Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Glenn Eichler (Shouts & Murmurs, Hilton Als (The Theatre, p. 74), the mag-
p. 29) writes for television and is the azines theatre critic, is an associate
author of the graphic novels Stued! professor of writing at Columbia Uni-
and Mush!: Sled Dogs with Issues. versitys School of the Arts.
Adam Gopnik (Books, p. 71), a sta writer, Emma Cline (Fiction, p. 58) is the au-
has been contributing to the magazine thor of The Girls and the recipient
since 1986. His latest book is The of the 2014 Plimpton Prize, from The
Table Comes First. Paris Review.
NEWYORKER.COM
Everything in the magazine, and more.
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2 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
THE MAIL
THE BILLIONAIRES PRESIDENT craziness that reigns today comes
mainly from the inability or the refusal
As a former corruptions investigator to take facts into account. We need to
for New York State during the nine- limit our worrying about the power of
teen-seventies, I was pleased to see money and instead gure out how to
Jane Mayers article on the libertarian encourage more well-informed voter
billionaire Robert Mercer and his fam- participation, which will defeat big
ily, who spent many millions of dol- money in the long runand maybe
lars to elect Donald Trump (Trumps even sooner.
Money Man, March 27th). Unfortu- Terry Nienhuis
nately, little attention has been paid Williamsburg, Va.
to what one Mercer organization,
Reclaim New York, has been doing The most disturbing sentence in May-
in this state. As Mayer reported, Re- ers thoroughly disturbing piece is about
claim, ostensibly a nonprot advocacy Robert Mercers daughter Rebekah,
group that opposes government spend- who, Mayer writes, felt that they
ing, has shared an address with Cam- needed to investigate why their net-
bridge Analytica, as well as a corpo- work had failed to defeat Obama in
rate ocerSteve Bannon. Reclaims 2012. Apparently, the fact that the
strategy is to demand extensive data majority of voters preferred Barack
from municipalities and school dis- Obama was not a satisfactory expla-
tricts, requests that are used to burden nation. In 2016, the Mercers and their
and shame public employees, further- associates succeeded in getting their
ing Reclaims libertarian and so-called man electedeven though, once again,
alt-right political agenda throughout the majority of voting Americans pre-
the state. The organization has weap- ferred the other candidate. A handful
onized the states Freedom of Infor- of billionaires have taken control of
mation Law to request, and sue for, our nation, and it seems that we have
nancial documents from two hun- become a true plutocracy. The Mer-
dred and fty villages, towns, and cit- cers purchase power through lies, which
ies in Orange, Westchester, Putnam, get channelled to the public by way of
and other counties in New York. Re- phony scientists, radio hate-mongers,
claim also holds local workshops to extremist bloggers and Web sites, and
build a citizen army that oods com- spurious nonprots with innocuous-
munities with public-information re- sounding names. One falsehood were
quests. Its ultimate goal is to over- hearing frequently at the moment is
whelm governments and achieve the that America is brokethat we cant
deconstruction of the administrative aord a safety net for those people
state. Through groups like Reclaim, who cannot make sucient money
the Mercer familys circle of inuence themselves. But, as Mayer points out,
extends far beyond even what Mayer there is plenty of money in America
has uncovered. its just tied up in extravagant homes,
Joyce St George luxury yachts, multimillion-dollar
New Kingston, N.Y. model trains, and, now, the govern-
ment of the United States.
Mayer has exposed Mercer just as eec- Robert Resniko
tively as she did the Koch brothers, Stamford, Conn.
in 2010. But the antidote to all this
dark money is not the overturning
of the Citizens United decision but, Letters should be sent with the writers name,
rather, the cultivation of increased address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
skepticism and discernment in voters. themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
Birtherism, Holocaust denial, and cli- any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
mate-change denial? The ideological of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
Classical-music presenters are placing big bets on new venues, such as Williamsburgs dynamic National
Sawdust. But some of the most evocative spaces may be hiding in plain sighttake the Church of the
Intercession, a grand Episcopalian pile way uptown on Broadway at 155th St. The Crypt Sessions (which
has hosted the violinist Amy Schroeder, of the Attacca Quartet, above) is drawing capacity audiences;
on April 5, it presents Labyrinth, a concert by the fascinating Israeli pianist David Greilsammer.
PHOTOGRAPH BY IOULEX
look like photographs run through the Prisma
filter, or that youre using fake dollar bills shot
THE THEATRE
1
out of money guns. Whenever a mock auction
comes up, Beneath the Gavel suddenly acquires
a pulse. These scenes, though, are all too brief,
and the majority of Mara Liebermans play is
story of the controversial 1923 Broadway pro- a jumble of lectures, interpretive dancing, and
OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS duction of Sholem Aschs Yiddish drama God bad accents. The show juxtaposes Zeiglers re-
of Vengeance. (Cort, 138 W. 48th St. 212-239- lationship with a benevolent patron with a pot-
Anastasia 6200. In previews.) ted history of the contemporary-art market and a
Darko Tresnjak directs this new musical, by Ter- soft-hitting expos of the tricks that make prices
rence McNally, Stephen Flaherty, and Lynn The Little Foxes go up during auctions. Under Liebermans direc-
Ahrens, drawn from the 1956 and 1997 films about Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon trade off roles tion, the cast often walks and talks very slowly,
the Russian Grand Duchess. (Broadhurst, 235 night to night in Manhattan Theatre Clubs re- perhaps to indicate depth. But its hard to take
W. 44th St. 212-239-6200. In previews.) vival of the 1939 Lillian Hellman drama, directed seriously a show that pokes fun at conceptual art
by Daniel Sullivan. (Samuel J. Friedman, 261 while regularly indulging in Sprockets-type
The Antipodes W. 47th St. 212-239-6200. In previews.) ballet interludes. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th St. 212-
The playwright Annie Baker (The Flick) re- 279-4200. Through April 9.)
turns, with a piece about storytelling, directed by Oslo
Lila Neugebauer and featuring Josh Charles, Phil- A Broadway transfer of J. T. Rogerss play, di- How to Transcend a Happy Marriage
lip James Brannon, and Josh Hamilton. (Pershing rected by Bartlett Sher, which explores how a Sarah Ruhl has a wonderful way of hearing what
Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212-244- Norwegian diplomat (Jennifer Ehle) and her people cant say even though they struggle to
7529. In previews.) husband (Jefferson Mays) secretly helped or- say it. Her latest play has many amusing mo-
chestrate the 1993 Oslo Accords. (Vivian Beau- ments, largely restricted to the first act, which
Bandstand mont, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200. In previews.) soars. Thats when we meet George (an excel-
Corey Cott and Laura Osnes play a war veteran lent Marisa Tomei), a middle-class mom whose
and a widow who team up to compete in a radio Pacific Overtures husband and friends think theyre getting into
contest in 1945, in this swing musical by Robert John Doyle directs Stephen Sondheim and John a sexy situation with a free spirit named Pip
Taylor and Richard Oberacker, directed by Andy Weidmans musical from 1976, which recounts (Lena Hall) and her two male partners, but it
Blankenbuehler. (Jacobs, 242 W. 45th St. 212-239- the opening of nineteenth-century Japan, star- might all be in Georges mind. She wants to
6200. In previews.) ring George Takei as the Reciter. (Classic Stage change her life, and the desire may have been
Company, 136 E. 13th St. 866-811-4111. Previews so strong that shes invented a scene where she
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory begin April 6.) and her stolid set lose control. The director,
Christian Borle plays Willy Wonka in this musi- Rebecca Taichman, has cast the piece beauti-
cal version of the Roald Dahl tale, featuring new Present Laughter fully (Robin Weigert, whose befuddled matri-
songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and a Kevin Kline plays a narcissistic actor having a arch is a comic gem, and Austin Smith merit
book by David Greig. (Lunt-Fontanne, 205 W. 46th midlife crisis, in Moritz von Stuelpnagels revival special interest), but she cant save the second
St. 877-250-2929. In previews.) of the 1939 Nol Coward comedy. (St. James, 246 act, which is filled with too much explication
W. 44th St. 212-239-6200. Opens April 5.) and not enough mystery. (Mitzi E. Newhouse,
A Dolls House, Part 2 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200.)
Lucas Hnaths play, starring Laurie Metcalf, Chris The Profane
Cooper, Jayne Houdyshell, and Condola Rashad, Zayd Dohrns play, directed by Kip Fagan, is about Latin History for Morons
picks up years after Ibsens classic leaves off, with a liberal immigrant Manhattanite whose daugh- In his latest comic monologue, John Leguizamo
the return of its heroine, Nora. Sam Gold directs. ter falls in love with the son of conservative Mus- is class clown turned substitute teacher, sprinting
(Golden, 252 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200. In previews.) lim parents. (Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St. from the Aztecs to Sonia Sotomayor in a hun-
212-279-4200. In previews. Opens April 9.) dred minuteswith dance breaks. When his son
Gently Down the Stream was in eighth grade, Leguizamo tells us, he was
In Martin Shermans new play, set at the begin- Samara picked on by racist bullies and stumped by a his-
ning of the online-dating era, Harvey Fierstein Soho Reps Sarah Benson directs Richard Max- tory project in which he had to find a hero. Hop-
plays a gay pianist living in London who meets wells piece, with music by Steve Earle (who is ing to fortify his boy with heritage, Leguizamo
a younger man. (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967- also in the cast), in which a man braves a fron- deep-dives into textbooks, returning with pearls
7555. Opens April 5.) tier to collect a debt from a stranger. (A.R.T./ of knowledge: did you know that twenty thou-
New York Theatres, 502 W. 53rd St. 212-352-3101. sand Hispanics fought in the Civil War? Still,
Groundhog Day In previews.) he struggles to find encouraging tales of indig-
Tim Minchin and Danny Rubin wrote this musi- enous forebears, who, like his son, were on the
cal version of the 1993 Bill Murray comedy, about Six Degrees of Separation losing side of most battles. Directed by Tony Tac-
a misanthropic weatherman (Andy Karl) forced Allison Janney, John Benjamin Hickey, and Corey cone, the show makes the occasional hackneyed
to repeat the same day over and over. Matthew Hawkins star in Trip Cullmans revival of John turnits unclear why Montezuma is rendered
Warchus directs. (August Wilson, 245 W. 52nd St. Guares play from 1990, about a young black con as a flaming homosexualbut quickly rights it-
212-239-6200. In previews.) man who enters the lives of an upscale Manhat- self, and Leguizamo lands clear comic punches,
tan couple. (Ethel Barrymore, 243 W. 47th St. 212- especially when sending up his own machismo.
Hello, Dolly! 239-6200. In previews.) (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.)
Bette Midler stars as the turn-of-the-century
matchmaker Dolly Levi in the Jerry Herman mu- War Paint Miss Saigon
sical from 1964, directed by Jerry Zaks and featur- Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole play the Heres a musical that always goes for broke.
ing David Hyde Pierce. (Shubert, 225 W. 44th St. rival cosmetics entrepreneurs Helena Rubin- Ballads arent intimate but belted to the raf-
212-239-6200. In previews.) stein and Elizabeth Arden, in this new musi- ters; characters dont just walk off the stage but
cal by Scott Frankel, Michael Korie, and Doug are whisked away on a life-size helicopter; emo-
1
In & of Itself Wright. (Nederlander, 208 W. 41st St. 866-870- tions arent muted but operaticwhich is natural,
The magician Derek DelGaudio (Nothing to 2717. In previews. Opens April 6.) since the plot transposes key elements from Ma-
Hide) presents an evening of illusions exploring dama Butterfly to mid-nineteen-seventies Viet-
the concept of identity, directed by Frank Oz. (Daryl nam. Yet this 1989 colossus, about the doomed
Roth, 20 Union Sq. E. 212-239-6200. In previews.) NOW PLAYING affair between a G.I. (Alistair Brammer) and a
Vietnamese girl (Eva Noblezada), moves with
Indecent Beneath the Gavel remarkable fleetness, especially in Laurence
Rebecca Taichman directs Paula Vogels play, Heres your chance to land a Zeigler! Never mind Connors dynamite Broadway revival. Richard
a transfer from the Vineyard, which tells the that Daniel Zeigler is fictional, that his paintings Maltby, Jr., Claude-Michel Schnberg, and Alain
Picnic
Theres a reason William Inges popular 1953
work keeps audiences interested: the script
pushes a lot of buttons, about class, innocence
and, foremost, sexuality. Hal (a nuanced and then
uneven David T. Patterson) is a drifter who lands
in a small Kansas town where his former class-
mate Alan (Rowan Vickers) is a rich boy whos
involved with Madge (Ginna Le Vine, giving
a stiff performance in an underwritten role).
Madge is a restless, pretty girl whose mother,
Flo (Michele Pawk), wants her to marry up. But
Hal disrupts those plans; hes sex incarnate. Inge
was closeted for most of his life, and Hal rep-
resents his longing for a real man, so theres
a lot of buried desire in the part. But the direc-
tor, Jack Cummings III, doesnt do anything new
with the material. His take is neither avant-garde
nor traditional, and the Transport Group pro-
duction (in rep with Inges Come Back, Lit-
tle Sheba) plays in a kind of intellectual stasis.
(Gym at Judson, 243 Thompson St. 866-811-4111.) Follow Ahead in Williamstown, Massachusetts,
versed in traditional bhajans and
Sweat Nandi Rose Plunketts freewheeling art
Celtic pop. As a music major at Ken-
Lynn Nottages drama, newly transferred to pop spends a night in Brooklyn.
Broadway from the Public Theatre, opens at yon College, she inhaled varied
top intensity in a parole office in Reading, Penn- It rained in New York last May 6, formsmusical theatre, classical, folk,
sylvania, in 2008, as two young men, one black, and music completists felt the down- world musicand mastered few, in-
one white, attempt to confront the mess theyve
made of their lives. But this is really the story pour the heaviest. New albums from stead working through her own ex-
of their mothers (embodied with rich authentic- James Blake, Skepta, Death Grips, periments with upstart bands and
ity by Michelle Wilson and Johanna Day), who Anohni, and Kaytranada all came at nursing solo material by night. Her
have spent their adult lives working the assembly
line of a steel-tubing factory, and whose friend- once, a spread of vivid artists who had ideas jelled best with Evan Stephens
ship crumbles the day in 2000 when the plant risen from self-contained music pock- Hall, and she joined his band Pine-
locks the workers out. By the end, everything is ets as captains of focussed styles and grove. The group made their way to
fully explainedperhaps too fully explained, de-
pending on your taste. But Nottage isnt inter- subcultures. Probable Depths arrived northern New Jersey after graduation,
esting in hinting at what went wrong; she wants more quietly that same day, and the and became immersed in a close-knit
to make it known. Its a play that listens deeply cassette might have been lost in the music community that had produced
to the confounding plight of blue-collar work-
ers in the worlds richest country, and which, spring shower if it hadnt been for bands like Ducktails and Real Es-
1
in a just world, would shake their bosses to the the loyal followers of Nandi Rose tateafter crashing in Halls child-
core. (Studio 54, at 254 W. 54th St. 212-239-6200.) Plunkett, a singer and producer hood bedroom for a summer, Plun-
known as Half Waif. College-radio kett found the condence to pipe up
ALSO NOTABLE jocks and B-side bloggers picked up on her own once again.
Turn Me Around, the records agile With Pinegrove, Plunkett helps
Amlie Walter Kerr. C. S. Lewis Onstage: The
Most Reluctant Convert Acorn. Come from second single, and dished out praise to broaden the bands blooming
Away Schoenfeld. Cry Havoc! New Ohio. Dan- that the ethereal pop song wholly de- alt- country rooted deep in the New
iels Husband Cherry Lane. Dear Evan Hansen served but was too opaque to earn Jersey woodlands; as Half Waif, she
Music Box. The Emperor Jones Irish Reper-
tory. (Reviewed in this issue.) The Glass Me- more widely; like Plunketts path to makes room for globe-twirling prism
nagerie Belasco. The Hairy Ape Park Avenue performance, the track is a study of pop in search of a home. At Silent
Armory. (Reviewed in this issue.) If I Forget pivots. A mournful choral intro gives Barn on April 6, shell play songs
Laura Pels. Joan of Arc: Into the Fire Public.
946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips St. Anns way to a hand-clap bounce t for a from form/a, the latest Half Waif
ILLUSTRATION BY AYA KAKEDA
Warehouse. Through April 9. The Outer Space Rihanna songI dont even know EP (which she produced herself ),
Joes Pub. Through April 9. The Play That Goes what Im here for, Plunkett sings, swaying between the electronic
Wrong Lyceum. The Price American Airlines
Theatre. Significant Other Booth. Sunday in never letting on where here may be. bass of new tracks like Night Heat
the Park with George Hudson. Sunset Boule- The twenty-eight-year-old has and the light step of Turn Me
vard Palace. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber rarely played it straight. The daughter Around, nudging everyone near her
of Fleet Street Barrow Street Theatre. Vanity
Fair Pearl. The View UpStairs Lynn Redgrave. of an Indian refugee from Uganda into motion.
White Guy on the Bus 59E59. and an Irish-American, she grew up Matthew Trammell
1
ROCK AND POP pulled its sinuous tone into a new age. (Town Hall, Whiplash to near wrack and ruin, but, in
123 W. 43rd St. 212-840-2824. April 5.) the real world, the percussive wizardry of the
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead drummer Buddy Rich is still to be admired
complicated lives; its advisable to check without danger. This centennial tribute, pre-
in advance to confirm engagements. JAZZ AND STANDARDS sented by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orches-
tra, features reinterpretations of signature
Big Sean Eddie Gomez pieces from Richs vaunted big bands, as well
This Detroit representer lives up to his citys his- On account of his career-making eleven-year as an original work, Living Grooves: A World
tory of inventive, dense lyricism, even holding his run with the trio of the iconic pianist Bill Evans, of Jazz Rhythm, by the drummer and artis-
own alongside Eminem on the icy split-screen No Gomez may always be thought of as Evanss tic director Ali Jackson. (Rose Theatre, Jazz at
Favors, from his latest album, I Decided. But bassist, but there are worse ways to be recog- Lincoln Center, Broadway at 60th St. 212-721-
Sean can have a good time, too, and has been a con- nized. Here, the influential virtuoso returns to 6500. April 7-8.)
sistent mainstream presence since his shimmering the trio setting in the company of the drummer
singles with Chris Brown stormed the charts at the Billy Drummond and the Swedish pianist Stefan Randy Weston
beginning of the decade. Tagging along on his lat- Karlsson. (Mezzrow, 163 W. 10th St. 646-476- Do not file this recording under jazz, the
est tour is Madeintyo, an Army brat who came of 4346. April 8.) writer and educator Robin D. G. Kelley advises
age in Japan before his bubbly trap tracks took off in reference to Westons recent album, The
in his Atlanta home town and beyond. With its Christian McBride African Nubian Suite. And, in acknowledg-
golden stage curtain and marble trimmings, Radio Not content with being one of the premier jazz ing the inclusive breadth of Westons music in
City Music Hall is a regal venue for such a fun rap bassists of his generation, McBride also juggles general, Kelley is surely on to something. The
show; dont expect to put your seat to much use. ensembles that highlight his skills as a spectacu- ninety-one-year-old Brooklyn-born pianist and
(Radio City Music Hall, Sixth Ave. at 50th St. 212- lar soloist, a keen composer, and an adroit leader. composer has been meshing the sounds of the
247-4777. April 11.) His big band, packed with first-rate soloists, is a African diaspora with jazz since he began draw-
fitting example of the musicians ambition and ing attention in the nineteen-fifties, creating,
BLACK NYC accomplishment. (Dizzys Club Coca-Cola, Broad- in effect, a sui-generis fusion. Special guests,
Brands are staying out later: in recent years, blue- way at 60th St. 212-258-9595. April 5-9.) including the percussionist Candido Camero,
chip companies like Red Bull and Vans have in- the tuba player Howard Johnson, and a host
vested heavily and creatively in the citys live music Buddy Rich Centennial: Celebrating the of African vocalists and instrumentalists, will
and night life, earning impressions on Myrtle Av- Jazz Drum be joining Westons stalwart African Rhythms
enue wheat-pasted posters and Times Square mar- Striving to emulate his virtuosity led the hap- band throughout the week. (Jazz Standard, 116
quees. Matte, a creative agency, builds out such less protagonist of the reprehensible 2014 film E. 27th St. 212-576-2232. April 4-8.)
campaigns for clients like Kenzo and Google; each
spring, it hosts BLACK NYC, an immersive ware-
house rave and art exhibit that demonstrates the
scope of its work and reach. This years bill includes
Carmine Conte and Matteo Milleri, budding vet-
CLASSICAL MUSIC
1
erans of Ibizas mega-raves who d.j. together as Tale
of Us, and Trim, an outsider grime m.c. with a cult-
ish following in the insular U.K. scene. (Brooklyn
Hangar, 2 52nd St., Brooklyn. black-nyc.com. April 8.)
and Atalla Ayan as Violetta and Alfredo, respec-
John Mayer OPERA tively, and a superstarPlcido Domingoin
Breakup songs are an alluring challenge for hearts the baritone role of Germont; Nicola Luisotti.
as bleeding as Mayers. The Search for Every- Metropolitan Opera April 8 at 1 and April 11 at 7:30. (Metropolitan
thing, the songwriter and guitarists tenth album, Jrgen Flimms decision to use a contempo- Opera House. 212-362-6000.)
arrives in four-track waves of willowy, pining rary setting for his 2000 production of Beetho-
love notes in the second person, a time stamp for vens Fidelioa two-and-a-half-hour paean Opera Cabal: Aeolus
an artist who explains early that he may be old, to heroism and justice in the face of corrupt Ken Uenos experimental opera is named after
and may be young. One of the first rock stars of powerfeels more apt than ever these days. the Keeper of the Winds from the Odyssey, and
the aughts, Mayer dbuted in 2001 with Room for Klaus Florian Vogt lends his trumpeting tenor in it he explores the interpretive possibilities
Squares, and went largely unchallenged as a cof- to Florestan, a man imprisoned unlawfully by a of breaththrough the use of throat singing,
fee-shop-pop heartthrob; by 2006, with Contin- political enemy, and Adrianne Pieczonka sings a megaphone, and spoken wordas he weaves
uum, hed mastered his soft blues and big similes, a the role of his wife and liberator, Leonore, with together stories of his peripatetic childhood.
polite alternative to LoveSounds-era Timberlake. warm, poignant tones. Much like his sympho- The Rome Prize-winning composer performs
After a brief bad-boy (or just big-mouth) phase nies, Beethovens opera makes its points in dense the piece alongside the vocalist Majel Connery
and a publicized split with Katy Perry, Mayer em- and eloquent musical arguments, but its fervor and the Flux Quartet. April 7 at 7. (National Saw-
barks on an apology tour of sorts; the charts have doesnt always come across in Sebastian Wei- dust, 80 N. 6th St., Brooklyn. nationalsawdust.org.)
changed in his four-year absence, but the sly break- gles conducting. April 5 at 7:30 and April 8 at
down on Still Feel Like Your Man suggests he 8. These are the final performances. Also play- Works & Process: The (R)evolution of
wants to make it work again. (Madison Square Gar- ing: Sonja Frisells grand production of Verdis Steve Jobs
den, Seventh Ave. at 33rd St. 800-745-3000. April 5.) Aida is not exactly a shrinking violet on the The composer and d.j. Mason Bates, known
Mets schedule. It returns with two estimable for melding electronic-music sounds and nine-
Anoushka Shankar singers, Krassimira Stoyanova and Violeta Ur- teenth-century symphonic forms, has written
Shankar didnt have to travel far to realize the si- mana, as Aida and her nemesis, Amneris, and a pixelated opera about Apples visionary co-
tars reach. Her father, Ravi, was a global ambassa- a newcomer tenor, Jorge de Len, as Radams; founder, eschewing chronological narrative in
dor of the Indian string instrument during the early Daniele Rustioni conducts. (Riccardo Massi re- favor of a nonlinear series of scenes from his
nineteen-sixties, and he inspired strands of psy- places de Len in the second performance.) April life. The Guggenheim Museums two-night pre-
chedelic rock, most notably in collaboration with 6 and April 10 at 7:30. Anna Netrebko, in the view of the work, which has its world premire
George Harrison. Anoushka studied Indian clas- sympathetic role of Tatiana, brings her irreduc- at Santa Fe Opera in July, features the cast mem-
sical music under her father from the age of nine, ible vocal glamour to a revival of Tchaikovskys bers Edward Parks and Garrett Sorenson (as
and released compositions of her own by thirteen. powerfully lyrical Eugene Onegin, sharing the Jobs and his partner, Steve Wozniak, respec-
Rise, her self-produced third album, cemented stage with such talents as Mariusz Kwiecien (in tively) singing with piano and guitar accompa-
her as a world-music icon at age twenty, with roots the title role), Alexey Dolgov, Elena Maximova, niment. Bates will be joined by the shows li-
in the U.S., the U.K., and India. She combines tra- and tefan Kocn; Robin Ticciati conducts. April brettist, Mark Campbell, and director, Kevin
ditional Indian melodies with Western structures, 7 at 8. Willy Deckers bracingly modern pro- Newbury, for a discussion during the program.
while carrying forward her instruments storied duction of La Traviata continues its run with April 9-10 at 7:30. (Fifth Ave. at 89th St. 212-
musical legacy: Land of Gold, her 2016 album, a new cast that features Carmen Giannattasio 423-3575.)
