PRICE $7.99 JAN. 11, 2016

JANUARY 11, 2016

5 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Amy Davidson on extreme weather; lightsabers; after “Downton”; David Bowie; James Surowiecki on taxing corporations.

Katherine zoepf 22 SISTERS IN LAW Saudi Arabia’s first female attorneys. Simon rich 28 DAY OF JUDGMENT NICK Paumgarten 30 THE WALL DANCER A rock-climbing prodigy. TAD Friend 36 THE MOGUL OF THE MIDDLE A studio head tries to reinvent Hollywood. BEN Lerner 50 THE CUSTODIANS The Whitney’s conservation methods.

FICTION ANNE Carson 60 “1 = 1”

THE CRITICS A CRITIC AT LARGE THOMAS Mallon 63 The rise of the radical right. BOOKS 69 Briefly Noted

MUSICAL EVENTS ALEX Ross 70 Igor Levit and Evgeny Kissin.

POEMS Frank x. Gaspar 27 “Quahogs” Jane VanDenburgh 56 “When Grace at the Bliss Café Calls”

marcellus hall COVER “The Great Thaw”

DRAWINGS Kim Warp, Farley Katz, Will McPhail, Benjamin Schwartz, Liana Finck, Charlie Hankin, Edward Steed, Joe Dator, Paul Noth, William Haefeli, Roz Chast, Tom Cheney, Tom Chitty, David Borchart, Tom Toro, Barbara Smaller, David Sipress, Jack Ziegler SPOTS Pablo Amargo

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 1 CONTRIBUTORS

Katherine Zoepf (“SISTERS IN LAW,” P. 22) is a fellow at New America. Her first book, “Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World,” comes out this month. Reporting for this piece was facilitated by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Sarah Larson (THE TALK OF THE TOWN, P. 20)is a roving cultural correspondent for newyorker.com. Her recent interview with Aziz Ansari can be heard on Episode 11 of “The New Yorker Radio Hour.”

Tad Friend (“THE MOGUL OF THE MIDDLE,” P. 36) has been a staf writer since 1998. He is the author of “Lost in Mongolia” and “Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor,” a memoir.

Ben Lerner (“THE CUSTODIANS,” P. 50) is a 2015 MacArthur Fellow. His monograph, “The Hatred of Poetry,” will be out this summer.

Jane Vandenburgh (POEM, P. 56), a novelist, is the author of five books, including “A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century: A Memoir.”

Nick Paumgarten (“THE WALL DANCER,” P. 30) has been writing for The New Yorker since 2000.

Anne Carson (FICTION, P. 60) will publish “Float,” a collection of performance pieces and other writings, later this year.

thomas Mallon (A CRITIC AT LARGE, P. 63) is a novelist, an essayist, and a critic. He is the author of, most recently, “Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years.”

Simon Rich (SHOUTS & MURMURS, P. 2) has written several works of fiction, including “Spoiled Brats,” a collection of stories.

marcellus Hall (COVER), an illustrator and a musician, lives in New York.

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

ALSO: POETRY: Jane Vandenburgh and PODCASTS: On the monthly Fiction Frank X. Gaspar read their poems. Podcast, Rivka Galchen reads Isaac Bashevis Singer’s story “The Cafeteria” THE FRONT ROW: Notes on movies, by and discusses it with Deborah Treisman. Richard Brody. On Politics and More, George Packer speaks with Omer Mahdi, an Iraqi VIDEO: Ashima Shiraishi, the teen-age translator and refugee who is now a champion rock climber, on overcoming doctor in Indiana. self-doubt and failure. Plus, the latest episode of “Shorts & Murmurs.” HUMOR: Benjamin Schwartz draws a Daily Cartoon on the news. Plus, ELEMENTS: Our blog covering the Andy Borowitz and the Shouts & worlds of science and technology. 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.)

2 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 THE MAIL

THE MAN ON THE RIVER man—even though he would argue that “there are no men like me”—but The piece by Ben McGrath was a beau- what he accomplished from his canoe tiful remembrance of Dicky Conant, was quite extraordinary. He was a man who made it his life’s work to navigate who had his flaws, as we all do, but he a long-distance canoe using a road atlas did touch a great many people in a very and river maps (“The Wayfarer,” De- positive way. Maybe that is his legacy. cember 14th). Everyone Conant met His was a story that deserved to be was captivated by his personality and told, and I am grateful that McGrath impressed by his courage. My brother was able to write it. What warms my Peter was a part of Catfish Yacht Club, heart the most is that the article shows mentioned in the story, through which the soul of the man and recognizes that the Conant brothers and their friends which was good. explored the Nauraushaun Brook in a Joseph Conant small boat. The excitement of those Peachtree City, Ga. childhood summer adventures stuck 1 with the boys. My brother joined the TROUBLED REFUGE Coast Guard, Chris Kelly carries his membership card to this day, and Dicky I commend Rachel Aviv for telling continued to seek pleasure along the the story of Nelson Kargbo, a refugee river. As he wrote, “The experience it- from Sierra Leone who got tangled up self is the reward.” in the United States’ deportation sys- Nancy Wieting tem (“The Refugee Dilemma,” De- Chicago, Ill. cember 7th). Nelson’s devastating tra- jectory reflects a complex and violent If even only part of what Conant pattern of deportation that began with claims he did was true, he lived a life the passage of the Illegal Immigration that won’t be replicated and quite pos- Reform and Immigrant Responsibil- sibly was never lived before. When I ity Act of 1996 and has intensified met him, I knew that he was spe- since the September 11th attacks. I cial. McGrath’s insight into his psy- spent a year researching deportation che helps me to partly understand how as a Fulbright-García Robles Scholar he was able to cope with the mental in Mexico, and I can attest to the dam- demands of his journeys. I know that aging efects of U.S. immigration pol- there is convincing evidence that icies in America and beyond. Record- Conant is no longer alive, but I choose high deportations from the U.S. dis- to think that he got too much recog- mantle the lives of deportees and their nition and just stepped away; he’s of families. As with the experience of on another part of the trek. He is still Kargbo, the aftermath of detention and out there, on behalf of me and every deportation is invisible to most policy- other rat in the race, those of us who makers and members of the public. Until live as much as we can but not as much there is political will to reform Amer- as we could. Sometimes when I am ican immigration laws, millions of peo- cold and wet or hot and uncomfort- ple will continue to be caught in a sys- able on one of my own excursions— tem that is startlingly unjust. Dick would laugh at my stolen over- Deborah A. Boehm nighters and short fishing trips—I think Reno, Nev. about him and what he did. Robert E. Cooper • Demopolis, Ala. Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be I talked to McGrath in the course of edited for length and clarity, and may be pub- lished in any medium. We regret that owing to his reporting on my brother Dicky. By the volume of correspondence we cannot reply most standards he was an ordinary to every letter or return letters.

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 3

JANUARY WEDNESDAY • THURSDAY • FRIDAY • SATURDAY • SUNDAY • MONDAY • TUESDAY 2016 6TH 7TH 8TH 9TH 10TH 11TH 12TH

The Public Theatre takes its art-for-all mission seriously, and, since 2005, its “Under the Radar” festival has been an essential showcase of the avant-garde. Programmed by Mark Russell and Meiyin Wang, it NIGHT LIFE | THE THEATRE has welcomed artists from places as far-flung (and free-expression-averse) as Belarus; this year’s festival, movies | DANCE | art Jan. 6-17, features companies from Chile, Japan, and Rwanda. But you don’t always need to look abroad to classical music find perception-altering voices. The South Asian trans performance duo DarkMatter was formed by two ABOVE & BEYOND New Yorkers, Alok Vaid-Menon and Janani Balasubramanian. In “#ItGetsBitter” (at Joe’s Pub, Jan. 12-14), they offer a cheeky radical-queer critique of the gay-rights movement, employing spoken word, fractured FOOD & DRINK nursery rhymes, and fluorescent lipstick: an urgent, funny dispatch from the margins.

photograph by Zane Zhou NIGHT IFE

Rock and Pop “Be Real” for a primer on what he Alan Licht years ago, she was playing bebop Musicians and night-club proprietors does best. Mustard played hits before This experimental guitarist and music on Fifty-second Street; today, she’s lead complicated lives; it’s advisable he made them, and specializes in the writer (his exquisite coffee-table book, one of the high priestesses of clas- to check in advance to conrm sounds of summer—if the unsea- “Sound Art,” traces the convergence of sic cabaret, serving up standards engagements. sonable mildness holds, you might music and the visual arts) is celebrating burnished bright by way of her hit Output’s rooftop for one of its the release of a genial new album called marvellous musicianship and noble Classic Album Sundays: treasured slushies. (74 Wythe Ave., “Currents.” The record’s eight acoustic presence as a sophisticated survivor. Carole King Brooklyn. outputclub.com. Jan. 8.) guitar instrumentals are subtle and (Birdland, 315 W. 44th St. 212-581- “Nobody appreciates the impact of highly accessible, employing drones, 3080. Jan. 9.) Carole King’s ‘Tapestry,’ least of all Federation Sound altered tunings, and a forceful delivery Carole King,” Martin Scorsese recently Spanish Town is a storied land in the that evokes guitar masters like John Al Foster’s Birthday Bash quipped to Lin-Manuel Miranda and parish of St. Catherine in Jamaica. Fahey and Richard Thompson. Like He may never achieve the name rec- others at the New Museum. Colleen Grace Jones was born there, and so was those of his progenitors, Licht’s best ognition of such fellow- percussionists Murphy, founder of this charming Chronixx, the twenty-three-year-old songs achieve a rare combination of as Art Blakey or Max Roach, yet record club and one of the more reggae revivalist who eulogizes the exhilaration and peace. Opening will Foster was the man that the likes than twenty-five million people who neighborhood on his latest record, be the Americana-tinged balladeer of Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, own the record, might have smirked “Spanish Town Rocking.” The record’s Zachary Cale and the enchanting and Joe Henderson called upon with the director had she overheard. downbeat guitar and idle patois harpist Mary Lattimore. (Union when they needed a telepathically Murphy started Classic Album Sun- harmonies recall Bunny Wailer and Pool, 484 Union Ave., Brooklyn. responsive drummer to churn up days in London in 2010, gathering Dennis Brown’s sweetest songs, and 718-609-0484. Jan. 6.) the action from behind. The ex- friends and fellow sound obsessives conjure a sanguine alternate music plosive rhythm-maker celebrates to listen to beloved albums in their time line where the hardened reggae Cass McCombs his seventy-third birthday at the entirety, distraction-free and over a offshoot dancehall never swept the This month, the folk guitarist and helm of a solid quartet. (Smoke, professional sound system—and it eighties. The prolific New York d.j.s songwriter McCombs shared a mas- 2751 Broadway, between 105th and wasn’t long before the former New Max Glazer and Kenny Meez, known sive compilations album, “A Folk Set 106th Sts. 212-864-6662. Jan. 8-10.) Yorker launched additional branches, collectively as Federation Sound, Apart: Rarities, B-Sides, and Space including one in Brooklyn. The next premièred the record this December Junk, Etc.,” on Domino. He’s spent Ali Jackson installment will revisit King’s 1971 during their regular slot on Red Bull’s the past decade or so wandering Best recognized for his work with folk-pop masterwork across five RBMA Radio, and it’s just the kind between California and New York, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, cities this January, in anticipation of of thick and hazy roots music they seeking inspiration for slow-marching, the confident and adaptable drummer the record’s forty-fifth anniversary. bring to the Delancey on Thursdays, melancholy rumination: “Empty Jackson leads a five-piece ensemble “Tapestry” is still worth every one cover free. “Strictly roots and culture houses and family plots / so why’s my in a tribute to the classic quintets of the forty-four minutes attendees play ’pon I station,” Chronixx declares, stomach all in knots?” he wonders into of a sweeping range of jazz icons, will devote to it: King stripped adult and the Federation selectors will his chest on 2011’s “Saturday Song.” including Louis Armstrong, Art contemporary to its bare elements follow suit, spinning an all-vinyl set This latest batch of tunes delivers Blakey, Miles Davis, and the epochal of affecting concepts and seamless of reggae classics. Beware the Wray on its promise—five are previously duo of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie melodies so well that “It’s Too & Nephew specials if you’ve never unreleased; the rest are ephemeral Parker. (Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th Late” will escape cliché for as long sampled the Jamaican rum. (168 one-offs. The songs stick because St. 212-576-2232. Jan. 7-10.) as couples really do try to make it. Delancey St. 212-254-9920. Jan. 7.) they’re so lived in: McCombs has Good Room’s fusty décor is just cozy been loyal to the road long enough to Nicholas Payton enough for this listening party; the Honduras pull off the 2009 B-side “Minimum His bands have gotten considerably d.j. Ron Like Hell will press Play. These Brooklyn rockers dish out Wage,” a loafer anthem about living more compact, and he’s assigned (98 Meserole Ave., Greenpoint. rattling punk that’s easy to love: with no chores or phones. If you plan himself plenty more to do, but it 718-349-2373. Jan. 10 at 4.) quick-hit, warmly juvenile guitar licks to attend this headlining gig, buy all seems to be working for the and jangling drums that stomp up some merch. (Bowery Ballroom, 6 multitasking Payton, a swaggering D.J. Mustard from underneath. The lead singer, Delancey St. 212-260-4700. Jan. 7.) trumpeter who now, in the company Let’s tackle the most pressing issues Patrick Phillips, performs with a 3 of just a bassist and a drummer, has first: he was born Dijon McFarlane, nihilistic edge that updates the Sex also taken to playing keyboards and and he owns at least one diamond Pistols well, but the guitarist Tyson Jazz and Standards singing. (Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, pendant styled after a Heinz bottle. Moore will cite originators like the George Cables Broadway at 60th St. 212-258-9595. But this prolific producer and d.j. gets Saints and the Heartbreakers if It can take decades for a journeyman Jan. 7.) more accolades for his ubiquitous, you ask him about influences. The musician to evolve into, and subse- pop-dominating sound pack than he best moments of the band’s début, quently be regarded as, a near-master: Ken Vandermark does for his awesome stage name. “Rituals,” drag Phillips’s vocals out consider the case of the estimable Becoming a MacArthur Fellow, in 1999, Mustard stumbled into success front, and fast: “Barricades” cracks pianist Cables. He’s joined here didn’t noticeably change the game alongside his rapping partner YG open with eight counts of galloping by the same compatriots—Essiet plan for this far-seeing saxophonist and his fellow producer and vocalist snares, dives through some crashing Essiet, on bass, and Victor Lewis, and clarinet player; he still makes Ty Dolla $ign: the trio bridged the waves of guitar, and then clears the on drums—who were heard on his Chicago his home and remains as hyphy bounce of California’s Bay room again for Phillips to casually most recent album, the celebratory committed to the jazz avant-garde Area with melodies just as galvanic warn, “Don’t look me in the eye.” It’s “In Good Company.” (Village Van- as he has been since his emergence, as any Swedish mega-producer’s to beach punk by city kids, an age-old guard, 178 Seventh Ave. S., at 11th in the early nineties. His New York crystallize a sound that would fuel inversion lapped up by critics and St. 212-255-4037. Jan. 5-10.) residency finds collaborative space night-club sets and high-school fans alike, even if the band drove for such questing players as Joe dances across America. Just sample upstate to lay the songs down. Barbara Carroll Morris, Ikue Mori, and Joe McPhee. Omarion’s inescapable “Post to Be” (Mercury Lounge, 217 E. Houston It’s been a long strange trip for this (The Stone, E. 2nd St. & Ave. C. or Kid Ink and Dej Loaf’s haunting St. 212-260-4700. Jan. 9.) pianist and singer. Seventy or so 212-473-0043. Jan. 5-10.)

6 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016

the HATRE

Openings and Previews Noises Off The Roundabout revives Michael Frayn’s backstage farce from 1982, with a cast including Andrea Martin, Tracee Chimo, Campbell Scott, Jeremy Shamos, and Megan Hilty. Jeremy Herrin directs. In previews. (American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St. 212-719-1300.)

