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MARCH 9, 2015

7 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

27 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Jeffrey Toobin on the cynical health-care case; ISIS in Brooklyn; Imagine Dragons; Knicks knocks; James Surowiecki on Greece.

Peter Hessler 34 TRAVELS WITH MY CENSOR In Beijing for a book tour. paul Rudnick 41 TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF SEXUAL DIFFERENCE

JOHN MCPHEE 42 FRAME OF REFERENCE What if someone hasn’t heard of Scarsdale? ERIC SCHLOSSER 46 BREAK-IN AT Y-12 How pacifists exposed a nuclear vulnerability. Saul Leiter 70 HIDDEN DEPTHS Found photographs.

FICTION stephen king 76 “A DEATH”

THE CRITICS A CRITIC AT LARGE KELEFA SANNEH 82 The New York hardcore scene. BOOKS KATHRYN SCHULZ 90 “H Is for Hawk.” 95 Briefly Noted

ON TELEVISION emily nussbaum 96 “Fresh Off the Boat,” “Black-ish.” THE THEATRE HILTON ALS 98 “Hamilton.” THE CURRENT CINEMA ANTHONY LANE 100 “Maps to the Stars,” “ ’71.”

POEMS WILL EAVES 38 “A Ship’s Whistle” Philip Levine 62 “More Than You Gave”

Birgit Schössow COVER “Flatiron Icebreaker”

DRAWINGS Charlie Hankin, Zachary Kanin, Liana Finck, David Sipress, J. C. Duffy, Drew Dernavich, Matthew Stiles Davis, Michael Crawford, Edward Steed, Benjamin Schwartz, Alex Gregory, Roz Chast, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Jack Ziegler, David Borchart, Barbara Smaller, Kaamran Hafeez, Paul Noth, Jason Adam Katzenstein SPOTS Guido Scarabottolo

2 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015

CONTRIBUTORS

eric schlosser (“BREAK-IN AT Y-12,” P. 46) is the author of “Fast Food Nation” and “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety.”

jeFFrey toobin (COMMENT, P. 27) has written six books, including “The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court” and “The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court.”

peter hessler (“TRAVELS WITH MY CENSOR,” P. 34), a staff writer for the magazine, spent eleven years in China. “Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West” is his latest book.

john mcphee (“FRAME OF REFERENCE,” P. 42) is a longtime New Yorker contributor. He has published twenty-eight books, including “Silk Parachute.”

philip levine (POEM, P. 62) began contributing poems to the magazine in 1958, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1995 for his collection “The Simple Truth.” He died last month, at the age of eighty-seven.

stephen king (FICTION, P. 76), whose first story for the magazine, “The Man in the Black Suit,” appeared in 1994 and earned an O. Henry Award, has a new novel, “Finders Keepers,” coming out in June.

kathryn schulz (BOOKS, P. 90), the author of “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error,” recently joined The New Yorker as a staff writer.

emily nussbaum (ON TELEVISION, P. 96) is the magazine’s television critic and the winner of the 2014 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary.

birgit schössow (COVER) is working on the illustrations and the text for two books, which will be published next year. She lives near Hamburg.

NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more than fifteen original stories a day.

ALSO:

DAILY COMMENT / CULTURAL COMMENT: PODCASTS: On the Political Scene, Opinions and reflections by Joan Jeffrey Toobin and Ryan Lizza join Acocella, Jeffrey Toobin, and others. Dorothy Wickenden for a discussion about the backlash in Congress and VIDEO: The Moth and The New Yorker the courts regarding the President’s celebrate the magazine’s ninetieth immigration policy. Plus, Kelefa anniversary with a night of stories Sanneh, Sarah Larson, and David from David Remnick, Larissa Haglund on Out Loud. MacFarquhar, and others. HUMOR: A Daily Cartoon on the THE SPORTING SCENE: Our blog news, drawn by Emily Flake. Plus, covering the world of sports. the Shouts & Murmurs blog.

SUBSCRIBERS: Get access to our magazine app for tablets and smartphones at the App Store, Amazon.com, or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.)

4 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 THE MAIL

PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINE verse the Nixon-Ford policy that placed most psychedelics on the D.E.A.’s In reporting on the use of psychedelic Schedule 1 list, prohibiting their use. drugs to treat cancer and other pathol- Congress would almost certainly have ogies, Michael Pollan could have turned blocked this change, but had we been his attention to more critical studies able to lift the ban on scientific research (“The Trip Treatment,” February 9th). into medical applications, doctors would In my work as a psychiatrist, I have probably now have a far better under- read research on psilocybin—the ac- standing of brain function, and the un- tive ingredient in “magic mushrooms”— necessary suffering of many terminally that is at odds with the benign out- ill patients could have been alleviated. comes he mentions in his piece. In a We should applaud the heroic scien- 2013 article in the Schizophrenia Bul- tists and clinicians Pollan mentions, letin, the psychopharmacologist Robin who are clearly committed to advanc- Carhart-Harris proposed that psilocy- ing the frontiers of science. bin-induced brain changes could be Peter G. Bourne, M.D. used “as a model of early psychosis.” Spotsylvania, Va. This fits with another study, by Franz X. Vollenweider, from 1998, in which he 1 reported a schizophrenia-like psycho- ELEGANT EQUATIONS sis lasting about two hours in twenty- five healthy volunteers after they were As Alec Wilkinson points out in his given psilocybin. In many cases, the Profile of the math genius Yitang volunteers who participate in psyche- Zhang, results in pure mathematics can delic research have a history of using be sources of wonder and delight, re- hallucinogenic drugs. Participants in gardless of their applications (“The the Carhart-Harris study had used psi- Pursuit of Beauty,” February 2nd). Yet locybin an average of sixteen times. In applications do crop up. Nineteenth- a study of cancer patients conducted century mathematicians showed that by Charles S. Grob in 2011, eight out there are geometries as logical and com- of twelve test subjects had used hallu- plete as Euclidean geometry, but which cinogens in the past. No one wants to are utterly distinct from it. This seemed deprive desperate cancer patients of of no practical use at the time, but Al- the opportunity for a better quality of bert Einstein used non-Euclidean ge- life, but there are far too many ques- ometry to make the most successful tions about the safety of psilocybin to model that we have of the behavior of promote its use. the universe on large scales of distance Charles E. Dean, M.D. and time. Abstract results in number Apple Valley, Minn. theory, Zhang’s field, underlie cryptog- raphy used to protect communication Pollan’s article about using psychedel- on devices that many of us use every ics in medical treatments offers a sad day. Abstract mathematics, beautiful in commentary on how government fund- itself, continually results in helpful ap- ing for scientific research is influenced plications, and that’s pretty wonderful heavily by political and cultural values and delightful, too. that are unrelated to science. With few David Lee exceptions, federal support for research Sandy Spring, Md. on so-called drugs of abuse has taken into consideration only their adverse • effects, reinforcing the bias of policy- Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail makers and funders. As a former di- to [email protected]. Letters may be rector of the White House Office of edited for length and clarity, and may be pub- lished in any medium. We regret that owing to Drug Abuse Policy, I now feel a sense the volume of correspondence we cannot reply of shame at having failed to try to re- to every letter or return letters.

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 5

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

MARCH WEDNESDAY • THURSDAY • FRIDAY • SATURDAY • SUNDAY • MONDAY • TUESDAY 2015 4TH 5TH 6TH 7TH 8TH 9TH 10TH

Björk can sometimes fail her songs by writing lyrics that are overlush and insistent, but she managed to untangle her words to superb effect on “Vespertine” (2001), and, now, on “Vulnicura,” her new ART | ABOVE & BEYOND album, she makes much of a common occurrence: the dissolution of a marriage. By working with artists NIGHT LIFE | movies such as the late John Tavener, she has learned how to use the emotional power of an aging singer’s THE THEATRE voice (she turns fifty next year) to make music that is not pop but a kind of classical melodrama. This month, the Icelandic star performs concerts at Carnegie Hall, Kings Theatre, and City Center, and CLASSICAL MUSIC on March 8 MOMA opens a retrospective of the artist’s work that will no doubt be interesting and DANCE | FOOD & DRINK complicated, since museums are known to fix artists in time, while Björk insists on moving through it. illustration by sachin teng Museums and Libraries New York Public Library ART “Public Eye: 175 Years of Sharing Photography” This engrossing show of more than five hundred pictures from the library’s collections puts social media in historical context. To make the case that “photography has always been social,” the curator Stephen C. Pinson presents pictorial evidence in books, magazines, newspapers, albums, frames, and vitrines, culminating in an interactive display, on a huge touch screen, which animates the entire length of Broadway through Instagram feeds and Google street views. The artists range from anon- ymous hobbyists to investigative photojournalists (Lewis Hine) to contemporary Conceptualists (Zoe Leonard). It’s a rare opportunity to see the library’s collection in depth, and the premise makes even vintage material feel of the moment. Through Jan. 3, 2016. 3 Galleries—Uptown Giulio Paolini This historically minded veteran of Arte Povera offers a portrait of the artist as equal parts Re- naissance man, bricoleur, comic, and con man. In one installation, “The Author Who Thought He Existed,” Paolini covers a table with scattered images: Greek statues, the planets, eyeglasses, black-and-white sketches; an overturned chair suggests its occupant’s hasty departure. One- point perspective, the foundational lie of Western painting, is a fixation of Paolini’s. Red diagonal lines on one wall here create a fictional vanishing point. Near it, there’s a detail of a painting by Chardin: a boy blowing a soap bubble, a thing of beauty that’s also on the verge of vanishing. Through March 13. (Marian Goodman, 24 W. 57th St. 212-977-7160.)

Always downtown in spirit, the Whitney relocates from Madison Avenue to the base of the High Line. Ken Schles Like Nan Goldin’s “Ballad of Sexual Dependency,” Schles’s photography series “Invisible City,” Spring PREVIEW published as a book in 1988, was a pungent view of life in downtown New York. Both projects On May 1, the Whitney Museum opens in its new location, on Gansevoort Street. portray the East Village scene as by turns brutal and seductive, but Schles’s use of grainy black- The eight-story building, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, has sweeping and-white film gave his images the edge in classic views of the Hudson River, but they won’t pull focus from the inaugural show, an bohemian glamour. Pictures from “Invisible City,” in-depth look at the permanent collection, which is anchored deep in the American including that book’s haunting cover image of a building ablaze in Alphabet City, are joined here modern and contemporary canon, from Marsden Hartley to Rachel Harrison. Titled by recently published photographs from the same “America Is Hard to See” (after both Robert Frost’s revisionist ode to Christopher era. Through March 14. (Greenberg, 41 E. 57th Columbus and Emile de Antonio’s documentary about Eugene McCarthy’s St. 212-334-0010.) Presidential campaign), the exhibition will include plenty of crowd-pleasers—Hopper, John Zurier O’Keeffe, Calder’s “Circus”—but, with the Whitney’s brilliant chief curator, Donna The American painter translates the barren splen- De Salvo, at the helm, expect major twists in the conventional art-historical plot. dor of Iceland into foggy gray, moss, ochre, and icy blue. Don’t expect sublime landscapes; only Decades before “performance” devolved into a buzzword, the Whitney was hosting one of these fourteen works has anything like radical live art of all stripes in its former Marcel Breuer-designed quarters uptown, a horizon line. In his satisfyingly scuffed ab- from Ornette Coleman on saxophone to Trisha Brown scaling the walls. But the stractions—three blue stripes or an imperfectly perpendicular cross—Zurier has one eye on the museum has never had a proper theatre until now: a hundred-and-seventy-seat view from his studio and the other trained on the space with retractable risers, so it can shift from screening room to who knows what. private and knotty terrain of emotion. Through Even the most diehard Breuer fan would be hard pressed to find a kind word for the April 4. (Blum, 20 W. 57th St. 212-244-6055.) 3 museum’s old sculpture “garden”—an alfresco dungeon. The new Whitney boasts almost thirteen thousand square feet of outdoor space on four levels. Galleries—Chelsea On May 15, Central Park welcomes “Drifting in Daylight,” a series of projects Ori Gersht In a previous series, the Israeli photographer shot from Creative Time, including ice cream the colors of sunset, served out of a solar- bullets through flower arrangements and recorded powered truck, by the feel-good Conceptualist Spencer Finch. On May 17, “Yoko the gorgeous explosions. In his new work, silk Ono: One Woman Show,” at MOMA, revisits the period between 1960 and 1971, the replicas of bouquets in paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder are seen reflected in shattered mirrors. year Ono claims to have released flies at the museum for an unsanctioned show. A short video shows the mirrors collapsing in —Andrea K. Scott slow motion and then reassembling in a flash;

8 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL KIRKHAM

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NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY Man of La Mancha March 17-April 26 Shakespeare Theatre Miguel de Cervantes’ play within a play tells the tale of knight MARCH 13 through JANUARY 10 errant Don Quixote, a story of hope Eighth and F Streets, NW and “The Dare to Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown Dream” that rises Open 11:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m. npg.si.edu out of the gloom Harold Rosenberg #3 by Elaine de Kooning; 1956; Oil on canvas; National Portrait Gallery; courtesy Elaine de Kooning Trust Smithsonian’s and despair of a prison cell.

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President Lincoln is Dead: Man Ray Watch This! Revelations Eye Pop: The Celebrity Glaze Organic Matters The New York Herald Reports Human Equations in Media Art May 22-July 10, 2016 Women to Watch 2015 the Assassination Now through May 10 April 24-Sept. 7 National Portrait Gallery June 5-Sept. 13 Now through Jan. 10 The Phillips Collection Smithsonian American This exhibit explores National Museum of Art Museum Women in the Arts The Newseum Feast your eyes on the separate roles surrealist artworks Explores key moments of subject, artist and In its fourth To commemorate the viewer in creating the 150th anniversary of which illustrate the in history infl uenced installment, this relationship between by science and celebrity gaze, and series will feature Lincoln’s assassination, features photos from all seven of the New art and science at technology, and the contemporary female York Herald America’s fi rst museum relationship between the likes of Todd Glaser artists using imagery special and Annie Leibovitz. editions from April 15, of Modern Art. technology and and materials taken 1865 will be displayed. culture. from the natural world. ADVERTISEMENT UPCOMING CULTURAL EVENTS IN DC:

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The Lincoln Tribute Passport DC DC Jazz Festival AFI DOCS Film Festival April 14-15 May 1-31 June 10-16 June 17-21 Ford’s Theatre Citywide Citywide Citywide This multi-day event Enjoy tours of more Featuring more The American Film commemorates the than 70 embassies, than 100 jazz Institute’s 5-day death of President an Embassy Chef performances at international festival Abraham Lincoln, Challenge, and concert venues and presents diverse and allows visitors many family-friendly clubs throughout documentaries to explore the activities during DC, the festival ranging in topics theatre, re-live the this month-long presents major jazz from national moments after he celebration of artists from around politics, education was shot and more. international cultures. the world and and health to music, introduces emerging sports and culture. artists.

WASHINGTON.ORG big color photographs freeze the moments of dazzling disintegration. Each bright abstraction is as faceted as a gem and as menacing as a bomb on the brink of detonation. Through March 14. (CRG, 535 W. 22nd St. 212-229-2766.)

Alfredo Jaar The political Chilean artist is obsessed with the violence of recent Latin-American history and with art’s ability (or failure) to act as a witness. Here, in a dark sequence of corridors, he displays little-known images from 1978 by a Dutch photojournalist, documenting the last days of Nicaragua’s dictatorship—a man lying dead by the roadside, a dozen men rounded up by police. A projected image shows two daugh- ters grieving for their dead father, then fades the background to black and flares the women to such blazing white that their impressions remain on your retina for seconds afterward. War photography, Jaar understands, can never convey more than a trace of the collective an- guish. Through March 28. (Galerie Lelong, 528 W. 26th St. 212-315-0470.) 3 Galleries—Downtown Jon Kessler The New York sculptor is best known for his paranoiac, immersive, televisual installations, but since 1994 he has also been making much smaller works given as gifts. Most have kinetic elements, and look like things that Mark di Suvero might make if he drank ayahuasca: a seesaw that counterposes stones and a bird skeleton, a pen- dulum whose base is a Chinatown-sourced horse figurine, chains providing ballast for water glasses with flowers. Each one expresses Kessler’s love, wit, and generosity. Through March 28. (Salon 94 Freemans, 1 Freeman Alley. 212-529-7400.)

Danny McDonald Male action figures—Uncle Sam, Yoda, Robocop, Twinkie the Kid—are combined in unsettling, sometimes narrative combinations, which the New York artist displays here like relics. At times, an unsubtle homoeroticism lands with a thud: G.I. Joe, machine gun strapped to his back, quenches his thirst with a phallic bottle. But if McDonald’s concatenations can feel glib—note the nod to Jeff Koons in four Incredible Hulks stacked like totem-pole figures–the show’s over-all tone is gratifyingly acid. Through March 14. (Maccarone, Ed Koren’s new show, “Wet Ink,” includes the above lithograph and others from his “Bikes and Beasts” 98 Morton St. 212-431-4977.) series, as well as drawings published in this magazine. It opens on March 5 at the Luise Ross gallery.

above beyond

“The Lives of Hamilton Fish” and the vocal parts are performed of works by younger figures, including you—not unintentionally—of a scratchy Art in General, a nonprofit art space, live by actors, who also act out what the Russian-born artist Kon Trubko- image on a Soviet-era television screen. presents a multimedia storytelling happens on-screen; live musicians vich, whose “Untitled” may remind (450 Park Ave. 212-940-1200.) event about people who lived in play along to the film’s score. (Root New York State during the Great Studios, 443 W. 18th St. artingeneral. Readings and Talks Depression. The piece chronicles org. March 6-7.) Doctor Dread the deaths, one day apart in 1936, of The reggae producer Gary Himelfarb discusses his new memoir, “The Half two different men named Hamilton Auctions and Antiques That’s Never Been Told,” joined by David Hinds, of Steel Pulse. (Brooklyn Fish, one a statesman and one a serial The contemporary-art specialist Phillips Public Library, Grand Army Plaza. 718-230-2100. March 4 at 7.) killer. The interdisciplinary explora- holds its first two sales of the year on tion is the brainchild of the sculptor, March 3-4. The evening sale contains Franklin Park Reading Series songwriter, and performer Rachel pricier contemporary lots, including Lev Grossman, James Hannaham, Sarah Gerard, and other writers celebrate Mason, and it takes the form of a one of Richard Prince’s manly cowboy the sixth anniversary of this monthly event. (Franklin Park Bar and Beer “cinematic rock opera performance.” images, from 1986. “Under the Influ- Garden, 618 St. Johns Pl., between Franklin and Classon Aves., Brooklyn.

ED KOREN In other words, a film is projected, ence,” the next day, is a compendium franklinparkbrooklyn.com. March 9 at 8.)

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 13 Rock and Pop Musicians and night-club proprietors lead complicated lives; it’s advisable to check in NIGHT LIFE advance to confirm engagements.

Kristin Andreassen This inventive local singer-songwriter, who has played with Uncle Earl and Sometymes Why, has done just fine on her own. “Crayola Doesn’t Make a Color for Your Eyes,” a song on her first solo record, “Kiss Me Hello,” won the Children’s Category in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in 2007. At Joe’s Pub on March 10, she celebrates the release of her second solo album, “Gondolier,” in the company of a full band, special guests, and shadow puppets. (425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.)

Will Butler The singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist is a core member of Arcade Fire (his brother is its front man) who earned an Oscar nomination along with Owen Pallett for their score to Spike Jonze’s film “Her.” But his most riveting work may be on the horizon, and his solo début, “Policy,” comes out on Tuesday. The lead single off the album, “Take My Side,” is a raw, rollicking rock song that contains blissful pop moments and brilliantly bratty lyrics. The rest of the album incorporates New Wave elements, ballads, and rockabilly, suggesting that Butler is a free spirit on the loose. (March 5: Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. 212-533-2111. March 7: Baby’s All Right, 146 Broadway, Brooklyn. 718-599-5800.)

Tony Conrad The experimental musician, filmmaker, visual artist, and educator has been an influence on contemporary music since 1963, when he joined La Monte Young in the Theatre of Eternal Music (also known as the Dream Syndicate), an ensemble that later included the Welsh violist John Cale. The Molly Rankin brings the toe-tapping, yearning songs of Alvvays to town for a pair of shows. group, which helped invent minimalism, played ecstatic, transfixing drone-based music, and Cale took some of the group’s sonic insights with him Spring PREVIEW when he joined the Velvet Underground, where they made a permanent impression on rock. In It’s not just hope that springs eternal—it’s youth itself. On March 26, the twenty-nine- 1973, Conrad made his own contribution to rock aesthetics when he collaborated with the German year-old piano-playing crooner Tobias Jesso, Jr., makes his local début, with a show at group Faust on a beautiful, austere record called the Mercury Lounge (followed the next night by an appearance at Baby’s All Right, in “Outside the Dream Syndicate.” To celebrate his Brooklyn), performing the attenuated and piercingly sad ballads on his first album, “Goon,” seventy-fifth birthday, Issue Project Room is presenting Conrad in two concerts. On March which comes out on March 17. Molly Rankin is a twenty-seven-year-old singer with a 5, at the First Unitarian Congregational Society beguiling, windswept voice (she was born into the Rankin family, a legendary folk group (116 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn), he will be mostly from Nova Scotia). She fronts the band Alvvays (pronounced “always”), which released on violin, accompanied by the ritualistic composer Charlemagne Palestine on organ. On March 7, a self-titled first album of fuzzy, upbeat, and romantic pop last year and is now looking he is performing a benefit for the organizers. forward to two of its biggest shows yet in New York: a headlining gig at the Bowery (issueprojectroom.org.) Ballroom, on April 2, and an appearance as the opening act for the Decemberists, at the Punch Brothers Beacon Theatre, on April 6. Natalie Prass, a twenty-eight-year old singer-songwriter and “Virtuosity loves company” might be the motto Nashville refugee (she recently moved to Richmond, Virginia), released her début album in of this act—the mandolinist and lead singer Chris January. The self-titled collection of heartbreak songs, which took years to finish, is abundant Thile (also of Nickel Creek), the banjoist Noam Pikelny, the bassist Paul Kowert, the guitarist Chris with orchestral horn and string parts, but at the Bowery Ballroom, on May 4, she’ll be Eldridge, and the fiddle player Gabe Witcher backed by a spare three-piece band, which puts the anguish of her voice at the forefront. are all brilliant musicians. The quintet bends Youth will always have its place in the music business, but some things are timeless. the boundaries of bluegrass, tying in elements of jazz, pop, rock, country, and classical music. Their The Village Vanguard celebrates its eightieth anniversary, starting March 10. The newly released fourth album, “The Phosphorescent pianist Jason Moran will be there through March 15, along with jazz greats, poets, and Blues,” is their most richly complex work to date, comedians. Touring together for the first time since 1978, Chick Corea and Herbie starting with a ten-minute track, “Familiarity,” full of lightning-quick finger-plucking, moving Hancock visit Carnegie Hall on April 9. Billie Holiday, who got her start in Harlem as a melodies, and honeyed harmonies. (Beacon Theatre, teen-ager, would have been a hundred this year. On April 10, three days after Holiday’s Broadway at 74th St. 212-465-6500. March 5.) birthday, Cassandra Wilson, whose new record, “Coming Forth by Day,” is a celebration Suicide of the singer, takes the party to the Apollo Theatre. The singer and visual artist Alan Vega and the —John Donohue keyboardist Martin Rev formed this duo here

14 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL KRALL in 1970, and were later part of the first wave of CBGB punk. Their spare, guitarless lineup and performance-art overtones set them apart, while their eerie sound, created by Rev’s synthesizers and Vega’s half-spoken, blues-tinged vocals, greatly influenced industrial and techno music. Both Vega and Rev came from working-class neighborhoods in the outer boroughs, and some of their best songs—such as “Frankie Teardrop,” a gripping narrative off their self-titled 1977 début album, about a Vietnam veteran committing suicide—exhibit a gritty realism rarely matched in underground music. (Webster Hall, 125 E. 11th St. 212-353-1600. March 7.) 3 Jazz and Standards Anat Cohen The clarinet may never reassume its place in the forefront of jazz, but it won’t be for any lack of trying on Cohen’s part. This Israeli-born stylist is also a fine saxophonist, but her skillful clarinet excursions run through a wide variety of styles, including post-bop, New Orleans jazz, Brazilian music, klezmer, and Middle Eastern idioms. She first surfaced on the New York scene nearly two decades ago, and this engagement, in celebration of her new album, “Luminosa,” finds her fleshing out her quartet with special guests during part of the run. (Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St. 212- 576-2232. March 4-8.)

Albert (Tootie) Heath The seventy-nine-year-old drummer has devel- oped a terrific, knockabout familiarity with the pianist Ethan Iverson (of the Bad Plus) and the bassist Ben Street, two musicians nearly half his age. The trio’s winning effect is apparent on their new album, ”Philadelphia Beat.” Its mix of bebop classics and more far-reaching choices, including the disco hit “I Will Survive” and an adaptation of a Bach chorale prelude, points to the delightfully off-kilter sensibility that unites them. (Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037. March 3-8.)

Vijay Iyer Set next to his more dauntingly ambitious projects, the trio albums of the relentlessly inventive pianist are among his most inviting recordings. His new release, “Break Stuff,” blends rhythmically alert original work with reinterpretations of classics by John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Billy Strayhorn (including a gorgeous solo rendition of “Blood Count”). The material highlights the now symbiotic connection Iyer has developed with the bassist Stephan Crump and the drummer Marcus Gilmore. Iyer brings his trio to the Metropolitan Museum’s Temple of Dendur on March 7. (Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. metmuseum.org.)

Phillip Johnston One of the few major players to concentrate solely on the soprano sax, Johnston is best known as a mainstay of the Microscopic Septet, the endur- ing and unclassifiable ensemble he co-founded with the pianist Joel Forrester three decades ago. During a weeklong residency at the Stone, Johnston, who now lives in Australia, is displaying the broad range of his musical interests. He will be performing solo (with prerecorded audio), in duos (with the accordionist Guy Klucevsek and the saxophonist Ned Rothenberg), and with the Micros, who will be making a pair of shape-shifting appearances, one with a set of entirely free improvisations and another without their rhythm section. (Avenue C at 2nd St. thestonenyc.com. March 3-8.)

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 15 Now Playing Approaching the Elephant MOVIES Amanda Rose Wilder’s nuanced and passionate documentary, about the first year of a “free” ele- mentary school in New Jersey, reveals the glories and the limitations of unstructured classrooms and observational filmmaking alike. The school relies on self-regulation. There are no required classes, and all rules are decided democratically by the students (of whom there are about a dozen, all seemingly between six and ten years old); the teachers function mainly as safety officers, con- sultants, and parliamentarians. Wilder centers the drama on Jio, a tall, spirited boy who overflows with both creative and destructive energy. When he is ultimately voted out of the school, the class philosopher, Lucy, whom he had bullied, says, “I don’t like the things he does, but it’s boring when he’s not here.” Wilder’s black-and-white cinematography focusses on the children’s inspiring dialectics and painful conflicts, but she omits her relationships with students, teachers, and parents; the resulting impersonal stance seems like a needless contrivance.—Richard Brody (In limited release.)

Buzzard The second shot of Joel Potrykus’s second feature offers a cinematic high: a five-minute-plus closeup of a pale, scruffy, moon-eyed, blandly insolent young man pulling a fast one. Marty Jackitansky (Joshua Burge) tells a bank officer to close his account and then reopens it immediately for a fifty-dollar new-account bonus. A temp at the same bank, Marty is a brazen master of gaming the system; he returns the bank’s office supplies to a store for cash and calls consumer hot lines to demand refunds—but when he steals small refund checks meant for the bank’s customers, it’s a scam too far. Fearing arrest, Marty goes on the run. Potrykus constructs the character of Marty as an Emma Bovary who’s in thrall to horror In “She’s Funny That Way,” Owen Wilson directs, Imogen Poots acts, and Jennifer Aniston listens. movies and headbanger rock, a raging king of anomie and attitude in a suburban wasteland of no future. (The director co-stars as Marty’s only Spring PREVIEW friend, Derek, a super-nerdy colleague). Marty remains a blank even as his violent fantasies break Peter Bogdanovich, a master of screwball comedy and a connoisseur of classic through to reality, but his tenuous connections to his family and the countdown of his scant movies, fuses these talents in “She’s Funny That Way” (May 1), a New York-centric funds sketch a chilling story. Potrykus’s puckishly satire, starring Imogen Poots as a former prostitute, now an actress, who auditions for outrageous visions are short on insight, but they a play directed by a former client (Owen Wilson). The film’s original title, “Squirrels pack an enduring hallucinatory power.—R.B. (In limited release.) to the Nuts,” is a line from Ernst Lubitsch’s 1946 comedy, “Cluny Brown,” and Bogdanovich puts it at the center of the action. Will Forte co-stars as the playwright, Fifty Shades of Grey who falls for the actress; Jennifer Aniston plays a therapist with an attitude. The setting is Washington State, the place where love gets weird. Could there be something in the A Danish-Argentine Western is an unlikely but effective formula in“Jauja” rain? Boy meets girl, but there’s always a hitch; (March 20). It stars Viggo Mortensen as an army engineer in nineteenth-century in “Twilight,” the boy was a vampire, and now, in Patagonia, who pursues his teen-age daughter (Viilbjørk Agger Malling) after she Sam Taylor-Johnson’s gloomy new film, the girl is swept off her feet, only to discover that the boy has run off with a young officer. The director, Lisandro Alonso, sets the violent, wants to tie her up by the wrists. It’s like an R-rated hallucinatory story in a forbidding landscape and films it with a square, vignetted game of Twister. The script was adapted by Kelly frame that gives it the dreamlike feeling of archival photography. Marcel from the golden-tongued best-seller by E. L. James, but not quite adapted enough. Chris- The writer and director Noah Baumbach’s collaboration with Ben Stiller, which tian Grey (Jamie Dornan) remains as dreary as started with “Greenberg,” continues with “While We’re Young” (March 27). Stiller ever, despite the snugness of his torture room and and Naomi Watts play documentary filmmakers whose marriage is shaken by a new his peculiar habit of sitting down to play Chopin, molto adagio, at the drop of a riding crop. As friendship with a young couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). Baumbach, Anastasia Steele, the bashful student who yearns long fascinated by the breached boundaries of art and life, reworks the theme in the for him, Dakota Johnson strives courageously, drama of the couples’ calamitous joint artistic venture. and even finds traces of wit in the role, but she still bumps into the old, disheartening question: Performance and reality also clash in Olivier Assayas’s “Clouds of Sils Maria” would the girl adore the boy if it weren’t for his (April 10). Juliette Binoche plays an actress preparing for a role as an older woman in billions, his blinding white shirts, and the ride she a conflict-riddled relationship with a younger one. Kristen Stewart plays the actress’s gets on his chopper? Warning: the film contains whipping scenes, which some pastry chefs may assistant, who becomes both an artistic collaborator and an uneasy intimate. find distressing.—Anthony Lane (Reviewed in —Richard Brody our issue of 2/23 & 3/2/15.) (In wide release.)

16 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY VICTOR MELAMED

Focus of adultery or abuse but simply Wenders fills the movie with cinephilic Opening This comic thriller begins as a twist for lack of love. In her path stands quotations and references. Robert, a Buzzard on the classic crime romance “Trouble rabbinical law, which demands the literary man, arrives like a character Reviewed in Now Playing. in Paradise”: two smooth grifters, the husband’s consent—something that from “Pierrot le Fou” and acts like Opening March 6. (In limited release.) veteran Nicky (Will Smith) and the the saturnine Simon will not give. a character from “L’Avventura,” but novice Jess (Margot Robbie), pick The movie is written and directed he forms a duo with the easy-riding Chappie each other’s pockets and thus seal a by Elkabetz herself, together with Bruno that seems closer to Laurel and In this science-fiction drama, directed by Neill Blomkamp, a partnership made in heaven. Nicky her brother Shlomi. Almost all of the Hardy. Bewilderment in a wasteland police robot is reprogrammed teaches Jess some secrets and recruits film takes place inside a courtroom, at has rarely been filmed with such tender to act like a civilian. Starring her for his high-class, quasi-corporate irregular intervals over five years, but irony and sentimental optimism. In Hugh Jackman and Sigourney criminal team, which moves into there is no sense of drag or slump; on German.—R.B. (MOMA; March 6 Weaver. Opening March 6. New Orleans to fleece the yokels on the contrary, the action quivers with and March 9.) (In wide release.) hand for a Super Bowl-like event. tension, impatience, comic heat, and, revivals and festivals A compulsive gambler who risks beneath it all, an irrepressible rage. In Kingsman: The Secret Service Titles in bold are reviewed. the team’s bankroll, Nicky is also Hebrew.—A.L. (In limited release.) The new film from Matthew Vaughn a consummate professional who’s is about a British organization, dedi- Anthology Film Archives unwilling to take a chance on love. Grey Gardens cated to the common good, that lurks “Screenwriters and the But he and Jess meet again later in The wreckage left by Gatsbyesque behind a tailoring establishment in Blacklist.” March 6 at 9:15 and Buenos Aires, when they’re working frivolity is plumbed to desperate London’s Savile Row. It comprises March 10 at 7: “Cry of Battle” opposite sides of a Formula One race. depths in Albert and David Maysles’s a Camelot of knightly spies, each (1963, Irving Lerner). Smith is breezy, canny, understated, 1975 documentary, about a formerly with an appropriate alias. Galahad BAM Cinématek and Robbie hides scalpel-sharp wiles wealthy mother and daughter, erst- (Colin Firth), for instance, answers “Rendez-Vous with French behind a poker face, but the writers while luminaries of the society pages, to Arthur (Michael Caine), and relies Cinema.” March 8 at 6: “May Allah Bless France!” (2014, Abd and directors, Glenn Ficarra and living in squalid chaos in their once on the technical wizardry of Merlin Al Malik). John Requa, submerge the stars’ glorious East Hampton estate. Edith (Mark Strong). Their current task easy chemistry in a murky stew of Ewing Bouvier Beale (born in 1895), is to trounce the nefarious Valentine Film Forum In revival. March 6-12 (call for clever yet absurd plot twists of a called Big Edie, was Jackie Onassis’s (Samuel L. Jackson), who plans to showtimes): “Grey Gardens.” nearly superheroic hyperbole. That aunt; her daughter, Edith Bouvier brainwash the cell-phone users of sound you hear is the high-fives in Beale, Little Edie (born in 1917), the world. (Whether this really Film Society of Lincoln Center the writers’ room, and that, unfortu- was Onassis’s cousin. Before the needs doing, the film never dares “Rendez-Vous with French nately, is where the filmmakers’ focus filming started, Onassis came to their to ask.) In the process, Galahad Cinema.” March 9 at 6:45: remains. With Adrian Martinez, as rescue, getting their pest-infested, must call on the streetwise skills “Eat Your Bones” (2014, Jean- an able accomplice with no verbal garbage-filled home cleaned up to of Eggsy (Taron Egerton), who is Charles Hue). • March 8 at filter, and Gerald McRaney, as a save it from condemnation by the gradually groomed for a world of 2: “My Friend Victoria” (2014, crusty arm-twister with pride in health authorities, but the Maysleses bespoke gadgets and flattering suits. Jean-Paul Civeyrac). his craft.—R.B. (In wide release.) catch the Beales on the downturn The movie whips along, snatching French Institute Alliance again. Performing flamboyantly for laughs where it can, desperately aping Française Gaby Baby Doll the filmmakers and hungrily seeking the early style of 007, but it’s also The films of Benoît Jacquot. March 10 at 4 and 7:30: “A This subtly frantic romantic com- their approval, mother and daughter content to uphold social distinctions Single Girl” (1995). edy by Sophie Letourneur is both a spill their lifelong recriminations that would have looked creaky half sentimental delight and a cinematic over circumstances that led to their a century ago, and not everyone IFC Center “Rendez-Vous with French equation: add a budget, a script, and isolation, poverty, and folie à deux. will savor the mismatch between Cinema.” March 8 at 9: “Eat stars to a director of homemade, impro- The pathos is heightened by Big the discreet manners of the agents Your Bones” (2014, Jean- vised, personal movies. Letourneur’s Edie’s bedridden singing of classic and the unhinged restlessness of the Charles Hue). • March 9 at 9: solution is to seek the exquisite. Lolita show tunes: she’s a graceful master director’s approach. If you don’t fancy “Gaby Baby Doll.” Chammah, performing like a French of timing and tone, a nearly great watching Firth commit bone-crushing Museum of Modern Art Greta Gerwig, plays Gaby, a young artist who squandered her chances and mayhem, look away.—A.L. (2/16/15) The films of Wim Wenders. woman whose psychiatrist lends her her life. Little Edie, still clinging to (In wide release.) March 4 at 4 and March 8 his country house to recover from a vestiges of youth and inflamed with at 1:30: “The Left-Handed nervous breakdown. Left there by her desire, nearly raves for David Maysles The Left-Handed Woman Woman.” • March 4 at 7: “The friends, unable to stay alone, Gaby as she performs majorette routines A hidden masterpiece. Peter Handke’s Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty recruits men from the local café to from her junior-college days. Rarely first feature film, from 1978, adapted Kick” (1971). • March 6 at 7 and March 9 at 6: “Kings of the sleep chastely with her until, running have high spirits and theatrical energy from his own novella, tells a feminist Road.” • March 7 at 1:30: “Until out of candidates, she crashes with seemed like such a tragic waste; an story with a keen-eyed empathy the End of the World,” the Nicolas (played by the pop singer era and its myths seem to be dying untainted by doctrine. A bourgeois director’s cut (1991/94). Benjamin Biolay), the caretaker of a on-screen in real time. Directed by German family living in stifling Museum of the Moving nearby abandoned château, who lives the Maysles brothers, Ellen Hovde, comfort in the suburbs of Paris is torn Image in a tiny tin-roofed shack. Letourneur and Muffie Meyer.—R.B. (Film apart when Marianne (Edith Clever) “See It Big!” March 6 at 7: unfolds Gaby’s neurotic pathos in Forum; March 6-12.) suddenly decides she wants to be rid “Playtime” (1967, Jacques puckish yet painterly images of the of her energetic, adoring husband Tati). • March 7 at 7:30: rustic landscape. When night falls and Kings of the Road (Bruno Ganz) and make a literary life “Nothing But a Man” (1964, Gaby’s terrors deepen, the movie’s In 1975, Wim Wenders headed to of her own. Handke’s keen dramatic Michael Roemer). eerie darkness is punctured only West Germany’s Wild East, along sense guides the action from outer to by the delicate dance of flashlights. the border of the Iron Curtain, to inner truths: Marianne’s voice isn’t Nicolas, a hirsute hermit, is as unfit film an American-style road movie heard for the first ten minutes, and for company as Gaby is for solitude; about Bruno (Rüdiger Vogler), a then it erupts with sharply reasoned Letourneur pulls off the predestined shaggy film-projector repairman who fury. He frames the closely observed magic with a light and giddy touch. In lives in his truck, and Robert (Hanns action with tactile immediacy: the French.—R.B. (IFC Center; March 9.) Zischler), a despairing intellectual suburban landscape vibrates with the whom he picks up along his route. gusty rush of trains, a fireplace gives Gett: The Trial of Viviane The desolate region is haunted by off palpable heat, and the springtime Amsalem the past (the movie opens with the light seems painted on the screen Ronit Elkabetz’s blend of intensity confessions of an ex-Nazi theatre by an artist’s hand. Handke balances movie OF THE WEEK and containment brings to mind the owner) and bears the scars of war, yet deep moods with vivid side business, A video discussion of Allan prime of Meryl Streep. Here, she Wenders coolly captures the American including whimsical games and painful Dwan’s “Silver Lode,” from plays Viviane, who is seeking a divorce invasion of Bruno’s life off the grid. provocations by Marianne’s young son 1954, in our digital edition and from Elisha (Simon Abkarian) after Rock music and Hollywood movies (Markus Mühleisen). Brilliant turns online. thirty years of marriage, not because fill Bruno’s days and nights, and by Rüdiger Vogler (playing himself)

18 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 and Bernhard Minetti, as Marianne’s father—a writer who delivers tough advice—round out the bracing, poetic blend of experience and imagination. THE In German and French.—R.B. (MOMA; March THEATRE 4 and March 8.)

What We Do in the Shadows A mock documentary from New Zealand, written and directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. They also star, as two of the four vampires who share a house in Wellington, doing their best to blend in with—and occasionally feast upon—the local community. The basic conceit sounds weari- some; if Mel Brooks and Leslie Nielsen couldn’t make bloodsucking funny in “Dead and Loving It,” what hope is there for anyone else? From this unpromising material, however, Clement and Waititi have fashioned something sprightly and smart, stuffed with gags from the start and trimmed with an unexpected charm. Time and again, the exotic (or simply messy) needs of the heroes are set off against the blandness of their environs—and, most notably, of their unbitten pals, such as Stu (Stuart Rutherford) and Jackie (Jackie van Beek), who refuse to be awed by the presence of the undead. Like all effective spoofs, the movie sinks its teeth so deeply into its chosen genre that the impression may turn out to be permanent; from now on, trying to watch the “Twilight” films with a straight face will feel harder than ever before.—A.L. (2/16/15) (In limited release.)