MOVIES
1
lives in Harlem, runs a storefront arts center, is
friendly with his black neighbors, but brazenly
flings around the N-word and tosses in some anti-
Semitic comments for the benefit of Arnow, who
complains of pain in his leg, he cant walk, and his is Jewish. But shes vague about her motives for
OPENING doctor detects a spot of gangrene on his left foot staying with the flippant, remote, and selfish James.
but decides against amputating. Other doctors are She brings the camera into the bedroom for some
Aftermath Arnold Schwarzenegger stars in this called in, differing opinions and treatments are extremely frank sex scenes and weaves the film-
drama, as a man who plots revenge on an air- offered, but to no availthe rot spreads, and the making process into the story, showing her edi-
traffic controller (Scoot McNairy) after his wife king dies. Albert Serras flatly conceptual but elab- tor, Maxthe self-styled naked editor, whose
and daughter are killed in a plane crash. Directed orately decorated historical drama has a short films nakedness isnt edited outas he helps her to
by Elliott Lester. Opening April 7. (In limited re worth of substance and action, and its extended shape the movie while questioning her motives.
lease.) Graduation Reviewed this week in The death agony is mainly of symbolic importrein- Despite some memorably painful moments and an
Current Cinema. Opening April 7. (In limited re forced by the incarnation of the king by Jean-Pierre underlying artistic urgency, the films implications
1
lease.) i hate myself :) Reviewed in Now Play- Laud, the former teen star of The 400 Blows remain unprocessed and unquestioned. Trying to
ing. Opening April 7. (Anthology Film Archives.) and a New Wave icon. Doctors dubious debates get her parents to watch the sex scenes, Arnow is
about medical practice contrast with the courts intent on registering their appalled reactions; here,
attention to music and theatre and evoke a time too, she remains the vulnerable but unexamined
NOW PLAYING when art outpaced science. Serras ideas are seri- center of action.R.B. (Anthology Film Archives.)
ous but simple, and his movie seems to illustrate
Beauty and the Beast them in slow motion. In French.R.B. (Film So Personal Shopper
Back from the drawing board, into live-action, ciety of Lincoln Center.) Kristen Stewart, who has made a wise habit of
comes yet another version of the tale. Disney has turning to distinctive directors, colludes again
taken its own animated film from 1991 and, at vast Frantz with Olivier Assayas. In Clouds of Sils Maria
expense, tried to keep it realor, in the case of the The new film from Franois Ozon takes place just (2014), she played the assistant to a celebrated ac-
actors, half-real. Emma Watson, whose determined after the First World War, and the action is shared tress; here she takes a similar but grimmer role as
air is not matched by her singing voice, plays the between enemies; the first part is set in a small Ger- Maureen, the dogsbody who runs around buying
book-loving Belle. She takes the place of her father man town, and the second is centered in Paris. Rec- clothes and bags for a celebrity (Nora von Wald-
(Kevin Kline) as the prisoner of the Beast (Dan Ste- onciliation, however well meant, turns out to be sttten) of no perceptible talent. Any social sat-
vens), who in turn is held captive by a magic spell. an elusive ideal. Paula Beer, whose performance ire, though, is lightly handled, for Assayas has
Moping and short-tempered, he dwells in his cas- gains momentum as the plot unfolds, plays Anna, other zones of obsession and frustration to explore.
tle, attended by living objectsthe clock (Ian Mc- who lost her fianc, Frantz (Anton von Lucke), Maureen is psychic, and desperate to hear from
Kellen), the teapot (Emma Thompson), the full- in the conflict; she still lives with his parents, the her twin brother, who succumbed to a heart con-
throated wardrobe (Audra McDonald), and so Hoffmeisters (Ernst Sttzner and Marie Gruber). dition from which she also suffers. In that spirit,
on. Belles task, of which she seems all too aware, They are visited by Adrien Rivoire (Pierre Niney), the movie becomes a ghost story, with the heroine
is to fall for the Beast and thus restore his proper a tremulous Frenchman, who says that he was a prowling a vacant house in search of the dead; as
nature, as a handsome and slightly boring prince. friend of Frantz, and whose recollections bring so- if that were not enough, death then shows up un-
The songs from 1991 are reheated and dished up lace to the bereaved. As Ozons admirers will know, invited, in the shape of a savage murder. Some au-
anew, together with a batch of fresh numbers, by however, mourners can surprise both themselves diences will doubtless be baffled and annoyed by
Alan Menken and Tim Rice; the resulting movie, and others, and the telling of tales can lead one this mixing of genres and tones, yet Assayas and
though stuffed with wonders, is forty-five minutes down curious paths. Thus, when Anna travels to a Stewart just about hold things together, and there
longer than its predecessor and much less dramat- still hostile France, all that she believes begins to are thrilling stretchesMaureen exchanging texts
ically lean.Anthony Lane (Reviewed in our issue of fall apart. On the surface, the filmshot in black- with an unknown presence who could be a killer, a
3/27/17.) (In wide release.) and-white, with short surges of coloris placid and stalker, or a phantom soulwhen the movie stops
polite, yet what stirs beneath feels unhappy and un- your breath.A.L. (3/20/17) (In limited release.)
Carrie Pilby resolved. In French and German.A.L. (3/20/17)
A core of substance and a fine cast are squandered (In limited release.) Prevenge
in the relentless hard-sell perkiness of this mild If metaphors were movies, Alice Lowes new film
comic drama. Bel Powley plays the title charac- Get Out would be a masterwork. Instead, its just smart
ter, a British prodigy whos packed off to Harvard A young white woman named Rose (Allison Wil- funas well as a promising dbut. She wrote
at fourteen by her widowed, wealthy father (Ga- liams) takes Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), her black boy- and directed it, and also stars as Ruth, a preg-
briel Byrne). Now, at nineteen, Carrie is adrift in friend, to meet her parents for the first time. They nant woman in Cardiff, who believes that her un-
Manhattan, living on her fathers dime in a com- live, in some style, in the country, and Chris, though born baby is speaking to herand urging her to
fortable apartment with no goals, no friends, no an unruffled soul, feels mild trepidation. But Roses kill people who need killing, such as a swagger-
job, and no activities beyond obsessively reading father (Bradley Whitford) and mother (Catherine ing pickup artist, a heartless human-resources of-
and grudgingly keeping appointments with a ther- Keener), liberal to a fault, offer a warm welcome; if ficer, and several people whom she blames for the
apist (Nathan Lane) who is her fathers friend. anything, it is their African-American staffWal- death of her partner (the unborn babys father) in
Carries troubles emerge in flashbackshe was ter (Marcus Henderson) and Georgina (Betty Ga- a climbing accident. Ruths grief is further embit-
sexually harassed by a professor when she was six- briel)who make Chris feel more uneasy. A party tered by empty pieties surrounding motherhood
teen (the age of consent in Massachusetts, as she for friends and family, the day after the couples ar- and the ills of modern life at large. Ruth suffers
usefully explains), but the movie neither takes rival, deepens his suspicion that something is awry, from flashbacks and visions that are organized
her pain nor her mind very seriously. A crew of and the final third of the film bursts into open hos- around unanswered questions about her partners
hip young New Yorkers ranging from kooky to tility and dread. The writer and director is Jordan death; the violence (and the explicit, gleeful gore)
dreamy help coax Carrie out of her shell, but the Peele, making his feature-film dbut, and the result ramps up along with Ruths madness, but theres
script could have been written in emojis, and Susan feels inflammatory to an astounding degree. If the little variety or detail to the cycle of crime. Lowe
Johnsons flat direction does the actors no good. awkward social comedy of the early scenes winds up directs with a spare, clear, brisk style that builds
The formidable Powley, the star of The Diary of as a flat-out horror movie, that, we feel, is because tension and deals death with minimal fuss but dis-
a Teenage Girl, is again stuck playing cute to the Peele finds the state of race relations so horrific plays little imagination; the movie is diabolically
balcony.Richard Brody (In limited release.) irreparably sothat no other reaction will suffice. clever but it stays within the narrow limits of its
Kaluuya makes a likable hero, for whom we heart- cleverness.R.B. (In limited release.)
The Death of Louis XIV ily root.A.L. (3/6/17) (In wide release.)
Coiffed in a huge helmetlike wig of champagne- Raw
colored curls, the aged and ailing monarch endures i hate myself :) Julia Ducournaus movie tells the tale of Justine
silly ceremonies in bed, receiving applause when Joanna Arnows personal documentary about her (Garance Marillier), who is joining her older sis-
he doffs his hat and again when he eats an egg. He relationship with James Kepple, a musician and ter Alexia (Ella Rumpf) at veterinary school. Jus-
tine arrives there as a hardworking student, a strict Hodge. The plotor the cracked mosaic of inci- case his actors and propel the story forward at the
vegetarian, and a blushingly timid soul; what we dents that passes for a plotfinds Renton (Ewan same time. Even though this film has relatively
observe, in stages, is the process by which she turns McGregor) coming home to Edinburgh, follow- few big action scenes and almost no special ef-
into a lusty carnivore on the rampage. The trigger ing his worst instincts, and falling into company fects, it plays like one uninterrupted streak of ac-
is the hazing ritual to which she and other nov- with his old pals. None of them are thriving: Spud tion, because violence menaces the characters like
ices must submit, which involves, among other (Ewen Bremner), a junkie, is on the brink of sui- a storm cloud when it isnt slicing through their
delights, a shower of blood and the chomping of cide; Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) is trying to milieu like lightning. Released in 2002.Michael
a raw rabbit kidneysufficient to give Justine a turn a pub into a brothel; and Franco (Robert Sragow (BAM Cinmatek; April 6.)
craving for flesh of other kinds. She is not alone Carlyle), having sprung himself from jail, is best
in her appetites, we learn, and Ducournau does not avoided. There is more fear in the air than there Win It All
shy away from detailing the tasting menu that fol- was twenty years ago, and Rentons famous rant The ambient violence in Joe Swanbergs previ-
lows. Viewers with nervous stomachs should stay Choose lifebecomes in part a broadside against ous feature, Digging for Fire, bursts into the
well clear, yet the film, however lurid, is memora- social media. The editing is as jittery as ever, and foreground in this casually swinging yet terrify-
ble less for its capacity to disgust than for its por- the soundtrack has lost none of its guts, but there ingly tense drama of a compulsive gambler on the
trayal of sisterly bonding, and for exploring the ex- is no mistaking the sense that we are watching a edge. Jake Johnson (who co-wrote the film with
tent to which the charactersnot merely the young pack of rebels, in middle-aged desperation, casting Swanberg) stars as Eddie Garrett, a part-time
ones, as a late revelation suggestsare both liber- around for a cause.A.L. (3/27/17) (In wide release.) Wrigley Field parking attendant and full-time
ated and caged by bodily wants. In French.A.L. poker player whos constantly in debt. When a
(3/13/17) (In limited release.) Undisputed rough-hewn friend prepares for a term in prison,
Violence escalates toward a volcanic climax in he gives Eddie a duffel bag to hide. Eddie finds
The Seduction of Joe Tynan Walter Hills ace boxing film about a heavyweight cash in it, and, despite the best efforts of his Gam-
Alan Alda stars in this smooth-surfaced, inwardly champ named Iceman (Ving Rhames) who gets blers Anonymous sponsor (Keegan-Michael Key),
roiling 1979 melodrama (which he also wrote), as convicted of rape and discovers that the quickest yields to temptation. Eddie goes to his easygo-
a young, smart, and photogenic New York sena- way out of the slammer is to fight the prison pro- ing but tough-loving brother, Ron (Joe Lo Tru-
tor whos urged by an elderly Louisiana senator grams champ, Monroe (Wesley Snipes). Drawing glio), who runs a landscaping business, for help;
(Melvyn Douglas) to support a Supreme Court on torn-from-the-headlines events and B-movie besides saving his own neck, Eddie also wants to
nominee with a disqualifying racist past. Joe travels history, Hill and his co-writer, David Giler, fill out save his new relationship with Eva (the charismatic
to Louisiana with Karen Traynor (Meryl Streep), their premise with hardboiled irony and gusto. Ice- Aislinn Derbez), a nurse whose intentions are se-
a lawyer who knows where the evidence is hidden, mans sole article of faith is his rock-bottom belief rious. With a teeming cast of vibrantly unglamor-
and, in the course of their collaboration, they have in his own pummelling strength. Monroe is Ice- ous Chicago characters who hold Eddie in a tight
an affair, putting Joes marriageas well as his mans opposite: sentenced to life because of a pas- social web, Swanbergaided greatly by Johnsons
Presidential ambitionsat risk. Jerry Schatzberg sion killing he committed with two lethal weap- vigorous performancemakes the gamblers pan-
directs the film with a sleek yet relaxed precision onshis fistsMonroe has survived behind bars ic-stricken silence all the more agonizing, balanc-
that mirrors Joes own breezy confidence. The dra- by living within himself and guarding his integ- ing the warm veneer of intimate normalcy with
mas elbows-out swing doesnt shade into swagger, rity. Hill uses quick-cutting techniques to show- the inner chill of secrets and lies.R.B. (Netflix.)
its energy doesnt yield to turmoilits very sub-
ject is imperturbability. Schatzberg ramps up the
drama with his warm depiction of the senators
home life. Joe and his wife, Ellie (Barbara Har-
ris), have a mature, loving, and joyful relation-
ship, but, as the faades of public and private con-
duct break down simultaneously and Joe has to put
the shattered images back together, the movie ap-
proaches a drastic resolution thats decades ahead
of its time.R.B. (Metrograph; April 6.)
Song to Song
In this romantic drama, set in and around the Austin
music scene, Terrence Malick places the transcen-
dental lyricism of his later films on sharply mapped
emotional terrain. Its a story of love skewed by
ambition. Rooney Mara plays Faye, a young mu-
sician who falls into a relationship with a record-
company mogul (Michael Fassbender) who can
boost her career. Then she starts seeing another mu-
sician (Ryan Gosling), who also gets pulled into the
impresarios orbit. The shifting triangle la Jules
and Jim is twisted by business conflicts and other
players, including a waitress (Natalie Portman), a
socialite (Cate Blanchett), and an artist (Brnice
Marlohe). Meanwhile, Patti Smith, playing herself,
is the voice of conscience and steadfast purpose,
in art and life alike. Without sacrificing any of the
breathless ecstasy of his urgent, fluid, seemingly
borderless images (shot by Emmanuel Lubezki),
Malick girds them with a framework of bruising
entanglements and bitter realizations, family his-
tory and stifled dreams. His sense of wonder at the
joy of music and the power of love is also a mourn-
ful vision of paradise lost.R.B. (In limited release.)
T2 Trainspotting
A sad sequel to Trainspotting, the drug-driven
and sidewalk-pounding hit of 1996. The usual sus-
pects have returned for further punishment. Once
again, Danny Boyle directs, and the screenplay,
adapted from Irvine Welshs fiction, is by John
ric group show by that name is in- with art works by thirty-one women who, like Sherman, suits up for pho-
stalled at Fort Gansevoort, an idiosyn- made between the mid-twentieth cen- tographic self-portraits. In a quartet
cratic gallery (and occasional barbecue tury and now, from Elizabeth Catletts of studio shots, Bass styles herself as
joint) in a three-story town house at jubilant 1958 print of a barefoot girl a posthuman athlete, so at one with
5 Ninth Ave. As its title implies, the jumping rope to a just-nished collage her game that a pair of basketballs
shows theme is sports, which, on its of a pigtailed boxer by Deborah Rob- replaces her derrire. Its a joyous slam
own, is nothing novel. A quick spin erts, a young artist who borrows the dunk of a conceita pointedly ab-
through the Met will turn up gures Dadaist strategies of Hannah Hch surdist sendup of misogynist visual
of wrestlers painted on an Ancient for the era of Black Lives Matter. clichs.
Greek amphora in 500 B.C., a Meso- The show (which runs through Andrea K. Scott
International Center of Photography reographed for the camera, and the elegant use of
Perpetual Revolution: The Image and Social color-blocks and other impressionistic effects lend
Met Breuer Change the immersive projection about imperilled land a
Marsden Hartleys Maine A team of curators, led by Carol Squiers and Cyn- hypnotic artifice that becomes hyperreal. Through
This superb show examines the Pine Tree States thia Young, have marshalled a bleak vision of con- April 22. (Brown, 439 W. 127th St. 212-627-5258.)
relationship to one of its most famous sons in two temporary life, filtered through vintage photo-
distinct phases. In Hartleys early landscapes, graphs, photojournalism, viral videos, Instagram Sheree Hovsepian
Maines colorful ponds, wildflowers, and hills feeds, and the occasional (and, alas, often super- These photographic constructions, which may be
fused organically with the painters emerging, fluous) art work. Its a hard show to love, owing in too smart for their own good, depend, like linge-
sensually expressionist style. Maine Woods large part to our times themselves, whose myriad rie, on a shadowy interplay of concealment and
(1908), a flat, orange-tinged view of birches and conflicts and travails have been pared down by the suggestion. In Weight Shift, several black-and-
fallen leaves, looks like something Gustav Klimt curators into six themes: climate change, the ref- white photographs of a female torso pressed against
might have done on psilocybin. But in Hartleys ugee crisis, ISIS propaganda, police brutality and a mirror have been partially rolled up and bound
later work his focus on a distinct regional iden- the response of Black Lives Matter, L.G.B.T.Q. to a board with strips of brown nylon evocative of
tity was a commercial strategy as much as an ar- activism, and alt-right Internet memes. (The lat- panty hose; the multiplication of bodies only un-
tistic one, and he made use of tried-and-true mo- ter section, which has the impact of a swift punch derscores the fact that the figures head is cropped
tifs: lighthouses, lobsters, and graphic views of in the gut, was added postelection.) The show is out. In the more straightforward Floor Work, an
Mt. Katahdin modelled after the great Japanese low on visual flair, but viewers are likely to leave image of the same model partially obscures an am-
woodblock prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige. In feeling edified, if not uplifted. Most eye-opening, biguous still-life, suggesting that Hovsepians in-
Logjam, Penobscot Bay (1940-41), an extraor- even for jaded news junkies, are the chillingly so- terest isnt in the human body per se, but rather in
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dinary battery of violently clashing white logs, phisticated ISIS videos, which bolster the shows form for its own sake. Through April 22. (Higher Pic-
heavily outlined in black, is surmounted by a thin tacit argument that there is an arms race of im- tures, 980 Madison Ave., at 76th St. 212-249-6100.)
row of green pines in the distance; the edges of ages being waged between the progressive inher-
Lobster on Black Background are fuzzy, and itors of the lineage of concerned photography,
its the high-contrast colors that make the image championed by the museums founder, Cornell GALLERIESCHELSEA
jump out. The shows undisputable highlight is Capa, and the rising tide of radical conservatism
a room of portraits in which Hartley treated the of varying stripes, which seeks to drag us back Hope Gangloff
markers of hardscrabble New England masculin- into the Dark Ages. Through May 7. The Brooklyn painter has a new trick up her sleeve:
ity with a frankly homoerotic eye, as in the sun- bits of cut paper integrated with such finesse into
browned body in Canuck Yankee Lumberjack at Museo del Barrio her highly patterned, larger-than-life-size por-
Old Orchard Beach, Maine, which also suggests Beatriz Santiago Muoz: A Universe of traits that they become indistinguishable from
a soft spot for Czannes bathers. Through June 18. Fragile Mirrors brushstrokes. In Ben, Gangloff captures her
The Puerto Rican video artist assembles her husband (the painter Benjamin Degen) as if he
Whitney Museum open-ended cinematic essays from long takes of had just woken up, his hair a tangle of loops that
2017 Whitney Biennial nonactors in improvised conversation, medita- shift from light blue to purplish black, his shoul-
The first Biennial at the museums two-year-old tive static shots, and bumpy handheld footage of der a network of green and yellow shadows. Ryan
downtown digs, which is earnestly attentive to walks through verdant Caribbean terrain or busy Hart has pink lips, light-blue shadows around his
political moods and themes, already feels nos- streets. In this transporting exhibition, films play eyes, and a bottle of beer in his oversized hands,
talgic. Most of the works were chosen before continuously in the dim galleries. Post-Military although most of the portrait is devoted to the
last years Presidential election. Remember back Cinema, from 2014, is a haunting portrait of an currents and eddies of his deep-green sweater.
then? Worry, but not yet alarm, permeated the abandoned movie theatre, part of a former Naval (Inglett, 522 W. 24th St. 212-647-9111.)
cosmopolitan archipelago of new arts creators, base in Puerto Rico. The structure appears to be
functionaries, and fans. Now theres a storm. under slow siege by the surrounding tropical for- Callum Innes
The Age of Trump erodes assumptions about estfoliage, tree frogs, spiders, and bees form a Less is more for the Scottish artist, who achieves
arts role as a barometerand sometime en- lush force of decolonization. The Head Killed the rich but delicate hues in his ongoing series Ex-
gineof social change. The show is winningly Everyone, also made in 2014, takes a different posed and Lamp Black by heavily applying paint
theatrical in its use of the Whitneys majestic approach to a similar theme, undermining ste- toand then removing it fromhis canvases. But
spaces. The curators, Christopher Y. Lew and reotypes of vodou with its sensual, sardonic de- its the large roomful of new monochromes here
Mia Locks, have opted for depth over breadth, piction of a young woman and a black cat casting that steals the show. Using horizontal brushstrokes
affording many of the sixty-three artists, duos, a spell for the total and absolute destruction of as fine as wood grain on large, deliberately uneven
and collectives what amounts to pocket solo the machinery of war. Muoz pairs this group aluminum panels, Innes offers the pure pleasures of
shows. The work that you are most apt to re- of incisive film works with selections from the orange, purple, yellow, and bluea reminder that
1
member, The Meat Grinders Iron Clothes museums collection, highlighting her interest seeing can be an ecstatic sensation. Through April 29.