Our Mother’s Brief Affair Lynne Meadow directs Richard Greenberg’s play for Manhattan Theatre Club, starring Linda Lavin as an ailing mother who reveals a shocking secret to her children. In previews. (Samuel J. Friedman, 261 W. 47th St. 212-239-6200.)

Skeleton Crew In the final chapter of Dominique Morisseau’s In Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s tragedy, a woman asks her father’s servant to kill her fiancé. “Detroit” trilogy, directed by Ruben Santiago- Hudson, the workers at an auto plant face the threat of foreclosure. In previews. (Atlantic Stage 2, at 330 W. 16th St. 866-811-4111.) jacobean chic 3

Red Bull Theatre kicks of its season of scandal with “The Changeling.” Now Playing The Color Purple In this musical version of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, centuries before it was an ill-advised soft drink, Red Bull was a theatre in Cynthia Erivo plays Celie, a poor, obscure, and blighted black woman living in the South in the Shakespeare’s England, a lesser-known competitor to the Globe. Starting around 1606, it early twentieth century. More or less sold of as was the home of Queen Anne’s Men, whose raucous spectators, sometimes provoked by an adolescent to Mister (Isaiah Johnson), Celie what they saw onstage, often wound up in court for brawling. (Picture a Jacobean CBGB.) has no defenders, and thus no love, until Shug Avery (Jennifer Hudson), an itinerant blues singer, The Puritans banned all theatre in 1642, but didn’t quite succeed: the place was frequently appears. It takes a director with John Doyle’s vi- raided for illegally hosting “drolls,” or comic sketches. The playhouse oicially reopened sionary capabilities to dispense with the “Mamba’s after the Restoration, but it was torn down within the decade. Oh, well. Daughters” aspect of Celie’s story and, instead, exercise empathy, critical distance, and an openness Fittingly, this hotbed of transgression has a namesake Of Broadway. Since 2003, Red to lives and cultures other than his own. By not Bull Theatre has devoted itself to stylish mountings of the classics, with a nose for the falling prey to the story’s periodic sentimentality, perverse. The company’s ostensible mission is to stage plays with “heightened language”—a Doyle has created a thea trical world that’s fresh, vital, and unexpected, and Erivo is central to his draw for actors—but, under the artistic direction of Jesse Berger, its sleek, runway-ready work: her Celie is not a noble survivor but a productions specialize in those old standbys sex and violence, typically culminating in a stubborn, intelligent force, who is well aware of cascade of blood. Naturally, Jacobean drama plays to the company’s strengths: it has staged her own wit and wariness. (Reviewed in our issue of 1/4/16.) (Jacobs, 242 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.) punky renditions of “The Revenger’s Tragedy,” in 2005 (poison!); “The Witch of Edmonton,” in 2011 (black magic!); and, last spring, “ ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore” (incest!). But the troupe Fiddler on the Roof also tackles modern classics, notably Jean Genet’s “The Maids,” in 2012, featuring the superb Danny Burstein is one of the best character actors we have, a performer of depth and ease, but he’s stage actresses Jeanine Serralles and Ana Reeder. As usual, it all looked smashing. not a star, and a star is what’s required to put this Perhaps redundantly, Red Bull is calling its new lineup a “season of scandal,” show over. Based on Sholem Aleichem’s great beginning with Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s 1622 tragedy, “The stories about shtetl life in Russia, this classic adaptation works on many levels, thanks to Jerry Changeling,” playing at the Lucille Lortel through Jan. 24. (The season continues, Bock’s music, Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics, and Joseph in April, with Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s gossip-minded comedy “The School for Stein’s excellent book. Tevye (Burstein) prays Scandal.”) In Berger’s staging of “The Changeling,” Sara Topham plays the unhappily that his five daughters will find happiness in a changing world, but how do you allow for that betrothed Beatrice, who asks her father’s loathsome servant De Flores (Manoel Felciano) when the old ways must be smashed for them to to dispatch her fiancé, freeing her up to marry Alsemero (Christian Coulson). His price do so? Jessica Hecht plays Tevye’s wife, Golde, for doing the deed, he informs her: “thy virginity.” Arson, lunacy, and murder have the and she’s as good as Burstein, but she, too, lacks the lustre to make Bartlett Sher’s production day. It would make Queen Anne’s Men proud. as special as it should be. (Broadway Theatre, —Michael Schulman Broadway at 53rd St. 212-239-6200.)

8 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY OWEN FREEMAN MOVIES

Now Playing last, strokable inch of clothing and deceased, a secret from her. The story first shot of the hardscrabble town, The Big Short skin. Yet Haynes and his stars, for of sudden and corrosive distrust showing a mob swarming through Years before the financial crisis of all their stylish restraint, know that appears simple and straightforward, clouds of dust to witness a brawl, 2008, early rumblings are detected elegance alone will not suffice. Inside but Haigh seems to have built it sets the tone for this grim view of by Michael Burry (Christian Bale), the showcase is a storm of feeling. backward, delivering only enough frontier life. Hart’s spangled coat whose investment skills are in sharp With Sarah Paulson, as Carol’s best information to lead relentlessly to is more expressive than his blank, contrast to his social unease. Unlike friend.—A.L. (11/23/15) (In limited its foreordained conclusion. His stoic face; the landscape of forbid- most of his peers, he spies the cracks release.) airtight script is matched by sluggish ding hills and scattered sagebrush in the housing market and wagers direction that leaves Rampling and is equally void and featureless; and that, before too long, it will all come The Connection Courtenay with little to do but look there’s no sheriff or federal troops tumbling down. Word of his gamble Shirley Clarke’s first feature is based earnest and troubled. Haigh makes his to quell the chaos. The images are inspires a few more players to take on a play by Jack Gelber, about a intentions so obvious—and makes his as direct and bare as the characters’ the plunge, including a miserable group of junkies—including a quartet actors display them so blatantly—that emotions, and the harsh drama hedge-fund manager (Steve Carell), a of jazz musicians—who are waiting in all imagination is foreclosed.—R.B. builds to a mad, apocalyptic climax pair of greenhorns from out of town a run-down New York loft for their (In limited release.) of crime and revenge. Silent.—R.B. (John Magaro and Finn Wittrock), heroin dealer. She turns the story (MOMA; Jan. 7.) and our sly narrator (Ryan Gosling), into a disturbing and self-accusing The Hateful Eight who works at Deutsche Bank. These meta-movie, making two of the char- The action in Quentin Tarantino’s In the Heart of the Sea are just some of the unlovely figures acters into documentary filmmakers new film (his eighth, as the credits The new Ron Howard film tells a tale who pace back and forth through and presenting the film as an edited declare) unfolds in snowy Wyoming, that lay behind “Moby-Dick”—the final Adam McKay’s new film, based version of the footage they shot. where a stagecoach carrying a bounty voyage of a whaling vessel named the on the nonfiction book by Michael What the filmmakers show, above hunter (Kurt Russell) and his lucra- Essex. It departs from Nantucket in Lewis. The movie pops and fizzes all, is the music itself. The quartet tive catch (Jennifer Jason Leigh) 1820 under the command of George with invention, and even takes time of musicians, led by the pianist and picks up two more passengers—a Pollard (Benjamin Walker), the scion out, now and then, to educate— composer Freddie Redd and the sheriff-in-waiting (Walton Goggins) of a wealthy family, a novice com- screeching to a halt and summoning caustic-toned post-bop saxophonist and, by an odd coincidence, another pared to his first mate, Owen Chase a celebrity (Selena Gomez, say, or Jackie McLean, perform brilliantly bounty hunter (Samuel L. Jackson). (Chris Hemsworth). Friction arises Margot Robbie) to steer us through on-camera as they dramatize both They head to a saloon called Minnie’s between them, especially after the the economic verbiage. Everything the agonized wait and the needed Haberdashery, where further folks are captain’s inexperience takes his crew you always wanted to know about high. At the core of the movie is lined up like suspects. Tarantino has into a furious storm. Rumors of rich credit default swaps but were afraid the question of why modern jazz thus gathered all the ingredients of pickings, and of a vast white whale, to ask: it’s all here. So winning are seemed inseparable from drugs; a whodunit, and, as usual, he takes then lure the ship into the wastes these tactics, and so cheerfully head- whether the music’s fusion of fury his time, patiently stirring the plot of the Pacific, where the creature long is the mood, that we’re hardly and intricacy, of intellectual com- like stew. Rather than dish it out, awaits—no idle legend, it turns out, aware of rooting for a bunch of plexity and daring self-revelation, however, he blows it up, unable to but a real beast, or as real as the C.G.I. utter cynics who are poised to make of spiritual insight and streetwise resist the blandishments of extreme can make it. The sketchiness of the tens of millions of dollars from the experience—all arising from the bloodshed. Such is the climax that effects, indeed, is a sorry surprise; misfortunes of others.—Anthony Lane distinctive pathos of black-American all his movies seek, and trusting waves and townscapes, as well as (Reviewed in our issue of 12/14/15.) life—is bound to self-destructive fans will relish the eagerness with whales, feel insubstantial and thin. (In wide release.) abnegation, and whether, if it’s true which the new work accelerates into One scene, where a boy descends into of jazz, it’s true of modern art at carnage. That was true of Jacobean the clammy red pit of a whale’s head, Carol large. The empathetic engagement tragedies, too, but in those we sensed exerts a genuine grip, but even then One day in the nineteen-fifties, Carol of documentary filmmakers in the the intolerable burden of moral risk, Howard cuts it short. (Imagine what Aird (Cate Blanchett), a wife and lives of their subjects seems, here, whereas the characters here are David Cronenberg would have made mother, is shopping for Christmas like the closest thing to an aesthetic dispatched with a snickering glee, of it.) The boy survives the Essex’s presents at a department store in suicide pact.—Richard Brody (Museum and little seems to hang on their voyage, grows up traumatized, and Manhattan. She comes across a of Arts and Design; Jan. 8.) demise. (The honorable exception is as an adult—played by the splendid salesgirl, Therese Belivet (Rooney Leigh, who commands the movie.) Brendan Gleeson—recounts the fate Mara), and they fall in love, right 45 Years With Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum, of the Essex to Herman Melville there. Todd Haynes’s film then The talent and charisma of Charlotte and—with the scent of “Reservoir (Ben Whishaw). That framing device follows the women as they meet Rampling and Tom Courtenay aren’t Dogs” still clinging to them—Michael seems more solid and emotionally for lunch, hang out at Carol’s home, deployed but milked in the writer and Madsen and Tim Roth. Music by grounded than anything that happens embark on an aimless journey, and director Andrew Haigh’s portentous Ennio Morricone.—A.L. (1/4/16) at sea.—A.L. (12/21 & 28/15) (In go to bed—conscious, all the while, drama of a marriage in crisis. They (In wide release.) wide release.) of what they are risking, flouting, play Kate and Geoff Mercer, a re- or leaving behind. Therese has a fined and hearty bourgeois couple Hell’s Hinges Joy boyfriend (Jake Lacy), and Carol in rural England who are about to This stark, brutal Western, from Painful personal overtones resonate in has a husband (Kyle Chandler) and a celebrate their forty-fifth wedding 1916, co-directed by and starring David O. Russell’s boisterous comic child, although the maternal instinct anniversary. A week before the party, William S. Hart, presents a raw, view—based on a true story—of an gets short dramatic shrift. That feels Geoff gets a letter from the Swiss violent, thoroughly demythologized entrepreneur’s conflict-riddled rise true to Patricia Highsmith, whose authorities about a former girlfriend Wild West. The rudimentary plot to success. Jennifer Lawrence stars 1952 novel, “The Price of Salt,” is named Katya, who died there in brings together an inept preacher, as a divorced young mother on the foundation of the film. The fine an accident in 1962. But Kate soon who carries the Gospel to the rough Long Island who’s in a rut. Smart, screenplay is by Phyllis Nagy, who learns that Geoff—whom she hadn’t outpost called Hell’s Hinges, and the creative, and handy, she works at an drains away the sourness of the book; met at that time—has been keeping town’s toughest gunman (Hart), whose airport counter and copes with her what remains is a production of clean the details of that relationship, and better instincts are awakened by his divorced parents (Virginia Madsen and frictionless beauty, down to the the depth of his commitment to the love for the preacher’s sister. The and Robert De Niro), her father’s new

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 9 girlfriend (Isabella Rossellini), her Macbeth, perhaps, be sleepwalking bouts with the evil governor and his “Birdman,” the mood is chastened, bitter half-sister (Elisabeth Röhm), through the whole thing?) King minions, Fairbanks accents the “play” and the merry-go-round has made her ex-husband (Édgar Ramirez), and Duncan (David Thewlis) is knifed in swordplay, and never merely runs way for a punishing regime. We are her supportive but ailing grandmother not in a castle but in a tent, and when he can gambol; he leads bad given gestures toward a plot: Glass (Diane Ladd). Overwhelmed by a Shakespeare’s verse is muttered, guys on a merry chase. And if he’s is devoted to his son, Hawk (Forrest Cinderella-like burden of chores, Joy spat, and moaned without a gleam of extravagantly cunning as Zorro, he’s Goodluck), and beset by a growling designs a new kind of mop, finds rhetorical flourish. Nothing, in short, furtively cunning as the dandified nemesis (Tom Hardy), who is almost an investor, and is thrust into the speaks of grandeur in this depleted Don Diego, especially when he acts as bearish as the bear. Such figures predatory world of attorneys and land, and there’s something crazed, the fool by courting the beautiful only compound the bitter mood, executives. Russell, who wrote the and almost ridiculous, about fighting Lolita (Marguerite de la Motte) while a more promising character, a script and co-wrote the story with and killing for the chance to govern with parlor tricks. Directed by Fred youth by the name of Bridger (played Annie Mumolo, captures the magical it. Fassbender seems more at ease Niblo; the solid cast includes Noah by the excellent Will Poulter), falls moment when Joy’s private inspiration with a blade in his hand than with Beery and Robert McKim.—Michael away. The cinematography, often finds public expression; the movie’s a mouthful of poetry, while Sean Sragow (MOMA; Jan. 10.) radiant, and as crisp as ice, is by best scene features Bradley Cooper, Harris makes a vehement Macduff. Emmanuel Lubezki.—A.L. (1/4/16) as a TV executive who shows Joy the Kurzel adds children throughout, The Revenant (In wide release.) ropes. The core of the film is Joy’s to great effect: one to the trio of In the eighteen-twenties, a band of mastery of the killer instinct, her witches, and one—a corpse—to the fur hunters is attacked by American Sisters deft plotting of bold confrontations. opening scene, lamented by Macbeth. Indians in the wooded wilds around This hectic and sentimental comedy, Russell’s portrait of Joy stints on The movie brims, quite rightly, with the Missouri River. A few survivors though built on a firm foundation of intimacy, but her self-realization in blood and flame; the screen, by the start the long journey back to camp, experience and pain, is a sad waste of response to crises is thrilling. With close, is a terrible sea of red.—A.L. first by boat (where the air of sparkling talent. Tina Fey and Amy Dascha Polanco, as Joy’s best friend (12/7/15) (In limited release.) twitching vulnerability recalls that of Poehler star as the fortyish Ellis sisters. and savior.—R.B. (In wide release.) “Apocalypse Now”) and then on foot. The elder, Kate (Fey), a cosmetician, The Mark of Zorro One of them, Hugh Glass (Leonardo is the free-spirited single mother Macbeth Douglas Fairbanks’s first great DiCaprio), is mauled by a bear and of a teen-age girl, Haley (Madison The Scottish play bewitches once acrobatic epic, from 1920, set the left for dead. Alone, he continues Davenport); the younger, Maura again; Justin Kurzel is hardly the standard for zesty swashbucklers. As his pilgrimage—eating raw meat (Poehler), a childless and recently first movie director to be lured into Spanish California’s masked avenger, and fish, tumbling through rapids, divorced nurse, is compassionate to its mists. This new adaptation stars with a foppish cover identity and a and, for want of accommodation, a fault. When their parents (Dianne Michael Fassbender, at his moodiest propensity for swooping down on his sleeping inside a dead horse. The Wiest and James Brolin) sell the and most hard-bitten, as the title enemies out of nowhere, he is Robin sequence of hardships is so extreme family home in Orlando, the Ellis character, with Marion Cotillard as his Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and and so unrelenting as to verge on sisters rush there to clear out the wife. The film begins and ends on the Batman rolled into one. He didn’t the comical, but DiCaprio tamps room that they shared throughout battlefield, as if that were Macbeth’s need a molded bodysuit or special down any hint of levity, as does childhood. Once they’re back in their natural hunting ground; everything effects to give the audience a charge: the director, Alejandro González home town, their old friends turn up, in between has the quality of a bad he did it with comic showmanship Iñárritu. Though Iñárritu’s eye is as along with memories, frustrations, and agonizing dream. (Could Lady and physical exuberance. In Zorro’s restless as it was in his last movie, and grudges. Maura needs to cut