Wild Canaries Turning the daily life of a not quite bourgeois and not quite bohemian couple into a screwball caper, the writer and director Lawrence Michael Levine delivers a fast, loose-limbed, incisively inventive twist on a Brooklyn murder mystery. He and his real-life wife, Sophia Takal, star, as Noah, a partner in a struggling film business, and Barri, who’s seeking to renovate a resort. When their elderly neighbor Sylvia dies, suspicion falls upon her furtive son, Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe star in the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic “The King and I.” Anthony (Kevin Corrigan), and Barri decides to spy on him. The couple’s strains come to the fore Spring PREVIEW as Barri’s daring pranks rope Noah into danger. Romantic subplots involving their roommate, Jean (Alia Shawkat), and Noah’s business partner, Broadway is an old dog, slow to learn new tricks. But every now and then it aces one of its Eleanor (Annie Parisse), give an added edge to the couple’s latent discontents and screaming fights. As old tricks. The audiences who flocked to Lincoln Center’s 2008 revival of “South Pacific” performers, Levine and Takal are both practiced won’t soon forget its thrilling first moments: the lights dimmed, the opening strains of “Bali and casual; as a director, Levine displays a sharp Ha’i” filled the Vivian Beaumont, and a moving platform revealed a sumptuous thirty-piece comedic touch; the result is self-deprecating and self-revealing. As in classics of the genre, the orchestra. For theatregoers accustomed to dinky offstage bands, it was an anachronistic couple’s quiet actions, rich in symbolic revelations marvel, instantly evoking Broadway’s golden age. Lincoln Center Theatre is clearly trying of unspoken desires, speak even louder than their to re-create the magic with “The King and I,” beginning previews March 12. Not only is it loudly delivered words.—R.B. (In limited release.) another Rodgers and Hammerstein classic (with some dated attempts at multiculturalism), Wild Tales the revival shares with “South Pacific” a director, Bartlett Sher, and a winsome leading lady, The Argentinean writer-director Damián Szifron’s Kelli O’Hara, who stars as Anna, opposite Ken Watanabe’s King of Siam. dark comedy is composed of six sketches about anger and revenge. All of them feature mildly Spring is Broadway’s busiest time, but two upcoming shows have devoured much of clever twists that are themselves the point, making the hype. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Wolf Hall: Parts One & Two,” based on any description a spoiler. The premises involve Hilary Mantel’s prize-winning historical novels, arrives at the Winter Garden starting a peculiar airplane voyage, a restaurant where a waitress serves a lifelong enemy, a case of road March 20. The two installments can be seen separately or, if your appetite is Henry rage on a desolate highway, a demolition engineer VIII-size, in one big feast. Harvey Weinstein makes his first outing as a lead Broadway with a grudge against the motor-vehicles bureau, a producer with “Finding Neverland” (March 15, at the Lunt-Fontanne), a musical hit-and-run accident caused by a wealthy man’s son, and a Jewish wedding where the bride’s suspicions adaptation of the 2004 film. Matthew Morrison plays J. M. Barrie, the childlike author lead to mayhem. Each sketch depicts violence and of “Peter Pan”; the resourceful Diane Paulus directs. illustrates the arrogance of the rich and powerful, Off Broadway is just as busy, and, in some cases, just as starry. At Classic Stage but the moralizing is as facile as the plotting is mechanical. The deliberate pacing is calculated to Company, Peter Sarsgaard plays Hamlet, directed by Austin Pendleton. (Previews underline the swerves in the script, which offers begin March 27.) At the Public, Julie Taymor directs “Grounded” (April 7), George little context or characterization. Szifron’s brightly Brant’s drama about a fighter pilot reassigned to drone warfare. The Hollywood heavy lit theatrics and simplistic attitudes seem borrowed from television commercials. In Spanish.—R.B. playing this warmonger? You guessed it: Anne Hathaway. (In limited release.) —Michael Schulman

ILLUSTRATION BY ANNETTE MARNAT THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 19 Openings and Previews three of the fiancés arrive at the The Iceman Cometh The Audience villa, bedlam ensues: among other Nathan Lane brings his often touching also notable Helen Mirren stars in a play by fun moments, a woman is repeatedly sad-sack clown act to the leading role Between Riverside and Crazy Peter Morgan, about Queen Eliz- thrown against the wall, at which in this Goodman Theatre production Second Stage abeth II and her private meetings point projections of photographs of of Eugene O’Neill’s disturbing drama. with twelve Prime Ministers in the broken glass fly out behind her; a Lane plays a periodic drunk who comes Brooklynite course of sixty years. Stephen Daldry man is castrated and his penis is to Harry Hope’s saloon to liberate Vineyard directs. Also starring Dylan Baker hacked up in a blender; a tenor the denizens there by destroying Cabaret and Judith Ivey. In previews. Opens sings a gorgeous version of Jason their dreams, and the performance, Studio 54 March 8. (Schoenfeld, 236 W. 45th Mraz’s song “I Won’t Give Up”; and though lacking in nuance, mostly Churchill St. 212-239-6200.) characters, frustrated, repeatedly works. But the real standout here New World Stages jump up in the air and crash hard is Brian Dennehy, who plays Larry, Fashions for Men Ghosts After Ibsen on the floor. Under the direction an old alcoholic looking forward Mint Austin Pendleton directs a play by of Mee’s longtime collaborator, to death. Under the direction of Fish in the Dark Thomas Kilroy, loosely adapted from Tina Landau, all eleven fine actors Robert Falls, Dennehy’s gorgeous Cort Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” in which a dead communicate vividly, through speech, performance is characterized by Hamilton father’s sins come back to haunt song, dance, and a lot of physical simplicity and stillness, the mark Public. (Reviewed in this his children. In previews. Opens humor, the difficulties of being of a mature artist with nothing to issue.) March 6. (The Cell, 338 W. 23rd women and men. (Pershing Square prove. (BAM’s Harvey Theatre, 651 Hedwig and the Angry St. 800-838-3006.) Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. Fulton St., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100.) Inch 212-244-7529.) Belasco A Happy End The Nether The Heidi Chronicles At the Abingdon, Alex Dmitriev Bright Half Life Jennifer Haley’s intriguing play, for Music Box directs a play by the Israeli writer In Tanya Barfield’s engaging new MCC, probes the blurry border Honeymoon in Vegas Iddo Netanyahu, in which a Jewish play, presented by Women’s Project, between what we do online and what Nederlander family living in Berlin must decide two attractive and articulate women we do off it. In the not so distant If/Then whether to leave Germany as Hit- (Rachael Holmes and Rebecca future—a time in which trees, wine, Richard Rodgers ler comes to power. In previews. Henderson) meet at work in their and IRL interfaces have become rari- The Insurgents Opens March 10. (312 W. 36th St. twenties, date secretly, fall in love, ties—a no-nonsense detective (Merritt Bank Street Theatre 866-811-4111.) have children, get married (when it Wever, of “Nurse Jackie”) determines Into the Woods becomes legal), fight a lot, split, and, to shut down a virtual realm called the Laura Pels The Liquid Plain separately, watch their kids grow up. Hideaway. A quaint Victorian retreat, Signature Theatre Company pre- This well-written portrayal of smart the Hideaway caters to clients with It’s Only a Play sents the New York première of a women finding, losing, and finding a taste for child pornography. Child Jacobs play by Naomi Wallace, set in the themselves and each other again, murder, too, with strangely willing Josephine and I late eighteenth century in Rhode is profound, and it’s made more victims. “Perhaps you’d like to start Public Island, about two runaway slaves so by the fact that Barfield, rather with the axe,” suggests nine-year-old Kinky Boots who seek freedom. Directed by than telling the story linearly, mixes Iris politely. Both incisive and naïve, Hirschfeld Kwame Kwei-Armah. In previews. up the chronology like someone Haley’s script argues that “just because Let the Right One In Opens March 8. (Pershing Square shaking up the pieces of a puzzle it’s virtual doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” St. Ann’s Warehouse. Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. and throwing them on a table: one Anne Kauffman’s production doesn’t Through March 8. 212-244-7529.) moment the women are breaking always feel especially real, but it’s brisk The Lion up in middle age, the next, one is and poised, offering reliably expert Lynn Redgrave Theatre Lonesome Traveler telling the other for the first time performances from Frank Wood, Little Children Dream James O’Neil’s play, part of the 5A how beautiful she is. As a result, past, as the Hideaway’s proprietor, and of God season, incorporates classic folk present, and future are contained Peter Friedman, as a former client Roundabout Underground songs in this consideration of the in each moment, and every one of who wants to move in permanently. Lives of the Saints genre’s legacy. Previews begin March them feels full. Under the direction (Lucille Lortel, 121 Christopher St. The Duke on 42nd Street 7. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th St. 212- of Leigh Silverman, Holmes and 212-352-3101.) Matilda the Musical 279-4200.) Henderson are wonderful. (City Shubert Center Stage II, 131 W. 55th St. Verité The Mystery of Love Made in China 212-581-1212.) The playwright Nick Jones (“The & Sex The Irish comedian Des Bishop re- Coward”) is no foam-finger fan of Mitzi E. Newhouse counts his experience doing standup The Events realism. He roots for the surreal and An Octoroon in Mandarin for a Chinese audience, In 2011, the playwright David Greig the hyperreal, the grotesque and the Polonsky Shakespeare in this one-man show. Previews begin and the director Ramin Gray, of the gross. But in this LCT3 comedy, he’s Center March 9. (Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Actors Touring Company, visited created two slightly sinister Nordic On the Town Barrow St. 212-868-4444.) Norway in the wake of Anders publishers (Matt McGrath and Lyric Breivik’s shocking mass killing. A Robert Sella) with a positive fetish On the Twentieth Small Mouth Sounds female vicar they met inspired the for authenticity. They decline the Century Bess Wohl wrote this play, premièring main character of this doleful theatre fantasy epic about a “simple farm American Airlines Theatre at Ars Nova, about a group of strangers piece, which features a different choir dwarf” that Jo (Anna Camp), a New Placebo on a silent retreat. Rachel Chavkin every night. Neve McIntosh and Jersey mom, has penned, but they Playwrights Horizons directs. Previews begin March 10. Clifford Samuel play, respectively, like her authorial voice, and they’re Posterity (511 W. 54th St. 212-352-3101.) a lesbian priest whose singers have offering a hefty advance on a misery Atlantic Theatre Company 3 been massacred and the various memoir, provided she supplies some Rasheeda Speaking people she encounters on her quest genuine misery. Or maybe they can Pershing Square Signature Now Playing for meaning. Their interplay comes supply it for her. If these characters Center Big Love off as a bit generic—we’ve seen this are mostly familiar types, they’re The World of Extreme In Charles Mee’s wild adaptation story over and over in the news, adroitly played. Camp, of “True Happiness of Aeschylus’ “The Danaids,” three always with jarring particulars—but Blood,” does the Barbie-with-a- City Center Stage I strong women in filthy wedding it’s the purposely under-rehearsed titanium-core thing often, and well. Wicked dresses break into the villa of a choir members, acting as a Greek But under Moritz von Stuelpnagel’s Gershwin wealthy bachelor in Italy, seeking chorus of bystanders, who lend direction, Jo’s absurdist attempts refuge from their home in Greece, the piece its poignant atmosphere to make best-seller art from her where they and their forty-seven of community ritual. (New York not-even-midlist life have an oddly sisters were about to be forcibly Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St. cheerless feel. (Claire Tow, 150 married to their cousins. When 212-279-4200.) W. 65th St. 212-239-6200.)

20 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015

Opera Metropolitan Opera Rossini’s exceedingly lovely “La Donna del Lago,” classical based on the ur-Romantic Walter Scott poem that’s set near a misty Scottish loch, trades in the typical operatic love triangle for a quadrangle. Elena, the titular “Lady of the Lake,” enchants a motley trio of suitors—King James V (the elegant Juan Diego Flórez), the chief of the Highlanders, Rodrigo (John Osborn, looking for all the world like Mel Gibson in “Braveheart”), and the young upstart Malcolm (Daniela Barcellona, in a pants role)—with a unique combination of beauty, dignity, and personal warmth. Fortunately, the Met has found just the right artist for the role in Joyce DiDonato, whose singing is handsome, stylish, and fiercely precise, even if her top notes emerge with difficulty. Paul Curran’s insubstantial production looks like it was designed and rehearsed on a shoestring, but the conductor, Michele Mariotti, leads the orchestra with quicksilver grace. (March 7 at 8 and March 10 at 7:30.) • Also playing: The season’s final two performances of “Carmen” feature an important addition to the cast: the charismatic tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who replaces Roberto Alagna in the role of Don José. Elīna Garanča continues to sing the title role, heading a cast that also features Ailyn Pérez as Micaëla and Gábor Bretz as Escamillo. Louis Langrée, Mostly Mozart’s music director, is on the podium. (March 4 at 7:30 and March 7 at 1.) • The Bartlett Sher production of “Les Contes d’Hoffmann,” already revived this season as an effective vehicle for the young superstar tenor Vittorio Grigolo, returns with a completely new cast, led by the Met’s éminence grise, James Levine. The fine lyric tenor Matthew Polenzani takes the title role; Karine Deshayes is Nicklausse; Laurent Naouri sings the Four Villains; and Audrey Luna, Susanna Phillips, and Elena Maximova portray the ill-fated subjects of Hoffmann’s erotic obsessions. (March 5 at 7:30.) • The New York Philharmonic’s The Met Museum projects “La Celestina,” an operatic film, on the walls of the Vélez Blanco Patio. Alan Gilbert conducts “Don Giovanni,” pacing a cast that features not only the established Met star Peter Mattei, in the title role, but also such fine Spring PREVIEW singers as Elza van den Heever, Jennifer Check, Kate Lindsey, and Luca Pisaroni. (March 6 at Major institutions are focussing on audience appeal with uncommon intensity 7:30. This is the final performance.) • Vittorio Grigolo, who did excellent work earlier this season this spring. At the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert’s emphasis is resolutely in the title role of “Les Contes d’Hoffmann,” on contemporary music. Gilbert will personally lead performances of Esa-Pekka makes another foray into French opera, this time Salonen’s “Nyx” (March 19-20 and March 24); the world première of John Adams’s singing Des Grieux in Massenet’s “Manon,” an extraordinarily lithe and sumptuous score. The “Scheherazade.2,” a symphony for violin and orchestra featuring Leila Josefowicz sparkling Diana Damrau is Manon, one of opera’s (March 26-28); a new concerto for violin and oboe by Thierry Escaich, with the most headstrong and reckless young women, and violinist (and Philharmonic favorite) Lisa Batiashvili and her husband, the oboist Russell Braun is Lescaut; Emmanuel Villaume. (March 9 at 7:30.) (Metropolitan Opera House. François Leleux, as soloists (April 8-11); and the U.S. première of “Senza Sangue,” 212-362-6000.) a one-act opera by the Hungarian modernist Peter Eötvös that features the mezzo- soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and the baritone Russell Braun (May 8-9). BAM: “Semele” In 2006, City Opera put a dizzily entertaining At Carnegie Hall, “Before Bach” offers a feast of works by the great composers, spin on Handel’s luxurious score, an English-lan- such as Cavalli and Purcell, who flourished in the Renaissance and early-Baroque guage opera about a socially ambitious young periods. Hard to pass up will be concerts by such acclaimed musicians as Jordi Savall beauty who catches the eye of Jupiter, with fatal results. Now the prominent Chinese artist Zhang and Le Concert des Nations (April 13 and April 16), Peter Phillips and the Tallis Huan has audaciously replaced Semele’s palace Scholars (April 17-18), and the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, with an actual four-hundred-and-fifty-year-old led by their founder, John Eliot Gardner (including Monteverdi’s “Orfeo,” on May 1). Ming-dynasty temple (weighing seventeen tons), which will be reconstructed on the stage of the One of the most intriguing productions this spring combines early and Howard Gilman Opera House; with equal daring, contemporary music while mixing in elements of opera, film, and sound art. “La he intersects Handel and Congreve’s plot with the Celestina,” a collaboration between the production company Erratica, the composer true-life story of a Chinese man who murdered one of his wife’s lovers. The controversial result, Matt Rogers, and the Chicago puppetry company Manual Cinema, is a fantastical presented by the singers and players of the Ca- exploration of the shadowy sexual intrigue of Fernando de Rojas’s fifteenth-century nadian Opera Company, features the coloratura Spanish novel. It will be projected in twenty-minute loops on the walls of the soprano Jane Archibald in the title role, with Christopher Moulds conducting. (30 Lafayette Metropolitan Museum’s Vélez Blanco Patio (March 20-29). Ave., Brooklyn. bam.org. March 4, March 6, and —Russell Platt March 10 at 7:30 and March 8 at 3.)

22 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY ELEANOR DAVIS Orchestras and Choruses achievements of Thomas, long the master of an Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center New York Philharmonic: “Contact!: intricate and colorful modernist style. The New A group of the Society’s exceptional string players New Music from Nordic Countries” York première of “Resounding Earth,” a work (including the violinists Ida Kavafian and Arnaud Alan Gilbert and Courtney Lewis, the orchestra’s involving more than three hundred percussion Sussmann) gather to offer a program of works assistant conductor, lead a chamber orchestra drawn instruments, lies at the heart of a concert that also both erudite and impassioned by Martinů, Ravel from the Philharmonic’s ranks in its next new-music includes an excerpt from the string quartet “Sun (the Sonata for Violin and Cello), and Mozart adventure, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Eric Threads” and two world premières. (Columbia (the Duo in G Major for Violin and Viola and the Bartlett is the soloist in the Cello Concerto No. 2, University, Broadway at 116th St. 212-854-7799. String Quintet in G Minor, K 516). (Alice Tully “Momentum,” by the distinguished Danish composer March 5 at 8.) Hall. 212-875-5788. March 8 at 5.) Per Nørgård (the latest winner of the Philharmon- ic’s Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music), the Kronos Quartet András Schiff centerpiece of a concert that also features works A Kronos concert always includes a fascinating array An avowed critic of the growing right-wing political by Kalevi Aho, Đuro Zivković, and Kaija Saariaho of new music; the high point of this one is the New tendencies in his native Hungary, this mercurial yet (the U.S. première of the string-orchestra version York première of Aleksandra Vrebalov’s “Beyond commanding pianist flies above the fray when he of her string quartet “Terra Memoria”). (Fifth Zero: 1914-1918,” a work (with film by Bill Morrison) sits down at his instrument. A pair of powerhouse Ave. at 82nd St. 212-570-3949. March 7 at 7:30.) that draws on the composer’s own experiences in the recitals at Carnegie Hall range over a collection war-torn Balkans of the nineteen-nineties. Music by of late sonatas by Haydn, Beethoven (Opp. 109 Met Chamber Ensemble Bryce Dessner and world premières by Derek Charke and 110), and Schubert (including the Sonata in Another of the city’s great ensembles goes small this and Merlijn Twaalfhoven are also featured. (Zankel A Major, D. 959). (carnegiehall.org. March 10 week. James Levine leads this occasional assemblage Hall. 212-247-7800. March 7 at 9.) and March 12 at 8.) of musicians from the Met Orchestra in a typically demanding program: works by Stravinsky (the Octet), Ives, Carter (the world première of “The American Sublime,” a song cycle based on Wallace Stevens poems and one of the composer’s final works), Cage (“Atlas Eclipticalis”), and Charles Wuorinen. The singers include the soprano Sharon Harms and the bass-baritone Evan Hughes. (Zankel Hall. 212-247- 7800. March 8 at 5.)

“Defiant Requiem” This unique concert presentation—combining live music, film, and dramatic narration—is the passion project of the noted American conductor Murry Sidlin; it commemorates the lives of Jewish prisoners at the Terezín concentration camp, who somehow, in the midst of enormous suffering, put on sixteen performances of Verdi’s Requiem, reclaiming their humanity and fostering hope. Sidlin and the orchestra are joined by the Collegiate Chorale, the eminent actors Bebe Neuwirth and John Rubinstein, and a group of vocal soloists that includes the Metropolitan Opera soprano Jennifer Check and the tenor Steven Tharp. (Avery Fisher Hall. 212-721-6500. March 9 at 7:30.) 3 Recitals Joshua Bell Having left the realm of contemporary music to more intrepid spirits (such as Leila Josefowicz and Hilary Hahn), this distinctive violinist is following in the footsteps of Itzhak Perlman, performing classical chestnuts with rare beauty and technical aplomb. Sam Haywood, his longtime pianist, joins him at Alice Tully Hall to perform sonatas by Beethoven (No. 4 in A Minor), Grieg, and Brahms (No. 1 in G Major), as well as Bartók’s Rhapsody No. 1 for Violin and Piano. (212-721-6500. March 4 at 7:30.)

Anna Caterina Antonacci Lincoln Center may let its hair down during the annual White Light Festival, but its “Art of the Song” series walks a conservative line with an array of illustrious, world-class singers. Antonacci, a soprano of surpassing elegance who has never appeared at the Met but who has found a home at Alice Tully Hall, is accompanied by Donald Sulzen in masterworks of French song by Berlioz, Debussy (“Chansons de Bilitis”), Duparc, and Ravel, along with two works by Poulenc: the seldom heard “La Fraîcheur et le Feu” and the pièce de résistance, the searing monodrama “La Voix Humaine.” (212-721-6500. March 5 at 7:30.)

Miller Theatre “Composer Portrait”: Augusta Read Thomas Two of the leading young forces for contemporary music in America—the JACK Quartet and Third Coast Percussion—team up to celebrate the

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 23 DANCE

The snap-pop contortions of flex head uptown, in “FLEXN,” at the Park Avenue Armory. Spring PREVIEW

Amazing physical feats that evoke animated special effects—gliding on the tips of toes, the surreal twisting of joints—are some of the elements that define the street-dance form called flex. It emerged in Brooklyn in the early nineties, on the streets and in the dance halls of East New York. Now flex is coming uptown. In “FLEXN,” at the Park Avenue Armory (March 25-April 4), personal stories and reflections on such events as the killing of Eric Garner—expressed through dance—are woven together by the dancers, in collaboration with the directors, Peter Sellars and the flex choreographer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray. Liz Gerring’s dances are clean, athletic, and elegant. Beneath their gleaming surface, one detects such influences as Merce Cunningham (in the witty footwork) and Trisha Brown (in the fluid use of the upper body), but the way that Gerring’s choreography suggests weather patterns and other natural phenomena is unique to her. For “Glacier” (at the Joyce March 31-April 2), performed by Liz Gerring Dance Company, Gerring paired up with the composer Michael Schumacher, whose minimalist score is suffused with sounds recorded at Glacier Lake, in Colorado. Surrounded by this aural fog and bathed in cool, shifting light, the dancers look like beautiful creatures skimming across a frozen expanse. Michelle Dorrance, whose company, Dorrance Dance, brings “The Blues Project” to the Joyce (April 4-5), has tap chops to spare. Her show is like the best kind of party: a fiddler plays; in addition to tap, there’s zydeco, Appalachian flatfooting, Lindy Hop, and about ten other styles of dance. Dorrance has put together a topflight group of dancers, including the phenomenal Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and musicians, led by Toshi Reagon, and she gives them room to swing. —Marina Harss

24 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY WESLEY ALLSBROOK Malpaso Dance Company Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras Melnick, and Sara Mearns and Ra- rare invitation of hoofers into the self- After a successful American début, last On her previous visits to New York, shaun Mitchell (formerly of the Merce dubbed House of Jazz—was a blast. year, the Havana-based ensemble is this Spanish star of flamenco delivered Cunningham Dance Company). (Dan - (Jazz at Lincoln Center, Broadway at back in town. Malpaso was founded productions that seemed to have more space Project, St. Mark’s Church In- 60th St. 212-721-6500. March 6-7.) in 2012 by expats from the more style than substance. Her technique the-Bowery, Second Ave. at 10th St. established Danza Contemporánea de is formidable, and her choreography 866-811-4111. March 5-7.) Vicky Shick Dance Cuba. The dancers, some trained at the is elegantly presented, yet it all rings If God is in the details, Shick is pretty national ballet school, are appealing, hollow. “Voces, Suite Flamenca,” “Salute to Betty Carter” close to divine. Her choreography, extroverted, and strong. Their style a fairly traditional collection of This celebration of the late icono- generally small in scale and narrow combines an Afro-Cuban vibe with numbers with a large cast of dancers clastic jazz singer is principally a in emotional range, may be pedestrian a more pared-down contemporary and musicians, closes out City Cen- music concert, featuring the talents or peculiar, but it is always particular, aesthetic. At the Joyce, they’ll perform ter’s three-week festival of Latin of the terrific young vocalist Char- often captivatingly so. This holds for a new work by the upbeat American dance. (131 W. 55th St. 212-581-1212. enee Wade amid such distinguished “Pathétique/Miniatures in Detail,” choreographer Trey McIntyre, and March 4-7.) former associates of the honoree as which premièred at the West End another by the troupe’s own artistic Craig Handy and Jacky Terrasson. Theatre last April and is being reprised director, Osnel Delgado. The latter “Platform 2015: Dancers, But it also includes the incisive tap for the Harkness Dance Festival. The is set to music by the Latin jazz Buildings and People in the dancing of Michela Marino Lerman fine cast of four includes the ever-subtle composer Arturo O’Farrill, to be Streets” and the sister duo Alexandria and choreographer, now in her early sixties, performed live by O’Farrill and his This week, the series curated by the Frances Bradley. The Carter tribute and the more forceful Omagbitse band. (175 Eighth Ave., at 19th St. critic Claudia LaRocco includes these they presented with Wade at Dizzy’s Omagbemi. (92nd Street Y, Lexington 212-242-0800. March 3-8.) two duos: Sterling Hyltin and Jodi Club Coca-Cola in October—a too Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415-5500. March 6-8.)

FOOD& DRINK

“Big” dishes are straightforward: chicken, beef, and fish. Chicken arrives two ways: sous-vide then pan-seared, and fried. Paired with charred lettuce and arranged atop a basil-jus-sweetened, congeelike rice porridge, it narrowly escapes entrée fatigue, even if the breast is dry. Beef short rib with sweet-potato purée is déjà mangé—a luxuriously Tables for Two tender iteration of meat and potatoes. The standout dish is a humble side of tuome sticky rice, leavened with duck fat, served 536 E. 5th St. (646-833-7811) steaming on a lotus leaf. You will spend the rest of the evening digging for coins you may never be certain you are saying the name of this restaurant correctly. of spicy sausage you may have missed. Vaguely foreign, it is pronounced “TOE-mee,” which is how the chef Thomas Chen’s Tuome is unstuffy and comfortable, parents, immigrants from China, said his nickname, Tommy. Chen, thirty years old, is a and its food is comforting. You could New York native and has cooked at Commerce and Eleven Madison Park; now he has order all of these things and have a his own ingredient-driven, sans-serif venture. As is the case with so many young people very fine dinner, finished with beignets striking out on their own, his first quarters, in the East Village, are tight, and the two spare made less bland by goat’s-milk caramel, dining rooms reflect the neighborhood’s no-frills sensibility. The food is fusion with a red-bean-glazed ice cream, and citron straight face—“contemporary American” with strong Asian influences in every dish. marmalade. Or you could live a little, The menu is not intimidating. In the bluntly titled “small” category, the devilled, panko- and try the “Pig Out (for Two)”: ten crusted egg topped with mounds of chili is a must. A recent execution produced a series of perfect squares of Berkshire pork belly, sublime sensations, from the crunch of crumbs to the bounce of the whites to the spike of served with two individual bowls of spice, interrupted ever so slightly by a garnish of micro Thai basil. A lone curl of octopus spicy peanut noodles. The skin is as crisp arrives looking positively vertebral, until it meets a foam the color of buttercream—a as a hard candy shell, and cracks apart to fingerling-potato-and-brown-butter emulsion, released from the nozzle of an iSi cream reveal a perfect packet of rich, fatty meat, whipper. The tentacle rests atop a bed of caramelized chopped pork XO, a spiced concoction all sweetened with a drizzle of hoisin. that gives the meat a fishy taste—a clever match for octopus, the meatiest of seafoods. It’s forty-nine dollars; don’t overthink it. Open daily for dinner. Entrées $23-$49. —Silvia Killingsworth

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES POMERANTZ THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 25 IT’S WHAT I DO A Photographer’s Life of Love and War

“The greatest photographer of our war-torn time. She’s been kidnapped, nearly killed, while capturing truth and beauty in the world’s worst places. She’s a miracle. So is this book.” —TIM WEINER, author of Legacy of Ashes and Enemies

“Riveting, unforgettable.” —JON LEE ANDERSON, author of The Fall of Baghdad

© kursat bayhan www.itswhatidobook.com THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT HARD CASES

he great Supreme Court cases turn on the majestic am- four states, most of them under Republican control, refused Tbiguities embedded in the Constitution. It is not a sim- to create exchanges; for residents of such states, the law had ple thing to define and apply terms like “the freedom of established a federal exchange. But, according to the conjur- speech,” or “equal protection of the laws,” much less explain ings of the C.E.I. attorneys, the subsidies should be granted how much process is “due.” Still, the Justices, in their best mo- only to people who bought policies on the state exchanges, ments, have explicated these terms in ways that ennobled the because of those four words in Section 36B. The lawyers re- lives of millions. This week, the Court will hear arguments in cruited plaintiffs and filed a lawsuit; their goal is to revoke the a momentous case, King v. Burwell, a challenge to a central subsidies provided to the roughly seven and a half million feature of the Affordable Care Act. But, in contrast to other people who were left no choice by the states where they live landmarks in Supreme Court history, the King case is nota- but to buy on the federal exchange. ble mostly for the cynicism at its heart. Instead of grandeur, The claim borders on the frivolous. The plaintiffs can’t as- there is a smallness about this lawsuit in every way except in sert that the A.C.A. violates the Constitution, because the Jus- the stakes riding on its outcome. tices narrowly upheld the validity of the law in 2012. Rather, Shortly after the A.C.A. passed, in 2010, a group of con- the suit claims that the Obama Administration is violating the servative lawyers met at a conference in Washington, D.C., terms of its own law. But the A.C.A. never even suggests that sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, and scoured customers on the federal exchange are ineligible for subsidies. the nine-hundred-page text of the law, looking for grist for In fact, there’s a provision that says that, if a state refuses to possible lawsuits. Michael Greve, a board member of the open an exchange, the federal government will “establish and Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian outfit funded operate such Exchange within the State.” The congressional by, among others, the Koch brothers, said, of the law, “This debate over the A.C.A. included fifty-three meetings of the bastard has to be killed as a matter Senate Finance Committee and seven of political hygiene. I do not care how days of committee debates on amend- this is done, whether it’s dismembered, ments. The full Senate spent twenty- whether we drive a stake through five consecutive days on it, the second- its heart, whether we tar and feather it longest session ever on a single piece of and drive it out of town, whether legislation. There were similar mara- we strangle it.” In time, lawyers hired thons in the House. Yet no member of by the C.E.I. discovered four words Congress ever suggested that the subsi- buried in Section 36B, which refers to dies were available only on the state ex- the exchanges—now known as market- changes. This lawsuit is not an attempt places—where people can buy health- to enforce the terms of the law; it’s an insurance policies. The A.C.A. created attempt to use what is at most a seman- federal tax subsidies for those earning tic infelicity to kill the law altogether. less than a certain income to help pay During Obama’s remaining time in for their premiums and other expenses, office, more challenges to his legacy, and, in describing who is eligible, Sec- like the King case, will work their way tion 36B refers to exchanges “estab- through the courts. Even before Re-

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATIONS lished by the State.” However, thirty- publicans took full control of Congress

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 27 earlier this year, the legislative process had basically come to a and nurses—many among them less than friendly to the halt; now, if the G.O.P. manages to pass laws in both houses, Obama Administration—have filed briefs in the case warn- they will likely be met by Presidential vetoes. So Obama’s ad- ing of the consequences if the subsidies are withdrawn. versaries have taken their agenda to federal judges, who are A brief written by the deans of nineteen leading schools of nearly as politically polarized as the legislators in Congress. public health states with bracing directness that, if the plain- Last month, Republican officeholders in twenty-six states tiffs win this case, nearly ten thousand Americans will die chose to bring a challenge to the President’s immigration plan unnecessary deaths each year. before Judge Andrew S. Hanen, an outspoken conservative in In a more civilized era—even the nineteen-nineties— Brownsville, Texas. On procedural rather than constitutional Congress routinely passed technical fixes to major laws, in grounds, Hanen ordered a nationwide hold on the plan, order to remove minor ambiguities, like the one that is argu- which is a crucial element of the President’s program for his ably present in the A.C.A. For example, in 1999, with little second term. controversy or notice, Congress made small changes in the In a human sense as much as in a legal one, the stakes in Children’s Health Insurance Program, two years after its King v. Burwell dwarf those of the immigration lawsuit and, original passage. But that largeness of spirit has vanished indeed, most cases in the history of the Supreme Court. If the from Congress, so it falls once again to the Supreme Court Justices rule for the plaintiffs, the seven and a half million to determine the future of the A.C.A. The Justices all have people on the federal exchange who receive tax subsidies will well-developed views about the Constitution, and strong lose them immediately, which means that most of them will preferences about how our understanding of it should also lose their insurance, because they can no longer afford it. evolve. But their decision in the mean-spirited lawsuit that is Insurance companies will then likely raise rates for the re- King v. Burwell will reflect little on the interpretive schools maining policyholders, many of whom would drop their cov- to which they belong. The Court will have many more erage, leading to even higher rates, and so on; this sequence chances to define the Constitution for the ages. In this case, is known as the A.C.A. death spiral. A remarkable coalition though, the Justices’ choice is a simple one: life or death. of state officials, insurance companies, hospitals, physicians, —Jeffrey Toobin

ANGRY YOUNG MEN here? Mostly they’re staying at home, but, trust me, everybody does it.” Hang- MORNING IN MIDWOOD because their parents don’t let them out spots include Junior’s Pizza and do stuff. They go to school and home. Fried Chicken, the Kent movie theatre, That’s it.” A man at a visa service on and local basements, where teen-agers Coney Island Avenue painted a similar play video games like Call of Duty. picture: “Young people here are good. Coney Island, where Juraboev was re- They don’t go out drinking.” corded as saying he’d like to plant a car A twenty-year-old Jamaican man bomb, if instructed by ISIS, is a Fri- ith the arrest last week of two named Shakwan, who was working day-night destination. “It’s a landmark. WBrooklyn roommates who were the counter at a gym down the block, People go there to drink,” Shakwan allegedly on their way to Syria to join had a different take. “It’s a boiling said. ISIS, water-cooler conversation around pot,” he said. “Is that what they say?” With so many different cultures, town turned, once again, to the secret He lives nearby and has friends of dating can be complicated. “My mom lives of youths. “Young people, they every nationality, he said. “Arabs, Paki- wants to know where I am all the time,” don’t have much to lose. They can eas- stanis. For a while, I was the only black Shakwan said. “My Pakistani friends, ily be brainwashed,” Ali Soufan, a for- kid.” Juraboev is from Uzbekistan and they mess around with any girl—black, mer F.B.I. agent who runs the Soufan Saidakhmetov is from Kazakhstan. white, whatever. But they know they Group, a security firm that tracks Is- Shakwan didn’t know them, but he can only bring home Pakistani girls lamic extremism, said. So what makes said that the Gyro King is popular with to their parents.” Flirting, he said, them join a jihadist movement? Before local kids. “They make cheesesteaks, happens on Facebook. “Girls love the their arrest, Akhror Saidakhmetov, too. That’s the secret.” (The restaurant’s Internet.” nineteen, who worked in electronics ki- Yelp reviews confirm Shakwan’s assess- Shakwan said that a Pakistani friend osks, and Abdurasul Juraboev, twenty- ment of the food: “When I see people had told him about another Pakistani, four, who had a job chopping vegetables say that there was roaches in the meal a nineteen-year-old whose roommate, at the Gyro King on Foster Avenue, re- that is ridiculous. They are confusing it after a year, admitted that he was a po- sided in Midwood, a diverse neighbor- for a cardamom that looks different but lice operative and moved out. “He just hood of Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and its not a roach very delicious food I rec- got up one day and said, ‘I’m a cop,’ and immigrants from Poland and South ommend it to everyone.”) left.” (Apparently he hadn’t found any- and Central Asia. Shakwan questioned the idea that thing incriminating.) The arrests flew in the face of the the local teens are all quiet and duti- Shakwan said he’d seen postings local conventional wisdom. At the Gyro ful. “To be honest with you? They all about jihadism on Facebook by people King, a Pakistani man in a hoodie and smoke,” he said, referring to marijuana. he knew. He’d seen the videos of be- sweatpants said, “The young people “You might think that it doesn’t happen, headings. Of the local kids lured into

28 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 The electrifying new novel from the bestselling author of Lush Life and Clockers RICHARD

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Also available on Macmillan Audio and as an eBook henryholt.com HENRY HOLT radicalism, he said, “They’ve got to be which gives him license to say that. He the four of them was on the Hard immature. This is just like regular gangs, and Platz and Ben McKee, the bassist, Rock’s electronic marquee. but on the Internet.” He’d seen class- all met at Berklee College of Music, in “Wow, Times Square got a lot cooler mates join gangs in high school. “It was Boston,where they played in a variety of since it showed me pictures of myself,” always the quiet kid,” he said. “They’re jazz ensembles before becoming, im- McKee said. scared, and they want to feel protected,” probably, one of the biggest rock bands It was the day after Valentine’s Day, or they’re looking for friendship. “I call of the moment. Still, the three jazz guys and each band member had gone to a them fake friends.” in the band are ambivalent about the different restaurant the night before, Soufan, the ex-F.B.I. agent, said that “rock” label. with a girlfriend or a spouse. impulsivity was a problem. “Young In the van, the Berkleeites spoke to “I don’t know where you guys went people see videos on YouTube, they one another in a kind of private short- last night, but I went somewhere bet- see speeches and sermons, they get re- hand. The band’s front man, Dan Reyn- ter,” Sermon declared, as the van started ally emotional,” he said. “They don’t olds, who writes the songs with Ser- moving again. “Casa Mono’s Valentine’s think, Is this a legitimate narrative, a mon, remained aloof. Tall and stalwart Day menu, inspired by the paintings of legitimate religion? They don’t think and not at all wanky, Reynolds dropped Salvador Dalí. The very first dish we about whether it’s the right thing out of Brigham Young University; he had was called Sodomizer. It’s a ba- to do.” met the others after they graduated Shakwan hopes to become a police from music school. He was listening officer someday, and he admires the intently to Drake’s new album, “If agents who made the arrests. “I want to You’re Reading This It’s Too Late,” on be a cop so bad,” he said. He thought his iPhone. Released without fanfare (a that the saddest thing about Juraboev’s far cry from the eight million dollars or predicament was that, at his job at the so that Target spent on a four-minute Gyro King, he worked in the basement. Imagine Dragons promo spot during Shakwan used to work as a valet-park- the Grammys), Drake’s record was ing attendant. “I had to stay in the base- looking as if it might beat “Smoke + ment, too, to watch the cars. My phone Mirrors” to the top of the album charts. didn’t get a signal. I was just looking at I got enemies, got a lot of enemies, cars. It gets lonely.” Drake sang. —Lizzie Widdicombe “This song is super-aimed at haters,” 1 Reynolds observed to the others. “He’s THE MUSICAL LIFE headlining Coachella and he got all this ALL THAT JAZZ shit for it from the hipsters.” Drake: I got bitches asking me about the code for the Wiiiifi . . . Imagine Dragons “I love his phrasing,” Reynolds said, his ear close to his phone. guette with a bunch of crispy baguettes He predicted that Drake would sell stuffed into it. And then you dip it in more than four hundred thousand al- the lard of that famous Spanish ham magine Dragons, the Las Vegas rock bums that week. and add squash purée.” I band, was in town recently to pro- “Wow,” Sermon murmured. “Whoa!” his bandmates said. mote its new album, “Smoke + Mir- Three years ago, when the band was Reynolds had gone to Nobu. “Mine rors.” On a night off, the band’s mem- working on its first album, “Night Vi- cost double the amount of Wayne’s bers decided to check out Fat Cat, a sions,” the members were still playing and was maybe half as good,” he said. jazz, pool, and shuffleboard joint in the parties in Vegas casinos. (Their explo- “And because it was Valentine’s Day West Village that Dan Platzman, the sive percussive style, heard especially everything was topped with this jellied, drummer, had heard about. on the “Smoke + Mirrors” title track, slurp-down-the-throat kind of stuff. “So, Platz,” Wayne Sermon, the evolved in order to be heard above the And, dude, I love sushi!” group’s long-haired guitar player, said as clanging of slot machines.) This time “But that’s not what Nobu does,” their hired van pulled away from the around, Imagine Dragons are Top 40 Platz said. “It’s the prepared dishes. The Dream Hotel, on West Fifty-fifth stars, playing arenas. Did they feel any black cod.” Street. “This is a jazz place? Is it good pressure to prove that “Night Visions,” Down at Fat Cat, a ragtime band jazz?” Sermon has a deep, rumbling which went double platinum, wasn’t a was playing, featuring a guy on banjo. voice; when he talks, he sounds as if he fluke? Platz tried to line up a game of pool were giving a sermon. “Not until everyone started asking us or shuffleboard, but there was a long “It’s diverse,” Platz said. “It could be if we feel pressure,” Sermon said. wait, so the band opted for Scrabble. wanky.” The van had come to a standstill Reynolds was hungry and walked “Oh, if it’s jazz it will be wanky.” next to the Hard Rock Café. “Guys,” down to Bleecker Street for some pizza. Sermon trained as a jazz guitarist, Platz said. “Look.” A huge picture of The others discussed the ragtime band

