
against him, had an absolute conict described identitarian whose politi- survival of whites as a people and a civ-
of interest, because he was of Mexi- cal dream is a homeland for all white ilization. (The Journal article that cited
can descent. I thought that was ex- people. At a recent conference in Francis also made passing reference to
actly the wrong thing to do, Decius Washington, Spencer acted out the his undeniable lapses in judgment and
said.) But he also thinks that Trumps worst fears of many Trump critics when decency.) Buchanan, more circum-
occasional crudeness and more than he cried, Hail Trump! Hail our peo- spect, nevertheless linked his economic
occasional intemperance are insepara- ple! Hail victory! Later, Spencer told argument to an argument about the
ble from his larger-than-life person- Haaretz that the election of Trump erosion of Americas cultural and ra-
ality, which was what allowed him to was the rst step for iden- cial identity. In a 1997 news-
challenge conservative orthodoxy in tity politics for white peo- paper column, inspired by
the rst place. ple in the United States. one of Bill Clintons paeans
Trumps disdain for what he calls It is important to note to multiculturalism, Bu-
political correctness, and often for com- that the link between Trump chanan asked, When did
mon courtesy, made him seem uncom- and someone like Spencer we Americans vote for a
promising, even though a passion for is tenuous and seemingly revolution to overturn our
dealmakingthat is, for nding ad- unidirectional. (When re- ethnic and racial balances?
vantageous ways to compromiselies porters from the Times asked When did we vote to rid
at the heart of his origin story. Per- Trump about the alt-right, America of her dominant
sonality and media antics might not in November, he said, I dis- European culture? He sup-
have been sufficient to explain Trumps avow the group.) But it is also true plied his own stern answer: Never.
success, but neither were they inciden- that partisan politics in America are Compared with forebears such as
tal to it. Lets say we get to dene stubbornly segregated: exit polls sug- these, what is striking about Trump is
what Trumpism is, and hypothesize a gest that about eighty-seven per cent how little he engages, at least explicitly,
perfect candidate who goes out with of Trumps voters were white, which is with questions of culture and identity.
scripted speeches and policy papers roughly the same as the correspond- The great America that he talks about
and campaign staff, Decius said. ing gure for his Republican prede- is an unsentimental place: not a tight-
Would he get the same traction as cessor, Mitt Romney. It is no surprise knit community dened by old-
this guy? The answer, in my opinion, that many of Trumps critics, and some fashioned values but a big and shiny
is no. of his supporters, heard his tributes to and rather nonjudgmental country
a bygone American greatness as a form where everyone has a good job, stays
f course, for the tens of mil- of identity politics, designed to re- safe, and adores the President. Whether
O lions of Americans who loathe mind white people of all the power he was in a rural white town or an urban
and fear Trump, this guy does not and prestige they had lost. black church, Trump avoided moral ex-
appear to be merely an economic pop- It is true, too, that Trumpism draws hortation, preferring to focus on the
ulist with a loose tongue. Throughout on a political tradition that has often economic renewal that his Presidency
the campaign, he was accused of being been linked to white identity politics. would bring. Accepting the Republican
the leader of a white backlash move- One Journal author suggested that the nomination, in July, he bemoaned the
ment, waging war on minorities: he true progenitor of Trumpism was Sam- number of shootings in Obamas ad-
says that he wants to expel millions of uel Francis, a so-called paleoconserva- opted home town of Chicago. But then,
unauthorized immigrants, and calls tive who thought that America needed rather than adducing the usual list of
for a moratorium on Muslims enter- a President who would stand up to the social pathologies, he implied, prepos-
ing the country. Since his election, globalization of the American econ- terously, that the major source of crime
many analyses of his political program omy. In Franciss view, that candidate in America was illegal immigrants with
have focussed on his ties to the alt- was Pat Buchanan, a former longtime criminal records, who are roaming free
right, a nebulous and evolving con- White House aide who ran for Presi- to threaten peaceful citizens.
stellation of dissidents who sharply dent in 1992 and 1996 as a ery pop- To Decius and his comrades, the
disagree with many of the conserva- ulist Republicanand in 2000 as the language of citizenship is central to
tive movements widely accepted te- Reform Party candidate, having staved Trumpism, which encourages Ameri-
netsincluding, often, its avowed off a brief challenge, in the primary, cans to think of themselves as mem-
commitment to racial equality. This from Trump. Francis and Buchanan bers of a wonderful club, besieged by
connection runs through Stephen Ban- were united in their disdain for the Re- gate-crashers. In Trumps view, loyal
non, Trumps chief strategist, an eco- publican lite, which seemed to them American citizens can never fail, only
nomic nationalist who was previously too cozy with international business be failedeither by their own leaders,
the executive chairman of Breitbart, a interests and too removed from the who are (sadly) stupid, or by leaders of
news site that aimed to be, Bannon concerns of everyday Americans. Both competitor countries like Mexico and
once said, the platform for the alt- also saw themselves as defenders of an China, who are (even more sadly) smart.
right. Earlier this year, Breitbart pub- American culture that was implicitly Decius contrasts the Trumpist belief
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 29
in a common citizenship, entrusted by a more conventional spinoff, Amer- On a rainy afternoon last fall, as
with sovereignty, with the bipartisan ican Greatness, published by a little- news of Trumps Cabinet appoint-
tendency to leave consequential gov- known polemicist named Chris Bus- ments began to trickle in, an English
ernment decisions in the hands of kirk, who wants it to become the professor named Mark Bauerlein sat
agencies staffed by technocrats. When leading voice of the next generation in a small apartment in Manhattan,
he speaks of the administrative state, of American conservatism. And the sounding perplexed. It could be twenty
he is drawing on a concept that has Washington Post recently reported or thirty years before we really have
been elucidated at length by John Ma- that newspaper editorial pages are the distance to see what is happen-
rini, a political scientist at the Univer- scrambling to nd pro-Trump colum- ing, he said. Bauerlein was on leave
sity of Nevada, Reno, whom a num- nists; no doubt both demand and sup- from Emory University, in Atlanta, to
ber of the Trumpists regard as an ply will increase in the next few years. attend to his other job, as senior edi-
intellectual mentor. Marini is a mem- In the meantime, Trumps political tri- tor of First Things, the ecumenical
ber of an exotic tribe known as West umph has caused a number of previ- journal of religion and culture. Bauer-
Coast Straussians: a student of Harry ously steadfast conservatives to rethink lein is an admirer of Decius, and also
Jaffa, who was a student of the opaque some of their lifelong positions, none a supporter of Trump, whose prom-
but inuential political philosopher more spectacularly than Stephen ise to control the border appealed to
Leo Strauss, and who sought to draw Moore, the free-market evangelist who his sense of patriotism. What its re-
out connections between the Ameri- serves as an economist at Heritage. ally about is planting an idea into
can republic and its classical anteced- Soon after Trumps election, Moore Americans that this is our country,
ents. (The Latin pseudonyms used by told a group of Republican congress- he said. This is our home! Its going
Journal authors paid winking homage men that the Reagan era was over, and to have a boundary. He also views the
to this scholarship.) Another member that Trump had converted the G.O.P. rise of Trump as a reaction to politi-
of this tribe is Larry Arnn, the presi- into a populist working-class party. cal correctness, which has, he main-
dent of Hillsdale College, a strong- In a column for Investors Business tains, made people feel that they cant
hold of conservative thought, who sees Daily, he explained that the new Re- express themselves.
in Trump a leader who, because of his publican Party would be more willing He said he understood that many
willingness to violate political taboos, to spend money on infrastructure and people, including many students at
might be independent enough to check less willing to support trade deals. I Emory, had experienced Trumps vic-
the progress of runaway regulations. dont approve of all these shifts, he tory as a violationan extraordinary
The government itself has become wrote, betraying his residual anti- desecration of the progressive temple.
dangerous, he says, and I think Trump Trumpism, but they are what the vot- But he was also suspicious of his own
is likely to make that better. What ers voted for. urge to glory in that desecration. His
many of these Trumpists share is a dis- It is also possible that Trumps Pres- hope, however far-fetched, was that
dain for what Charles Kesler calls idency will be catastrophic, in ways that Trump, by demolishing traditional
moralistic conservatives, who are too have a lot to do with the tendencies Party ideologies, might somehow help
concerned with propriety to see that that Trumpists overlook: he could be people move beyond hardened parti-
our decaying political system needs a ruined by corruption, or enmeshed in san positions. Like a fair number of
leader like Trump, and has therefore international scandal; he might spend Trumpists, Bauerlein holds some be-
produced one. his Presidency persecuting his enemies, liefs that might have been expected to
or letting his deputies run amok. It is incline him toward #NeverTrump-ism,
s Trump a Trumpist? So far, his difficult to predict the outcome of any including an abhorrence of vulgarity.