In Corneliu Porumboiu’s “The Treasure,” opening Jan. 8, a hunt for a hidden inheritance in a suburb of Bucharest sheds light on Romanian history and politics. KM FILM ADI MARINECI/42 COURTESY

10 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 loose, Kate needs to calm down, and against formidable odds. Second, be seen coming around the corner, that evokes heroes of legend while both seek to fulfill their needs by Saul recognizes, among the dead, his the colossal battles and colorful bringing sociological abstractions throwing a wild party in the empty own son, and much of the movie is catastrophes feel anticlimactic, and to mucky life. In Romanian.—R.B. house. The belabored raunchiness of driven by his quest for a rabbi to say the meticulously designed futuristic (Film Society of Lincoln Center and the humor is further burdened with the mourner’s Kaddish for the child. weaponry and outfits never rise to IFC Center.) facile psychologizing. There are solid Somehow, Nemes finds a balance: his symbolic significance. Despite the subjects at hand—adults’ seemingly exhausting movie pays its respects copious servings of tragic threats and Youth unending adolescence, the burden of but also burns with rage.—A.L. (In good feelings, the production sinks Most of the new Paolo Sorrentino solitude in middle age, the unspoken limited release.) under the weight of its emotional film is set in a peaceable spa, where demands of family ties—but they calculation.—R.B. (In wide release.) Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine), a remain undeveloped. Directed by Star Wars: The Force Awakens famous British composer, is taking it Jason Moore.—R.B. (In wide release.) The director J. J. Abrams infuses the The Treasure easy. He has largely given up work, latest installment of George Lucas’s In his earlier films, such as “Police, whereas his old friend Mick Boyle Son of Saul intergalactic franchise with the spirit Adjective,” Corneliu Porumboiu showed (Harvey Keitel)—a movie director, The first feature film by László Nemes of Steven Spielberg in this awestruck, contemporary Romanians excavating trailed by a screenwriter and other confronts a subject that many people warmhearted, and good-humored the country’s troubled history by means hangers-on—is still entrapped in would prefer not to think about, let action spectacle. It’s centered on of language. In this mordant caper, he the coils of creative endeavor. Also alone to cast in dramatic form. In death the search for Luke Skywalker by shows them doing so by means of present are Miss Universe (Madalina camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, the organized Resistance to the evil shovels. Negoescu, an unemployed Diana Ghenea), a discontented the Sonderkommando were teams dominion of the First Order. That publisher and a member of Bucharest’s film star (Paul Dano), and a lackey of prisoners who were forced to oppressive successor to the Empire struggling middle class, asks his from Buckingham Palace who begs deal with other prisoners as they wants to extinguish the last of the Jedi, neighbor Costi, a low-level housing Fred to fulfill a royal request (Alex arrived—herding them into the gas whose help the Resistance fighters official, for money to rent a metal Macqueen). Sorrentino circles these chambers, sorting through their need. Abrams recruits a remarkable detector. Negoescu wants to scan family various figures with his usual suavity, discarded clothes, and ferrying their new posse of actors—including Oscar property in the suburbs; he suspects compiling a collective meditation bodies to the furnaces. A movie that Isaac, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, that his great-grandfather buried on the woes of old age and the staged all this in detail would not be and Adam Driver—to play a batch valuables there at the time of the frustrations of art. The result feels watchable, or even defensible; what of new characters, yet for all their Communist takeover in the nineteen- both sumptuous and aimless, as if Nemes does, therefore, is to focus flair and presence they have little forties. Costi puts up the money, the we were leafing idly through an album on one such assistant, a Hungarian acting to do (though Driver shines pair decide to split what they find, and of delectable sights—of sounds, too, Jew named Saul Ausländer (Géza in his moment of theatrical excess). they head to the site with Cornel, the as when Fred gathers the natural Röhrig), whom we see in almost Abrams, who co-wrote the script with detector’s cantankerous owner and noises of a valley into a tone poem every shot. The film shows not the Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt, operator; under his guidance, they start of his own imagining. Three women horror of the events around him but stage-manages some breathlessly digging. Stories of nineteenth-century lend the film fire: Rachel Weisz, as his reaction to them; his dark stare clever plotting, but he also plays political upheavals adorn Negoescu’s Fred’s grievance-driven daughter; does the work on our behalf. There every gesture and every gag, every family lore, and the property itself, Jane Fonda, as an indestructible is a plot here—two separate plots, in sigh and every whoop to the balcony, with its multiple layers of modification diva; and Paloma Faith, as a pop fact, which might be thought excessive, and he milks decades of nostalgia with and renovation, tells tales of historical star in a funny pastiche of a music although they crystallize the fervor the stagy entrances of Carrie Fisher, crises. Filming with long, ironically video—the energetic hot spot of the and the despair of the inmates. First, Harrison Ford, and Mark Hamill. balanced takes, Porumboiu delivers an film.—A.L. (12/7/15) (In limited there is an uprising and a breakout, Some of the grandest moments can ingeniously intricate goofball comedy release.)

512 W. 19th St. 212-255-5793. Jan. “Verb List”; “Culture Administration 6-9. Through Jan. 16.) & Trembling,” a collection of self- described “medicine dances” created Noche Flamenca / “Antigona” and assembled by Antonija Livingstone, Soledad Barrio, the star of this New Jennifer Lacey, Dominique Pétrin, York-based flamenco troupe, takes and Stephen Thompson; and “Durch DANCE the role of Sophocles’ Antigone, Nacht und Nebel,” in which the veteran in an adaptation by her husband, wild woman Yvonne Meier pointedly Martín Santangelo, that turns the displays her Venus of Willendorf Greek drama into a kind of flamenco figure. (americanrealness.com. Jan. opera. A dance ensemble plays the 7-12. Through Jan. 17.) chorus; Antigone’s tormentor, Creon, Daniil Simkin’s INTENSIO and Gregory Dolbashian, may not be is embodied by the singer Manuel COIL 2016 The Russian star’s new venture is a particularly profound, but they have Gago. The amalgam of flamenco and P.S. 122’s annual performance festival small contemporary-ballet ensemble— a hip, stylish, modern edge. (Joyce Greek drama is surprisingly effective. presents the première of “Panopticon,” or “art project,” as Simkin describes Theatre, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th St. (West Park Presbyterian Church, 165 by the choreographer and video it—in which he and a handful of 212-242-0800. Jan. 5-10.) W. 86th St. 212-868-4444. Jan. 6-9 artist Jillian Peña. Alluding to the colleagues perform works by cho- and Jan. 11-12. Through Jan. 23.) circular architectural design of the reographers with whom he has an “Big Dance: Short Form” same name—used in prisons and aesthetic affinity. It’s also something After twenty-five years at the juncture American Realness made famous by Foucault in his book of a family affair: an interactive video between experimental theatre, dance, It can be something of an in-crowd “Discipline & Punish”—it’s a duet of for one of the pieces was designed and performance art, Big Dance echo chamber—last year, the self-pity multiplied images, a philosophical by Simkin’s father, who shares his Theatre treats itself to a bit of a quotient was disturbingly high—but Busby Berkeley kaleidoscope. Among son’s interest in immersive computer retrospective, with an evening of short this festival is New York’s foremost the dance-centric offerings is also a graphics and technology. The danc- works. The vignettes and sketches sampler of boundary-pushing perfor- welcome reprise of David Neumann’s ers, with one exception, hail from are drawn from disparate sources: mance that shares borders with dance. “I Understand Everything Better.” Simkin’s home company, American the diaries of a seventeenth-century Amid more than a dozen productions At once intensely personal and as Ballet Theatre. (It’s an excellent English dance master, the Alpine at Abrons Arts Center, MOMA theatrically stylized as Noh or Kabuki group that includes the luminous children’s book “Heidi.” What binds PS1, and Gibney Dance Center, the theatre, it’s an original and affecting Isabella Boylston and Calvin Royal.) all of the various ingredients together premières include “Dead, Disappears,” meditation on death and nature. The dances, by Alexander Ekman, is sharp timing, wit, and a captivating a solo by the dogged Heather Kravas, (Various locations. 212-352-3101. Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Jorma Elo, clarity of execution. (The Kitchen, inspired by Richard Serra’s 1967 work Jan. 6-12. Through Jan. 17.)

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 11 Museums and Libraries are Russia’s most renowned living multiple exposures: ecstatic jumbles Metropolitan Museum artists; in 1988, before they began of bodies, trees, windows, and walls “Korea: 100 Years of collaborating, Ilya won acclaim for his overlaid with pools of neon-bright Collecting at the Met” slapstick-utopian installations—alle- color. A ghostly, faux-solarized effect For too long, the art of the so-called gories of Soviet life—the best known recalls Man Ray, but a closer affinity hermit kingdom was neglected in the of which is “The Man Who Flew is the Joshua Light Show’s pulsing West in favor of art from China and Into Space from His Apartment.” psychedelia, giving the work a rock- Japan; indeed, many of the Met’s early But the two new painting series in and-roll energy that’s relieved by the Korean acquisitions were initially this exhibition are uneven. “The occasional balletic swoon. Through miscatalogued as Japanese, including Two Times” pairs pseudo-Poussin Jan. 16. (Zwirner, 519 W. 19th St. a charming chrysanthemum-dotted pastorals with desaturated scenes of 212-517-8677.) tea bowl on view here. It took years Soviet youth to intentionally schlocky before the museum began collecting effect. Better is “Six Paintings About Ray Yoshida Korean art in earnest, notably the ex- the Temporary Loss of Eyesight,” in Little by little, show by show, the ART quisite celadon ceramics of the Goryeo which ambiguous scenes of a beached seriously wacky, surreal Chicagoan art dynasty (918-1392): vases painted with boat or a bourgeois living room are that emerged in the nineteen-sixties cranes and lotus flowers and small oil overlaid with hundreds of irregularly wears down the snooty resistance of bottles splashed with a red underglaze. spaced polka dots, as if to lay a veil New York tastes. Born in Hawaii, Museums Short List Liturgical art works are less numerous, across memory. Through Jan. 23. Yoshida (1930-2009) was an avuncular Metropolitan Museum but no less beautiful. Two charming (Pace, 510 W. 25th St. 212-255-4044.) figure for the artists he taught at the “Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s gilt-bronze statues from the eighth Art Institute, before they banded Drawings from the Collection of century depict a standing Buddha; in Deborah Kass together as the Hairy Who. This Ricky Jay.” Opens Jan. 8. a faded but still impressive painting You might know the veteran New show, consisting mostly of works made Museum of Modern Art from the thirteenth century, he sits York artist from her new public circa 1968-1974, features drawings in “Jackson Pollock: A Collection flanked by bodhisattvas, circles of sculpture, a bright-yellow “OY” or felt-tip pen of neat, lurkingly animate Survey, 1934–1954.” Through March 13. gold radiating from his enlightened “YO,” depending on your vantage piles of rock shapes and womb-like head. Through March 27. point, which was installed recently theatrical spaces, reminiscent of MOMA PS1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Her new the great outsider Martin Ramirez. “Greater New York.” 3 Through March 7. paintings scramble the boundary The muted colors amaze. Yoshida’s Galleries—Uptown between invention and appropria- browns can seem to entrap reds that Guggenheim Museum Roger Mayne tion to unsettling effect. Snippets are screaming to get out. Through “Photo-Poetics: An Anthology.” Through March 23. London was still reeling from the of text (song lyrics, book titles) Jan. 30. (Nolan, 527 W. 29th St. Second World War when Mayne, who appear with allusions to recent 212-925-6190.) Whitney Museum died in 2014, began photographing its art history: Jackson Pollock drips, “Rachel Rose: Everything and 3 More.” Through Feb. 7. working-class neighborhoods, in the Jasper Johns stencils, Bruce Nauman late nineteen-fifties. His pictures of neon—parodies of market-friendly Galleries—Downtown Brooklyn Museum children at play amid rubble-strewn vapidity. (An Ellsworth Kellyesque Guo Fengyi “Agitprop!” Through Aug. 7. lots and graffiti-covered walls are piece quotes Katy Perry, “We’ll be The self-taught Chinese artist, who Frick Collection portraits of resilience. Helen Levitt young forever.”) There may be one died in 2010, began making art in “Andrea del Sarto: The is an obvious precedent, and Mayne too many layers of irony here, but her late forties after being sidelined Renaissance Workshop in Action.” Through Jan. 10. shared her love of youthful sponta- Kass deserves credit for attempting from factory work by severe arthritis. neity and her feel for the social life critique. Through Jan. 23. (Kasmin, On vertical scrolls and scroll-like Studio Museum in Harlem of the street. He kept his distance 515 W. 27th St. 212-563-4474.) lengths of rice paper or cloth, some “A Constellation.” Through March 6. from strolling businessmen in their nearly fourteen feet tall, bundled suits, but nudged closer to gaggles of Sharon Lockhart lines in colored inks build heraldic galleries Short List slick-haired teddy boys, even when Milena, the Polish teen-ager at the or pod-like forms. The imagery is Uptown Jane Freilicher one put up a hand to hold him off. center of Lockhart’s new work, is partially figurative but abstract over De Nagy Mayne wasn’t discouraged; he just an intriguing cipher. In a triptych all; its rhythmic execution suggests 724 Fifth Ave., at 57th St. stepped back and found a better of photographs, she poses behind occult gods and rites. Works can go 212-262-5050. angle. Through Jan. 23. (Gitterman, a dining table, ducks away, then goofy, with cute faces, or fearsome, Through Jan. 23. 41 E. 57th St. 212-734-0868.) peeks out at us, shy and charming. with shapes like exposed viscera, Zak Kitnick 3 In a video projection inspired by the but their swirling energies beggar Boone final sequence of Truffaut’s “The 400 interpretation. They are gorgeous. 745 Fifth Ave., at 57th St. Galleries—Chelsea Blows,” the same girl is seen running They overwhelm. Through Jan. 31. 212-752-2929. Monica Baer through the Polish countryside to an (Edlin, 212 Bowery, at Spring St. Opens Jan. 8. How can this be the first New York empty beach, where she turns away 212-206-9723.) Chelsea solo exhibition of this wonderful from the sea to face the camera with Tauba Auerbach German painter, who has shown a look that melts from satisfaction Robert Smithson Cooper in Europe since the early nineties? into disappointment. It’s poignant, In the early sixties, before Smithson 534 W. 21st St. 212-255-1105. Here she shares intoxicating works but Lockhart’s investment in Milena headed west to construct his famous Opens Jan. 9. about intoxication, in two styles. The doesn’t fully pay off in this rigorously “Spiral Jetty” in the Great Salt Lake, Coco Fusco first series is large and black, with pared-down installation. There’s more the twenty-something artist made Pop Gray drifting swatches of white or pastel mystery, nuance, and substance in collages and drawings whose imagery 508 W. 26th St. 212-399-2636. Opens Jan. 9. impasto, shards of broken mirror, and an adjacent room full of the artist’s interlaced comics and soft-core porn. ghostly renderings of liquor labels. rephotographed family snapshots. Bad news: they’re terrible. Buxom babes Downtown “Order” The second, larger and pale, situates Through Jan. 23. (Gladstone, 515 and beefcake boys, at times decked Essex Street realist images of liquor bottles at the W. 24th St. 212-206-9300.) out in gas masks and feathered war 114 Eldridge St. 917-263-1001. bottoms of luminous pastel washes, bonnets, float amid doodled lightning Through Jan. 31. with inconspicuous sketches of silly James Welling bolts, ringing appropriated movie stills “A Wasteland” faces. The paintings are lovely, droll, Continuing the layered abstraction or geometric arrangements (which Lomex and altogether transporting. Welcome and vivid color seen in his recent are the only taste here of the artist’s 134 Bowery. 917-667-8541. to Manhattan, Monica! Through Jan. photographs of Philip Johnson’s Glass brilliant later work). The show’s ideal Through Jan. 24. 16. (Greene Naftali, 508 W. 26th St. House, Welling meshes images of ar- viewer is the Smithson obsessive, 212-463-7770.) chitecture and landscape with portraits who will see just how radically his of dancers, in his incandescent new non-sites and earthworks ruptured Ilya and Emilia Kabakov series, “Choreograph.” The pictures not only the history of sculpture but Though they now live on Long involve digital manipulation, but the his own juvenilia. Through Jan. 10. Island, this husband-and-wife team results look like old-school, in-camera (Cohan, 291 Grand St. 212-714-9500.)