30 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 while setting up the Scrabble board. “See, it’s diverse!” Platz said. Sermon seemed unimpressed. “The only jazz guitarist Wayne likes is Bill Frisell,” Platz said. McKee said, “This does make me feel like I’m back in school.” “What, Scrabble?” Sermon asked. “No. Jazz.” 1—John Seabrook A FAN’S NOTES BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS ••

in order to attend every single one of offered him courtside seats for the the Knicks’ games this season. His sis- Knicks game in New Orleans, on the ter, a life coach, gave her blessing; his fa- condition that Doyle submit to a lecture ther, a lawyer, did not. As is the modern about why he should return to the law. few weeks ago, Irving Bierman, a man’s wont, Doyle started a blog docu- Doyle hoped to avoid that fate, but he A seventy-two-year-old Brooklyn menting his journey. A recent post said that he was prepared to offer his ser- native, sent an e-mail to James Dolan, began, “This is starting to get difficult.” vices, pro bono, to a cause advocated in the owner of the Knicks. “As a Knicks “My timing has never been great,” an op-ed in the Observer by a fellow- fan for in excess of sixty years, I am Doyle said, settling into his seat at the lawyer, who cited court decisions from utterly embarrassed,” Bierman wrote. Garden before a recent game. He was three different centuries to argue that The team had the N.B.A.’s worst rec- referring both to his mid-recession law- New York City could use eminent do- ord even before Carmelo Anthony, its school graduation—the only job he main to take over the Knicks as a best player, decided that knee surgery could find was one representing co-ops blighted property. “There’s a little bit of sounded more appealing than finishing in disputes with hot-dog venders oper- North Korea to the way this team is a season in which ESPN had replaced ating too close to their entrances—and run,” Doyle said. He suspected the team a scheduled Knicks broadcast with a to the fact that he had spent twenty-five of attempting to pacify the masses—the celebrity bowling tournament. Last thousand dollars on flights, hotels, and frequency of in-game T-shirt tosses week, Phil Jackson, the team’s president tickets. Doyle’s costs rise with each pal- seemed to increase as the season wore and resident mystic, declared that the liative arena beer, but he had come on—and hoped that a pseudoscandal Knicks were giving the basketball gods down with a bug that day, and was pop- like Dolan’s intemperate e-mail would “heartburn.” Bierman went on, “You ping Tylenol instead. “This is my flu foment regime change. “What I wouldn’t have done a lot of utterly STUPID busi- game,” Doyle said. He wore a down give for him to get caught up in some ness things with the franchise. Please jacket with a fur-trimmed hood, which kind of Donald Sterling thing,” Doyle NO MORE.” The stress of the season he kept on, and shielded his eyes as said. (Adam Silver, the N.B.A.’s com- seemed to have got to Dolan, too. He strobes went off during the roster intro- missioner, declined to sanction Dolan’s responded to Bierman personally. “You ductions. “If I’m lucky, I’ll have a sei- behavior. “Jim is a consummate New are a sad person. . . . I’ll bet your life is a zure,” he said, between sniffles. Yorker,” Silver wrote. “Jim got an un- mess,” Dolan wrote in an e-mail that With the season lost, Doyle had kind email and responded with an was reprinted by Deadspin, and went been trying to enjoy the travel. When unkind email.”) on to insinuate that Bierman had a the Knicks played in London, in the Doyle had passed the season’s half- drinking problem, while trumpeting his middle of a sixteen-game losing streak, way point, and remained committed to own sobriety of twenty-one years. “Start he took an extra day to visit Stone- attending every game, despite the fact rooting for the Nets because the Knicks henge. (“Still a mystery why its archi- that he had yet to find a single friend don’t want you.” tects engaged in such a laborious en- who was willing to join him at the Gar- The good news for Bierman: he now deavor,” he said. “I can relate.”) At a den. He had, however, found an agent, lives in Myrtle Beach, and hasn’t casino in Cleveland, where Doyle was who sees promise in a blog-to-book suffered through any games in person trying to recoup his losses, he spotted deal, and has told him not to worry this season. The same cannot be said for Charles Oakley, his all-time favorite about the mounting losses. “At this Dennis Doyle, a thirty-two-year-old Knick, at a craps table. “I got a pretty point, it’s actually in my best interest graduate of Georgetown Law School, blank stare,” Doyle said, describing to root against the team,” Doyle said, who, last spring, got dumped by his girl- Oakley’s reaction upon hearing about noting the market for books about friend, lost his job, and somehow made his quest. Morris Bart, a personal-injury overcoming adversity. “Hopefully, the things worse by deciding this was all a attorney in Louisiana, was more empa- suffering resonates.” sign that he should deplete his savings thetic after reading Doyle’s blog, and —Reeves Wiedeman

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 31 THE FINANCIAL PAGE administrative state that was barely functioning. As Galbraith GREECE’S NEXT MOVE said, “When they went to the Ministry of Finance for the first time, there was not a document, not a computer. The Wi-Fi was not turned on.” Now Syriza has a little time to deliver on the promises it’s made, both to voters and to Europe. The real challenge is satisfying those two constituencies, which want very different things. And though there’s space for s soon as the battle between Greece and its creditors ended, negotiations, Greece is still in thrall to European institutions: A with the two sides agreeing to a four-month extension of both the E.C.B. and the I.M.F. have already voiced concerns Greece’s financial bailout, the battle over who had won began. about the reform plans that Greece submitted last Monday. If Wolfgang Schäuble, the hard-line German finance minister, you owe three hundred billion euros and need Europe to save declared that the new Greek government, led by the leftist party your banking system, you’re bound to be supervised, but Greece Syriza, had been forced into a “date with reality.” Greece’s Prime has so far negotiated without its most powerful weapon—the Minister, Alexis Tsipras, called the agreement a “decisive step” threat of leaving the euro and defaulting on its debts. Such a that would help end austerity and lift the Greek economy from move, known as the Grexit, was off the table, because Syriza had its deep depression, and the Greek public seemed largely pleased campaigned on staying in the eurozone, and polls show that this with the deal. is what most Greeks want. But they may soon need to reconsider. At first glance, Tsipras’s positive comments look like spin. The conventional wisdom is that returning to the drachma Syriza came to power vowing to win a re- would be a catastrophe for Greece. Cer- duction in Greece’s enormous debt bur- tainly, it would be traumatic: there would den, to reject the budget commitments be an immediate devaluation; the value of that the previous Greek government had savings would tumble; the price of im- made, and to liberate Greece from su- ported goods would soar. But Greek ex- pervision by the so-called Troika—the ports would become cheaper and labor European Central Bank, the Interna- costs even more competitive. Tourism tional Monetary Fund, and the European would likely boom. And regaining con- Commission—that has been vetting all trol of its monetary and fiscal policy for the country’s fiscal decisions in recent the first time since 2001 would give years. Yet the new agreement makes no Greece the chance to deal with its eco- provision for debt reduction. It says that nomic woes. Other countries that have the extension will take place only within endured sudden devaluations have often “the framework of the existing arrange- found that long-term gain outweighs ment.” And Greece’s plans will still be short-term pain. When Argentina de- evaluated by the same three institutions. faulted and devalued the peso, in 2001, From that angle, the Greeks went 0 for 3. months of economic chaos were followed If you look a little harder, though, you by years of rapid growth. Iceland had a can see that Greece won important similar experience after the financial cri- breathing room. Heading into the negotiations, the country sis. The Greek situation would entail an entirely new currency faced budgetary targets for 2015 and 2016 that would have kept rather than just a devaluation. Weisbrot says, “It could work. You the economy stuck in recession—it has shrunk by thirty per cent have to go through a crisis, but then the economy would re- since 2008—and prevented the government from doing any- cover, and probably more quickly than people expect.” Al- thing about poverty levels that many observers say constitute a though Europe is much better equipped to deal with the eco- humanitarian crisis. The targets are now up for revision in fu- nomic consequences of a Grexit than it was three years ago, the ture talks—a significant concession. According to Mark Weis- political consequences would be devastating to the European brot, the co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Re- project.That’s why, even if Greece wants to stay in the euro, a search, “European officials were telling Greece it was their way credible Grexit threat could help keep Europe from pulling the or the highway. That’s changed. I think Europe blinked.” James leash tight again. Galbraith, an economics professor at the University of Texas at For now, Syriza will try to change Europe from within. The Austin who was in Athens and Brussels to assist the Greek team fight over Greece’s budget isn’t just a fight about finances; it’s during the negotiations, told me, “Victory may be too strong a a fight about the ideology of austerity and about whether word. But you can certainly call it a successful skirmish. This has smaller countries will have a meaningful say in their own eco- given Greece some room to maneuver. Not a lot, but more than nomic fate. As Weisbrot told me, “Countries like Greece have it had before.” lost sovereign and democratic control over the most important In essence, the agreement kicked the can down the road for macro economic policies that any country has. Greece is trying four months—which suits Greece fine. In recent weeks, money to take some of that control back.” The skirmish may have been had been pouring out of the country, leaving the banking sys- successful. The real battles are yet to come. tem on the verge of collapse. And Syriza officials inherited an —James Surowiecki CHRISTOPH NIEMANN CHRISTOPH

32 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015

terview, shut off the camera, and said, LETTER FROM BEIJING “To be honest, I liked your wife’s book better than yours.” There are a couple of things that I TRAVELS WITH MY CENSOR should clarify. The first is that I weigh a hundred and fifty pounds. The sec- A Chinese book tour. ond is that it’s not really fair to describe Zhang Jiren as a censor. It’s true that BY PETER HESSLER he makes my books politically accept- able to the Chinese authorities, but censorship is only one of his duties. Zhang directs the nonfiction division at Shanghai Translation, where he also has to find translators, edit manuscripts, gauge political risks, and handle pub- licity. He’s thirty-seven years old but looks younger, a thin man with buzz- cut hair and owlish glasses. His back- ground is in philosophy, and he wrote a master’s thesis on Herbert Marcuse, the neo-Marxist thinker. Once, Zhang told me that he had studied Marcuse because his ideas are “a powerful tool for Chinese to resist the long-term pro- paganda campaigns.” On the tour, Zhang was omnipres- ent, not because he wanted to monitor me but because he was responsible for virtually everything that happened. And yet his presence was quiet: usually, he was off to the side, listening and ob- serving but saying little. He always wore sneakers, an old T-shirt, and calf-length trousers, and this casual outfit, during thirteen-hour days, sometimes made me feel like I was being given a tour of Pur- gatory by a neo-Marxist grad student. But I appreciated the guidance. Recently, there have been a number of articles in the foreign press about Chinese censor- y Chinese censor is Zhang Jiren, I sent Zhang a request for more free ship, with the tone highly critical of M an editor at the Shanghai Trans- time. His response was prompt: “In my American authors who accept changes lation Publishing House, and last Sep- experience, the tours in China are al- to their manuscripts in order to publish tember he accompanied me on a pub- ways tough and exhausting. Hope you in mainland China. The articles tend licity tour. It was the first time I’d gone understand it.” to take a narrowly Western perspective: on a book tour with my censor. When And that was all—no adjustment, no they rarely examine how such books are I rode the high-speed train from Shang- apology. In China, there’s a tendency read by Chinese, and editors like Zhang hai to Beijing, Zhang sat beside me; at toward brutal honesty, and even the cen- are portrayed crudely, as Communist the hotel in Beijing, he stayed on the sored media may tell you things you Party hacks. This was one reason I went same floor. He sat in on my interviews don’t want to hear. During my tour, one on the tour—I figured that the best way with the Chinese media. He had even major Shanghai newspaper, Wenhui to understand censorship is to spend a prepared the tour schedule on a spread- Daily, ran a six-thousand-word profile week with your censor. sheet, which was color-coded to rep- that began with the sentence “Peter Since Xi Jinping became President, resent five types of commitments, with Hess ler is now forty-five years old, and in 2013, China has engaged in an in- days that lasted as long as thirteen he’s gotten a lot fatter, and he has wrin- creasingly repressive political crackdown. hours. Other authors had warned me kles around the corners of his eyes.” In The authorities have also become more about such schedules, so before the tour Beijing, a television host finished his in- antagonistic toward the foreign press; it’s now harder for journalists to renew One reader said that the Chinese people adapt to censorship “in clever ways.” their visas, and many report being hassled

34 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSRATION BY JAVIER JAÉN by local authorities while on research and accused us of being journalists film- trips. And yet the reading public has ing images of poverty to show Ameri- begun to discover nonfiction books about cans, which was a common charge at China by foreigners. More than any that time. We explained that we were other editor, Zhang has tapped into this teachers, but the crowd turned violent, trend—all but one of his six best-sell- kicking and hitting us until we ran away. ing titles in the past few years have been This was my most disturbing expe- foreign books about China. In Zhang’s rience in Fuling, and I left it out of the opinion, this reflects the new worldli- first draft. One of the book’s main themes ness of readers, which he believes says was the slow, sometimes painful way in more about the country’s long-term di- which we had been accepted by locals, rection than the censorship or the pro- and I worried about undermining this paganda does. “The Party turns left this message with a description of the mob year, and maybe it turns right this year,” in the final chapter. But, after discuss- Zhang wrote to me in 2014. “In my ing it with Adam, I decided that the opinion, the only certain thing is that scene was necessary. And this set the Chinese people are much more individ- tone for my editing: I corrected details ualized and open-minded.” that were wrong, but I didn’t touch any- thing that felt honest or raw. I left the n 1998, when I wrote “River Town,” word “poor” on page 1 and everywhere I my first book, it was inconceivable else that it appeared. I decided, effec- that a foreigner’s portrait of contempo- tively, that I would ignore a certain emo- rary China would be published there, tional side of the likely Chinese response. for reasons both political and commer- I realized that I might not be wel- cial. There wasn’t much of a market for come in Fuling after the book appeared. books about China in the United States, At the end of 2000, about a month be- either. I had just spent two years as a fore publication, I made a final trip to Peace Corps teacher at a college in Fu- visit friends. I attended the wedding of ling, a small, remote city on the Yang- one of my favorite former students, and tze River, and I finished the first draft then I gave a talk at a remote middle without a contract. On the opening page, school where another former student I wrote, “There was no railroad in Fu- was teaching. Shortly after I began my ling. It had always been a poor part of lecture, policemen arrived from Chong- Sichuan Province and the roads were qing, the regional capital. They an- bad. To go anywhere you took the boat, nounced that the event was cancelled but mostly you didn’t go anywhere.” The and escorted me off the stage. I returned word “poor” appeared thirty-six times to Beijing, and the following week al- in the book; I used “dirty” more than most everybody I had visited in Fuling two dozen times. I never thought seri- was interrogated. The police detained ously about such details until a pub- the bride and groom to ask about our lisher accepted the manuscript. friendship, and another student tele- After that, I sent a draft to two friends phoned me, sounding confused. “Is it from Fuling: Emily Yang, one of my possible for the police to listen to what former students, who was a native of you say on the telephone?” he asked. the town, and Adam Meier, another “They knew all the things that you and Peace Corps volunteer. Their comments I have been talking about recently.” were almost completely contradictory. After “River Town” came out in En- Emily wrote, “I think no one would like glish, the government issued a com- Fuling city after reading your story. But mand to the college in Fuling: Trans- I can’t complain, as everything you write late this book immediately. The project about is the fact. I wish the city would was assigned to Li Xueshun, a Com- be more attractive with time.” Mean- munist Party member who was a teacher while, Adam thought I had softened and a low-level administrator in the En- the portrayal. He was particularly con- glish department. He was the same age cerned that I had omitted an incident as me and during my first few weeks in that occurred near the end of our two the Peace Corps had seemed interested years, when we went downtown with a in friendship, inviting Adam and me to video camera to record places that we his home for lunch. But after that he wanted to remember. A crowd gathered became strangely evasive, and later I

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 35 learned that older cadres had warned complained that they had heard about charming, even the dirty, tired flowers.” him against associating with the Amer- a version available only to cadres, and On the recent book tour, reporters often icans. I described him in the book’s parts of other books were posted on- mentioned nostalgia, and they said that opening pages: “He had the best spo- line, in unapproved translations that the relentless pace of life in China made ken English in the college, but he was were often hasty or inaccurate. it hard to document details. “Sometimes an uneasy young man in a new position In 2010, Zhang Jiren contacted me in China you have this feeling of suffo- of authority.” on behalf of Shanghai Translation, and cation, and it’s hard to notice all these Li translated that sentence himself, said that the political climate was right things,” Zhang Lijiao, a Beijing reporter along with the rest of the first two chap- to publish “Country Driving,” a book for China Youth Daily, told me. “Maybe ters. He served as editor for the book, that focussed on development in rural because you’re a foreigner, you can be a with each of my former colleagues re- regions. In China, restrictions on pub- little separate. Maybe it’s easier to be sponsible for translating a section or lishing tend to ebb and flow, and 2010 still. We have a phrase, yi bubian ying two. The project was secret; nobody got was relatively quiet: Hu Jintao had been wanbian”—you cope with change by in touch with me about it. The transla- President for seven years, and the next staying the same. “If you don’t move, tors were never told which level of gov- transition was a couple of years away. I then you notice everything moving ernment had issued the command, or signed a contract, figuring that the win- around you.” where the book would be sent. None of dow of opportunity might close. The These interviews were intense to the them ever saw a finished copy. initial print run was small, because the point of exhaustion. The journalists read publisher believed that there would be the books and searched through old ma- few years after “River Town” ap- limited interest in a foreigner’s book terial with incredible thoroughness; one A peared, Chinese publishers began about China. But “Country Driving” reporter showed up with an anthropol- to approach me about the possibility of became a surprise best-seller, and a year ogy paper that I had written as an un- a mainland edition. They acknowledged, later Shanghai Translation followed up dergraduate, in 1991. There’s new in- though, that major changes would have with “River Town,” which quickly sold terest in nonfiction writing in China, to be made for political reasons, so I de- more copies than it had in more than a and reporters asked highly technical clined. I went on to write “Oracle Bones” decade in America. questions: What’s a set piece? How do and “Country Driving,” completing a The issue that once concerned me— you structure a longitudinal project? To- trilogy about China, and, as time passed, the blunt portrayal of poverty—no lon- ward the end of interviews, the mood I became less comfortable with the fact ger seemed sensitive, because China had often changed, with questions becom- that my books weren’t available in the changed so quickly. “With the distance ing broader and more searching. Do you communities where I had lived and done of time,” Emily wrote me, in 2011, “ev- believe that Chinese lack creativity? Do research. Friends in Fuling sometimes erything in the book turns out to be they need some faith or religion? What will be the outcome of the current po- litical campaign? One afternoon, I was interviewed by Sun Xiaoning, a forty-something reporter at the Beijing Evening News, and I remarked that, during my past few trips to China, people had seemed more reflective. “People are thinking more,” she agreed. “It’s like the slogans that you quote in your book. ‘Devel- opment is the absolute principle!’ We’ve seen that slogan for years. But now many people read it and think, Devel- opment is the absolute principle? It’s a question, not a statement. Should we be going this way?” She laughed when I began writ- ing in my notebook. “On my way here, I thought, He’s going to be observing me very closely,” Sun said. “What’s he going to notice? I knew you would be recording it.” In her article, she playfully described our encounter as jiaoshou—hand-to- hand combat. I mentioned to Zhang Jiren that people seemed more confi- “I find the ride goes a lot quicker when you have someone to try to convert.” dent than I remembered, and he told me that this was part of the reason for- lishing. “America in the sixties was a lit- eign books have become popular. Shang- tle like China is now,” Zhang told me. hai Translation had recently published “We’re just starting to have an environ- “Two Forbidden Cities,” a book by a mental consciousness here.” Japanese journalist who compares the China doesn’t have a strong tradi- institutional cultures of the Forbidden tion of literary nonfiction, and Zhang, City museums in Beijing and Taipei. who previously handled philosophy and The book was well received, which other academic subjects for Shanghai seemed remarkable—in the past, the Translation, founded the nonfiction di- only thing worse than an American vision, in 2010. He told me that one writing about an undeveloped city like reason was economic—at that time, the Fuling would have been a Japanese state-owned publisher was being con- touching on the China-Taiwan issue. verted into a for-profit enterprise, and Such openness was even more strik- editors were pressured to sell more books. ing in the light of the over-all politi- But there remains a strong academic cal climate. Reporters said that they and idealistic trend in Zhang’s titles. felt more pressure now that Xi had Last year, his seven-book list included come to power, and after interviews “The Children of Sanchez,” a 1961 study they sometimes wrote me to check of poverty and urbanization in Mexico quotes and explain things that couldn’t City; “Discours de la Servitude Volon- be published. Occasionally, we nego- taire,” a sixteenth-century essay by a tiated. An editor at one magazine asked Frenchman in opposition to tyranny; to reprint an article I had written, but and “A Companion to Marx’s Capital: I told him that it had to include a key Volume I.” This year’s list features “Cen- section that might be too sensitive. The tral Problems in Social Theory,” “The magazine held an editorial meeting Working Poor: Invisible in America,” and decided that it wasn’t possible, and “The End of Economic Man: The so we compromised: they published a Origins of Totalitarianism.” Q. and A. that referred to the article, While signing books in Zhang’s which I posted in translation on my office, I chatted with him and two other personal Web site. Only once were my young editors, and the conversation words twisted for propaganda purposes. turned to translation. Somebody men- Long after the tour, a reporter asked tioned Sun Zhongxu, a translator who me to do an interview for China Daily. had committed suicide two weeks be- The paper then removed selected ma- fore. Sun had translated two novels by terial from the interview, ran it under Richard Yates for the publisher, among my byline, and made it appear that I other books, and his name often came had written an op-ed in support of up on my tour—people said that his the government. When I complained, work was brilliant. Mo Xiaomin, one of the editors removed the article from the young editors in Zhang’s office, said the English-language Web site but re- that Sun had suffered from depression, fused to issue a retraction. In the end, which she believed was connected to I should have known better, because his translation work. “You don’t get paid China Daily is notorious for pushing well, and there isn’t much credit,” she the regime’s agenda, but after dozens said. “I wouldn’t want to do it.” of interviews I had grown complacent. I mentioned that I had known more And it was hard to gauge risks in a cli- people who killed themselves in China mate with such contradictory trends— than anywhere else. “That’s common,” individuals seemed more curious and Zhang said. There was a pause and he open-minded, but the system had en- continued, “My grandfather killed him- tered a phase of increased restriction. self when I was a child.” He explained that his grandfather, a high-school teacher, ne morning on the tour, there was had been attacked for his political ideas O a spare half hour, and I signed during the Cultural Revolution. At the books in Zhang’s office. On his desk sat time, he tried to drown himself in a lake, a manuscript about the early environ- but he lost heart at the last minute. mental movement in the U.S. It was “Then many years later he tried one of a number of books from the six- again,” Zhang said. “We were living on ties and seventies that Zhang is pub- the third floor of an apartment building

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 37 here in Shanghai, and he climbed up to the fourth floor and jumped out a window.” A SHIP’S WHISTLE The room grew quiet. This was the kind of detail that I couldn’t help but Years passed and I received no letter with the word “trombone.” notice in China—the old man method- The distant cousins wrote, offered their shriller sympathies. ically making his way to the higher floor “What’s wrong with us?” Nothing I knew. Plugboard and isinglass, to make sure that this time he did it right. Zhang continued, “He was a math grimoire and cwm, friends all. Still I felt horribly alone. teacher. I was ten years old when this Until one day it dropped through roundel light onto the mat. happened. I was very close to him.” I was tearing my dictionaries of hope—who, why, and what— The two other editors were friends of Zhang, but they didn’t say anything, apart when it sounded, that note pressing for home. Trombone. and nobody asked a question. In China, And fearing it a dream was like waking in the wrong room, such a silence could mean that he had not daring to believe in your return, or having come often talked about the suicide, or it could mean that this was the first time he had to my senses after sickness. Veneer, mirror, and comb: ever mentioned it. Finally, the conver- objects that shivered as relief swelled under them, they drew sation moved on to something else, and lots to be turned to words which, soon as said, I knew the room seemed to warm up. I kept signing books. were brass. Years sliding past alone until—avast!—trombone.

t Shanghai Translation, each man- —Will Eaves A uscript passes through three lev- els of political review: the editor, his su- pervisor, and the head of the company. tail the Party’s manipulation of a village tion Li Peng, the former Premier, who Occasionally, the higher levels make a election, but none of this material was was orphaned as a child. In the scene, I change, but the vast majority of censor- removed or changed. Probably the most offend my tutor by mistakenly using the ship is handled by editors like Zhang. negative thing that I have ever written word “bastard” instead of “orphan.” In 2013, when the Times ran an article about China is the final section of that Zhang told me that he had wanted about foreign authors publishing in book, which describes a small industrial to leave the scene alone, but it was too China, it noted that “publishing houses city called Lishui. In the factory town, risky for the name Li Peng to be con- are required to employ in-house cen- I observed bosses hiring underage work- nected to “bastard,” even if the point sors, most of them faithful party mem- ers, violating safety laws, damaging the was to show a foreigner’s clumsiness bers.” But this isn’t accurate. At Shang- environment, and encountering official with Chinese. This is one trend of the hai Translation, there’s no employee corruption; in one scene, I describe wit- censorship: criticism of local officials whose primary job is to monitor polit- nessing government tax officials shake and Party activities is fine, but certain ical content. Such a distinction may down two entrepreneurs for a bribe. All high-profile national figures are off lim- seem academic, but it matters greatly in of that was left intact in the mainland its. References to Falun Gong are al- a country with many types of political version. Of the section’s hundred and most always removed. The Tiananmen control. In China, newspapers and mag- forty-five pages, only nine words were Square massacre is usually called “an in- azines are censored much more heavily removed, a background reference to op- cident” or “a revolt.” Material about Tibet than books, and state-run papers like position to the Party. The rest of the or Xinjiang tends to get cut. Zhang ex- China Daily actively promote the Party book was cut in three places: two refer- plained that he hadn’t censored the de- line. On the Internet, censors excise all ences to Falun Gong and a long scene scription of the Mongolian tour guide, references to certain taboo topics. But in which a drunk Mongolian tour guide but the head of the publishing company for an editor like Zhang, who is not a tells me that Genghis Khan, like Hit- removed it as a precaution. “Country Party member, there is no ideology and ler and Osama bin Laden, was a great Driving” was the publisher’s first for- no absolute list of banned subjects. His man, and that the Chinese have no right eign book about China, and it didn’t censorship is defensive: rather than pro- to claim him for their history. want somebody in the government to moting an agenda or covering up some The censorship of “River Town” read the words of the drunk Mongo- specific truth, he tries to avoid catching seems even more capricious. The attack lian and think about Tibet. the eye of a higher authority. In fact, his by the mob, a discussion of the flawed Zhang said that he had been partic- goal—to have a book translated and Three Gorges Dam, scenes that show ularly anxious while preparing that first published as accurately as possible— the ignorance of college Party officials— book—he compared it to walking a tight- may run counter to the goals of the Party. none of that was altered or removed. rope. But, after the book appeared, it es- The result is a strangely unenthusi- The longest cut in the book consists of tablished a baseline. “Thanks to the ini- astic form of censorship. In one section a conversation between me and one of tial success, now I am more confident of “Country Driving,” I describe in de- my Chinese tutors, in which we men- and skillful in dealing with the sensitive

38 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 material,” Zhang wrote to me. And the to “Animal Farm,” he warned against the the apparent lack of interest in Chinese cuts grew fewer with each book. In complacency of assuming that censor- readers and editors. Two of the most prom- “Country Driving,” the publisher re- ship is the primary threat to freedom of inent recent feature stories about the cen- moved a total of five pages of material information. “The sinister fact about lit- sorship of foreign books—long pieces in out of four hundred; a year later, only erary censorship in England is that it is the Times and in the South China Morn- two pages were taken out of “River Town.” largely voluntary,” he wrote. His book ing Post—fail to include a single com- The following year, the publisher cut just had been rejected by four publishers. ment by a reader in China. Neither quotes twenty sentences from “Strange Stones,” “Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and a Chinese editor by name. The articles a collection of magazine articles. inconvenient facts kept dark, without the have not been censored, of course, but On the train from Shanghai to Bei- need for any official ban.” nevertheless each has a gaping hole at its jing, Zhang and I discussed the censor- Any writer knows that a story or a center. As long as Chinese readers remain ship, and at one point he said, “You know book can be affected by many extra-lit- unknown, and editors appear shadowy that I’ve never asked you to publish ‘Or- erary factors: a reporter’s preconceptions, and symbolic, it’s difficult to understand acle Bones.’ ” That book includes report- an editor’s expectations, an imbalance them or to feel much sympathy. ing on Uighurs and Falun Gong, and it of research, a demand for marketing. In the West, there’s a tendency to would be treated differently from the The journalist’s responsibility is to eval- approach censorship with a high-hand- others, which focus mostly on the lives uate all the factors that can negatively edness that would seem inappropriate of average Chinese in the countryside affect his work and decide which ones if applied to other issues of develop- and in small cities. All of my books are he can control or minimize. Censorship, ment, like poverty. There may in fact be also published in uncensored translations despite the knee-jerk revulsion toward more similarities than we realize. The in Taiwan; at signings on the mainland, the word, in some cases poses less of a drive for improved access to informa- it was common for readers to arrive with threat to the foreign writer than these tion, which includes education, contact imported copies of “Oracle Bones.” Like other issues. For one thing, Chinese cen- with new ideas, and freedom of expres- many other supposedly banned books, sorship is easy to document, as opposed sion, is at least as complex as everything the Taiwanese version of “Oracle Bones” to the more subtle pressures that can that it takes to improve living standards. is easy to buy in China—Taobao, among shape publications in the United States. A term like “self-censorship,” which is other major online retailers, sells it. But For my Chinese books, I added an in- a favorite in the West, puts the blame readers struggle with the way in which troductory page explaining that some on individuals in ways that may not be Taiwanese books are still printed, in tra- material had been deleted and direct- right. There’s no economic equivalent— ditional characters with vertical text. Nev- ing readers to my Web site. On the site, we don’t have a neat two-word phrase ertheless, I didn’t want to publish some- which has not been blocked by the Chi- that describes the things that poor peo- thing in which the heart of my reporting nese firewall, I’ve listed everything that ple supposedly do to perpetuate their was censored, and Zhang told me that has been removed or changed. own poverty. he had no interest in doing that job. With “Strange Stones,” I was pre- A figure like Zhang Jiren, who was But where should the line be drawn? paring to post the censored material on- born into a system of much greater re- Evan Osnos, my colleague at The New line when a Chinese reader e-mailed striction than today’s, is more likely to Yorker, wrote an Op-Ed in the Times last me asking for a list of the cuts. We cor- perceive himself in positive terms. From year about his decision not to sign a Chi- responded for a while, and eventually his perspective, the key dynamic isn’t nese contract for his book “Age of Am- he admitted that he’s a police officer self-censorship but the efforts that he bition.” He warned against writers jus- who likes the new foreign makes to bring foreign tifying censorship by the percentage of books. He had avoided tell- books to Chinese readers. a book that is left alone, explaining, “It ing me his occupation, be- And he’s willing to take real is tempting to accept censorship as a cause, as a reader, he was risks to do this. The week matter of the margins—a pruning that familiar with negative ex- before my tour, he got in leaves the core of the story intact—but periences I’d had with the trouble for publishing a altering the proportions of a portrait of police in China. When I book with a cover blurb by China gives a false reflection of how asked for his opinion of a scholar who is associated China appears to the world.” Most arti- censorship, he described it tangentially with the Tian- cles in the Western press have been crit- as “an affront to an author.” anmen Square movement. ical of the practice; the Times described But he also wrote, “The Chinese peo- Zhang hadn’t expected the blurb to cause foreign authors engaging “in an Orwel- ple have the Chinese people’s ability to trouble, but such unpredictability is key lian embrace with a censorship appara- adapt to this situation in clever ways.” to the system. Individual books are han- tus.” But the same quality that makes Such resourcefulness is hard for out- dled differently, and what works one Chinese censorship so obvious—the fact siders to grasp. And Western commen- year may not work the next. If some- that there’s an extensive apparatus whose tary about censorship often turns inward, body crosses an invisible line and an- work is crude—might actually make it portraying limitations in other countries gers officials at the General Adminis- less insidious than foreigners imagine. in a way that celebrates our own values. tration of Press and Publications, he can Even George Orwell would probably One of the most striking qualities of for- be fired. In the case of the blurb, Shanghai agree with this. In the original preface eign portrayals of censorship in China is Translation was forced to recall all six

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 39 thousand copies and replace their covers. 1980) are not sensitive to the beauty of cally I send out a detailed questionnaire. This is a sad task at which Chinese pub- classic Chinese language. We grew up Last fall, among the twenty-nine who lishers are skilled: sometimes they razor with politicized language education.” responded, the median household in- out a page or two that has offended some He continued, “The translation of ‘River come was around sixteen thousand dol- official. Zhang was punished with a -re Town’ is one of the best in China, I have lars, which is much higher than the na- duction of his year-end bonus, and he had learned a lot from it and really appre- tional average, and all but two owned to write a self-criticism, but he shrugged ciate Mr. Li Xueshun.” both an apartment and a car. The trans- it off. “The important thing is what you One day in Fuling, I visited Li in his formation had been dramatic; most had can do, not what you can’t do,” he said. office, and he took a key out of his pocket grown up in rural poverty, and when and unlocked a big cabinet. Inside were they entered the workforce, in the late fter the book tour, I made a trip the original drafts of the government-or- nineties, their salaries averaged only about A back to Fuling. I flew to Chong- dered translation. I had never seen it five hundred dollars a year. But when I qing, where I was picked up at the air- before, and the chapters looked like ar- asked about social class more than sev- port by Li Xueshun, my former col- tifacts from another era: handwritten enty per cent still defined themselves as league, and another teacher. We drove on cheap, thin paper, with a letterhead poor or lower class. One private-school to Fuling on one of three new express- so obsolete that it featured the college’s teacher, who earns more than fifty thou- ways that have been constructed since four-digit telegraph code. sand dollars a year and owns two apart- I left. There are also two new railways, Li and I talked about the nine- ments and a car, without any debt, said including a high-speed line, and the col- teen-nineties, and I mentioned how that he is lower class. In China, the con- lege has relocated to a larger site, out- hard it had been to figure out the pol- cept of a middle class remains unfamil- side of town, as part of a national ex- itics of being a foreigner. “We also didn’t iar, and I sensed that my students were pansion of higher education that began understand,” he said. “The school didn’t trying to figure out appropriate expec- in 1999. When I taught in Fuling, there understand. Nobody knew how to in- tations in the new environment. And were two thousand students; now there teract with the foreigners.” He said that the country has changed so fast that few are more than twenty thousand. recently he had been thinking about the feel secure with their status. The initial paranoia about my book past, because he had translated “The They often remark on how different had vanished after a year or two, and Li Children of Sanchez,” the account of life is for their pupils. “I know their world and I had begun corresponding regu- poverty in Mexico City, which was com- and their thoughts very well,” a teacher larly. Over time, we developed the friend- missioned by Zhang Jiren. “Some things named Maggie Qin wrote on the ques- ship that hadn’t been possible when we in that book reminded me of my child- tionnaire. “But they don’t know our were colleagues, and he talked to me hood,” Li said. “We were very poor, and world. And they never can, because life openly about the unauthorized transla- we didn’t have toys, and sometimes we for them is so easy.” In China, where tion. He didn’t know what the govern- didn’t have enough to eat.” He grew up generation gaps are enormous, the re- ment had done with the book, but he on a farm in southeastern Sichuan Prov- form cohort may be the only one that said that he had enjoyed the experience ince, and he was the only person in his understands the thinking of both the of translating a couple of chapters. At family to become educated. preceding and the following genera- one point, he asked me to recommend Li is now in his mid-forties, and, like tions. Its members are something of a him as a translator if I ever published Zhang, he’s a member of what could be bridge, and the idea of these people on the mainland. described as the reform generation. They growing older, and progressing into po- In 2010, when I contracted with were children when Deng Xiaoping came sitions of greater authority, makes me Shanghai Translation, I mentioned Li to power, in 1978, so they grew up with cautiously optimistic. In the long term, Xueshun’s name. I did this mostly as a the country’s economic and educational Zhang Jiren could be right—the cur- courtesy, assuming that the publisher changes. But many still remember pov- rent political campaign may be a sur- would want somebody with formal ex- erty and isolation, and their parents and face storm that, once it passes, will have perience. But, to my surprise, Zhang grandparents gave them some sense of had little effect on deeper currents. Jiren gave Li a trial and then hired him the horrors of the Mao era. This gener- But these are questions for another to translate “Country Driving.” After ation reminds me a little of the one that day, another place. In Fuling, Li Xue- the book came out, I realized that there came of age in America in the sixties shun had something else to show me. was something remarkable about Li’s and seventies, with elders who had ex- He returned to the locked cabinet, re- work. The first sign was when my mother- perienced the Depression and the Sec- trieved an old copy of “River Town,” in-law, who was educated in Taiwan ond World War. I understood why Zhang and opened to a description of the Wu and has high standards for literary Chi- published books like “The Children of River on page 149. “You wrote ‘western nese, told me that the mainland version Sanchez,” which was influential in dis- bank,’ ” he said. “It should be ‘eastern is exceptional. Reviewers praised it cussions of poverty and urbanization in bank,’ right?” highly, and soon Li was flooded with the U.S. during the sixties and seventies. I read the paragraph, visualized the requests from publishers; he also trans- My former students, most of whom geography, and thanked him. I told Li lated my two other books. One editor teach at middle schools in small cities, that I’d ask the American publisher to at a Beijing publishing house wrote me, are also of this generation. I’m still in correct the mistake, and he put the book “Many of our generation (born after touch with most of them, and periodi- back in the cabinet and turned the key. 

40 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 of those totally cute little short shorts SHOUTS & MURMURS that Bradley Cooper wears in ‘Ameri- can Sniper.’ Yumbo!”

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF 5. In response to the release of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” sex-toy retailers are SEXUAL DIFFERENCE stocking up on products aimed at the film’s primary audience, middle- BY PAUL RUDNICK aged women. What are some of these products? 1. What is a cisgender person? community. What is a gay woman who’s (a) Plus-size handcuffs. (a) Someone whose gender identity too exhausted to wear either flannel or (b) Erotic lubricants flavored like matches the sex that he or she was as- lipstick? Doritos. signed at birth. (a) A paralegal. (c) Whips that can also be used to (b) Someone who most likely had (b) Your last girlfriend, whose name swat mosquitoes away from a tray of never heard the word “cisgender” until you can’t remember, but it sounded like heart-shaped cupcakes. he or she read this. either Janet or Janice. (c) Someone who will now start (c) Ryan Seacrest. 6. What did Kim Kardashian say observing his or her spouse’s or co- when she heard the news that her workers’ behavior, rolling his or her eyes 4. The Republican congressman stepfather, Bruce Jenner, planned to transition? (a) “He better not do anything to his butt.” (b) “He should do a sex tape first, to introduce his new brand.” (c) “I will be proud to invite her to my next wedding.”

7. Mike Huckabee has stated that he can be friends with people “who have life styles that are not necessarily my life style.” He has also compared gay marriage to legalizing polygamy or incest. What else has Huckabee said regarding human sexuality? (a) “My research proves that bisex- uals are just Democrats who want to vote twice.” (b) “There’s nothing in the Bible that says a man can’t marry a pie.” (c) “If I wear frilly lace panties, does that entitle me to use the women’s rest room? Because then I’m fine with it.”

8. If you come out to your mother as an insatiable power bottom, how and muttering, “Typical cisgender.” Aaron Schock has been suspected of will she respond? being a closeted homosexual because (a) “Mazel tov!” 2. A “bear” is a sturdy, hairy gay man, he appeared shirtless on the cover of (b) “Just like your father!” while an “otter” is a slimmer version of Men’s Health, wears pink gingham, and (c) “My plan worked!” a bear. What is a “muskrat”? has an office decorated like “Downton (a) An even smaller gay man whom Abbey.” What else about Schock seems 9. If an F.T.M. trans person, a gay bears and otters wear as a corsage. to indicate gayness? male power bottom, and a cisgender (b) An otter who forgot to bathe. (a) The fact that he refers to hav- asexual have an orgy, what happens? (c) Someone only slightly less dis- ing sex with men as “crossing the aisle.” (a) HBO passes. turbing than a weasel. (b) His habit of voting for a bill by (b) Everyone says that they really squealing, “I love that!” liked this week’s book except for the 3. “Butch” and “femme” are tradi- (c) His formal request for increased ending.  VICTOR KERLOW VICTOR tional terms used within the lesbian military funding to provide “tons more (c) Hillary wins.