I announced appointments have given Presidency, but with Trump the worst- He once wrote a memorable essay about
orthodox conservatives little cause for case scenarios seem particularly plau- the indignity of overhearing curse
alarm, raising the possibility that Trump sible, because he is so uninterested in words on an airplane; Trump has prom-
might be ideologically reliable after all. the safeguards that might prevent them. ised to bomb the shit out of ISIS.
And, because he will be working in His reliance on his own intuition is When Bauerlein was reminded of this,
concert with a Republican House and part of what Trumpists love about him, he merely sighed. All intellectuals who
Senate, his legislative record will nec- because it frees him from the tyranny support politicians must make com-
essarily be shaped by the Partys con- of technocracy, but it also makes their promises, but Trumps style makes those
gressional agenda, on topics ranging job much more difficult. There is a pro- compromises harder to ignore. At times,
from abortion to Obamacare. Some foundly asymmetrical relationship be- Bauerlein sounded as if he were still
Trumpists say that the biggest risk of tween Trump and the Trumpist intel- guring out what it meant to support
a Trump Presidency is that he wont lectuals, who must formulate their President Trumpas if he were try-
be Trumpist enough. doctrine without much assistance from ing to stay optimistic while steeling
But his Presidency, especially if it its namesake; Trumps political brand himself for all sorts of disappointment.
is successful, will inevitably change the is based on his being the kind of guy There are some things in politics that
shape of conservatism in the United who would never feel the need to ex- you say, This runs against what I be-
States. The Journal of American Great- plain himself to a bunch of scholars, lieve. He lowered his voice. You have
ness was replaced, this past summer, no matter how supportive they were. to suck it up.
30 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017
will sour the mix, so store your terror-
SHOUTS & MURMURS isms separately.
A RECIPE
4. As for misogyny, a little goes a long
way. Its already everywhere, like salt
or CO2 emissions, so theres no need
BY JENA FRIEDMAN to overdo it. But, if you do have a taste
for it, you can spice up the dish with
a pinch of ass, a small handful of pussy,
a smear of telling a candidate who has
spent forty years in public service that
she looks tired, or a scant cup of sexual-
assault accusers paraded around as
human shields on live TV. (Fun tip:
Add insult to injury by not paying for
their hair and makeup!)
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN
and lmmaker with the steely fragility
of a Buster Keaton, once anatomized
guys like Mills in a short story. New
Mike Millss anti-Hollywood family films. Men are more in touch with their feel-
ings than even women are, she wrote.
BY TAD FRIEND New Men want to have children, they
long to give birth. Making a movie is
as close as Mills can get. Greta Ger-
wig, who plays a punk photographer
named Abbie in 20th Century Women,
told me, Mike runs a uid, non-mas-
culine set, where hell cry behind the
monitor. He cast Lucas Jade Zumann,
a fourteen-year-old newcomer, as Jamie
because, he said, I dont like fteen-
year-old boystheir sexuality is too ac-
tualized. The lms only adult male is
William, an earnest mechanic who
makes his own shampoo.
Mills views himself as an outsider, a
borderline recluse, but his sweet-natured,
Eeyoreish manner disarms almost ev-
eryone. While his stance is one of self-
deprecating bewilderment, he is also
often genuinely bewildered. On his ight
from Los Angeles, hed been astonished
that the four Wall Street guys around
Millss childhood suffuses his work. The ve-year-old me never goes away, he says. him were watching Fox News on their
seatbacks as they yammered about a
utside the New York Film Fes- A former competitive skateboarder dealastonished, that is, that business
O tival, the writer-director Mike and punk artist, Mills made his name class was lled with businessmen. An
Mills kept freezing up on the red car- designing wryly impersonal T-shirts and uptalker (Obviously, I did something
pet. Which strobing camera to face? album covers for Beastie Boys and Sonic wrong or it would be more popular?),
Which shouted question to answer? Youth. But his lms are nakedly per- he watches you on the question mark,
Seeing his perplexity, Annette Bening, sonal. Beginners (2011) featured a char- seeking a responsive nod. Yet, Annette
who plays Millss mother in his new acter based on Millsreticent, emotion- Bening observed, theres a part of Mikes
lm, xed his lapels and gave him a ally scarredand one based on his father, being a beautiful person thats quite
brisk, man-up pat. He shuffled gamely an art historian who, after becoming a shrewd. He wins us over by being hum-
after her. Upon clearing the gantlet, he widower in his seventies, came out as ble, so we help him with this thing hes
cried, Who invented that? gay, bloomed briey, then died. In 20th makingand that part of him is very
Mills was there, on this Saturday night Century Women, which opened on erce and tenacious.
in October, to introduce his lm 20th Christmas Day, Mills recasts his mother, At the festival, Mills stood in the hall-
Century Women, the festivals center- Jan, as a Salem-smoking architectural way as his lm played, listening through
piece. Backstage, he gravely smoothed draftsman named Dorothea. In the dis- a closed door. Watching live with the
his lapels, now a matter of concern. At tant summer of 1979, she lives with her audience is like being in a plane in tur-
fty, with graying whiskers and a broad, teen-age son, Jamieanother Mills bulence, he said. Youre trying to y it
lonely face, he has the soulful air of a stand-inin a tumbledown pile in Santa with your body, trying to keep it from
sepia-era frontiersman. He quivered when Barbara. Flinty, funny, stylish, and man- crashing. He added, softly, The ve-
he heard that David Byrne was in the nish, a blend of Amelia Earhart and year-old me never goes away. Why cant
crowd: a Talking Heads song gures Humphrey Bogart, Dorothea adores I sit through my movie on opening night?
signicantly in the lm, and Millss love Jamie, but her Depression-era rigor pre- Because I think I fucking suck. Waves
of the band, when he was a teen-ager, cludes her saying so. As he gravitates to of laughter made him crack the door.
made hard-core kids call him an art fag. skateboarding and Iggy Pop, she enlists Dorothea was writing Jamie absurd notes
Which is more pressure? he wondered. two much younger women to help teach to excuse his serial tardiness at school:
My therapist seeing the lm tonight, him how to be a good man. To Doro- He was involved in a small plane acci-
or David Byrne? theas consternation, they instruct him dent. Fortunately, he was not hurt.
32 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID BLACK
Mills went outside in the drizzle to rate their own and one anothers biog- Armstrong, Humphrey Bogart, a huge
call July, just to hear her voice. He de- raphies. Their stories are accompanied night sky.
scribes her as the true artist in their by montages of period photos intended Jan Mills, a pilot whod wanted to be
houseShes so much braver than I to create an air of credence. A believer in the Air Force, loved the aerial view.
ambecause, unlike him, when her in sympathetic magic, Mills gathers dog- Mills has some photographs of her smil-
work goes badly she doesnt threaten to eared objects and forgotten rituals to ing at him as a toddler, but the smiles
quit and work in a dog-rescue shelter. summon a world of mixtapes and Judy faded once he could talk back. All my
Then he sneaked into the back of the Blume and Three Mile Island and skate- therapy was about my mother, Mills
theatre for the last twenty minutes. It boarders who grab their boards behind told me. When he was a boy, they were
was almost as terrible as hed feared, until their front leg. Julie (Elle Fanning), a like a couple, he said: she took him to
the standing ovation. In the greenroom seventeen-year-old who cuddles with museum openings as her date, and she
afterward, Warren Beatty, whos married Jamieand sleeps with older, dumber was often beguiling. But there were so
to Bening, was giving everyone teary boysreads The Road Less Travelled many things I missed. You couldnt be
nodswasnt that something? Mike is and uses the language of self-help as a sad in her house. And anytime I reached
the real real thing, he told me. He pulled weapon. Bening wears Jan Millss jew- out to her or asked a question that made
Mills into a bear hug and murmured elry, and we see the wooden rabbit that her feel vulnerable, I got shut down.