12 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 cASical MUSIC

Opera Metropolitan Opera Franco Zeffirelli’s masterly production of Puccini’s “La Bohème,” now deep into its fourth decade, continues to cast an irresistible spell. Bryan Hymel, the rapidly rising tenor from New Orleans with a voice of heroic stature, takes the role of Rodolfo, leading a cast that also includes Maria Agresta, Susanna Phillips, and Quinn Kelsey; Dan Ettinger conducts. (Jan. 6 at 7:30 and Jan. 9 at 8.) • Jeremy Sams’s production of Johann Strauss II’s Lauren Worsham and John Kelly star in David T. Little’s devastating opera “Dog Days,” at N.Y.U.’s Skirball Center. “Die Fledermaus” maximizes the operetta’s Viennese milieu by setting the action on New Year’s Eve, 1899. But the forced fun that marred the fully committed production’s première, in 2013, has given way to a lighter, more confident The Prototype Festival redefines contemporary opera. touch from Susanna Phillips, Paulo Szot, Toby Spence, Lucy Crowe, and the delightful Susan Graham amidst the general uncertainty of New York’s operatic scene, the Prototype (who sports a spiky white wig as the Russian prince Orlofsky). Betsy Festival, an annual explosion of youthful energy spearheaded by Beth Morrison Projects and Wolfe and Christopher Fitzgerald, the experimental theatre space HERE, has built a clearly defined profile: brash, socially engaged, in the speaking roles of Ida and and substantially post-classical. This year’s lineup of seven productions, ofered Jan. 6-17 at a Frosch, bring plenty of dizzy, con- tagious energy to the show; James variety of progressive venues, acknowledges the expanding ambitions of the singer-songwriter Levine. (Jan. 7 at 7:30. This is the community with such shows as “Sága,” a plaintive theatrical song cycle presented by the Belgian final performance.) • Georges Bizet’s indie band Dez Mona and the period-instrument ensemble Baroque Orchestration X (at splendorous Orientalist fantasy from 1863, “Les Pêcheurs de Perles” National Sawdust). But three shows from classical composers are the most boldly innovative: (“The Pearl Fishers”)—in which the each partakes of the dark, dystopian mood that saturates popular culture, and the news cycle. composer first showed the kind of The hardy souls who travelled to Montclair, New Jersey, in 2012 to see the first performances talent that would propel “Carmen” to renown only a few years later—is of David T. Little’s “Dog Days” know that those attending the New York première of the show being presented at the Met for the (at N.Y.U.’s Skirball Center) will get a chance to experience the power of a modern classic. first time in a century, in a production The fantastic original cast (including the Tony-nominated soprano Lauren Worsham) has by Penny Woolcock. The radiant Diana Damrau is the Hindu princess reconvened to relay the shattering story, about an ordinary American family facing starvation Leïla, with Matthew Polenzani and and moral collapse in the midst of an unspecified apocalypse. The trenchant but elegantly Mariusz Kwiecień as the old friends phrased libretto is by Royce Vavrek—the indie Hofmannsthal—who has also collaborated with who each desire her; Gianandrea Noseda, always a potent presence on the eclectic young composer Du Yun for “Angel’s Bone,” a world-première work (at the 3LD Art the Met’s podium, conducts. (Jan. 8 and & Technology Center) which uses a fablelike tale of angels coming down to earth as a metaphor Jan. 12 at 7:30.) • In “Anna Bolena,” for the real-life problem of human traicking. There’s a distinguished import as well, from the Donizetti’s fanciful take on Tudor history, Henry VIII entraps his gifted Irish team of the composer Donnacha Dennehy, whose vibrantly post-minimalist music second wife with a former lover in has a kinship with Little’s, and the playwright Enda Walsh (“Once”): “The Last Hotel,” a grim order to have her executed. Earlier parable about assisted suicide, in its U.S. première (at St. Ann’s Warehouse). Might next year’s this season, Sondra Radvanovsky gave a towering performance as the festival include a comedy? wronged queen; Ildar Abdrazakov —Russell Platt sang the king with thuggish authority;

ILLUSTRATION BY JOOHEE YOON THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 13 and Jamie Barton was in sumptuous voice as his (including “Cäcilie”), and Wagner’s “Ride of the Recitals new paramour, Giovanna (Jane) Seymour. They Valkyries.” (David Geffen Hall. 212-875-5656. Jan. Bargemusic: Johnny Gandelsman all return, with Stephen Costello taking the role 7 and Jan. 12 at 7:30 and Jan. 8-9 at 8. Note: The Once a year or so, Gandelsman, one of the vio- of Anna’s onetime lover Percy; Marco Armiliato. quite different Saturday-matinée program, on Jan. linists of the cutting-edge string quartet Brooklyn (Jan. 9 at 1. This is the final performance.) • At 9 at 2, presents several of the orchestra’s principal Rider and a Curtis-trained phenom, brings his its best, the vast golden city that Franco Zeffirelli strings playing Grieg’s String Quartet, followed extraordinary musicianship and intrepid spirit to built for Puccini’s Chinese fairy tale “Turandot” by a performance of Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony, bear on Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo provides a gilt frame for the bold lyrical style of conducted by Gilbert.) Violin. His latest engagements are at the floating the composer’s final and most ambitious opera. chamber-music series, part of a week that begins This season, a clutch of big-name dramatic so- Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with a recital by the celebrated fiddler Mark pranos alternates in the punishing title role of Cincinnati’s orchestra, long a major ensemble, O’Connor and his wife, Maggie. (Fulton Ferry the ice princess with a penchant for executing has been led by such august maestros as Leopold Landing, Brooklyn. bargemusic.org. Jan. 8 at 8; her suitors. Christine Goerke began the run; Stokowski and Fritz Reiner. Louis Langrée, well Jan. 9 at 8 and Jan. 10 at 4.) now the company turns to another powerhouse known to New Yorkers as the music director of singer of Wagner and Strauss, the illustrious Mostly Mozart, is bringing his lithe and propulsive Gloria Cheng: “Montage” Nina Stemme, who leads a cast including Anita style to the orchestra these days; he leads them at Cheng, a pianist to be reckoned with in Los Hartig and Marco Berti, all under the baton of David Geffen Hall in an all-Tchaikovsky program Angeles and a distinguished new-music champion, Paolo Carignani. (Jan. 11 at 7:30.) (Metropolitan that begins with the Piano Concerto No. 1 in takes leave of the Left Coast for a recital at (Le) Opera House. 212-362-6000.) B-Flat Minor (with the exceptional young pianist Poisson Rouge which features solo works by such 3 Alexander Gavrylyuk) and the Fifth Symphony. major film composers as John Williams, Michael (212-721-6500. Jan. 6 at 8.) Giacchino, Randy Newman, and Alexandre Orchestras and Choruses Desplat. (158 Bleecker St. lpr.com. Jan. 10 at 8.) New York Philharmonic Artek: “A Medici Wedding” Eric Owens, the superlative American bass- Gwendolyn Toth’s honored early-music group Park Avenue Armory: Lisette Oropesa baritone, is enjoying a rich season residency with marks its thirtieth anniversary with a concert Dazzling vocal pyrotechnics are par for the course the Philharmonic. The reigning Alberich at the that brings sixty-two players and singers (veterans for lyric coloratura sopranos, but Oropesa is also Met, he takes on another great Wagnerian part, that of such ensembles as Piffaro and Pomerium) the rare singer who possesses a voice that can of Wotan, in a concert version of the final scene together for six “intermedii,” a set of musical easily fill an auditorium as vast as the Metro- from Act III of “Die Walküre” (which features “spectacles” written in 1589 by several composers politan Opera’s. This week, she performs in the the soprano Heidi Melton, in her Philharmonic (including Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini) for the decidedly more intimate space of the Armory’s début, singing the role of Brünnhilde). Alan Gilbert Florentine wedding of Ferdinando I de’ Medici Board of Officers Room, offering a recital of leads the program, which preludes the scene with and Christine de Lorraine. (Church of St. Jean Spanish and German art songs accompanied by Sibelius’s appropriately mythic tone poem “En Baptiste, Lexington Ave. at 76th St. gemsny. the pianist John Churchwell. (Park Ave. at 66th Saga,” a selection of Strauss lieder sung by Owens org. Jan. 9 at 8.) St. 212-933-5812. Jan. 12-13 at 7:30.)

above beyod

Three Kings Day Parade room fare and giving new dimension meated the literary community. Its and sharing funny anecdotes that For many New Yorkers, the holiday and scope to a potentially arduous title toys with the imagery associated elicit as many winces as they do season doesn’t end with the calendar planning process. In partnership with poetry readings, which take laughs. Black will read from his year. El Día de los Reyes, or Three with the world’s largest alternative place in rooms with white walls and latest novel and answer questions Kings Day, gives children one last wedding resource, Offbeat Bride, almost entirely white inhabitants. from the audience. (BookCourt, 163 grab at gifts on the twelfth day of Lovesick gathers more than thirty-five Much of Spahr’s work examines Court Street, Brooklyn. 718-875-3677. Christmas, marking the Biblical independent wedding venders and subjects this broad—9/11, Occupy Jan. 8 at 7.) adoration of Jesus by the Three planners, who want to outfit your Wall Street, her years spent living Wise Men. The thirty-ninth annual big day with winking attractions in Hawaii—and “White Room” Francesca Capone Three Kings Day Parade in East like screen-print stations, custom succeeds at framing a vast topic Capone enjoys both visual art and Harlem invites families to join a ice-cream flavors, and flowers grown through its most concrete elements: experimental literature as mediums. morning procession through the specifically for the occasion. Those the article examines the M.F.A. Her “Writing in Threads” exhibit, neighborhood, starting on the cor- inclined will find live performances, and Ph.D. markets, in an attempt shown last fall at the 99¢ gallery, ner of 106th Street and Lexington free food and drinks, giveaways, sur- to answer the “constant question” explored the intersections between Avenue and ending at 115th Street prises, and—the organizers stress—a it poses. The writers Tisa Bryant, writing and weaving. The accompa- at Park Avenue. Attractions include “gay-friendly, guy-friendly, unicorn- Christopher Stackhouse, and others nying book, published by Printed live camels, colorful puppets, musical friendly, actually-super-fun” atmo- will read from the text, and offer Matter, invites fifteen writers to performances from local bands, and sphere. (Red Hook Labs, 133 Imlay their own proposals. (Poetry Project, interpret Capone’s own weavings, traditional Puerto Rican food. El St., Brooklyn. lovesickexpo.com. 131 E. 10th St. 212-674-0910. created during her residency at the Museo del Barrio hosts the parade, Jan. 9 at 11.) Jan. 6 at 8.) Anni and Josef Albers Foundation. and offers free admission throughout She will read selections from “Writing the day. (elmuseo.org. Jan. 6 at 11.) Readings and Talks Michael Ian Black in Threads” and discuss the physical “White Room” The celebrated standup comedian forms of the written word with the Lovesick Expo Last September, the Los Angeles and Times best-selling author photographer Erica Baum, who takes Burlesque dancers, eccentric facial Review of Books published Juliana has turned his wickedly deadpan the printed page as her subject of hair, pounds and pounds of sequins— Spahr and Stephanie Young’s “The brand of humor on himself in his choice, and looks forward to 2016 the sixth annual installment of this Program Era and the Mainly White midlife memoir, “Navel Gazing.” showings at the Guggenheim and travelling expo showcases the wiliest Room,” which utilized data analysis Black receives a medical diagnosis the Metropolitan Museum. (Zinc trends in nontraditional weddings, and anecdotal evidence to underscore that forces him to reckon with his Bar, 82 W. 3rd St. 212-477-9462. shying away from the typical ball- a perceived whiteness that has per- age, examining his family history Jan. 9 at 4:30.)

14 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 FD & DRINK

BAR TAB the carnegie club 156 W. 56th St. (212-957-9676) This elegant two-story cigar lounge Tables for Two has the aura of a friendly den of iniquity: leather couches, red striped babu ji wallpaper, stone fireplace, polite patrons, huge ashtrays, cottony clouds 175 Avenue B (212-951-1082) of smoke floating by like weather systems. On Sinatra Saturdays, Steven Maglio and the Stan Rubin Orchestra the hindi term “babu i” can be an honorific for a male village elder; in Alphabet perform impeccable standards to City it’s the animating spirit behind the liveliest dinner party on the block. The new a spiffy crowd drinking single-malt Indian restaurant from Jessi Singh and his wife, Jennifer, is loud and boisterous, what Scotch and puffing cigars to their with the clanging of stainless-steel plates, the flatware in constant rotation, and the heart’s content. “There ain’t no nicer laughter of high-spirited patrons (the forty-five-minute wait is softened with a discount witch than you,” Maglio sang on a voucher for a bar down the street). The black-and-white dining room is full of quirky recent evening, pointing at a woman touches: diner-bright lighting, Bollywood musicals projected in a high corner, a walking by. Maglio, a fifty-seven-year- old New Jerseyite, has Sinatra’s easy taxidermied peacock atop a bodega refrigerator full of craft beers. charm, during and between songs. Singh hails from Chandigarh by way of Australia, where he honed his playful style. “As Dean Martin used to say, you can’t His dishes wear bold garnishes—brightly colored flowers, shredded beets—like edible buy happiness, but you can pour it,” fascinators. One Friday night, two diners opted for the superb chef ’s menu, made up of he told the audience. By the bar, an street snacks followed by the day’s selection of curries, which, on any given night, might ex-prizefighter with a lighter flame include lamb, chicken, or a raw scallop, plus daal, rice, and naan. Singh started with gol like a torch smoked, snapped, and gappa, a hollow crispy-fried puri, filled with tamarind, dates, and yogurt. He said, “One bite, grooved. “Ring-a-ding-ding, you’re so lovely,” Maglio sang. Offstage, he please!” and they obliged, though one woman lost her tiny green sprout. Her companion explained his career path. “Before I said, “You know, that’s a trend in China,” referring to the fashion of plastic headbands with started singing, I had an aluminum- a single green shoot that took that country by storm this year. Next he brought them crispy awning company,” he said. At thirty- croquettes of hung yogurt—the Indian version of Greek yogurt, strained and thick—with five, he began secretly taking singing a zingy fuchsia-colored beetroot-ginger sauce and an edible orchid too pretty to eat. One of lessons; after eight years, he told his Singh’s neatest tricks was his “Colonel Tso’s” cauliflower, lightly fried and served piping hot wife. “I don’t miss the awning business in a tomato-chili sauce. This imitation isn’t flattery, it’s superiority. at all,” he said. For an encore, he sang “That’s Life.” In the back, three waiters The aggressively casual atmosphere encourages inter-table socializing. On another danced. Maglio wound up to the big night, as a gentleman in a trucker hat signed his check, he eyed his neighbors’ massive finish. A waiter in a white tux twirled tandoori tiger prawns. “Do you want some?” they ofered. “Make sure you get some of a waitress in a black dress and pearls, the sauce.” He used his fingers to dip the fatty flesh into a cinnamon-pineapple chutney, then dipped her low. “I’m gonna wildly sweet and hot. The “unauthentic butter chicken” was a sleeper hit. It sounded bland roll myself up in a big ball and die!” enough to avoid yet tasted anything but, with a fiery curry of milk, ginger, garlic, tomato, Maglio sang. “My, my.” fenugreek, and garam masala. The vegetarian coconut-milk curry contained cubes of —Sarah Larson squash roasted to such a perfect consistency you might think it was meat. Desserts were all dairy-based palate soothers, like a standout kulfi—a nutty, sweet Popsicle of pistachio and cardamom ice cream—and gulab jamun, cheese dumplings. They tasted like the oiliest doughnuts you’ve ever had, and came topped with gold leaf and a flower that nobody ate. —Silvia Killingsworth

ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL KRALL DANIEL BY ILLUSTRATION Open daily for dinner. Entrées $14-$25.