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 41 a crowded reception at the New York THE WRITING LIFE Public Library with my daughter Jenny, the other translator of the Pope’s book, and her husband, Luca Passaleva, who FRAME OF REFERENCE was born, raised, and educated in Flor- ence. “Hey, Luc. What is the meaning To illuminate—or to irritate? of ‘sprezzatura’?” Luca: “I don’t know. Ask Jenny.” BY JOHN MCPHEE Jenny: “I don’t know, but that cou- ple over there might know. He’s in the Italian consulate.” Consul: “Ask my wife. She is liter- ary, I am not.” Signora: “I’m very sorry. I have no idea.” Back in Princeton the next day, I had a scheduled story conference with Abe Crystal, his profile of Grainger David on the desk in front of us. With my index finger touching “sprezzatura,” I said, “Abe, what the hell is this?” Abe said he had picked up the word in Castiglione’s “The Courtier,” from 1528. “It means effortless grace, all easy, doing something cool without appar- ent effort.” Soon after he left, I called Sarah again, and she picked up. She said Abe had it right, but the word “nonchalance” should be added to his definition. She said that Raphael carried the ideal of sprezzatura into painting. “He painted his friend Baldassare Castiglione as the ideal courtier, the embodiment of sprez- zatura. It’s now in the Louvre.”

obert Bingham, my editor at The R New Yorker for sixteen years, had a fluorescent, not to mention distin- guished, mustache. In some piece or n 2000, Abe Crystal, an undergrad- zatura means, but in 2000 I had no idea, other, early on, I said of a person I I uate from Columbia, South Caro- and I reached for an Italian dictionary. was writing about that he had a “sin- lina, was enrolled in a writing class I Nothing. I looked in another Italian cere” mustache. This brought Bing- teach at Prince ton, and one of his as- dictionary. Nothing. I looked in Web II— ham, manuscript in hand, out of his signments was to compose a profile of Webster’s unabridged New Interna- office and down the hall to mine, as I another student, whose name was tional Dictionary, Second Edition. had hoped it would. A sincere mustache, Grainger David. This Grainger hap- Niente. I picked up the phone and called Mr. McPhee, a sincere mustache? pened to be the undergraduate presi- my daughter Martha, who has lived in What does that mean? Was I imply- dent of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s University Italy and co-translated John Paul II’s ing that it is possible to have an insin- Cottage Club and was as smoothly ver- “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” into cere mustache? bal and self-possessed as any of Fitz- English from the Vatican’s Italian. I said I could not imagine anything gerald’s characters, including Amory Her credentials notwithstanding, said more plainly. Blaine, of “This Side of Paradise.” In Martha was no help. The mustache made it into the mag- the profile, Abe Crystal mentioned, I tried my daughter Sarah, a profes- azine and caused me to feel self-estab- without amplification, that Grainger sor of art and architectural history at lished as The New Yorker ’s nonfiction David had “sprezzatura.” Emory, whose specialty is Baroque mustache specialist. Across time, some- Sprezzatura? Of course, in this ad- Rome. Her answering machine was as one came along who had “a no-nonsense vanced age of the handheld vocabulary, helpful as Martha. mustache,” and a Great Lakes ship cap- everyone on earth knows what sprez- That evening, I happened to attend tain who had “a gyroscopic mustache,”

42 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY LEO ESPINOSA and a North Woodsman who had “a would you do with Scarsdale? Do you by Sarah Boxer, writing in 2010 in The timber-cruiser’s guileless mustache.” A need to say where it is? Step van, Stanley New York Review of Books about the art- family practitioner in Maine had “an Steamer, black-and-white unit, goose- ists Hedda Sterne and Saul Steinberg, analgesic mustache,” another doctor “a neck trailer. If you know what a goose- who “knew all the New Yorker people, soothing mustache,” and another a mus- neck trailer is, raise your hand. the writers and cartoonists and movie tache that “seems medical, in that it One hand rises among thirty-two. people—Charlie Addams, Cobean, spreads flat beyond the corners of his “Where are you from, Stacey?” William Steig, Peter Arno, Ian Frazier, mouth and suggests no prognosis, pos- “Idaho.” Dwight Macdonald, Harold Rosenberg, itive or negative.” To sense the composite nature of E. B. White, Katharine White—and Writing has to be fun at least once frames of reference, think of their inci- they all came to dinner.” That’s a fossil in a pale blue moon. dental aftermath, think of some old ones assemblage with a virus in it. Ian Fra- as they have moved through time, even- zier, in Hudson, Ohio, in the era of those Dodge had a great deal more hair on his upper lip than elsewhere on his head. With his tually forming distinct strata in history. dinners, was nine years old and younger. grand odobene mustache he had everything At the University of Cambridge, aca- Frames of reference are like the con- but the tusks. . . . His words filtered softly demic supervisors in English literature stellation of lights, some of them blink- through the Guinness Book mustache. It was really a sight to see, like a barrel on his lip. would hand you a photocopy of an un- ing, on an airliner descending toward identified swatch of prose or poetry and an airport at night. You see the lights. Inevitably, all this led to Andrew ask you to say in what decade of what They imply a structure you can’t see. Lawson. Andrew Lawson? The great century it was written. This custom is Inside that frame of reference—those Scottish-born Andrew Lawson, struc- called dating and is not as difficult as descending lights—is a big airplane with tural geologist, University of Califor- you might imagine. A useful compari- its flaps down expecting a runway. nia, Berkeley, who named—perhaps son is to the science of geochronology, eponymously—the San Andreas Fault. which I once tried to explain with this ou will never land smoothly on bor- Andrew Lawson was lowered in a bucket description: Yrowed vividness. If you say some- into a caisson in San Francisco Bay in one looks like Tom Cruise—and you order to decide if the south pier of the Imagine an E. L. Doctorow novel in which let it go at that—you are asking Tom Alfred Tennyson, William Tweed, Abner Dou- Golden Gate Bridge could be constructed bleday, Jim Bridger, and Martha Jane Canary Cruise to do your writing for you. Your where it is. sit down to a dinner cooked by Rutherford B. description will fail when your reader Hayes. Geologists would call that a fossil as- doesn’t know who Tom Cruise is. With his pure-white hair, his large frame, semblage. And, without further assistance his tetragrammatonic mustache, Lawson from Doctorow, a geologist could quickly Who is Tom Ripley? personified Higher Authority. decide—as could anyone else—that the din- Dwight Garner, in the Times, 2010: ner must have occurred in the middle eigh- “Castelli was a hard man to know. He teen-seventies, because Canary was eighteen Querying letters poured into The when the decade began, Tweed became ex- had thousands of friends but few inti- New Yorker ’s office like water over the tinct in 1878, and the biographies of the oth- mates. There was something elusive, sides of a caisson. With utmost gener- ers do not argue with these limits. shape-shifting, almost Tom Ripley-like osity, the writer Charles McGrath, then about him.” a young New Yorker editor, voluntarily Fossils were the isotopes of their time, More scattered examples from not answered them. and that is how, in the nineteenth cen- very bygone years: tury, the science developed the story it John Leonard, Times Book Review, tetragrammatonic anything and a was telling. All this is only to show how 2005, reviewing the Library of Ameri- A term that seems to have stalled in frames of reference operate, how quickly ca’s collection of James Agee: “Who the Italian Renaissance are points of they evolve from currency to obsoles- knows what marriage was, maybe mu- reference that might just irritate, rather cence. The last thing I would ever sug- sical electric chairs. Add it all up, toss- than illuminate, some readers. Make gest to young writers is that they con- ing in macho rubbish about tomcatting that most readers. The perpetrator is sciously try to write for the ages. Oh, and romantic beeswax about the agony the writer. Mea culpa. Meanwhile, though, yik, disgusting. Nobody should ever be of artistic creation, and what you don’t in a contrary way, we have come upon trying that. We should just be hoping get is a grown-up. You get Rufus in a topic of first importance in the mak- that our pieces aren’t obsolete before Knoxville.” ing of a piece of writing: its frame of the editor sees them. If you look for al- Janet Maslin, the Times, 2008, re- reference, the things and people you lusions and images that have some du- viewing “The Memoirs of a Beautiful choose to allude to in order to advance rability, your choices will stabilize your Boy,” by Robert Leleux: “Despite many its comprehensibility. Mention Beyoncé piece of writing. Don’t assume that ev- obstacles, not least of them the danger of and everyone knows who she is. Men- eryone on earth has seen every movie sounding like a would-be Augusten Bur- tion Veronica Lake and you might as you have seen. In the archives of ersatz roughs, he has made her the centerpiece well be in the Quetico-Superior. Ob- references, that one is among the fat- of a frantically giddy coming-of-age viously, if you mention New York, you test folders. “This recalled the climb-out story.” can count on most readers to know what scene in ‘Deliverance.’ ” “That was like Maureen Dowd, the Times, 2008, on that is and where. Mention Vernal Cor- the ending of ‘Birdman of Alcatraz.’ ” President emeritus William Jefferson ners and you can’t. It’s upstate. What Here is a lively group pieced together Clinton: “Bill continues to howl at the

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 43 moon. . . . He’s starting to make King overall look of a lean Wilford Brimley.” Archean Eon. Frank wrote that he was Lear look like Ryan Seacrest.” Who Wilford Brimley? Who cares? wondering if all of us are losing what Joel Achenbach, in his wonderful Ian Frazier, in The New Yorker, in he felicitously called our “collective vo- book “Captured by Aliens” (1999), 2014, attempting unsuccessfully to stay cabulary.” He asked, “Are common page 391: “There’s a nebula in space that out of debtor’s prison: “Along with play- points of reference dwindling? Has the looks like Abe Vigoda.” ing conga drums, she throws pots and personal niche supplanted the public Joel, as a college senior, was in my is pursuing her second M.A., in exper- square?” writing class in 1982. I keep trying. Also imental psychology with a focus on ma- My answer would be that the col- in “Captured by Aliens,” he produces rine biology. She looks enough like the lective vocabulary and common points this description of a professor at Tufts late Bea Arthur, the star of the nineteen- of reference are not only dwindling now University: “He looks a bit like Gene seventies sitcom ‘Maude,’ that it would but have been for centuries. The dwin- Wilder, and has some of the same manic be negligent not to say so.” dling may have become speedier, but it energy.” Gene Wilder? Search me. But is an old and continuous condition. I nota bene: when Joel says “the same rames of reference are grossly am forever testing my students to see manic energy,” he is paying back much Fabused by writers and broadcast- what works and does not work in pieces of the vividness he borrowed. ers of the punch-line school. We’re of varying vintage. Enter Robert Wright, who was in approaching the third decade of the “Y2K—what does that mean?” the class four years earlier and has be- twenty-first century and someone on No one knew before the late nine- come an author who will take on sub- Fox refers coyly to “a band called the ties, and how long will the term last, if jects few would dare to confront, such Beatles and another called the Rolling it isn’t gone already? as “The Evolution of God” in five hun- Stones.” Y2kute. And NPR is review- Y2K, QE2, P-38, B-36, Enola Gay, dred and seventy-six pages (2009). His ing the life of the Washington Post ’s NFL, NBA, CBS, NBC, Fox? Do you first book (1988) was called “Three Sci- Ben Bradlee: “He became close to a watch comets? entists and Their Gods.” Chapter 19 Georgetown neighbor—a young sen- A couple of weeks before that spring begins this way: “The fact that Ken- ator named John F. Kennedy.” Doesn’t semester began, I had been in Massa- neth Boulding is a Quaker does not that give you a shiver in the bones? chusetts collecting impressions for this mean that he looks like the Quaker on Pure pallesthesia. Ta-da! project by testing the frame of reference the cartons of Quaker Oats.” The columnist Frank Bruni, writing in a piece of mine called “Elicitation,” Bob does not seem interested in the in the Times in 2014, said, “If you . . . which was soon to run in The New Yorker. future of that allusion, but he does go want to feel much, much older, teach a Why Massachusetts? Because that’s on to say: college course. I’m doing that now . . . where Brookline High School is and As it turns out, there is a certain resem- and hardly a class goes by when I don’t where Mary Burchenal’s senior English blance. Both men have shoulder-length, make an allusion that prompts my stu- classes meet, and where Isobel McPhee, snow-white hair, blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks, dents to stare at me as if I just dropped daughter of my daughter Laura, was one and both have fundamentally sunny disposi- tions, smiling much or all of the time, respec- in from the Paleozoic era. . . . I once of her students. The “Elicitation” frame tively. There are differences, to be sure. Boul- brought up Vanessa Redgrave. Blank of reference consisted of about five dozen ding’s hair is not as cottony as the Oats stares. Greta Garbo. Ditto. We were a items running along the edges of seven Quaker’s, and it falls less down and more back, skirting the tops of his ears along the thousand words. way. And Boulding’s face is not soft and ge- “I would like to try that list on neric. His nose is jutting, and his eyes are you. Raise your hand if you recognize deeply set and profoundly knowing. these names and places: Woody Allen.” Borrowed vividness may never have Nineteen hands went up. Everybody been so amply repaid. present in the class that day was aware Trevor Corson, in “The Zen of of Woody Allen. As we went through Fish,” 2007: “Salmon smell their way my list, nineteen hands went up also for back to their birthplace. . . . As they head Muhammad Ali, Time magazine, Hall- upriver they also undergo astonishing mark cards, Denver, Mexico, Princeton anatomical changes, not unlike Dr. few minutes into a discussion of an essay University, Winston Churchill, “Ham- David Banner’s transforming into the that repeatedly invoked Proust’s made- let,” and Toronto. So those perfect scores Incredible Hulk.” leine when I realized that almost none reached around about fifteen per cent Mark Singer, in “Somewhere in of the students understood what the of the frame. America,” 2004, paying off with so much madeleine signified or, for that matter, Sarah Palin, Omaha, Barbra Strei- interest that he has no debt: “Keys lacks who this Proust fellow was.” sand, Rolls-Royce—eighteen. the aura and demeanor of a politician. As it happened, Frank Bruni was at Paul Newman—seventeen. He’s sixty years old, pink-faced and Princeton teaching in the same pro- Heathrow—sixteen. freckled, with red hair that’s complet- gram I teach in—same classroom, same Fort Knox—fifteen. ing the transition to white. His droop- semester, different course, different Elizabeth Taylor, “My Fair Lady”— ing mustache, wire-rimmed glasses, day—and if I had felt “much, much eleven. plaid shirts, and blue jeans give him the older” I would have been back in the Cassius Clay—eight.

44 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 Waterloo Bridge, Maggie Smith— six. Norman Rockwell, Truman Capote, Joan Baez—five. Rupert Murdoch—three. Hampstead, Mickey Rooney—two. Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh—one. “In England, would you know what a bobby is?”—one. Calabria, St. John’s Wood, Peckham Rye, Churchill Downs, the Old Vic, News of the World, Jackie Gleason, David Brower, Ralph Nelson, David Susskind, Jack Dempsey, Stephen Harper, Thomas P. F. Hoving, George Plimpton, J. Anthony Lukas, Bob Woodward, Norman Maclean, Henry Luce, Sophia Loren, Mort Sahl, Jean Kerr, James Boswell, Samuel John- son—zero.

n 1970, I went to Wimbledon on I an assignment from Playboy. The idea was to spend the whole of the cham- pionships fortnight there and then write a montage of impressions, not only of the players but also of the place. The eventual piece was quite long, but its freestanding parts were short, like “Another desert island cartoon clipping from my uncle.” this one: Hoad on Court 5, weathered and leo- •• nine, has come from Spain, where he lives on his tennis ranch in the plains of Andalusia. Technically, he is an old hero trying a come- Arthur Kretchmer, who was soon to Raj, they went in unairconditioned back but, win or lose, with this crowd it is enough of a comeback that Hoad is here. become Playboy ’s editorial director, a ships. The most expensive staterooms There is tempestuous majesty in him, and position he held for thirty years. My were on the port side, away from the people have congregated seven deep around conferences with him, always on the debilitating sun. When they sailed his court just to feel the atmosphere there and to see him again. Hoad serves explo- telephone, were light and without speed westward home, the most expensive sively, and the ball hits the fence behind his bumps as we made our way through staterooms were on the starboard side, opponent without first intersecting the the strawberries, the extinguishings, and for the same reason. And that is the ground. His precision is off. The dead al- ways rise slowly. the resurrections, until we came to the actual or apocryphal but nonetheless Members’ Enclosure. commonplace etymology of the word And so on to the end of Hoad, which “posh.” Those people in the All En- was imminent. Meanwhile: In the Members’ Enclosure, on the Mem- gland Members’ Enclosure were one bers’ Lawn, members and their guests are Smith, in a remote part of the grounds, is below Ascot: starboard out, starboard sitting under white parasols, consuming best- slowly extinguishing Jaime Fillol. . . . Laver is home. end-of-lamb salad and strawberries in Dev- so far ahead that the match has long since I didn’t have a stopwatch with which become an exhibition. onshire cream. Around them are pools of goldfish. The goldfish are rented from Har- to time the length of the silence on the The grounds were often more inter- rods. The members are rented from the up- other end of the line. I do remember permost upper middle class. Wimbledon is esting than the matches, the All En- the annual convention of this stratum of what Kretchmer eventually said. He said, gland Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club English society, starboard out, starboard “Maybe one reader in ten thousand being such an index fossil from the nine- home. would get that.” teenth century. I said, “Look: you have bought thir- In the Players’ Tea Room, the players sit Arthur Kretchmer said, “What does teen thousand words about Wimble- on pale-blue wicker chairs at pale-blue wicker that mean?” don with no other complaint. I beg tables eating strawberries in Devonshire Assuming a tone of faintest sur- you to keep it as it is for that one cream. prise, I explained that when English reader.” The editor of the piece was the affable people went out to India during the He said, “Sold!” 

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 45 A REPORTER AT LARGE BREAK-IN AT Y-12

How a handful of pacifists and nuns exposed the vulnerability of America’s nuclear-weapons sites.

BY ERIC SCHLOSSER

he Y-12 National Security Com- decades later, Y-12 is the only indus- blocks of concrete that can rip the axles Tplex sits in a narrow valley, sur- trial complex in the United States de- off approaching vehicles and bring them rounded by wooded hills, in the city of voted to the fabrication and storage of to a dead stop. The management of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Y-12 and Oak weapons-grade uranium. Every nuclear Y-12 calls the place “the Fort Knox of Ridge were built secretly, within about warhead and bomb in the American Uranium.” two years, as part of the Manhattan arsenal contains uranium from Y-12. After the terrorist attacks on Sep- Project, and their existence wasn’t pub- Strict security measures have been tember 11, 2001, the Highly Enriched licly acknowledged until the end of the adopted at the site to prevent the theft Uranium Materials Facility was built, at Second World War. By then, the se- of its special nuclear materials. Y-12 has a cost of more than half a billion dollars, cret city had a population of seven- some five hundred security officers au- to safeguard Y-12’s uranium. Situated at ty-five thousand. Few of its residents thorized to use lethal force within its the north end of the Protected Area, the had been allowed to know what was Protected Area, five BearCat armored storage facility is an imposing white being done at the military site, which vehicles, Gatling guns that can fire up to structure, longer than a football field, included one of the largest buildings fifty rounds per second and shoot down with guard towers at all four corners. If in the world. Y-12 processed the ura- aircraft, video cameras, motion detec- the tops of the towers were crenellated, nium used in Little Boy, the atomic tors, four perimeter fences, and rows of the building would look like an im-

bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Seven dragon’s teeth—low, pyramid-shaped mense, windowless White Castle. Some BETTMAN/CORBIS DAY); GETTY (DOROTHY RIGHT: LEFT TO MARCH) AND PROTEST (PHILIP BERRIGAN

46 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALEX WILLIAMSON The Plowshares movement was inspired by Dorothy Day, a Greenwich Village bohemian who converted to Catholicism and urged resistance to all wars. In the Vietnam era, Philip Berrigan led actions to symbolically destroy the nuclear arsenal. nine hundred thousand pounds of American neighborhood of Oak Ridge. Boertje-Obed was a Christian pacifist weapons-grade uranium are stored in- They walked through the church park- in his late fifties who painted houses for side it. Little Boy—a crude and highly ing lot to a nearby dirt path, followed a living and worked with the homeless inefficient atomic bomb, designed in the the path through a stand of trees, in Duluth, Minnesota. Michael Walli early nineteen-forties with slide rules— reached a meadow, and turned left. Up was a Catholic layman in his early six- contained a hundred and forty-one ahead, in the darkness, they could see ties, inspired by the life of St. Francis of pounds of weapons-grade uranium, and the silhouette of a steep hill called Pine Assisi to live humbly and serve the almost ninety-nine per cent of it harm- Ridge. On the other side of the hill was poor. Megan Rice was an eighty-two- lessly blew apart as the bomb detonated. Y-12. All three had spent time in fed- year-old nun, a member of the Society Just a couple of pounds underwent nu- eral prison. They belonged to a loosely of the Holy Child Jesus. Carrying clear fission—the splitting of atoms— organized group whose members have flashlights and backpacks, they headed above Hiroshima. And, when that hap- been prosecuted by the Justice Depart- toward the hill. pened, two-thirds of the buildings in the ment for violent crimes, sabotage, and Not so long ago, the threat of nuclear city were destroyed and perhaps eighty threatening the national security. The terrorism seemed imminent. In the fall thousand civilians were killed. The three hoped to reach the uranium-stor- of 2001, during an interview with a amount of weapons-grade uranium age facility before sunrise, having care- Pakistani journalist, Osama bin Laden needed to build a terrorist bomb with a fully planned the intrusion for more claimed to possess nuclear weapons, and similar explosive force could fit inside a than a year. But they had no desire to President George W. Bush’s Adminis- small gym bag. steal anything or to make a bomb. They tration invoked the prospect of mush- At about half past two in the morn- wanted to “heal” and “transform” the room clouds rising above American cit- ing on July 28, 2012, three people were building with their own blood; to mark ies to justify its wars in Afghanistan and dropped off at the Scarboro Church it as a symbol of evil, empire, and war; Iraq. “We judge that there is a high of Christ, a modest brick building to protest against its role in maintain- probability that Al Qaeda will attempt with a single white spire in an African- ing America’s nuclear arsenal. Gregory an attack using a CBRN”—chemical,

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 47 biological, radiological, or nuclear— activists have demonstrated again and as a library clerk, a restaurant cashier, an “weapon within the next two years,” again, improbable things happen all artist’s model, a nurse; had an illegal John Negroponte, Bush’s Ambassador the time. abortion; got married and sought a di- to the United Nations, informed the Se- vorce; moved to Europe and lived on the curity Council in April, 2003. “There is he origins of the Plowshares move- island of Capri for six months; inter- little doubt that Al Qaeda intends to Tment can be traced to the work of viewed Leon Trotsky; and decided to and can detonate a weapon of mass de- Dorothy Day. At the age of eighteen, write a novel. After selling the film rights struction on U.S. soil,” members of a bi- Day dropped out of college in Illinois to her first book, she bought a beach partisan commission on national secu- and moved to New York City. She was house on Staten Island and had a daugh- rity wrote the following year. an aspiring writer, a free spirit drawn to ter with a common-law husband. And More than a decade later, a nuclear- the radical politics and bohemia of then Dorothy Day did something so rad- weapons catastrophe has not yet oc- Greenwich Village in 1916. She soon ical that few of her radical friends could curred. The threat has been dismissed as had a job as a reporter with The Call, a comprehend it. She became a Catholic. “alarmist” by some academics and no socialist newspaper, covering protest She took a vow of poverty. And she de- longer inspires much public concern. marches, strikes, and the birth-control voted the rest of her life to the practice of But since the early nineteen-eighties a movement. Her family was conservative a new kind of American Catholicism— small group of peace activists, devout and Episcopalian, but Day rejected all one that was uncompromising in its ser- supporters of the Plowshares move- the trappings of middle-class respect- vice to the homeless, its opposition to ment, have been trying to break into nu- ability. She lived in a communal apart- state power, its resistance to all forms of clear-weapons sites throughout the ment, took lovers, spent time with an- violence and war. United States. They’ve almost always archists and Communists, with John Dos Dorothy Day sought to emulate Jesus succeeded. Plowshares actions have not Passos, Eugene O’Neill, and John Reed. and live the Gospel, embracing a Chris- only revealed serious vulnerabilities in By the time Day was twenty-four, tianity true to its historical roots. She re- the security of America’s nuclear enter- she’d been arrested outside the White garded the Sermon on the Mount as her prise; they’ve also shed light on the in- House while demanding the vote for manifesto: Blessed are the meek and the herent risks faced by every nation that women and sent to jail for a month; peacemakers. Like Jesus, she’d decided possesses weapons of mass destruction. worked as an assistant managing editor at to live with “the rejected ones, the Having these weapons creates endless The Masses, a left-wing monthly that was scorned ones,” convinced, she told the opportunities for theft or misuse. At the shut down after opposing the draft and author Robert Coles, that “the more lux- moment, the probability of terrorists the First World War; got arrested during urious our lives, the further we are from staging a successful nuclear attack may the raid of an International Workers of Him.” In 1933, she founded the Catho- be low, but the consequences would be the World flophouse and mistakenly lic Worker, a monthly newspaper that unimaginably high. And, as Plowshares been charged with prostitution; worked sold for a penny. It published the sort of advocacy journalism that Day had writ- ten for years, now imbued with a Bibli- cal perspective. No longer content sim- ply to advocate on behalf of the dispossessed, Day opened a “house of hospitality” on Charles Street, in the West Village. It fed and housed the poor, as well as Day and fellow Catholic Workers. About thirty hospitality houses soon opened nationwide, along with rural communes that embodied the growing movement’s ideal of decentral- ized power and self-sufficiency. Day had become an anarchist—but preferred the term libertarian, not wanting to offend. She opposed most of the New Deal, be- lieved in changing the world through “direct action,” and never voted in an election. When the United States entered the Second World War, Dorothy Day urged young men to oppose the war and avoid the draft. Day had little use for tradi- tional Catholic teachings about the mo- rality of armed conflict. She thought “Is the hamburger innovative?” there was no such thing as a “just war.” A true Christian should be willing to shed one’s own blood before taking the life of another human being. Her pacifism alienated many close friends and supporters. At a time when Nazi Germany was massacring civilians, turning the other cheek seemed danger- ous, immoral, and ludicrous. But Day would not budge. The Catholic Worker lost three-quarters of its circulation during the war, and more than half of the hospitality houses closed. By the late nineteen-forties, Ameri- ca’s growing anxiety about nuclear weap- ons revived interest in Day’s pacifism. She had condemned the use of atomic bombs against Japan, calling it a “colos- sal slaughter of the innocents.” The pos- sibility of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union gave new urgency to a movement seeking to make war obsolete. Day admired Ma- hatma Gandhi and adopted his tactics of nonviolent resistance. In 1955, she re- fused to enter a fallout shelter during a civil-defense exercise in New York City, faced prosecution for breaking the law, pleaded guilty, and called the protest “an •• act of penance” for the destruction of Hi- roshima and Nagasaki. Her punishment was a suspended sentence. Over the next bottles of their blood over draft their trial became an international four years, Day was jailed three times for records. While awaiting the legal res- media circus. Thousands of demonstra- refusing to participate in the city’s annual olution of that case, he and his older tors marched through Baltimore to air-raid drills. “BAN THE BOMB . . . God brother, the poet Daniel Berrigan, support the defendants, and hundreds is our father, and all men are our broth- who was also a Catholic priest, turned of antiwar activists waited in line every ers,” one of her handouts said. “We are the level of nonviolent resistance up morning for a seat in court. Philip Ber- willing to die for this belief.” a few notches. On May 17, 1968, the rigan opposed the American-backed Members of the Catholic Worker Berrigans and seven other activists government of South Vietnam, and movement were among the first Amer- entered a Selective Service office in had even considered travelling there to icans to protest the Vietnam War. On Catonsville, Maryland. After a brief fight alongside the Vietcong. Judge November 6, 1965, Day gave a speech at scuffle with two women clerks, the Roszel C. Thomsen allowed the Berri- a rally in Union Square, urging young group grabbed hundreds of draft gans to discuss their motives on the men to burn their draft cards and refuse files from cabinets, carried them into witness stand, to tell the jury why the to serve in Vietnam. The speech could a parking lot, and set them on fire with war in Vietnam was immoral, to explain barely be heard, as hecklers shouted at homemade napalm. Newspaper re- why the foreign policy of the United Day and called her “Moscow Mary.” porters and a television crew had States was illegal, not the burning of The escalation of the war in Vietnam been notified of the protest in advance. draft records. “We say: killing is disor- made Day’s form of nonviolent resis- “We destroy these draft records not der; life and gentleness and community tance seem increasingly quaint and ir- only because they exploit our young and unselfishness is the only order we relevant. Many of her young followers men,” a handout given to reporters recognize,” Daniel Berrigan said. He now thought that a stronger dose of di- said, “but because they represent mis- later adapted the court transcripts into rect action was necessary. placed power concentrated in the rul- a play, composed in free verse, that was ing class of America.” The recipe for widely performed. n the fall of 1967, Philip Berrigan, napalm—a mixture of gasoline and Dorothy Day supported the Berri- I a priest who frequently wrote for soap flakes—had been found in a Green gans but felt uneasy about their form of the Catholic Worker, went to the Balti- Beret handbook. direct action. It was one thing to burn more Custom House with three other The actions of the Catonsville Nine your own draft card, quite another to protesters, walked into the draft board, elevated the Berrigan brothers to the burn someone else’s. In 1970, after pulled open file cabinets, and poured pantheon of counterculture heroes, and being found guilty in the Catonsville

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 49 Nine trial, the Berrigans strayed farther bringing them to peace demonstra- Philip Berrigan encouraged Plowshares from her notions of nonviolent resis- tions. Berrigan also made the threat supporters to use their own blood as tance by going on the run instead of re- posed by nuclear weapons the focus of part of the ritual, often carried in baby porting for prison. As a fugitive, Dan- Jonah House’s activities. bottles, “to symbolize the death of inno- iel arrived at Cornell University on a cent human beings.” motorcycle, gave a speech before thou- he first Plowshares action occurred At about four in the morning on sands of students, and left campus with Ton September 9, 1980, when the Thanksgiving Day in 1983, Liz McAl- his head hidden inside the head of a Berrigan brothers, Father Carl Kabat, ister took part in her first Plowshares. Bread and Puppet Theatre puppet. Sister Anne Montgomery, and four She and six other protesters sneaked Philip went into hiding with help from others walked into a nuclear-warhead into Griffiss Air Force Base, in Rome, Elizabeth McAlister, a plant operated by Gen- New York. It was remarkably easy: they nun whom he later mar- eral Electric in King of didn’t have to cut the barbed-wire fence; ried. The Berrigan broth- Prussia, Pennsylvania. The they just pulled the strands apart and ers were soon captured activists had brought climbed through. Someone who had and imprisoned. But their hammers, and when they spent time at the base—where the Stra- war with the government found two missile nose tegic Air Command kept B-52 bomb- had not ended. While be- cones designed to house ers on alert with nuclear weapons—told hind bars, Philip Berrigan nuclear warheads they set McAlister where to go. The activists was indicted, along with out to fulfill the Biblical opened the unlocked door of a hangar McAlister, for conspir- injunction in Isaiah 2:4: and said, “Hello, anybody home?” No- ing to blow up the steam “And they shall beat their body replied, so they walked in. They tunnels beneath federal buildings in swords into plowshares, and their spears poured blood on the floor and on a Washington, D.C.—and for plotting into pruning hooks: nation shall not B-52, pasted photographs of children to kidnap Henry Kissinger, who was lift up sword against nation, neither onto the plane, hammered its bomb-bay President Nixon’s national-security shall they learn war any more.” When doors, walked outside with an anti-nu- adviser at the time. The case against security officers arrived, the intruders clear banner, and awaited arrest. But no- Berrigan and McAlister ended in a stopped hammering the nose cones body came to arrest them. After about mistrial. and didn’t resist arrest. Philip Berrigan half an hour, one of them picked up a When Philip Berrigan was released, emptied a vial of his blood on some phone in the hangar, called the base in December, 1972, the national mood nearby blueprints. switchboard, and wished the operator a had changed. As the war in Vietnam The Plowshares Eight tried to use “Happy Thanksgiving.” Still nobody wound down, so did the movement to their trial to publicize the threat of nu- came. They wandered around outside oppose it. Once featured on the cover clear weapons. But the crowds failed to for about an hour, singing songs and of Time, Berrigan found that his latest materialize, and even the local religious holding the banner, until security forces acts of resistance, such as depositing community offered little help. Some of finally arrived. broken and bloody dolls on the White the defendants, housed at a Catholic McAlister spent more than two years House lawn, attracted little media in- women’s college during the first week of in prison for her role in the Griffiss terest. Now excommunicated by the the trial, were forced to leave by out- Plowshares. It was a difficult period for Church, Berrigan and McAlister raged alumnae. All eight were found her children; the youngest was still a helped to organize half a dozen “resis- guilty and sentenced to prison. Al- toddler. Berrigan supported his wife tance communities” on the East Coast. though the first Plowshares had been a wholeheartedly. Both were willing to Berrigan thought that “some of us disappointment, a new template for di- risk their lives for their faith, and he would have to accept God’s Word as a rect action had been created—one that later argued that the break-in was mo- handbook and try to embody it.” Only inspired more than a hundred similar tivated by love “for all of the world’s one of the communes—Jonah House, break-ins. children.” Imprisoned six hours by car in inner-city Baltimore—lasted beyond Like American military operations, from Jonah House, McAlister wrote let- the seventies. And it got off to a rough subsequent Plowshares actions were ters to her children every day. start. Determined to live outside the given names: Good News Plowshares, Other Plowshares followers received capitalist system, members of Jonah Prince of Peace Plowshares, Sacred even harsher punishments for acts of House often obtained food by dump- Earth and Space Plowshares, Kairos nonviolent resistance. On November 12, ster diving and theft. Berrigan was ar- Plowshares Two. During Trident Nein, 1984, Father Carl Kabat broke into an rested at a grocery store for shoplifting, in July, 1982, two nuns and five accom- unmanned, unguarded Minuteman II McAlister at a Sears, Roebuck for try- plices broke into the General Dynamics intercontinental-ballistic-missile com- ing to steal tools. Chastened and em- Electric Boat shipyard, in Groton, Con- plex forty miles east of Kansas City. He barrassed by the arrests, Berrigan necticut. Four of them paddled by canoe was accompanied by his older brother, worked as a housepainter. He and to a Trident submarine, climbed on the Father Paul Kabat; Helen Woodson, a McAlister eventually had three kids, sub, hammered its missile hatches, mother of eleven children; and Larry dressing them in hand-me-downs, poured blood on it, and rechristened it Cloud-Morgan, a Native American ac- sending them to inner-city schools, the U.S.S. Ausch witz with spray paint. tivist and spiritual leader of the Ojibwa

50 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 tribe. As part of an action called Silo Without much fanfare, Philip Berrigan by Jonah House seemed peaceful and Pruning Hooks, they cut the lock off the kept getting arrested and going to humble. Church services are held there perimeter fence with a bolt cutter, drove prison. He still worked as a house- every Sunday, the poor and the home- a yellow van trailing an air compressor painter to pay bills. The Jesus whom he less are fed there every Tuesday, and onto the Minuteman site, and removed worshipped was “an outlaw,” “a non-vi- the rest of the week is devoted to anti- their tools. Carl Kabat attached a jack- olent revolutionary” who drove the war efforts, amid a landscape contain- hammer to the air compressor and money changers from the temple, chal- ing the remains of about fifteen thou- started chipping away pieces of the con- lenged authority, and lived amid the sand bodies. crete silo door, while the others attacked poor. There was nothing meek or mod- At a table in the tidy kitchen of a equipment at the site with sledgeham- erate about Him. Despite the end of the house originally built for the cemetery mers and wire cutters. The air compres- Cold War, the Plowshares actions con- caretaker, I had lunch with Liz McAlis- sor and the jackhammer died after half tinued, regardless of whether anyone ter, Sister Ardeth Platte, and Sister an hour. When two Air Force security noticed. Carol Gilbert. Some of the food had officers appeared, half an hour after that, been grown in their organic garden. All they found the protesters kneeling on onah House now sits on the grounds three women had short hair, and wore the silo door, singing, praying, and shar- Jof St. Peter’s Cemetery in Baltimore. the kind of clothes usually seen on ing bread. A banner draped over the The first burial at St. Peter’s occurred Plowshares activists: sneakers, bluejeans, fence said, “WHY DO YOU DO THIS EVIL in 1851, but the cemetery was aban- and T-shirts bearing a political slogan. THING?” The four activists were con- doned in the late nineteen-sixties. It Sister Ardeth’s said, “NO WAR.” We victed in federal court. Larry Cloud- soon disappeared from view, as trees, talked about the history of the Plow- Morgan was sentenced to eight years in bushes, vines, and poison ivy grew over shares movement, their involvement in prison; Father Paul Kabat, to ten. Father the graves. The Baltimore Archdiocese direct action, the many places where Carl and Helen Woodson were given allowed members of Jonah House to they’d been jailed. Sister Carol, who’s eighteen-year prison sentences. live there for free starting in the late sixty-seven, and Sister Ardeth, who’s Carl Kabat was released from prison nineties. In return, they agreed to look seventy-eight, were both outraged and after serving about seven years. He cel- after the cemetery. Most of its twenty-two amused that their work on behalf of ebrated by breaking into the same Min- acres have been cleared since then, at world peace had once landed them on a uteman complex the following year, as enormous effort, with some help from terrorist watch list. Their commitment part of an action called Good Friday donkeys and goats. When I visited, last to nonviolence was complete. Although Plowshares Missile Silo Witness. He spring, the place felt bucolic—a well- deeply upset by the attacks on Christian was sentenced to six months in a half- tended stretch of green, surrounded by communities in Syria and Iraq, they way house—and broke into a Minute- a tire-recycling plant, a National Guard thought that any violent response—even man complex outside Grand Forks, depot, and a low-income housing proj- in self-defense, even to halt the slaugh- North Dakota, two years later, on April ect. The two little buildings occupied ter of women and children—would be Fool’s Day, wearing makeup, a wig, and a clown outfit. He was sentenced to prison for an additional five years. After gaining his freedom, having spent more than fifteen years in prison since his conviction as part of the original Plow- shares Eight, Father Kabat broke into Minuteman complexes three more times, dressed as a clown. “We are fools for Christ’s sake,” he explained, quoting St. Paul. The American anti-nuclear move- ment reached its peak during the early nineteen-eighties, with large demon- strations nationwide and a rally in Cen- tral Park that attracted almost a million people. But Plowshares activists played a marginal role in the new movement, which relied on mainstream tactics, like circulating petitions and seeking new legislation, not direct action. The “nu- clear freeze” movement sought a halt to the arms race—not the abolition of nu- clear weapons, the dismantling of a per- “I’m not going to fall for that routine where you try manent war economy, world peace. and stall until the neighborhood gentrifies.” wrong. They would rather die than have they secretly broke into an Air Force Sister Ingalls, a character inspired by to kill. Like the other Plowshares activ- base three times before publicly “dis- Sister Ardeth, appears in the television ists I’ve encountered, there was nothing arming” it with blood. Preparation for show based on the book. dour or severe about the two nuns and the ensuing trial is considered equally Born and raised in central Michigan, the former nun. They had an exuberant, important. How the activists behave in Sister Ardeth had decided by the age of often wry sense of humor. When asked court can establish the action’s broader eleven that her life would be devoted to how many times she’d been arrested, Liz meaning, draw public attention to the God and serving others. She entered a McAlister, now seventy-five, replied, cause, and put the government’s behav- convent after her freshman year of col- “Not enough.” ior on trial. The final step of a Plow- lege, got a bachelor’s degree and a mas- Although the inclusion of Sister Ar- shares action—prison—may be the ter’s, became a teacher, then a high- deth and Sister Carol on a terrorist most difficult and yet, in some ways, the school principal in a poor, largely watch list was ridiculed in the press and most rewarding. African-American and Latino neigh- later rescinded, the organizational skills Sister Ardeth and Sister Carol have borhood of Saginaw, Michigan. Doro- of the Plowshares movement would be been arrested together more times than thy Day was her role model. As a teacher the envy of groups hoping to commit they can count, but they never seek to be and a principal in Saginaw, Sister Ar- spectacular acts of terror on American incarcerated. They don’t enjoy being in deth found herself in the middle of soil. Plowshares actions aren’t impro- prison. An action that ends without fistfights, gunfights, and race riots. She vised or spontaneous; they’re planned as time behind bars is called a “freebie.” In- was elected to the city council, served on much as a year in advance. The first step, stead of punishment or deterrence, it for twelve years, helped found the according to one veteran, involves however, they view prison as an oppor- city’s first rape crisis center and a shelter “wear ing away of the ego, disarming the tunity. Tending the sick, the poor, and for battered women. She became mayor self, forming community, doing an in- those in prison is the path to salvation, pro tem of Saginaw and enjoyed being depth analysis of our times.” The volun- Jesus preached. Although prisons and a public servant, but her political career teers pray together, read the Bible to- jails are “horrible places,” Sister Carol ended after Pope John Paul II decreed gether, learn to trust one another told me, “it’s the closest as white, mid- that members of the clergy could no without hesitation. They must be will- dle-class North Americans that we can longer run for elected office. Sister Ar- ing to risk their lives and sacrifice their really be with the poor.” She and Sister deth helped to gain passage of a 1982 freedom together. No one else can be Ardeth have been shackled and chained, state law expressing Michigan’s support harmed or endangered by the action—a strip-searched in front of male guards, for a nuclear freeze. The following year, fundamental rule. And everyone who locked in filthy cells with clogged toilets nuclear weapons were deployed at plays a supporting role in it, often re- and vermin. They’ve listened helplessly Wurtsmith Air Force Base, in Michi- cruited from the more than a hundred to a dying friend, another nun, cry for gan. She decided to oppose that move and fifty Catholic Worker houses across assistance from a nearby cell. The sisters and joined forces with Sister Carol, the country, must be protected from ar- look after the other inmates, trying to whom she’d taught in high school. They rest and conspiracy charges. teach and empower them. But there were both Dominicans, members of a Once a strong bond has been forged have been lighter moments as well. Sis- Catholic order whose motto is “Veritas.” among the group, a target is selected and ter Carol got to know Martha Stewart “We preach truth to power,” Sister Ar- then “scoped” for months. While scop- behind bars. And Sister Ardeth prac- deth likes to say. ing it, Plowshares members observe the ticed yoga with Piper Kerman, a con- Before long, the former principal of security at a site and also may test it, re- victed drug offender, who later wrote a Catholic high school and one of her peatedly. In preparation for one action, about her in “Orange Is the New Black.” former pupils were dancing atop a nu- clear-weapons bunker at Wurtsmith Air Force Base, singing, “Jesus Christ has risen today!” They later prayed at the gates of the base every day for three years. The fact that millions of people could be killed by nuclear weapons, at any moment, demanded that something radical be done. They broke into a Minuteman complex in eastern Colo- rado and, during Gods of Metal Plow- shares, hurled blood onto the bomb-bay doors of a B-52 at Andrews Air Force Base, in Maryland. Sister Ardeth and Sister Carol chose the protest’s name to convey the idolatry of nuclear weap- ons—the blind faith that they somehow keep us safe. “Well, I checked again, and we’re definitely the ones inside the cage.” After lunch, we walked along the dirt paths of St. Peter’s. On the land that Force’s early intercontinental ballis- eras were installed at Minuteman sites. remains uncleared, toppled gravestones tic missiles—its Atlases, Titans, and While exploring the outskirts of the and cracked, ornate marble tombs could Titan IIs—were overseen by launch launch site, taking pictures, I kept ex- be glimpsed amid the bushes and trees. crews that lived in underground con- pecting that someone would see me Some of the stones were so old and trol centers near the silos. When the with the surveillance cameras and order weathered that the names of the dead Minuteman was being designed, in the me to stop. No one did. could no longer be seen. I asked the sis- late nineteen-fifties, the Air Force de- It would be extremely difficult to ters if the lack of publicity about Plow- cided that the missiles should be re- break into a Minuteman launch facility shares actions, the lack of awareness motely operated. The change would and get anywhere near the missile—but about the nuclear threat, ever made their reduce the manpower necessary to op- not impossible. The complexes were de- work seem unsuccessful, their years in erate them, enabling a single launch signed to withstand the nearby detona- prison futile. Sister Carol acknowledged crew to command as many as fifty mis- tion of a Soviet nuclear warhead. The that the public apathy about nuclear siles. One of the new silos could be silo door is a thick slab made from a weapons was frustrating. But she offered twelve miles away from its crew. The hundred and ten tons of reinforced steel a different measure of success: Are you Air Force also chose to disperse Min- and concrete. A nearby Personnel Ac- truly living your faith? uteman missiles throughout the Great cess Hatch leads to an underground en- I questioned the morality of breaking Plains, so that a surprise attack by the tryway blocked by a seven-ton steel into high-security nuclear sites: What if Soviet Union couldn’t easily destroy plug. You need one code to open the someone got shot? What about the them all. In Montana, the new launch hatch, another to lower the plug out of trauma a young security guard might sites were built in an area extending the way. But the right explosives, prop- experience after realizing that he or she for some fourteen thousand square erly employed, could eliminate the need had killed a nun rather than a terrorist? miles. Instead of being protected by for codes. A former member of a Min- Sister Ardeth replied that nobody had armed guards, as in the Soviet Union, uteman security force told me that he been harmed in the more than thirty America’s ballistic-missile complexes could break into a complex, especially years since the first Plowshares, and that were unmanned, and built on one-acre with help from an insider—a rogue the Lord should be thanked for that. plots of land, amid ranches and farms. launch officer, security officer, or main- She betrayed no doubts. “I will continue Decisions made for reasons of efficiency tenance technician. Once inside the silo, doing direct action for the rest of my and military strategy in the twentieth you would have to possess highly spe- life,” Sister Ardeth told me. “If I can century couldn’t anticipate the impli- cialized skills and great ingenuity to walk, you’ll find me out there.” cations for nuclear terrorism in the launch a Minuteman missile or deto- The cleared section of St. Peter’s had twenty-first. Today, these missile sites nate its warhead. The missile would be a bright, cheery feel that day, more like are essentially unguarded nuclear-weap- easy to destroy, however, leaving behind a sculpture garden than like a graveyard. ons storage facilities. Some are within a radioactive mess. A handful of people have been buried a quarter mile of private homes. During the summer of 2013, a tacti- there since the cemetery reopened, in- Using a map created by anti-nuclear cal-response force operating out of cluding Philip Berrigan. He died at the activists in the late nineteen-eighties, I Malmstrom Air Force Base, in Mon- age of seventy-nine, in 2002, having had little trouble finding Minuteman tana, failed a major security test. Ac- spent much of the previous year in complexes. They are often visible from cording to a classified Air Force report prison for a Plowshares action. The in- public roads. Soon I could spot one obtained by the Associated Press, the scription on Berrigan’s gravestone ex- without the map: a cluster of poles in tactical force didn’t respond “effectively” pressed his view of Christ’s central mes- the middle of a field, surrounded by to the simulated takeover of a Minute- sage: “Love one another.” chain-link fence. What seemed extraor- man complex. The troops apparently Before I left Jonah House, Sister Ar- dinary at first—a ballistic-missile com- couldn’t recapture the silo from terror- deth handed me a brown paper bag. I plex right off the highway, in the middle ists and didn’t take “all lawful actions looked inside and saw an apple, a power of the prairie, just an hour or so east of necessary to immediately regain control bar, and some nuts. Greeley, Colorado—soon became rou- of nuclear weapons.” The report criti- “It’s a snack for your train ride to tine. At one Minuteman site, I parked cized the training and the leadership of New York,” she said. my rental car, got out, and walked over the security force. Its commanding to the nearby fence. The padlock on the officer was removed from duty, and the few weeks later, I drove through gate could be cut open in seconds. Be- entire strategic-missile wing at Malm- A the missile fields of eastern Col- yond it, the site’s perimeter fence didn’t strom flunked its safety-and-security orado and western Nebraska. Sister look the slightest bit intimidating, de- inspection. The Air Force now plans to Ardeth and Sister Carol had urged me spite a sign that said, “WARNING . . . Use deploy almost three hundred additional to see firsthand how lax the security of Deadly Force Authorized,” in bright- airmen for nuclear-security tasks, re- still is at Minuteman launch complexes. red letters. Within a few minutes, you sponding to complaints that the current The United States has four hundred could remove a section of that fence big force is overworked, undermanned, and and fifty Minuteman III missiles at enough to drive a van, a backhoe, or a suffering from poor morale. sites in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, tractor-trailer onto the complex. After Even a well-trained and brilliantly Montana, and North Dakota. The Air 9/11, Remote Visual Assessment Cam- led Air Force tactical-response force