plaudits into his ear. Warren cried, he Jan carved after reading Watership She died of cancer in 1999. Death al-
hugged meand he did Reds! I should Down. Mike is obsessed by exploring ways comes as a shock, but Mills does
just quit right now! Mills said after- the connection between the dramatic nothing to prepare us for Dorotheas:
ward. He changed masculinity in the and the real, the director Lance Ham- halfway through the lm, as she scruti-
twentieth century. He lled being a mer, a neighbor of Millss, said. I think nizes a punk drummer, she offhandedly
movie star with doubt and befuddle- it comes from the need to believe hes tells us, In 1999, I will die of cancer,
ment. His Clyde, in Bonnie and Clyde, actually here, that hes not having a dream, from the smoking. Yet Mills isnt inter-
is impotent? And he produced the lm? not oating away. ested in provoking gasps of surprise. He
Thats so amazing. Directing like a designerre-creat- wants to mine the gap between what we
ing the family scrapbook down to the know and what the characters know. In
ollywood films generate emo- last pilled sweater long gone to Good- lieu of a more traditionally rousing sec-
H tion in predictable ways: by having willhas its risks. Some critics nd ond-act climax, everyone watches Jimmy
a man voice long-unspoken admiration Millss work quirky or precious; some Carters Crisis of Condence speech.
(Good Will Hunting, Million Dollar nd it inert. The Boston Globe called Dorothea is thrilled by his candor, some
Baby), having a woman utter a death- Beginners the passive work of a man of the others scoff, and Jamie silently
bed avowal (Love Story, Terms of En- nervous to touch the third rail of his par- registers the moment. Carter, punk, and
dearment), or killing the dog (every- ents discontent. Yet his lms lure you the expansive cultural impulse that
thing from The Road Warrior to in with their precise, unemphatic pre- brought this random family together are
Marley & Me). Millss characters long sentation, their accrual of detailsa heap about to be supplanted by the Reagan
for that kind of intimate intensity, but of oily rags that could ignite at any time. era. We know how fateful the occasion
their feelings remain undisclosed. In Be- Joachim Trier, the Norwegian director, is. Whats moving is that they dont.
ginners, the dying father looks past his said, Theres a Todd Rundgren-ness to
yearning son to ask a hospice nurse to Mikes work, a Steely Dan coolness, the ills knelt at the foot of his bed
stiffen his hair with gel, which hes never melancholy low light of a late Califor- M in the Standard Hotel, on the
tried before. nia afternoon in Laurel Canyon. Lower East Side, scrolling through pho-
Mills rejects the well-made Holly- Like his mother, Mills became a tos on an iPad, exclaiming at a woman
wood script, which bullies us into em- parent late in life, and his son, Hop- huffing glue and an owlish boy who died
pathy for the main character by picking per, spent time in the neonatal ward. young. The photographer Richard Verdi
on him in the rst act and giving him In 20th Century Women, this pro- and his wife, Mindi, looked on. In the
increasingly sizable obstacles to over- vided the germ of an opening-scene late seventies, Verdi chronicled the punk
comethen rewards us with a gauzy ashback. (Where most directors use scene at CBGB with a Leica, capturing
scene of affirmation. He rejects even the ashbacks surgically, Mills revels in the jagged, eeting deance. Mills used
customary reliance on an eventful plot. them; his lms fall back as much as ve of Verdis images in 20th Century
One of his art lms, in 2009, needled they spring forward.) In the NICU, Dor- Women, as Abbie recalls coming to
Steven Spielberg by assembling title cards othea squeezes Jamies nger as she New York and learning to be brave and
that tartly summarized the beginning of says, in voice-over, I told him life was sexual, and now he envisioned making
E.T. (The creature squeals as it runs / very big, and unknown, and that hed a book about the lms photos and pho-
The ship slowly closes its door.) fall in love, have his own children, have tographers. Verdi, a silver-haired wed-
His interest is in people and their tra- passions, have meaning, have his mom ding photographer, murmured, You cant
jectories; a maximalist, he wants to re- and dad. Real-world images ash by, really explain what it was like to be ve
veal the entirety of his characters lives the compass points of Dorotheas life: feet in front of the Ramones with their
and minds. In 20th Century Women, a couple doing the Charleston, an el- Marshall amps on ten.
the ve main characters periodically nar- ephant, New York in the twenties, Louis Mills experienced CBGB through his
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 33
sister Megan Ace, the inspiration for America and Japan; he also designed its ing his runstaken in the old style, fast
Abbie, who attended Parsons School of album covers. He became a mainstay of and owing, like a surferon bygone
Design by day and the clubs by night. the D.I.Y. scene around the Alleged skate parks all over L.A.
Mills followed her to New York in 1984, Gallery, on the Lower East Side, where
to study art at Cooper Union. The rst Shepard Fairey and Ed Templeton, self- n the nineties, when Mills watched
thing I saw, Mills told the Verdis, point- taught artists who prized feeling over I Jim Jarmusch lmsa few charac-
ing out the window to the school, a few technique, drank forty-ounce Budweisers ters, a laconic camerahed think, I could
blocks away, was a homeless guy taking and skateboarded out front. Like the do that. He began by shooting music
a leisurely shit on the front steps. The Alleged artists Harmony Korine and videos. In 1998, his video for All I Need,
view was now mostly condos. Spike Jonze, whod also become direc- by the French band Air, was a four-min-
Mills studied a series of photos of tors, Mills was a skateboarder at heart. ute documentary about a young skate-
women, pausing on one hed used: a Mike D, of Beastie Boys, for whom boarder couple with nothing but their
woman wearing a necktie, her legs akimbo. Mills designed two album covers, told palpable love for each other. It gave him
Theres a gritty, worldly insolence to me, Kids like Mike who get bitten by a taste of pulling off the magic trick of
them, and a sense of power, he said. the skate bug have a deep-down rage making people get a little teary-eyed.
But a vulnerability, too, Mindi noted. that they channel by saying, Im going After moving to Los Angeles, in 1999,
She pointed out another woman: She to do a rail slide down the railing of this Mills co-founded a commercial-produc-
was on heroin for twenty years. Indicat- public building, and you cant do any- tion company, called the Directors Bu-
ing the womans bruises, she said, Get- thing about it! Skateboarding is great reau. He was already directing Gap ads
ting beat up after CBGB was the ulti- training wheels for expressing that feel- khakis-wearing dancers doing the
mateyoud made it with somebody who ing on a bigger canvas later. mamboand hed shown that he could
was of that frame of mind. Mills winced. Mills was a versatile designer, turn- quickly summon a world and a vibe.
His detractors accuse him of excessive ing out skateboards for Subliminal, Volkswagen and Nike wanted his pawky
charm, but it may be more accurate to say scarves for Marc Jacobs, and graphics sensibility, up to a point. I hired Mike
that he edits brutality from his world view. for Kim Gordons clothing company. for an Old Spice ad, Sarah Shapiro, an
When another photographer told Mills Hed use corporate fonts, such as Hel- ad-agency producer who went on to cre-
about one clubgoers violence and anti- vetica, and welcoming colors, like ate the TV show Unreal, said. It was
Semitism, he replied, hopefully, So she Tokyo-taxi green, to make a childs fascinating to watch him, with his odd
was just a troubled soul? T-shirt that said Child. Its very Ses- palette and Jacques Tati references, try-
In Millss family, you put the best face ame Street, Mills said. I like a real ing to navigate these straight, corporate
on things. Born in 1966, he was roughly Anybody could have done it manufac- clients from Cincinnati. (Mills told me,
a decade younger than his two sisters, a tured simplicity, the at clunkiness My Tati references have the unintended
surprise consequence of what he terms showcasing the idea. Aaron Rose, who benet of scaring the clients. Theyre
his parentsrecreational sex. Megan Ace owned the Alleged Gallery, told me, afraid to say, Who the fuck is Tati? on
told me, Mike was Baby Jesus, the boy Youd see ve album covers by Mike the conference call.)
who was supposed to save the family. in Tower Records window. Unlike a lot In 2000, he optioned Walter Kirns
Both my parents had such high regard of his contemporaries, he never had novel Thumbsucker, about an adoles-
for men, and theyd been disappointed punk guilt, or fear of selling out. When cent boys mutiny against his stiing fam-
by having two girls. Ace con- Mills sprayed graffiti on ilya safe proxy for his own story. He
tinued, But it turned out the side of the Paramount wrote a script and raised four million
Mike was born in our bal- lotBoring and Surren- dollars to make it, as an indie lm star-
samic phasewhen the fam- derhe wore a business suit, ring Tilda Swinton and Vincent DOn-
ily, like balsamic vinegar thats and documented the en- ofrio. He began to hone a method: use
been in the fridge too long, deavor with a photo essay. real-world settings and hunt for mo-
had gotten funky. The Verdis asked whether ments that made his ctions feel like
His teen-age rebellion was he had shot a scene at CBGB, documentariesthe takes when an actor
less deant than exploratory. and Mills said that hed de- stumbled or momentarily forgot her line.