PHOTOGRAPH BY WILLIAM MEBANE THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 15

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT THE NEXT GREAT FAMINE

even hundred years ago this month, people across north- catastrophes, though, were visited on a population that had S ern Europe saw a comet in the sky and feared the worst. been left physically weak and divided by the famine, which, They were already running out of food. It had rained too in turn, increased the damage they did. If nothing else, the much in 1315—sometimes every day for weeks at a stretch. hard times of seven centuries ago demonstrate that hunger Wheat, barley, and oats rotted in the fields, and it was too has both moral and political costs. wet to make hay. Then, after an unusually cold winter, the Another reason the Great Famine has been passed over is rains started again, and the 1316 harvest failed, too. Grapes that its origins seemed so prosaic, compared with the dynas- in vineyards were covered with a fuzzy mildew, and, one ob- tic struggles of the time. It’s a story about the weather. The server wrote, “there was no wine in the whole kingdom of famine, as Rosen notes, occurred almost precisely at the di- France.” There wasn’t much bread, either. The historian Wil- viding point between what is known as the Medieval Warm liam Chester Jordan, in his book “The Great Famine,” re- Period (M.W.P.), which was three centuries of fairly mild counts how Parisians first put to the wheel and then exiled a weather in Europe, and the Little Ice Age, which lasted until group of bakers whom they accused of bolstering their loaves about 1850. But even just half a century ago some historians with waste. Across the Continent, there was also a severe treated the rain as incidental to the famine. For them, the shortage of salt—used to make cheese and to preserve food— problem was that Europe’s population had grown too quickly, since there was not enough sun to dry the salt pans on the and the peasants irresponsibly farmed land so marginal that Baltic and North Sea coasts. In 1317, the rains came again. the slightest disruption could be disastrous. The famine was Storms washed away not only newly planted grain—which a Malthusian issue, as those historians saw it, or one of agri- was already scarce, because farmers had begun eating their cultural practices, not primarily a climate-related disaster. seed corn to survive—but also topsoil and dikes. Sheep and More recently, politicians who think that worrying about cattle, standing in cold, muddy pastures, began dying of climate change is a waste of time have pointed to this period infection. People died, too, from malnutrition and illness. as proof that there is nothing strange about things getting a In some regions of Europe, the Great little warmer every now and then. The Famine of 1315-17 killed a tenth of the M.W.P. is a particular obsession of Sen- population, shattering social norms and ator James Inhofe, of Oklahoma, the local economies. Villages were abandoned, chairman of the Environment and Pub- religious houses were dispersed, and minor lic Works Committee, who has said that feudal lords pawned their land to who- scientists have ignored it in their attempt ever could pay. Peasants and the urban to perpetrate the “hoax” of climate change. poor were left to fend for themselves. One problem with that position is that, And yet the Great Famine is not as well while parts of Europe were warmer during known as it might be; William Rosen, the M.W.P., the world as a whole was the author of “The Third Horseman,” not. For this reason, some scientists pre- calls it “the famine history forgot.” In fer to call it the Medieval Climatic part, this is because of what followed it: Anomaly. And today, it appears, the world the Black Death, which reached Europe as a whole is warmer. in 1347 and killed a third of the popu- One of the most important insights lation; and the Hundred Years’ War, which of recent studies is that, when the was fought between 1337 and 1453, and climate changes, it can do so swiftly

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATIONS was as brutal a slog as it sounds. Those and relentlessly. It is possible, in a human

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 17 lifetime, to see sea levels rise and ice shelves break away, and, become more and more erratic and extreme. A failed mon- when they do, nothing about what happens next can be taken soon can mean that the rain hasn’t come, or that it has come for granted. The climate record is full of sudden disasters. in the wrong place for the wrong amount of time. In recent Studies have also clarified some of the mechanisms of the years, India has experienced droughts but also floods, like the relationship between climate and shorter-term weather; a one that wreaked havoc in Chennai in December. Last year, 2010 report on the M.W.P., published in the journal Climate in a report on possible monsoon failures, The Economist noted Dynamics, looked at the connections between the rain in that “immense cloudbursts in Uttarakhand killed over 6,000 Europe, the temperature of the Indo-Pacific warm pool, and people in 2013.” And India’s polluted, particle-heavy air can the flood levels of the Nile. The Great Famine looks like a make the rain fall harder. fourteenth-century example of what we now call extreme At the outset of the Great Famine, when peasants first took weather. We are also learning how, in our own time, chang- the measure of their ruined fields, many of them thought that ing ocean temperatures can cause shifts in El Niño, the name they were alone—that the disaster was confined to their area. given to a collection of weather patterns that originate in the Soon, though, as travellers returned or hungry armies passed Pacific and stretch across the globe; a “Godzilla El Niño” is through, and when the peasants themselves went to market, credited for the oddly warm weather in the Northeast this and saw how steeply prices were rising, they learned the ex- winter. We have built cities and economies on assumptions tent of it. “The whole world was troubled,” a chronicler in about the seasons that may prove unstable. The best models Salzburg wrote. Many peasants took to the road, joining a mi- we have now project that, as a consequence of climate change, gration to cities, only to die there and be buried in mass graves. the frequency of extreme-weather events, from superstorms In Paris, priests led barefoot worshippers in processions meant to droughts, will increase sharply. to show contrition. Seven hundred years later, scientists armed A particularly alarming prospect is the sustained failure with climate models met with politicians in the same city. of the South Asian monsoon. The food supply for more than They didn’t need to watch for signs and wonder, as in the days a billion people relies on the rains of the monsoon season. of the comet of 1315-16. They knew what was coming. Models suggest that, in the next century, monsoons will —Amy Davidson

FITNESS DEPT. workout before, in 2012, for Disney’s watched all the movies within, like, a SABERS UP animated film “Brave.”) week.” She had not yet seen the new Lamb made sure the twenty or so film when she designed the workout, exercisers had the right equipment: one but “ran to the theatre” as soon as it yoga mat; two Frisbee-shaped “gliding came out, she said. “I changed some disks,” for sliding along the floor (these, of the names of the exercises after I she said, were “a nod to the ice planet”); saw it.” one toy lightsaber. A latecomer with a Lisa Hufcut, the director of P.R. for t New York Sports Clubs’ Chel- tattoo on his calf ran in. “I need a sword!” the company that owns N.Y.S.C., said A sea branch one recent Tuesday, he cried. that the partnership is ideal, because employees were rushing to remove An electronic dance remix of the Disney “is looking for a way to incor- toy lightsabers from their plastic pack- “Star Wars” theme started. Imitating porate their brand into the fitness de- aging. Amira Lamb, an exercise in- Lamb, the class began with wide-legged mographic.” She added, “We’re seeing structor, took her place in a brightly plié squats, lightsabers held aloft. When people come in who may not be regu- lit mirrored studio and explained that they pulled the lightsabers down in lar exercisers, but who love ‘Star Wars.’ ” instead of her usual cardio-kickbox- front of their faces, the toys unexpect- In the studio, Lamb led the group ing class she would be leading a “Star edly lit up and emitted tinkly battle into Lunge Like Luke. The exercisers Wars” workout, which she’d designed sounds. “Oh!” Lamb said. Smiles spread assumed the lunge position, lightsabers at the behest of Disney and Lucasfilm. around the room, in recognition of the held high, then brought their back Lamb, who is petite and has dark universal truth that it’s really fun to knees forward while lowering their sa- eyes, had her crinkly hair pulled back wave around a long stick. bers, and reassumed the lunge, light- with two clips. She has a devoted fol- The names of the rapid cardio sets, sabers lifted, as fast as they could. lowing and is beloved by her mostly each lasting about sixty or ninety sec- Between exercises, the class did plié female students for her distinctive onds, were written on the mirror in blue squats, guided by breathing. “I think playlists and her eicient full-body and red marker. They included Light- of the Force like Chi,” Lamb told them. approach. saber Leaps, Skywalker Press, Jedi Jacks, The music transitioned into a remix Many regulars seemed confused Padawan Pushups, and “Help Me, Obi- of “Starships,” by Nicki Minaj. The group about the new workout, which was called Wan!” A few were variations of Lamb’s dropped the lightsabers on the floor and Awaken Your Inner Force. One young usual exercises. (The Chewbacca Chop, jump-squatted over them to perform woman said that she wasn’t really a “Star in a non-“Star Wars” context, is the Lightsaber Leaps. For the Skywalker Wars” fan. Wood Chop.) Press, the participants assumed a down- “It’s still cardio,” Lamb explained. “I’m still kind of new to this whole ward-dog position, moved into a plank, (She had designed a movie-themed ‘Star Wars’ thing,” Lamb admitted. “I brought the left leg forward, returned

18 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 to a downward dog, and then repeated Logan, who plays Mrs. Hughes, the Africa. They were cooked up with a bit the sequence with the right leg. housekeeper, met for breakfast at the of salt and chili—delicious. I could quite Lightsabers clattered against each Lambs Club. “Initially, the idea was that happily live on insects.” other, and one knocked over a water the series started in 1912, when the world Carter raised his eyebrows and warned, bottle. Even the regulars had trouble of the big estates were in their pomp,” “Now you are going to get all kinds of keeping up with Lamb. The playlist was Carter said. “The second season was to weirdos posting you creepy crawlies.” punctuated by sound bites from the show the war, when things changed and Carter’s bacon and Logan’s eggs “Star Wars” movies, such as R2D2 beep- the workforce was decimated. People arrived. “I said soft, not raw,” she mut- ing and Leia calling out, “Help me, lost their respect for the traditional ways tered, as the waiter departed. Obi-Wan Kenobi!” The class divided that things were done. Then the third Season Five saw the long-anticipated into two groups and faced of, in an ap- season was to be the decline. But the proposal of marriage from Mr. Carson proximation of the dark and light sides success of the show overtook it—and of the Force. Lamb said, “At some point, we realized the success was due to the switching to the dark side is allowed!” relationships rather than the social mi- By Saber Push/Combat Burpees, lieu, so we slowed down the march of many in the class were breathing heav- history and concentrated more on the ily. The exercise involved jumping with relationships.” Even while showing a both arms in the air, rolling along the time of great change, Carter observed, floor, then standing and jumping again. “Downton” seemed to ofer modern au- To motivate the huing stragglers, diences a world of certainties. “But today Lamb said, “If you feel like you’re dying, is an era of massive uncertainty,” he said. just think about the breath. The breath “You’ve got supine governments who is the Force.” give no moral leadership. The idea of The class ended with a cooldown leadership is to bomb people.” move called Yoda Flow, which Lamb Logan gave precise orders for the said was inspired by Tai Chi. After- making of her tea—“Several teabags, ward, a regular named Katherine Huala and a jug of cold milk,” she said, as if in- pronounced the new workout much structing a neophyte kitchen maid— Jim Carter and Phyllis Logan harder than the usual cardio kickbox- while Carter ordered bacon. “Not so ing. She is a “Star Wars” fan, but doesn’t crispy that it disintegrates when you look to Mrs. Hughes; the couple is the object love the more recent prequels. “Too at it—I want it to put up a bit of a fight,” of numerous tribute videos on YouTube. much C.G.I.,” she said. he told the waiter. Today’s social divi- “It moved at the rate of a glacier, didn’t —Cora Frazier sions, Carter observed, are based less on it?” Carter said, with afection. Logan 1 birth than on wealth: “The divides be- agreed: “A snail on Prozac.” In one forth- THIS CHANGING WORLD tween the haves and the have-nots are coming episode, Mr. Carson is seen cast- FINAL CURTAIN grotesque, and here we are, sitting right ing a last look around his bedroom. “It in the temple of consumerism.” is like a cell, with very few personal pos- “And people are still sitting in the sessions; and for forty or more years that street, begging,” Logan said. has been my life, and we are saying good- “Logically, it must implode, because bye to it,” Carter said. The scene serves the have-nots are going to outnumber as a metaphor for the social transition the haves, and they are going to come the series has chronicled, he added. o farewell, “Downton Abbey.” The looking for them,” Carter said. “They Post-“Downton,” Logan expects to S sixth and final season of the series are swarming through Europe now. We take a break. “I am hanging fire until the just began on PBS’s “Masterpiece,” pro- are looking at a mass migration like the right thing grabs me,” she said. Carter is viding resolution to its viewers’ most Second World War, and it is agony to devoting his energies to a charity called pressing concerns. Will Lady Mary re- see people with nothing living in camps WandAid. “It’s like Band Aid, but with marry? Will Anna be able to have a baby? next to civilized European cities.” magic,” he said. He’s already done magic Will the accelerating demise of the Brit- “And then there’s global warming,” in refugee camps in Calais, he explained, ish aristocracy—precipitated by the in- Logan said. “We can’t keep draining the and reeled of skills not called upon at dustrial revolution, hastened by the First world’s resources as we have done.” Downton: “I used to be a good tightrope World War, and decisively signalled by “Here we are in New York—there walker, good juggler. Unicyclist. Stilt the election of Britain’s first Labour-led must be a state law that says that you walker.” He’s also making a documentary government, in 1923—consign the can’t be more than five feet from food about Lonnie Donegan, the pioneering Granthams and their household to the at any point, and half the world is starv- British pop musician. “The success of rubbish heap of history, where they right- ing,” Carter added. ‘Downton’ means diferent things to all fully belong? “I think we’ll all become insecti- of us, I suppose,” Carter concluded. “We Last month, Jim Carter, who plays vores,” Logan said. “Seriously. I’ve eaten are all at diferent stages of our careers.” Mr. Carson, the butler, and Phyllis insects—they are very tasty. It was in “Well, most of our career is behind