(2017), by the Los Angeles artist Samara in myth and place with Hector Mndez Carati- (Sean Kelly, 475 Tenth Ave., at 36th St. 212-239-1181.)
Golden, marries technique and storytelling nis photographs of boulders marked with Taino
on a grandiose scale. Golden has constructed petroglyphs, and her feminist lineage with Ana
eight miniaturized sets of elaborately furnished Mendietas jarring Super-8 film, from 1974, in GALLERIESDOWNTOWN
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domestic, ceremonial, and institutional interi- which the artist creates silhouettes of her body
ors. They sit on top of and are mounted, up- in blood. Through April 30. Andrea Crespo
side down, beneath tiers that frame one of the In this quietly extraordinary two-part exhibition,
Whitneys tall and wide window views of the the young trans artist explores an unusual, at times
Hudson River. Surrounding mirrors multiply GALLERIESUPTOWN distressing personal history. Since childhood, Cres-
the sets upward, downward, and sideways, to pos body image has been that of a pair of conjoined
infinity. Politics percolate in evocations of so- Dara Friedman twins, influenced by a reality-television show about
cial class and function, with verisimilitude tip- The experimental filmmaker has a gift for cap- two sisters, Abby and Brittany Hensel. As a teen-
ping toward the surreal in, for example, a set turing movement, while establishing herself as a ager, isolated by a secret sense of identity, the art-
that suggests at once a beauty parlor, a medi- vivid physical presence outside the frame, as seen ist found solace creating anime-inspired portraits
cal facility, and a prison. The shockmeister Jor- in her stunning video installation Mother Drum, of similarly conjoined characters, and now puts this
dan Wolfson provides virtual-reality headsets which features footage of drummers, dancers, and fan-art style to sophisticated use. In the feature-
for a video of him bashing the head of another flashlights in the night, shot on Swinomish, Coeur length autobiographical film Parapagus, deli-
man with a baseball bat, on a street lined with dAlene, and Crow reservations in Washington, cate drawings are accompanied by text and ambient
office buildings, to the accompaniment of the Idaho, and Montana. The German-born artist, sound. Related images appear in works on stretched
sung Hanukkah prayer. How Wolfson made who is based in Miami, was moved to make the satin, and in wistful, semitransparent renderings
what is in fact an animatronic doll appear real piece when she learned that real estate was being of the Hensel twins through the years, mounted
is a mystery typical of new arts galloping tech- developed on what was once an ancient village of on windows to illuminate them like stained-glass
nological novelties, and one likely to become Floridas Tequesta tribe. Mother Drum tran- saints. Through April 23. (Downs & Ross, 55 Chrystie
old hat in short order. Through June 11. scends documentary; the performances were cho- St. and 106 Eldridge St. 646-741-9138.)
DANCE fully chosen pieces that are played live by the house
pianist (Melody Fader) and violinist (Doori Na).
The music for this performance includes works by
Mozart, Luciano Berio, and two lesser-known com-
Compagnie CNDC-Angers back a lot farther, balancing dance-theatre works posers, the Austrian Friedrich Cerhawho com-
When the Merce Cunningham Dance Company dis- that disguise big ideas in quirky humor with ap- pleted the score for the opera Lulu when Alban
solved, in 2001, after Cunninghams death, its direc- pearances in neo-vaudeville and alt-cabaret. Her Berg died unexpectedlyand the young Ameri-
tor, Robert Swinston, moved to France to take over new piece, THIS, mines all that past material can Ryan Brown. (City Center Studios, 130 W. 56th
this contemporary-dance troupe, based in Angers. Its for a solo performance that might not always be St. 212-868-4444. April 7-8.)
mission is to keep the Cunningham repertory alive, a solo and will be different every time. (New York
through meticulous restagings. In CNDCs second Live Arts, 219 W. 19th St. 212-924-0077. April 5-8.) E-Moves
visit to New York, it will perform Place and How In its eighteenth year, Harlem Stages annual show-
to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run, both from the sixties, the Lily Gold case slims down, zeroing in on four choreogra-
former vaguely ominousit includes a dancer thrash- A standout performer in dances by Vicky Shick and phers. Parijat Desais JustLikeThat lampoons In-
ing in a plastic bagthe latter, sporty and antic, set Tere OConnor, Gold is also a visual artist. In Good dian newspapers. Francesca Harpers (y)ourstory
to vignettes recited onstage by two actors. Inlets 2, Mud, her first evening-length work as a choreogra- experiments with audience participation. In Kyle
from the eighties, a product of the choreographers pher, a paper tapestry made by her is not just dec- Marshalls Colored, he and two colleagues reflect
highly complex mature style, is often seen as a nature oration, helping to produce an atmosphere of rit- on their experiences as black dancers who work pri-
study suggesting the landscapes of the Pacific North- ual; its almost a member of the cast, which includes marily with white choreographers. Leyland Sim-
west, where Cunningham was born. (Joyce Theatre, the striking dancers Asli Bulbul and Eleanor Hulli- monss Traffic, which tackles the heavy subject of
175 Eighth Ave., at 19th St. 212-242-0800. April 4-9.) han. (Danspace Project, St. Marks Church In-the-Bow- human trafficking, features two stars from Dance
ery, Second Ave. at 10th St. 866-811-4111. April 6-8.) Theatre of Harlem: DaVon Doane and Stephanie
Adrienne Truscott Rae Williams. On April 8, members of the Bill T.
Asking for It, Truscotts funny and disturbing New Chamber Ballet Jones/Arnie Zane Company make a special appear-
standup-comedy satire of rape jokes, from 2013, Bare-bones ballet is this ensembles stock-in-trade. ance. (Harlem Stage at the Gatehouse, 150 Convent
earned her a lot of attention. But her career goes The choreographer Miro Magloire devises inge- Ave., at 135th St. 212-281-9240. April 7-8.)
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led a procession through midtown Manhattan Swanns sale of African-American art (April jestic Western landscapes. (York Ave. at 72nd
for Tartan Day, an annual celebration of Scottish 6) contains a significant group of works by St. 212-606-7000.)
culture and heritage. This year, Tommy Flan- Los Angeles-based artists, including three
agan, of Sons of Anarchy, will do the honors. early assemblages by David Hammons.
A week of events leads up to the official Tar- In one, shadowlike outlines of a man and a READINGS AND TALKS
tan Day, April 6, before the parade on Satur- woman lie against a field of multicolored pa-
day, April 8, when bagpipe bands, drummers, pers; in another, two faces are arranged to Merchants House Museum
and dancers will march up Sixth Ave. from 45th look like a playing card. (104 E. 25th St. 212- By the nineteenth century, migration and com-
St. to 55th St. (In 2010, the route was shortened 254-4710.) Christies divides its offerings of mercialization had begun etching out New York
from thirteen blocks to ten, to the delight of photographs into two sessions, both held on Citys pulsing nervous system. Families of dis-
some bagpipers.) (nyctartanweek.org. April 8 at 2.) April 6, starting off with an extensive private tinction who gathered around Bond Street, in
collection. (That sale is led by a marmoreal NoHo, included the Astors, the Vanderbilts,
The Orchid Show Weston nude.) The big afternoon auction in- the Delanos, and the Tredwells, whose former
This edition of the New York Botanical Gar- cludes twenty-five lots from the collection of home, the only one of its time preserved in-
dens annual Orchid Show, now in its fifteenth the Elton John AIDS Foundation, items which tact, now serves as the Merchants House Mu-
year, focusses on Thailands rich history and the are being sold to fund its activities, with works seum. This hour-long walking tour will map
flowers cultural status as one of the countrys by Cartier-Bresson, Penn, and Sherman lead- period landmarks and curiosities throughout
ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO AMARGO
leading exports. Held in the Enid A. Haupt ing the pack. (20 Rockefeller Plaza, at 49th St. the neighborhood; the most enticing stops ex-
Conservatory, the display features blooming 212-636-2000.) A large cache of photographs cavate grisly scenes of a city earning its repu-
orchids by the hundreds in lush tropical envi- goes under the gavel at Sothebys on April 5, tation. At Astor Place, youll hear of the 1849
ronments, leading into an arched installation with lots ranging from mid-nineteenth-cen- riot that spilled out of an opera-house dispute
styled in the manner of a traditional Thai pa- tury to contemporary works. Among the more and initiated the arming of American police
vilion. The schedule includes several panel dis- striking items is a mural by the Los Angeles forces with deadly weapons; on Bond Street,
cussions, tours, and Orchid Eveningsafter- photographer Alex Prager (Simi Valley), a youll visit the location of the brutal murder of
hours viewings with music and cocktails. (2900 boldly colored, almost painterly tableau vi- Harvey Burdell, one of Manhattans most scan-
Southern Blvd., the Bronx. 718-817-8700. Through vant (made using Photoshop) of people wait- dalous unsolved crimes. (29 E. 4th St. 212-777-
April 9.) ing at a bus stop. This auction is followed on 1089. April 9 at 12:30.)
Darwins Galpagos finch (and evolution) smoked egg yolk, and grilled bread, the Frank Nitty, in a red velvet coat. Nitty, who d.j.s
and the American goldfinches McMackin flavors achieve a rare pentagonal balance. smooth hip-hop and R. & B. at the bar every Sat-
urday, was in a celebratory mood. Several flyers,
saw growing up. He loved how they sur- For an entre, the juicy, slow-cooked festooned with clip art of champagne bottles and
prised him in early spring, suddenly glit- pork shoulder is a safe bet. An other- googly eyes, announced that tonight was his birth-
tering chartreuse on a still bare branch, worldly plate of duck includes a leg con- day (So When You See Him Bottoms Up). Nitty
plunged in, bumping fists and trading hugs. Jack,
and he wanted his restaurant to spark a fit wrapped in a cabbage leaf and steamed my man, he saluted a sleepy-looking gentleman
similar sense of surprise amid the familiar. into a little green flavor bomb. O.K., the in a leather coat drinking pink champagne out of
His experienceat Blue Hill at Stone birds breast was poached in olive oil with a tumbler with ice. Each day of the week has a
different server and sound: Crystal usually pours
Barns, Robertas, and Gramercy Tavern hay that McMackins mother bought from six-dollar drinks to the groove of a funky jukebox
informs his down-home seasonal Amer- her neighbor in Connecticut, and that on Wasted Wednesdays; on Thursdays, youll find
ican fare, which veers more toward may be T.M.I. But the duck comes with Joy Juice mixing exemplary eight-dollar whiskey
sours (and occasionally partaking in a game of
tongues and cheeks than burgers. smoked bread pudding, which hits your Rummy 500) as Mike P. lays down some old-school
Ten months after opening, the Finch mouth fire-pit crispy on the outside, warm classics. Dee, in case youre wondering, is Dolores
earned a Michelin star. For an obscure and soft on the insideeuphoria. Tonge Reagans, a former bartender who bought
the establishment twenty-four years ago and has
bistro, the honor seemed implausible. Ap- Dessert includes a dreamy chocolate assembled a rotating family of regulars. On the
parently, McMackins commitment to cake, with pine nuts and rosemary butter. walls are cheeky announcements (in the mens
being a neighborhood spot appealed to Afterward, two friends wander outside. bathroom: Gentlemen Please Move Closer It May
Be Shorter Than You Think) as well as thank-you
Michelins judges. (Ironically, the star made Lights flicker in old houses, an icy gust notes from Obamas Presidential campaigns. An
the food pricier.) The kitchen can be ad- whirs through ancient trees. For a block at ample range of liquor bottles is crowned by a dusty
venturous, but McMackin also wants to least, they forget that their brains evolved banner that reads Happy Birthday. But it wasnt
there for Nitty; its up even when nobodys cele-
give the people what they want. He takes to worry about how the world is evolving. brating: every night at A Touch of Dee feels like
some off-menu requests, and he offers (Entres $26-$34.) Carolyn Kormann someones birthday.Nicolas Niarchos
n late 2006, President George W. Bushs Environmen- est expression last week, in a Presidential Executive Order
I tal Protection Agency argued before the Supreme Court on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth.
that it did not want to regulate greenhouse gases, and that The order asks every agency of the federal government to re-
no one could make it do so. It certainly had no wish to ac- view its rules and to purge them of measures that inconve-
cede to the desires of Massachusetts, which, with eleven nience the fossil-fuel and nuclear-power industries. In par-
other states, had sued the E.P.A. for failing to establish guide- ticular, it directs the E.P.A. to rewrite the Clean Power Plan,
lines on emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, which had called for, among other things, the replacement
and hydrouorocarbons. The states pointed to the agencys of old and dirty coal-burning plants. The plan would, it was
charter, under the Clean Air Act, which instructs it to reg- projected, result in eight hundred and seventy million fewer
ulate chemicals released into the air which may reasonably tons of carbon pollution released into the atmosphere, as
be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. They many as thirty-six hundred fewer premature deaths in the
asked why the E.P.A., which had refused even to consider United States between now and 2030, and ninety thousand
whether greenhouse gases fell into that category, thought fewer asthma attacks in children.
that it could ignore the law. President Trump said that his order puts an end to the war
The Court, in a landmark 54 decision, written by Jus- on coal. In reality, it is a declaration of war on the basic knowl-
tice John Paul Stevens and issued ten years ago this week, edge of the harm that burning coal, and other fossil fuels, can
agreed with the states. As a result of that ruling, the E.P.A. do. Indeed, it tells the government to ignore information. The
began the formal process of looking at the science docu- Obama Administration assembled a working group to deter-
menting the risks posed by greenhouse gases, and recog- mine the social cost of each ton of greenhouse-gas emissions.
nized that those emissions had contributed to a public-safety Trumps executive order disbands that group and tosses out its
crisis aecting not just the nation but the planet. The E.P.A.s ndings. Scott Pruitt, the new E.P.A. administratorwho, as
resulting endangerment nding, as it attorney general of Oklahoma, had joined
is known,was issued in 2009, in time a lawsuit attempting to undo the endan-
for Barack Obamas Presidency. It be- germent ndingannounced that the
came the immediate object ofconser- agency was no longer interested in even
vative scorn and of furious eorts in collecting data on the quantities of meth-
Congress and the courts to invalidate ane that oil and gas companies release.
it, but it held up, and formed the basis The order also revokes several of Pres-
for new standards on auto emissions ident Obamas executive orders and mem-
and for Obamas Clean Power Plan, orandums. One of them, Preparing the
issued in 2015. More than that, the United States for the Impact of Climate
nding was an assertion of the princi- Change, sought to remove regulations
ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL
ple that politicians cannot entirely ig- that deterred private industry from re-
nore eitherscience or the rule of law. sponding to climate change in innova-
We now have, in Donald J. Trump, tive ways; another asked the military to
a President who shows disdain for assess the threats posed by climate-in-
both. Trumps lack of interest in cli- duced upheaval abroadwars, famines,
mate change as anything other than ows of refugees. Trump further called
fodder for conspiracy theories involv- for a scrubbing of any reports or rules
ing Chinese hoaxers reached its full- that might have developed in response
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 17
to those documents, and thus any insights that might have the ght against climate change appears, at least for the next
been gleaned from them. He chooses to cast such worries few years, to be at an end. The Friday before issuing the order,
aside at the Winter White House, Mar-a-Lago, even asthat in what looked like an attempt to cheer up Republicans about
propertysinks into the rising sea, a process that has begun their health-care defeat, Trump granted a permit for the com-
and, by many scientic estimations, will result in its grounds pletion of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which the Army Corps
becoming one with the Atlantic during Barron Trumps of Engineers had earlier blocked.
lifetime. Much of this will end up in the courts, as yet another set
For all the talk of American greatness, Trumps actions re- of Trumpian actions that make the expected conrmation of
garding climate change represent a historic abdication of lead- Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court so consequential (and
ership. The Clean Power Plan was important not only for its the abandonment of Merrick Garland so tragic). Gorsuchs
domestic eects but because it was a down payment on Amer- mother was a notably anti-environmentalist head of the E.P.A.,
icas commitments under the Paris climate accords. If fully under Ronald Reagan, and Gorsuch would take the seat for-
implemented, the plan would have got the United States about merly occupied by one of his judicial idols, Antonin Scalia,
halfway to the goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by who was in the minority in Massachusetts v. E.P.A. (In his
a quarter, from their 2005 levels, by 2025. Without the plan, dissent, Scalia grumpily wondered why the agency couldnt
the goal will almost certainly not be reached, despite the just say that climate-change science was unsettled, and leave
pledges of several states and even some large energy concerns it at that.) The Trump Administration has already proposed
to adopt greener technology. Meanwhile, China, in a reversal, defunding the E.P.A. by thirty-one per cent and cutting its
is proclaiming itself to be the champion of Paris, if only as a sta by twenty per cent, raising questions about how it can
way of enhancing its own world-leader credentials. fulll its most basic responsibilities. Soon enough, the Su-
Trump says that he is still deciding whether to formally preme Court may be asked, again, what it means for the E.P.A.
withdraw from Paris, but it is now clear that if he doesnt it to be derelict in its duties, and for America to have a Presi-
will only be because he cant be bothered with the paperwork. dent whose main mode of action is reckless endangerment.
The United States governments meaningful participation in Amy Davidson
LEGACY DEPT. to the school, eective only if you ac- tion, but will not return the bones. The
DEM BONES cept and take delivery of my skeleton . . . forensic-anthropology center at the Uni-
and agree to leave it on display for . . . 10 versity of Tennessee, Knoxville, has a
years? Or until it gets stolen by the Sixth similar policy, although it will occasion-
Formthe senior classwhichever ally skeletonize remains for institutions
comes rst. The school had agreed. with which it has a relationship, like
The request took Grays wife, Erin, the Smithsonians National Museum of
by surprise. This was a relatively new Natural History.
e all want to leave something thought of his, she said. Nevertheless, Peter called the Smithsonian. The
W behind when we go. The archi- the family wanted to honor his wish. museums collection includes thirty thou-
tectural historian Christopher Gray, who Which left them with an awkward ques- sand human skeletons, most of them re-
died this month, at the age of sixty-six, tion, in their grief: How do you turn a covered from archeological sites. It has
left a richer legacy than most. There is loved one into a skeleton? a small number of modern skeletons as
the Oce of Metropolitan History, the Grays son Peter took the lead. (Were well. Theyre our reference library, Dr.
business he founded, which is dedicated nature people. Were science people, he David Hunt, the collections manager,
to digging up blueprints for old New said of his family. We rejected the cul- said. Students use them to study things
York City buildings. And theres the tural associations of skeletons and bones like how fractures heal and joint articu-
nearly thirty years worth of Streetscape with death as petty.) He called the outt lation. He said that they can learn more
columns he wrote for the Times, which his father had suggested: Skulls Unlim- from real skeletons, with their quirks and
chronicled the citys unheralded archi- ited International, Inc., in Oklahoma variations, than from replicas made by
tectural treasures. City, which provides skull-cleaning ser- companies such as Bone Clones, Inc.