Though Mills haunted the cided against it, because it He aspired to the simplicity of Yasujir
mosh pits of L.A., his hair would be so bad compared to Ozu, the Japanese master, who placed
spiked up with beer, he told me, Id al- the real thing. His relationship with his camera at only two levels: sitting
ways keep an eye open for a way out. I nostalgia is complex. Although he is cu- height and standing height.
was such a conformist, timid little boy. ratorially respectful of vanished cultures, Yet Thumbsucker, released in
His parents, with no sense of their des- his lms are often counterfactualwist- 2005, is an apprentice work. During
ignated role as oppressors, let his punk ful imaginings of what might have been. the editing, one of Millss producers sent
band practice in their house. He recalled, What if everything was exactly the same him a note: No more self-pity. Mills
Mom would say, I thought Just a Slut but had worked out better? Mills keeps was shocked that it was so evident.
was pretty good this time! an Alva skateboard in the back of his Thumbsucker didnt do what I hoped,
In the nineties, Mills played bass in Volvo station wagon, and when he cant he said. And the documentary I made
a band called Butter, which toured sleep he soothes himself by remember- next, about depressed JapaneseDoes
34 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017
Your Soul Have a Cold?, in 2007
which focussed on all the things I love
and Hollywood cant stand, like people
eating, drinking, and sleeping, was a
complete miss.
He was at a creative loss. But he
gradually realized that his fathers hav-
ing come out and then died a few years
later, in 2004, was not only a trial but
also a gift. Mills recalled, He had
this monstrous gay adolescence where
he started telling me everything, in-
cluding which of my friends were cute
and how sexy the UPS mans legs were.
Beginners took six years to realize. It
was an ambitious attempt to braid two
stories, set in two periods: 1997 to 2002,
when Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and
his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer),
belatedly get to know each other; and
2003, after Hal dies, when the griev-
ing Oliver tries to establish a relation-
ship with a French actress named Anna Maybe it doesnt want to be identied.
(Melanie Laurent). Mills believed that
sorrow had made his work stronger
and stranger. Yet when he pitched his
script he downplayed its oddness: the
history-of-the-gay-pride-ag inter- his delicate way with psychology. At half nished and a stick that his dog
lude; the magazine photos from 1955 eighty-two, he won his rst Academy Zoe had fetched for her. When he pro-
of people kissing that appear when Ol- Award for the role. posed, years later, he began by showing
iver imagines his parents early connec- her a lemonade-and-stick tableau that
tion. Mills told me, Id say, If you take hen Mills met Miranda July, at hed re-created. She had no idea what
out the history and the narrative bits, Wa noisy bar at the 2005 Sundance it represented.
the rest of the movie totally holds to- Film Festival, she was wearing a Mickey Both of them had piercing blue eyes;
gether! If its too much me, I can make Mouse sweatshirt and leather pants. So both loved James Baldwin, Agns Varda,
it more you. To get the lm nanced, it was a no-brainer. But July had a boy- and Velvet Underground. Both were seek-
he ended up throwing in his fee. When friend, so she suggested to her friend ers of buoyancy. As Brownstein said,
his producer remonstrated with him, Carrie Brownstein, the writer and Sleater- Mike is more mournful and Miranda
he said, My fear is not of not making Kinney guitarist, that she date Mills. I more sinister, but neither lacks hopeful-
moneyits of not making this lm. was sitting next to Mike at dinner, ness. But, where Mills situated a group
To establish a barbed intimacy be- Brownstein recalled, and he pulled out of characters in semi-recent history, July
tween the pairs of actors, Mills assigned a FedEx envelope. Amid all the hustling poured her spiky personality into novels,
them tasks in rehearsalthe kind of and dealmaking at Sundance, hed had lms, interactive projects, and concep-
emotional calisthenics hed picked up in his assistant send him photos of his dogs, tual arthard-to-categorize scenarios in
an acting class and from working with because he missed them so. So when which shed dance entirely encased in a
a story guru named Joan Scheckel. He Miranda later confessed that she had T-shirt, or speak in the scratchy voice of
had Laurent and McGregor, whod just feelings for Mike, I said, Obviously this a cat with a wounded paw. My punk
met, repeatedly break up with each other. is someone you should be with. scene was very unfeminist, and Miran-
And he had Plummer shop for a scarf They came together back in Los An- das scene was slightly lesbian separatist,
with McGregor and supervise him as he geles, cinematically: an agreement over Mills said. Im a Labrador and shes a
made a bed. Christopher wasnt buying lunch to be just friends, sealed with a Border collie. Also, her lmMe and
it, Mills sheepishly recalled. He told handshake; a surprise visit by July to You and Everyone We Knowwon
me, You know, Michael, not every di- drop off two wooden mice shed found handily at every competition our lms
rector needs to do this. Plummer says, at an estate sale; a lingering kiss. When were in together, and she was becoming
It was like being in school again, with July saw the model of a house that Mills hugely famous. It was a lot to date.
the theatre exerciseshe went much too was building in the Sierras, she probed Millss father had died four months
far. Mills politely insisted, and Plum- her nger into it and said, That could before they met, and July worried that
mer acknowledges, I was better as a be my room. After she left, Mills took shed get swamped by his overwhelm-
screen actor because of Mike Mills and a photo of the glass of lemonade shed ing need: Mike, at the beginning, was
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 35
like, Just lost familymust make new is what you do to comfort yourself if you this is new. The kids have come back!
one. His desire for approval also made feel an inborn loneliness that wont go He began trying to corral all this ma-
her uneasy. But she decided that he away, she said. So the reservoir idea ut- terial into a lm by jotting dozens of un-
was, after all, an artist. He may cast the terly failedother than that we got mar- related facts and ideas on le cards, from
pretty faces and get the biggest stars he ried and had a child. gun control (an obsession of his moth-
can get, which to me is sort of ad-yhe ers, which didnt make it in) to blow jobs
can sell a feeling, she told me. But Im ills stood on Miramar Beach, always existed (an obsession of his own,
agog at how little he cares about story- M in Santa Barbara, squinting wor- ditto). For two and a half years, he la-
telling conventions, like suspense and riedly as perfect waves rolled in. This is bored on a script. Mills carries low, like
reveals. Hes ultimately more experimen- not where I should have grown up, he a woman carrying a baby low, July told
tal than I am. said. It felt so oppressive. As a freckled, me, admiringly. He holds a project in-
Since their wedding, in 2009, theyve burnable person, I couldnt go to the beach side him at a very low register for a long
lived together in Silver Lake, a hilly, fast- all day. When he was six, his mother time. As he glued and whittled, he oc-
gentrifying area near downtown L.A. began encouraging him to get out of the casionally studied a reminder pinned to
whose residents have included James house, telling him to be home by sup- his bulletin board, which hed written after
Franco and the Transparent creator Jill pertime. With the beach proscribed, hed listening outside the door during screen-
Soloway. The couple work in separate follow dry creek bedsthe child high- ings of Beginners: Stronger, faster paced,
offices nearby but share Millss old house, waythrough the neighborhood, ex- more punch, no lulls, more graphic.