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 19 us,” Logan remarked, sipping her tea. Tom is Thomas Newton (Michael C. Hey’s arrangements can be unex- Carter chuckled, and had a last bite Hall), an alien stranded on our planet, pected. “David had a vision about how of bacon. “We have got a lovely future who drinks gin, eats Twinkies, and sings, the script would work with certain songs,” behind us,” he said. pining for home, staggering around amid Hey said. “ ‘This Is Not America’ is quite —Rebecca Mead secondary characters and van Hovean a departure from the ‘Falcon and the 1 splendor—video magic, blue wigs, black Snowman’ version. David said, ‘It should THERE BUT NOT THERE balloons, milk blood, a rocket ship drawn be something strange.’ I adapted it to GROUND CONTROL in masking tape. The show has con- this misty sound. It should be mysteri- founded critics and audiences since it ous, because here we have Sophia sing- opened, in November, but its songs— ing it.” Sophia Anne Caruso, fourteen, sailors fighting in the dance hall, chil- plays Girl, an otherworldly blond waif dren immune to your consultations— who appears in Newton’s house. “Life are familiar. So is the feeling that Bowie on Mars,” a potential showstopper sung enry Hey met David Bowie in is there but not there. The movie ver- by Caruso, was arranged with restraint. H 2012, when the producer Tony sion featured Bowie but not his songs; “I did not want it to feel that all of a Visconti asked him to play some key- “Lazarus” has the songs but not the man. sudden we’ve turned a corner and it’s board parts on Bowie’s album “The Next Hey leads the seven-piece house band, become Broadway,” Hey said. Day.” It went well. “I was told that David which he assembled. It performs at the Cristin Milioti, as Newton’s love- asked for me back,” Hey said recently. back of the stage. Its drummer, Brian crazed assistant, sings “Changes” quietly, “I think we had a good rapport. ” Hey, Delaney, has played with the New York then thrashingly. “It needs to fit her char- now the music director of the Bowie- Dolls. Hey said, “I didn’t want a typical acter,” Hey said. “She’s truly unhinged. driven musical “Lazarus,” at New York Broadway band. I wanted a rock band. David and I sat down—he was at the Theatre Workshop, was sitting on a There’s a scene in a bar, and the band piano—and went through it section by chaise longue in the theatre’s basement, sounds like it’s a drunken bar band. It section: start slow and pastoral, then he an hour before curtain, surrounded by needs to sound like that.” Brynn Wil- suggested swing. ” wilted bouquets, prop gin bottles, and liams, who plays Teenage Girl 3, skipped “Heroes,” the finale, “really got trans- bags of inflated balloons. He wore black. by, wearing earbuds and singing. “I formed,” Hey said. “David wasn’t sure it Hey has curtains of wiry dark hair and needed a special guitarist to play all this should be there. It’s this giant trium- a kind face. He described getting a call fiery stuf, these solos,” Hey said. Chris phant rock anthem. That’s not the spirit from Bowie’s people. “They said, ‘Can McQueen, a placid lavender-haired man, of that scene.” The scene involves Hall, we meet and talk about something?’ ” walked by. “I’m talking about you!” Hey Caruso, and the masking-tape rocket He laughed. “And I signed some paper told him. “I talked to David, and we said, ship. “I sent David a demo, and that that said I wouldn’t talk about it.” ‘It really needs two guitars.’ ” The gui- finally sealed it for him. It’s very under- “Lazarus,” a sequel of sorts to the tarist J. J. Appleton “plays the strummy stated and melancholy. At no point does 1976 movie “The Man Who Fell to parts.” The pop-and-jazz veteran Fima it ever arc up into this triumph. At most Earth,” with old and new songs by Bowie, Ephron plays bass. Hornwise, Hey and it only has a little lift in it.” a book by Bowie and Enda Walsh, and Bowie wanted “dirty, greasy.” “So instead Appleton arrived, carrying a guitar direction by Ivo van Hove, is a kind of of trumpets, or high horns, just sax and case. “Am I late?” he said. “Space Oddity” in reverse. Its Major trombone” (Lucas Dodd, Karl Lyden). “You’re not late, but you should go onstage,” Hey said. Upstairs, the band played a couple of songs. “Let’s play ‘Love Is Lost,’ ” Hey said. Two actors, Milioti and Michael Esper, noodled around onstage. A dra- matic rock windup. “Welcome to our show!” Esper yelled to the empty house. Then: propulsive drumming; a snaky, determined guitar; haunted-house key- boards. Esper and Milioti shadowboxed. Michael C. Hall entered stage left. He looked at the boxers and smiled. Next, an old friend: “All the Young Dudes.” It was loose, dirty, greasy—anthemic, warmhearted sleaze à la Mott the Hoo- ple. Milioti danced; Esper sang the lyr- ics about TV and T. Rex. Hall looked on, then crossed the stage and flipped through his character’s Bowie albums. “New Year’s resolution—stay this good-looking!” —Sarah Larson THE FINANCIAL PAGE make inversions all the more alluring and, in the long run, WHY FIRMS ARE FLEEING would likely reduce the number of new companies incorpo- rating themselves in the U.S. A more plausible alternative is to follow the lead of coun- tries like Germany and Japan and adopt a hybrid territorial sys- he biggest corporate deal of 2015 was also, in the view tem. Although the details are complicated, you’d start with the Tof many, the shadiest: Pfizer’s $160-billion merger with “territorial” principle that profits would be taxed where they’re the Irish drug company Allergan. It’s a “tax inversion”—Pfizer earned. But since any territorial system is vulnerable to tax-avoid- will in efect be reconstituting itself as an Irish company, in ance schemes—like shifting income abroad to make it look as order to lower its taxes—and that’s why so many people found if profits were being earned abroad—you’d also need tough it so ofensive. Hillary Clinton said that ending inversions anti-abuse provisions, like taxing at least a fixed percentage of wasn’t just about fairness but about “patriotism”; Donald Trump foreign earnings and limiting companies’ ability to channel in- called the deal “disgusting.” It’s got to make you wonder when come to subsidiaries in low-tax countries. And, as part of any even Trump finds your moneymaking schemes repugnant. such change, companies should be required to pay taxes on all Meanwhile, the inversion train seems only to be picking up the cash they’re currently holding abroad. In theory, such a sys- speed. Such deals were once exceedingly rare—according to tem could keep companies (and more of their workers) at home the Congressional Research Service, there was just one in the and bring foreign earnings back, without putting a real dent in nineteen-eighties—but there have been more than fifty in the U.S. tax revenue. This strategy also has some bipartisan appeal; past decade, most since 2009. Although versions of this type of reform have been in the past couple of years both the Trea- ofered by both the Obama Administra- sury Department and the I.R.S. have is- tion and Republicans in Congress. sued new rules designed to make inver- But why give corporations any sort sions more diicult, the trend continued of tax break at all? The reality is that apace in 2015. It’s a predictable, if dis- America’s global taxation system is a leg- maying response both to the current U.S. acy of a bygone era. In the past, the fact tax code and to the changing nature of that our tax system was “worldwide” big corporations. mattered less, both because the U.S. was Two features of American tax policy such a huge part of the world economy make inversions attractive: a relatively and because being incorporated in the high corporate tax rate and what’s called U.S. made companies more appealing a worldwide tax system—American cor- to stockholders. But those advantages porations have to pay that tax rate on all are diminishing. Investing abroad is their global income. That makes the U.S. more attractive and easier than ever unusual; every other country in the G-8, before, and capital is more mobile. “As and eighty per cent of the countries in the economic diferences between the the O.E.C.D. (the club of industrialized United States and other countries nar- democracies), has adopted some form of row,” a 2015 study of tax systems con- what’s known as a territorial tax system, in which companies cluded, “the ability of the United States to sustain US tax largely pay taxes only on the income they earn in a country. exceptionalism will also decline.” To be sure, the U.S. system has an important provision And then companies are far less tied to their country of called deferral—American companies don’t have to pay taxes origin than they once were. Look at Pfizer. Its C.E.O. was on their foreign profits until they bring them back to the U.S. born in Scotland and raised in Rhodesia. More than sixty per But that just means they hold their money overseas rather cent of its revenue comes from overseas, and most of its em- than bring it home; American companies are estimated to be ployees work abroad as well. It’s hard to know what makes a keeping more than two trillion dollars abroad. This so-called company like that genuinely “American.” True, many U.S. “lockout efect” means that companies invest less in the U.S. companies, including big pharma, have drawn heavily on gov- and distribute less cash to shareholders. In some ways, we’ve ernment-funded research, but foreign companies have been ended up with the worst of both worlds. Since so much of able to profit from that research just as easily—without the what companies earn remains abroad and untaxable, we raise extra taxes. only a small amount of revenue from our global system. At Corporations certainly play the patriotism card when it suits the same time, the fact that those foreign earnings are in exile their purposes. But their real loyalty is to the bottom line. And encourages inversions, so companies can get access to all that while Congress could take measures to curb inversions in the locked-up cash and a lower tax rate thereafter. short run—Hillary Clinton, for instance, has proposed a steep One answer to this problem, endorsed by Bernie Sanders, “exit tax” on any company that inverts—those measures merely is simply to do away with deferral—make corporations pay postpone a necessary reckoning. The world economy has taxes on their foreign profits as soon as they’re earned. This changed. The U.S. tax system needs to change, too. would increase tax revenue in the short term. But it would —James Surowiecki MIGUEL GALLARDO

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 21 pastries and stufed grape leaves across LETTER FROM JEDDAH a black butcher-block table. The call to afternoon prayer had sounded several minutes earlier, and the restaurant, in SISTERS IN LAW accordance with law, had locked its doors and dimmed the lights. The “family Saudi women are beginning to know their rights. section”—the secluded area for women that restaurants serving both genders BY KATHERINE ZOEPF must provide, where female diners who cover their faces can eat comfortably— was quiet. Except for a waiter, we had the place to ourselves. Ferak is slight, with a lilting voice and a round, be- spectacled face framed by a tightly wound black shayla. Head scarves, which Saudi women typically wear unfastened, have a way of slipping of, and Ferak fidgeted with hers as she described her conversation with the principal, repeat- edly tugging it back down into its proper position. The principal was amazed to learn that Saudi plaintifs can request closed court proceedings. She began pepper- ing Ferak with legal questions, many of them about how to advise teachers who were in abusive marriages, or whose ex-husbands wouldn’t allow their chil- dren to visit. The principal was in her early fifties, which meant that, as a school administrator, she was among the best-educated Saudi women of her generation. Well into the nineteen- eighties, according to UNESCO, fewer than half of Saudi girls between the ages of six and eleven had received any education outside the home. But, Ferak said, it quickly became clear that the woman knew little about the funda- mental principles of Saudi law. n September, 2014, Mohra Ferak, ability to protect the virginity of its Ferak had been a middling student I twenty-two years old and in her final daughters. Parents, fearing ruined mar- during her first three years at Dar Al- year at Dar Al-Hekma University, in riage prospects, chose silence, which Hekma, an all-female university. A the Saudi port city of Jeddah, was asked meant that men who had raped girls as week after talking with the principal, for advice by a woman who had heard young as eight went unpunished, and she went to Olga Nartova, who chairs that she was studying law. The woman might act again. And for some of the the law department, and described the was the principal of a primary school girls, the principal added, the secrecy conversation. Nartova, a thirty-six-year- for girls, and she told Ferak that she had only amplified the trauma. She asked old trade-law specialist from Moscow, grown frustrated by her inability to help Ferak if there was anything that she, as had previously found Ferak to be bright children in her charge who had been principal, could do to help them. but unmotivated, like many girls from raped; over the years, there had been “I told her, ‘You can go to court and well-of families. But Ferak spoke about many such cases among her students. ask the judge to make the proceedings women’s rights with a seriousness of Regardless of whether the perpetrator private and save the girl’s reputation,’ ” purpose that Nartova had never seen was a relative or the family driver, the Ferak recalled one recent afternoon. We in any student at Dar Al-Hekma. victim’s parents invariably declined to were sitting in a modish Lebanese “It completely transformed Mohra,” press charges. A Saudi family’s honor restaurant near the Jeddah corniche, she said. One of the principal’s stories, rests, to a considerable degree, on its sharing plates of tricornered spinach concerning a young girl at her school who was the target of persistent sex- The guardianship system gives a woman a legal status resembling that of a minor. ual abuse by one of her brothers, had

22 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY EIKO OJALA particularly incensed Ferak, Nartova to find a long black line of abaya-clad in early November, only two would recalled: “The principal, she called the women waiting to be seated. admit to any interest in expanding mother in and said, ‘Do you know what Institutions and businesses that serve rights for Saudi women. So far, the your son is doing?’ And the mother Saudi women are carefully guarded, so greatest efect of the reforms seems to said, ‘Yes, well, better that he do it to as to prevent ikhtilat, illegal gender mix- be a growing awareness, among ordi- her than that he do it to a stranger.’ So ing, and the only male employees of a nary Saudi women, of the legal rights the principal asked Mohra what to do. Saudi girls’ school or women’s college they do have, and an increasing will- She reports to the police? She reports are its security oicers, who are sta- ingness to claim these rights, even by to the court? What?” tioned at the checkpoint outside, in- seeking legal redress, if necessary. With Nartova’s encouragement, specting identification cards and keep- The lawyers conceded that, by in- Ferak began planning a series of free ing watch for male intruders. The ternational standards, these rights might public lectures at the university, aimed security guards were overwhelmed by not look like much. According to Saudi at women and delivered by distin- the turnout for the second Hawa’a’s law, which is based on Sharia, a Saudi guished legal scholars and lawyers. The Rights event. Ferak corralled several woman’s testimony in court is, with few presentations were designed to provide friends, and they spent the half hour exceptions, valued at half that of a man. basic information about Saudi wom- beforehand rushing from classroom to A homicide case, for example, normally en’s legal rights.“Since I was very young, classroom, looking for extra chairs to requires testimony from two male wit- and started noticing how women are carry down to the space that had been nesses; if only one is available, two fe- treated in this country, I’ve had this reserved. They filled the aisles and the male witnesses may be substituted for feeling about women,” Ferak said. “I back of the room with additional seats, the other. The guardianship system— don’t like anyone to underestimate us.” straining the hall’s intended capacity of which requires an adult woman to get But women’s rights aren’t a subject of a hundred and twenty. permission from her guardian before mainstream public discussion in the “There were students, mothers, teach- travelling overseas or seeking medical kingdom, and she wondered whether ers, lots of workers in shops—really, care—gives Saudi women a legal sta- anyone besides the principal would at- every kind of woman, even doctors from tus that resembles that of a minor. In tend. She also worried about how the the university,” Ferak told me. “All of us fact, the male relative with responsi- experts would react to being approached were just looking at each other, think- bility over a Saudi woman may be her by a student. ing, Is this even possible?” When Nar- own adolescent son. Ferak compiled a list of topics that tova came out of her oice, a few min- A Saudi woman cannot leave her she felt were of particular importance utes before Zahran’s talk, she saw women home without covering her hair and to local women, and she began con- struggling to find standing room in the putting on a floor-length abaya. She tacting lawyers. The first lecture in the back and on the stairs, while others sat cannot drive a car. Since 2013, women series, which Ferak called Hawa’a’s on the floor by the dais. Ferak texted a have been allowed to ride bicycles, but Rights (Hawa’a is the Arabic version photo of the packed hall to her father, only in designated parks and recreation of the name Eve), was publicized on who had shared her initial doubts about areas, chaperoned by a close male rela- Twitter and took place on the evening interest in the lectures. He teasingly tive. The marriages of Saudi women of April 15th. Several dozen attendees texted back, “Are you trying to make are usually arranged, and it remains ex- learned about crimes perpetrated women fight with their husbands?” The tremely diicult for women to obtain against women on social media, a topic third Hawa’a’s Rights lecture, a practi- divorces. Husbands, in contrast, may of special concern in a country where cal introduction to Saudi labor law for marry up to three other women “on top single people of opposite sexes cannot women just entering the workforce, at- of them,” as the Arabic expression goes, spend time together without risking tracted a still larger crowd. The univer- and in some cases may end a marriage arrest, and where pressure on women sity did not schedule a fourth event. in the time it takes to repeat “I divorce to cover their faces in public can be so you” three times—or to type the so- intense that the most innocent head n 2004, Saudi Arabia introduced called triple divorce formula into a text shot can serve as a tool of blackmail. I reforms allowing women’s colleges message. The second Hawa’a’s Rights lecture, and universities to ofer degree pro- In December, 2007, I arrived in on April 26th, addressed personal-sta- grams in law. The first female law stu- Saudi Arabia for the first time. Al- tus law, the category of Saudi law that dents graduated in 2008, but, for sev- though I had read thousands of pages governs marriage, divorce, guardian- eral years after that, they were prohibited about Saudi laws and cultural con- ship, and inheritance. The lecturer, from appearing in court. In 2013, law ventions, it was a shock to confront Bayan Mahmoud Zahran—a thirty- licenses were granted to four women, the system as a lived reality. Abun- year-old Jeddah attorney who, in Jan- including Bayan Mahmoud Zahran. dant resources go into maintaining uary, 2014, became the first Saudi Journalists and legal scholars in the the women-only bank branches, gov- woman to open a law firm—was sched- West wondered if a fresh contingent ernment oices, shops, and other busi- uled to begin speaking at five o’clock, of female attorneys would champion nesses that make up the infrastruc- launching an evening of discussion that women’s rights. But, of the dozens of ture of gender segregation in the would run until nine. Late that after- female lawyers and law graduates I kingdom. I remember feeling a pulse noon, Ferak arrived at the university spoke with on a visit to Saudi Arabia of hope when I learned that Sarah, a