But Gray had one more bequest. Just vices, mostly to hunters. Skulls Unlim- Many of the donors were friends of the
before he died, suddenly, from compli- ited turned him down. An employee museum, among them Grover Krantz,
cations from pneumonia, his lawyer there, Terrisha Harris, explained, We an anthropologist, who died in 2002.
alerted his family to an e-mail hed sent actually do clean human remains, but He told me, Ive been a teacher all my
to his alma mater, St. Pauls School, in only for medical institutions. Other- life, so I might as well continue, Hunt
Concord, New Hampshire: It is my wise, youd have people putting Nana on recalled. Krantzs skeleton was displayed
wish, when I die, that my skeleton be the couch in the living room. Peter Gray in a 2009 exhibit, Written in Bone,
ensed (dont ask!) and articulated and got a similar response from various body along with that of his beloved Irish wolf-
given to a worthy institution not entirely farms, outdoor research facilities where hound, Clyde.
embarrassed by its connection with me, forensic anthropologists study decom- Hunt and Peter Gray came up with
for display in the science lab.To sweeten position. Sam Houston State Univer- a plan. The family will donate Christo-
the deal, Gray made a nancial pledge sity, in Texas, accepts bodies for dona- phers remains to the Smithsonian, which
18 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
will loan them to St. Pauls on a long- of a Mario Cuomo guy. Cuomo doesnt name legally changed to Coke-Is-It.
term basis. First, though, the body will have a bridge, or a tunnel, yet.) The new (When the Coca-Cola Company sued,
decompose at the University of Tennes- name didnt really stick. he was listed in court documents as It,
see. Dr. Lee Jantz, at the schools foren- But navigation systems are deferen- Coke Is.) Sam Koch, the Baltimore Ra-
sic-anthropology center, conrmed, Mr. tial to the authorities; algorithms are vens punter, is a cook (as any Sam should
Gray arrived last week, in the cargo hold squares. The other day, a trac-jam prefer). So was Tom, the Mad writer. Pi-
of a Delta ight. It takes about eighteen acionado, curious to see how various etro Koch, a particularly brutal Italian
months to get a good clean skeleton, she nav apps would direct a driver who Fascist feared even by Mussolini, was a
said. In that time, his remains will be used wanted to go from the East Side of Man- cock. Ilse Koch, the notorious Bitch of
to train students in forensics. The bones hattan to Long Island City, Queens, in Buchenwald, was a cochhh.
will then be scrubbed with toothbrushes, the shortest amount of time, punched a Could there be something political
by grad students, and transferred to the destination into a couple of iPhones and at work? These are volatile times. On In-
Smithsonian, where they will be reartic- the dashboard system simultaneously, auguration Day, a protest sign was hung
ulated by Paul Rhymer, a taxidermist for and let them compete for the drivers at- from the bridge which read Bridges
the museum. (Grays estate will pay Not Walls. Ed Koch hated Donald
Rhymers fee of around ve thousand Trump, and vice versa.Trump called Koch
dollars.) When thats nished, Peter will a moron, and Koch called Trump
pick up his fathers skeleton and take it greedy, greedy, greedy and piggy, piggy,
on a road trip, up to St. Pauls. piggy. The Times recently reported on
Last week, the schools biology teacher, papers that had been dug up by Pat
Theresa Gerardo-Gettens, said that she Thaler, Kochs sister, which contained
was thrilled about Grays gift. St. Pauls some previously unpublished remarks by
happens to already have a real skeleton, Koch: Donald Trump is one of the least
of unknown originsshe thinks it dates likable people I have met during the
to the nineteen-thirties or forties. When twelve years that I served as mayor. It is
I bring out that skeleton, there is a pause, incomprehensible to me that for some
she said. I say to the kids, This is a real people he has become a folk hero. The
person who had a real life. In those bones report also contained Kochs reaction to
is this persons story. It leads us to all Trumps request to have his name put
kinds of wonderful discussions. They start on Wollman Rink, after Trump had spent
to talk about facing their own mortality. Ed Koch three million dollars to renovate it: Im
Gerardo-Gettens doesnt know much surprised he doesnt want Central Park
about Gray, but, she said, Im hoping I tention. They piped up quick. Evidently, renamed for him.
can learn more about this alum. I want they disapproved of going down Lex- Of course, many big structures in New
to hear his story, so I can share it with ington AvenueTurn left, Turn left, York already bear Trumps name, although
the students. It really makes the science Turn left, each device repeatedand the number is decreasing, as residents in
1
come alive. Were all curious. all had the same route in mind, toward Trump-branded buildings take actions
Lizzie Widdicombe the You-Know-What Bridge. But only to remove it. And, given his reputation
Apple Maps, as the ramp approached, in these parts, its hard to imagine any
SLIGHT HEADACHE DEPT. dared say its nameand got it wrong. civic structures taking on his name any-
I SAY KOCH It pronounced Koch coke, as in the time soon. (There seems to be more sup-
Koch brothers, Charles and David, the port, actually, for naming a bridge after
industrialists and underwriters of right- Breslin. Eliot Spitzer, to whom poster-
wing causesrather than kotch, as in ity will likely grant not even a viaduct or
the Mayor. What a maroon. an overpass, recently oated the idea of
Perhaps you could chalk up the apps appending Breslins name to the White-
confusion to the fact that one of those stone Bridge, or the Throgs Neck.)
ost New Yorkers, according to brothers, David Koch, now has his name Youd think that Trump would be more
M one poll, didnt much like it when, axed to two other destinations on the a coke guy than a kotch, in light of
his income bracket and political lean-
in 2011, the city renamed the Queens- map, an auditorium (formerly the New
boro Bridge for former Mayor Ed Koch. York State Theatre) at Lincoln Center ings, but the Koch brothers have been
The response may not have had much and the plaza in front of the Metropol- no great allies of his, either. They do-
to do with their feelings for Koch. itan Museum. And there are so many nated money to his opponents in the pri-
The bridge already had a perfectly good pronunciations of Koch to choose from. maries, and recently, by way of activist
name, and a no-baloney alias as well: Among the cokes are Kenneth, the poet, groups that they fund, pledged millions
the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, perhaps and Bill, the Nordic-skiing star from of dollars to support Republican con-
best blurted in the voice of the late col- Vermont, whose father, Frederick, in 1985, gressmen who were voting against the
umnist Jimmy Breslin. (Breslin, for what amid his frustration over getting called health-care billthe very ones whom
its worth, didnt like Koch. He was more kotch during Eds term, had his last Trump has vowed to challenge, because
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 19
of their disloyalty. Coke, kotch, cook, Billy Grahams forty-two-year-old jezebel mentality persists. For one thing,
cock: pick your poison. evangelist grandson, Will. if Im meeting with a woman, then theres
In 1908, the bridge, during its con- Im going to give you a little his- a temptation that maybe it could be
struction, was actually called Blackwells tory, is that O.K.? Will said, speaking something more, Will said, when asked
Island Bridge, after the former name of from Pachuca, Mexico, where he was why dinners posed a risk. Another thing,
Roosevelt Island.That year, an ironworker preparing to lead a revival. Think about he said, is that I want to do everything
conspired to blow it up with dynamite, 1948the times were dierent, but one I can to protect my wife and my mar-
amid grievances from the workers union. of the things that my grandfather was riage. He continued, I think Mike
He balked and removed the dynamite dealing with was the image of an evan- Pence loves his wife so much that he
when he discovered that the explosion gelist, which was kind of synonymous never wants anything to jeopardize his
would likely kill twenty or more remen. with what youd think of as a used-car marriage to what he believes is the great-
For this pang of conscience, union o- salesman. Will pointed out that two est woman hes ever been with.
1
cials labelled him chicken-hearted. decades earlier Sinclair Lewis had pub- In practical terms, this means that
Nick Paumgarten lished Elmer Gantry. His grandfa- if a man and a woman need to ride in
ther, ghting that huckster stereotype, a car together someone else should come
THE RULES asked three male colleagues to help along. (The collective evangelical sex-
WHAT WOULD BILLY DO? him make a list of things that could ual imagination accounts for indelity,
hurt evangelism. One of them was sex- but apparently not for threesomes.)
ual immorality. In what became known Breakfast is out. So is coee. We have
as the Modesto Manifesto, Billy and glass oces, so that you can see every-
his team pledged to avoid any situa- thing, Will said. What would he do if
tion that could create even the appear- he were on a train and the only other
ance of impropriety. When my grand- person in the car was a woman? Thats
he Vice-President cant get a father would check into a hotel, a man why I always travel with a friend, he
T burger with Lisa Murkowski with-
out arousing suspicion or, possibly, him-
would go inside the room and look
under the bed and in the closets, Will
said. What if his wife is at home and a
workman is coming to the house? I
self? After the Washington Post pointed said. What they were afraid of was always have someone from my oce
out, last week, that Mike Pence once that someone had snuck in the room, go there and be with her. There are
told a reporter that he never dines alone like a naked lady with a photographer, certain exceptions. Have I been in
with a woman who is not his wifea and shed jump into his arms and hed an elevator when theres been only a
variation of the so-called Billy Gra- take a picture, and theyd frame my woman? Yes. He went on, When Im
ham rulepeople had a lot of ques- granddaddy. on that elevator, its, like, Ugh. Not that
tions. Are after-sunset encounters al- Times have changed, and so has the I dont want to be around a woman,
lowed if they dont include food? Do rule, meaning that today a righteous but, actually, I feel uncomfortable.
canaps count? Pretzels on an airplane? man must think about how to avoid fe- Back to Pence. Isnt his line of work
It seemed like a good time to get on male company even in scenarios that a little dierent from an evangelists?
the phone, for some perspective, with dont involve a honey trap. But the Isnt it unfair to oer men a point of
access that is closed to women? We
believe that a woman could meet with
another woman, but a woman couldnt
meet with a man, so it would go both
ways, Will explained. Just take an-
other person into the room. Of the
Vice-President, he said, I dont know
Mike Pence, but I think hes just try-
ing to protect that nothing could ever
be used against him. Hes got so many
pressures on him that thats the last
thing he wants to deal with.
At ninety-eight, Billy Graham is still
upholding the Billy Graham rule. The
problem is, hes got twenty-four-hour
nursing care at home, Will said. There
are always two nurses, for accountabil-
ity purposes. Will told a story about
his grandfather invoking the Billy Gra-
ham rule with Hillary Clinton. In 1989,
when Graham was in Little Rock for
a crusade, Hillary invited him to lunch.
As Graham recounted in his autobiog- a brown paper bag, Woodhead said. To lor, and, while the doyennes of New York
raphy, he told her that hed be delighted, call her a thrifty soul is to put it mildly. society were happy to entrust their faces to
but, he said, I dont have private lun- Frank Campbell, the venerable fu- her ministrations, their drawing rooms,
cheons with beautiful ladies. Will said, neral chapel on Madison Avenue, caters Woodhead writes in War Paint, had
I dont think anyones ever going to to A-list New Yorkers (many of whom rarely been open to her. To them, she
suggest that Billy Graham and Hillary have arrived looking pre-embalmed by was trade. That didnt stop her from
Clinton ever tried anything. I heard she the citys top plastic surgeons). When buying a duplex at 834 Fifth Avenue,
was so surprised that he still kept to the time came, both divas received their where she lived facing Central Park, a
those rules, but I think she respected mourners there, in full war paint, cour- few oors below Laurance Rockefeller.
that. In the end, Hillary persuaded tesy of visagistes from their salons. Miss There were two more stops on Wood-
him to join her in the crowded dining Arden was laid out in Arden pink rues heads tour: the former premises of Ru-
room of the Capital Hotel, and Gra- by Oscar de la Renta, with matching ear- binsteins salon, on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-
ham wrote that he left the encounter rings. Madame wore her favorite Saint fth Street, now a Dolce & Gabbana
greatly impressed by her. Laurent, with a priceless triple strand of
Final question: Is the Billy Graham black pearls. Rubinstein died rst, at
rule purely about physical proximity ninety-three, in 1965; Arden followed,
in other words, is it O.K. to have a one- eighteen months later, at eighty-seven.
on-one telephone chat with a female For once, Woodhead said, Elizabeth
reporter (who, incidentally, was quietly was happy to come in second.
eating some salt-and-pepper shrimp Both protagonists of War Paint were
at her desk)? Thats why Ive got a guy immigrants of humble birth who had a
1
sitting right here beside me, Will said. genius for brandingthemselves, rst
Lauren Collins of all. Arden, ne Florence Nightingale
Graham, was a farm girl from provin-
THE BOARDS cial Canada. Rubinstein, born Chaja, was
BEAUTY QUEEN BEES the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish ker-
osene dealer in Krakw, who left for Aus-
tralia to escape an arranged marriage.
(She became Helena on the boat.) They
parlayed their recipes for creams and po-
tions, and their exercise regimens, into
eponymous empires worth billions in to- Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden
ets start the tour at Frank days currency. If you judge their careers
L Campbell, Lindy Woodhead sug- by the power they wielded, the conven- boutique, and a neo-Georgian house, at
gested, from the back seat of a limo. tions they outed, and the autonomy 13 Sutton Place, that was owned by Ar-
Woodheadblond, vivacious, and they achieved, they count as pioneering dens devoted friend Elizabeth (Bessie)
ampleis the author of War Paint, a feminists. If you regard their business as Marbury, the theatrical and literary agent.
joint biography of the duelling beauty a scheme to exploit womens insecurities In middle age, Woodhead explained,
queens Helena Rubinstein and Eliza- (of which they were connoisseurs), they Arden fell in with a coterie of patrician
beth Arden, which has been turned into were colluding with the enemy. lesbians who had moved to a stretch of
a Broadway musical of the same title, Neither was a natural beauty, and their what was then still called Avenue A (the
starring Patti LuPone and Christine domestic lives were sabotaged by their heart of the slums, as the Times noted
Ebersole. ambitions. They were both married twice, reprovingly; the Amazon Enclave, said
Woodhead, a former fashion publicist the second time to dubious princes. I wags of the era). But, as Woodhead put
who lives in London, was revisiting her think they were pretty sexless, Wood- it, Elizabeth felt she had nally arrived
subjects haunts. They dissed each other head said, adding that Arden, an expert at the pinnacle of society. Her new
with a quaint feline ferocity, competed masseuse, hated to be touched. B.F.F.sMarbury; Anne Vanderbilt;
like two cage ghters, and avoided cross- 625 Park, please, Woodhead said to Anne Morgan ( J.P.s daughter); and Elsie
ing paths. Yet they lived in palatial splen- her driver. Her next stop was a prewar de Wolfe, the interior decorator, who was
dor a stones throw apart, the approxi- apartment house on Sixty-fth Street, Marburys life partneralso introduced
mate distance between their agship where Rubinstein lived in a terraced tri- Arden to coastal Maine, and when Mar-
salons, in the East Fifties. Arden kept a plex that she called her castle in the sky. bury died she left Elizabeth her estate
chaueured Bentley (racing green with (It is now owned by the nancier Henry there, which became Ardens Maine
pink rugs, Woodhead said, in her Nol Kravis.) But when she rst applied for Chance spa. Bessie was the person who
Coward accent) that ferried her the few a lease, in 1941, she was turned down: really loved her, Woodhead said.
blocks south to work. Rubinstein, a dump- Jews werent welcome. Rubinsteins re- The Marbury house had a For Sale
ling of four feet eleven, was never one to venge was to buy the building. sign on it. Rubinstein might have snapped
pass up a weight-loss opportunity, so she Arden encountered snobbery, too. She it up.
preferred to walk. She took her lunch in had started as the cashier in a beauty par- Judith Thurman
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 21
armor. An actor named Danny Mason,
AMERICAN CHRONICLES who helped write the rst draft, told me
that Crowley would take him on hikes
DEATH OF A DYSTOPIAN
through the woods at three in the morn-
ing. Wed come to a clearing and hed
say, See that eld? Mason said. Imag-
How a Libertarians film project, and his fate, fuelled the alt-rights deepest fears. ine there being a convoy there and res
in the distance.
BY ALEC WILKINSON Crowley posted a trailer for Gray
State on YouTube in 2012. It has been
watched more than two and a half mil-
lion times, and the lm has more than
fty-seven thousand followers on Face-
book. Its supporters included conspir-
acy theorists, survival groups, Crow-
ley wrote, libertarians, veterans, and
the military, many of whom believe
that the government has plans to im-
pose martial law, conscate guns, and
hold dissidents prisoner in camps built
by FEMA.
Crowley had a patchwork system of
beliefs. He regarded himself as a Lib-
ertarian, but he identied with the
left-leaning wing of the Party, not the
militant onebeing a soldier had made
him a pacist. After uploading the
trailer, Crowley spoke at a Ron Paul
event in Tampa, hoping to raise money.
Gray State, he said, would explore
such trends as the slow yielding of our
quiet American towns and streets to a
choking array of federal surveillance
grids, illegal police checkpoints.
Through a crowdsourcing campaign,
Crowley collected more than sixty thou-
sand dollars, much of it after the con-
servative radio commentator Alex Jones
David Crowleys Gray State envisaged an America under martial law. had Crowley and Danny Mason on his
radio show Infowars, in 2012, to dis-
avid Crowley began keeping a a band of patriots form a resistance. On cuss the impressive lm youre work-
D journal in April of 2014. He was LinkedIn, Crowley described Gray ing on. The world depicted in Gray
twenty-eight years old, and he lived in State as a lm about a near future col- State was already happening here,
Apple Valley, Minnesota, with his wife, lapse of society under martial law. Jones said. The people who have hi-
Komel, and their four-year-old daugh- Crowleys engagement with Gray jacked our country, theyre admitting
ter, Raniya. The journal was a life re- State was consuming. Every little part it. Theyre admitting that were an oc-
port, since I suspect my feelings right of this project is me, he recorded him- cupied nation by foreign banks, theyre
now in nostalgia or reection might be self saying. In addition to writing six very admitting theyre getting rid of the Bill
of value, Crowley wrote. By the time dierent drafts of the script, he made of Rights and the Constitution.
SOURCE: COURTESY A&E INDIEFILMS (HEAD)
he stopped making entries, seven months three trailers, for which he auditioned, We have people who are living in
later, he had inadvertently created a psy- rehearsed, and directed the actors; drew the Alex Jones world who know whats
chological document of which very few storyboards; designed costumes; found going on, and the people who simply
examples are known. locations and got permits; acted as the dont, Crowley replied. Gray State,
Crowley had been a soldier in Iraq director of photography, overseeing as he added, was factual and could be de-
and Afghanistan. Afterward, he had gone many as four cameras at once; and com- scribed as a documentary. ( Jones de-
to lm school, and in 2010 he began posed music and special eects. As if in- clined my request for an interview.)
writing a script that he called Gray habiting the world he was creating, he In January of 2015, Crowley and his
State, in which a totalitarian foreign re- periodically cut his hair in a Mohawk wife and daughter were found shot
gime conquers the U.S. government and and wore combat fatigues and body dead at their home. Reports of their
22 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY CRISTIANA COUCEIRO
deaths appeared in the United States a few weeks, at the Tribeca Film Festi- were brought up in Owatonna, Minne-
and abroad. The Hungton Post called val. Nelson read the reports of Crow- sota. Dan, Sr., is an engineer who has his
Crowley a military man, and USA Today leys death, which led him to watch the own company, which makes equipment
called him a lmmaker. The police de- Gray State trailer. It seemed incred- he designed to coat solar panels and ar-
termined that Crowley had shot his ibly well made, he told me. It was clear chitectural glass. He and Davids mother
wife and child and then shot himself, this guy was in command of all the skills divorced when David was twenty.
but commentators on the Internet soon necessary to his craft. When he read In ninth grade, David met a boy
began saying that Crowleys death that the police had found hours of vid- named Mitch Heil in a computer class.
seemed suspicious and mysterious, eos and voice recordings on Crowleys With friends, they played an army game
and that he had likely been murdered computer documenting his family and called Airsoft, which is like paintball
by government agents intent on pre- the progress of Gray State, he thought except that it uses pellets, and the guns
venting the movie from being made. that they might be the basis for a lm. are more realistic-looking. They dressed
Among certain conspiracy-minded, Nelson saw Crowley as a solitary ob- in soldiers uniforms and wore helmets
anti-government, Libertarian, and alt- sessive, ercely making art in an un- and carried backpacks and decorated
right believers, Crowley has become a likely place. their faces with camouage paint. After
species of martyr. In January, the in- The journal is dominated by Crow- a while, David began bringing his fa-
ternational hacking collective Anony- leys notes as he wrote Gray State thers video camera to the Airsoft game.
mous, which declared war on Donald what he wished for it to be, his anxi- That evolved to Im not getting what
Trump last fall, posted a tribute to eties about whether he could manage I want, and wed start staging our own
Crowley, suggesting that the govern- it, and the audience he imagined it little scenes and stories, Heil told me.
ment killed him. A spokesman, wear- would reach. He also wrote about his On weekends, theyd gather at one of
ing a Guy Fawkes mask and address- ambitions in general (to have a screen- their houses and watch the lms.
ing my brothers and sisters of the play produced by 2016, to be a mil- In 2003, toward the end of eleventh
world, said that the circumstances do lionaire by 2017), his feelings for Komel grade, David told his parents that he
not sound right. (God I love that woman. Strong, beau- and Mitch were joining the Army after
On Facebook, there is a page called tiful, ferocious, and deadly intelligent), high school. In the real Army, they
Justice for David Crowley & family, and his determination to be a good thought, you also played combat games,
which says that its purpose is to help father. As the entries progress, how- but you got paid for it. His parents would
to clear the good name of David Crow- ever, insights appear to arrive unbid- have preferred that he go to college, but
ley. The page is overseen by an accoun- den and to impose themselves on Dan, Sr., felt that he shouldnt oppose
tant in Minnesota named Dan Hennen. him. Im expecting to wake up some- something his son felt strongly about.
He and Greg Fernandez, Jr., a tech worker body else, he wrote. Vast personal- In June of 2004, David and Mitch
in California, conduct long discussions ity changes are happening too fast to went through basic training at Fort Ben-
on YouTube in which they nd fault write about every day. And: I am ning, in Georgia. Eventually, Mitch was
with the police investigation and ask why being prepped for some slide into obliv- sent to Afghanistan, and David was sent
someone whose future seemed so prom- ion or destiny. to Germany. While the other soldiers
ising would kill himself. Crowley was losing his mind, and he went into town at night to drink, David
Hennen believes that the crime scene didnt seem to know it. Journals of peo- taught himself German and read calcu-
was staged by Crowleys killer. He men- ple overtaken by psychosis are rare lus and chemistry books. In 2006, he
tions a sliding glass door at Crowleys accounts of madness tend to be written went to Iraq, where he was a mortarman.
house that the police discovered slightly by people in the midst of their illness Later that year, he was among the rst
openVery suspicious in Minnesota or retrospectively by those who have re- to arrive after a car bomb killed more
in the winter, he told me. Furthermore, covered. Crowley was handsome, gifted, than forty soldiers. Dozens of men, he
no neighbors heard gunshots. A forty- and charismatic, but he was also deeply wrote, were moaning and wailing ghouls,
calibre gun, which is what the police unsure of himself. He owned a number their skin hanging o in gray ropes, one
found, is so loud that it would have of self-hypnosis recordings meant to sitting very still in my seat with half his
woken up the whole neighborhood, overcome his insecurities. He thought body an oozing yellow mess whimper-
Hennen said. I believe a silencer, or a that the convulsive things that were ing can we please hurry? Could you hurry,
suppressor of some sort, was used by happening to him were the result of his please? Toward the end of the year, he
the killers. endeavor to become more condent, returned to Germany greeted by no one,
These theories are contradicted by poised, and commanding. He thought and slept with rst and only prostitute.
Crowleys journal, which was given to that he was developing a new self. In 2007, David was transferred to
me, along with videos and recordings, Fort Hood, in Texas, and in 2008 he
with the permission of Crowleys fam- rowley was born on July 7, 1985, met Komel, at a bar in Waco. The next
ily, by the lmmaker Erik Nelson, who
produced Grizzly Man. For A&E In-
C the middle child of Dan and Kate day, he introduced her to another sol-
Crowley. His brother, Dan, Jr., a personal dier as his girlfriend. Komel, who was
dieFilms Nelson has made a documen- trainer, was older by three years, and his a senior at Baylor University, lived with
tary about Crowley called A Gray sister, Allison, an architecture student, her mother and father, Naila and Anjum
State, which will have its premire in was younger by two. The three of them Alam, and her younger sister, Sidrah,
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 23
who was in high school. Three years a masters degree in nutrition. By na- drawn blinds of his room. The words
earlier, they had come from Pakistan. ture, she was outgoing, but David dis- It happened while we were sleeping
There the girls and their mother had couraged her from having people over. appear in white letters on a black screen.
each had a driver, and the house was She really wanted to have couple Television news reports show mil-
run by servants. In the U.S., they had friends, a woman named Sarah John- itary trucks rolling across bridges and
to learn to manage for themselves. son, who worked with her at a dietary people eeing. FEMA troops in riot gear
Within weeks of meeting Komel, clinic, told me. David would always advance on a crowd of protesters. A
David found out that he was being stop- mess it up, though. Komel and John- soldier walks along a row of citizens
lossedthat is, his service was being son later began a side business involv- on their knees and shoots each in the
extended without his consent. Further- ing nutrition as a healing method. John- back of the head. The city burns. In
more, he was being sent to Afghani- son felt that the closer she and Komel one eerie shot, Komel and Raniya ap-
stan. He immediately asked Komel to became the more David inserted him- pear as a mother and daughter watch-
marry him. self between them. He insisted that they ing news reports while light from the
Komel told her father that she was record their conversations, because he television plays across their faces.
serious about David. While I was talking wanted Komel to have documentation To keep track of his story, David con-
to her, David comes to the house for the if there were ever any disagreements. structed a version of a storyboard, tap-
rst time, Anjum told me. He came in Gray State began in the summer of ing le cards and Post-it notes and scraps
and he was ready to ght with me. Komel 2010, when Danny Mason, whom David of paper to a wall. The arrangement
said that they were getting married in had met through a professor at lm covered about twenty-ve feet, and it
two days and that David was leaving in school, sent David an e-mail with links looked like the ag of a hapless and tur-
two weeks. I was completely in shock, to Web sites devoted to conspiracies and bulent nation. David called it his writ-
Anjum told me. Finally, I said, Fine. If suppressed information. According to ers wall, and he said that it could be
you guys love each other, who the hell I Mason, He came back in thirty-six hours, read horizontally for the story or verti-
am to come between you. having stayed up for twenty-four hours, cally for the themes. He had a friend
David so resented being stop-lossed and said, Youre on to something, lets lm him standing in front of it, like a
that he told his commanding ocer in see where this goes. weatherman, while he said that it ex-
Afghanistan that he couldnt be respon- Gray State is a hectic and venge- emplied his use of ancient methods
sible for another soldiers life, and he ful fantasy. After the conquering force of storytelling.
was assigned to deliver the mail. Komel imposes martial law, soldiers come In June of 2013, David sent a draft
got pregnant late in 2008, during one to Minneapolisthe seat of the gov- of Gray State to a script consultant
of Davids leaves. When he was nally ernment, since the coasts have fallen. in Colorado named Linda Seger. Seger
discharged, in June of 2009, he was dis- Some people submit to the new re- liked the scripts intricacy, but felt that
gruntled, and he told Komel not to gime and live as before; others retreat it had too much action, too much in-
come to the ceremony for to the hills to gather guns formation, and too many characters.
returning soldiers. Instead, and make a plan. She also thought that it needed a hap-
he had her wait outside in Before writing a rst draft, pier ending. (The main character died.)
the car. I dont want the David and Danny Mason She suggested revisions, and a year later
Army controlling how I re- wrote scenes for the trailer, David sent another draft. Seger re-
unite with my wife, he told which they shot with Mitch membered the scripts, she told me, even
another soldier. Heil in 2011. It is two min- though she has read thousands of them.