a place where jacaranda roots poke ploring groves of live oak and g, nas- Finally, he asked July to read the script,
through the driveway and Talking Heads turtium hedges, mysterious culverts. As which at that point also featured Jamies
albums are stacked beside a vintage turn- we drove around, Mills noted where hed divorced dad. Was it ready? Mills said
table. Geographically, Mills positions the been hit by a car while running for the that July told me, Its hackneyed, its
couple below Warren Beatty and An- bus; where hed drunkenly fallen out of making your movie about women really
nette BeningTheyre in that top-of- a convertible and got a concussion; and about a manshe was brutal. I went,
Mulholland realmand to the east of where hed got third-degree burns try- Aah, broken, a disaster, and it got
the entertainment industry. Referring to ing to stomp out wildres. heatedbut it turned out she was to-
a boulevard that bisects West Hollywood, As a high schooler, he often headed tally accurate. The audience doesnt need
Mills told me, I only cross La Cienega to Franceschi Park, where the local punks dads, is the sad truth.
if I need money or actors. drank Mickeys malt liquor and took Mills eventually wrote a dad-free
What connects Mills and July is the speed. He led me to a concrete under- script that felt faithful to his experience
failure of connection. Early on, July said, pass that spanned the San Ysidro creek except that Dorothea was warmer and
we took this walk around the reservoir bed, where hed shot several hangout more denitively heterosexual than Jan.
and talked about how wed worked so scenes in the lm. The place was snugly My mom was dark and had a level of
hard all our adult lives, and maybe we feral, lacquered with graffiti, some of it undiagnosed depression and self-attack,
could do something else. For her forti- added during shooting. We painted in Mills said. But I couldnt put all that
eth birthday, two years ago, she travelled Cito Ratsa gang back thenand the in. Annette Bening explained, Female
to Mexico alone, because they couldnt logo of Black Flag, to make it look right characters in lm are judged harshly, so
nd time to go together. Making things for the time, Mills said. But a lot of we have to love her. Its why lm is the
great near-art formyou want your
movie to be seen.
On set, Mills is his best self: assured,
curious, generous. He brought in Bud-
dhist monks to bless the cast and crew,
and a cellist to play during rehearsals.
In the mornings, he and the actors would
dance to each characters theme song,
from Why Cant I Touch It?, by the
Buzzcocks ( Jamie), to As Time Goes
By (Dorothea). It felt like he was in-
terested in creating a happening, and
the lm occurred around that, Greta
Gerwig said. But in the editing room
the lm once more refused to cohere
an occupational hazard when you jetti-
son plot. Millss stomach knotted up
and he couldnt sleep. As a dad and
Mirandas husband, he said, there was
These smug pilots have lost touch with regular passengers so much more at stake now in becom-
like us. Who thinks I should fly the plane? ing a total failure.
To calm himself, he watched Casa- movie to be funnyand, the funnier you chastened, Mills said, Its two captains
blanca over and over. Eventually, he re- make your movie in testing, the farther with one boat.
alized that his lm might work if he used you get from life as it really is. He and Hopper ambled into the
his characters the way that Michael Late one Friday afternoon, at his back yard to sweep up fallen olive leaves.
Curtiz had used Ilsa and Rick, linking office, Mills said, Id guess if we made He was getting a stream of e-mails
his disparate story lines by cutting from twelve to fteen million in box-office from the lms distributor, A24, about
Jamies face at the end of one scene to Im still in the game, and if Im up in tastemaker screenings, to position
Dorotheas at the start of the next. Mom the twenties that would be huge. He Annette Bening for a Best Actress nom-
loves boy but cant express it; boy is dis- noted, though, that every dollar you ination. July had told me that shed re-
enchanted; mom and boy reconnect, if spend on a movie is a dollar further away minded Mills that the Oscars could
only briey. He sent a le of that version from art and deeper into commerce. be seen as a major artistic failthat
to July. After calling her therapist for re- He wanted to spend less on his lms being beloved by the really homoge-
assurance (she wasnt in), July sat at her and make just enough to keep making neous, conservative group that votes
computer and pressed play. Afterward, them. After his fathers death, he quit on them would be bad. Mills said,
she sent her husband a sele that she ad work. I decided, Im helping capi- Thats where Mirandas a savior. I felt
describes as someone whod been cry- talism look benign, he said, so I bailed dumb that I was falling for the com-
ing for ninety minutes. When Mills saw from the Directors Bureau. He laughed. petition. But a moment later he added,
her happily messed-up, cried-upon face, And then I missed directing, and I If we dont get a nomination now, it
he knew he was home. needed money. Now I try to do two ads is perceived as Youre not worthy of
Judd Apatow told me that he was a year, so I can earn the hundred and seeing on Friday night.
wrecked by a scene, near the end of fty thousand dollars I need to pay for People began to arrive, and the rem-
20th Century Women, when Jamie my life. The politics of doing them re- iniscences owed over soft Hawaiian
skateboards while holding on to Dor- mains unresolved. music on the hi-. A few hours in, Mills
otheas VW Bug. As Jamie swoops hap- He was also worried about where chatted with Lindsey Jacobs, his on-set
pily through the curves, he says in voice- the next lm would come from. July dresserthe person who wrangled the
over, I thought that was just the told me that Mills recently had a dream furniture and the props. Hed just told
beginning of a new relationship with in which someone told him, You can me how much hed enjoyed working with
her. Where shed really tell me stuff. just combine the rst two movies and her, and how eager he was to see her
But maybe it was never really like that make a third about your mom and your again.
again. Maybe that was it. Apatow said, dad! He was exhilarated until he woke Jacobs, a candid woman in her early
Mikes lms make me think of my up. Was there a way to honor his mem- thirties, had a slightly different take.
late mother, and how I handled that ories yet be at least slightly commer- Mike is very appreciative but very par-
relationship, andhow can I do bet- cial? Would a dash of dramatic conict ticular, she said. There was a lot of freak-
ter with the people around me? He help? Mills gazed at Hopper, now four, ing out. I had repeated nightmares where
paused, choking up, and nally said, as he ran off to explore, and said, My I was in bed and Mike was calling me
Mikes lms make me proud to be a shit is so sweet and earnest and trying to set.
human being. so hard to be nice, and at times I just Im a designer, so I have to futz with
Late in the lm, Jamie dances with feel, like, Lets do something nasty, whats on my screen until its just right,
Dorothea, just as, late in Beginners, Mike, with some evil people! Lets fuck Mills said, apologetically.
Oliver dances with Hal. To have recon- some shit up! I would love to be more I eventually gured out what you
stituted my parents as movie stars, and orid, in a way that wasnt annoying. wanted, she said. Natural, lived-in, but
to dance with them on lm, is, psycho- He laughed. But therein I betray my- also really beautiful. Because that disap-
logically, moving in the right direc- self. Watching Hopper, so nice, giving pointed lookI couldnt bear to see that!
tion, Mills said. Much as July loves her his lunch money to other kids, I think Mills met this swift rebuttal of his nos-
husbands work, she remains mystied I was a little like that. Poor that per- talgia with a game smile.
by the gap between his actual child- son, being raised by Humphrey Bogart: Jacobs asked, So, what is it going
hoodYou could hug Mike for a long Do we really have to drink and smoke? to beanother ten years before the
time, and it wouldnt be enoughand Cant we just cuddle? next one?
these glowing portraits. Its almost what He drove with Hopper to pick up Wow! Mills said, taken aback. My
you would do in some spiritual practice, food for a party for his lm crew. Ex- therapist told me, No one keeps track
she said. A devotion to an absence. pecting twenty guests, Mills got salads, of how much time it takes.
eight bottles of wine, and two hefty She shrugged: Well, we do. Because
B eginners was a modest hit;
Thumbsucker was not. But the
wedges of cheese, then returned to the
counter to ask, If you were going to have
youve got to have a lot more life rst,
right? she went on.
budget for 20th Century Women was a third cheese to make everyone happy? Yeah, Mills said. He looked around
seven million dollarsa number at which At home, July took inventory, cried, in seeming astonishment at his family
commercial responsibilities begin to ac- Theres no protein!the kind in cheese and friends and the bounty hed pro-
crue. Apatow observed that, as your bud- apparently didnt countand raced off vided, with such hopes, for a much larger
get rises, theres more pressure on your to buy roast chicken. More amused than audience. Yeah, I gotta stew it down.