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 23 brainy, giggly seventeen-year-old I’d were horrified. “People said, ‘Are you rality. In 1963, troops were sent to met on my third day in the country, serious?’ ” Ferak told me, recalling their quell protests at the opening of a girls’ on the women-only floor of a Riyadh reactions. “They said, ‘You’re a fe- school in Buraydah; the first year, the mall, was a first-year law student at male. You won’t go to court. You’ll only pupil was the daughter of the Prince Sultan University. have nothing.’ ” headmistress. I stayed in Riyadh, the Saudi capi- Two of the Jeddah firms where Ferak Even now, it’s hard to overstate the tal, for two months. During that time, has applied for jobs in recent months cultural bias against women assuming I spent many hours with Sarah and her indicated interest, but then told her more prominent public roles. For a fellow law students, visiting them at that they lacked the license from Saudi man with traditional values, the home in the evenings to toast marsh- the kingdom’s labor ministry which au- names of the women in his family are mallows and watch costume thorizes a business to let private, not to be spoken aloud. He dramas. (There was much women work in its oice. The never refers to his female relatives in argument among the girls labor ministry requires firms public. Even between members of a about whether it was strictly that employ women to build close-knit family, these matters can be necessary to cover your eyes separate areas for female sensitive. In conservative Saudi circles, during kissing scenes—or workers, allowing them to a man is unlikely ever to see the face scenes involving Colin Firth communicate with male col- of his brother’s wife or hear her voice. on horseback, for example— leagues without the risk of In 2008, King Abdullah, who died last so as to avoid irreparable being seen by them. In su- January, appalled some of his subjects harm to your modesty.) In permarkets, which have em- when he announced that the Riyadh the mornings, I went to the ployed women since 2013, University for Women would be re- university to drink paper cups of Nes- low partitions suice, because semi-pub- named Princess Nora bint Abdul Rah- café with them between their law lic spaces are easily monitored by mem- man University, in memory of a favor- classes. At the time, a woman could bers of the Committee for the Promo- ite aunt. Despite his example, the not obtain a license to practice law, and tion of Virtue and the Prevention of practice hasn’t caught on; the univer- I’d supposed that this would be a sub- Vice, the kingdom’s religious police. sity is the only major institution in the ject of fierce discussion. But the girls But businesses that operate from en- country that bears a woman’s name. seemed unconcerned. It was their first closed workplaces, such as oices, face Nevertheless, Ferak, like every other semester, and they were consumed by tougher regulations. One result of these female law graduate I spoke with, their nostalgia for high school, and by restrictions, Ferak explained, is that, at wanted me to understand that individ- the increasing pace of weddings among present, only the largest Saudi law firms ual Saudis and local traditions, not their friends. (For girls in conservative employ women. Saudi laws, were the source of her strug- Saudi circles, marrying soon after they Despite her frustrations, Ferak gles. Saudi laws, she insisted, were “per- finish high school remains common. pointed out that women’s eforts to fect” (a word that I heard at least half Many women become grandmothers gain more respect and influence in a dozen times, from other women her while still in their thirties.) Saudi public life have been progress- age, in reference to the Saudi legal sys- Sarah and several other students ex- ing rather quickly, considering the tem). Saudi women’s woes were merely pressed a cautious hope that women country’s relative youth, and especially the result of the laws’ misapplication. might be allowed to apply for law li- considering the Arabian Peninsula’s The fact that I’d sought her out seemed censes “by the time we graduate, if not tribal, deeply traditional culture. Ferak to surprise her, and to raise concerns before.” But more first-year students told appeared to be echoing the “baby steps” that foreigners might misunderstand. me that they weren’t sure they’d seek theory of social progress, often put forth Although Saudi men sometimes mis- jobs, in law or anything else, after leav- by Saudi leaders as a way of excusing treated women, the solution lay not in ing Prince Sultan. Many of them seemed rights abuses or the rhetorical excesses changing the system but in educating to be studying law in the same spirit of of government-backed clerics. It wasn’t women about their rights within the intellectual curiosity that might lead an clear how sincerely she believed it. But existing structure. American college student to major in her optimism had returned, and when classics. When I asked why they’d cho- the waiter passed our table she enlisted erhaps surprisingly in a country sen the field, most said that it was be- his help in finding a functioning elec- Pnotable for its strict rules, relatively cause law programs for women were trical outlet so that she could charge little of Saudi law is written down. new—it was exciting to be a pioneer. her mobile phone. The legal system has been augmented, Today, several thousand Saudi during the eighty-three years since women hold law degrees, and sixty- audi Arabia’s first government-run the kingdom was founded, by royal de- seven are licensed to practice, accord- S primary schools for girls opened crees, many of which overlap, or even ing to justice-ministry figures released in the early nineteen-sixties, to fero- contradict one another. This body of at the end of November. In 2011, when cious opposition. Although atten- law is interpreted by senior clerics, who Mohra Ferak entered the law depart- dance was not compulsory, conserva- serve as judges, largely following the ment at Dar Al-Hekma, her imme- tives viewed the mere existence of girls’ Hanbali School, the strictest of the diate family was supportive, but others schools as an ofense against basic mo- four main schools of Sunni jurisprudence.

24 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 The notion of judicial precedent such ofenses as damaging the reputa- Gazette, an English-language newspa- does not play a role in Saudi law, so tion of Saudi Arabia or its king; a charge per, lauded the squad’s ability to elim- judges enjoy considerable freedom of of terrorism is frequently used to try inate “magic the same way the security interpretation. not only jihadists but also bloggers and forces would defuse explosives.”) Last Yet the system’s ambiguities also lawyers. spring, in Riyadh, ten government agen- preserve the need for a monarch with The kingdom also executes an un- cies took part in a state-sponsored sor- final authority, and this means that the usually high number of women, com- cery-awareness workshop. personality, moods, and tastes of the pared with other countries that prac- These shifts are not necessarily ev- head of state are felt in the lives of his tice the death penalty. This is typically eryday concerns for Saudi lawyers, but subjects in ways that would be unimag- explained by the fact that so many non- they are felt at all levels of society. The inable to citizens of a modern democ- violent crimes are punishable by death previous king had raised hope among racy. Absolute power, Saudis say, has a under Saudi law. But some Saudi ac- Saudi women that they would soon be way of trickling down, of turning or- tivists suggest that it is also because granted the right to drive, but the sub- dinary policemen and public oicials the list of capital ofenses includes ject is no longer publicly discussed. The into petty tyrants. Justice is often sit- several that are efectively “women’s young dissidents who emerged on uational; the law is what a person in a crimes.” Women are charged with adul- Twitter in 2011, inspired by the Arab position of power decides it is. If de- tery more often than men. In Novem- Spring, have fallen silent. Those who vout Muslims openly question Islamic ber, in an adultery case, a married have avoided prison have “all become teaching, they are vulnerable to accu- woman was sentenced to death by ston- ‘entrepreneurs,’ ” Fahad al-Fahad, a sations of heresy, which is a capital ing; her unmarried male partner re- human-rights activist, told me, with crime in Saudi Arabia. And the risks ceived a hundred lashes.International bitter emphasis on a buzzword that has of questioning have grown in recent human-rights groups have expressed emerged as a clear favorite of the new months. The current Saudi king, Sal- alarm at the growing number of for- Saudi leadership. man, came to power following the death eign women, typically housemaids, fac- Although King Abdullah was criti- of King Abdullah. Since then, accusa- ing trial for sorcery. Sorcery is consid- cized by international human-rights tions of heresy and of apostasy—also ered such a grave concern that, in 2009, groups, he was assailed internally by a capital crime in Saudi Arabia—have the Commission for the Promotion of conservatives for openly encouraging increasingly been levelled against gov- Virtue and the Prevention of Vice cre- public discussion of social reform, par- ernment critics. A few days after I left ated a specially trained unit to conduct ticularly in the area of women’s rights. Jeddah, Ashraf Fayadh, a well-known witchcraft investigations. Saudi citi- Several activists told me that, under local artist and poet, was sentenced to zens are encouraged to report suspected King Salman, this discussion has death after a judge deemed some of witches and sorcerers anonymously, abruptly ceased. The public conversa- his poems blasphemous. to a hot line. (A writer for the Saudi tion about progress, they say, has been Little is known about a future Saudi king before the death of his predeces- sor. The succession may not be in doubt, but it takes time before the man’s char- acter can be felt through his exercise of power. Sharia emphasizes obedience to rulers. In Saudi Arabia, two Saudi human-rights activists told me sepa- rately, there is growing concern that all Saudi law—indeed, everything King Salman wishes—is, in a sense, Islamic law, and is thus automatically beyond question. A sudden spike in the number of executions this year has heightened the general anxiety. On Salman’s third day as king, he oversaw his first beheading, of an alleged rapist. By early Novem- ber, the kingdom had already carried out more executions—at least a hun- dred and fifty—than it had in any year since 1995. In late November, two Saudi newspapers reported that the state would soon be executing at least fifty more prisoners, all convicted of terror- ism, which under Saudi law includes “Business isn’t great. We could only aford the smallest air dancer.” forcibly redirected, and is now restricted women I met during my November opposite gender would be unthinkable. to technology and entrepreneurship— trip to Jeddah were heavy users of Uber Zahran covers her face. As I waited an emphasis that, while not wholly rhe- or its Dubai-based competitor, Careem. at the Japanese restaurant that Nour torical, seems gauged to impress for- The advent, in 2014, of car services had selected, I tried not to peer too ob- eign observers. Ten days after I left the that can be requested through mobile trusively at the veiled women who stood kingdom at the end of my most recent apps has given women a freedom of in the entryway. Saudis are accustomed visit, a human-rights activist gloomily movement that had seemed impossi- to judging a covered woman’s approx- forwarded to me a Thomas Friedman ble just months earlier. The long, swel- imate age, profession, and social back- column, in the Times, rhapsodizing about tering waits for drivers, which had been ground from the cut of her abaya and the Saudi crown prince’s interest in tech- a daily feature in the lives of educated, the way she wears her head and face nology. Across the kingdom, the atmo- middle-class Saudi women—whose coverings, but for foreigners the niqab sphere is newly cautious, and a young families didn’t restrict their movements can lend a blind-date awkwardness to law graduate who wishes to speak of on principle—vanished, along with public meetings, even with women well her growing awareness of injustice in driver drama, in all its various, much known to them. Saudi institutions knows that she must discussed forms: drivers who spied and Zahran and her sister found me, and express herself with enormous care. reported to fathers and brothers; driv- a waiter led us to a table in the family ers whose services had to be shared section. As he handed out menus in everal days after my conversation with sisters; drivers who refused to stop the form of tablet computers, Zahran S with Ferak at the Lebanese restau- and ask for directions, despite the fact uncovered her face. In 2004, she was a rant, I set out to meet Bayan Mah- that many Saudi streets are unmarked. student in the human-resources de- moud Zahran, whose law firm has made Saudis do not work in many service partment at King Abdulaziz Univer- her the most famous female Saudi law- jobs, including as Uber drivers. Oddly— sity, in Jeddah, when the university an- yer in the world. I went down to the or perhaps conveniently, given Saudi nounced that it would be opening a lobby of my hotel. A large group of pil- Arabia’s dependence on foreign labor— degree program in law for female stu- grims to Mecca, an hour’s drive to the the company of foreign workers of the dents. It was the first such program in east, all wearing the seamless white opposite sex, particularly those from the kingdom, and Zahran immediately robes that identified them as being in developing countries, is an unoicial switched her concentration to law. the state of ritual purity known as but widely tolerated exception to the “It took me five minutes to decide,” Ihram, were checking in. prohibition against gender mixing. A she said. The fact that women couldn’t I tapped the Uber icon on my cell Saudi woman may ride in an Uber car obtain law licenses wasn’t a source of phone and, after calling a car, searched driven by a man from Pakistan, and anxiety for Zahran and her classmates, for the WhatsApp message I’d just re- a Saudi man may have his breakfast but by 2008, when she graduated, the ceived from Zahran’s younger sister, served by a housemaid from the Phil- justice ministry still hadn’t indicated Nour, a recent law graduate. Nour had ippines. But the same degree of prox- that it would begin licensing female ofered to join us, and was making ar- imity with another Saudi, or a West- lawyers. Zahran began volunteering at rangements on behalf of Zahran, who erner—or, for that matter, a white-collar a new women’s shelter that her father, was busy with a case. Nearly all the worker from a developing country—of the a businessman, had founded as a gift to the community. He considered var- ious needy groups before deciding to create a center where impoverished widows and divorcées, of which there are many in the kingdom, could live. There turned out to be a number of women at the shelter who needed un- oicial legal advice. Although Zahran couldn’t represent them in proceedings, she began accompanying them to court, telling judges that she was a supervi- sor from the shelter. Zahran hadn’t planned to specialize in personal- status law, she said, but it was an opportunity to use her skills. Many of the court vis- its involved eforts by the women to force the ex-husbands to hand over their children’s government records— passports, identification cards, and other oicial paperwork. Zahran’s firm is expanding, with a “Er, all right, but I’ve already written ‘Frankenstein.’ ” half-dozen employees and a fledgling ended, Ferak continues to receive messages suggesting new topics and QUAHOGS asking when to expect another event. Sometimes, Ferak said, her correspon- It was for the wind as much as anything. dents plead with her not to give up, It was for the tidal flats, for the miles of bars telling her that the lectures changed and the freezing runs between them, their outlook—even the arc of their blued and darkened in the withering gusts. lives. During her last year at Dar Al- For the buckets, for the long-tined rakes. Hekma, Ferak found a new purpose For our skin burning and the bones in her studies, and her grades rose beneath, all their ache. For the bent backs, sharply. She told Olga Nartova, “I re- for the huddle toward warmth beneath alized why I was studying law.” She our incapable layers, how we beat hopes to continue the Hawa’a’s Rights ourselves with our arms. The breath lectures, but has not found a venue. we blew, the narrow steam that spun away. Intrigued by the Western understand- How we searched their tell-draggle marks. ing of human rights, she has begun to Then the feel of them as we furrowed. Then it explore graduate programs abroad, was surgery and force together. Like stones. where she might study the subject. Opal or pearl or plain rock, ugly except On the afternoon of the first Ha- they were beautiful, their whorls and wa’a’s Rights lecture, Salwa al-Khawari, purple stains. The bucket’s wire cutting a teacher at a girls’ school, was head- with their weight. For the sky blazing, its ing home when her friend Nour men- sinking orange fire. For the sky’s black streaks tioned the event. On learning that the with night rising, winter-sudden. Back, subject of discussion would be wom- shoreward, home, the tide creeping like a wolf. en’s rights within the Saudi judicial For the little stove warming, its own orange fire. system, Khawari rearranged her eve- The old pot, the steam, the air in savor, ning in order to attend, and later ral- the close room, the precious butter, the lied friends to go to the subsequent blue fingers throbbing, our bodies in all discussions. She told me that it had the customs of weariness, the supper, never occurred to her that Saudi women succulent of the freezing dark sea come up, had any legal rights, and she had re- and hunger, its own happiness, its own sented the way that the legal system domain immeasurable. It was for the hunger. treated women. “I always thought that the flaw lay in the laws,” she told me. —Frank X. Gaspar Now, like Ferak and many other law- yers I spoke with, she expressed new confidence in the justice of Saudi law. corporate department, which Nour justice ministry announced that in the “Our laws concerning women’s rights joined after receiving her degree. But past twelve months there had been a are among the best in the world,” women with personal-status cases make forty-eight-per-cent increase in cases she said. up the majority of her client base. The of khula, divorces initiated by women. The real problem, she added, was judicial system puts women at a dis- A Saudi newspaper reported that such lack of access to information. After advantage, she said.“Women generally divorces now make up a “staggering” the lecture series, Khawari began read- are more emotional, and they can’t get 4.2 per cent of the total. Most women ing all she could about women’s rights their rights because they’re so emo- are unsuccessful in their eforts, and in Islam, and sharing what she learned tional, and they just cry,” she told me. those who do succeed must, at a min- with her twelve- and thirteen-year- She seemed to suggest that the main imum, repay their dowries to their for- old students. Last spring, she gave up obstacle was not the legal system but mer husbands; sometimes they must her teaching job to study full time to- a tendency of women clients to become also repay the men for money spent on ward a master’s degree in social work, overwrought. Female lawyers can help, them during their marriages. with a concentration in human rights. she said, because they can “understand Yet in this privacy-obsessed society, Since then, she said, some of her for- the emotion and translate it into some- with its weak traditions of individual mer students have initiated discus- thing valid for the court.” rights, many Saudi women still strug- sions of women’s legal rights with older gle to obtain legal information. As far women in their families and among ome of the lawyers I met said that as any of the lawyers I interviewed their neighbors, and they have asked S women increasingly insist on being were aware, the Hawa’a’s Rights ini- Khawari to help them assemble leaflets represented when inheritances are di- tiative has been the only organized at- on the subject. Khawari said, “They vided. In early October, at the end of tempt to educate Saudi women about tell me they want to do something for the Islamic calendar year, the Saudi the law. Eight months after the series Saudi society.” 