Raniya was born in Au- utes and forty seconds long, It had a nice sense of style, and it had
gust of 2009. In Septem- and it cost six thousand dol- real feeling to it, she said. I felt like
ber, the family moved from lars. No scene lasts more than I was in the middle of the danger.
Waco to Minnesota, where six or seven seconds. A num-
Komel knew no one. For ber of scenes were lmed in avid and Komels attachment to
the rst six months, she was misera- front of green screens, which David lled
with C.G.I. helicopters, tanks, and other
D each other was ardent, but it also
ble, her sister said. She would call had an unrealistic cast. There was an al-
crying: Its so depressing here, and its military equipment. The sets are lit som- most teen-aged feeling about their love,
always cold. brely, so that the people, the buildings, where its all-consuming, Sarah John-
and the rooms seem cast in shadow. The son told me. Komel said to a friend, Da-
avid and Mitch had planned on twilit quality makes it feel as if David vids the only person that I like in this
D going to lm school after the Army. were not so much entering a world as world, but on two occasions she thought
Mitch got out rst and hung drywall trying to get out of it. of leaving him. In 2011, she felt that he
while he waited for David, and then The trailer has three actsorigin, wasnt contributing enough money or
they enrolled in the Digital Video and resistance, and outcome. It begins with time to the marriage, but they discussed
Media program at the Minnesota School red crosshairs dening an aerial bomb- it and he agreed to do more. He got work
of Business, in Edina. Komel took a po- ing target in a city. A man starts awake, as a cameraman and video editor, usually
sition as a research assistant at the Uni- breathing heavily, and shields his eyes in advertising, and saved enough money
versity of Minnesota, while studying for from a powerful light just beyond the to return to Gray State. The second
24 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
time was late in 2013. By then, he was
very much living in the world of Gray
State, Mason told me. My hunch was
Komel wanted some form of normalcy,
not just the dreary, apocalyptic world vi-
sion that David was living through.
Komel called her father. According
to her sister, Sidrah, She was crying and
saying, Dad, I cant do this anymore. I
want to come home. Anjum asked if
David was hurting her. When she said
no, he was sympathetic but told her, You
have a family. You make it work.
In May, 2014, a month after David
began the journal, he ew to Los Ange-
les, where he had arranged to meet sev-
eral people who were interested in Gray
State. Among them were two produc-
ers, Michael ODonnell and Mike Bog-
gio, who have a company called Michael Why do we always have to meet on your mound?
Entertainment Group. David called them
the Mikes. When they said they wanted
to option the script, David wrote that it
was one of the most important days of
his life. Komel on the phone talking heatedly in when they didnt respond immediately.
Believing that she and David would Urdu and became angry. After they ar- Reading the journal, one searches for
be rich by the fall, Komel quit her job gued, she wrote, I expected him to show the moment when David became per-
at the dietary clinic and began to plan me a little more compassion. She told manently unmoored, when his fantasies
her own business. Meanwhile, David herself that she would feel better in the eclipsed him, but it isnt so simple. Pre-
arranged to meet the Mikes again in morning, but she had nightmares. I start paring to write the draft he sent to the
Los Angeles. To prepare, he rehearsed. experiencing degrees of separation be- Mikes, however, he made an entry that
Mikes meeting two, the outline, he tween David and I, she wrote. I guess seems to predict his collapse:
began. Projecting power, condence, I forgot we were two dierent people in The moment of my purpose has arrived.
talk fast. Talk fast, easy, and project. He two dierent bodies. And if the universe awaits my consent for the
expected the Mikes to ask how the re- go ahead then I say do your worst you lthy
writes were going. If you want to talk psychosis can overwhelm and sticky bitch, I know youre going to reward and
rewrites, I suppose we should talk con- A disable a person, or it can appear seduce me before killing o what I love and
burying what I build and destroying me as aw-
tract, he said. The imaginary exchange episodically, in the form of disordered fully as possible in horrible retribution for hav-
lasted an hour. thoughts that are themselves an attempt ing thrust my ability so far into your black void
The day before the meeting, Komel to ward o a collapse. At the end of July, that generations hence will still be expanding
on what I started, settling the void, conquer-
found David curled on the oor in the David suered a psychic crisis that in- ing the dark, until the greater objective is served.
bathroom, crying. She comforted him volved a deep understanding stretching
by telling him that he was brave. He my mind past what my body can toler- No life has only one outcome, but as
worried that the Mikes would regard ate. He went on to write that he had David waited to hear from the Mikes he
him as a fraud, but they told him that undergone a 20 minute physical episode seemed to relinquish ground that he never
Gray State was their most promising of visions of pure deep horror, long in- recovered, or, if so, only intermittently. It
project. He was totally professional, sight stretching unbroken like a pan- is as if the writing and making of Gray
not quiet, not shy, very condent, Mike orama. The visions subsided, however, State were a means of containing the vi-
Boggio told me. We left that meeting and he returned to his regular life, tak- olent fantasies within him, and when the
thinking, We got to have a deal with ing Raniya to her sitter, having family project faltered they swamped him.
this guy. dinners, reading and writing, and work- The Mikes reacted as producers do,
Over the summer, Komels mother ing out in the back yard with Komel. by considering the scripts merits and
received a diagnosis of cervical cancer. In September, David revised Gray diculties. My rst pass, from story
Komel and her father argued over the State for the Mikes. He wrote for content, was: This is kind of a road map
phone about treatments, and, afterward, thirty-one hours, then Komel read the for the next American revolution, Mi-
she and David decided that her family script, and he sent it to the Mikes so chael ODonnell told me. My second
was trying to manipulate her and that that it would arrive for one of their birth- pass was breaking it down to what it
she should no longer speak to them. The days, on September 17th, along with a costs. When David nally heard from
following day, though, David heard Gray State poster. He was unsettled them, on September 26th, they said that
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 25
Gray State might be better as a TV se- use humans up like natural resources, We want nothing to do with youI
ries. They did not oer him the contract Jones says. Davids purposes also shifted. thought I made that clear, he said, and
he had counted on. Sean Wright, a friend of his who worked shut the door.
David was devastated. Making Gray on the documentary, told me, He was She knocked again. David said, Go
State was his whole world, Sidrah said. changing his mind from entertainment sit in the car. Vincent saw a shadow on
In a Facebook post written after Davids to waking people up. a wall behind David and felt sure that it
death, Mitch Heil said that he didnt David believed that the documentary was Komels. When David came out to
think David knew how to cope with would establish a Gray State brand, which the car, he said there was no way Sidrah
failure on this scale. He went on, In my might one day include video games and could see her sister. Sidrah said they had
heart I feel like the stress, the message, combat games. To further the brand, he come to exchange cars. David said that
the story, and his thought process caused planned to make the documentary avail- he needed an hour to get the car ready
his world of ction and reality to blur. able free. Working on it possessed him but he would return it only if they took
David began to have trouble sleeping, as entirely as writing Gray State had. both cars, which meant that Sidrah would
and for an hour one night he lay awake Meanwhile, he and Komel stopped re- have to drive sixteen hours to Waco by
and cried. I guess the big wait created a turning most phone calls and texts and herself. She said she couldnt. Fine,
lot of anxiety that needed resolution the e-mails. Anjum sent Komel a photo- David said. Deals o. Then he went
situation couldnt provide, he wrote. graph of her mother, Naila, in the hos- back into the house.
Hence the bad weather! Im serious, mo- pital, hoping to provoke her into speak- Vinny and I looked at each other,
ment by moment for a long time, the ing to him. Immediately, he received a like, What now? Sidrah told me. Vin-
weather has been following my mood. call from David, who said that he and cent knocked on the door again, and
He stopped saying that he was going Komel wanted nothing more to do with David came out. Vincent extended his
to be famous. He didnt say they were him or the rest of the family. hand, and David hesitated then shook
moving to California anymore, either, Sidrah and her anc, Vincent So- it. Her mom needs her daughter, Vin-
a friend named Chris Peck told me. All telo, who is now her husband, decided cent said. You said an hour, right?
he said was That was a pipe dream. to drive to Minnesota from Waco to When they returned, Sidrah saw
check on Komel. A few months ear- David watching them from a picture
s if to salvage years of work, David lier, Anjum had lent David and Komel window beside the front door. The car
A put aside Gray State for a docu- a car, and, as a pretext, Sidrah planned was on the street, and on the dashboard
mentary that he called Gray State: The to tell them that he needed it back. She there was a photograph of Komel, Sidrah,
Rise, which he assembled from inter- would leave her own car for them. and Naila. Komel had written on the
views with himself, friends, and Internet Sidrah and Vincent left Waco on back of it, I have always loved you and
commentators; news footage; and a brief October 16th and drove for sixteen Mom and always will. Sidrah and Vin-
interview he had once lmed with Alex hours. They arrived at around seven cent decided to leave their car for Komel,
Jones. It expresses the belief that the that evening. With Vincent standing in case she ever needed to ee. Sidrah
Gray State has arrived. We are already behind her, Sidrah knocked on the wrote, I love you, too, on the back of
going into a scientically designed Or- door. David opened it, and she said, the photograph and left it on the dash-
wellian control system that is meant to Im here to see my sister. board, and they drove away quickly.
08:01:30
the page with my bio? Is it because I
wrote it myself? I almost won a Clio in
2002, and people should know about it!
BY GLENN EICHLER ::Wait. Did someone at the
oce nd the police report about my
stght with the Little League coach?
:Oh, hell, its matine day. to do in that time. Wash the dishes? Is this not about hog fat at all?
The Lincoln Tunnels probably stopped ::Yeah, but that one pan is re- ::Ill bet it was Matt. He looks
dead. Better turn on the radio and catch ally scorched and itll take at least ve like the kind of guy who would
Trac on the Ones before I miss it. minutes to scour. Maybe better to just Google dads pound each other. Sick
::I missed it. sit here on the bed and think. Enjoy bastard.
::Well, the other news station the silence, like Thoreau. ::Ill just go into H.R. when
does Trac on the Eights. Thats only ::Of course, its not really si- I get to the oce and explain why
six minutes from now. lence with these disgusting ads blaring. you dont tell a kid to steal third with
:: God, this six minutes is No, I do not want a permanent solution two outs.
taking forever. to my coarse and unattractive leg hair. ::This is interminable. Who
the hell listens to the radio anymore,
anyway? There must be a million places
to get trac on the Net. Why are you
stuck in the Stone Age?
::I mean on the Web! Not the
Net. Do not use the word Net at the
oce. Damn millennials.
::Did my watch stop? How
can six minutes possibly take this long?
::Why the hell did you move
out of the city? We were happy there.
Four people can live in a one-bedroom,
if they sleep in shifts. Now youre par-
alyzed with anxiety, unable to move
until you nd out where theyre doing
pothole repairs, all because your life is
ruled by a tunnel.
::Although, in a larger sense,
were all drivers headed for the tun-
nel. Slowly funnelling ourselves into
::Trac on the Ones ran early. ::On the other hand, bath- a dark, foul-smelling hole where a
Thats what must have happened. Now ing-suit season is coming. cruel destiny awaits. Willing volun-
I have to sit here through sports and ::Why the big rush to get to teers in the destruction of our own
tech and business and entertainment work, anyway? Theyve got you so mar- souls.
and these really disturbing commer- ginalized, they wouldnt even notice if ::Well, unless you get o at
cials about asthma-triggering mold in you werent there. Hoboken, I suppose.
my walls, all because some jaded in- ::Of course they would, be- ::Hang on. Here it comes.
tern couldnt be bothered to stick to cause itd give them just the excuse they ::Damn it. Forty minutes at
the schedule. Do these millennials un- need to get rid of you. the tolls. And then another forty to-
derstand the damage theyre doing? ::One mistake. One lousy mis- morrow, and the next day, and the day
::Lets be honest about this. take and youre damaged goods. If mil- after that. A living death.
One persons responsible for me miss- lennials crave authenticity so much, if ::Maybe living death is a
ing that report, and that person is me. they have to have heirloom tomatoes hair dramatic. I mean, the family likes
What did the doctor say about always and Amish quillows, how should I have it out here, and youve got to live some-
blaming other people for your screwups? known they wouldnt buy hog-fat mois- where, right? It could be a lot worse.
::Jeez, relax, its just a trac turizer? Show a little consistency, for You could be one of those insecure pat-
report. What did the doctor say about Gods sake. sies they prey on with those ads.
GREG KLETSEL
beating yourself up? ::What is this ad? Reputation- ::Lose ten pounds in ve days
::Only four more minutes. repair.com? Do people really worry about without diet or exercise? Gotta write
There must be something productive their Internet-trustability prole? Now down that number.
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 29
who barely survived an assassination at-
THE ART WORLD tempt, in 2004. Schutz, thirty-nine at the
time, with untamable hair and a radiant
TROUBLING PICTURES
smile, said that she had been up until very
late the night before, watching the Re-
publican National Convention on televi-
Dana Schutz painted a real-life atrocity. She knew it was a risk. sion. I remember the second Bush nom-
ination in 2003 and feeling so angry, but
BY CALVIN TOMKINS this was depressing, she said. It was like
a disaster you cant look away from. When
I asked if the rise of Donald Trump might
invade her new work, she thought for
a moment, and said, I want to make a
painting about shame. Public shaming
has become an element in contemporary
life. You can take a picture of someone
and post it online, and thousands of peo-
ple see it. Were so ashamed, about so
many things, and I think for a candi-
date to be without shame, like Trump,
is really powerful. His lack of shame
becomes our shame.
Schutz was also thinking about paint-
ings in which people struggle with giant
insects. Every time that idea comes up,
I decide I should give it more thought,
she said, laughing. But my instinct is that
bugs could be interesting in a painting.
Anyway, right now its shame and bugs.
Somewhat hesitantly, she also said that
she had been thinking a lot about Em-
mett Till, the fourteen-year-old whose
abduction, torture, and murder by white
Mississippi racists in 1955 kept coming
up in news stories about the killings
of Trayvon Martin and other African-
American boys. Two men, Alton Sterling
and Philando Castile, had been killed in
separate police shootings two weeks ear-
lier. In the current climate of political and
racial unrest, Emmett Till seemed like a
ana Schutzs studio, in the ored pencils and broken charcoal sticks, risky subject for a white artist to engage
D Gowanus section of Brooklyn, may cans of solvent, spavined art books, pages with. Ive wanted to do a painting for a
while now, but I havent gured out how,
not be as catastrophically messy as Fran- torn from magazines, bundled work
cis Bacons used to be, but there are days clothes sti with paint, paper towels, a she said. Its a real event, and its violence.
when it comes close. Last July, she was prelapsarian boom box, empty Roach But it has to be tender, and also about
making paintings for a solo show, in the Motel cartons, and other debris. how its been for his mother. I dont know,
fall, at Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Schutzs paintings, in which abstract Im trying. Im talking too much about
and for the 2017 Whitney Biennial, in and gurative images combine to tell enig- it. In a later conversation, she said, How
New York. Large and medium-sized can- matic stories, sometimes carry veiled ref- do you make a painting about this and
vases in varying stages of completion cov- erences to whats going on in the world. not have it just be about the grotesque?
ered most of the wall space in the stu- Mens Retreat, made in 2005, shows I was interested because its something
dio, a long, windowless room that was blindfolded members of George W. Bushs that keeps on happening. I feel somehow
once an auto-body shop, and the oor Cabinet pursuing strange outdoor rites; that its an American image.
was a palimpsest of rags, used paper pal- Poisoned Man, painted the same year, Basing a picture on a real event would
ettes, brushes, metal tubs lled with de- is an imagined portrait of the former be a departure from Schutzs usual prac-
funct tubes of Old Holland oil paint, col- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, ticeand, as it turns out, an incendiary
one. She had said early in her career that
Schutzs paintings resonate with the contradictions of contemporary life. her ambition was to paint subjects that
30 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 PHOTOGRAPH BY GABRIELE STABILE
did not exist, or could not be painted she said. At rst, I thought, Nah, its too les on the same day). She and Johnson
from observation or photographed. With big, but now I think it could be interest- met in graduate school at Columbia.
a few notable exceptions, such as Yu- ing. When something is more than ten When he applied for the program, Schutz,
shchenko, the Bush Cabinet members, feet high, it gets beyond being a picture. who was nishing her rst year, was one
and Michael Jackson laid out on an au- I want it to look like people trying to of three student interviewers on the fac-
topsy table (four years before he died), climb over each other, and bugs attack- ulty admitting panel, and, because he
this is pretty much what she has done, ing them. But I dont know. I hope it sighed audibly before answering ques-
starting in 2001, when she was a gradu- wont just look like chaotic wallpaper. tions, she decided that he must be de-
ate art student at Columbia, with a paint- Schutzs high, slightly childish voice pressed. The applicants and their inter-
ing called Sneeze. It shows a girl with and her inherent niceness can make her viewers all went to a bar afterward, and
long golden hair, sneezing so explosively seem unsure of herself, but that impres- she and Johnson ended up talking mostly
that the torrential discharge has turned sion disappears when you see her paint- to each other. They started living together
her nose into a piggish snout. I wanted ings. Schutzs pictorial logic allows her soon afterward. In 2005, they moved to
to paint what it feels like to sneeze, she to build pictures that are simultaneously Gowanus with several artist friends, and
said. The sneeze paintings (there were convincing and absurd, troubling and un- Schutz and Johnson were married the
three of them) launched her career. Then canny. Sometimes its hard to gure out following year. Johnsons studio is around
came a group of works about the last man whats going on in them, but that doesnt the corner from Schutzs, and the build-
on Earth, a nebbishy character named bother hershe feels that there should ing they live in is six blocks away. I just
Frankin one, he poses naked on a beach; be room for the viewer to complete the like being in the city so much, Schutz
in another, he is turning into a probos- story. The private worlds that her bold, told me. We never really had a home life
cis monkeyand a gruesome series on declarative colors and thrusting forms before Arlo, and now we do.
self-eaters, an invented race of people evoke can be inexplicable, but they res- I asked Schutz if shed thought any
who devour and then regenerate their onate with the anxieties and contradic- more about the Emmett Till painting.
own body parts. They set the stage for a tions of contemporary life. That one turned out, she said, sounding
decade of startling, vivid, wildly original, surprised. She had put it in the Berlin
and masterly paintings of people doing he studio was nearly empty when show, where it caused no controversy. She
weird thingsusing blood from a live
shark to cure the plague, for example. In
T I stopped by again, in early Octo- found the image on her iPhone, and showed
ber. The paintings Id seen in July had it to me. Based on a widely reproduced
a 2005 self-portrait, she depicted herself been shipped to Berlin. (The show was photograph of Tills mutilated corpse in
as a thick-skinned human pachyderm. called Waiting for the Barbarians, a his con, the painting was dominated
Schutz occasionally appears baed by title shed borrowed from J. M. Coet- on one side by a mostly abstract, thickly
her workshe tends to apologize for not zees novelwhich Im ashamed to say painted head in shades of dark brown and
explaining it better. The thing is, by I havent read.) A huge, newly stretched black, and on the other side by his white
talking about it you can kill it, she said. canvas hung on the back wall, with in- dress shirt. Tills mother had dressed him
The Whitney curator Chrissie Iles de- distinct forms brushed on it in an orange- formally for his funeral, and she had in-
scribed her to me as an artist who uses red primer. Its kind of like an expul- sisted on leaving the casket open so that
painting to bridge two worlds, the ana- sion scene, Schutz explained. I couldnt people could see what the killers had done
log and the digital. She emerged at a make out any recognizable images, and to his face. This is about a young boy, and
moment when the Internet was just be- then suddenly I could: a man and a it happened, Schutz said. Its evidence of
ginning to aect how we experience im- woman, close together, moving from left something that really happened. I wasnt
ages, and she anticipated whats going on to right. Masaccios Expulsion from the alive then, and it wasnt taught in our his-
now, Iles said. Its one of those moments Garden of Eden (circa 1426), one of the tory classes. She was still uncertain about
of dramatic transition, like the sixties. Ev- earliest evocations of shame in Western the painting. I dont know if it has the
erything is uid and interchangeable, and art and probably the most powerful, came right emotionality, she said. I like it as
Dana is telling visual stories that articu- to mind. Yeah, I love that painting, she a painting, but I might want to try it again.
late a dierent sense of what narrative is. said. I saw it rst in an art book when All the Berlin pictures were sold (at prices
Schutzs 2015 show at Friedrich Pet- I was an undergraduate in Cleveland, ranging from ninety thousand dollars to
zel Gallery, her New York dealer, was and Ive often thought I might do some- four hundred thousand), but Schutz had
called Fight in an Elevator. A widely thing with it. The expression on the faces kept two of them for herself: a painting
circulated surveillance video of Solange is so intense. Its an old theme, but I of two men coping with oversized insects,
Knowles attacking Jay Z in an elevator thought it could be experienced in a and the Till painting, which was called
had given her the idea of trying to paint contemporary way. Open Casket.