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 37
A REPORTER AT LARGE
n October 4, 1986, the Uni- long time, he said. Every week after a
by a total of seventy-eight points, and on the eld, and so was McCarty. The N.F.L. is still a goal, he said.
secured a berth in the state-champion- St. Thomas dominated from the start, A few days after the game, Harri-
ship game. getting so far ahead that the Mercy ott said that the victory was the cul-
On December 9th, the Raiders trav- Rule went into effect. The nal score mination of an extraordinary season.
elled to Orlando, to face an undefeated was 456. McCarty was elated. He re- He paused. Whatever happened, we
team from Tampa. Grimes, no longer mained determined to get an excel- had each otherthe players had au-
on crutches and already pressing eighty lent college educationI wouldnt thentic love for each other, he said.
pounds with his bad leg, watched from go to Bama just to play football Thats the power of family, friendship,
the sidelines. Kivon Bennett was back but a pro career was back in his sights. and brotherhood.
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 51
OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS
HIGH-RISE GREENS
Growing crops in the city, without soil or natural light.
BY IAN FRAZIER
o. 212 Rome Street, in New- grees in labor studies and sociology the school in 2010. Harwood is a sixty-
BOOKS
ASHES TO ASHES
A life in cigarettes.
BY JOAN ACOCELLA
he German writer Gregor Hens leys Doors of Perception, and Im sure them, and smoked heavily. When she
T smoked his rst cigarette when he Hens had that volume in mind, but if was better, she smoked less and read loft-
was ve. His mother gave it to him. It Nicotine has a literary progenitor I ier literature: Musil, Mann, Joseph Roth.
was New Years Eve, and the Hens fam- would say that it is In Search of Lost Gregor grieves for her, but this does not
ily, like many Germans, were out in the Time, in which Proust made the mate- prevent him from letting us know, in
snow setting up reworks. But they rial of seven volumes bloom out of one small ways, the difficulties her illness cre-
couldnt light the fuses, because Gregors French cookie dunked in a cup of tea. ated for her sons. She didnt really cook.
two older brothers were ghting over Nicotine is much shorter, only a hun- Also, is it customary for German moth-
the lighter. Frau Hens nally lost pa- dred and fty-seven pages, but Hens uses ers to teach their ve-year-old children
tience: She pulled out a cigarette, lit it a similar alchemy to transform the things to smoke? At the age of ten, Gregor was
and held it out to me. Little Gregor of his worldthe family in which he dispatched to a boarding school of truly
took this wonderful thing and held it to grew up, in Cologne; his former home Dickensian awfulness. (If you commit-
the fuse of one of the rockets, which shot in Columbus, where he taught German ted a misdeed, you had to ask for pun-
into the sky. Then he saw that the ciga- literature at Ohio State; his apartment ishment. Then you were locked in a
rettes ember had ceased to glow. You in Berlin, where he lives with his wife, closet.) He says that he never knew why
have to take a drag on it, my mother said and produces novels and translations he was sent away from home, but his
out of the half-darkness. He took a drag, into whole relay stations of poetic force, brothers were shipped off, too. It seems
the ember glowed again, and the child humming and sparking and chugging. probable that the mother was getting
suffered a near-collapse from coughing worse. By the time Gregor was eighteen,
and joy. he mother first. Hens had to she was dead. He never tells us what she
As Hens tells us in his memoir, Nic- T work on her for months to get per- died of, though there are hints that she
otine (Other; translated from the Ger- mission to stay up for the New Years committed suicide: She succumbed to
man by Jen Calleja), this experience even- Eve festivities. She insisted that he take her own melancholy. From page to page,
tually landed him with a decades-long a nap before the reworks. He agreed, this beloved woman is glimpsed only
addiction to nicotine. It also, he believes, and from nine to eleven-thirty he lay in partially. All around her there are silences,
gave him the beginnings of a personal- bed wide awake, rigid with excitement: empty places, held breathsan extraor-
ity: I became myself for the rst time. dinary act of literary nesse.
He means this literally. In his mind, the When my mother came to wake me I was Hens recalls ruefully that she did not
already standing in the middle of the room
entire episodethe coughing t, his putting my trousers on in the dark. She turned try to shield her sons from their brutal
mothers blue hat, his almost uncontain- on the light, got me the checked shirt Id been father. Once, when the oldest boy, Ste-
able pride in the fact that he, not his wearing during the day, went to the wardrobe fanthe troublemaker and, it seems,
brothers, detonated the rst rocket smiling silently to herself and pulled out the Gregors favoritedid something bad,
comes together into a story, the rst mem- thickest jumper [sweater] she could find. I the entire family was imprisoned, for
stretched my arms up into the air, she pulled
ory he has that is a story rather than just the jumper over my head, then stroked the hair days, in the fathers wrath: We sat in si-
an image or a sensation. And, because from my forehead. lence in the dining nook spooning our
he is a writer, he sees this birth of a story soup with heads bent, profoundly fright-
as the birth of his personality. How nice: This is a tender scenehe allows him- ened, avoiding eye contact. My mother
ABOVE: LUCI GUTIRREZ
to have the emergence of ones self self to cherish the little boy as she did gave not a word of defence for her el-
marked by a rocket exploding! (I stretched my arms up into the air) dest son, who cowered beside me crying
In any case, it is by association with but as the book progresses the mother with quivering legs, not trusting himself
nicotine that Hens shows us what he turns out to be a mixed business. She to wipe his fogged-up glasses, while my
wants us to know about his life. People had a cycling depression. When she was father talked himself into a rage for the
will connect his book with Aldous Hux- doing badly, she read romances, lots of hundredth time. What must it have
66 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017
In a memoir by the German writer Gregor Hens, smoking provides a vehicle for a story of domestic and national trauma.
PHOTOGRAPH BY HORACIO SALINAS THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 67
been like for Gregor, four years younger Its true, he seemed to say, that most peo- buy a pack of cigarettes, rams into a Toy-
than Stefan, to see the older boy, whom ple dont manage it, because its actually ota Land Cruiser and crashes onto its
he loved and respected, weeping so hard a perilous addiction. But I can do it. Its hoodturns into a comedy. An ambu-
that his legs were shaking? damn hard, but if you have a strong will lance arrives, but, as it rushes to the hos-
On another occasion, the family was like mine its actually no problem at all. pital, it runs over an old lady, so it stops
headed home after a purgatorial vaca- If you cant do it with the power of your and picks her up, too. Welcome aboard,
tionStefan had recently been caught own will you are simply a weak person. I called out to her, Hens writes. But,
smoking on the roof of his schoolwhen All this is fun. Its nice to see that instead of returning his greeting, she
the father pulled the car over to the side bully ridiculed. But later Hens describes screams abuse at him all the way to the
of the road and switched off the engine: how his father, while wooing the woman hospital. Only there does he discover
He swiveled round and screamed at who became his second wife, used to that his face is caked with blood and that
my brother, who had dissolved into tears urge her two beautiful teen-age daugh- there is a long, gaping laceration on his
long before this: If I ever catch you ters to give up smoking: It doesnt suit right temple.The story is funnyI think
smoking up there again Ill bring you you, my father would say. Women who even I sprang backwards when I saw my-
down from the roof with a pickaxe, smoke dont make suitable Aryan wives self in the bathroom mirrorbut its
Ill ram a pickaxe into your arsehole and mothers, I added in my head. Hens subject is the same deep-lying terror that
and pull you down, Ill rip you open may have been traumatized by his fa- is the main concern of most of the book.
and kill you. The tirade went on for thers talk of enlarging Stefans asshole, Not all of it. In some scenes, Hens
twenty minutes, Hens says. Though it but I think that almost all Germans, achieves a kind of middle tone, where,
wasnt directed at me, I have never en- even those born some time after 1945 while still producing little horrors, he re-
dured such physical fear in my life. (Hens was born in 1965), still bear the mains stoic, or reticent. In an early chap-
I believe him, but just as Frau Henss mark of their countrys role in the Sec- ter, he and Stefan, grown men now, drive
image is shaded, and thereby rescued ond World War. Hens, to judge from to the house of their great-aunt Anna,
from sentimentality, by suggestions of his book, truly hated his father. So do in Bremen. She has just died, and they
her shortcomings as a mother, so the fa- many people, but his story becomes cap- are going to collect her keys. The house,
ther is spared a horror-movie monstrous- tivatinglaced with a saving ironyby of course, lls Gregor with memories.
