PRICE $8.99 JAN. 16, 2017 JANUARY 16, 2017 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN THE TALK OF THE TOWN Jelani Cobb on King Day then and now; Trump’s neighbor; an app for lonely teens; Silas Farley; child sex-tracking. ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS Vinson Cunningham Making God Famous Kirk Franklin pushes the boundaries of gospel. SHOUTS & MURMURS Calvin Trillin Tossing and Turning ANNALS OF FINANCE Sheelah Kolhatkar Total Return When the feds went after a hedge-fund legend. A R E P O RT E R AT L A RG E Ian Parker The Culling Why would a zoo shoot a girae? PROFILES Rachel Aviv Surviving Solitary A Black Panther’s long road to freedom. FICTION Thomas Pierce “Chairman Spaceman” THE CRITICS BOOKS David Denby Steven Spielberg at seventy. Briefly Noted A C R I T I C AT L A RG E Adam Gopnik A new look at Montaigne. THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane “The Founder,” “The Ardennes.” POEMS To m S l e i g h “The Fox” Corey Van Landingham “Gilly’s Bowl & Grille” COVER Kadir Nelson “After Dr. King” DRAWINGS Danny Shanahan, Drew Dernavich, Tom Toro, Seth Fleishman, Will McPhail, Edward Koren, Frank Cotham, Carolita Johnson, Michael Crawford, Harry Bliss, Matthew Diee, Pat Byrnes, Roz Chast, Liana Finck, William Haefeli, Robert Leighton, Michael Maslin, Bruce Eric Kaplan SPOTS Marc Rosenthal CONTRIBUTORS Sheelah Kolhatkar (“Total Return,” Rachel Aviv (“Surviving Solitary,” p. 54) p. 34) became a staf writer in 2016. Her won a 2015 Scripps Howard Award for book, “Black Edge: Inside Information, her New Yorker story “Your Son Is De- Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring ceased,” about police shootings. Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street,” will be published in February. Rebecca Mead (The Talk of the Town, p. 24) has been a staf writer since Kadir Nelson (Cover) is an artist whose 1997. “My Life in Middlemarch” is her work will be included in the Society of latest book. Illustrators’ exhibition “Illustrators 59: Book and Editorial,” on view Febru- Thomas Pierce (Fiction, p. 68) is the au- ary 1st-26th. thor of the short-story collection “Hall of Small Mammals.” His novel, “The Vinson Cunningham (“Making God Fa- Afterlives,” will be published this year. mous,” p. 26) is a staf writer. Adam Gopnik (A Critic at Large, p. 81), Corey Van Landingham (Poem, p. 58), a staf writer, began writing for The New the author of the poetry collection “An- Yorker in 1986. He is the author of “The tidote,” was awarded a 2017 National Table Comes First.” Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Charles Bethea (The Talk of the Town, Ian Parker (“The Culling,” p. 42) has p. 23) has been contributing to the mag- been a staf writer since 2000. azine since 2008. His work also fre- quently appears in Outside. David Denby (Books, p. 76), a staf writer and a former film critic for the maga- Calvin Trillin (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 33) zine, is the author of “Lit Up: One Re- is the author of “No Fair! No Fair!: And porter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Other Jolly Poems of Childhood,” with Books That Can Change Lives.” illustrations by Roz Chast. NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more. GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN STRONGBOX The musician Andrew Bird discusses Do you have a tip for us that requires his newest record, “Are You Serious,” anonymity and security? Log on to and his evolving creative process. newyorker.com/strongbox. 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.) RHYNE EMILY LEFT: 2 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 16, 2017 THE MAIL MOSUL’S OTHER CRISIS and these labels ignore their key similar- ity: they both risked everything to reveal Thank you for Dexter Filkins’s recent ar- lies propagated by the government and ticle about the grave risk that the Mosul by private corporations. In instance after Dam poses to Iraq (“Before the Flood,” instance, it is an individual—a bureau- January 2nd). Large dams, relying on shaky crat, a contractor, a soldier, or a private science (or ignoring good science), have citizen—who justly changes the course for decades devoured development funds of civil society by protesting against the while creating more problems than they’ve law. To enter the Trump era with an ar- solved. Dams are often built under au- ticle that seems to cast judgment on the thoritarian regimes, exacerbating political person who has told the most important instability while destroying many citizens’ truths in decades about state overreach lives and livelihoods. History has shown infringing civil liberties is disheartening. that dams are too costly a method of gen- Stevie Olson erating electricity, and this is particularly 