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 53 The assault on the Y-12 uranium site: Michael Walli, Sister Megan Rice (who was eighty-two), and Gregory Boertje-Obed. might find it hard to cope with a terrorist Almost a decade ago, an Air Force and dotted with small homes. You attack on a Minuteman site, owing to study concluded that the Hueys were re- would never think that hidden beneath logistical problems and antiquated sponsible for “missile field security vul- this rural American idyll, out of sight, equipment. One of the missile com- nerabilities.” The same helicopters are out of mind, were scores of interconti- plexes in Nebraska is about a hundred also used to fly overhead and guard nu- nental ballistic missiles. Just yards away and twenty-five miles from the airbase clear warheads being moved to and from from my rental car, sitting not far below in Wyoming where a full tactical-re- missile sites. “I cannot get security forces my feet, there was a thermonuclear war- sponse force is stationed. With luck, it to the right places at the right time with- head twenty times more powerful than would take an hour or so for the force out a fast, capable, all-weather airlift ca- the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, all to reach that complex in an emergency. pability,” the commander in charge of all set and ready to go. It could take a lot longer. And, ideally, it the Minuteman complexes said, seven wouldn’t be raining heavily or the mid- years ago. During the summer of 2014, he climb up Pine Ridge was steep, dle of the night. The UH-1N Huey he- the Air Force announced a plan to ob- Tand Gregory Boertje-Obed led licopters that would carry the security tain used Blackhawk helicopters from the others through the dark woods force are, on average, forty-five years the Army for Minuteman security without a map or a trail, guided only old. They are not properly equipped for forces. But that plan remains unfunded, by flashlight. nighttime or bad-weather operations. and the Vietnam-era Hueys may con- Michael Walli worried about Sister They lack offensive weapons, defensive tinue in service until 2020, if not longer. Megan Rice. She was remarkably fit for measures, modern avionics. They some- For nearly forty minutes, I stood on an eighty-two-year-old, and she’d spent times cannot fly the entire length of a the shoulder of a dirt road within throw- weeks training for this hike. But she had missile field without being refuelled. ing distance of a Minuteman complex. a mild heart condition. The two men had Their crews rely on paper maps to I didn’t see another car on the road, let to stop every now and then so that she navigate. And the Hueys are too small alone a security force with guns drawn. could catch her breath. When they re- to carry a pilot, a co-pilot, a flight engi- The short-grass prairie that stretched sumed, Walli stayed behind her, keeping

neer, and a full tactical-response team. before me was windswept, gorgeous, an eye on her, listening to her huff and JONAH HOUSE (SIGN); COURTESY ERIK SCHELZIG/AP RIGHT: FROM TOP CLOCKWISE PORTRAIT) (GROUP PLOWSHARES NOW TRANSFORM COURTESY (PROTESTERS);

54 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 puff. He was fierier than most Plow- boundary of the Y-12 complex. A wind- for other intruders. When someone shares activists, a believer in miracles ing dirt road ran beside it, patrolled by later said to Bichsel, Please, Father, don’t and prophecy, a bold “warrior for peace,” security forces. With a pair of red-han- get into any more trouble, he laughed like Philip Berrigan. Walli grew up on a dled bolt cutters, Boertje-Obed cut a and replied, “We’re all in trouble.” farm in northern Michigan, the young- vertical section of the fence along the Listening to the testimony in court, est of eight boys in his family. He also fencepost, pushed open a gap, and Sister Megan thought she not only had six sisters. After dropping out of helped the two others climb through it. could do that; she had to do it. Her ac- high school, in 1967, at the age of eigh- Once they were all on Y-12 property, he tivism had been limited mainly to pro- teen, Walli enlisted in the Army. Until neatly reattached the chain link to the tests at the U.S. Army School of the then, his travels outside Michigan hadn’t fencepost with twine. That way, a secu- Americas, in Georgia, and at the Ne- extended farther than Wisconsin. Soon rity patrol driving past might not notice, vada Test Site, where the country tested he was in Vietnam. in the darkness, that Y-12’s security had nuclear weapons. She’d spent time in Two tours of duty left Walli alienated been compromised. prison for civil disobedience. Born in and disillusioned. He’d flown over jun- Although Sister Megan had been ar- 1930 and raised for the most part in gles defoliated by Agent Orange, lis- rested between forty and fifty times, this Manhattan, a block away from Barnard tened to B-52s carpet bombing at night, was her first Plowshares action. And it College, Megan Rice had been taught and witnessed firefights. After his return was her idea. It had occurred to her a from an early age to oppose racism, to to the United States, he was in and out year and a half earlier, while she was sit- care for the weak and the dispossessed. of veterans’ hospitals for a while, suffer- ting in a Tacoma courtroom, watching Her father was a professor of obstetrics ing from post-traumatic stress disorder the trial of five activists who had broken at N.Y.U., and he routinely treated indi- and a spiritual crisis. He took a series of into Kitsap Naval Base, the home port gent women at Bellevue Hospital. Her jobs, working at a Christmas-card fac- for more than half of America’s Trident mother taught history at Hunter Col- tory in Chicago, serving as a deckhand ballistic-missile submarines. During lege. Rice’s parents were friends with on merchant ships that plied the Great perhaps the worst nuclear-security lapse Dorothy Day before the launch of the Lakes. In 1979, he began to help at a in the history of the U.S. Navy, Father Catholic Worker. They supported her Chicago soup kitchen run by a Francis- William (Bix) Bichsel, Father Stephen work throughout the Great Depression can priest. It was a transformative expe- Kelly, Sister Anne Montgomery, and and discussed social problems at her rience. Walli joined the Third Order of two others had managed to sneak into hospitality house every Friday night. St. Francis, choosing to live in poverty the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific— At the age of eighteen, Rice joined and serve the poor. Eventually, he found a storage area containing hundreds of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She his way to the Dorothy Day Catholic nuclear warheads for Trident missiles. wanted to teach at a girls’ school in Af- Worker House in Washington, D.C., Those warheads don’t have locking rica. She earned a bachelor’s degree at convinced that God had led him there. mechanisms. If a terrorist group deto- Fordham and a master’s in biology at He stayed at various Catholic Worker nated one at Kitsap, it not only would Boston College, then moved to Nigeria houses along the East Coast and in the destroy the base and the Trident subma- in 1962. Sister Megan helped to build Midwest, gardening, doing manual rines but could also deposit lethal radio- the school where she later taught, slept labor, accumulating civil-disobedience active fallout on Seattle, about thirty in a classroom while it was under con- arrests. He was strong and fit, with an miles to the east. If the group set off struction, and lived in a rural village intense look and a goatee. He helped conventional explosives close to the without electricity or running water. clear the brush and cut down trees at St. warheads, a toxic cloud of plutonium She remained in Africa for most of the Peter’s Cemetery. might blanket the city. The Plowshares next thirty years. One of Sister Megan’s Walli’s first Plowshares action oc- activists easily cut through Kitsap’s pe- uncles had spent time in Nagasaki, not curred in 2006, when he and Boertje- rimeter fence, hiked around the huge long after its destruction by an atomic Obed broke into a Minuteman complex base for four hours, ignored all the bomb, and his stories of the aftermath in North Dakota. They were dressed as warning signs, cut through two more greatly disturbed her. When she moved clowns to honor Father Carl Kabat, fences, and got to within about forty feet back to the United States in the late who also wore a clown outfit, and joined of the bunkers where the nuclear war- eighties, to help look after her mother, them. They found the Personnel Access heads are stored. Father Bix was eighty- she got involved in protests at the Ne- Hatch unlocked, opened it, hammered one at the time. Sister Anne was eighty- vada Test Site—and persuaded her on an inner lock, and spray-painted three. Having survived two open-heart eighty-four-year-old mother to get ar- messages on the silo door, such as “God surgeries, Father Bix brought along his rested there, too. Sister Megan’s time in is not the author of confusion.” Walli nitroglycerine tablets and paused to take Africa and the Nevada desert led her got an eight-month sentence; Boertje- some during the long hike. About Catholic faith in a mystical, transcen- Obed, twelve months; and Father twenty marines with automatic weap- dental direction. She developed a pro- Kabat, fifteen. ons stopped the activists, put hoods on found love of nature, a belief in the in- A quarter of the way up Pine Ridge, them to prevent them from seeing any terconnectedness of all things. Boertje-Obed saw a fence. It was chain more of the top-secret facility, and made When Sister Megan raised the idea link and not daunting, despite a “No them lie on the ground for three and a of a Plowshares action with Greg- Trespassing” sign. The fence marked the half hours, while the base was searched ory Boertje-Obed, he agreed to join

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 55 ter Megan seemed tired, and the fastest, most direct route now made more sense—straight down the hill. The ura- nium-storage facility was about a quar- ter of a mile away. They paused briefly and headed toward it.

n the broad spectrum of nuclear- I terrorist acts, the takeover of a Min- uteman III complex or the theft of a nuclear warhead from a Trident base isn’t the most likely to occur. The det- onation of a radiological dispersal de- vice, a “dirty bomb,” is one of the eas- iest to pull off. All you need are some conventional explosives and a small amount of radioactive material. About half a dozen radioisotopes routinely used for medical, scientific, and com- mercial purposes—including a radio- active element found in household “Snap out of it, Ray—it’s just sex.” smoke detectors—could be utilized to make a dirty bomb. But the easiest •• forms of terrorism are also the least consequential. The conventional ex- plosives in a dirty bomb would pose her. Boertje-Obed had already done five the name: Transform Now Plowshares. the greatest immediate risk to anyone of them. His wife, Michele Naar-Obed, She hoped it would begin the process of near the detonation. Even in a densely had done three, and they’d even done shutting down Y-12 and transforming populated city, the radioactive dust pro- one together. They always tried to insure the American empire from a source of duced by a dirty bomb would cause se- that their daughter, Rachel, had at least bloodshed into one of world peace. rious, long-term harm to perhaps a few one parent at home, not in prison. Sis- Boertje-Obed did most of the plan- hundred people. Cleaning up after such ter Megan had lived at Jonah House for ning. Using Google Earth and other a bomb, however, could cost billions a while, helping to take care of Rachel. satellite imagery, he looked for the best of dollars. It would provoke a great Michael Walli heard Boertje-Obed and route to the uranium-storage facility. deal of anxiety. And real estate in the Sister Megan were going to do a Plow- Two large white storage tanks on the contaminated area would lose much shares action and asked to join them. northern edge of Y-12 promised to be a of its value. The three spent time together at spiri- useful navigational aid. In addition to Terrorists seeking to cause a radio- tual retreats, prayed together, read the relying on the Internet, Boertje-Obed logical disaster, like the one at Fuku- Bible together, enlisted more than half a travelled to Oak Ridge and scoped the shima or Chernobyl, would find it much dozen others for logistical support, and complex, taking notes on the security harder to accomplish than making a discussed potential targets. They con- forces and their routines. He’d already dirty bomb. They might have to hack sidered a direct action at the Los Ala- broken into a missile complex and a the control systems at a nuclear power mos National Laboratory, where nu- naval air station, sneaked onto a subma- plant, use explosives to rupture the clear weapons are designed, and at the rine, and used a crowd of tourists as a di- plant’s containment vessel, or drain the Kansas City Plant, where weapon com- version to get onto a battleship. The se- water from a pool storing its spent fuel ponents are manufactured. But they curity at Y-12 was far more extensive rods. Without the water, the fuel rods chose the Y-12 complex to honor a late than anything he’d ever confronted. could spontaneously ignite, releasing friend, Sister Jackie Hudson, who had Boertje-Obed wasn’t sure if they could as much as five times the amount of been arrested at the site the previous even get near the Protected Area. harmful radioactivity contained in the year—and to oppose plans to construct More than hour after leaving the reactor’s core. a vast uranium-processing plant there. church parking lot, the three activists The detonation of a nuclear weapon Although the building would be used reached the top of Pine Ridge. Y-12 lay would be the most difficult type of nu- for the disassembly of old weapons, its below them, lit with floodlights, bright clear terrorism to achieve. It would also size suggested that new ones would also as day. They could see the fences and the be the most lethal and dramatic. A nu- be produced there. The big, white, newly barbed wire, the concrete barriers and clear explosion with one-fifteenth the completed Highly Enriched Uranium the guard towers. Boertje-Obed had force of the Hiroshima bomb, set off at Materials Facility seemed like a fine tar- originally planned for them to zigzag a certain time, at a certain urban location get for direct action. Sister Megan chose down the thickly wooded hill. But Sis- in the United States, could kill about

56 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 two hundred thousand people. But plicated machine—a weapon that could Sagan, a nuclear-weapons expert and a stealing a weapon from a military base be safely transported, armed near the professor of political science at Stanford would be a real challenge. Even if you target, and remotely detonated from University, thinks that the security cul- somehow obtained the weapon, you’d miles away. Those willing to be vapor- ture at a facility is as important as its se- have to figure out how to detonate it. ized and die for the cause would have curity equipment. Those who work at a You’d need help from someone who fewer technical worries. nuclear site are the most familiar with knew a thing or two about nuclear The threat of nuclear terrorism has its security weaknesses. Managers too weapons. Creating an “improvised nu- been a concern since the early days of often become complacent about long- clear device,” a homemade atomic the atomic era. During a closed Senate time employees and don’t consider the bomb, presents its own set of challenges. hearing in 1946, J. Robert Oppen- possibility that someone may be black- Only a couple of fissile materials can heimer, the scientific director of the mailed or coerced into helping terror- readily be used to produce the extraor- Manhattan Project, was asked whether ists. As one security expert notes, “Any dinary destructive force of a nuclear three or four people could smuggle into vulnerability assessment which finds no weapon. Those materials are not widely New York City the parts necessary to vulnerabilities or only a few is worthless found in nature. Plutonium-239 is pro- build a nuclear weapon. “Of course it and wrong.” duced in a nuclear reactor, and a thou- could be done,” he said, and it would be The designs of the first atomic bombs sand pounds of natural uranium con- almost impossible to prevent. “The were stolen by insiders at Los Alamos tains just seven pounds of uranium-235, only instrument that would enable an and shared with the Soviet Union. In- the isotope used in nuclear weapons. inspector to find out if a packing crate siders at Oak Ridge provided the Sovi- Although the physicists at Los Alamos contained an atomic bomb is a screw- ets with the details of how to make gained acclaim for designing the first driver.” For most of the Cold War, weapons-grade uranium. More recently, atomic bombs, the chemists and engi- however, nuclear threats from outside Edward Snowden, a private contractor neers at the Hanford Site, in Washing- the United States seemed more press- working for the National Security ton, and at Oak Ridge—who figured ing than those which might emerge Agency, gained access to some of its out how to produce fissile material— within it. According to Matthew Bunn, most highly classified secrets. The made those weapons possible. Seventy a nuclear-security expert and a profes- N.S.A. is responsible not only for gener- years later, hundreds of millions of dol- sor at Harvard University’s John F. ating the launch codes for America’s nu- lars and great technical ability are still Kennedy School of Government, clear weapons but also for designing the necessary to make plutonium-239 or to during the nineteen-fifties and sixties equipment that decrypts the codes. In enrich uranium until it’s weapons-grade “the Atomic Energy Commission 2013, two high-level nuclear com- (about ninety per cent uranium-235). (AEC) literally imposed no rules at all manders were removed from duty for Instead of dealing with all that hassle concerning how private companies behavior that could have exposed them and expense, terrorists would be far with weapons-usable nuclear material to blackmail: illegal gambling, in one more likely to steal fissile materials or had to secure such stocks.” The A.E.C. case; excessive alcohol consumption buy them on the black market. assumed that the financial value of with young Russian women, in the Plutonium is more efficient than the fissile material would encourage other. A group of hackers known as uranium at creating a nuclear explosion. companies to safeguard it carefully. Team Digi7al and Team Hav0k man- But plutonium is far more toxic, danger- That wasn’t the case. For aged to hack Web sites be- ous to handle, difficult to fabricate. And decades, plutonium was longing to the U.S. Navy, the nuclear-weapon designs that use pluto- shipped across the United Los Alamos National Labo- nium tend to be more complex. The de- States without armed guards. ratory, the United States Na- sign of Little Boy, the uranium weapon In 1972, the terrorist attack tional Geospatial-Intelligence used to destroy Hiroshima, was so sim- on the Munich Olympics Agency, the Department of ple that the bomb didn’t need to be fully prompted much tougher fed- Homeland Security, and the tested before it was dropped. Acquiring eral oversight of fissile mate- Library of Congress. One of the weapons-grade uranium was the rials. The subsequent rise of the group’s members turned hard part; detonating it was relatively international terrorism and out to be Nicholas Knight, a easy. Luis Alvarez, a Nobel Prize-win- the 9/11 attacks tightened sailor deployed on the U.S.S. ning physicist who played a crucial role the security even further. Harry S Truman. Knight was in the Manhattan Project, later warned And yet, until the opening of the a systems administrator for the comput- that if terrorists obtained weapons- Highly Enriched Uranium Materials ers running the aircraft carrier’s nu- grade uranium they wouldn’t need to be Facility, in 2010, tons of weapons-grade clear reactor. experts in nuclear-weapon design. In uranium were still being stored at Y-12 During the nineteen-sixties, when fact, Alvarez wrote, they’d have “a good in a wooden building constructed the Atomic Energy Commission chance of setting off a high-yield explo- during the Manhattan Project. trusted that private companies would sion simply by dropping one half of the The traditional reliance on “guns, effectively secure their own fissile mate- material onto the other half.” Terrorists gates, and guards” for nuclear security rial, hundreds of pounds of weap- hoping to survive the nuclear blast may overlook a serious vulnerability at ons-grade uranium went missing from would have to design and build a com- nuclear sites: the insider threat. Scott D. the Nuclear Materials and Equipment

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 57 Corporation plant in Apollo, Pennsyl- ing the woods. Walli and Sister Megan people approached his S.U.V., and Gar- vania. There is strong evidence that the had been silently following Boertje- land saw the slogans sprayed on the uranium was shipped to Israel, with Obed, assuming that he knew what to walls. He’d worked at federal nuclear help from insiders at the plant. Accord- do and where to go. facilities for almost thirty years and ing to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scien- “Well, it’s worth a try,” Boertje-Obed immediately assumed these people were tists, President Gerald Ford discussed told himself. protesters, not members of Al Qaeda. the theft with James Connor, an aide The bolt cutters snipped the fence, As he sat in the parked S.U.V., his su- who’d been an official at the A.E.C. and no klaxons sounded. pervisor called, and Garland asked for “The good news is that Israel definitely Sister Megan had felt all along that backup. The three stood beside his car has the Bomb and can take care of it- they were being guided by the Holy door, said they’d been sent by God, self,” Connor told the President. “The Spirit. offered him some bread, and read a bad news is that the stuff came from As Boertje-Obed cut through the last statement. Pennsylvania.” fence, he was feeling focussed and amazed. “Today, through our nonviolent ac- It was as bright as daylight, and yet no- tion, we, Transform Now Plowshares, he Y-12 complex had layered se- body had spotted them. The uranium- indict the U.S. government nuclear Tcurity. The closer you got to the storage facility was about four hundred modernization program,” it began. Protected Area, the more intense the feet away, across a stretch of asphalt. Garland told them not to make any security became. The barriers, fences, The walls of the building were soon sudden movements or remove anything cameras, and motion detectors weren’t being decorated with spray paint and from their backpacks. But the situation designed to prevent an intrusion. They blood. It was Tom Lewis’s blood, drawn became chaotic. After the statement were supposed to delay it, reveal it, and from his arm four years earlier, not long was done, someone started reading pas- draw the necessary security forces to before he died. Lewis had been one of sages from the Bible to him. The elderly stop it. the Catonsville Nine, an artist and a woman told Garland she had a heart The woods ended at the bottom of Plowshares activist arrested numerous condition. The two men ignored his in- the hill. Once the three Plowshares ac- times. From his deathbed, Lewis had structions and reached into their bags. tivists emerged from the shadow of the asked that his blood be used in one last They pulled out candles, lit them, and last trees, they’d have to walk into a flat, direct action. The blood was frozen, offered him one. clear, brightly lit area, cross Bear Creek saved, thawed, and poured into six baby Sergeant Chad Riggs was sitting in Road, and cut through three more bottles carried in backpacks to Y-12. his office when a supervisor called and fences to reach the Protected Area. The Now it dripped down the white walls. said that something was going on at uranium-storage facility loomed ahead, “WORK FOR PEACE NOT WAR” was the uranium-storage facility. Garland the great white castle, with guards bear- spray-painted onto the building in large needed backup. As Riggs drove his ing automatic weapons in its towers. black letters, along with “PLOWSHARES Chevy Tahoe around the corner of the The three hid in tall grass as patrol PLEASE ISAIAH” and “THE FRUIT OF JUS- building, he saw Garland’s vehicle, three cars passed. And then Boertje-Obed led TICE IS PEACE.” In red letters, “WOE TO people standing near it, and spray paint the others across the road, over a low THE EMPIRE OF BLOOD” was scrawled and blood on the walls. concrete barrier, to a chain-link fence, across another wall. Riggs jumped out of the Tahoe, roughly eight feet high. It was the first Boertje-Obed removed a small drew his sidearm, ordered the three line of the high-tech Perimeter Intru- sledgehammer from Walli’s backpack, suspects to lie on the ground, and de- sion Detection and Assessment System. hit a corner of the building, and knocked manded to see their hands. At the same As Boertje-Obed began to cut the off a piece of concrete about a foot long. time, he got on the radio and called for fence, he expected sirens and alarms to The others hammered the building additional officers. Once the suspects go off. But none did, and while he con- lightly, and Sister Megan draped crime- were on the ground, he told them to tinued to cut the fence Walli draped a scene tape across it. They placed Bibles crawl away from the backpacks and banner on it. The banner had a drawing and white roses on the ground to com- gear. There appear to be intruders in of a nuclear weapon and the words memorate the White Rose, a German the Protected Area, he said over the “Never again.” student group that had opposed Hitler radio. The next fence looked more formi- and promoted nonviolent resistance. As Concerned that a sniper might be dable. A thick cable was interlaced with they waited, they sang religious songs hiding in the hills, Sergeant Riggs asked chain link. Beyond the fence was a for half an hour. A patrol car appeared, Garland to provide cover. Riggs put on gravel area, a clear zone, and then an- at about four-thirty in the morning, as body armor and retrieved his M4 assault other fence. they were singing “This little light of rifle from the Tahoe. Then he ordered Boertje-Obed had a moment of mine, let it shine all around Y-12.” Garland to put on body armor, too. doubt. He wondered if this fence was Riggs thought that one of the men, electrified. Maybe they should turn security officer, Kirk Garland, had the older one, the one with the goatee, around, he thought. We’re not going to A been asked to check the fences might be dangerous. He ordered Gar- be able to cut through this one without near the north side of the uranium-stor- land to handcuff him. being detected. age building, where an alarm had been When backup units arrived, the other None of them had spoken since leav- triggered. When he got there, three man and the elderly woman were cuffed.

58 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 For the next five hours, the suspects had to sit on the ground, hands secured be- hind their backs. At about ten in the morning, they were provided with plas- tic chairs.

fter spending the weekend in A the Blount County Jail, Walli, Boertje- Obed, and Sister Megan were brought to federal court in shackles. They were charged with trespassing on government property, a misde- meanor. More serious charges were likely to be filed soon. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Kirby asked the judge not to release them from jail. They were repeat offenders. They lived in other parts of the country, presented a flight risk, and could pose a “danger to the community.” A few days later, Judge C. Clifford Shirley ignored the prosecutor’s objec- tions and ruled that the defendants should be freed once they entered a plea. Sister Megan and Walli pleaded not guilty. “I plead justified, because the build- ing of nuclear weapons is a war crime,” Boertje-Obed said in court. “I plead for the downtrodden around the world who suffer the consequences of our nu- clear weapons.” Judge Shirley entered a plea of not guilty for him. Walli and Sister Megan later walked free. Boertje-Obed chose to remain in jail.

he Plowshares action at Y-12 at- Ttracted international attention. The fact that an eighty-two-year-old nun had broken into a high-security nuclear-weapons complex seemed unbelievable. But to some people familiar with the security arrange- •• ments at Y-12 the intrusion was the logical result of mismanagement oratory was run by subsidiaries of was increasingly privatized as well. that had plagued the facility for years. A.T. & T. at no charge to the govern- During the summer of 2012, when Although the federal government ment. The weapons labs and manu- the break-in occurred at Y-12, Wack- owned the land and most of the build- facturing plants were run like non- enhut Services, Inc., was responsible ings, the equipment, and the fissile profits: they were supposed to serve for the security officers at the site. The material at the Y-12 complex, private the national interest. A decade ago, company had been founded in the early contractors now ran the facility for the management of America’s nuclear nineteen-fifties by George Wackenhut, profit. During the Cold War, the enterprise was largely privatized—a a former F.B.I. agent who pioneered the weapons laboratories had been man- change that was justified with promises private security industry, gaining con- aged through an unusual arrangement of greater efficiency. A new federal tracts from corporations and federal of public and private oversight. The agency, the National Nuclear Security agencies, establishing close ties with the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Administration, was created to over- F.B.I. and the C.I.A. But in 2012 for example, was operated by the see the private contractors. And the Wackenhut Services was no longer an University of California. Sandia Lab- management of nuclear-security forces American company. It had been acquired

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 59 reporter at the Knoxville News-Sentinel, about a fifth of the cameras on the fences surrounding the Protected Area were not working that night. One cam- era did capture someone climbing through a fence. But the security officer who might have seen the image was talking to another officer, not looking at his screen. Cameras and motion detec- tors at the site had been broken for months. The security equipment was maintained by Babcock & Wilcox, a private contractor that managed Y-12, while the officers who relied on the equipment worked for Wackenhut. Poor communication between the two companies contributed to long delays whenever something needed to be fixed. And it wasn’t always clear who was re- sponsible for getting it fixed. The Plow- shares activists did set off an alarm. But security officers ignored it, because hun- dreds of false alarms occurred at Y-12 every month. Officers stationed inside “And where do you see your mustache in five years?” the uranium-storage facility heard the hammering on the wall. But they as- •• sumed that the sounds were being made by workmen doing maintenance. A few months before the break-in, by Group 4 Falck, once a Danish com- Inspector General found that security the National Nuclear Security Admin- pany, now a British one, known as G4S. officers at Y-12 had been cheating on istration had given Wackenhut high In addition to protecting the weap- performance tests for years. Before re- scores in a review of its security perfor- ons-grade uranium at Y-12 through a sponding to mock attacks, Wackenhut mance at Y-12, granting the company a subsidiary, G4S provided security at rock officers were told in advance which large fee. Wackenhut was planning to concerts and banks and malls, operated building at Y-12 would be targeted, eliminate the jobs of seventy guards at private prisons, employed armed guards which wall of the building would be Y-12, in order to cut costs. Not long to defend embassies in Afghanistan and attacked, and whether their adversar- after the break-in, an investigation by Iraq. The company operated in more ies would use diversionary tactics. In at the Department of Energy’s Office of than a hundred and twenty-five coun- least one case, the information allowed Inspector General found that, once tries. Through mergers and acquisitions, officers to prepare an effective response again, Wackenhut security guards at it had rapidly become the third-largest weeks in advance. And, before the tests, Y-12 had been caught cheating on their private employer in the world, after members of the security force allegedly performance tests. (The guards later Walmart and Foxconn. Most people had disabled their Multiple Integrated Laser testified that they had “no intent to never heard of G4S until a few weeks be- Engagement System gear—removing cheat,” according to a follow-up report fore the Y-12 intrusion, when the com- the batteries, inserting the batteries by the Inspector General.) pany mishandled the security arrange- backward, covering the laser sensors Asked by the Secretary of Energy ments for the London Olympic Games. with tape or Vaseline—so that during a to evaluate the multiple security fail- G4S trainees were allegedly caught simulated gunfight they could not be ures at Y-12, Norman R. Augustine, a cheating on bomb-detection tests. (The “shot.” Failing a performance test might former Under-secretary of the Army company says that training was con- reduce Wackenhut’s fee from the gov- and former chief executive of Lockheed ducted according to industry standards.) ernment. Wackenhut employees not Martin, concluded that the root of G4S failed to hire the number of security only cheated on the tests; they came up the problem was clear: “a pervasive guards it had promised, and the Brit- with the tests. (The company disputed culture of tolerating the intolerable ish military had to send thirty-five hun- the Inspector General’s report.) and accepting the unacceptable.” Of dred troops to the Olympics at the last On the night of the Y-12 break-in, a all the failure analyses that Augus- minute. camera that would have enabled secu- tine had conducted in his long career, Wackenhut’s performance at Y-12 rity personnel to spot the intruders was “none had been more difficult for me was not much better. A 2004 report by out of commission. According to a doc- to comprehend than this one.” He con- the Department of Energy’s Office of ument obtained by Frank Munger, a sidered himself a strong defender of the

60 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 free-enterprise system but thought that passed in 1918, at the height of the necessity defense was occasionally suc- the protection of nuclear weapons and First World War, when America was cessful in state courts, where anti- fissile materials was so important that it gripped with the fear of German spies, nuclear protesters had walked free after should be handled by the federal gov- the law has rarely been used against explaining their actions to a jury. But ernment, not by private contractors. people who’ve actually committed sab- since the early nineties federal judges otage. Instead, it has been used against have rarely permitted claims of necessity uring the second week of Sep- labor organizers, opponents of the to be used in civil-disobedience cases. D tember, 2012, congressional hear- Vietnam War, and anti-nuclear activ- At a pre-trial hearing, Boertje-Obed, ings were held to discuss the security ists. The statute’s broad definition of representing himself, asked the court to at Y-12. Representative Michael Tur- sabotage—attempting or committing permit the use of the necessity defense. ner, a Republican from Ohio, opened an act with the “intent to injure, inter- The government had already submitted one of the hearings by saying, “It is fere with, or obstruct the national de- a brief seeking to preclude that defense. outrageous to think that the greatest fense of the United States”—has made It would keep the jury from hearing ev- threat to the American public from the law a useful tool for punishing acts idence about the morality of nuclear weapons of mass destruction may be the of civil disobedience. weapons, international law, or the de- incompetence of D.O.E. security. . . . Walli, Sister Megan, and Boertje- fendants’ political and religious beliefs. This must never happen again.” Sis- Obed refused to accept a plea bargain, The preparation for war crimes is a ter Megan and Michael Walli attended and insisted on a trial by jury. The crime, Boertje-Obed argued, citing one the hearings but were not asked to tes- prosecution quickly dropped the tres- of the Nuremberg principles used to tify. Nevertheless, Representative Joe passing charge and added sabotage to prosecute the leadership of Nazi Ger- Barton, a Republican from Texas, ac- the indictment. many. “So, when you build a nuclear knowledged that Sister Megan was in William P. Quigley, the attorney rep- weapon, you are planning and preparing the audience. “Would you please stand resenting Walli, asked the judge to to commit mass murder,” he said. “You up, Ma’am?” he asked. “We want to throw out the sabotage charge. A pro- are giving your assent to the killing of thank you for pointing out some of fessor of law at Loyola University New civilians.” the problems in our security.” Repre- Orleans, Quigley argued that the sabo- In response to those arguments, As- sentative Edward Markey, a Demo- tage law was being selectively applied in sistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey E. Theo- crat from Massachusetts, addressed this case. Plowshares activists who had dore, citing Justice John Paul Stevens, Sister Megan directly: “Thank you for committed similar nonviolent acts gen- portrayed all civil disobedience as anti- your actions. Thank you for your will- erally weren’t accused of sabotage. Fa- democratic. It was “a form of arrogance ingness to focus attention on this nu- ther Bix had been given a three-month which organized society cannot toler- clear weapons buildup. . . . We thank prison sentence after breaking into the ate.” Theodore suggested that allow- you for your courage. . . . You should nuclear-weapons storage area at Kitsap ing the necessity defense in this case be praised because that’s ultimately in 2009. Sister Megan and the others might justify its use by activists who what the Sermon on the Mount is now faced a possible thirty-five years had blown up an abortion clinic. “These all about.” behind bars. defendants, they know,” he told the A federal grand jury had already Quigley was an expert on the “necessity court. “They’re all recidivists when it handed down further indictments. In ad- defense” and hoped to use it in the Y-12 comes to this. . . . They want to present dition to the misdemeanor trespassing case. Dating back centuries to English their anti-nuclear agenda and they charge, the protesters now faced two felony common law, the defense enabled some- want the biggest forum they can get in counts. The first was for “willfully and one to be found innocent if a crime had order to do that. And the more they maliciously” destroying property at Y-12. been committed to avoid a greater harm. can espouse their views about opera- The second was for committing a Crimes of necessity might include toss- tions at Y-12, or the horrors of nuclear “depredation against property of the ing valuable cargo overboard to prevent weapons and things like that . . . the United States and of the United States a ship from sinking, breaking into a happier they are.” Department of Energy, National Nu- drugstore to obtain life-saving medicine Judge Shirley forbade the use of the clear Security Administration, Y-12 for someone in an emergency, shatter- necessity defense and let the sabotage National Security Complex . . . in an ing a store window to escape a fire. Sir charge stand. amount exceeding $1,000.” To “depre- Walter Scott, who was a judge as well as Walli, Boertje-Obed, and Sister date” means “to lay waste: plunder, rav- a novelist, believed that “necessity cre- Megan didn’t deny breaking into Y-12, age,” according to Webster’s. The felony ates the law, it supersedes rules; and cutting the fences, and spraying graffiti. counts could lead to a prison sentence of whatever is reasonable and just in such At their trial, in May, 2013, they de- fifteen years. And, as lawyers represent- cases, is likewise legal.” scribed those actions matter-of-factly. ing the activists discussed a possible plea The three activists had broken into The charge of damaging government bargain with the U.S. Attorney’s Office Y-12, Quigley planned to argue, in property would be hard to beat. To obtain in Knoxville, the government threat- order to avoid a nuclear holocaust. a guilty verdict on the two other charges, ened to file an even more serious charge: He had defended peace activists since the government had to prove that repair- sabotage. the early nineteen-eighties and sym- ing the damage at Y-12 cost more than Although the Sabotage Act was pathized with many of their views. The a thousand dollars and that the three

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 61 MORE THAN YOU GAVE

We have the town we call home wakening for dawn to bed alone at last, hugging no one for that long which isn’t yet here but is promised, we have moment

our tired neighbors rising in ones and twos, we have before the young Madonnas rise from separate beds the sky slowly separating itself from the houses to open their shutters on whatever the day presents,

to become the sky while the stars blink a last time to pledge their virtue and their twitching, and vanish to make way for us to enter the great incomparable bodies stage to Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Tupperware. All this of an ordinary Tuesday in ordinary time. We have our curses, our gripes, our lies all on the stale breath in rooms where even in the gray dishwater dawn the chrome grill on an Admiral black-and-white of 6:37 A.M. in the city no one dreams, the Tuesday TV city in which we shall live for this day or not at all. gleams like the chalice of Abraham. And from his corner “Where are the angels?” I ask. This is a visionary the genius of this time and place, Uncle Nate, moment chomping in the history of time, incomplete without angels, his first White Owl of the day, calls out for a without at least Argente of the tarnished wings, doughnut or the mangled half-assed Incondante who speaks and sweetened milky coffee to dunk it in and laces up

only in riddles, or one-winged Sylvania who glows his high-tops and swears by the vision of his blind in the dark. All off in eternity doing their sacred right eye numbers. he will have strange young pussy before the sun sets

Instead at 6:43 A.M. we have Vartan Baghosian with on his miserable balding dome. Today we shall paint, a face for Nate is a true artist trained in the eight-hour day seamed like a softball and Minky Schantz who pitched to master the necessary and not the strung-out martyrs three games for the Toledo Mud Hens in ’39 and of El Greco or the brooding landscapes of an awful lost century. them all, we have the Volpe sisters who married No, today we paint the walls, the lintels, the ceilings, the attic on Brush Street and won’t come down, the dadoes, and the doodads of Mrs. Victoria Settle we have me, fresh as last week, bitching about my back, formerly of Lake Park, Illinois, now come to grace our city with the myth of her late husband, her my bad ankle, we have psoriasis, heartburn, the terriers, four-day hangover, prostatitis, Jewish mothers, Catholic guilt, her fake accent, her Victorian brooches, her perfect posture, we have the teen-age Woodward Ave. whores going and especially her money. Ask the gray windows activists willfully set out to harm the na- quent testimony, more than seven thou- serted that harming the national de- tional defense of the United States. sand dollars of that amount was labor fense of the United States had been the Before the trial, the government had costs, and the labor was performed by central aim of the protesters: “their claimed that the damage at Y-12 had Y-12 employees. The cost of the mate- whole purpose was to interfere with or cost an estimated seventy thousand dol- rials purchased to mend the broken obstruct Y-12 operations.” The facility lars to repair. During the trial, Assistant fences and scrub the white walls clean had to be shut down for two weeks; a U.S. Attorney Kirby said, “It was prob- was less impressive. It came to about delivery of special nuclear materials ably closer to the ballpark of $8,000 seven hundred and sixty dollars. had been delayed; the reputation of worth of damage.” According to subse- As for the sabotage charge, Kirby as- Y-12, the National Nuclear Security

62 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 that look out on the remnants of winter a grand our fabulist, whose name even is pure invention, question: a confabulation of his prison reading and his “Have I come all the way through the fires of hell, twelve-year

the torture of the dark night of the etc., so that I formal education in the hobo camps of his long might inhale boyhood. the leaden fumes of Giddens Golden Gate as the Wanderlust, he tells us, hit him at age fifteen and dogsbody not

of Nathaniel Hawthorne Glenner, the autodidact of a moment too soon for Mr. Wilson was taking Twelfth Street?” boys It could be worse. It could be life without mortadella off to die in Europe and that was just about the sandwiches, time

twenty-five-cent pineapple pies, and quarts of women discovered Nate or Nate discovered Pilsner women, at noon out on a manicured lawn in Grosse Pointe and they were something he wouldn’t care to go without. under a sun that never before caressed an Armenian or a Jew. Call it a long day if you want and a hard one, too, We could be flogging Fuller brushes down the but remember we got more than we gave: we got deadbeat streets myth,

of Paradise Valley or delivering trunks to the we got music, we got underpaid work, a cheap dormitories lunch of the Episcopal ladies where no one tips or offers with more to follow. On the long walk to the bus stop a pastry and a schnapps for the longed-for trip back to Sicily or Salonika; it could be the forge room and the ride home we hear the birds gathering in the elms and maples thickening with summer at Ford Rouge where the young get old fast or die finery, trying. So savor the hours as Nate recounts the day he and no one cares if we sing to the orange sun hitchhiked that also seeks its rest, no one cares that our voices

to Toledo only to arrive too late to see the young are harsh from cigarettes and our ears worthless, Dempsey our timing off, and we’ve got the wrong words flatten Willard and claim the lily-white championship in the wrong places. Let’s just give it what we have and when that’s done give it a second time, one of the world. “Story of my life,” says Nate, “the last to arrive, for us and one for Nate, and even a third wouldn’t the first to leave.” Not even Aesop could outdo our hurt. Nate, —Philip Levine

Administration, and the United States abolition of nuclear weapons threatened called his service in Vietnam “employ- had been hurt. The defense attorneys the national defense of the United ment as a terrorist for the United States countered that all those consequences States, then people like Henry Kissinger government.” He compared the moral- were impossible to foresee, since the were saboteurs, too. ity of cutting the fences at Y-12 to three protesters were surprised that they The trial was notable mostly for that of cutting fences at Auschwitz. could even get into the facility, let alone what it revealed about the participants. When asked by Assistant U.S. Attor- disrupt it. Far from endangering the Boertje-Obed asked the jury to consider ney Theodore whether he had protested country, the break-in had improved the the philosophical difference between at nuclear-weapons facilities in other security at Y-12. And, if calling for the “real security” and “false security.” Walli countries, Walli said that he had not,