a high-action situation in a very com- She had gone to Berlin in mid-
pressed space, and this led to several September for the opening of her show, chutz grew up in Livonia, Michi-
paintings of frantically entangled body
parts. The beginnings of a new elevator
bringing along her two-year-old son, S gan, a suburb of Detroit. Dean, her fa-
Arlo, and her mother-in-law. Her hus- ther, taught social studies and doubled as a
painting were marked out with black tape band, the artist Ryan Johnson, arrived a guidance counsellor at Danas high school,
on a wall in her studio. This one would week later (ve of his sculptures were in in Livonia; her mother, Georgia, was a
be twelve feet high by fourteen feet wide, a group show that opened in Los Ange- middle-school art teacher in nearby
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 31
Plymouth. Georgia had studied art at She entered the graduate art program who were not my friends, Schutz re-
Michigan State. She painted expression- at Columbia in 2000, and during her rst called. That was shocking and exciting,
istic landscapes, and there were always year there she had an artistic crisis, the and it made life after school less dicult.
plenty of art materials in the house to kind that aicts gifted art students who Id thought maybe Id be a tour guide,
play with. Schutz, an only child, was nat- cant decide what their work should be because that was my job at Columbia,
urally curious, independent, fearless, and about. I was so lost, I couldnt make any even though I have a terrible speaking
popular with other kids. I was happy, I paintings at all, she recalled. Earlier, partly voice and no one could hear me. I was
think, she said. I thought at the time as a joke, she had made a number of oil really lucky, because now I had enough
that my parents were very overbearing paintings of imaginary partners for her money to rent a studio. Interest in her
and protective, but they werenta lot of unattached friends. The paintings were work spread rapidly after thatshe was
the time, I was just out, away, walking fairly small, with a lot of strong colors in the Venice Biennale in 2003 and the
miles to the pet store to buy some little laid down in thick layers. Klaus Biesen- second Greater New York show, in 2005.
animal to hide in the house. As her fa- bach, a curator at P.S. 1, the Museum of
ther explained, There was a back part Modern Arts contemporary branch in n November 9th, the morning
to the closet in her room, another closet,
and we discovered after the fact that she
Queens, put one of these portraits in a O after the election, Schutz said,
group show in October, 2001. Biesen- I didnt sleep at all. I stopped watching,
hid a rabbit there and showed it to her bach, who is now MoMAs chief curator- but I couldnt sleep. We were in the stu-
friends when they came over. Her mother at-large, told me that Schutzs paintings dio, and she looked exhausted. She and
said, Dana was never very tidy as a kid. had struck him as being dierent from Johnson were about to close on a two-
I kind of gave upshut the door on it. anything I had seen recentlynot ex- story building they were buying in nearby
When Schutz was fteen, she decided actly beautiful, but very true. I said at the Sunset Park, where they would both have
she was going to be an artist. Her mother time, here is an artist who bridges the ample studio space. It was the biggest
let her have the entire basement and cartoonist and the social realist, but she nancial commitment theyd ever made,
showed her how to stretch a canvas, and does it in a very American way that re- and now she wondered if it was a mis-
Dana took it from there. It was like ally captures the human condition. take. Her fortieth birthday was the next
turning a switch, her mother recalled. The terrorist attacks on Septem- daythey planned to celebrate with a
She would be down in the basement for ber 11th made Schutzs anxieties about dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant,
hours and hours, sometimes through the what to paint seem trivial. She did the in Carroll Gardens. She had just found
night. There was no direction from me. sneeze paintings that fall, in her second out that she was pregnant again, but I
She had a very nurturing and encourag- year. I needed to make some decisions didnt learn this until a week later.
ing art teacher at the high school, who and not be stuck, she remembered. I On the studios back wallthe work-
one day opened up a storeroom for her told myself I would just make sneezes, ing wallExpulsion glowed like a fur-
to paint in, and said, This is going to be and see what happened. Zach Feuer, nace. It wasnt nished, but the two
Danaland. an art student at Bostons School of the gures now stood out dramatically
At the Cleveland Institute of Art, Museum of Fine Arts who had started against a blue backgroundmany shades
which Schutz attended from 1995 to 2000, a tiny New York gallery as his senior of blue. To their left was a large white
her love of painting never wavered. The project, put her rst sneeze painting shape, which she said was a cloud; parts
contemporary artists she and a few other early works, of it were tinged with gray, but one sec-
admired most were Cecily along with minimalist tion was a pure, dazzling white, as though
Brown, Laura Owens, John still-lifes by a young artist the sun were hitting it. A giant insect
Currin, and Nicole Eisen- named Holly Coulis, in a loomed in the foreground, a kind of
manpainterly painters, two-person show, in Janu- dragony with translucent wings, deli-
who were in short supply ary, 2002. Sneeze was cately rendered. Petzel wanted to show
at the time. She also looked bought by Erik Parker, an the picture at the Art Basel fair in Miami
closely at Julian Schnabel, artist whose eccentric ab- Beach, which was opening in two weeks.
David Salle, and other stractions Schutz admired. I thought the womans body would go
American painters who I thought that was so a lot quicker than it did, she said. Yes-
emerged in the nineteen- cool, she said. It felt like terday, I started to like it. You have an
eighties; at the contempo- a breakthrough. I had a idea of what you want a painting to be,
rary German artists Martin Kippenberger sense of clarity and purpose, even if it and then it goes another way and you
and Albert Oehlen; and at a galaxy of was just an invented one. have to accept that. This painting had
earlier masters, from Pontormo, Goya, Feuer gave her a solo show in No- a kind of sadness to it, even before the
Manet, and Picasso to Diego Rivera, vember, a few months after she gradu- election, but now I guess theres fear and
whose twenty-seven-part mural in the ated. Called Frank from Observation, anger.
Detroit Institute of Arts, with its vivid it presented several views of the last man Four days later, when I visited again,
evocations of Fords River Rouge factory on Earthclearly not from observation, Expulsion was still unnished. The two
and its mighty workers, had enthralled although the eyes and mouth were based entwined gures had a more physical
her as a child. I still like paintings of on those of people she knew. The show presence, but there were no facial fea-
people doing things, she told me. sold out. I was amazed that people came tures. Schutz was still thinking about
32 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
time at an opening. That was in 2005,
the year her self-eater paintings appeared
ARROW in a show at Feuer called Panic. Some
of them were pretty brutalin Face
I lived and died like an animal. Eater, a person has managed to ingest
If death by arrow, death by feather, his (or her) whole facebut her sub-
death by sweet spot. jects go about their gory meals with
Heel; bland indierence. Although Schutz
rise, red dog. tends to dodge interpretations of her
I see now what youve been sning: work, she has said that the self-eaters
wings. probably have to do with the artistic
What youve been licking: process, which cannibalizes experience
all those bright, bright teeth. and regurgitates it as art. Maybe so, but
You said, Angel. its interesting that Schutz, who is so
I said, Anchor self-eacing in her personal life, would
dragging this body. choose self-eacement as a subject. Her
The way the sea is fears and worries and contradictions get
the vein is. channelled into the work, and she works
The doctors advise, virtually all the time. The panic attacks
Too late now; eventually stopped. Dana has a lot of
youve got to live self-doubt, Ryan Johnson told me, but
with it in you. not when shes painting.
Beth Bachmann As Schutzs subject matter grew
wilder, her technique became more as-
sured. In How We Would Give Birth
shame and Donald Trump. I dont think the danger signals came almost imme- (2007), a woman in a hospital bed gazes
he has that connection to other people, diately. Feuer told me that soon after intently at an old-fashioned landscape
that social, contagious thing, she said. her 2002 solo show he sold a painting painting on the wall while a bloody fetus
Have you noticed that he never yawns called The Breeders to a New York emerges from her vagina. (This was seven
when other people yawn? But what hap- collector for eight thousand dollars, and years before Arlo was born; she did a
pens if a leader has no shame? Countries within a year the collector had sold it to second birth painting, post-Arlo, that
have shamein our country, its always Larry Gagosian for half a millionnone was less disturbing and more complex.)
been there, connected to killing the In- of which went to the artist. That was Swimming, Smoking, Crying (2009)
dians, and to slavery. a kind of wake-up call, Feuer said. (I depicts a young woman doing all those
When I went back again a few days overpaid, Gagosian told me recently. things at once, improbably and indeli-
later, the studio oor was littered with But you couldnt get a work of hers oth- bly. In Building the Boat While Sail-
discarded paintbrushes, dozens of them, erwise.) From then on, Feuer tried to ing (2012), two dozen people are hard
some still oozing paintI got bright or- restrict sales of her work to people who at work (people doing things!) on what
ange on one of my shoes. I always go for promised, if they werent going to keep looks like another metaphor for the cre-
a new brush when I start a new color, it, to let him sell it for them, or give it ative process. It also channels Gricaults
she said. I like the oor when it gets this to a museumthe surest way to solid- The Raft of the Medusa.
wayit feels like a river or something. ify a reputation, and to ward o the Schutzs work was appearing regu-
She had managed to get a one-day ex- stigma of being a market artist. Feuer larly, but for several years she was not
tension of the deadline, and shed been had some success with this tactic, but it happy with it. In 2005, a painting of hers
working all night. The faces were nearly was hard to enforce. Charles Saatchi, called Coma, of an unconscious man
there. The mans was twisted upward and the British super-collector, had bought in a dream world of abstract color, was
back, toward the sky; the woman was two of Schutzs early paintings from in a group exhibition at Greene Naftali
looking down. She had a helmet of straight Feuer; when Feuer refused to sell him Gallery, in Chelsea, along with works by
black hair, and her features, in prole, any others, Saatchi bought more than a Amy Sillman, Jacqueline Humphries,
seemed weighted by despair. A long white dozen from other collectors, at hugely Laura Owens, and other contemporar-
sash streamed out behind her in the wind. inated pricesa million dollars for one, ies. It was a great showI was glad to
Id been told. Eventually, he sold nearly be in itbut I felt that my painting was
arly success can derail young art- all of them, not always at a prot. The like a brick, a stuy little brick, she said.
E ists. The sudden demand for their hyper-inated prices didnt last, but her Now I like it a lot, but at the time the
work puts pressure on them to produce reputation kept growing. other paintings in the show felt more
similar work, instead of stretching their Schutz tried to ignore her booming expansivethere was air and gesture and
talent and exploring new directions; and market, but in 2004 she started having uidity in them. I didnt know how to
speculative buying, for quick resale, brings panic attacks. Once, she passed out on do that, but I wanted to try. She thinned
prices that may not hold up. With Schutz, the stairway at a gallery, and another down her mediumuntil then, she had
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 33
been using a lot of oil paint, building it to people with special needs.) Instead of it. In real life, he looks so dumpy, like
up in impastos so thick they were almost moving to one of the big-money galler- a refrigerator. Im happy with how the
sculptural. The new work looked more ies, Schutz chose Petzel, whose galleries face turned out, kind of like a mask,
spontaneous, like drawing. in New York and Berlin represent Char- with something guarded but threaten-
For the next few years, she kept on line von Heyl, Maria Lassnig, Sean Lan- ing about it. Hes coming down, tak-
experimenting, not always success- ders, and other artists she likes. She had ing us to lower levels of everything.
fullya group of paintings with holes her rst show at Petzel in 2012. Three The painting was for a group show
cut in the canvas and backed with black of the paintings in it went to museums: at Petzel of artist responses to Trumps
velvet now look errant and unconvinc- two to the San Francisco Museum of election, called We need to talk . . . The
ingbut by 2012 the power and solid- Modern Art, and one to the Nerman show was opening in about a week, and
ity of her earlier work were back. Bold, Museum, in Kansas. Schutz kept working on the piece until
clashing colors shape the composition the last minute. She was two and a half
in six paintings called God that she hen I went back to the Gowanus months pregnant. I feel like a cow, she
did in 2013; in God 6, the deity wears W studio, in late December, Ex- said. The elevator painting that Id seen
aming-red swim trunks. Why God? pulsion had been shipped to Miami marked out in tape months earlier was
After explaining that she was not reli- Beach, where it was sold for more than on the back wall, the canvas brushed
gious, Schutz said, I wanted to paint a two hundred thousand dollars, to a pri- with the orange-red primer she uses to
protagonist, someone who can go through vate collector from Toronto. A new, still establish the basic composition.
a lot of dierent situations, but that didnt unnished painting hung on the left We need to talk . . . opened on a
snowy Saturday morning in early Janu-
ary. Schutzs painting was among forty-
seven works, including Sarah Morriss
Liar; Rachel Harrisons sculpture of
Trump as a dangling piata; Jonathan
Horowitzs photographic blowup of a
bottom-heavy Trump mangling a golf
swing (the title was Does she have a
good body? No. Does she have a fat ass?
Absolutely). Schutz and Johnson came
to the gallery with Arlo, who wore a Bat-
man cape and was not thrilled to be there.
Schutz explained that Arlo dislikes rooms
with a lot of paintings in them. He says,
No, Mommy, no. We go now. Hes
O.K. with sculptures, but very negative
about paintings. Her Trump painting
sold quickly, to a collector in Connecti-
cut. That was a shock, she said, laugh-
ing. Like all the artists in the show, she
was donating the proceeds to charity.
Open Casket, based on a photograph of Emmett Till, is in the Whitney Biennial. Mia Locks and Christopher Y. Lew,
the two young curators of this years
happen. They were just about painting. wall: Donald Trump, standing on a Whitney Biennial, visited Schutzs stu-
Schutz and Feuer parted company in bright-yellow escalator, glowering bale- dio in February to make a nal choice
2011. Wed worked together for ten years, fully as he descends to the lobby of of pictures for the show. They picked
and we were kind of getting on each oth- Trump Tower to announce his candi- three: the huge Elevator, which would
ers nerves at the end, Feuer told me. dacy for President. I had never seen a confront viewers as they stepped o the
Wed spend hours on the phone every Schutz image that was so instantly elevator onto the Whitneys fth oor;
dayshe never needed my advice, it was recognizable. The top of his head was Shame, a new painting, in hot, trop-
COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PETZEL GALLERY
just thinking out loud. She always wanted cut o by the framing edge (no yellow ical colors, of a woman furiously scrub-
to remove the easy things, the popular pouf ). The double-wide red tie extended bing her face with both hands; and
things, from her paintings, and Id say, I below his crotch. Trumps scowl was Open Casket. I went to see the three
loved that, its crazy. At a certain point, partly buried in a mass of livid, blood- canvases the day before they left the
it became clear that she needed to be at red and bruise-purple brushstrokes. I studio. It was my rst look at Open
one of the top galleries, and we both dont really make super-topical paint- Casket, which had just come back from
knew I wasnt going to be a Zwirner or ings, she said. But I wanted to get Berlin; seeing the image on Schutzs
a Hauser & Wirth. (Feuer quit the gal- that moment of suspense, when you iPhone had barely suggested its cumu-
lery business in 2014. He now lives in know something is going to happen lative power. Measuring thirty-nine by
Hudson, and teaches bike maintenance and theres nothing you can do to stop fty-three inches, it is smaller than most
34 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
of her recent paintings, and more ab- noon, a British-born artist and writer derlying issues on both sides. One was a
stract. The buildup of paint on the face named Hannah Black posted a letter to deep frustration among black artists that
is a couple of inches thick in the area the curators Lew and Locks on Face- a theme so central to their history should
where Tills mouth would be. Although book, demanding not only that Open be explored, in a major museum, by a
there are no recognizable features, a Casket be removed from the show but white female artist. The other was that
deep trough carved into the heavy im- that it be destroyed. It is not acceptable artists, very often, do not consciously
pasto conveys a sense of savage disgure- for a white person to transmute Black choose their subjects. Emmett Tills
ment, which is heightened by the white- suering into prot and fun, she wrote. sixty-year-old murder took hold of Dana
ness of the boys smoothly ironed dress Her letter quickly went viral. Reac- Schutz, and she struggled with (and
shirt. His head rests on an ochre-yel- tions on Twitter and other social media against) the urge to paint it.
low fabric, and deftly brushed colors at ranged from erce approval to incredu- The artist Kara Walker, whose work
the top suggest banked owers. lous opposition. (Burn This Shit, Bitch. has explored race, sexuality, and violence,
Schutz had worried that the appall- White person showing empathy toward composed an Instagram post last week
ing aspects of Tills murder might over- blacks is now racist? Where are the im- that referred to Open Casket without
power any attempt to deal with it visu- ages of Tills murderers? why would you mentioning Schutz or her detractors.
ally. Id wondered about that, too. Violent burn art whats next? Books, people?) The history of painting is full of graphic
images have appeared in a number of There were also eorts to address deeper violence and narratives that dont neces-
her paintings, but within a context of questions of black anguish, white guilt, sarily belong to the artists own life, she
humor or irony or inspired sappiness and who does or doesnt have the right wrote. As are we all. I am more than a
that neutralizes the shockher self-eat- to use certain sacred images in works of woman, more than the descendant of
ers clearly suer no pain when they bite art. Emmett Till died because a white Africa, more than my fathers daughter.
o a nger or two. Emmett Tills mur- woman lied about their brief interaction, More than black more than the sum of
der was implacably real. Trying to deal Josephine Livingstone and Lovia Gyarkye my experiences thus far . . . art often lasts
with this atrocity in visual terms had wrote, on The New Republics Web site. longer than the controversies that greet
seemed almost beyond imagining, and For a white woman to paint Emmett it. I say this as a shout to every artist and
Open Casket is a very dark picture Tills mutilated face communicates not artwork that gives rise to vocal outrage.
but its not grotesque. The horror is con- only a tone-deafness toward the history Perhaps it too gives rise to deeper inqui-
veyed in painterly ways that, to me, make of his murder, but an ignorance of the ries and better art.
it seem more tragic than the photograph, history of white womens speech in that The two Biennial curators met with
because the viewer is drawn in, not re- murderthe way it cancelled out Tills Parker Bright, and listened to his con-
pelled. There was so much uncertainty own expression, with lethal eect. cerns. They also replaced the wall label
with this painting, Schutz said, quietly. Arguments on the other side empha- next to Open Casket with a new one,
You think maybe its o limits, and then sized the perils of artistic censorship. acknowledging the controversy it had
extra o limits. But I really feel any sub- Hannah Black and company are plac- caused, and including a statement by
ject is O.K., its just how its done. You ing themselves on the wrong side of his- Schutz, which concludes, This painting
never know how something is going to tory, together with . . . religious funda- was never for sale and never will be. Locks
be until its done. mentalists who ban artworks in the name told me that she and Lew were well aware
of their god, the performance artist that the painting was challenging, like a
he Biennial opened to the pub- Coco Fusco wrote on Hyperallergic. lot of other works in the show, and that
T lic on Friday, March 17th. A num- Whoopi Goldberg scolded Black on the they would have some dicult questions
ber of the works on view dealt with vi- daytime television show, The View: to face, but, she said, we didnt think the
olence. At the press preview a few days If youre an artist, young lady, you should response would be so absolutist.To Lew,
before, there had been much talk, pro be ashamed of yourself. New York and the impassioned response had a lot to do
and con, about Jordan Wolfsons Real the Hungton Post both published ex- with the paintings being seen in isola-
Violence, an immersive, ninety-second cerpts online from an apology by Schutz, tion, on Instagram, for instance. When
staged video of a white man beating and announcing that she would withdraw youre standing in front of the painting,
stomping another white man to death, the painting from the exhibition, but its a powerful experiencedeeply sad,
accompanied by an audio recording that turned out to be a hoax. Chris Oli, mournful. The museum has been fully
of a Hebrew prayer. I heard very little the British artist whose painting of the supportive of the curators and the artist,
comment about Schutzs paintings that Virgin Mary so oended Mayor Ru- and the painting will remain on view
day, but at the public opening, a young dolph Giuliani that he threatened to re- throughout the exhibition.
African-American artist named Parker move city funding from the Brooklyn I knew the risks going into this,
Bright, wearing a T-shirt with Black Museum unless it was taken down, sent Schutz told me. What I didnt realize
Death Spectacle written on the back, me an e-mail: Seeing a painting and was how bad it would look when seen
stood for several hours in front of Open talking about a painting are two dier- out of context. Is it better to try to make
Casket, making it dicult (but not im- ent things. One should not confuse sharp something thats impossible, because its
possible) for others to view the paint- eyes with a sharp tongue. The media important to you, and to fail, or never to
ing. He was joined from time to time circus waxed and waned, but I saw few engage with it at all? I just couldnt do it
by other silent protesters. That after- references to what seemed to me the un- any other way.
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 35
A REPORTER AT LARGE
WE HAVE NO CHOICE
The desperate journey of Blessing, one of the Nigerian girls who try to reach Europe.
BY BEN TAUB
t was close to midnight on the Africans have ed areas aicted with cubines were transported through the
Girls from Benin City who set out voluntarily, like Blessing, can become caught in a network of forced labor and sex work.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX MAJOLI THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 37
colonial forces, pledging to end slavery Doris was left to raise her four chil- ever money was left, which meant that
and ritual sacrice, ransacked the city dren alone. sometimes they didnt eat.
and burned it to the ground. Blessings older brother, Godwin, Blessing blamed herself for her fam-
Today, Nigeria is Africas richest began repairing cars in Uwelu. Her sis- ilys troubles. Godwin told me that, in
country, but the money that is set aside ter Joy went to live with an aunt. When February of last year, Blessing just left
for public infrastructure is often em- Blessing was thirteen or fourteen, she without telling anybody.
bezzled or stolen by government o- dropped out of school and started an
cials. Benin City has daily power out- apprenticeship with a tailor, but he he migration of young women
ages and few paved roads. As Nigerias wanted money to train her, and after T out of Benin City began in the
economy has grownspurred by oil ex- six months he let her go. She was de- nineteen-eighties, when Edo women
traction, agriculture, and foreign invest- spondent, and believed that she had fed up with repression, domestic chores,
mentso has the percentage of its cit- no future. and a lack of economic opportunities
izens who live in total poverty. Some Through friends, Blessing learned travelled to Europe by airplane, with
wealthy businessmen travel with para- of a travel broker in Lagos, who said fake documents. Many ended up doing
military escorts; police ocers demand that he could get her a passport, a visa, sex work on the streets of major cities
bribes at gunpoint, and crippled beg- and a plane ticket to Europe. Once London, Paris, Madrid, Athens, Rome.
gars crawl through trac near the Obas Blessing found work there, he prom- By the end of the decade, according to
palace, tapping on car windows and ised, she would earn enough to sup- a report commissioned by the United
pleading for leftover food. port the entire family. She tell me that Nations, the fear of AIDS rendered drug-
One day, I went to the Uwelu spare- she want to go, Doris said to me. She addicted Italian girls unattractive on the
parts market, where adolescent boys lift say, Mummy, we suering. No food. prostitution market; Nigerians from
car engines into wheelbarrows, and bare- Nothing. Doris sold the house and Edo State largely lled the demand. The
chested venders haggle over parts sal- the land, and gave all the money to the money wasnt great, by European stan-
vaged from foreign scrap yards. A dirt broker, who promptly disappeared. dards, but, before long, parents in Benin
path at the western end of the market Doris and the children moved into City were replacing ramshackle houses
leads to a shack where I saw a middle- a small apartment without plumbing of mud and wood with walled-o prop-
aged woman dressed in purple selling or electricity and hung a portrait of the erties. Lists of expensive assetscars,
chips, candy, soda, and beer. I asked if father above a broken couch. Blessing, furniture, generatorspurchased with
she was Blessings mother, Doris. She who was tall and slender, with large remittances from Europe were included
nodded and laughed, then started to cry. eyes and prominent cheekbones, helped in obituaries, and envious neighbors took
Blessings family used to own a house her mother sell provisions. In the eve- note. Pentecostal ministers, preaching a
and a small plot of land. Her father nings, she took the money they had gospel of prosperity, extolled the benets
was a bricklayer, but he died in a car earned to another market, where ev- of migration.
accident when Blessing was a little girl. erything is a few cents cheaper, to re- Women were sending back word of
The family was close to penniless, and stock the shop. They ate with what- well-compensated employment as hair-
dressers, dressmakers, housekeepers, nan-
nies, and maids, but the actual nature
of their work in Italy remained hidden,
and so parents urged their daughters to
take out loans to travel to Europe and
lift the family out of poverty. In time,
sex workers became madams; from Italy,
they employed recruiters, transporters,
and document forgers in Nigeria.