ness by whatyou cant believe it at being told through the medium of some- The peat in the garden reminds him of
rstare tinkling little notes of comedy. thing as humble as tobacco. the time his aunt told him about a peat
Herr Hens made his living as an inspec- bog that lay just outside the town: Out
tor of damage from industrial explosions. verything is told through that there, my young brain imagined, it was
Because of this, and because a blaze once E medium. Disgust is a parking-lot at- teeming with the eternally restless un-
broke out in his home office, he was very tendant who, in fetching Henss car, has dead, ditch wardens, feral spirits and dop-
strict about re safety. After the office lled it with smoke particles . . . pumped pelgngers. Out there beyond the town
re, he bought a hundred and twenty out of his moist, mucus-lled lungs. the peat diggers uncover the skeletons
Gloria-brand re extinguishers to send Something that was deep within his body of entire chain gangs, the tiny bodies of
out as Christmas gifts. He had to order is now in mine. (The sexual note makes unwanted children, the corpses of abor-
that many in order to get a discount, but, this moment particularly unsettling.) tions, bastards.
as it turned out, he didnt know a hun- Fear is a colony of red ants that, living The vast armchairs in Aunt Annas
dred and twenty people, so there were a in Henss front garden in Columbus, re- living room make him think of Deng
lot of leftovers, and every room in the minds him that his smoking habit, once Xiaoping. Why? We dont know, but
Hens house, even Gregors tiny bedroom, broken, might return: printed on the page where he tells us this
was outtted with a bright-red re ex- The entire parcel of land was infiltrated. A
there is a photograph of Deng, in a mam-
tinguisher. (The boy used to lie in bed passer-by, throwing only a fleeting look over moth armchair, with antimacassars, such
and gaze at it, longing to pull the silver the place, would have been completely unaware as Aunt Anna had, contentedly having
pin.) After Stefans disgrace for smok- of it. Maybe they would have delighted in see- a smoke. The book is full of these muddy
ing on the school roof, the brothers con- ing the freshly painted, light blue wooden faade, little snapshots, showing thingsa rac-
the glorious irises. But the moment I stuck a
cluded that their fathers vehemence may spade into it, the moment I pulled up just a
ing bike, a lighter, a Gloria re extin-
have had less to do with school rules single patch of weeds or disturbed a mossy slab guisher, Aunt Annathat seem surprised
being broken than with re safety. with my foot, whole armies of combat-ready that someone is bothering to photograph
Surely it also had to do with Herr army ants gazed up at me; powerful, shimmer- them. They call to mind W. G. Sebalds
Henss attitude toward smoking. He, too, ing red specimens evidently waiting only for novels, in which, with a similarly muffled
me. They streamed into the daylight in their
had once been a smokerindeed, a four- thousands, the earth would appear to be in mo-
emotion, photographs like these often
pack-a-day manbut he had decided tion, and Id be seized by vertigo. document the lives of people who ed
that his habit had got out of control. the Nazis.
That was the end of that. Overnight, Shimmering red specimens, stream- Aunt Anna ed no Nazis, but much
without the help of books or pills or hyp- ing into the light: this is beautiful in an of her story, as Hens tells it, seems to be
notherapy, he had quit smoking. He loved appalling way. Elsewhere, an episode that about love that wasnt properly returned.
to tell the story, as proof of the enor- should have been frighteningHens, She never married. She devoted herself
mous willpower of its heroic storyteller. on his bike, speeding down the road to to her job at the Brinkmann cigarette
68 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017
factory. It was said that she was in love
with the companys president, a married
man whom she would visit at his lake- BRIEFLY NOTED
side property on her vacations. They
were the Romeo and Juliet of the Ger- Toussaint Louverture, by Philippe Girard (Basic). After lead-
man cigarette industry, Hens writes. ing a slave revolt in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in 1791
And that may have had something to do the only successful such revolt in historyLouverture became
with the fact that when Aunt Anna re- an anti-colonial icon. He emerges in this excellent biography
tired she was given, along with her pen- as a man more complex than the myth of him would have it.
sion, a hundred-year supply of the fac- His military and political stratagems coincided with a recep-
torys product. Once a month, a courier tive mood in revolutionary France, which abolished slavery in
from Brinkmann would arrive at her 1794. In the restive period that followed, Louverture consoli-
front door with two cartons of cigarettes. dated power, ultimately enforcing a labor code no less repres-
Now she was dead, but the stipend was sive than slavery. Girard writes thoughtfully about the various
to continue until 2071, so that, like the contradictions of Louvertures life, which ended in a prison
house, it passed to her great-nephews. cell in France. While there, he wrote a memoir addressed to
As the chapter ends, Stefan pours shots Napoleon, expecting to be acknowledged by him as an equal.
of schnapps for himself and Gregor: To
Aunt Anna, Stefan says, raising his glass. Am I Alone Here?, by Peter Orner (Catapult). Stories say what
To her love, I say. And Gregor lights up I cant, the author writes in this memoir in which short c-
one of her cigarettes. tion becomes a form of vicarious living. Following the death
The book, too, ends with love and of his father, Orner is left with a blank grief that he can quell
cigarettes. Gregor is eighteen. He is in only through reading. He proceeds, chapter by chapter, through
love for the rst time, with the beauti- what hes learned from authors from Chekhov to Welty. Kafka
ful Eliana. He has been to a party at her captures the struggle between the craving for loneliness and
house, where, feeling outclassed by the a terror of it; Herbert Morris gives the miracle of people in
other boys, he got terribly drunk and had their most intimate, unguarded moments; Virginia Woolf
to sleep over. In the morning, Eliana ap- retrieves irretrievable time. The underlying force of the book
pears in his room in a gray robe and sits is the desire to recover the weight of whats vanished and
on the edge of the bed. He wants to pull ctions alchemical ability to do so.
her into the bedhes sure that she is
naked under the robebut he has too The Gardens of Consolation, by Parisa Reza, translated from
horrible a taste in his mouth (beer, cig- the French by Adriana Hunter (Europa). This condent dbut
arettes) to dare to kiss her. She senses begins some decades into the twentieth century, but its char-
his discomfort, takes a cigarette out of acters live on terms closer to the thirteenth. Talla, aged twelve,
his pack, lights it, and holds it to his lips. is walking with her husband from a small Iranian village to-
He doesnt remove his hands from under ward a new life in the city. He is old enough to be afraid of
the covers. He just lies back: bandits, she young enough to be afraid of ogres tucked among
It was quite possibly the most wonderful the dunes. We follow the couple through parenthood and three
drag of my life. And then Eliana led the cig- decades of alternating regimes. Occasionally, historical expo-
arette to her own full, slightly parted lips and sitionan account of Irans burgeoning civil service, sayin-
took a deep, sensual drag. She bent over me trudes baldly. The novel is at its best when it evokes the fam-
and released the smoke, and the shimmering ilys comfort, despite the upheavals, in sensual, timeless pleasures:
blue veil that caught the first autumnal sun-
shine sank over my face and caressed me. A vats hot with rose petals and lamb, the smell of jasmine and
kiss, better than a kiss . . . her lips, where my damp soil.
lips had been. Her breath and the smoke that
we shared . . . I closed my eyes and sucked it The Revolutionaries Try Again, by Mauro Javier Cardenas
in to the tips of my lungs. My first true loves (Coffee House). Depicting the morass of contemporary Ecua-
kiss was smoke, nothing but smoke.
dorean politics in high modernist style, this dbut focusses on
It is a strange combination, love and the efforts of two old friendsthe Presidents chief of staff and
smoke, but there is a long streak of an economist who has been living in San Franciscoto mount
strangeness in German artcolors you an insurgent political campaign. Cardenas hopscotches across
didnt expect (Caspar David Friedrich, time, shedding forms from section to section, and extending a
Max Beckmann), Venuses who arent single sentence over twenty pages. Theres an infectious warmth
pretty (Cranach, Altdorfer)which in the recollections of the friends school days, and the prose
nevertheless feels like life. I dont know often draws blood: describing protests in San Francisco, a char-
what Aunt Anna got in place of con- acter says that he had often seen American crowds waving
summation, but Hens got this dark, their ags of self-importance and gorging themselves with or-
lovely, funny book. ganic cucumbers before returning to their placid homes.