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 63 adding, “I’m an indigent person. . . . It’s One of the top-secret documents ob- United States and Russia worked closely pretty pricey going to Russia or North tained by Edward Snowden in 2013 together to improve nuclear security and Korea.” Theodore later compared the says that American intelligence agencies reduce the danger of nuclear terrorism. break-in at Y-12 to the attacks on 9/11. have little “knowledge of the security of Thousands of nuclear weapons were Since both had led to tighter security, he Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and associ- safely transported from former Soviet asked the jury, “Does that mean 9/11 ated material.” The question deeply republics and dismantled. New storage was a good thing?” concerns Russia as well. A classified facilities were built in Russia; modern From the witness stand, Sister Megan State Department document released security systems were introduced; fissile described her mystical, nature-loving by WikiLeaks describes a meeting be- materials were removed from unguarded form of Catholicism. All living things tween Russian and American diplomats sites and locked away. But in December, were miraculous, she believed. in Washington. “Islamists are 2014, Congress voted against additional “I was aware of every moment not only seeking power in Pa- funding for the nuclear-threat-reduc- being an imminent threat to kistan but are also trying to get tion program. And Russia announced the life and harmony of the their hands on nuclear materi- that it would end most of its coöperative planet,” Sister Megan said als,” an official at Russia’s work with the United States, despite the under cross-examination. Ministry of Foreign Affairs need to upgrade security at more than “Every moment, as we sit here said. Perhaps a hundred and two hundred buildings. Sam Nunn, the now, is an imminent threat to twenty-five thousand people former U.S. senator who helped to cre- the life of the planet, which is were directly involved in Paki- ate the program, has often called the sacred.” stan’s nuclear-weapons and effort to prevent nuclear terrorism “a A few moments earlier, missile programs. The Russian race between coöperation and catastro- Kirby had asked, “What do official warned that “regardless phe.” The Russian decision, Nunn you think about what they do at Y-12?” of the clearance process for these peo- thinks, just made the latter more likely. “I think with sadness that they are ple, there is no way to guarantee that all Russia still has about two hundred and making a huge amount of money,” Sis- are 100% loyal.” fifty thousand pounds of plutonium and ter Megan said. Remarkably little is known about the about 1.4 million pounds of weap- Walli, Boertje-Obed, and Sister security arrangements at India’s nuclear ons-grade uranium. Megan were convicted by the jury on all facilities. Its weapons aren’t as widely counts. The three were now classified as dispersed as Pakistan’s. But in both “ n our country, I firmly believe that violent offenders, because of the convic- countries terrorists and extremists are I breaking the law is not the an- tion for attacking government property. more likely to seek plutonium and swer,” Judge Amul R. Thapar told the They were handcuffed, shackled, and weapons-grade uranium. Fissile materi- three defendants at the sentencing led from the courtroom to jail. als are easier to steal than nuclear weap- hearing. “And I can’t help but think, ons and much lighter to carry. An im- as I listen to your allocutions, that he United States is far more open provised explosive device can be made if all that energy and passion was de- Tabout its nuclear-weapons pro- with just a hundred and twenty pounds voted to changing the laws, perhaps grams than any other nation. But that of uranium or twenty pounds of pluto- real change would have occurred by openness, and the many security prob- nium. And those amounts don’t have to today.” lems it has revealed, should not imply be stolen all at once. Thapar felt some regret at putting that the greatest threat of nuclear ter- An insider at a nuclear facility might “good people behind bars.” The sen- rorism comes from sites in the United secretly remove a few ounces of fissile tences he imposed were about half as States. On the contrary, America may material every so often and accumulate long as those sought by the prosecution. have the best nuclear-security systems a significant amount of it over time. Sister Megan was given three years in in the world. The management chal- That happened at a nuclear laboratory prison, Walli and Boertje-Obed five. lenges that the United States has faced south of Moscow in 1992. Leonid The activists were also required to are now being encountered by every Smirnov, an engineer at the plant, stole pay for the damage at Y-12. The cost to other country that possesses nuclear small vials of weapons-grade uranium repair that damage was no longer the weapons. for months, hoping to sell it. He was roughly eight thousand dollars men- Pakistan tops the list of nations that caught by chance, while talking to some tioned during the trial. The cost had cause terrorism experts the greatest con- drunken friends at a train station. The somehow risen to $52,953. Quigley, cern. It has the world’s fastest-growing friends attracted the attention of the po- Walli’s attorney, struggled to understand nuclear arsenal. It has dispersed nuclear lice, who arrested the whole group, the huge discrepancy between those two weapons to multiple locations, making searched Smirnov’s bag, and found lead sums. Babcock & Wilcox, the private them less vulnerable to attack by a for- cannisters filled with weapons-grade contractor that operated Y-12, said that eign nation but more vulnerable to theft uranium. the eight-thousand-dollar figure didn’t by terrorists. It has extremist groups Russia has the most nuclear weapons include “the incremental fringe rate,” seeking to infiltrate the military. And and the largest amount of fissile material “the burden labor rate,” or “the over- few people outside Pakistan know how in the world. For more than twenty years head” for getting the work done. Half a its nuclear enterprise is really being run. after the end of the Cold War, the dozen painters had been brought to the

64 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 uranium-storage facility on a Saturday, without any need to mention any other the reincarnation of both Jesus Christ at a cost of more than a hundred dollars proof.” and the Hindu god Shiva. Asahara an hour each. Dog handlers, who had The Salafi jihadist world view pro- thought his followers would be the only searched the site for intruders, had cost moted by Al Qaeda stresses the religious ones to survive the coming nuclear almost five hundred dollars an hour. duty to purify corrupt states through vi- apocalypse. In 1995, unable to obtain Videographers and photographers had olence, drive out infidels, and create a nuclear weapons, members of Aum been paid seven thousand dollars to new caliphate—a perfect state in which Shinrikyo launched an attack on the produce images of the graffiti and the religious and political leadership will be Tokyo subway system with sarin nerve torn chain link. Despite the large sums merged. Seth G. Jones, the director of gas that killed thirteen people and in- of money involved, the most expensive the International Security and Defense jured more than five thousand. Despite material that had to be bought to undo Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, having about a billion dollars in its bank this act of sabotage was twenty buckets estimates that there are about fifty Salafi account, perhaps fifty or sixty thousand of white paint. jihadist groups worldwide. They focus followers worldwide, and the most ad- primarily on local struggles, battling the vanced weapons-of-mass-destruction fter considering the threat of nu- “near enemy,” not the “far enemy”: the program ever created by a terrorist A clear terrorism for many years, United States. The groups most likely group, the doomsday cult was unknown William C. Potter, the director of the to commit terrorist acts on American to Western intelligence agencies until James Martin Center for Nonprolif- soil are Al Qaeda, its offshoot Al Qaeda the Tokyo subway attack. eration Studies, and Gary Ackerman, in the Arabian Peninsula, and the Is- White supremacists in the United the director of the Unconventional lamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). States have also fantasized about using Weapons and Technology Division, None have thus far engaged in nuclear nuclear weapons to purify society. Be- at the University of Maryland, out- terrorism, preferring more conventional fore Timothy McVeigh destroyed Okla- lined some of the motives that could and reliable forms of violence. homa City’s federal building with a drive a terrorist group to obtain a nu- Salafi jihadists aren’t the only mille- truck bomb, in 1995, he travelled the clear weapon. The group might hope narian group that might be drawn to nu- country selling copies of “The Turner to create mass anxiety or mass casu- clear weapons. During the early nine- Diaries,” a 1978 novel long considered alties. It might want to deter attacks ties, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo the bible of the white-power move- by a state with nuclear weapons. It (Supreme Truth) attempted to buy nu- ment. It features a protagonist who flies might want to destroy a large area be- clear weapons in Russia, purchased land a plane carrying a nuclear weapon into longing to an adversary. It might want in Australia to mine for uranium, and the Pentagon, committing suicide in the prestige that nuclear weapons seem sought technical assistance from scien- order to destroy Washington, D.C. to confer, the status of being a world tists at Moscow’s leading institute for In the book’s “happy” ending, white power. And it might seek to fulfill a nuclear research. The leader of the cult, patriots use nuclear weapons stolen religious goal. Groups that have an Shoko Asahara, was a partially blind from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in apocalyptic outlook—that believe “an yoga instructor who declared himself California, to annihilate inferior races irremediably corrupt world must be purged to make way for a utopian fu- ture,” that celebrate violence as a means of achieving those aims—could be es- pecially drawn to nuclear weapons, Potter and Ackerman found. Today, the number of those groups seems to be multiplying. “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military— is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it,” Osama bin Laden declared in 1998. Al Qaeda’s current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has said that his mood won’t improve until America vanishes. And he quoted, with approval, a radical imam’s view that using a nu- clear weapon against the United States would be sanctified by God: “If a bomb were dropped on them, destroying ten million of them and burning as much of their land as they have burned of Mus- “Goodbye, Kevin. I could look the other way with the boozing and lim land, that would be permissible the skirt-chasing, but I did not sign up for bicycle clothes.” throughout the world. Although the shiny new buildings, some of the most Wackenhut is no longer responsible threat of Islamic terrorism has received advanced and precise machine tools in for the security at Y-12. Two months a great deal of media attention, since the world—and an abandoned steam after the break-in, its contract was ter- 9/11 more people have been killed in plant in the middle of the complex, minated, and Babcock & Wilcox took the United States by American extrem- rusting and decayed, with grass grow- over the guard force. Creating a single, ists than by foreign jihadists. ing in the cracks of surrounding pave- integrated management structure at Last month, President Barack Obama’s ment. Buildings and equipment dat- the site promised to improve its secu- 2015 National Security Strategy noted ing back to the Manhattan Project are rity. But a couple of embarrassing inci- the risk of nuclear terrorism. “No threat still in use. Inside one building, I saw dents soon occurred. On June 6, 2013, poses as grave a danger . . . as the poten- calutrons—enormous contraptions, Brenda L. Haptonstall, a sixty-two- tial use of nuclear weapons or materials about fifteen feet high, relying on pow- year-old woman, was allowed to pass by irresponsible states or terrorists,” it erful magnets to enrich uranium—that through the main entrance at Y-12 and said. Although Washington, D. C., would were designed more than seventy years drive the full length of the complex be a likely target of such an attack, the ago, and are still kept on standby to without being asked to show any iden- issue seems to lack urgency there. Bud- produce stable isotopes, if necessary. A tification. Haptonstall later said that get sequestration and the partisanship dusty basement was filled with spare she had been looking for a low-cost in Congress have greatly reduced spend- parts, gauges, huge vacuum tubes, un- apartment building that she’d spotted ing on nuclear-security programs. The opened spools of cable marked with in an ad. The sight of “nice officers wav- amount of money that will be saved this their date of manufacture (1944). The ing her through with illuminated flash- year by cutting those programs—about room felt like an exhibit at a museum light cones” didn’t strike her as unusual, three hundred and forty million dollars— of technology, a steampunk fantasy. according to the police report. There’s is equivalent to 0.06 per cent of the Inside the Protected Area, the secu- probably been an accident, she thought, 2015 defense budget. Meanwhile, at rity was impressive. Large coils of razor driving into the high-security nuclear- least twenty-five countries now possess wire have been placed between fences to weapons site. The following month, on two pounds or more of weapons-grade slow anyone trying to cut through them. the first anniversary of the Plowshares fissile material, and some nuclear sites I saw security guards with automatic action at Y-12, a security guard acciden- overseas don’t even have armed guards. weapons, plenty of video cameras, bar- tally fired his gun inside an armored ve- riers to prevent car bombs and truck hicle. Fragments ricocheting off the in- hen I visited the Y-12 National bombs. I have been told that if an in- terior armor injured two guards. Babcock WSecurity Complex a few months truder managed to get inside the storage & Wilcox’s contract at Y-12 was not ago, the place looked like an odd mix facility, he or she would confront a series renewed. of Silicon Valley and the industrial of lethal impediments before getting Consolidated Nuclear Security ruins of Detroit. The site has a few anywhere near the uranium. (C.N.S.), a consortium headed by Bech- tel and Lockheed Martin, has operated Y-12 since last July. C.N.S. is in charge of the security equipment and the secu- rity personnel at the site. Although the guard force there is largely unchanged, new managers run it. Morgan Smith, the chief operating officer of C.N.S., seems tough, competent, and blunt. He previously ran the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, a Bechtel facility north of Albany that helps maintain nuclear re- actors for the U.S. Navy. Smith makes no excuses for the security lapses at Y-12 that preceded his arrival. “What hap- pened in 2012 became something that could be used, going forward, in a very positive way across the complex,” he says. All the employees at the site are now ex- pected to feel personally responsible for its security. Smith is confident that Y-12 is a more secure place today than in the past. And he says that the guards want “to do everything possible to restore the pride and reputation” of their force. Standing atop Chestnut Ridge, looking down at the Y-12 complex, I felt uneasy. The valley that the site occupies is quite narrow, the hills overlooking it densely wooded. The fear of a sniper that had made Sergeant Riggs put on body armor before dealing with the Plowshares in- truders suddenly made sense. Terrorists attacking Y-12 from the ridge would have the advantage of high ground and a great deal of cover. At night, they would be hard to see. Ideally, some of the trees on those hills would be chopped down for security reasons, regardless of what local environmentalists might think. From the ridge top, America’s most important storage facility for weapons-grade uranium no longer looked so intimidating. It looked vulner- able and exposed. During the Middle Ages, castles were built at the top of a hill, not at the bottom. Weeks later, I learned that others “I know it’s only a knock-knock joke, but you wouldn’t had expressed similar concerns about say it unless there was some truth in it.” Y-12 for years. The initial design of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility was a concrete bunker covered •• on top and on three sides by an earthen berm. When Babcock & Wilcox as- Mint Police, a law-enforcement agency Their arguments go something like sumed management of Y-12, in 2000, that’s been in continuous operation this: it changed the design, claiming that a since 1792. And Fort Knox is right Fifty to sixty million people were building aboveground would be less next door to Fort Knox, an Army base killed during the Second World War. expensive. Four years later, the Depart- with thousands of soldiers. Nobody America’s nuclear weapons not only ment of Energy’s Inspector General has ever broken into the bullion depos- ended that war but also played a crucial argued that an above-ground, fortress- itory, and none of its roughly forty-five role in avoiding a third one. Our nuclear like design would actually be more ex- hundred tons of gold has ever been weapons prevented the Soviet domina- pensive and less secure. Danielle Brian, stolen. But that gold is nowhere near as tion of Japan and Western Europe. His- the head of the Project on Govern- valuable as what’s being guarded by the tory has shown that traditional enemies ment Oversight, stressed those very private contractors at Y-12. A pound of who have nuclear weapons don’t fight points during congressional testimony gold is worth about twenty thousand wars against one another. Nuclear deter- in May, 2004. An aboveground storage dollars. A pound of weapons-grade rence works. Both China and Russia are facility would have five exposed sur- uranium, on the black market, could be now spending heavily to modernize faces—four walls and a roof—that ter- worth at least a hundred times that their nuclear forces. If the United States rorists could attack. A bermed facility amount. doesn’t modernize as well, it will appear would have only one. The most secure weak. And, if the United States unilat- nuclear-weapons storage site in the his summer will mark the seventieth erally reduces the number of weapons in United States, according to the mili- Tanniversary of the atomic bomb’s its arsenal, allies currently shielded under tary and civilian experts whom I con- invention and its use against two Jap- its “nuclear umbrella,” like Japan and sulted, is the Kirtland Underground anese cities. The anniversary will be South Korea, will build their own nu- Munitions Storage Complex, at Kirt- commemorated by rallies and speeches clear weapons—greatly increasing the land Air Force Base, in Albuquerque, demanding the abolition of nuclear likelihood of a nuclear war. Tampering New Mexico. In satellite photographs, weapons. That has been the professed with a national-security strategy that has aside from an entrance ramp and an desire of most American Presidents kept the peace among world powers for exit ramp, the structure is practically since 1945, including Harry Truman. seventy years would be a risky and irra- invisible. But I’ve spoken with military officers, tional move. A treaty to abolish nuclear The Y-12 National Security Com- academics, and former Pentagon offi- weapons would be as effective as the plex may be known as the Fort Knox cials who think the notion of abolish- Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international of Uranium, but the United States ing nuclear weapons is a dangerous and agreement, signed by the United States Bullion Depository, the real Fort Knox, impossible fantasy. They would like the in 1928, that outlawed war. in Kentucky, is guarded by federal United States to modernize its nuclear- The Catholic Church once agreed officers. They are members of the U.S. weapons and delivery systems instead. with many of those arguments. For

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 67 dormitory, not a cell. It has about sixty bunk beds, separated from one another by a few feet, without any partitions. There is no privacy, and the room can get “shrieking” loud. Many of the women seem to have been incarcerated for drug offenses. She thinks that most of them have been the victims of abuse. Instead of complaining or focussing on her own case, she has encouraged in- mates to write to me about theirs. At the end of a conversation that felt too brief, Sister Megan said, “Bless you, brother. And thanks.” Michael Walli is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution, McKean, a medium-security facility in northwest Pennsylvania. I wasn’t allowed to visit him, either, but we spoke on the phone for an hour and a half. His recall of dates and numbers is extraordinary, and, despite being a high-school drop- “Seat belts unfastened? Excellent.” out, he readily quotes passages of the Bible and lines from Martin Luther •• King, Jr.,’s speeches. Walli believes that King is literally a saint, despite hav- ing been a Baptist, and considers Sister most of the Cold War, the Vatican was Ask- Carlson, the prison’s warden. Megan to be a prophet of God. When I staunchly anti-Communist, and nu- When I appealed the decision, my re- asked about the sabotage charge, Walli clear deterrence was blessed as a means quest was denied again. Asked for an let loose. “Well, the U.S. government has of containing the influence of the So- explanation, Ask-Carlson wrote me a trespassed against its own constitutional, viet Union. Last December, the Vati- letter that said, “I have decided to deny legal obligations by its torture policies, its can released a statement that broke your request due to safety and security assassination campaigns, its illegal wars, from decades of Church teaching on concerns.” When I inquired whose a whole bunch of illegal weapons besides nuclear weapons. The distinction be- safety and security might be jeopar- the nuclear weapons,” he said. “The U.S. tween having them and using them dized by my visit, a prison spokesman government is a failed, rogue, terrorist seems to have vanished. “Now is the declined to answer. Sister Megan is nation.” time to affirm not only the immorality eighty-five, one of the oldest women in As for the Y-12 break-in, Walli of nuclear weapons, but the immoral- the federal prison system, and she has a thinks it would have received more ity of their possession, thereby clearing heart condition. During roughly the media coverage if they’d been shot. And the road to abolition,” the Vatican said. same period in which the Justice De- he was prepared for that to happen. “I’m And Dorothy Day, once mocked and partment refused to let me meet with ready to go into the afterlife,” Walli said. reviled, is now being promoted for her for security reasons, the National “My citizenship is in Heaven. When I sainthood by Cardinal Timothy M. Nuclear Security Administration al- go off into the judgment seat before Dolan, the conservative Archbishop of lowed me to visit three high-security Jesus Christ, the just judge, I’m not New York. nuclear-weapons sites. going to wave a U.S. flag in Jesus’ face, I corresponded with Sister Megan that’s for sure.” He will be sixty-nine he Department of Justice doesn’t for months, and she was eventually al- years old when he’s released. Tseem proud of having imprisoned lowed to speak with me on the phone. the Plowshares activists who broke into We talked about her upbringing in eavenworth Penitentiary is the old- Y-12. Nobody at the Justice Depart- Manhattan, her parents, and their com- L est federal prison and one of the ment or the U.S. Attorney’s Office in mitment to racial equality in the nine- most unsettling. Built more than a Knoxville would discuss the case with teen-thirties. She told me about her century ago, in Kansas, it was de- me. Nor would the two prosecutors years in Africa and her introduction to signed to look like the U.S. Capi- who handled the case. the peace movement. We discussed tol. Imagine the Capitol, flattened, Sister Megan Rice is currently im- what happened at Y-12. But the subject stretched, surrounded by forty-foot- prisoned at the Metropolitan Deten- that Sister Megan now seems the most high walls made of red brick and tion Center in Brooklyn. My request passionate about is the suffering of her topped with gun towers. Leavenworth to visit her was denied by Kimberly fellow-inmates. She is confined in a was a maximum-security prison for

68 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 more than a century, filled with bank Boertje-Obed was in charge of the witness during the trial in Knoxville was robbers, train robbers, killers, mobsters, medics. He had to make sure that ev- to question the amount of paint that rapists. As I headed up the steep con- eryone wore the masks for an hour, then Babcock & Wilcox bought to cover up crete steps to see Gregory Boertje- two hours, then three, four, five. Mem- the graffiti. He thought twenty buckets Obed, I thought about the thousands bers of his unit began to cheat, pulling sounded excessive. of violent inmates who had been locked the masks away from their faces. It was Boertje-Obed was slight and soft- away there. Many had reached the top excruciating to wear the masks for ten spoken, wearing a beige prison uniform of the stairs, walked into the place, minutes, let alone four or five hours. that looked a couple of sizes too big. and never walked out. The whole exercise seemed pointless But, as I listened to him talk about his I met with Boertje-Obed in a small to Boertje-Obed; he’d die during a real faith and his devotion to nonviolence it visiting room filled with beige plastic attack. became clear that deep down he was chairs. The only other people in the Boertje-Obed had begun reading harder and tougher than most of the in- room were a prison official and a correc- about Dorothy Day, who had encour- mates in the yard. Henry David Tho- tions officer, both of them polite and aged workers at munitions plants to reau spent a single night in jail as an act friendly and not especially interested in walk away from their jobs. “God will of civil disobedience and then wrote a our conversation. Leavenworth is a lead and provide for you,” she had as- famous essay about it. Boertje-Obed medium- security facility today. But sured them. It seemed as though Day had already spent more than a thousand gang members, drug dealers, and mur- were speaking directly to him. He read nights behind bars for his beliefs and derers are still incarcerated there, amid a the Bible and books about civil disobe- may spend at least a thousand more. He prison culture rigidly divided by race. dience. He started to believe that you seemed to have no regrets. “You must The typical inmate is serving a ten-year should love your enemies. The field ex- live your Christian beliefs fully,” he told sentence. In an environment that would ercise was his tipping point. Nope, he me, “as though judgment may come at frighten most people, Boertje-Obed thought. I won’t coöperate anymore in any moment.” seemed calm, grounded, and philosoph- the planning for nuclear war. Boertje-Obed said that no one from ical. He was there for a reason, and was Boertje-Obed left the Army, re- the government has ever asked him for just fine with it. turned to Baton Rouge, and took the- suggestions about how the security at As a young man, Boertje-Obed ology classes at L.S.U. He became in- nuclear-weapon sites could be im- seemed an unlikely candidate for a cell volved in anti-nuclear activism, studied proved. He certainly doesn’t want block. He grew up in a series of Iowa nonviolent resistance with Daniel Ber- terrorists to do what he’s done. The towns—Pella, Sioux Center, Ames. His rigan, moved to Jonah House, and Bureau of Prisons sent him to Leav- father was a biology teacher, and the lived there for seventeen years. Boertje- en worth, nine hours away from his family was deeply religious. They at- Obed and Philip Berrigan painted family, he said, because it considers tended two services at the local Dutch houses together three or four times a him to be a “domestic terrorist.” Boert- Reformed church every Sunday. Boertje- week and planned break-ins at nuclear- je-Obed plays a lot of Scrabble now, be- Obed went to Tulane University in weapons sites. Boertje-Obed’s life be- longs to a Bible-study group, and 1973, joined the Army R.O.T.C. to came a series of protests, arrests, jail- spends time teaching a man in his cell help cover the tuition, and then entered ings, and imprisonments on behalf of block how to read. If he’s attacked by a graduate program at Louisiana State peace. At one point, like the Berrigans, another inmate, he won’t fight back. But University to study social psychology. he went on the run. But that he might intervene to sepa- He wrote a master’s thesis on whether was an exception. On a fun- rate other inmates who are personality tests could predict leader- damental level, he accepted fighting. ship ability and hoped to become an responsibility for his actions. Right before the correc- academic researcher. Before that could When, during a Plowshares tions officer led him out of happen, he became a first lieutenant trial, a court-appointed at- the room, Boertje-Obed in the Army to fulfill his R.O.T.C. torney tried to persuade a looked me in the eye and obligations. jury that he was innocent, gave a subtle little smile. Assigned to a combat-engineer bat- pointing to the absence of I stood across the street talion at Fort Polk, in central Louisiana, fingerprints or photographs from Leavenworth Peniten- Boertje-Obed trained to be a supervi- linking him to the scene, tiary, taking in the view. The sor at a medical-aid station. In battle, Boertje-Obed stood up, told the jury Stars and Stripes hung from a flagpole his job would be to organize the care of he’d done it, and started to explain why. in front of the steps, sunshine glistened the wounded. In 1980, he was part of The judge cited him for contempt of in the razor wire, the sky was clear and a major field exercise in Louisiana. court. blue. The prison looked like an image During the war game, a Soviet armored In the months leading up to the Y-12 on an old postcard, a haunting, uniquely column headed south from Monroe break-in, Boertje-Obed was happily American symbol of state power. And toward his unit. His battalion camped married, living at the Loaves and Fishes a thought occurred to me: the walls of out in the fields and prepared for a nu- Catholic Worker House in Duluth, and the penitentiary guarding this pacifist clear, biological, or chemical attack, painting houses. One of the few times were taller and more impenetrable than donning gas masks and protective suits. that he cross-examined a government any of the fences at Y-12. 

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 69 PORTFOLIO BY SAUL LEITER HIDDEN DEPTHS

hen the photographer Saul Leiter died, in 2013, just shy of his Wninetieth birthday, his East Village apartment was stacked with boxes of pictures. Because recognition, and a bracing shot of fame, had come to him late in life, he’d only begun to rouse himself from con- tented obscurity and sort through decades of uncatalogued work. In Leiter’s last years, previously unseen photographs, many of New York in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, appeared regularly in exhibitions and publications, but they were only a fraction of what has come to light since his death, including the images on these pages. The French painter Pierre Bonnard was a key influence, and Leiter saw the city’s streets through a Neo-Impressionist lens, often with a shop window or a mirror to provide a layer of shimmering soft focus. His take was glancing and indirect but tender—the fond regard of a lover who sees and forgives every flaw. —Vince Aletti

When Leiter agreed to work for Harper’s Bazaar, in 1958, he said, with characteristic modesty, “I thought that maybe fashion was something I

70 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 could do.” All he needed was the mix of glamour and drama he brought to this untitled image, photographed circa 1955.

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 71 SAUL LEITER ESTATE/COURTESY HOWARD GREENBERG GALLERY HOWARD LEITER ESTATE/COURTESY SAUL “I was very lazy and stuck to my neighborhood,” Leiter said. “San Carlo Restaurant, 1952” was taken near his apartment.

72 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 A painter before he picked up a camera, Leiter was alert to found art, like the drawing in “Graffiti Heads, 1950.”

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 73 He liked the fact that “sometimes you don’t know what’s going on” in such multilayered images as “Christmas, 1950s.”

74 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 Leiter had an eye for the way the city looked through a streaked and foggy window, as in “Snow, 1960.”

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 75 FICTION

76 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 DESIGN BY JON GRAY/GRAY318 im Trusdale had a shack on the west we would have seen it. That’s a damn where they piled up against a shakepole Jside of his father’s gone-to-seed ranch, big hat. Got anything to say about that?” fence and rattled there. and that was where he was when Sheriff “It’s too bad I lost it. My father gave “Hang that baby killer!” a man Barclay and half a dozen deputized it to me back when he was still right in shouted, and someone threw a rock. It townsmen found him, sitting in the one the head.” flew past Trusdale’s head and clattered chair by the cold stove, wearing a dirty “Where is it, then?” on the board sidewalk. barn coat and reading an old issue of “Told you, I might have lost it. Or Sheriff Barclay turned and held up the Black Hills Pioneer by lantern light. had it stoled. That might have hap- his lantern and surveyed the crowd that Looking at it, anyway. pened, too. Say, I was going to bed right had gathered in front of the mercantile. Sheriff Barclay stood in the doorway, soon.” “Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t act fool- almost filling it up. He was holding his “Never mind going to bed. You were ish. This is in hand.” own lantern. “Come out of there, Jim, in town this afternoon, weren’t you?” The sheriff took Trusdale through and do it with your hands up. I ain’t drawn “Sure he was,” one of the men said, his office, holding him by his upper arm, my pistol and don’t want to.” mounting up again. “I seen him myself. and into the jail. There were two cells. Trusdale came out. He still had the Wearing that hat, too.” Barclay led Trusdale into the one on the newspaper in one of his raised hands. “Shut up, Dave,” Sheriff Barclay said. left. There was a bunk and a stool and He stood there looking at the sheriff “Were you in town, Jim?” a waste bucket. Trusdale made to sit with his flat gray eyes. The sheriff looked “Yes sir, I was,” Trusdale said. down on the stool, and Barclay said, back. So did the others, four on horse- “In the Chuck-a-Luck?” “No. Just stand there.” back and two on the seat of an old buck- “Yes sir, I was. I walked from here, The sheriff looked around and saw board with “Hines Mortuary” printed and had two drinks, and then I walked the possemen crowding into the door- on the side in faded yellow letters. home. I guess the Chuck-a-Luck’s where way. “You all get out of here,” he said. “I notice you ain’t asked why we’re I lost my hat.” “Otis,” the one named Dave said, here,” Sheriff Barclay said. “That’s your story?” “what if he attacks you?” “Why are you here, Sheriff?” Trusdale looked up at the black No- “Then I will subdue him. I thank you “Where is your hat, Jim?” vember sky. “It’s the only story I got.” for doing your duty, but now you need Trusdale put the hand not holding “Look at me, son.” to scat.” the newspaper to his head as if to feel Trusdale looked at him. When they were gone, Barclay said, for his hat, which was a brown plains- “That’s your story?” “Take off that coat and give it to me.” man and not there. “Told you, the only one I got,” Trus- Trusdale took off his barn coat and “In your place, is it?” the sheriff asked. dale said, looking at him. began shivering. Beneath he was wear- A cold breeze kicked up, blowing the Sheriff Barclay sighed. “All right, let’s ing nothing but an undershirt and cor- horses’ manes and flattening the grass go to town.” duroy pants so worn the wale was al- in a wave that ran south. “Why?” most gone and one knee was out. Sheriff “No,” Trusdale said. “I don’t believe “Because you’re arrested.” Barclay went through the pockets of the it is.” “Ain’t got a brain in his fuckin’ head,” coat and found a twist of tobacco in a “Then where?” one of the men remarked. “Makes his page of an R.W. Sears Watch Company “I might have lost it.” daddy look smart.” catalogue, and an old lottery ticket prom- “You need to get in the back of the They went to town. It was four miles. ising a payoff in pesos. There was also wagon,” the sheriff said. Trusdale rode in the back of the mor- a black marble. “I don’t want to ride in no funeral tuary wagon, shivering against the cold. “That’s my lucky marble,” Trusdale hack,” Trusdale said. “That’s bad luck.” Without turning around, the man hold- said. “I had it since I was a boy.” “You got bad luck all over,” one of the ing the reins said, “Did you rape her as “Turn out your pants pockets.” men said. “You’re painted in it. Get in.” well as steal her dollar, you hound?” Trusdale turned them out. He had a Trusdale went to the back of the “I don’t know what you’re talking penny and three nickels and a folded-up buckboard and climbed up. The breeze about,” Trusdale said. news clipping about the Nevada silver kicked again, harder, and he turned up The rest of the trip continued in si- rush that looked as old as the Mexican the collar of his barn coat. lence except for the wind. In town, peo- lottery ticket. The two men on the seat of the buck- ple lined the street. At first they were “Take off your boots.” board got down and stood either side of quiet. Then an old woman in a brown Trusdale took them off. Barclay felt it. One drew his gun; the other did not. shawl ran after the funeral hack in a sort inside them. There was a hole in one Trusdale knew their faces but not their of limping hobble and spat at Trusdale. sole the size of a dime. names. They were town men. The sheriff She missed, but there was a spatter of “Now your stockings.” and the other four went into his shack. applause. Barclay turned them inside out and One of them was Hines, the undertaker. At the jail, Sheriff Barclay helped tossed them aside. They were in there for some time. They Trusdale down from the wagon. The “Drop your pants.” even opened the stove and dug through wind was brisk, and smelled of snow. “I don’t want to.” the ashes. At last they came out. Tumbleweeds blew straight down Main “No more than I want to see what’s “No hat,” Sheriff Barclay said. “And Street and toward the town water tower, in there, but drop them anyway.”

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 77 Trusdale dropped his pants. He “I don’t know about no silver dollar. ther was in Nevada, hunting for silver. wasn’t wearing underdrawers. Can I have my hat back?” Sometimes children came and stood “Turn around and spread your “No. It’s evidence. Jim Trusdale, I’m in the alley outside his cell, chanting, cheeks.” arresting you for the murder of Rebecca “Hangman, hangman, come on down.” Trusdale turned, grabbed his but- Cline. Do you have anything you want Sometimes men stood out there and tocks, and pulled them apart. Sheriff to say to that?” threatened to cut off his privates. Once, Barclay winced, sighed, and poked a “Yes, sir. That I don’t know no Re- Rebecca Cline’s mother came and said finger into Trusdale’s anus. Trusdale becca Cline.” she would hang him herself, were she groaned. Barclay removed his finger, The sheriff left the cell, closed the allowed. “How could you kill my baby?” wincing again at the soft pop, door, took a key from the wall, and she asked through the barred window. and wiped his finger on Trusdale’s locked it. The tumblers screeched as “She was only ten years old, and ’twas undershirt. they turned. The cell mostly housed her birthday.” “Where is it, Jim?” drunks and was rarely locked. He “Ma’am,” Trusdale said, standing on “My hat?” looked in at Trusdale and said, “I feel the bunk so that he could look down at “You think I went up your ass look- sorry for you, Jim. Hell ain’t too hot her upturned face. “I didn’t kill your baby ing for your hat? Or through the ashes for a man who’d do such a thing.” nor no one.” in your stove? Are you being smart?” “What thing?” “Black liar,” she said, and went away. Trusdale pulled up his trousers and The sheriff clumped away without Almost everyone in town attended buttoned them. Then he stood shiv- any reply. the child’s funeral. The squaws went. ering and barefoot. An hour earlier Even the two whores who plied their he had been at home, reading his rusdale stayed there in the cell, trade in the Chuck-a-Luck went. Trus- newspaper and thinking about start- Teating grub from Mother’s Best, dale heard the singing from his cell, ing a fire in the stove, but that seemed sleeping on the bunk, shitting and as he squatted over the bucket in the long ago. pissing in the bucket, which was emp- corner. “I’ve got your hat in my office.” tied every two days. His father didn’t Sheriff Barclay telegraphed Fort “Then why did you ask about it?” come to see him, because his father Pierre, and after a week or so the circuit- “To see what you’d say. That hat is had gone foolish in his eighties, and riding judge came. He was newly ap- all settled. What I really want to know was now being cared for by a couple pointed and young for the job, a dandy is where you put the girl’s silver dollar. of squaws, one Sioux and the other with long blond hair down his back like It’s not in your house, or your pockets, Cheyenne. Sometimes they stood on Wild Bill Hickok. His name was Roger or up your ass. Did you get to feeling the porch of the deserted bunkhouse Mizell. He wore small round spectacles, guilty and throw it away?” and sang hymns in harmony. His bro- and in both the Chuck-a-Luck and Mother’s Best proved himself a man with an eye for the ladies, although he wore a wedding band. There was no lawyer in town to serve as Trusdale’s defense, so Mizell called on George Andrews, owner of the mer- cantile, the hostelry, and the Good Rest Hotel. Andrews had got two years of higher education at a business school back East. He said he would serve as Trusdale’s attorney only if Mr. and Mrs. Cline agreed. “Then go see them,” Mizell said. He was in the barbershop, tilted back in the chair and taking a shave. “Don’t let the grass grow under your feet.” “Well,” Mr. Cline said, after An- drews had stated his business, “I got a question. If he doesn’t have someone to stand for him, can they still hang him?” “That would not be American jus- tice,” Andrews said. “And although we are not one of the United States just yet, we will be soon.” “Can he wriggle out of it?” Mrs. Cline asked. “No, ma’am,” Andrews said. “I don’t she could buy some candy with her birth- which Mizell also gavelled down, al- see how.” day dollar, but not eat it, because she though he was smiling himself and did “Then do your duty and God bless had had sweets enough for one day. not issue a second admonition. you,” Mrs. Cline said. When five o’clock came and she hadn’t “Did you order two drinks?” returned home, Mr. Cline and some “Yes, sir, I did. Two was all I had he trial lasted through one Novem- other men began searching for her. They money for.” Tber morning and halfway into the found her in Barker’s Alley, between the “But you got another dollar right afternoon. It was held in the municipal stage depot and the Good Rest. She quick, didn’t you, you hound!” Abel hall, and on that day there were snow had been strangled. Her silver dollar Hines shouted. flurries as fine as wedding lace. Slate- was gone. It was only when the griev- Mizell pointed his gavel first at Hines, gray clouds rolling toward town threat- ing father took her in his arms that the then at Sheriff Barclay, sitting in the ened a bigger storm. Roger Mizell, who men saw Trusdale’s broad-brimmed front row. “Sheriff, escort that man out had familiarized himself with the case, and charge him with disorderly con- served as prosecuting attorney as well duct, if you please.” as judge. Barclay escorted Hines out but did “Like a banker taking out a loan from not charge him with disorderly conduct. himself and then paying himself inter- Instead, he asked what had got into him. est,” one of the jurors was overheard to “I’m sorry, Otis,” Hines said. “It was say during the lunch break at Mother’s seeing him sitting there with his bare Best, and although nobody disagreed face hanging out.” with this, no one suggested that it was “You go on downstreet and see if a bad idea. It had a certain economy, John House needs some help with his after all. leather hat. It had been hidden beneath work,” Barclay said. “Don’t come back Prosecutor Mizell called half a dozen the skirt of the girl’s party dress. in here until this mess is over.” witnesses, and Judge Mizell never ob- During the jury’s lunch hour, ham- “He’s got all the help he needs, and jected once to his line of questioning. mering was heard from behind the stage it’s snowing hard now.” Mr. Cline testified first, and Sheriff Bar- depot and not ninety paces from the “You won’t blow away. Go on.” clay came last. The story that emerged scene of the crime. This was the gallows Meanwhile, Trusdale continued to was a simple one. At noon on the day going up. The work was supervised by testify. No, he hadn’t left the Chuck-a- of Rebecca Cline’s murder, there had the town’s best carpenter, whose name, Luck wearing his hat, but hadn’t real- been a birthday party, with cake and ice appropriately enough, was Mr. John ized it until he got to his place. By then, cream. Several of Rebecca’s friends had House. Big snow was coming, and the he said, he was too tired to walk all the attended. Around two o’clock, while the road to Fort Pierre would be impassable, way back to town in search of it. Be- little girls were playing Pin the Tail on perhaps for a week, perhaps for the en- sides, it was dark. the Donkey and Musical Chairs, Jim tire winter. There were no plans to jug Mizell broke in. “Are you asking this Trusdale entered the Chuck-a-Luck Trusdale in the local calaboose until court to believe you walked four miles and ordered a knock of whiskey. He was spring. There was no economy in that. without realizing you weren’t wearing wearing his plainsman hat. He made “Nothing to building a gallows,” your damn hat?” the drink last, and when it was gone he House told folks who came to watch. “I guess since I wear it all the time I just ordered another. “A child could build one of these.” figured it must be there,” Trusdale said. Did he at any point take off the hat? He told how a lever-operated beam This elicited another gust of laughter. Perhaps hang it on one of the hooks by would run beneath the trapdoor, and Barclay came back in and took his the door? No one could remember. how it would be axle-greased to make place next to Dave Fisher. “What are “Only I never seen him without it,” sure there wouldn’t be any last-minute they laughing at?” Dale Gerard, the barman, said. “He was holdups. “If you have to do a thing like “Dummy don’t need a hangman,” partial to that hat. If he did take it off, this, you want to do it right the first Fisher said. “He’s tying the knot all by he probably laid it on the bar beside time,” House said. himself. It shouldn’t be funny, but it’s him. He had his second drink, and then In the afternoon, George Andrews pretty comical, just the same.” he went on his way.” put Trusdale on the stand. This occa- “Did you encounter Rebecca Cline “Was his hat on the bar when he sioned some hissing from the specta- in that alley?” George Andrews asked left?” Mizell asked. tors, which Judge Mizell gavelled down, in a loud voice. With every eye on him, “No, sir.” promising to clear the courtroom if folks he had discovered a heretofore hidden “Was it on one of the hooks when couldn’t behave themselves. flair for the dramatic. “Did you encoun- you closed up shop for the night?” “Did you enter the Chuck-a-Luck ter her and steal her birthday dollar?” “No, sir.” Saloon on the day in question?” Andrews “No, sir,” Trusdale said. Around three o’clock that day, Re- asked when order had been restored. “Did you kill her?” becca Cline left her house at the south “I guess so,” Trusdale said. “Other- “No, sir. I didn’t even know who she end of town to visit the apothecary on wise I wouldn’t be here.” was.” Main Street. Her mother had told her There was some laughter at that, Mr. Cline rose from his seat and

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 79 shouted, “You did it, you lying son of a gone back to the Chuck-a-Luck and because Trusdale had thought of it. Then bitch!” drunk it up.” he said, “Wipe your nose.” “I ain’t lying,” Trusdale said, and that “What are you saying?” Dave asked. Trusdale wiped it. was when Sheriff Barclay believed him. “That you think he’s innocent?” “Now listen to me, Jim, because this “I have no further questions,” An- “I’m saying I wish we’d found that is your last chance. You were in that bar drews said, and walked back to his seat. cartwheel.” in the middle of the afternoon. Not many Trusdale started to get up, but Mizell “Maybe he lost it out a hole in his people in there then. Isn’t that right?” told him to sit still and answer a few pocket.” “I guess it is.” more questions. “He didn’t have any holes in his pock- “Then who took your hat? Close “Do you continue to contend, Mr. ets,” Barclay said. “Only one in his boot, your eyes. Think back. See it.” Trusdale, that someone stole your hat and it wasn’t big enough for a dollar to Trusdale closed his eyes. Barclay while you were drinking in the Chuck-a- get through.” He drank some of his beer. waited. At last Trusdale opened his eyes, Luck, and that someone put it on, and The tumbleweeds blowing up Main Street which were red from crying. “I can’t even went into the alley, and killed Rebecca looked like ghostly brains in the snow. remember was I wearing it.” Cline, and left it there to implicate you?” The jury took an hour and a half. Barclay sighed. “Give me your plate, Trusdale was silent. “We voted to hang him on the first bal- and mind that knife.” “Answer the question, Mr. Trusdale.” lot,” Kelton Fisher said later, “but we Trusdale handed the plate through the “Sir, I don’t know what ‘implicate’ wanted it to look decent.” bars with the knife and fork laid on it, and means.” Mizell asked Trusdale if he had any- said he wished he could have some beer. “Do you expect us to believe some- thing to say before sentence was passed. Barclay thought it over, then put on his one framed you for this heinous murder?” “I can’t think of nothing,” Trusdale heavy coat and Stetson and walked down Trusdale considered, twisting his said. “Just I never killed that girl.” to the Chuck-a-Luck, where he got a hands together. At last he said, “Maybe small pail of beer from Dale Gerard. Un- somebody took it by mistake and throwed he storm blew for three days. John dertaker Hines was just finishing a glass it away.” THouse asked Barclay how much of wine. He followed Barclay out. Mizell looked out at the rapt gallery. he reckoned Trusdale weighed, and Bar- “Big day tomorrow,” Barclay said. “Did anyone here take Mr. Trusdale’s clay said he guessed the man went around “There hasn’t been a hanging here in hat by mistake?” one-forty. House made a dummy out ten years, and with luck there won’t be There was silence, except for the of burlap sacks and filled it with stones, another for ten more. I’ll be gone out snow hitting the windows. The first big weighing it on the hostelry scales until of the job by then. I wish I was now.” storm of winter had arrived. That was the needle stood pat on one-forty. Then Hines looked at him. “You really don’t the winter townsfolk called the Wolf he hanged the dummy while half the think he killed her.” Winter, because the wolves came down town stood around in the snowdrifts “If he didn’t,” Barclay said, “whoever from the Black Hills in packs to hunt and watched. The trial run went all did is still walking around.” for garbage. right. The hanging was at nine o’clock the “I have no more questions,” Mizell On the night before the execution, next morning. The day was windy and said. “And due to the weather we are the weather cleared. Sheriff Barclay told bitterly cold, but most of the town turned going to dispense with any closing state- Trusdale he could have anything he out to watch. Pastor Ray Rowles stood ments. The jury will retire to consider wanted for dinner. Trusdale asked for on the scaffold next to John House. a verdict. You have three choices, gen- steak and eggs, with home fries on the Both of them were shivering in spite of tlemen—innocent, manslaughter, or side soaked in gravy. Barclay paid for it their coats and scarves. The pages of murder in the first degree.” out of his own pocket, then sat at his Pastor Rowles’s Bible fluttered. Tucked “Girlslaughter, more like it,” some- desk cleaning his fingernails and listen- into House’s belt, also fluttering, was a one remarked. ing to the steady clink of Trusdale’s knife hood of homespun cloth dyed black. Sheriff Barclay and Dave Fisher and fork on the china plate. When it Barclay led Trusdale, his hands cuffed retired to the Chuck-a-Luck. Abel stopped, he went in. Trusdale was sit- behind his back, to the gallows. Trus- Hines joined them, brushing snow from ting on his bunk. His plate was so clean dale was all right until he got to the the shoulders of his coat. Dale Gerard Barclay figured he must have lapped up steps, then he began to buck and cry. served them schooners of beer on the the last of the gravy like a dog. He was “Don’t do this,” he said. “Please don’t house. crying. do this to me. Please don’t hurt me. “Mizell might not have had any more “Something just come to me,” Trus- Please don’t kill me.” questions,” Barclay said, “but I got one. dale said. He was strong for a little man, and Never mind the hat. If Trusdale killed “What’s that, Jim?” Barclay motioned Dave Fisher to come her, how come we never found that sil- “If they hang me tomorrow morn- and lend a hand. Together they mus- ver dollar?” ing, I’ll go into my grave with steak and cled Trusdale, twisting and ducking and “Because he got scared and threw it eggs still in my belly. It won’t have no pushing, up the twelve wooden steps. away,” Hines said. chance to work through.” Once, he bucked so hard all three of “I don’t think so. He’s too bone-stu- For a moment, Barclay said nothing. them almost fell off, and arms reached pid. If he’d had that dollar, he’d have He was horrified not by the image but up to catch them if they did.