1Brookline, Mass. true in Iraq, which has vast and unex- ploited solar potential. Factoring in the PEOPLE POWER ninety-seven- per-cent average cost over- run for large dams, a new structure down- Jelani Cobb concludes that “democracy stream from the Mosul Dam could cost may thrive in the states, the courts, the around four billion dollars. Dams are also next elections, and, lest the lessons of the a foolhardy investment: in our changing sixties be forgotten, the streets” (Com- climate, desert reservoirs are drying up. ment, January 9th). The Occupy Wall More than twenty per cent of the Tigris Street movement may have helped drive River’s precious freshwater is evaporating Bernie Sanders’s campaign, but he was the from its reservoirs, leaving behind saline-ir- only politician other than Donald Trump rigation water that’s slowly poisoning the who recognized the widespread discon- adjacent land. The Mosul Dam, the proj- tent in the United States. The D.N.C. and ect of a dictator’s hubris, is a literal and Hillary Clinton seem to have underesti- metaphorical sinkhole—for the dreams mated the concerns of a critical mass of of a nation and for funds that could be people, leading to Trump’s victory. In ad- better used elsewhere. Pouring more dition, reactionary Republicans control money, and more concrete, into this ill- more than sixty per cent of the country’s conceived behemoth, or into other dams, state legislatures and governorships, and will only delay the inevitable. But there is vacancies on many courts, where appoint- a possible solution for Iraq: to decommis- ments have for years been held up by ex- sion this dam. We can only hope that it tremists in Congress, will likely now be does so before it’s too late and the precar- flled by right-wingers. Moreover, in 2018, ious region is plunged further into chaos. when thirty-three Senate seats will be con- Kate Horner, Executive Director tested, the Democrats must win twen- International Rivers ty-fve seats just to maintain their current 1Berkeley, Calif. numbers in the Senate, and twenty-eight out of the thirty-three to win a majority THE WHISTLE-BLOWERS in that body, which is highly unlikely. In fact, the streets may be the only place where Malcolm Gladwell’s comparison of progressive voices can be heard. the whistle-blowers Daniel Ellsberg, a Steven Morris member of the intelligence élite, whom Mt. Pleasant, S.C. Gladwell calls a true “leaker,” and Ed- • ward Snowden, an outsider, whom he Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, calls merely a “hacker,” seems to glorify address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to and belittle them, respectively (“The Out- [email protected]. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in side Man,” December 19th & 26th). The any medium. We regret that owing to the volume two men are more similar than they seem, of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 16, 2017 3 JANUARY 11 – 17, 2017 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN The soul of silent film is comedy—the knockabout, loose-limbed antics of vaudevillians who sacrificed speech and song to the movies’ technical wonders and expressive intimacy. This year’s edition of ’s silent-era series, “Cruel and Unusual Comedy” (Jan. -), oers o-the-cu rowdiness from overlooked artists, including Mabel Normand, who also directed ten of her own early short films. In “Mabel’s New Hero” (Jan. and Jan. ), from EVERETT , she’s paired with Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle under the direction of the slapstick pioneer Mack Sennett. Bargemusic The upcoming weekend at the loating chamber- music series is centered on the violin and its in- CLASSICAL MUSIC creasingly varied literature. On Friday, the Ger- 1 man violinist and composer Gregor Huebner and his ensemble o piano, bass, and percussion oer OPERA and courtesan who found hersel at the center o a “El Violin Latino,” a rangy evening that blends very dangerous game o espionage. Tina Mitchell the strains o Hispanic and Eastern European and Jerey Gavett take the leading roles. Jan. 11-14 music with those o classical and jazz. On Satur- Metropolitan Opera at 7. (HERE, 145 Sixth Ave.) • With “Funeral Doom day and Sunday, Mark Peskanov, the barge’s co- With a new production by Bartlett Sher, the Met Spiritual,” the composer, pianist, and male soprano mandante, teams up with the pianist Gerald Rob- inally has a “Roméo et Juliette” that suits both M. Lamar laces his particular brand o Afrofuturism bins to perform the three formidable Sonatas for Shakespeare’s tragedy and Gounod’s rhapsodic with dark foreboding, gothic makeup, and theatrical Violin and Piano by Brahms. Jan. 13 at 7:30; Jan. music. The curtain rises on a handsome Veronese piano lourishes. Inspired by spirituals that make 14 at 7:30 and Jan.