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 69
ther: its an essential part of the way we
BOOKS think. Others experience auditory hallu-
cinations, verbal promptings from voices
SLEIGHT OF HAND
caught the second, which included
works by Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel,
and Schumannthe kind of serious-
The Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, at Carnegie Hall and Disney Hall. minded program that Radu Lupu or
Mitsuko Uchida might offer. Not ev-
BY ALEX ROSS erything cohered, yet the playing had
beauty and power to spare. A scurry-
ing encore left even the most obscu-
rantist pianophiles mystied. As it hap-
pened, it was the scherzo of a piano
sonata that Trifonov had written.
What sets Trifonov apart is a pair
of attributes that are seldom found in
one pianist: monstrous technique and
lustrous tone. The characteristic Tri-
fonov effect is a rapid, glistening urry
of notes that hardly seems to involve
the mechanical action of hammers and
strings. Its more like the immaterial
swirl of veils in the dances of Loie
Fuller. Such wizardry makes even Tri-
fonovs celebrated colleagues stop in
wonder. In 2011, Argerich said of him,
What he does with his hands is tech-
nically incredible. Its also his touch
he has tenderness and also the demonic
element. I never heard anything like
that. The elemental thrill is to see
him lunge from one extreme to an-
other. When he does, demonic is not
too strong a word.
So far, Trifonov has done best in
the high-virtuoso territory of Liszt,
Scriabin, and Rachmaninoff. His lat-
est recording, on Deutsche Grammo-
phon, is of Liszts Transcendental
tudes, Concert tudes, and Paganini
he Russian pianist Daniil Tri- pretive choices that cause head-shaking tudes. The Transcendental tudes
T fonov creates a furor. The term is at intermission. They give a hint of the contain some of the most taxing piano
a familiar one in the annals of super- unearthly, the diabolical. They tend to writing ever put on paper: jagged
virtuosity. pianist creates furor walk onstage hurriedly and bashfully, chords strewn all over the keyboard,
was a headline in the Times when Vla- with little ceremony, and usher in bed- everywhere-leaping arpeggiated gures,
dimir Horowitz rst played at Carne- lam from unseen regions. pages of double octaves. Trifonov dis-
gie Hall, in 1928. Paderewski left furor Trifonov was born in Nizhny Nov- patches all of it with stupefying effort-
in his wake, as did Sviatoslav Richter, gorod in 1991, and now lives in New lessness, in the process transforming
the young Martha Argerich, and the York. He achieved international fame this ostensibly bravura music into
young Evgeny Kissin. Americans usu- in 2011, when he won rst prize in the something elegant and rareed, al-
ally dont create a furor, at least on Tchaikovsky Competition. He made most French. He suggests how much
American soil. Russians are more prone his professional Carnegie Hall dbut Debussy and Ravel owed to Liszt. This
to do so. It should be noted that a furor later that year, performing Tchaikov- is not the nal word on the tudes:
is not the same as a sensation. (Lang skys First Piano Concerto with Valery on the Myrios label you can nd a re-
Lang creates a sensation.) Furor pia- Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orches- cording by Kirill Gerstein, another
nists exhibit intelligence as well as dex- tra. That outing had more nesse than major, younger Russian-born pianist,
terity; they often make curious inter- the average slam-bang run-through, which has a stronger sense of musical
architecture. Still, Trifonovs entry will
Trifonov has a rare combination of monstrous technique and lustrous tone. long be a benchmark.
74 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 9, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY ROMAN MURADOV
His explorations of Germanic rep- D-minor pair; and Stravinskys Three an imperious elaboration of the suave,
ertory have yielded murkier results. Movements from Petrushka. The sauntering theme with which the con-
Earlier this year, I watched him be- Shostakovich was monumental, unsen- certo begins. Although it is marked
come nearly lost in Schuberts other- timental, altogether formidablewor- Allegro molto, it requires a Lisztian
worldly Sonata in G, D. 894not in thy of comparison to Richter. The Stra- barrage of fortissimo chords in vari-
the sense of forgetting where he was vinsky tended to skim the surface, but ous registers. Trifonov could have
in the score but in the sense of letting it blazed with energy and color. Tri- knocked it off at high speed; instead,
go of the narrative line. He lavished fonov even allowed himself a bit of he took a deliberate, almost labored
such affection on each hovering chord showmanship: at the beginning of the approach, slowing to a crawl in the
and quiver of melody that the music second movement, in honor of the tit- turn to G minor. The sound was im-
was repeatedly in danger of gliding to ular puppet, he let his right arm dan- mense, seeming to ventriloquize the
a halt. Richter, through the force of his gle limply for a moment. In all, though, orchestra sitting silently by. There was
personality, could get away with such this was the most wayward of the Tri- a palpable sense of strugglenot tech-
mystical prolongations of Schubert. fonov recitals Ive attended: the man- nical but emotional, a battle of the
Trifonov lacks, as yet, Richters mag- nerisms obscured the mastery. heart. The passage assumed a tragic
isterial control. heft that changed the meaning of the
At his most recent Carnegie appear- hree days earlier, at Disney concerto around it. Whether Trifonov
ance, on December 7th, Trifonov de- T Hall, in Los Angeles, I had en- had some reason to play it this way in
voted the rst half of the program to countered a different Trifonovan the nal weeks of 2016 I cannot say,
Schumann. Reaffirming his range, he artist both daring and disciplined, who but that minute of music hit me as
rst oated the fragile, translucent lines ventured into remote territory and strongly as anything Ive heard this
of Kinderszenen and then stormed found his way back. With Gustavo season.
through the dense, bristling Toccata. Dudamel and the Los Angeles Phil- Is it possible to offer criticism with-
Both were deftly done. Kreisleriana, harmonic, he performed the Rach- out complaint? When a performer is
which followed, was befuddling. The maninoff Third Concerto, a work that astounding on one occasion and exas-
opening piece was hectic and clangor- always gives pleasure but seldom sur- perating on another, you want him to
ous; after that, torpor set in. The slow prises. For most of the rst movement, continue on his chosen path, however
pieces were languid to the point of sta- Trifonov played with unaffected bril- circuitous it may appear. Perhaps Tri-
sis. Phrases dissolved into a lovely mi- liance; after initial tensions over tempo, fonovs eccentricities will subside with
asma of disconnected notes. The prayer- he and Dudamel settled into a vibrant time, or perhaps they will take on in-
ful melody of the fourth piece shed its groove. The revelation occurred in the terpretive weight. His compositions are
songlike character; even the longest- cadenza. Rachmaninoff s score gives a imitativeon YouTube, you can nd
breathed singer would have had a hard choice of two cadenzas: one is daz- his Piano Concerto in E-Flat Minor,
time sustaining the line at this tempo. zling and scherzolike, while the other which mashes together Rachmaninoff,
A minute here or there in Neverland marked ossia, or alternatively Scriabin, Prokoev, and a few others
would have been compelling, but fully waxes grand and dark. The composer but they give evidence of a restless, cre-
half the work fell into that zone. The employed the rst in his famous re- ative mind. He still has not touched
general impression was of a gorgeous cording with the Philadelphia Orches- much of the twentieth-century reper-
miscellany. tra, and most pianists have followed suit. tory; he will enrich it when he does.
After intermission, Trifonov turned A signicant minority, however, favor Once he settles into his maturity, he
to post-Romantic Russian repertory: the ossia. Yem Bronfman is in this may have no equal. For now, furor fol-
ve of Shostakovichs Preludes and camp; so is Trifonov. lows him, because he has yet to com-
Fugues, culminating in the colossal The heart of the second cadenza is mit the sin of routine.
THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT 2017 COND NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
VOLUME XCII, NO. 44, January 9, 2017. THE NEW YORKER (ISSN 0028792X) is published weekly (except for five combined issues: February 13 & 20, June 5 & 12, July 10 & 17,
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Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose
three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this weeks cartoon, by Robert Leighton,
must be received by Sunday, January 8th. The finalists in the December 19th & 26th contest appear below. We will
announce the winner, and the finalists in this weeks contest, in the January 23rd issue. Anyone age thirteen or older
can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.
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What makes you think you were not our first choice?
Jim Johnson, New York City
You will have one more try when the music starts. Sir, I just need you to take one small step out of the vehicle.
Susan Adams, Chicago, Ill. Andrew Hawkins, Sudbury, Ont.