80 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 “Quit that and die like a man!” someone shouted. On the platform, Trusdale was mo- mentarily quiet, but when Pastor Rowles commenced Psalm 51, he began to scream. “Like a woman with her tit caught in the wringer,” someone said later in the Chuck-a-Luck. “Have mercy on me, O God, after Thy great goodness,” Rowles read, rais- ing his voice to be heard above the con- demned man’s shrieks to be let off. “Ac- cording to the multitude of Thy mercies, do away with mine offenses.” When Trusdale saw House take the black hood out of his belt, he began to pant like a dog. He shook his head from side to side, trying to dodge the hood. His hair flew. House followed each jerk “No, I don’t want a glass of water, but I’m worried that I might want one.” patiently, like a man who means to bri- dle a skittish horse. •• “Let me look at the mountains!” Trus- dale bellowed. Runners of snot hung from his nostrils. “I’ll be good if you let that had held Trusdale’s last drink of lanterns coming. And every time it came me look at the mountains one more beer and vomited. Then he went into out he cleaned it off and swallowed it time!” his office and stoked up the stove. again.” But House only jammed the hood He was still there eight hours later, The two men stared at each other. over Trusdale’s head and pulled it down trying to read a book, when Abel Hines “You believed him,” Hines said at to his shaking shoulders. Pastor Rowles came in. He said, “You need to come last. was droning on, and Trusdale tried to down to the funeral parlor, Otis. There’s “Fool that I am, I did.” run off the trapdoor. Barclay and Fisher something I want to show you.” “Maybe that says more about you pushed him back onto it. Down below, “What?” than it does about him.” someone cried, “Ride ’em, cowboy!” “No. You’ll want to see it for your- “He went on saying he was innocent “Say amen,” Barclay told Pastor self.” right to the end. He’ll most likely stand Rowles. “For Christ’s sake, say amen.” They walked down to the Hines Fu- at the throne of God saying the same “Amen,” Pastor Rowles said, and neral Parlor & Mortuary. In the back thing.” stepped back, closing his Bible with a clap. room, Trusdale lay naked on a cooling “Yes,” Hines said. Barclay nodded to House. House board. There was a smell of chemicals “I don’t understand. He was going pulled the lever. The greased beam re- and shit. to hang. Either way, he was going to tracted and the trap dropped. So did “They load their pants when they hang. Do you understand it?” Trusdale. There was a crack when his die that way,” Hines said. “Even men “I don’t even understand why the sun neck broke. His legs drew up almost to who go to it with their heads up. They comes up. What are you going to do his chin, then fell back limp. Yellow can’t help it. The sphincter lets go.” with that cartwheel? Give it back to the drops stained the snow under his feet. “And?” girl’s mother and father? It might be “There, you bastard!” Rebecca Cline’s “Step over here. I figure a man in better if you didn’t, because . . .” Hines father shouted. “Died pissing like a dog your job has seen worse than a pair of shrugged. on a fireplug. Welcome to Hell.” A few shitty drawers.” Because the Clines knew all along. people clapped. They lay on the floor, mostly turned Everyone in town knew all along. He The spectators stayed until Trusdale’s inside out. Something gleamed in the was the only one who hadn’t known. corpse, still wearing the black hood, was mess. Barclay leaned closer and saw it Fool that he was. laid in the same hurry-up wagon he’d was a silver dollar. He reached down “I don’t know what I’m going to do ridden to town in. Then they dispersed. and plucked it from the crap. with it,” he said. “I don’t understand it,” Hines said. The wind gusted, bringing the sound arclay went back to the jail and sat “Son of a bitch was locked up a good of singing. It was coming from the B in the cell Trusdale had occupied. long time.” church. It was the Doxology.  He sat there for ten minutes. It was cold There was a chair in the corner. Bar- enough to see his breath. He knew what clay sat down on it so heavily he made he was waiting for, and eventually it a little woof sound. “He must have swal- newyorker.com came. He picked up the small bucket lowed it the first time when he saw our Stephen King on “A Death.”

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 81 THE CRITICS

A CRITIC AT LARGE UNITED BLOOD

How hardcore conquered New York.

BY KELEFA SANNEH

hen John Joseph returned to its glamorous junkies and its flamboy- WNew York, in 1981, punk rock ant icons, seemed stuck in the past. was almost dead, and he was deter- “We’d get in the fucking cars, go to mined to help kill it. He had grown New York, and wreak havoc,” he told up hard in Queens, abandoned by his Steven Blush, a historian of hardcore. father and then by his mother. (Even- “People didn’t even know how to stage- tually, he stopped using his last name, dive.” Instead of flinging themselves which was McGowan.) He wound up off the stage and forming violent “pits,” living in a Catholic boys’ home in the New Yorkers pogoed, springing around Rockaways, which in time came to the dance floor in a punk-rock ritual seem less appealing than a life on the that he now found contemptibly quaint. streets. Among the many things he Hardcore was born as a double- found on the streets was punk, in the negative genre: a rebellion against a form of a wild concert at Max’s Kan- rebellion. The early punks were con- sas City, the night club on Park Ave- vinced that rock and roll had gone nue South where such heroes as Sid wrong and were resolved to put it Vicious and Johnny Thunders liked to right, deflating arena-rock pretension debauch themselves. John Joseph had with crude songs and rude attitudes. visited Max’s under the influence of a Legs McNeil, the New York fanzine sedative called Placidyl, which may ex- editor who helped coin the term plain why he can’t remember what band “punk,” saw the movement as a rejec- was playing, and why he fared so poorly tion of “lame hippie stuff ” and other in the fistfight that followed the show. symptoms of cultural exhaustion. But But he liked the mayhem, and he liked when punk, too, came to seem lame, the punk-obsessed woman he met a the hardcore kids arrived, eager to few weeks later, who had a fake En- show up their elders. The idea was to glish accent and a real heroin addiction. out-punk the punks, thereby recap- In his autobiography, “The Evolu- turing the wild promise of the genre, tion of a Cro-Magnon,” John Joseph with its tantalizing suggestion that remembers that he fled New York to rock music should be something more join the Navy, then fled the Navy for than mere entertainment—that it should, Washington, D.C. There he discov- somehow, pose a threat to mainstream ered something even better than punk. culture. Washington was one of the first cit- In those early years, hardcore had ies to embrace a faster, meaner genre a few flagship cities, none of which called hardcore—an offshoot of punk were New York. Los Angeles was home that was also, in its way, a stern refu- to a scabrous and squally band called tation of it. To hardcore kids like John Black Flag, whose concerts were fre-

Joseph, early-eighties New York, with quently raided by riot police. And, in FRANK WHITE OPPOSITE: FRANÇOIS AVRIL; ABOVE: When punk seemed exhausted, a new generation

82 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 of kids arrived in the East Village to fight for their music. One band member recalls, “We were like these crazy fucking street rats.”

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 83 core records sound as urgent as any rock music ever made. The music was well matched to a city defined by its conflicts. And for the bands and the fans the willingness to fight took on an almost mystical im- portance: it was proof, in a circular way, that they were doing something worth fighting for. As one musician remem- bers, a concert was a “proving ground,” even if the only thing being proved was that the locals wouldn’t let out-of- towners push them around in the pit. For most of the people who loved hard- core, the music was inseparable from the scene that created it, and from the turbulent shows that brought partic- ipants together. As a consequence, Rettman’s sources have strikingly lit- tle to say about music. Palm-muting, the guitar technique used to create the distinctive New York hardcore chug, is mentioned only once, and by •• an outsider—a member of the metal band Anthrax. Dito Montiel, a gui- tarist for the band Major Conflict (and Washington, John Joseph and his peers fertile scene in the country, and prob- now a film director), tells Rettman were electrified by a group of Rasta- ably the most loathed. that he didn’t think of himself as a farians called Bad Brains, who played Now comes a book that seeks to musician. “In all honesty, I didn’t re- with such eerie conviction that they document how, exactly, this transfor- ally like playing music,” he says. “I just seemed to be vibrating. Bad Brains mation came to pass. “NYHC: New liked the chaos. I just loved being crystallized the movement with a 1980 York Hardcore 1980-1990” (Bazillion there.” single called “Pay to Cum,” which Points) is an oral history of the move- buzzed along for ninety seconds at ment, compiled by Tony Rettman, a y the time Max’s closed, the New about three hundred beats per min- journalist who eagerly followed its de- B York hardcore scene had moved ute—nearly twice the tempo of an av- velopment from across the Hudson farther downtown, to the East Village, erage song by the New York punk band River, in New Jersey. It is a fittingly which was full of dilapidated build- the Ramones, who had previously been bare-bones book, with fifty-two short ings that could be claimed by whoever considered plenty fast. chapters and no editorializing from had the nerve. There were two store- Unlike punk, with its half-spurious the author. But the story it tells is not fronts on Avenue A where band mem- British accent, hardcore was Ameri- a simple one: this was, to quote the bers could hang out and play shows. can from the beginning, which may title of Cro-Mags’ first album, an “age Some of the hardcore kids squatted in be one reason that it was slower to of quarrel,” which means that any cel- abandoned apartments nearby, and vir- conquer a territory as un-American as ebration of those not wholly good old tually all of them cultivated a street- New York. But by 1981, when John days will necessarily involve a certain wise sensibility. A number of them Joseph ran out of couches to sleep on amount of argument. New York hard- shaved their scalps as a show of kin- in Washington, the city was coming core was regularly (and, often, fairly) ship with skinheads, the working-class around. Bad Brains had recently set- criticized for its thuggery, its bigotry, British hell-raisers who considered tled there, arriving in time to play at its idiocy. Yet the scene also produced themselves braver and brawnier than the last-ever Max’s Kansas City con- some singularly incandescent music. punks. cert; the opening act was an upstart Its tough-guy ethos found expression In 1983, a seven-inch vinyl record local group called the Beastie Boys. in a correspondingly tough sound, one appeared called “United Blood E.P.,” John Joseph served for a time as a Bad that expanded the musical possibili- by Agnostic Front, which was gain- Brains roadie and eventually became ties of punk by emphasizing rhythm ing a reputation as the fiercest band in the lead singer of a fearsome band over noise. The lyrics tended to be the city. On the cover, four skinheads called Cro-Mags, which helped trans- pithy and declarative, like rallying cries, played to about twice as many people; form New York hardcore from a side- but vague enough so that fans could on the back, there was a drawing of a show to the main event. By the end adapt them to their own struggles, real skinhead carrying a “New York Hard- of the decade, the city had the most or imagined. The best New York hard- core” flag, alongside a list of ten songs,

84 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 which were over in about six minutes. one friend remembers, fondly. “It was Krishna movement, and, as a conse- The startling power of the music de- always an eight ball in a sock, or a pad- quence, the lyrics he delivered were rived partly from its inelegance: poky, lock in a handkerchief, or a table leg.” faintly spiritual (he urged listeners to sullen introductions led to off-kilter In descriptions like this, the hardcore embark on “the path of righteousness”), paroxysms, as the drummer frantically kids seem less like pioneers and more though firmly anti-idealistic: one re- tried to keep pace with the hoarse like relics: the last of a long line of frain was “World peace! Can’t be! Done!” singer, Roger Miret. By stripping all sturdy working-class white guys who There was a hint of melody in the way the glamour and the sex from what prowled the city streets, armed with he shouted, and the band fortified its was, nominally, rock and roll, the whatever tools of combat they could hardcore aggression with rock-and-roll record made even other hardcore find. swagger, as if the spirit of AC/DC had bands sound fussy and tame. The It turned out that Flanagan was been transported to an East Village songs had the single-minded urgency nearly as proficient with a bass guitar. squat. of political protest, but with the poli- Cro-Mags released an influential demo The New York scene was never tics scooped out. While some New tape in 1985, which was defter than monolithic. Shows drew skinheads, York bands railed against President Agnostic Front’s début but no less punks, and plenty of average-looking Reagan, Agnostic Front expressed frus- menacing. Hardcore was slowing down, young people in T-shirts; many of tration and menace through lyrics that following the lead of Bad Brains, who the fans who followed Agnostic Front were as gnomic as its name: increasingly reinforced their frenetic also turned out for False Prophets, a Talk about unity songs with off-speed passages known sarcastic and theatrical punk-inspired Then talk about conformity as “mosh” parts. (The word may have band. Even so, many scene participants You don’t want to support the scene derived from the Jamaican term “mash nursed an inferiority complex. The Why don’t you get the fuck away from - me? up,” meaning “destroy”—a rough an Manhattanites disdained the guys from alogue of “kill,” in the show-business Queens; the Long Islanders hated being The band was led by its guitarist, sense.) There turned out to be an in- thought of as “interlopers”; virtually a self-described “goombah” from Lit- verse relationship between the speed everyone resented the scenes in other tle Italy known as Vinnie Stigma, of the music and the activity in the cities, where the band members seemed who recruited bandmates as if he were crowd: when a band suddenly cut the to have enough spare time and cash to building a not very well-regulated mi- tempo in half, the pit would become tour and promote themselves. “The litia. “I didn’t get you in Agnostic Front twice as frenetic, as slam-dancers used kids from New York, we were like these because you were a good musician,” the space between beats to wind up crazy fucking street rats,” Todd Youth, Stigma tells Rettman. “I got you in for maximum impact. who played guitar for a band called the band because you were part of the “The Age of Quarrel” appeared in Murphy’s Law, says. “The kids from scene and I seen you in the pit.” This 1986, with a title derived, as many lis- Boston and D.C. were really well off.” focus on micro-politics, on scene cit- teners probably didn’t know, from the While most other early-eighties scenes izenship, was central to hardcore, and Sanskrit term kali yuga, which refers gave rise to influential independent rec- to its double-negative identity. If the to a time of strife said to have begun ord labels, New York’s generated war punks were antisocial, the hardcore about five thousand years ago. John stories. “You were getting chased down kids would be, somehow, anti-antiso- Joseph had fallen in with the Hare the street by gangs of Puerto Ricans cial, promoting a kind of scowling sol- idarity—equal parts “unity” and “get the fuck away from me.” Stigma and his militiamen were the battle-hardened elders of the scene; Cro-Mags were the feral youth. John Joseph had been inducted into the band by a precocious troublemaker named Harley Flanagan, an East Vil- lage native who had undergone a kind of inverted maturation from hipster to hooligan. When Flanagan was nine, he published a book of poems with an introduction by Allen Ginsberg, a fam- ily friend; by twelve, he was the drum- mer for a band called the Stimulators. On a trip to Northern Ireland, Flana- gan submitted to a ritual head shav- ing, and upon his return he proved himself worthy of his haircut. “Har- ley always had interesting weapons,” “It’s great for multicrastinating.” that wanted to fucking kill you,” Youth dared listeners to assume the worst, gonna fuckin roll over and just let this remembers; Avenue A was contested and Yohannan wasn’t the only one neighborhood disappear.” turf. Alex Kinon, who played with Ag- who did: Agnostic Front shows at- Like many punk-influenced bands, nostic Front, says that he was once shot tracted a certain number of white- Agnostic Front and Cro-Mags had at in Tompkins Square Park, and that power partisans, and the band occa- an instinctive revulsion toward main- Vinnie Stigma responded by rushing sionally had to pause, mid- set, to stream politics. But they didn’t have toward the gunfire, armed with only censure an audience member for Sieg- a replacement; what they had was a an improvised shield in the form of a Heiling in the pit. bundle of repudiations and provoca- garbage-can lid. In an attempt to address the con- tions and half-formed grievances. In troversy, the band’s members submit- depicting New York as a battleground, hen “United Blood” was re- ted to a group interview with Max- they encouraged a tribal solidarity W leased, the critic Jeff Bale gave imum Rocknroll. Their answers weren’t that sometimes bled into racial soli- it a rave review in Maximum Rocknroll, darity. New York hardcore was a a smudgy Bay Area fanzine that was largely white movement based in a the punk publication of record. “I largely non-white neighborhood, can’t really tell what the hell they’re which means that hardcore pride could talking about,” he wrote, “but this EP be difficult to disentangle from white is downright nasty.” The zine’s editor, pride. (Bad Brains was an exception, Tim Yohannan, was less impressed. and a complicated one: John Joseph Yohannan viewed punk as a vector for says that he fell out with the band progressive politics, and he had been members because they wouldn’t stop hearing alarming reports about ugly playing Louis Farrakhan speeches in behavior in New York—a member of their tour van.) Some musicians sug- False Prophets warned him that, too very reassuring. They abjured racism, gested that there was, or should be, a often, being “hardcore” in New York saying, “We have no qualms about difference between “white pride” and meant being “a fag- bashing, swastika- anyone who is a decent human being.” “white power.” And in the Maximum scrawling cretin.” Yohannan printed a But they also mentioned the diffi- Rocknroll interview the members of letter from an anonymous correspon- culty of living on the Lower East Agnostic Front argued that work- dent who blamed one band in partic- Side, alongside “Puerto Ricans and ing-class whites should be no more ular: “Agnazi Front.” And he informed their drug dealers.” (If they had been “ashamed” of their identity than “blacks readers that the New York scene was in a more reconciliatory mood, they and Hispanics”—two minorities, they being destroyed by “a Nazi-chic trend might have mentioned that Miret, added, that “occupy most of our prison that recently manifested itself in a skin- their lead singer, was a Cuban immi- spaces.” Puerto Rican race war.” grant.) And when the interviewer The complicated logic of anti- The old punks had deployed Nazi asked about the phenomenon of anti- antisocial behavior also meant that, imagery as a kind of prank (Sid Vi- gay violence they pleaded neither in- even as these bands were presenting cious and Johnny Thunders liked to nocent nor guilty: themselves as more extreme than the wear swastikas), but some hardcore Fag-bashing is a thing of the past. At one punks, they simultaneously sought to bands took a more unsettling approach. time, there was a small minority that in- appear more American, more conser- The first Agnostic Front album fea- dulged in violence against the helpless, ei- vative—part of a backlash against big- ther out of boredom or the need for power. tured on its cover a 1941 photograph It was not a major part of the bands or the city liberalism. Agnostic Front used a known as “The Last Jew of Vinnitsa,” scene. In fact, only a few people did it and it logo showing a pair of combat boots which shows a German officer put- didn’t last very long, only occasionally on over an American flag, and recorded and off. ting a gun to the head of a man kneel- a song called “Public Assistance,” ing over an open grave. The album in- In “American Hardcore,” a conten- which translated Ronald Reagan’s cluded an unambiguous anti-Fascist tious but invaluable history of the warnings about welfare fraud into more statement (“It’s time to grow out of genre, Steven Blush concludes that “all inflammatory language: “How come your Nazi hypocrism!”), but most of the big NYHC skinheads perpetrated it’s minorities who cry, ‘Things are too the lyrics were politically indetermi- vicious fag-bashing sprees.” In an on- tough’? / On TV with their gold chains, nate, and some fans chose to focus, in- line interview from 2006, Flanagan claim they don’t have enough.” When stead, on lines like “They hate us / We’ll conceded that he had done things that Yohannan got his chance to interro- hate them.” In Rettman’s book, a fan- were “wrong,” partly because he was gate the members of Agnostic Front, zine editor who moved to the city from dismayed by the “gentrifying” East Vil- he asked about a rumor that their van Iowa remembers being fascinated by lage. “I used to beat up all the artsy- had a Reagan bumper sticker on it. the “Nazi imagery” on his Agnostic fartsy faggots,” he said. “But it wasn’t (They told him it had come with Front album cover—to him, it ex- because they were gay, it wasn’t be- the vehicle.) In certain punk circles, pressed the band’s intimidating “New cause they were arty. It was because I an accusation of Republicanism was York City attitude,” which was part felt that I’d earned my way into that just as shocking as an accusation of of the appeal. Agnostic Front all but fuckin neighborhood, and I wasn’t just Nazism; either tendency was liable to

86 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015

be described as “fascist” in the pages then, every hardcore band has been, in of Maximum Rocknroll. Perhaps the some sense, retro. members of Murphy’s Law had this Cappo was close-shaved, but he in mind when they recorded “Cali- wasn’t a skinhead. The youth crew he fornia Pipeline,” a bratty hardcore led favored what one band member song guaranteed to horrify Yohannan calls “suburban imported fashion”: and his allies. The chorus went, “I’m Nikes, hooded Champion sweatshirts, a rad Republican / I’m proud to be an varsity jackets. (This, too, was a way American.” to be anti-antisocial, especially at a club like CBGB, where everyone else he first wave of New York hard- was wearing a black leather coat.) Tcore didn’t last long. Many of the Like the earlier version of New York East Village squats and clubhouses hardcore, this one was unapologeti- were shut down, and some concerts cally male- dominated. Wendy Eager, moved to CBGB, the old punk club, who edited a fanzine called Guillo- which realized that it could bring tine, tells Rettman that she found in extra income with all-ages hard- the new scene less hospitable than core shows in the afternoons. Of those the old one, which, for all its vexa- early bands, the only one to find huge tions, had felt like home to her. “The success was the Beastie Boys, who in whole youth crew ostracized women the course of a few years evolved into from hardcore,” she says. “They wanted one of the most popular hip-hop to be these jock guys who got into groups of all time. Agnostic Front’s the pit.” Indeed, slam dancing had second album was a polarizing ex- been transformed into something that periment, fusing hardcore with the looked suspiciously athletic, with cleaner, brighter sound of thrash metal. windmilling arms, jumping kicks, and And Cro-Mags never recorded another acrobatic flips from the stage into the album with the “Age of Quarrel” lineup. crowd. Although the bands were com- (In 2012, after Flanagan was ejected mitted in theory to “positive” thoughts from the band, he turned up at a re- and actions, they maintained the mar- union show and stabbed two people. tial spirit of their predecessors: Cappo He claimed later that he was ambushed, sang about the importance of “stand- and charges against him were dropped.) ing hard,” which some fans viewed as What happened in the late nineteen- license to fight when necessary, and eighties was both vindicating and em- sometimes when not. barrassing for the rough-and- tumble Rettman’s book spends relatively kids who created New York hardcore: little time discussing the rise of the the scene was revived by the suburbs. youth crew, and for good reason: the Sixty miles north, in Danbury, Con- levelheaded revivalists produced some necticut, a teen-ager named Ray Cappo great records, but not as many great joined with a high-school classmate to stories. (As far as we know, Cappo create Revelation Records, a label that never attempted to stop a bullet with nurtured a new generation of New York a garbage-can lid.) Instead, these clean- hardcore. (This was precisely the kind cut young men found a new way to be of sustaining institution that the pio- hardcore. One of the best bands was neers—the street rats—had never man- Gorilla Biscuits, from Queens, whose aged to build.) Cappo was devoted to lyrics were plainspoken and disarm- “straight edge,” an anti-drug philoso- ingly personal. One song, “Things We phy that originated in the early- eighties Say,” was about how thoughtless re- Washington scene. He formed a band marks can hurt people’s feelings: called Youth of Today, which aimed at evoking the sound of first-wave hard- I think I was an asshole when I said what I said core, while transforming the New York It’s just a sick sense of humor rolls scene into a site for moral uplift. Thanks around in my head largely to Cappo, the city became the ’Cause we’ve had our fun at your expense unlikely home of a new straight-edge And that’s wrong—and we know it! movement, known as “the youth crew,” after one of his songs. The genre had It was an unlikely topic for a great entered its self- conscious phase: since hardcore song. But perhaps its startling

88 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 niceness was the ultimate affront to nostic Front, and he loved it. Now all all the punks and skinheads who tried he had to do was figure out what, ex- so hard to be nasty. actly, he was hearing. “I didn’t realize that punk and hardcore were a com- or all their bravura, most hardcore munity,” Yates says, and, as friends sent Fbands didn’t set out to change the him links to recordings, he tried to piece world, and the people in Rettman’s book together the music’s history. “I’d be, decline to make any grand claims on be- like, ‘O.K., what’s this band?’ ” he says. half of the scene they love, except to say “‘What time period is this? Is this eight- that it endured. In the nineties, Sick of ies? Nineties? Current?’ ” It All, from Queens, became perhaps the Turnstile is helping lead the latest most popular New York hardcore band revival of the New York hardcore sound. of all, despite adding little to the scene’s But when the band’s début album, “Non- rich treasury of war stories. “Everybody stop Feeling,” appeared, earlier this year, in Sick of It All came from good fami- it sounded like nothing you might have lies,” one member tells Rettman. “But heard on Avenue A in 1983. Propul- that scene just before us, that was hard- sive mosh parts occasionally give way core. They all had mental problems and to melancholy guitar interludes, and they all lived in the street.” New York there is even a memorable and tuneful hardcore also cross-pollinated with metal love song, although it lasts less than and hip-hop, sending its influence far eighty seconds. One song lyric men- beyond the East Village. As the nine- tions “some two-faced girl,” which teen-nineties began, Revelation released sounds startlingly spiteful—until Yates a record by Inside Out, a seething Cal- slyly balances it, in the next verse, with ifornia band whose singer, Zack de la a line about “some two-faced boy,” who Rocha, went on to codify rap-rock as the might even be him. leader of Rage Against the Machine. Yates likes to encourage audience Hardcore endured, too, as an ideal, members to stage-dive, to slam-dance, and a cultural strategy. Most of all, being and to borrow his microphone if they hardcore means turning inward, ignor- want to help him shout: these old hard- ing broader society in order to create a core moves work as well as they ever narrower one. In that narrower society, did, even though Yates is a cheerful one’s ideological convictions can mat- presence onstage, not at all menacing. ter less than conviction itself—a sense, The old hardcore bands made it easy however vague, of shared purpose. In for people to forget they were musi- the New York hardcore scene, a wide cians: the biggest fans and the biggest range of characters—from Rastafarians detractors of Agnostic Front shared a to Republicans, street rats to suburban- willingness to view the group primar- ites—came to see themselves as part of ily as a social movement, something to the same movement. That flexible spirit rally behind or rally against. By con- lives on in the genre’s famous suffix, trast, “Nonstop Feeling” won’t be any- which is now used to tag an array of body’s cause. But it may well attract a movements, not all of them musical: new group of converts; a charming music rapcore, metalcore, grindcore, nerdcore, video, co-starring a young boy and a mumblecore, normcore. small dog, has drawn nearly a hundred Brendan Yates, the lead singer of an and fifty thousand views. And the album emerging band called Turnstile, remem- may help some listeners, old and young, bers the first time he heard hardcore, to understand how a seemingly dead- in the early aughts. He was ten or eleven, end genre has endured so long. No mat- growing up in a small Maryland town, ter how heavy or hard the mosh parts when a friend took him skateboarding get, Turnstile never pretends to be any- and played him a latter-day New York thing other than a bunch of young men hardcore band called Madball. (Mad- blowing off steam. Hearing them now, ball is part of the Agnostic Front fam- you’re tempted to wonder whether that’s ily, literally: the lead singer is Roger all hardcore ever really was.  Miret’s younger half-brother.) Yates said, “What is this? It sounds scary.” A friend made him a mix of Madball songs, newyorker.com which also included some songs by Ag- A conversation with Kelefa Sanneh.

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 89 Kay soon goes off in a fit of pique, BOOKS leaving the mild, anxious, loyal Wart to try to catch the bird. It flies deeper and deeper into the woods. Night falls. RAPT The Wart worries. He knows the for- est is full of outlaws, maniacs, and Grieving with your goshawk. wild beasts, but he can’t bring him- self to abandon the hawk. He keeps BY KATHRYN SCHULZ watch beneath the tree where it roosts, gets shot at, flees, loses the bird, en- counters a knight, loses him, too, then stumbles upon a clearing with a stone cottage and a strange old man out- side. The old man is Merlyn, the ma- gician, and he foresaw long ago that this would happen: that here, in front of his cottage, he would meet the boy known in later years and ever after as King Arthur. So much has yet to come, but all of it—the sword, the stone, the wars, the Round Table, the quests, the love affairs, the murders, the betray- als, the tragedy, the whole huge arc of it like a longbow pulled fast with the arrow already nocked—all of it be- gins because a person, of uncertain identity and gravely lost, binds his fate to a goshawk.

elen Macdonald was in her third H and final year as a research fel- low at Cambridge, a prestigious post- graduate position, when her father died and, for eight hundred pounds sterling, she acquired a ten-week-old goshawk. The death was unexpected. Her father, a professional photogra- pher based in London, had gone out after a violent storm to take pictures of the damage down at Battersea, when he boys have gone out hawking. It is a goshawk, a huge bird with he suffered a heart attack. Later, Mac- TThe year is 500 A.D., give or take, golden eyes, like something out of a donald saw the final image in his cam- when young men of a certain social legend. And this one is: we are six era: “Blurred, taken from a low angle, class fly hawks for sport. One of these pages into T. H. White’s six-hundred- far too low; an empty London street.” boys belongs to that class: his father and-forty-page medieval epic, “The The goshawk was unexpected, too. is a knight, and he will grow up to be Once and Future King.” We have al- By the time of her father’s death, Mac- one, too. His name is Kay. The other ready learned, on page 1, that the boys donald, an experienced falconer, had boy will grow up to be a king, but he practice hawking every week, but now trained kestrels and merlins and per- doesn’t know that yet. For now, he is it becomes clear that Kay is bad at it. egrines, but she had never cared to Kay’s inferior: younger, adopted, of He throws the bird from his glove be- train a goshawk. Among those who unknown lineage, saddled by the older fore it is ready, and for a moment it know their birds of prey, the reputa- child with the unfortunate nickname hangs there, a confusion of feathers tion of the goshawk is half Hamlet, the Wart. At present, in an arrange- and air and instinct. An instant later, half Lady Macbeth: mad, murderous, ment that is typical, the Wart is trudg- it is lost. “Up went the hawk,” White unpredictable, the kind of creature ing along carrying a dead creature to writes, “swooping like a child flung whose partners and intimates should serve as a lure, while Kay, walking in high in a swing, until the wings folded brace themselves for trouble. “Spooky, front of him, carries the hawk. and he was sitting in a tree.” pale-eyed psychopaths,” Macdonald calls them. “Not for me, I’d thought,

Haunted by her father’s death, Helen Macdonald kept company with a bird of prey. many times.” But then came death, ATLANTIC GROVE MCLEISH/COURTESY CHRISTINA

90 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 that other unpredictable mad mur- bird, or a magpie, and it looks the hugest, now—certainly, they are a rare com- derer, and Macdonald got a hawk, most impressive piece of wildness you’ve panion for a young urban woman— ever seen, like someone’s tipped a snow named her Mabel, and set about try- leopard into your kitchen and you find it but, Macdonald notes, there was a ing to tame her. eating the cat. time when you could walk down the Macdonald’s book about that ex- street in Cambridge and see as many perience, “H Is for Hawk” (Grove), So much for the falconry bore. In- birds on the fist as today you see dogs was first published last summer in tellectually, Macdonald is unhurried— on a leash. That world had an entire Great Britain, where it won the Sam- she pauses to point out whatever is culture and language, and Macdon- uel Johnson Prize for nonfiction and interesting—but, stylistically, she is ald provides an introduction to it. A the Costa Book of the Year prize, like this passage, all pounce. Over and person who trains falcons is called a awarded to the best new book in any over, her writing takes you by sur- falconer, but a person who trains hawks genre. Had there been an award for prise: no sooner have you registered is called an austringer. Young hawks the best new book that defies every the kitchen than, whoa, there’s the are eyasses, as crossword-puzzle dev- genre, I imagine it would have won snow leopard, its huge Himalayan otees know; adolescents are passag- that, too. Like the griffin that the Wart paws leaving prints on the tile and ers; those caught as adults are hag- might have met in his forest, “H Is half a domestic shorthair hanging gards. A happy hawk signals its for Hawk” is an improbable and hy- from its mouth. I will never again not contentment by “rousing,” and Mac- brid creature. It is one part grief mem- have pictured that, and, with apolo- donald and White each provide a won- oir, one part guide to raptors, and one gies to my cat, I am glad. Like “The derful description. Mabel “lifts her- part biography of T. H. White, who Goshawk,” only with considerably self into a vast, frothy mop of feathers”; chronicled his maiden effort at fal- more self-awareness, “H Is for Hawk” White’s hawk, when it roused, “looked conry in “The Goshawk,” written just is about what happens when you blur exactly like a fir-cone.” By contrast, a before he began work on “The Once the line between wild and domestic: malcontented hawk will “bate,” dive- and Future King.” I am describing about what it is like to share your bombing off its owner’s fist in terror Macdonald’s book by its parts for the home with a bloody great murdering or rage. A hawk cannot escape by bat- same reason we describe a griffin by creature, why anyone would choose ing, because its owner holds its jesses— its parts—because how else would we to do so, and what rewards and haz- slim leather straps attached to bands do so? But it is coherent, complete, ards attend that decision. the bird wears on its ankles. But it can and riveting, perhaps the finest nonfic- Books about nature, like the cat- escape when released to hunt, as Kay’s tion I read in the past year. egory “animal,” sometimes suffer from hawk did—and then, like the Wart, To this wondrously atypical book, a sin of omission: in both cases, peo- the owner must follow underneath Macdonald brings an equally atypi- ple belong inside them but are often the bird and try to coax it down. Aus- cal background. She is a former fal- left out. Books about grief run the tringers spend so much time craning con-breeder for royalty of the United opposite risk; too much of the per- their necks at fugitive hawks that, Arab Emirates, a current historian of son can be left in, too much of the Macdonald informs us, one seven- science at Cambridge, a naturalist, an world omitted. Macdonald, who is teenth-century writer declared fal- illustrator, and the author of three col- writing both kinds of book at once, conry to be a moral activity on the lections of poetry and one previous makes neither mistake. She is inti- ground that it kept you looking to- work of nonfiction, “Falcon,” a natu- mate and moving on the anguish that ward Heaven. ral and cultural history. She is also carried her into the company of Macdonald delights in the argot what you might call a former raptor hawks, but the world of her book of falconry, so ancient and exclusive prodigy. Her father, in addition to is like the world we really live in, that it feels like the words Merlyn being a photographer, was an ama- crowded with humans and human might have used in his spells. But she teur plane-spotter, and he taught his ideas, and she turns on it all the tri- relishes, too, the matter-of-fact magic young daughter sky-watching, bird- ple perspicacity of a poet, a natural- of avian biology. Certain birds can watching, and patience. By the age of ist, and a historian. She dissects the perceive ultraviolet colors, the sepa- six, she had begun teaching herself cultural symbolism attached to hawks rate wing beats of a bee, and the earth’s about birds of prey. Her prepubescent from Victorian England to the Third magnetic field, and goshawks, Mac- leisure reading included, along with Reich; she catalogues the classic an- donald tells us, can “watch thermals “The Goshawk,” Gilbert Blaine’s “Fal- imal stories by gay authors, who could of warm air rise, roil, and spill into conry,” Frank Illingworth’s “Falcons not write openly of their human re- clouds.” She also notes that the bird’s and Falconry,” and James Harting’s lationships; she observes that when volatile reputation is partly due to “Hints on Hawks.” By nine or ten, a species is endangered it suffers not neurology: the pathways between the Macdonald had become, in her words, only numeric but also semantic de- goshawk’s sensory neurons and its “the most appalling falconry bore.” cline. “The rarer they get, the fewer motor neurons all but bypass the brain. Listen to her now, two pages in: meanings animals can have,” she ob- “They react to stimuli literally with- serves. “Eventually rarity is all they out thinking,” Macdonald writes, and Maybe you’ve glanced out of the win- dow and seen there, on the lawn, a bloody are made of.” a whole lot of those stimuli can pro- great hawk murdering a pigeon, or a black- Goshawks are rare in England voke their hunting instinct: squeaky