By the mid-nineties, most Edo women
who went to Europe in this way were
probably aware that they would have
to engage in prostitution to repay their
debts, according to the U.N. report.
They were, however, unaware of the
conditions of violent and aggressive ex-
ploitation that they would be subjected
to. Between 1994 and 1998, at least a
hundred and sixteen Nigerian sex work-
ers were murdered in Italy.
In 2003, Nigeria passed its rst law
prohibiting human tracking. But it was
too late. The U.N. report, published the
You think I just roll out of bed majestic? same year, concluded that the industry
was so ingrained in Edo State, espe- lationship with the god who lives in the an unguarded part of Nigerias border
cially in Benin City and its immediate Ogba River. She wore a white sheet and with Niger. The fertile red soil of the
environs, that it is estimated that virtu- a red parrot feather, and carried a wand tropics became drier, ner, and soon there
ally every Benin family has one member decorated with charms, to detect any were only withered shrubs in the sand.
or the other involved. Today, tens of demon priest who challenged her spir- After several days and a thousand miles,
thousands of Edo women have done sex itually. When I asked her to explain juju they reached Agadez, an old caravan city
work in Europe, and some streets in Benin contracts, she said that all parties must at the southern edge of the Sahara.
City are named for madams. The city is obey them, because the solution is from In Agadez, locals pick dust out of
lled with women and girls who have the gods. their hair and eyes and ears and toenails,
come back, but some who cant nd work You say that when you get there and sweep it out of their homes, but by
end up making the journey again. you will not run, Sophia, a young woman the time they have nished it is as if
Many of the original trackers came who had come back from they had never begun. Men
from Upper Sakpoba Road, in one of Europe, told me. In ex- wrap their heads and faces
the citys poorest neighborhoods, where change for the madam cov- in nine-foot scarves, called
children hawk yams and sex workers earn ering travel expenses, the chches, and dress in ow-
less than two dollars per client. Nuns girl agrees to work for her ing robes. Everyone wears
working for an organization called the until she has paid back the sandals; even in the winter,
Committee for the Support and Dig- cost of the journey; the the temperature can ap-
nity of Women travel to local schools madam keeps her docu- proach a hundred degrees.
and markets, explaining to girls the bru- ments, and tells her that any Agadez has always been
tality of the industry. But a nun told me attempt to ee will cause a transit point, a maze of
that women in the market on Upper the juju, now inhabiting her mud-brick enclosures in
Sakpoba Road warn them o. Many of body, to attack her. If you which to eat and rest and
them say we should not stop this track- dont pay, you will die, Sophia said. If exchange cargo before setting o for
ing, because their daughters are making you speak with the police, you will die. the next outpost. Its oldest walls were
money, she said. The families are in- If you tell the truth, you will die. built some eight hundred years ago, and
volved. Everybody is involved. The trackers are no less convinced by 1449 it had become the center of a
I was a victim before, when I was of jujus ecacy. Last year, Italian police Tuareg kingdom ruled by the Sultan of
very young, one woman told me. I was heard a madam, on a wiretapped call, tell Ar, named for the local mountains.
living with my auntie in Benin City, an associate that one of her victims had Traders stopped in Agadez while cross-
she said. She asked me if I would like broken her juju oath, and would die. As ing the desert in miles-long caravans
to travel to Italy. For the next six years, a guarantee, often the madam lms girls carrying salt, gold, ivory, and slaves. The
she travelled through Cte dIvoire, Mali, naked, swearing to her the oath of loy- Tuareg developed a reputation for guid-
Algeria, and Morocco, working as a pros- alty, Sophia said. She says if you run ing merchants through the desert, then
titute, sending money to her aunt, and she is going to leak it on Facebook. This robbing them.
believing that she would soon be brought had happened to one of Sophias friends, Most of Nigers population is con-
to Europe. After she was abandoned in and, to prove it, she pulled up the video centrated in the south, in a semiarid band
an oasis city in the Sahara, she made her on her phone. known as the Sahel, which runs across
way back to Nigeria. Today, she makes Africa. Beyond that, to the north, eighty
a living tracking others. efore Blessing disappeared, she per cent of Nigrien territory is desert,
B met with a Yoruba tracker with- much of which is uninhabitable. Though
n Benin city, important agreements out telling her family, but she balked the Tuareg make up just a tenth of Ni-
I are often sealed with an oath, admin- when she discovered that the woman
wanted her to become a sex worker. Soon
gers population, they control vast swaths
istered by a juju priest. The legal system of empty land. They have rebelled against
can be dodged or corrupted, the think- afterward, her friend Faith introduced the government several times, and, to-
ing goes, but there is no escaping the her to an Igbo woman with European gether with Toubou tribesmen, they have
consequences of violating a promise connectionsshe was elegant, well hoped to establish an independent Sa-
made before the old gods. Many sex dressed, and kind. The woman promised haran state, spanning parts of Mali, Niger,
trackers have used this tradition to Blessing and Faith that she could take Algeria, Chad, and Libya. The Tuareg
guarantee the obedience of their vic- them to Italy; she would pay for their and the Toubou signed a territorial agree-
tims. Madams in Italy have their sur- journey, and nd them jobs, and then ment in 187, but recently it has begun
rogates in Nigeria take the girls to a they would pay her back. Blessing to fray. The two groups are currently en-
local shrine, where the juju priest per- dreamed of completing her education, gaged in bloody ghting across the bor-
forms a bonding ritual, typically involv- of buying back the home her mother had der, in southern Libya.
ing the girls ngernails, pubic hair, or lost. She climbed into a van, along with All manner of contraband passes
blood, which the priest retains until she Faith, the woman, and several other girls. through Agadezcounterfeit goods,
has repaid her debt to her tracker. They began a perilous journey north. hashish, cocaine, heroin. Stolen Libyan
One afternoon, I met an elderly Edo Avoiding territory controlled by the ter- oil is sold by the roadside in liquor bot-
juju priestess who maintains a special re- rorist group Boko Haram, they crossed tles. After the fall of Qadda, Tuaregs
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 39
and Toubous raided abandoned weap- order to feed themselves and to nance nection houses in Agadez, each pro-
ons depots in southern Libya and sold the next stage of the journey. In Aga- tected by a crooked police ocer. In a
whatever they didnt keep to insurgent dez, sex workers typically earn around separate investigation, Nigers anti-cor-
groups in neighboring countries. By 2014, three dollars per client, much of which ruption agency found that, because funds
however, the value of the migration trade goes to local madams, in exchange for from the military budget were stolen in
had surpassed that of any other business room and board. One Nigerian teen- the capital, bribes paid by smugglers at
in the city. ager told me that it took her eighteen desert checkpoints were essential to the
Blessings van pulled into a walled-o months and hundreds of clients to earn basic functioning of the security forces.
lot containing a building known as a enough money to leave. Without them, soldiers wouldnt have
connection house, where dozens of mi- Most Nigerian brothels in Agadez enough money to buy fuel, parts for their
grants were guarded by men holding are in the Nasarawa slum, a sewage- vehicles, or food.
daggers and swords. There was nothing lled neighborhood a short walk from Shortly before I arrived in Agadez,
to do but wait. From other migrants, the grand mosque, the tallest mud-brick Angela Merkel, the German Chancel-
Blessing picked up the vocabulary of her structure in the world. One afternoon, a lor, came to Niger on a tour of African
surroundings: the boss was a connec- young woman from Lagos sat outside a countries, hoping to reduce the ow of
tion man; the light-skinned Tuaregs brothel holding the infant son of her migrants, and promising development
were known as Arabos; the darker- friend Adenike, a seventeen-year-old girl, funds in return. The well-being of Af-
skinned Toubous were referred to as Black who was with a client. A few minutes rica is in Germanys interest, she said.
Libyans. The woman still hadnt given later, a tall Toubou man emerged, adjust- After her visit, everything changed. Se-
Blessing and Faith her name; she just ing his chche. Adenike followed, wip- curity forces raided the ghettos, and ar-
said to call her Madam, and she never ing her hands on her spandex shorts. She rested their former patrons. Military and
let them venture outside. picked up her baby, but soon another cli- police ocers were replaced at all des-
The compound was situated in a mi- ent arrived, so she passed the infant to ert checkpoints between Agadez and the
grant ghetto, a shabby cluster of con- another Nigerian girl, who looked no Libyan border. Nigers President, Ma-
nection houses on the outskirts of the older than thirteen and was also doing hamadou Issoufou, announced that he
city. Niger belongs to the Economic sex work, and led the man past a hang- and Merkel had agreed to curb irregu-
Community of West African States ing blanket and into her room. lar migration.
(ecowas), a visa-free zone, so its west- Mohamed Anacko, a Tuareg leader
ern and southern borders are open to ach Monday, Tuareg and Toubou who serves as the president of the Aga-
some three hundred and fty million E drivers went to the migrant ghet- dez Regional Council, which oversees
citizens of fourteen other countries. Most tos, collected cash from the connection more than two hundred and fty thou-
of the migrants had travelled more than men, and loaded some ve thousand sand square miles of territory, saw the
a thousand miles by bus, and arrived in sub-Saharans into the beds of Toyota situation dierently. Niger has a knife
Agadez with the phone number of their Hilux pickup trucks, roughly thirty per at its throat, he told me. The citys
connection manusually a migrant vehicle. They set o with a Nigrien only functioning economy was the
turned businessman, of their same na- military convoy, which would accom- movement of people and goods. Each
tionality or colonial heritage. Nigerians, pany them part of the way to Libya, a smuggler supports a hundred families,
Gambians, Ghanaians, and Liberians journey of several days. Some migrants he said. If the crackdown continued,
stuck together, because they spoke En- brought small backpacks containing these families wont eat anymore.
glish; Malians, Senegalese, and Guin- food and cell phones; others had noth- To address the crisis, Anacko called
eans could do business with any con- ing. One driver, a young Toubou named a Regional Council meeting and invited
nection man who spoke French. For Oumar, told me that he had made the a dozen of the biggest smugglers in the
those who arrived without contacts, re- trip twenty-ve times. When I asked Saharahalf were Tuareg, half Toubou,
cruiters at the bus station oered trans- him if he had to give bribes along the and all had fought in recent rebellions.
port across the desert. Migrants gath- way, he listed amounts and checkpoints: Wearing chches and tribal robes, they
ered at A.T.M.s and phone shops near seventy thousand West African francs sat at two long tables in an airless meet-
the station. Once a deal was struck, the (about a hundred and fteen dollars) to ing space at the Regional Councils head-
recruiters drove the migrants to the ghet- the police before they got to the des- quarters. More than four hundred smug-
tos on motorcycles, and the connection ert; ten thousand to the gendarmes at glers had asked the council to represent
men paid them a small commission. Tourayat; twenty thousand split between them. Anacko promised to convey their
Most women from Nigeria stayed the police and the republican guard at grievances to the state, and to demand
inside the migrant ghettos. They didnt Sgudine; another forty thousand at the release of their colleagues.
need to work, because their travel had Dao Timmi for the military and the After Anackos opening remarks, a
been paid for by trackers in Europe. transit police; and, nally, at Madama, middle-aged Tuareg who went by the
The connection houses were hot and the last checkpoint before Libya, ten name Alber stood up and partly un-
crowded, but the women were fed and thousand to the military. wound his white turban, uncovering his
protected until it was time to cross the According to an internal report by mouth. We are not criminalswe are
desert. Other Nigerian girls, who were Nigers national police, obtained by transporters! he shouted. How are we
on their own, had to do sex work in Reuters, there were at least seventy con- going to eat? Take tourists? There are
40 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
never any tourists! Never! We cannot
live! He pointed at me. What do you
want us to become? Thieves? We dont
want to be thieves! We dont want to
steal! What do you want us to do?
Alber sat down, fuming. Across the
table, a tall, handsome Toubou named
Sidi stood up, furrowed his brow, and
calmly argued that if the European Union
really wanted to halt migration it should
engage the smugglers, not pay o their
government to arrest them. Another
speaker reminded the group that they
had rebelled in the past. Why should
they stop smuggling without being
oered other means to survive?
The next day, I met with Alber at his
home, a mud-brick building in a neigh-
borhood that was the site of frequent
raids. He welcomed me inside and oered
water from a large communal bowl. The
room was dark. Three other men lounged
on a couch, all of them heads of power-
ful smuggling families.
I know more than seventy people
who have been arrested, Alber said. But
I dont know the law. Nobody knows the
specics of the law. Although an anti-
migration law was passed in early 2015,
it had never been seriously enforced; ap-
parently, the Nigrien government had
made little eort to inform the smug-
glers of its implications. Less than twenty
per cent of Nigers adult population is
literate. Besides, Alber continued, you
cant tell me not to take someone from
Agadez to Madama. Were in the same
country. Its like a taxi.
Another smuggler, Ibrahim Moussa,
spoke up. Everyone calls them migrants,
but we dont agree, he said. Theyre
people of the ECOWAS. Theyre at home
in Agadez. We go just as far as the bor-
der. After that, theyre migrants. (Later,
however, Moussa and Alber oered to
connect me with contacts in Libya.)
Nobody would go into the desert if
we had good options here, Moussa
added. The desert is hell. You are al-
ways close to death. He sighed. The
European Unionits because theyre
living well that they want Niger to stop
migration. Why cant we live, too?
There was further trouble. Boko
Haram, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,
MAP BY LA TIGRE
ON THE CONTRARY
At Fox News, Tucker Carlson brings the chaos and hysteria of Trump-era politics into his studio.
BY KELEFA SANNEH
ucker Carlson started wearing creasingly visible. On Fox, his disdain political and cultural establishment who
t was showtime on Sixth Avenue, The kids at school were fineI just keep taunting myself
I in the Fox News control room where about never producing a great body of work.
Justin Wells and the other producers
work. Wells was taking special precau-
tions with one of the guests, an activ-
ist known for having assaulted a white
nationalist during a street protest. network. Carlson knows that many peo- anything Trump has done, or failed to do.
Shes cursed on TV before, Wells ple watch his show simply because they Carlson thinks that, in general, peo-
said, so were on a delay, just in case like Fox News, and they like the an- ple get too spun up, which is one of
we need to bleep her. Part of Carl- chors who surround him. OReilly po- his favorite termsa reminder of the
sons goal is to bring the chaos and sitions himself as an elder statesman, tendency to overestimate the goodness
hysteria of Trump-era politics into his the cranky but avuncular voice of main- or the badness of whoever is in charge.
studio, but his job would probably be stream America. Hannity, the ultimate But no political philosophy is equally
easier if Hillary Clinton had picked loyalist, often functions as a member of appropriate for every era. There comes
up a few thousand more votes in the Trumps extended Cabinet, giving the a time, eventually, when wild-eyed
Rust Belt: its not hard to imagine him, Administration a nightly dose of en- outrage is entirely appropriate. And
under a Clinton Administration, gap- couragement and advice. But Carlson nobody can be sure that this is not it.
ing in delight and incredulity at each is a bit harder to pin down. His incli- During a recent discussion of Trumps
days news. Instead, Carlson, like all nation to defend Trump might best be unsubstantiated claim that President
his colleagues, is a hostage to current understood less as ideological commit- Obama had wiretapped him, Carlson
events: what happens during the day ment than as media criticism. If you oered a pro forma criticism (You cant
helps dictate which kinds of people wrote a piece saying, I think Trump is say things without backing them up, if
are eager to watch it rehashed at night. a buoon and hes reckless, and he doesnt youre the President), and then sug-
As Trump has struggled to turn his really know that much, and hes kind of gested, as he often does, that citizens
hugely entertaining Presidential cam- the accidental President, and he plays should be more concerned about gov-
paign into an eective governing body, upon peoples fears in order to gain ernment spying and leaking. No doubt
liberals have been particularly ener- powerId say, Yeah, O.K., thats to- Carlson really believes this. But, when
gized. In March, for the rst time, tally defensible, he said. But, like, the he says it, he is surely thinking about all
Rachel Maddow won the nine-o clock Nazi stu ? Maybe Im the deranged the people he knows who disagree, and
hour, drawing more viewers between one, but I dont see that as supportable at how annoyed they will be.
the ages of twenty-ve and fty-four all. During a 2015 interview with Alex In conversation, Carlson often re-
than Carlson did. Jones, the loose-cannon Infowars host, turns to an unusual disclaimer: Im not
In the past year, Fox News has con- Carlson said that he hated listening to a deeply moral guy. Maybe this is his
tended with a series of embarrassments, the media whine about the dangers of way of playing the rogue. Maybe this is
including the sexual-harassment scan- Trump. Every time I hear that, I feel a debaters ploya way of insisting that
dal that led to the resignation of Roger like sending him money, Carlson said. some principles are so clear that even he
Ailes, and a federal investigation that is And, even now, he is more viscerally can see them. But with Carlson it is wise
reportedly related to the scandal. Still, annoyed by what he calls the self- to consider another possibility: Maybe
it remains the most popular cable-news satisfaction of Trumps critics than by he means it. And maybe he is right.
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 57
FICTION
BOOKS
BY ZO HELLER
or at least a decade, senior aides ninetieth birthday, legions of British Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of
F at Buckingham Palace have been qui- townspeople and villagers turned out to
paint walls and pick up litter, in a na-
an Improbable Life (Random House).
etly nessing arrangements for the mo- Hers is not an entirely disinterested in-
ment when the Queen dies and her son tional eort known as Clean for the vestigation. As might be inferred from
Prince Charles becomes sovereign. One Queen. her two previous alliteratively subtitled
of their chief concerns, apparently, is that There is some reason to doubt, how- worksDiana in Search of Herself:
republicans may try to use the interval ever, whether such loyalty will persist Portrait of a Troubled Princess and
between the death of the old monarch once the Queens son, now sixty-eight Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a
and the coronation of the new one to years old, ascends the throne. His Royal Modern MonarchSmith is an avid
whip up anti-royal sentiment. In order Highness Prince Charles Philip Arthur monarchist. For anyone invested in the
to minimize the potential for such rabble- George, Prince of Wales, K.G., K.T., survival of the royals, Prince Charles
rousing, they propose to speed things up G.C.B., O.M., A.K., Q.S.O., P.C., presents a challenge, and Smiths stance
as much as decorum will allow: in con- A.D.C., Earl of Chester, Duke of Corn- is very close to what one imagines a se-
trast to the stately sixteen-month pause wall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, nior palace aides might be: Charles is
that elapsed between the death of King Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and far from ideal, but he is what weve got,
George VI, in February, 1952, and the Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, and there can be no talk of mucking
anointing of the Queen, in June, 1953, is a deeply unpopular man. Writers in about with the law of succession and re-
King Charles III will be whisked to West- both the conservative and the liberal placing him with his son. Once you start
minster Abbey no later than three months press regularly refer to him as a prat, allowing the popular will to determine
after his mothers demise. a twit, and an idiot, with no appar- who wears the crown, people are liable
The threat of a Jacobin-style insur- ent fear of giving oense to their read- to wonder why anyone is wearing a crown
gency in modern Britain would seem, ership. In a 2016 poll, only a quarter of in the rst place.
on the face of it, rather remote. Despite respondents said that they would like Smiths mission is, therefore, to rec-
successive royal scandals and crises, sup- Charles to succeed the Queen, while oncile us to the inevitability of King
port for the monarchy has remained ro- more than half said they would prefer Charles III and to convince us that his
bust. In the wake of Princess Dianas to see his son Prince William crowned reign may not be as insuerable as is
death in 1997, when the reputation of instead. Even among those who profess generally feared. Having had the honor
the Windsors was said to have reached to think him a decent chap, there is a of meeting the Prince socially on more
its nadir, the Scottish writer Tom Nairn widespread conviction that he does the than one occasion, she can attest that he
sensed that the crowds of mourners lin- monarchy more harm than good. Our is far warmer than the tabloids would
ing the Mall had gathered to witness Prince of Wales is a fundamentally de- have you think. She can also vouch for
auguries of a coming time when Brit- cent and serious man, one conservative his emotional intelligence, capacious
ain would at last be freed from the moul- columnist recently wrote. He possesses mind, elephantine memory, preter-
dering waxworks ensconced in Buck- a strong sense of duty. Might not it be natural aesthetic sense, talent as a con-
ingham Palace. But, almost twenty years best expressed by renouncing the throne summate diplomat, and independent
later, roughly three-quarters of Britons in advance? spirit.
believe that the country would be worse How this enthusiastic and diligent Early on, however, it becomes appar-
o without the Royal Family, and Queen person, who has frequently stated his ent that Smiths public-relations instincts
Elizabeth II, who recently beat out Queen desire to be a good, responsible mon- are at war with a fundamental dislike of
ABOVE: BRIAN REA
Victoria to become the longest-reigning arch, managed to incur such opprobrium her subject. The grade-inating summa-
monarch in British history, continues to is the central question that the Ameri- ries she oers at the beginning and the
command something approaching feu- can writer Sally Bedell Smith sets out end of the book are overpowered by
dal deference. Last year, to honor her to answer in a new biography, Prince the damning portrait that emerges in
66 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
Charles has become unpopular trying to carve out a role while waiting longer to reign than any previous Prince of Wales.