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 91 doors, passing bicycles, real pheasants, ful. The two of them play catch with around at the woods, at her hawk, at but also black-and-white drawings of crumpled pieces of paper and peeka- her life, and feels nothing, or nothing them, Joan Sutherland on the radio. boo through a rolled-up magazine. good: “My heart is salt.” (“I laughed out loud at that,” Mac- “No one had ever told me goshawks Such simplicity, such totality. But donald writes. “Stimulus: opera. Re- played,” Macdonald writes. “I won- what Macdonald handles so well on sponse: kill.”) The other part of the dered if it was because no one had the page nearly undid her in real life. goshawk’s bad reputation, Macdon- ever played with them. The thought At the time of her father’s death, she ald points out, comes down to class made me terribly sad.” had “no partner, no children, no home. bias. Goshawks hunt well in woods But Macdonald was already terri- No nine-to-five job either.” Like a and require very little room to kill, bly sad; she was, in fact, far more trou- tent poorly staked, she is filled by the whereas falcons need the kind of open bled and difficult than her bird. Mac- storm that is grief and blown away. space that, historically, was available donald had always been close to her Soon that disconnection comes to only to those who owned manors. father, who emerges in the book as a seem desirable. Hurt by the human People who could afford to keep fal- kind, steady, understated man with a world, she wants nothing more to do cons looked down on those who sly streak. “My dad had been my dad,” with it. Instead, she longs to be like couldn’t—and, by extension, on the she writes, “but also my friend, and a her bird: “solitary, self-possessed, free birds they kept instead. partner in crime”: her companion in from grief.” That helps explain why Mabel fails the kind of legal but impish adven- Thus does hawking, as Macdon- to live up to her fearsome reputation. tures to which a professional photog- ald practices it in her bereavement, A character in the book in her own rapher and a poet-falconer might in- become a zero-sum game: as the bird right, she does not come across as a cline. It seems a lovely relationship, grows tamer, she grows wilder. She psychopath; she comes across as a and Macdonald writes with clarity spends her days stalking with Mabel mixture of a Labrador retriever, an and heart about its loss. She under- through field and forest, her pockets F-16, and Houdini. Chasing a rabbit stands grief ’s paradoxical essence, full of dead day-old chicks, snapping that turns and runs into the woods, which is the constant presence of ab- the necks of rabbits the bird would she “slewed round sling-shot style, sence; there is an awful moment in otherwise eat alive. She stops seeing heel-bow, soaking up g-force like a the book when, unable to remember friends, “jumped in panic when the sponge,” then “closed her wings and a detail of a story about her father postman knocked on the door; re- was gone.” But at home she is com- that she plans to tell at his memorial coiled from the ringing phone.” She panionable, curious, easy to train, and, service, she picks up the phone to call lives alone in a house empty of coffee to Macdonald’s astonishment, play- him. Months after his death, she looks and filled with lumps of raw meat. Before long, she is walking that fine Lear line between grief and insanity. Wounded by death, she devotes herself to a pastime for which she must kill daily. Drowning in loss, she commits herself to a creature whose defining trait is the capacity to fly away. The term “hoodwinked” is closely associated with falconry. For millen- nia, falconers have slipped hoods over the heads of their birds, calming their hair-trigger nervous systems by pro- tecting them from excess exposure to the world. It is a morally muddy prac- tice, simultaneously necessary, com- passionate, and deceptive. Macdon- ald, in her grief, accomplishes the unlikely act of hoodwinking herself with a hawk. With Mabel on her fist, she is focussed and calm; without her, she is angry, reactive, and scared. Rather than assuaging her heartache, she is simply evading it, soothing her- self by hiding from the world. Even- tually, she recognizes the limitations of that strategy—because she is emo- “I don’t know art, but I know what I like.” tionally astute, but also because, back in her hawk-obsessed childhood, she had a deeper motive. “The business had read about someone else who of life,” he wrote, was “to divest one- tried it. self of unnecessary possessions, and mainly of other people.” Like Mac- erence Hanbury White also got donald, although more deliberately, Ta goshawk to fill the void left by he used the bird to engineer a retreat a beloved parent, but in a different from the world. The day it arrived, sense: he never had one. His mother White dined with friends, and then and father hated each other and, on the was “glad to shake off with them the evidence, despised their son as well. last of an old human life.” His new White was beaten often, life would be with and for coddled rarely—when it the goshawk alone. was tactically convenient The poor bird; the poor for one parent or the other— man. The only worthy thing and otherwise neglected or to come out of their rela- humiliated. He finally went tionship was “The Gos- away to boarding school, hawk”—and that very but an upbringing like his nearly didn’t come out at did not permit complete all. White completed the escape, then or ever. Mac- book in 1937, but declined donald shares a telling de- to publish it until 1949, tail: upon receiving a photograph of when an editor paid him a visit, sat the young White, his mother wrote on his sofa, found it uncomfortable, back to say that his lips were “grow- and fished from under the cushion ing sensual” and that he should hold the abandoned manuscript. He pre- them in—with his teeth, if need be. vailed on White to let him publish it, “It is so fatally easy,” White wrote of and the book came out in 1951. In Lancelot in “The Once and Future the United States, it eventually went King,” “to make young children be- out of print, and, for decades, it was lieve that they are horrible.” difficult to find. In 2007, New York White did believe he was horrible. Review Books remedied that situa- “I had a friend who was a sadistic ho- tion by bringing out an edition that mosexual, now happily married with preserves White’s many drawings of children,” he once wrote to L. J. Potts, hawk paraphernalia (part of the at- his former Cambridge tutor, in a minor traction of hawking, one suspects, was classic of the genre of Asking for a all the time spent with leather and Friend. White was himself a sadistic knots) and adds an introduction by homosexual, and, in those pre-Stone- Marie Winn, best known for chron- wall, pre-“Fifty Shades” days, his de- icling the life of the red-tailed hawk sires were a misery to him. They were Pale Male and its mate. also, as far as anyone can tell, unfulfilled. Unlike Macdonald, White had no White had no known male lovers, and idea what he was doing when he ac- he was, if anything, gentler than the quired his goshawk. “I had never standards of his time. In his twenties, trained a serious hawk before, nor met he taught English at private boys’ a living falconer, nor seen a hawk that schools, and, unlike most of his col- had been trained,” he wrote. “I had leagues, refused to hit his pupils—partly three books.” The one he relied on out of conviction (he deplored the no- most was written in 1619. It was a tion that “the complex psychology of a bad guide, White was a bad student, human being can be taught with a and, as for the hawk, before its train- stick”), but possibly also because of how ing was done it broke its tether and much he longed to do so. “He felt in flew away. I won’t reveal what became his heart cruelty and cowardice,” White of it, but White’s book goes slack at wrote, again of Lancelot, “the things that point, its own line broken as well. which made him brave and kind.” Until that moment, however, “The White was thirty when he quit Goshawk” is tremendous. White has teaching, rented a cabin far from town, both a keen eye and a supple, sur- and got a goshawk. He wanted to prising mind, and his observations of spend his time writing, but he also the natural world often lend a comic

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 93 pleasure to an otherwise dark book. All this is made more painful by the comedy, a romance, a farce—but, in the A hawk that has killed a mouse “rose fact that White also genuinely loves the end, unmistakably, it is a tragedy. Trag- leisurely over the hedge, carrying the hawk, and hates himself. He writes, with edies, in the literary sense of the word, body as a city worker carried his at- delight, of Gos taking his first bath, get- do not happen to terrible people; they taché case.” Watching his hawk hunt, ting his first case of hiccups, first com- happen to decent people, terribly flawed. a falconer grows so involved that “it ing from afar to the fist. The book would White, on the page, is sensitive, funny, was like being an onlooker at an ath- not be half so hard to read if it were not highly learned, with a demanding moral letic meeting who kicks to help the half-time tender. But tenderness is not compass and a spectacular mind. Nei- high-jumper.” After a passage about an attitude that a man so deprived of ther homicidal nor maniacal, he is more a hawk chasing a rabbit, White, won- affection can sustain. Once, when the like the friend so troubled that no one derfully at ease on the page, appends bird won’t stop bating, White flies into can save him. “For the first time in my these instructions: “You must read it a rage and, in violation of the first com- life, I was absolutely free,” he writes, at the top of your voice, in three sec- mandment of hawking, deliberately upon moving to the cabin and acquir- onds, and you will see what it was.” thwarts its effort to climb back up on ing Gos. And then, with the terrified For a slim book, “The Goshawk” his fist, forcing it to remain dangling bird newly tethered and locked in his has, like its subject, a formidable wing- upside down in helpless terror. After- barn: “I was as free as a hawk.” span. It is not quite right to call it a ward, Gos seems stunned into quies- draft of “The Once and Future King,” cence, and White “stood dumbstruck oward the end of “H Is for Hawk,” but it is something close to a précis also, mobbed by most of the deadly TMacdonald recounts a story first of the later book’s themes: it is about sins.” The war poet Siegfried Sassoon, recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth educational systems, political systems, who had reason to recognize the rage, in the mid-twelfth century. Once upon medieval history, desire, violence, con- shame, denial, and self-justification at- a time, the story goes, there was a trol of others, and control of self. These tendant upon acts of violence, could not Welsh king who fought a terrible bat- last two, in particular, dominate the finish “The Goshawk.” “I now flinch tle and, in the course of it, lost many work, and Macdonald’s take is the from anything frightful,” he wrote, “and close friends. Grief-stricken, he fled right one. “White made falconry a what I read was agonizing.” to the forest, where he lived “like a metaphysical battle,” she writes. “Like Of all the falconry words we learn wild animal . . . forgetful of himself Moby-Dick or The Old Man and the from Macdonald, the most potent one and of his kindred.” That Welsh king Sea, The Goshawk was a literary en- to appear in “The Goshawk” is “man- was Merlyn. Eventually, he emerged, counter between animal and man that ning.” It means to get a bird accus- but the impulse of the anguished to reached back to Puritan traditions of tomed to being around people, but flee into nature would persist across spiritual contest.” In keeping with that there’s no escaping its connotations. the centuries. “Earth hath no sorrows,” tradition, what was at stake for White Macdonald is unmanned, in her way— John Muir once wrote, “that earth in austringing was not his hawk but without a father, without a partner, cannot heal.” If that is a cure, it is ho- his soul. It is the prerogative of hawks cut off from what we used to call man- meopathic; for the desolate and lonely, to draw blood without sin. If White kind—but, when White uses it, the only wilderness and solitude. could master the bird, he seemed to word takes on darker tones. To man Figuratively speaking, White never believe, he could at once master and something is to control it, as one mans found his way out of the woods. He vicariously enjoy his own violent urges. a ship. It is also, implicitly, to assert moved from place to place, evaded his This struggle gives “The Goshawk” physical and sexual power. White knew taxes, evaded a lot of things. He wrote its stakes, but it also makes the book that by contemporary standards he some twenty-odd books but is remem- almost unbearably disturbing. In at- was unmanned; he also knew the ex- bered today mostly for “The Once and tempting to identify with the hawk, tent of his desire to exercise control Future King,” in which he hid himself White only makes it subject to his over others. He despised both aspects occasionally as Arthur, more often as self-loathing. He names the bird Gos of himself, and spent his life fighting Merlyn, but above all as Lancelot, the but calls it terrible things: frighten- them. But a captive hawk that escapes ill-made knight who was for a time the ing, repulsive, dangerous, hysterical, will eventually become entangled in best in the world at his craft yet carried baleful, a monster, a savage, a snake, its jesses, and White, attempting to within him a shame so old and deep murderous as Caligula—as Attila, as free himself, found instead that he that he could not even name it. In the Odin, as Death. “It was like being was caught up in everything that he end, the legend holds, Lancelot goes to handcuffed to a moron, I would think hated. To escape the human world, live in penitence in a hermitage, while bitterly, in a chain gang”; or it was he made a wild animal captive to it; the king, mortally wounded, is set adrift like sharing his home with “a homi- to exorcise his violence, he turned it on a ship—to one day rise again. White cidal maniac.” That line might more against an innocent creature. Despite died at the age of fifty-seven, on a boat reasonably have been written by the himself, White winds up treating Gos in the Aegean Sea. “I expect to make bird. White describes his yearning to quite as his parents had treated him: rather a good death,” he’d written two wring its neck, bash its head into a with cruelty, caprice, and fatal neglect. years earlier. “The essence of death is gatepost, and subject it to “the ex- Like “The Once and Future King,” loneliness, and I have had plenty of treme torture it deserved.” “The Goshawk” is many kinds of tale—a practice at this.”

94 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 Macdonald’s story has a different ending. One day, crouching over a rabbit she has just killed, feeling like BRIEFLY NOTED “an executioner after a thousand deaths,” she comes to see that she has THE UNFORTUNATE IMPORTANCE OF BEAUTY, by Amanda Fili- been travelling with her hawk not fur- pacchi (Norton). Barb Colby, a costume designer in Manhat- ther from grief but further from life. tan, is gorgeous, but finds her looks a hindrance: people re- Scared by her own numbness and spond to her face, not her spirit. After her best friend leaps to darkness, she begins to seek help: from his death, confessing love for her in a suicide note, she con- loving relatives, attentive friends, mod- structs an elaborate disguise, including “a simple-but-convinc- ern psychopharmacology—all the ad- ing jiggling fat suit,” a frizzy gray wig, and crooked fake teeth. vantages she had that White did not. Meanwhile, another friend, a brilliant but plain musician, falls Slowly, her grief starts to lift. As it in love with a handsome cad, raising alarm among the mem- does, she finds that she disagrees with bers of their close-knit, artsy circle. A caper involving a mur- Merlyn and Muir. “The wild is not a der plot ensues. Filipacchi works with clear themes, but her panacea for the human soul,” she writes. sure comic touch steers clear of didacticism; smart and sweet, “Too much in the air can corrode it the novel becomes a tribute to the pleasures of friendship. to nothing.” All along, she had wanted to be her hawk: fierce, solitary, in- ETTA AND OTTO AND RUSSELL AND JAMES, by Emma Hooper human. Instead, she now realizes, “I (Simon & Schuster). “I’ve gone,” Etta writes to her husband, was the figure standing underneath Otto, at the beginning of this fairy-tale-like novel. In her the tree at nightfall, collar upturned eighties and slowly losing her memory, she sets out on foot against the damp, waiting patiently to the ocean, which she has never seen. “I will try to re- for the hawk to return.” Her father, member to come back,” she says. The novel follows Etta she knows, will never rejoin the human as she treks through the Canadian prairies (accompanied world. But she can. Like a figure in a by a talking coyote) and Otto as he learns to live alone. myth who followed a hawk to the land Hooper’s language is spare and repetitive, at times to a of the dead, Macdonald turns around fault, and her characters’ motives often remain elusive. But and comes home. what emerges is a delicate hymn to the natural landscape There is a precedent for this. After and an elegy to a dwindling generation. Merlyn finds the Wart in the woods, he catches the wayward goshawk, then THE B SIDE, by Ben Yagoda (Riverhead). In 1957, Frank Sina- accompanies the boy back home and tra, lamenting the displacement of his beloved standards, becomes his tutor. His is an odd sort dismissed rock and roll as being “sung, played and written of schooling, consisting mostly of in- for the most part by cretinous goons.” Yet, as Ben Yagoda direct ethics lessons accomplished by writes in this spirited history of American popular music, turning the boy into various animals: the first golden age of songwriting was already over by the a perch, an ant, a badger. The Wart time anyone was rocking around the clock. Changes in regards this as a huge improvement music distribution and in public taste had unleashed, in- over logic and Latin, and one evening, stead, “novelty numbers, lachrymose ballads, simplistic jin- when he is desperately bored, he goes gles, hillbilly hokum.” Pointing toward the renaissance of to Merlyn and begs for another les- songwriting in the sixties, Yagoda argues that rock did not son. Perhaps, he suggests, he could be mark the end of the Great American Songbook but was, turned into a hawk. at its best, a spiritual heir and second coming. To want to be a hawk: “That is pretty ambitious,” Merlyn observes. WHY NOT SAY WHAT HAPPENED, by Morris Dickstein (Live right). Eventually, he will grant the request, This memoir by a noted literary critic and cultural histo- and the goshawk that the Wart fol- rian charts his journey from Lower East Side yeshiva boy lowed into the woods will try to kill to cosmopolitan professor. Much of the book is a love bal- him. But, for now, the magician puts lad to his heady university years at Columbia, Cambridge, his student off. “You shall be every- and Yale, chronicling a series of significant encounters with, thing in the world, animal, vegetable, among others, Lionel Trilling, F. R. Leavis, and Harold mineral, protista or virus, for all I Bloom. Though an old-fashioned humanist like his men- care—before I have done with you,” tors, Dickstein reveals himself to be in synch with his time. he tells the boy. But, he continues, the His enthusiasms are widely dispersed (movies and popu- time has not yet come to try to be a lar music no less than the Western canon), and he describes hawk. And so, he says, “you may as the emergence of radical culture in New York in the six- well sit down for the moment and ties with sympathy. Conjuring a lost age of intellect, Dick- learn to be a human being.”  stein proves the most cheerful of elegists.

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 95 maybe glamorize) his violent youth, his ON TELEVISION charismatic dick of a dad, and the roots of Huang’s own flamboyant persona. That desire wasn’t sheerly egotistical: HOME COOKING Huang was eager to push back at the cliché of Asian men as passive, genitally Funny families on “Fresh Off the Boat” and “Black-ish.” cheated nerds (“the eunuch who can count,” as he puts it in the book)—a BY EMILY NUSSBAUM Long Duk Dong stereotype still visible on shows like CBS’s “2 Broke Girls.” Huang wanted “Fresh Off the Boat” to “go hard,” like his nineties hip-hop he- roes. In the process, he was claiming TV’s own bad-boy role, the provocateur who shoves authenticity down the throat of The Man. Think Roseanne; think Louis C.K. and Dave Chappelle. In reality, of course, the bad-boy provocateur very rarely gets final cut on a network family sitcom—it’s a genre more prone to compromise than a Sen- ate bill. Even the edgiest shows have limits: Al Bundy never hit Peggy, after all. So it’s no surprise that, aesthetically, “Fresh Off the Boat” fits right into ABC’s sweet-tempered slate of come- dies, which includes the subtly retro- grade “Modern Family,” the wonderful “The Middle,” “The Goldbergs,” “Black- ish”—a smart new show that I’ll get to in a moment—and the unfortunately bland “Cristela.” Like all these shows, “Fresh Off the Boat” is brightly lit, with an A plot and a B plot. The jokes aren’t dirty and nobody gets his butt whipped. The parents—patriotic restau- rant- manager dad, Louis (Randall Park), and proudly alienated mom, Jessica (the terrific Constance Wu)—love one an- other. There’s even a “Wonder Years”- ike many pioneering TV series, ABC’s an Iranian-American. “What did you esque voice-over, performed by Huang, L “Fresh Off the Boat,” a sitcom about buy my book for?” Huang yelled, frus- and an ensemble of adorable children. a Taiwanese-American family run- trated that the show had bowdlerized It’s a comedy the whole family can watch ning a Western-themed chophouse in his story, which included whippings by together—which may be either an in- Orlando, Florida, débuted to impossi- his father, an immigrant restaurant owner. sult or a compliment, but is definitely bly high expectations, hand-wringing, “Just make A Chink’s Life . . . With Free a business plan. and prickly waves of preëmptive back- Wonton Soup or Soda.” Thousands of Yet, even in its half-dozen early ep- lash. In an unusual twist, this hazing words in, Huang tossed out a few lines isodes, those burnt first pancakes of sit- came from the man whose life the show of praise, but the impression he left wasn’t coms, the show has a radical quality, was based on. great—if he saw his sitcom as a sellout, simply because it arrives in a television In an essay in New York, Eddie Huang, who were viewers to disagree? landscape with few Asian characters, al- the celebrity chef, Vice TV host, and au- At the heart of this rant was the most none of them protagonists. Khan, thor of the memoir “Fresh Off the Boat,” question of what makes TV bold: Huang the showrunner (who wrote for Seth merrily trash-talked his own collabora- wanted something pungent, like an FX MacFarlane, and who produced the tors, including a Chinese-American pro- anti-hero dramedy, or like the nineties wicked ABC sitcom “Don’t Trust the ducer, whom he called an “Uncle Chan,” sitcom “Married with Children,” the B—— in Apartment 23”), is her own and the showrunner, Nahnatchka Khan, type of show that would underline (and sort of provocateur, an expert at slipping rude ideas into polite formats. She uses If “Fresh Off the Boat” emphasizes family warmth, it’s complicated by sharp details. the Asian-American family to reset TV’s

96 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID SARACINO defaults. The characters aren’t the hero’s that he’s wasting juice, while his father ting for him to brainstorm about his best friends; they’re not macho cartoons offers the women free samples from the troubles. It helped that he began to ac- or eye candy, either, as on some cable restaurant: “Come on, Fly Girls. Try a knowledge his own outsized personal- dramas I could name. This can be an rib! Tell a friend.”) ity, too, rather than presenting it as in- unpleasantly clinical way to talk: it places In the final scene, at a block party, terchangeable with authentic urban the critic in the camp of the bean count- everyone’s loneliness collides, as Eddie blackness. “I’m a lot,” Andre says, about ers, not the gonzo rapscallions. But sim- gropes Honey, and Jessica sees her neigh- his parenting. “If they can get past me, ply watching people of color having a bor’s humiliation. Opening her heart to they can get past anything.” private conversation, one that’s not pri- a fellow-outsider, Jessica seizes the ka- A funny Valentine’s Day episode fea- marily about white people, is a huge deal. raoke mike to serenade Honey with an tured a date night that went downhill—a It changes who the joke is on. “Fresh awkward, earnest rendition of “I Will sitcom chestnut that paid off, miracu- Off the Boat” is part of a larger move- Always Love You.” The sequence doesn’t lously, owing to sharp dialogue and the ment within television, on shows that “go hard”; it goes soft, quite deliberately. couple’s great chemistry. Andre and include the CW’s “Jane the Virgin” and But somehow it still manages to find Rainbow sniped over his mispronounc- Fox’s “Empire”—a trend that’s most in- strangeness within its sentimentality. ing the word as “Valentimes.” They re- fluential when it creates a hit, not a niche “Fresh Off the Boat” is unlikely to dis- visited a childbirth scenario so awkward phenomenon. mantle the master’s house. But it opens that the doctor asked her, “You mean Reading the book, then watching the a door. he’s actually part of your life? Because show, you get why Huang was frustrated: plenty of women successfully raise chil- without a cruel bully for a father, Ed- BC’s other new family sitcom, dren alone.” They argued over whether die’s taste for hip-hop feels more su- A “Black-ish,” created by Kenya Bar- or not Andre saw Gene Hackman at a perficial—in the book, it’s an abused ris and Larry Wilmore (who left to do roller rink. (“You think everyone is Gene kid’s catharsis and an identification with “The Nightly Show,” on Comedy Cen- Hackman!” Rainbow fumes.) In the best black history. But, if the show empha- tral), has had fifteen episodes, giving it tradition of the mainstream sitcom, the sizes family warmth, that theme is com- more of a chance to grow than “Fresh show felt both new and familiar, giving plicated by sharp sociological details: the Off the Boat”—and in that time the se- the show’s marriage emotional roots. only black kid in the school calls Eddie ries has transformed from hokey for- As these relationships became more a “Chink” and smirks at his hip-hop mula into one of the goofiest, most re- organic, “Black-ish” also got looser with T-shirt; Jessica grabs every free sam- liably enjoyable comedies around. Early its ethnic humor, with plots about Andre ple at the supermarket, then gives the on, the show kept aggressively re-stating competing to be a black Santa Claus employee a hilariously dismissive wave; its thesis: Andre (Dre), a successful (he loses out to a Mexican woman) and Louis hires a white host to attract cus- adman, is worried that his four kids aren’t microaggressions on a baseball field. tomers (“A nice happy white face, like black enough. Growing up rich in a white When Rainbow notices a gray pubic Bill Pullman,” he explains firmly). There’s suburb, they don’t remember a time be- hair, Andre tells her, “You look distin- no violence, but there are specific im- fore Obama; Andre Junior is a nerd, not guished, going all Frederick Douglass migrant perspectives, shown through a thug. Andre’s biracial wife, Rainbow, down there.” When their daughter dates multiple lenses. an anesthesiologist, is less concerned a French boy, a co-worker of Andre’s In one of Khan’s most effective gam- about race. Each week, Dre tries to says, “I cheated on my husband with a bits, we see Eddie through his mother’s toughen the kids up, terrified that if they French-Canadian. His Frenchness was eyes as often as we see her through his. don’t get “blacker” he’ll have failed as a so powerful that I forgot he was Cana- In the book, Jessica is a brazen, myste- father. dian.” Andre’s mother tells Rainbow, rious goad to her son; on the show, she’s The problem with the show, initially, “You are too hard on the kids. If I didn’t a full character, Eddie’s equal in cultural was that Andre himself felt so off- know you were mixed, I’d swear you alienation, even if her escape is Stephen putting—childlike and abrasive, a man- were Chinese.” King, not the Notorious B.I.G. In one baby in the Homer Simpson mode— In the show’s most outrageous epi- of the most interesting early episodes, that it was hard to buy his marriage or sode, a ski trip becomes an outlandish mother and son are both drawn to Honey, his success, let alone his lessons. Rain- parody of Martin Luther King Day. Rain- a trophy wife who lives next door. Eddie bow, played by the fantastic Tracee Ellis bow throws sardonic air quotes onto sees a hot MILF he can show off to the Ross, was trapped in the gruesome role “Doctor,” because King had no medical boys; Jessica sees a kindred spirit who of wife-as-mommy, the sighing goody- degree; Andre Junior admits that he’s will eat her “stinky tofu” and bond over goody. It’s hard to even remember that never fully absorbed King’s “I Have a “Dolores Claiborne”—then pulls away version, though, because, once “Black- Dream” speech, because “I always kind when she realizes that Honey is the town ish” settled in, it began, like so many of zone out when people start to tell me home-wrecker. The show hits every awk- smart sitcoms, a quiet reinvention. about their dreams.” The jokes over- ward angle of this triangle, including a Andre got more insightful; Rainbow lapped, turning flippant, wild, verging surreal fantasy sequence in which Eddie, became a glamorous dork with a tem- on misfire—an elbow in the ribs of boomer inspired by his hero Ol’ Dirty Bastard, per and her own loose-limbed charisma; earnestness. In a safe sitcom structure, sprays Capri Sun on gyrating video vix- the kids clicked, too; and Andre’s work- it was a different kind of risk: inside ens. (His mom intrudes, complaining place became a reliably hilarious set- jokes in an outside voice. 

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 97 that he was part black (which, as Ron THE THEATRE Chernow writes, in “Alexander Hamil- ton,” his juicy 2004 biography, “probably arose from the incontestable truth that BOYS IN THE BAND many, if not most, illegitimate children in the West Indies bore mixed blood”). A musical about the Founding Fathers. By the time Hamilton was a teen-ager, he had no parents at all. James had de- BY HILTON ALS serted the family, and Rachel had died of a fever. Lavien, still her legal husband, claimed her estate for their son, leaving the two Hamilton boys, whom he called “whore-children,” penniless. Hamilton, then in St. Croix, found work as a clerk and a slave inspector, and it was there that he had his first stroke of luck, precipi- tated, of course, by a disaster. In August, 1772, a hurricane blew through the Vir- gin Islands, wiping out homes, property, and people. A vivid letter that Hamilton wrote about the catastrophe found its way into a newspaper and impressed a local clergyman, who, with Hamilton’s employ- ers, arranged his passage to New York, where it was hoped that he would study medicine and then return home to min- ister to his people. But, once Hamilton boarded that ship, he never went back.

nowing all this can only increase your K admiration for Miranda’s ability to synthesize so much information in his big, breathing script. “Hamilton” is a one-set play. The wooden stage has been stained a light brown that suggests, at first, the beaches of Nevis, then the deck of the ship that carries Hamilton to New York, and, finally, the ground where he spends his final moments. Around the here is so much good will and en- the daughter of an Englishwoman and a stage is a gallery hung with ropes and Tthusiasm these days among theatre- Frenchman, inherited her father’s Nevis other maritime paraphernalia; the actors goers who have seen Lin-Manuel Mi- plantation and was married off, to Johann and a small troupe of precise, lively danc- randa’s complicated, valuable musical Michael Lavien, an older Danish man in ers use staircases to make quick entrances “Hamilton” (directed by Thomas Kail, at St. Croix, who had aspirations to be a and exits. (Designed by David Korins and the Public) that introducing anything planter. When she ran away from the mar- lit by Howell Binkley, the mise en scène less into the conversation makes one feel riage and their child, her husband had her makes Hamilton’s world believable.) rather like Debbie Downer at a buoyant locked up for several months. After her First entrance: the Founding Fathers fête. But a critical take on Miranda’s release, Rachel fled to St. Kitts, where she Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and work—which does everything it can to met James Hamilton, a Scot, who, having Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs), along stand outside the American-musical failed to distinguish himself at home, had with George Washington’s aide-de-camp canon and then doesn’t—should only add come to seek his fortune in the land-rich John Laurens (Anthony Ramos), Ham- to the production’s gold-star success, since West Indies. Eventually, Rachel took James ilton (Miranda), and the rest of the com- nothing succeeds like controversy. to Nevis, where Alexander, their second pany, in eighteenth-century-style knee Alexander Hamilton knew from dis- son, was born. Because she’d never di- britches and waistcoats. Staring out at cord. Born in Nevis, in 1755, he had a vorced Lavien, Alexander was considered the audience, Burr rap-sings resentfully, childhood marked by waste and brutality. illegitimate, a stigma that haunted him “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a At sixteen, his mother, Rachel Faucette, for the rest of his life, along with the myth whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Ca- Blood brothers: Leslie Odom, Jr., and Lin-Manuel Miranda in “Hamilton.” ribbean by providence, impoverished, in

98 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY STAMATIS LASKOS squalor, grow up to be a hero and a white world know what you feel, let work of the musical, which is to say sing- scholar?” Laurens answers: alone think; your vulnerability could ing about their feelings (at least, not at The ten-dollar Founding Father without be your death. By having actors of color first); they’re guys in a circle jerk, and the a father issue this warning while imperson- lube is ambition, chicks, and power. Got a lot farther by working a lot harder ating historical white men, Miranda But once Hamilton works his way into By being a lot smarter By being a self-starter makes us stop and consider: What are Washington’s inner circle, becomes the By fourteen, they placed him in charge of we looking at? Something new and un- Treasury Secretary, and meets his future a trading charter recognizable on the stage—a dramatic wife, the rich and socially prominent Eliza Miranda introduces his characters with successor to Derek Walcott’s and Ja- Schuyler (played by the genteel and thus a child’s wonder but a father’s authority; maica Kincaid’s literary explorations dull Phillipa Soo), the show’s radicalism you can feel him standing at the edge of of the surreality of colonialism. is slowly drained, and the resulting corpse the game he’s created, a historical world In the tavern, Hamilton meets three is a conventional musical love story. As in he has remade in his image, starting with other ambitious young dudes: Laurens, the David Byrne’s 2013 spectacle about Imelda color-blind casting that evokes Joseph Marquis de Lafayette (Diggs), and Her- Marcos, “Here Lies Love,” politics, in the Papp, the founder of the Public, who in- cules Mulligan (Okieriete Onaodowan), later scenes of Miranda’s work, is just an- stituted the practice downtown. Burr is who will become George Washington’s other backdrop to the standard narrative played by a black actor, and Miranda is chief confidential agent during the Revo- of a man being undone by a lady. of Puerto Rican descent. Part of what lutionary War. For now, though, these men In 1789, a woman in distress named the audience members delight in—what are a bunch of Testosterone Tommies, Maria Reynolds (the wonderful Jasmine makes them feel so high and intelligent hanging out, drinking ale, showing off: Cephas Jones) shows up at Hamilton’s as they watch the show—is the fact that LAURENS: I’m John Laurens in the place home. Her husband has treated her badly, they’re in on this fabulous joke. Here is to be! and she has no money. How can she fail a boricua actor—whose Puerto Rican Two pints o’ Sam Adams, but I’m to remind Hamilton of the forsaken Ra- workin’ on three, uh! brethren, with their Spanish, African, Those Redcoats don’t want it with me! chel? In a way, by getting involved with white, and Carib Indian roots, are Amer- Cuz I will pop chicka pop these cops till Reynolds, he returns to his past, to the ican citizens but cannot vote in national I’m free! mother who died too soon and could not elections—playing a white slave inspec- LAFAYETTE: Oui, oui, mon ami. Je fully mother him. Reynolds’s desperation tor turned abolitionist and politician, who m’appelle Lafayette! is not grating or awful; it’s a force of na- was born on an island less than three The Lancelot of the revolutionary set! ture, and Jones conveys it with real under- I came from afar just to say bonsoir! hundred miles from his own parents’ Tell the King, Casse-toi! Who’s the best? standing. But Miranda keeps her mainly birthplace. Who could be better for the C’est moi! . . . in the background. He doesn’t have much role? Especially given Miranda’s Hamil- feeling for his female characters; for the HAMILTON: I probly shouldn’t brag, but ton-like industriousness and skill. (As dag, I amaze and astonish most part, they’re plot points in silk. (“Ham- Hamilton and another character intone, The problem is I got a lot of brains but no ilton” has an almost all-male production “Immigrants . . . we get the job done.”) polish team.) This was also a problem with Mi- I gotta holler just to be heard It is 1776, and America is struggling And with every word, I drop knowledge! randa’s Tony-winning 2008 show “In the for independence from King George III I’m a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece Heights,” which centered on his alter ego, (the take-no-prisoners Brian d’Arcy of coal Usnavi: the other characters, all too “col- James, whose King looks on his subjects’ Tryin’ to reach my goal. orful” by half, were just fleeting stars in his desire for freedom as a nonsensical an- Miranda will not be limited by form, galaxy. “Hamilton” is the work of a more noyance). Hamilton runs into Burr on a and “Hamilton” feels, at times, less like a mature artist, for sure, but one who’s fear- New York City sidewalk. He is all star- musical than like an opera—an amalga- ful of being kept out of the white boys’ struck enthusiasm: like Burr, he wanted mation of dance, speech, music, and story- club of the American musical. By burying to go to Princeton, he gushes, but he telling. There’s another tradition at work his trickster-quick take on race, immigrant made the mistake of punching out the here, too, a colored literary tradition that ambition, colonialism, and masculinity bursar. Burr invites him into a tavern and started with Sterling A. Brown’s thirties under a commonplace love story in the offers him this advice: sound poems about the black experience second half of the show, Miranda hides and continues today in the work of poets what he most needs to display: his talent. BURR: Talk less. like Claudia Rankine, whose rhythms are The most meaningful love story in HAMILTON: What? BURR: Smile more. inseparable from the communal injury “Hamilton” is revealed at the end of the HAMILTON: Hah. and triumph, and in rap, which began as play, when Burr, by then the Vice- President BURR: Don’t let them know what you’re a black-male art form. Indeed, part of of the United States, mortally wounds the against or what you’re for. HAMILTON: You can’t be serious. what makes people feel so jumpy and ex- man who once longed for his acceptance. BURR: You wanna get ahead? cited during “Hamilton” is its unbridled As Burr points his gun, there’s a real look HAMILTON: Yes. masculinity. (This was why the 2010 mu- of loss in Hamilton’s eyes. That regret is BURR: Fools who run their mouths off wind up dead. sical “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” not so much for his own life or for the was a cult hit: in it, the seventh President love of his family but for the treasured This, incredibly, is what colored el- of the United States is a lawless boy.) Mi- competition and camaraderie of his and ders used to tell children: never let the randa’s men aren’t doing the usual “gay” Burr’s bromance. ♦

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 99 “Jew faggot.” Benjie is thirteen. “Three THE CURRENT CINEMA hundred thousand a week—I was nine years old. How psychotic is that?” he says. Cronenberg-watchers will twitch with LOST SOULS anticipation; he has always been drawn to the smell of psychosis, like a wasp to “Maps to the Stars” and “ ’71.’’ a picnic. The mood at the start is thick not BY ANTHONY LANE with mystery, as in David Lynch’s “Mul- holland Drive,” but with exasperation, as we struggle to work out who is re- lated—or helplessly clamped—to whom. Hence the recurring theme of incest, which is another kind of parody: the heinous contortion of romantic love. Ag- atha announces that her parents were brother and sister, and she herself is re- united, under intense conditions, with a long-lost sibling. As for Havana, she pitches aggressively for a role first played by her late mother (who at one point appears naked in her bed). She loses the part and howls like Antigone, then gets it back—because her rival has suffered a death in the family—and skips around, chanting, like a little girl. Throughout this near-insanity, Cronenberg keeps his cool, to the brink of refrigeration. In Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska star in David Cronenberg’s new film. terms of camera movements, he is the king of underkill. When Stafford, the he new David Cronenberg movie, massage table. This begs for therapy, self-help guru who cannot help himself, T“Maps to the Stars,” takes place in which in Havana’s case means stripping thumps a defenseless woman and slings Los Angeles. Some of it was filmed there, to her underwear and submitting to her out of the house, we crawl stealth- too—the first occasion on which the di- Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), a sha- ily in her wake, toward the open door. rector, who seldom roams beyond his manistic shrink who will rub away your Why, then, does “Maps to the Stars” own back yard of Canada, has shot a painful memories as if they were spasms fail to compel as it should? In part, I movie in the United States. One scene of lumbago. Havana’s sex life comprises think, because Viggo Mortensen has unfolds on Rodeo Drive, outside a cloth- a desultory threesome and a quickie in spoiled us. His great performances for ing store where a character has just spent the back seat of a car. What she truly Cronenberg, in “A History of Violence” eighteen thousand dollars. The sight of desires is a new personal assistant—or and “Eastern Promises,” reminded us Cronenberg and his crew setting up there, “chore whore,” to use her fragrant term. that the director is at his strongest when in broad daylight, must have seemed not A contender arrives, in the shape of Ag- he has a hero to haul us through what- merely unsettling but, to any Hollywood atha (Mia Wasikowska), who comes ever nightmare has been laid on. That residents who were passing by, down- recommended by Carrie Fisher (“I met was true of James Woods in “Vid- right unhealthy. I’m surprised they didn’t her on Twitter”). Agatha wears long eodrome” and Jeremy Irons in “Dead call the cops or, better yet, an epidemi- black gloves, which conceal scars from Ringers,” both of them masterly figures ologist. When the guy who made “Rabid” a house fire. She gets the job. who seemed nonetheless at the mercy and “The Fly” turns up in town, there’s All this lies within scorching distance of instinctual drives, whereas someone no accounting for the damage he might of parody: an occupational hazard, as Na- like Havana is less well poised; she is see, or show, or do. thanael West realized, for anyone facing the dupe of her foolish appetites, and The woman with the fancy clothes up to Hollywood. Overkill comes with that’s that. Moore holds nothing back, is Havana Segrand ( Julianne Moore), the territory. That is why “Sunset Bou- and the result makes a splendidly noisy an actress who, if not washed up, is drift- levard” begins with a corpse, bobbing in companion piece to her Oscar-winning ing in with the tide. She had a famous a pool, and proceeds to an old dame who turn in “Still Alice,” but Havana, on her mother named Clarice Taggart (Sarah keeps a stuffed ape in a casket, and that own, can’t hold the story together. I Gadon), also an actress, who died in a is why Cronenberg introduces us to the wanted more both of Cusack, who is conflagration and now keeps appearing, delightful Benjie (Evan Bird), the star of genuinely frightening, with his heavy youthful and uncharred, before Hava- the hit comedy “Bad Babysitter,” who is tread, his black garb, and his clown- na’s eyes—in the bathtub, say, or on the fresh out of rehab and calls his agent a white face, and of Robert Pattinson,

100 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY BORIS PELCER who plays a chauffeur named Jerome not for digs and jibes but for steady in- character is an I.R.A. man, the mirror Fontana—a downgrade from his lead- cisions into the ills of the flesh, or the image of Hook, but they share a plight, ing role in Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis,” pains of the spirit, and “Maps to the and their desperation is crosshatched by where he lounged in the back of a limo. Stars” is at its most potent and beauti- the shadows of the town through which Why not have Jerome, a ready-jaded ful by far when it becomes a ghost they creep. It would be too much to say, hopeful, steer us into Hollywood’s dark story—when the departed, not just Ha- of either director, that the politics are an vales? vana’s mother, return to quiz the living. excuse for the style, but you should cer- There is another issue here. Accord- That makes an ideal twist for Holly- tainly not turn to “ ’71” for an enriched ing to Cronenberg, the script for “Maps wood, a place both besotted with and understanding of the Troubles, as they to the Stars,” by Bruce Wagner, began dismissive of its past. More important, are still known. The director is much life more than twenty years ago, and it these spectral scenes suggest new ground too excited by undercover operations in shows. When Jerome says to Agatha for Cronenberg. He went there, fleet- the military, and by tangled infighting that he’s thinking of converting to Sci- ingly, in “The Dead Zone.” Time for among the Republicans, to bother with entology, “just as a career move,” it’s a another visit. the facts on the surface, and Hook’s pla- nice line, but it’s also a reboot of a joke toon seems to float ridiculously free, in Robert Altman’s “The Player,” where f a movie bears the title “ ’71,” and if adrift from a chain of command. Such a studio executive goes to A.A. not be- I the director is called Yann Demange, is the plot’s momentum, however, that cause he has a drink problem but be- your best guess would be that the film we scarcely notice the jolts of implausi- cause “that’s where all the deals are being is set in the Paris Commune of 1871. bility. As the camera darts down alley- made these days.” Doubtless, Wagner’s And you’d be wrong. The time is a cen- ways, or prowls the housing projects work has been through many morph- tury later, and we are in Belfast, another where soldiers fear to tread, what really ings and refinements, yet there remains city besieged by its rancors and splits. concerns Demange—and what lends a nagging sense that the finished film British troops are on the streets. A new such a kick to O’Connell’s performance, lags behind the times. The truth is that, recruit, Private Gary Hook ( Jack O’Con- on the heels of “Starred Up” and “Un- in 2015, Havana would be lucky to play nell), no sooner arrives than he is dropped broken”—is the bewilderment and the a second-string intergalactic queen for into a crisis for which, despite his train- panic that await us, whoever we may be, Marvel, and Benjie’s agent would already ing, he is unprepared. His platoon is in limbo. Best of all, oddly, are the kids: be positioning him as the Spider-Man sent to accompany the Royal Ulster first, Hook’s little brother back in En- of 2020. Constabulary on a house-to-house gland, who worships him, and with As a portrait of the movie industry, search near the dividing line between whom he plays soccer before he leaves; “Maps to the Stars” pales beside the fire Catholic and Protestant districts. Scuffles and, second, the gingery tyke, ominously of a film like Robert Aldrich’s “The Big flare into a riot, one soldier is shot, and wise for his years, who meets the wan- Knife,” from sixty years ago, which had the rest of them withdraw—minus dering hero in Belfast and asks whether everything: a Clifford Odets screenplay Hook, who is stranded in hostile terri- he is Catholic or Protestant. “I don’t you could sear yourself on, Jack Palance tory, although, by the look on his dazed know,” Hook says. “You don’t know? I’ve in his tortured prime, and, as the stu- young face, he could be stuck on an- fuckin’ heard it all now,” the boy replies. dio boss, Rod Steiger, with his silk-soft other planet. In a rough, unlikely dream of a movie, croon and a startling thatch of bright He is not the first such refugee, har- that, at least, rings true.  hair. (So that’s where Javier Bardem ried and alone. In “Odd Man Out” (the sprang from in “Skyfall.”) Cronenberg, film that Carol Reed made in 1947, two bereft of Aldrich’s will to attack, is more years before “The Third Man”), James newyorker.com surgeon than satirist. We go to his work Mason is also on the run in Belfast. His Richard Brody blogs about movies.

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THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2015 101 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this week’s cartoon, by P. C. Vey, must be received by Sunday, March 8th. The finalists in the February 16th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the March 23rd issue. The winner receives a signed print of the cartoon. Any resident of the United States, Canada (except Quebec), Australia, the United Kingdom, or the Republic of Ireland age eighteen or over can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.

THE WINNING CAPTION

THE FINALISTS

“This town ain’t big enough for anyone.” Ilan Moskowitz, Tenafly, N.J.

“You did say you wanted an earlier flight.” “Are you sure he said high tide?” Jeremy Schlosberg, Merion, Pa. Alison Green, New York City

“This looks like a good place to set up camp.” Andrew Vuilleumier, New York City

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

“ ”