ILLUSTRATION
BY FLOCH THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 67
between. The man we encounter here is
BRIEFLY NOTED a ninny, a whinger, a tantrum-throwing
dilettante, hopelessly thin-skinned
nave and resentful. He is a preening
One of the Boys, by Daniel Magariel (Scribner). In this haunt- snob, keenly sensitive to violations of
ing dbut novel, two unnamed brothers move from Kansas to protocol, intolerant of opinions con-
New Mexico with their mercurial, charming father in the wake trary to his own, and horribly misled
of a divorce and custody battle. They initially see the move as a about the extent of his own talents. (An
grand adventure, but slowly discover the extent of their fathers amateur watercolorist, he once oered
addiction to crack cocaine. As he becomes increasingly para- Lucian Freud one of his paintings in
noid and violent, the brothers, trapped with him in a claustro- exchange for one of Freuds; the artist
phobic apartment, desperately form a pact to escape. Our dad unaccountably demurred.) He is a pro-
was an act with a single end, the younger boy observes. And lix, circular thinker, more of an intel-
it wasnt that I didnt care anymore. He was my father. It was lectual striver than a genuine intellec-
just that we had spent far too long as his audience. tual, who extolls Indian slums for their
sustainable way of life and preaches
Class, by Lucinda Rosenfeld (Little, Brown). Karen, a self-pro- against the corrupting allure of sophis-
claimed liberal whose inner monologue provides the fabric of tication while himself living in unfath-
this satirical novel, is dedicated to the disadvantaged in both omable luxe. (He reportedly travels with
her professional and her personal life. She works for a non- a white leather toilet seat, and Smith
prot organization called Hungry Kids and sends her daugh- details his outrage on the rare occasions
ter to a public school whose racial mix is a source of both pride when he has to y rst class rather than
and, increasingly, angst. When she illegally transfers her child, in a private jet.) Although the book
it is the rst in an escalating series of risky misdemeanors. Ka- would like to be a nuanced adjudication
rens relentless self-doubt and hypocritical attitudes to race and of the Princes paradoxes, it ends up
class make her a hard character to sympathize with. But, by becoming a chronicle of peevishness
the same token, Rosenfelds attack on upper-middle-class pi- and petulance.
eties is unerring in its aim.
rince Charles was three years old
The Great Leveler, by Walter Scheidel (Princeton). Death is pro-
verbially a leveller, but this sweeping and provocative study,
P when he became heir apparent.Asked
years later when it was that he had rst
which examines economic trends from the earliest societies to realized he would one day be king, he
now, takes the idea further. Scheidel nds that protracted pe- said that there had been no particular
riods of peace, whether in ancient Rome or in contemporary moment of revelation, just a slow, ghastly,
America, have tended to produce social and economic strati- inexorable dawning. Doubts about his
cation, while cataclysms such as the plagues of medieval Eu- tness for his future role were raised
rope and the twentieth centurys world wars have brought from the start. As a timorous, sickly child,
greater equality. All major redistributions of resources have prone to sinus infections and tears, he
been preceded by one of what he calls the Four Horsemen was a source of puzzlement and some
state failure, pandemics, mass mobilization warfare, and trans- disappointment to his parents. His
formative revolution. Scheidel refrains from developing an mother, whom he would later describe
overarching ethical or economic theory of inequality, but his as not indierent so much as detached,
reading of history leaves him pessimistic about how much can worried that he was a slow developer.
be achieved by policymaking alone. His father, Prince Philip, thought him
weedy, eete, and spoiled. Too physically
Word by Word, by Kory Stamper (Pantheon). The compiling of uncordinated to be any good at team
dictionaries may seem a quiet topic, but this memoiristic sports, too scared of horses to enjoy rid-
account of the lexicographers art, by an editor at Merriam- ing lessons, and too sensitive not to de-
Webster, is an unlikely page-turner. Oering a nuts-and-bolts spair when, at the age of eight, he was
exploration of the English language, Stamper displays a con- sent away to boarding school, he was
tagious enthusiasm for words and a considerable talent for happiest spending time with his grand-
putting them together, as when describing the fusty glut of mother the Queen Mother, who gave
old papers bunged hastily into metal bookshelves that lls him hugs, took him to the ballet, and, as
the basement of Merriam-Webster. Her discussion of the he later put it, taught me how to look
role of language in culture is illuminating, and she is a reliable at things. Neither physical demonstra-
guide to such issues as the tension between a dictionarys de- tiveness nor sensitivity to art was con-
scriptive and prescriptive roles, explaining, for instance, why sidered a desirable trait by the rest of his
irregardless, though widely loathed as a solecism, is no more family. Charles told an earlier biogra-
illogical than inammable, and merits inclusion. pher, Jonathan Dimbleby, about a time
68 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
when he ventured to express enthusiasm better if he hadnt had to carry out royal superior instincts for wooing and han-
about the Leonardo da Vinci drawings duties. dling the press insured that Charles
in the Royal Library at Windsor; his In the Royal Navy, which Charles en- emerged as the villain of the piece. But
parents and siblings gazed at him with tered at his fathers prompting, his su- it seems safe to say that the union vis-
an embarrassed bemusement that, he periors, faced with his inability to add ited equal misery on both parties. One
said, made him feel squashed and guilty, or generally to cope well with gures, of the chief marital shocks for Charles
as if he had in some indenable way let sought to build in more exibility and was Dianas lack of deference. He had
his family down. (Charles has contin- to tailor duties closer to his abilities. assumed that the slightly vapid teen-
ued to dene himself against his fami- They changed his job from navigator to ager he was settling for would at least
lys philistinism, boasting in his letters communications ocer, and his perfor- be docile, but she turned out to be the
and journals of his intense, lachrymose mance reports laid diplomatic emphasis biggest bully he had encountered since
responses to art, literature, and nature.) on his cheerful nature and charm. Gordonstoun. She taunted his pompos-
In an eort to build the character of Even Charless love life was choreo- ity, calling him the Great White Hope
his soppy, aesthete son, Prince Philip sent graphed for him with the sort of elabo- and the Boy Wonder. She told him
him to his own alma mater, Gordons- rate care and tact usually reserved for pan- that he would never become king and
toun, a famously spartan boarding school das in captivity. Throughout his twenties, that he looked ridiculous in his medals.
in Scotland founded on the promise of his public image was that of a dashing When he tried to end heated arguments
emancipating the sons of the powerful playboy. But this reputation appears to by kneeling down to say his prayers be-
from the prison of privilege. Charles have been largely concocted by the press fore bed, she would keep shrieking and
the jug-eared, non-sportif future king and his own aides, in an eort to make hit him over the head while he prayed.
was a prime target for bullying, and when an awkward, emotionally immature young
he wasnt being beaten up he was more man more appealing and accessible to harles had always disliked the
or less ostracized. (Boys made slurping the British public. Charless great-uncle C playboy image that had been thrust
noises at anyone who tried to be nice to Lord Mountbatten blithely informed upon him, feeling that it did a disser-
him.) That he survived this misery was Time that the Prince was forever pop- vice to his thoughtfulness and spiritu-
largely due to the various dispensations ping in and out of bed with girls, but ality, and part of what he hoped to ac-
he was aorded as a V.I.P. pupil. He was to the extent that this was the case it was quire by getting married was gravitas:
allowed to spend weekends at the nearby thanks mostly to the assiduous eorts of The media will simply not take me
home of family friends (where he could his mentors. Having told Charles that a seriously until I do get married and
cry his eyes out away from the jeers of man should have as many aairs as he apparently become responsible. The
other boys) and, in his nal year, was can, Mountbatten oered up his stately strange articiality of his youthful
made head boy and given his own room home as a love shack. achievements, and the nagging self-
in the apartment of his art master. He Mountbatten also set to work nd- doubt it engendered, seems to have left
had taken up the cello by this point, and, ing a suitable woman for Charles to him peculiarly vulnerable to the blan-
although he was, by his own admission, marry. At the time, virginity was still dishments of advisers willing to reassure
hopeless, the art master arranged for a non-negotiable requirement for the him that he was actually a brilliant and
him to give recitals at the weekend house heir apparents bride. (I think it is dis- insightful person, who owed it to the
parties of local Scottish aristocrats. turbing for women to have experi- world to share his ideas.
Throughout Charless youth, he was ences if they have to remain on a ped- The canniest of these atterers, and
pushed through demanding institutions estal after marriage, Mountbatten wrote the one who had the most lasting im-
for which he was neither temperamen- to Charles.) Thus, Camilla Shand, the pact, was Laurens van der Post, a South
tally nor intellectually suited, and where earthy woman with whom Charles fell African-born author, documentary lm-
rules and standards had to be discreetly in love at the age of twenty-three, was maker, and amateur ethnographer. He
adjusted to accommodate him. When regarded as an excellent learning expe- dazzled Charles with his visionary talk
he went to Cambridge University, the rience for the Prince but decidedly not of rescuing humanity from the super-
master of Trinity College, Rab Butler, wife material. Charles seems to have ac- stition of the intellect and of restoring
insisted that he would receive no spe- cepted this judgment and the stricture the ancients spiritual oneness with the
cial treatment. But the fact that he had on which it was based, more or less un- natural worldand then convinced
been admitted to Trinity at all, with his questioningly. Almost a decade later, his Charles that he was the man to lead the
decidedly below-average academic rec- misgivings about marrying Lady Diana crusade. The battle for our renewal can
ord, suggested otherwise, as did the col- Spencer, a woman twelve years his ju- be most naturally led by what is still one
loquium of academics convened to struc- nior, whom he did not love, or even know of the few great living symbols accessi-
ture a bespoke curriculum for him, and very well, caused him to weep with an- ble to usthe symbol of the crown, he
the unusually choice suite of rooms (spe- guish on the eve of their wedding, but wrote to the Prince. Its no wonder that
cially decorated by the Queens tapissier) he went through with it anyway, believ- Charles was seduced. The life of duty
that he was granted as a rst-year stu- ing that, as he wrote in a letter, it was opening up before him was a dreary one
dent. When he received an undistin- the right thing for this Country and of cutting ribbons at the ceremonial open-
guished grade in his nal exams, But- for my family. ings of municipal swimming pools and
ler said that he would have done much When that marriage exploded, Dianas feigning delight at the performances of
THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 69
foreign folk dancers. Here was an in- replaced by cacophony; to heal the divi- for a constitutional king is a prince
nitely more alluring model of princely sions between intuitive and rational who begins early to reign.
purpose and prerogative. thought, between mind and body, and But Charles, who has been waiting
Under the inuence of van der Post soul, so that the temple of our human- to become king longer than any previ-
and his circle, Charles began exploring ity can once again be lit by a sacred ame. ous Prince of Wales, does not boast a
vegetarianism, sacred geometry, horti- The British tend to have a limited distinguished record of degeneracy. His
culture, educational philosophy, archi- tolerance for sacred ames. They are greatest known sin is to have resumed
tecture, Susm. He received Jungian anal- also ill-disposed to do-gooders poking his relationship with Camilla while still
ysis of his dreams from van der Posts about in their poisoned souls. (The married to Diana. Its true that some of
wife, Ingaret. He visited faith healers most hateful of all names in an English the revelations regarding this indelity
who helped him uncork a lot of bottled ear is Nosey Parker, George Orwell were not strictly consonant with the dig-
feelings. Staying with farmers in Devon once observed.) Whats more, Charless nity of a future king. In an alleged tran-
and crofters in the Hebrides, he played sententious interpretation of noblesse script of a phone conversation between
at being a horny-handed son of toil. He oblige leaves him open to the charge of the adulterous couple, the public learned
travelled to the Kalahari Desert and saw overstepping the constitutional bound- that the Prince yearned to be his lady-
a vision of earthly eternity in a herd of aries of his position. A constitutional loves tampon. But while it is certainly a
zebras. On his return from each of these monarchy requires that the sovereign dark day for England when the Italian
spiritual and intellectual adventures, he and, by extension, the prospective sov- press is emboldened to speak of the heir
sought to share the fruits of his inqui- ereignbe above politics. Their sym- apparent as Il Tampaccino, few have
ries with his people. bolic power and their ability to work gone so far as to suggest that Charles is
Over the years, Charles has set up with elected governments in a disin- too debauched to become king.
some twenty charities reecting the range terested manner depend on their main- Oddly, and perhaps rather tragically,
of his Bouvard-and-Pcuchet-like inves- taining an impeccable neutrality on all the severest damage to his reputation
tigations. He has written several books, matters of public policy. The Queens has come not from his modest history
including Harmony, a treatise arguing enduring inscrutability is often cited as of vice but from his strenuous aspira-
that the Westernized world has become one of the great achievements of her tions to virtue. All I want to do is to
far too rmly framed by a mechanistic reign, and she has fullled her duties to help other people, he has written. The
approach to science. He has sent thou- everyones satisfaction, with no mysti- fact that so many are ungrateful does
sands of letters to government minis- cal knowledge beyond dog breeding and not deter him: he accepts that, like any
tersknown as the black spider memos, horse handicapping. Charless refusal to of the great men in history who have
for the urgent scrawl of his handwrit- shut up about his views and his brazen dared to go against the grain, he must
ingon matters ranging from school eorts to inuence popular and minis- endure derision. It is probably inevi-
meals and alternative medicine to the terial opinion have provoked much rid- table that if you challenge the bastions
brand of helicopters used by British sol- icule, as well as more serious rebukes. of conventional thinking you will nd
diers in Iraq and the plight of the Pata- Both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair yourself accused of naivety, he observed
gonian toothsh. He has given count- had occasion to complainto him and in the introduction to Harmony. He
less speeches: to British businessmen, on to the palaceabout his interference in is honor-bound to ignore the scorn, and
their poor business practices; to educa- the legislative process. I run this coun- to march on. In 2015, when the Guard-
tors, on the folly of omitting Shakespeare try, not you, sir, Thatcher is alleged to ian won a ten-year battle to release two
from the national curriculum; to archi- have told him. But Charles has shown batches of the meddlesome black spi-
tects, on the horridness of tall modern no signs of repentance. Indeed, he has der memos, under Britains Freedom of
buildings; and so on. repeatedly indicated that he intends to Information Act, he was unabashed. A
The stances he takes do not follow continue his activism after he ascends spokesman defended the Princes right
predictable political lines but seem per- the throne. You call it meddling, he to communicate his experiences or, in-
fectly calibrated to annoy everyone. Con- told an interviewer nine years ago. I deed, his concerns or suggestions to min-
servatives tend to be upset by his enthu- would call it mobilizing, actually. isters in any government, and, by then,
siasm for Islam and his environmen- the law had been obligingly changed to
talism; liberals object to his vehement istorically, the question of make much royal correspondence ex-
defense of foxhunting and his protec- H how the Prince of Wales should empt from future release. Not long after,
tiveness of Britains ancient social hier- occupy himself while waiting for his there appeared a two-volume, 1,012-page
archies. What unites his disparate posi- parent to die has rarely found a sat- compendium of Charless articles and
tions is a general hostility to secularism, isfactory answer. Many heirs to the speeches from 1968 to 2012. The books,
science, and the industrialized world. throne have incurred opprobrium on which retailed at more than four hun-
I have come to realize, he told an the ground of moral turpitude. A hun- dred dollars a set, were illustrated with
audience in 2002, that my entire life has dred and fty years ago, in The En- his own watercolors and bound in for-
been so far motivated by a desire to heal glish Constitution, Walter Bagehot est-green buckram on which his heral-
to heal the dismembered landscape and noted the temptation for bored princes dic badgethree feathers, a crown, and
the poisoned soul; the cruelly shattered to become fops and fornicators, and the motto Ich dien, meaning I serve
townscape, where harmony has been concluded that the only t material was emblazoned in gold.
70 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017
resided in the Gulag Archipelago at
BOOKS the height of Stalins misrule.
In a new book, Locked In (Basic),
WONDER WOMEN
emies of the state by the roomful, and
turn invisible at will, as if she had sto
len a cloak from Harry Potter. In short,
Ghost in the Shell and Graduation. a busy schedule.
One thorn in Majors side is Cutter
BY ANTHONY LANE (Peter Ferdinando), a corporate villain,
and a dull one to boot. Also causing
trouble is a hacker known as Kuze (Mi
chael Carmen Pitt). More enticing are
her comrades, not least her boss, Ara
maki, who is played by Takeshi (Beat)
Kitanothe fabled star and director of
pareddown Japanese thrillers, who, to
ward the end of the lm, spins the
chamber of his revolver and provides
Ghost in the Shell with its sole our
ish of indisputable cool. Then, theres
Batou (Pilou Asbk), Majors partner
in Section 9, who, after losing the use
of his eyes in an explosion, is soon kit
ted out with a replacement: two little
metal roundels, complete with Xray
vision. He seems pleased, and the story
is littered with these touchingly plau
sible moments, as men and women
Scarlett Johansson plays the part-machine Major, in Rupert Sanderss movie. reveal, or rejoice in, their technological
ease. One of them unclips part of her
he new Scarlett Johansson movie, thats the pointonly by placing an face, the better to lock into some gizmo.
T Ghost in the Shell, is upon us, Asian star in the spotlight will you buck Becoming part cyborg, or having mem
sheathed in controversy. Rupert San the system, break the habit, and right ory implants, is no big deal. Think of
derss lm is adapted from the anime a persistent wrong. it as a nose job for the soul.
work of the same name, directed by And so the rumpus fumes on. Mean Oshiis movie was, like its protago
Mamoru Oshii, in 1995. Fans of anime while, in the middle of it all, we have nist, a hybrid. The reghts and chase
are ferociously purist and loyal, and for a movie. It unfolds in the futurea sequences made way for unhurried
them, I suspect, the very notion of con less convincing future, it must be said, ruminations on the malleable fate of
verting Oshiis masterpiece (as it is than that foretold by Blade Runner, the self. No surprise, perhaps, since the
deemed to be) into a liveaction Hol with its jostling cityscapes. The exte title echoes the ghost in the machine,
lywood remake smells of both travesty riors of Ghost in the Shell, by con a phrase deployed by Gilbert Ryle,
and sellout. trast, dont feel dramatically lived in. the British philosopher, to cast asper
Such scorn is as nothing, however, They feel like sets. It is behind closed sions on Cartesian dualism. The idea
compared with the wrath that has doors, rather, that the lm stirs. We of Descartes settling down with a tub
greeted the casting of Johansson. In learn that the frontier between people of Gummy Bears to watch Scarlett Jo
the original, which started life as a and machines has collapsed. Major is hansson is certainly appealing, and he
graphic novel, her character was called a human brain housed in a synthetic might well approve of the new lm,
Major Kusanagi, but in Sanderss movie body; when she strips, you can see the which is modelledsometimes shot for
she is referred to mostly as Major. In faint joins between panels of skin, like shoton the 1995 version, and which
other words, although the tale is still state lines on a map. There are sockets proposes that minds can indeed be
set in an Asian city, the heroine has in the back of her neck, allowing a popped in and out of bodies like bat
been Westernized. Why not hire an scientist, such as Dr. Oulet ( Juliette teries in a ashlight. Sadly, as the plot
Asian performer? The brutal answer Binoche), who designed Major, to proceeds, Sanders begins to duck these
to that, I imagine, would be: A pro download the contents of her con bothersome concepts. He picks a more
duction this vast and costly demands sciousness. I would love to report that sentimental path, which leads Major,
a name from the top rank, and there these consist of things like Must buy following the example of Jason Bourne,
are currently no Englishspeaking milk, or Call Je re: Thursday lunch?, on a quest to discover who she truly is.
Asian actresses on the Alist. And the but no. Major is part of a government It is this rage for authenticity, more
indignant answer to that would be: Yes, security outt, Section 9, which re than the leading lady, that transforms
76 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 10, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY SBASTIEN PLASSARD
Ghost in the Shell into an American do you get the hell out of purgatory? sleeping with Sandra (Malina Mano-
product. Heres an irony: if anything Near the school, with the exams vici), a tattooed teacher at Elizas school,
preserves the unnerving quiddity and looming, an unknown assailant tries to although Sandra has already had enough
strangeness of the Japanese movie, it is rape Eliza at knifepoint. She fends him of the subterfuge, and, when he nally
Johansson. Major slots into other re- o, but hurts her armher writing spends a night at her apartment, she
cent roles of hers, in Under the Skin, armin doing so, and the ordeal leaves gives him a bowl of soup and makes
Lucy, and Her, to create a buzz of her woefully shaken. No allowance, how- him bed down on the couch. Romeo,
impatience with the merely human. Lay ever, is made for her distress, and she bespectacled, potbellied, and bone-
aside racial identities for a second: think duly falls short in her rst exam. Her weary, is not much of a Romeo.
alternative species, digital personalities, grades, and therefore her entire future, Mungius tale, in its tightening of
and robotsotherness of the most rad- are jeopardized, and Romeo, in des- the moral vise, is an obvious successor
ical variety. Such is the zone that Jo- peration, lends assistance. On the ad- to 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, his
hansson patrols, and nothing is more vice of an old friend, now the chief of masterwork of 2007. But its worth
haunting, in Ghost in the Shell, than police, he meets with Bulai (Petre reaching further back, to a movie like
the scene in which she picks up a Ciubotaru), the deputy mayor, who is The Oak (1992), directed by Lucian
womantall, black, and statelyon sick, and bumps him up the list for sur- Pintilie, one of the great Romanian
the street, and takes her home. Each is gery. In return, Bulai has a word with lmmakers. That, too, has a dutiful
unsure whether the other is false esh Elizas principal, who agrees to arrange daughter at its heart, as well as a help-
or the real thing. What are you? the for her papers to be, let us say, gener- ful doctor, except that he is a cynic with
woman asks. That is the question. ously marked. We see at once how the an impish grin, who knows that the
system works, and how its wheels are world, amid the detritus of Commu-
hole is dug in the hard ground, greased; we realize, too, that Romeo will nism, has gone mad. The story is a pi-
A and a stone is thrown through a be trapped inside it, and chewed up. caresque, half revelling in the chaos,
window. With those two actions, nei- Graduation, written and directed and alive to the thought of a future
ther of them explained, Graduation by Cristian Mungiu, is a mirthless farce. seeded with hope, whereas the resi-
gets under way. The scene is a housing All that can go wrong does go wrong, dents of Graduation have either given
project in a provincial Romanian town. and the process is both compelling and up or caved in. Magda sits quietly with
A doctor named Romeo (Adrian Tit- close to unwatchable. The bitterest joke her cigarettes, so faded a gure that
ieni) lives there with his wife, Magda is that Romeo is not very good at cor- she could be made of smoke. Twice,
(Lia Bugnar), and their daughter, Eliza ruption, and, in his job, he suers from without warning, grown men cry. The
(Maria Dragus), a student at the local the terrible burden of honesty. Oh, bleakness is relieved by the rituals of
high school, who has won a scholarship youre the kind of doctor who tells his tensionspot the many dogs that stray
to a British university. She still needs patient the truth, Bulai says, adding, into view, and listen for the smashing
to gain top grades in her nal exams, Dont tell me you live o your salary. of glassand by Mungius baleful pas-
but thats not much of a stretch for Eliza: Later, he proers him an envelope of tiche of a happy ending. On a sunny
she is clever and determined, though cash. Everyone but Romeo, it seems, day, a bunch of kids stand together to
not quite as determined as her father, is on the take, and Mungiu is careful have their photograph snapped by
who has spurred her on for years, even not just to plant evidence of that Romeo. Happier! he urges them. Cou-
paying for private tuition, so that she normthe Volvo S.U.V., for instance, rageous smiles are mustered. Then the
can do what her parents never managed that the principal drivesbut also to screen goes black.
to accomplishy the nest and land in insure that we dont, for a minute, mis-
a better place. Behind every turn of the take Romeo for a paragon of virtue. In NEWYORKER.COM
plot lies an overwhelming plea: How private, the guy is a perjured soul. Hes Richard Brody blogs about movies.
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.
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must be received by Sunday, April 9th. The finalists in the March 27th contest appear below. We
will announce the winner, and the finalists in this weeks contest, in the April 24th 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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