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 27 “Are you sure it’s not because we’re SHOUTS & MURMURS both African-American?” “It’s not that! ” the Messiah said. “I’m just really bad with faces. Ask anyone.” DAY OF JUDGMENT “If you’re so bad with faces, how come you recognized Chris Matthews?” BY SIMON RICH Sharpton asked. “Why didn’t you con- fuse him with Chris Hayes?” The crowd murmured in agreement as the cherubs exchanged a worried glance. “Look, this is crazy,” the Messiah said. “It was an honest mistake. I’m the Mes- siah—I love all mankind! I’m not racist, O.K.? I’m not racist! ” The cherubs tugged on His robe, but the Messiah kept defending Him- self and making everything worse. “You’re both named Al! You’re both on TV! I’m not racist! ” Anderson Cooper thrust his micro- phone toward the heavens. “Messiah, do you think you ought to apologize to Mr. Sharpton?” “Apologize for what? Confusing two he Messiah floated gently down The crowd cheered wildly. Strang- people who are both named Al and both TEighth Avenue, His arms spread ers embraced. The elderly danced like on TV ?” wide, as if to hug mankind. Traic children. “Do you regret your comments?” stopped and people gawked, their eyes “Anderson Cooper, you go next. You’ve Chris Matthews asked. He’d moved and iPhones pointed toward the heav- had your hand up the longest.” on from the salvation story and was ens. All who gazed upon Him knew “Thank you,” the correspondent said. now focussed on the race angle. at once why He was here: Earth was “I was wondering what this means for “Guys, this is crazy! ” the Messiah saved and all their pain was ending. the world’s poor?” said, his face contorted in a pained grin. His throne came to a stop above “Deliverance,” the Messiah said. “The “I have black friends. I’m a fan of black Times Square, beside the giant Sony poor shall eat, the lame shall walk, and culture! ” screen. He was fifty feet tall and beau- all wars shall be ended! ” The cheering At this point, the cherubs were try- tifully proportioned, with golden skin grew so loud that the Messiah had to ing to physically close His mouth. and eyes like polished sapphires. A pair shout to be heard. “O.K., who’s next? “I love Kanye West! ” of cherubs sat on his shoulders, play- How about you, Al Roker?” Times Square fell silent. The cher- ing silver trumpets. Their song was so The cheering stopped. ubs buried their faces in their hands. beautiful that it moved people to tears. “What’s wrong?” the Messiah asked. “O.K.,” the Messiah murmured. “Let’s “I am the Messiah,” the deity an- The cherubs whispered something into just stop for the day. I’ll come back tomor- nounced, as if there were any ques- His ear. row, and we’ll try again. Or something. tion. “And I have come to bring you all “Oh,” He said, turning pale. “I’m Sound good ?” salvation.” sorry. I meant Al Sharpton.” He cleared No one responded. Some reporters had assembled on His throat and forced a smile. “Go The cherubs, their cheeks redder the street. The Messiah smiled down ahead, sir! ” than usual, played a few rushed notes on them indulgently. Al Sharpton glared up at Him, his on their trumpets. Then they grabbed “Feel free to ask me what you wish,” arms folded tightly across his chest. the Messiah’s elbows and dragged Him He said. “Chris Matthews, you can go “You were going to ask me something?” awkwardly up to Heaven. first.” the Messiah pressed on. “Go ahead, ask “Thank you,” the news anchor said. away.” he Messiah paced back and forth He was trying his best to remain com- “O.K.,” Al Sharpton said. “I guess Ton His cloud, scrolling though posed, but his cheeks were damp with my question is: Why did you confuse tweets on His iPad. tears. “What, exactly, do you mean by me with Al Roker?” “This is ridiculous,” He said. “I’m ‘salvation’?” he asked. “Look, I’m sorry about that,” the Mes- trending on Twitter. And, look at this, “All sufering will cease,” the Messiah siah said. “It’s just that you’re both named look at Google. ” answered. “And Earth shall be turned Al, and you’re both on TV.” The cherubs dutifully hovered over into a heaven.” Sharpton raised an eyebrow. His screen. KERLOW VICTOR

28 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 “If you type ‘Messiah’ into the search Messiah did some hip-hop-inflected Al Sharpton raised an eyebrow. box, the first thing that comes up is ‘Mes- head moves. “ ‘Race stuf ’?” siah racist.’ Not ‘Messiah salvation’ or “I’m not a racist,” the Messiah said. The Messiah buried His head in ‘Messiah to end death.’ ‘Messiah racist! ’ ” “But you don’t have to take my word His hands and groaned. When He He forced a laugh. “This is crazy! ” for it. Instead, I ask you to take the word finally looked up, there were tears in He nudged one of the cherubs in the of . . . the Reverend Martin Luther His eyes. ribs, sending him tumbling across the King, Jr.! ” “O.K.,” he whispered. “I admit it. I sky. “You guys think this is crazy, right?” The crowd watched in astonish- never realized this before, but, I guess, the The cherubs shared a long, silent ment as the Reverend descended from truth is, I’m a little bit . . . racist.” look. Eventually, the one called Sorath Heaven, his golden halo gleaming. His “I’m sorry,” Martin Luther King, Jr., cleared his throat. aura was bright and radiant, but his ex- said. “We couldn’t hear that. You’re a “Oh, sweet and noble Messiah,” pression was distinctly strained. little bit what?” he said, in a honeyed voice. “The thing “O.K., Martin,” the Messiah said. “A little bit racist! ” the Messiah said. is . . . Al Sharpton and Al Roker look “Tell them.” He began to weep, and His tears rained nothing alike. Al Sharpton has a mus- “Tell them what?” the Reverend down on Broadway, dousing the crowd. tache, and Al Roker doesn’t. Also, asked. The cherubs stroked His back with Sharpton has hair and Roker is com- “That I’m not a racist! ” their tiny, chubby fingers. pletely bald.” The Reverend averted his eyes. “What should I do?” the Messiah cried. “It’s true,” Zophiel, the other cherub, “What’s wrong?” the Messiah de- “How do I make things right?” said. manded. “You can meet with black leaders,” “They’re exactly the same age. I looked “To be honest,” King said, “this Al Sharpton said. “And start a dia- it up on Wikipedia! ” whole situation makes me extremely logue.” “It doesn’t matter.” uncomfortable.” “O.K.,” the Messiah said. And He “So you’re telling me you’ve never made “You can go back to Heaven in two followed Sharpton north, to Harlem. a mistake like that? You’ve never confused seconds,” the Messiah promised. “Just two black guys before?” tell them, really quickly, how we hang out few days later, the Messiah ap- “No,” Sorath said. and everything.” A peared on “The Rachel Maddow “Not even once?” “But we don’t hang out.” Show.” His apology was eloquent and “No.” “What about that time we played golf ?” obviously genuine. “Also,” Zophiel said, “I wasn’t sure “We never played golf.” “I came to save mankind,” He said. what the best time to bring this up was, “Sure we did! Remember? You told me “But, in the end, mankind saved me.” but you shouldn’t say ‘lame.’ The term all those crazy stories about growing up “Where do you go from here?” Mad- is ‘diferently-abled.’ ” in Michigan?” dow asked. “Seriously?” “Michigan?” the Reverend squinted “I’m taking an educational trip to Af- “That’s the accepted term.” at the Messiah. “Are you sure you’re rica,” He said, “to improve my under- The Messiah threw up His arms in not thinking of Malcolm X?” standing of diversity.” frustration. The cherubs hung their heads. One “That’s wonderful,” she said. “I think “How am I supposed to keep these things of them took out a flask and started we’re out of time.” She pressed on her straight when they keep changing the drinking. earpiece. terms?” He caught His breath and “O.K., I know that was bad,” the Mes- “Oh, right. But, first, one more smoothed the folds of His robe. “O.K.,” siah said. “That was bad. But answer me question: Are you still going to bring He said. “Let’s fly back down. We’re doing this: How can I be racist when I don’t salvation to mankind?” my plan. ” even have a race myself ? I’m not a hu- “I’m not really focussed on my career Sorath and Zophiel hesitated. man—I’m an angel! ” right now,” the Messiah said. “My “What is it now?” “You’re clearly white,” Chris Mat- goal is just to resolve my personal is- “We just don’t think it’s a very wise thews said. sues. I obviously have a lot of hatred strategy,” Sorath said. “I don’t identify as white.” inside me, which I was completely un- “It’s going to be fine,” the Messiah “Do you identify as black?” aware of. Hopefully, though, with the said. “Come on. Grab your trumpets and “I actually am part black! ” the Mes- help of therapy, I can unpack my white follow me.” siah said. “I did that thing, that genetic- privilege and inspire others to do the testing thing that you do through the mail. same.” he cherubs were shocked by the I’m mostly angel, but part of me is black. “So when will you return?” Tsize of the crowd. Everyone was I’m almost two per cent black.” The Messiah thought for a moment. covering the story now, from Al Ja- The crowd booed. “I’ll return when all our hearts are zeera to TMZ. “Martin and Malcolm both start with fully purged of racism. When we see a “Start playing,” the Messiah whispered. an ‘M ’! ” the Messiah shouted, as King man’s face and no longer notice the color The cherubs sighed and reluctantly and Sharpton exchanged a weary look. of his skin.” launched into “Gold Digger.” There “And they’re from the same era! And they “And how long will that take?” was light booing from the crowd as the both did race stuf! ” The Messiah shrugged. “We’ll see.” 

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 29 was more exciting than Tokyo or Lon- THE SPORTING SCENE don. Poppo followed. This was 1978. Tsuya was right—New York was very exciting. THE WALL DANCER After a week, Poppo found a stage: the fountain in Washington Square Park. Ashima Shiraishi’s route to the top. Most days, he danced there in the shal- low pool. When winter came, he began BY NICK PAUMGARTEN performing both inside and outside night clubs downtown: the Mudd Club, Pyr- he mother and father of Ashima ment factory. After graduating, they trav- amid, Danceteria. By the mid-eighties, TShiraishi, a fourteen-year-old New elled together to Europe and, captivated he was a minor celebrity in the East Vil- Yorker who has been called the most tal- by the punk scene in London, settled lage arts scene, known for his intense ented rock climber in the world, met in there for a while. Upon their return to brand of street theatre. Naked save for a fashion school, in Tokyo, in the early sev- Japan, Hisatoshi, who went by the nick- loincloth, and spray-painted gold from enties. Hisatoshi Shiraishi, the father, name Poppo, took up the study of Butoh, head to toe, he danced sometimes with was from the southern island of Shikoku, an avant-garde dance form. After a cou- a burning dummy, amid fires he’d set on and Tsuya Otake, the mother, was from ple of years, Tsuya flew to New York on the sidewalk, or he surfed atop passing Fukushima, where her family had a gar- a tourist visa and sent word that the city taxis, or he stood still for twenty min- utes, barefoot, on a block of ice. He founded a troupe, called Poppo and the Go-Go Boys, which had as many as twenty dancers, most of them women, and they performed at downtown the- atres—La MaMa, the Kitchen, the Joyce—and toured overseas. Videos of a few of these performances have survived into the YouTube age. In them, Poppo is limber and lean—a ghoul in gold or white paint. The Times described his movements onstage as those of “a pow- erful, slightly wry priest.” Spin noted his ability to discern gods in the neighbor- hood trash and pronounced him “strong on punk ethics.” Meanwhile, Tsuya, who was working as a saleswoman at a Japa- nese clothing store in the East Village, paid the rent. Eventually, Poppo and Tsuya got mar- ried. Tsuya had a green card. For more than ten years, they tried to have a child, availing themselves of every method they could aford. When Tsuya turned fifty, they were ready to give up, but their doc- tor urged them to try once more. “It was our last chance,” Tsuya said. In June, 2001, a daughter was born: Ashima. “She was a miracle baby,” Tsuya said. Tsuya recalls that even in the hospi- tal nursery Ashima ceaselessly moved her hands, arms, and legs: “All the time, not stop. I couldn’t believe it. I think she has monkey DNA.” Tsuya has a sardonic sense of humor, and a husky laugh. She and Poppo both struggle with English, despite having lived in New York City for nearly forty years. Their aspirations for Ashima were Her body assumes a seemingly infinite variety of forms, each of a diferent utility. lofty and vague. “When Ashima was

30 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC born, I have an idea for her,” Tsuya said. Bouldering was for years just a way to You can see how her father’s aptitude for “She grow up, create things, and make goof of or train between big ascents. corporal ingenuity and control, from people happy. It came true. Now kids Starting in the fifties, John Gill, a math- Butoh, translates into hers for dancing want to be like Ashima.” ematician and gymnast from Georgia, on the wall. Her competence, power, and Climbing was not originally a part of made bouldering a discipline unto itself. grace may inspire comparisons to Roger the plan. They hardly knew that it ex- There was little glory to be found in Federer or Misty Copeland, but her de- isted. The real miracle may be that a lit- standing atop a twenty-foot rock, so it liberate and unhurried realignments bring tle girl from the unmountainous island was all about how you got there: means to mind a mantis. of Manhattan, born to insular, artistic over end. This is where the idea arose of In both sport climbing and boulder- immigrants who had never tied a figure- boulders as problems. Gill advocated style, ing, there are certain somewhat objec- eight knot, became, by the age of four- power, and grace, and considered boul- tive standards against which climbers teen, possibly the best female rock climber dering to be a variation on gymnastics, can measure themselves. One is compe- ever—a Gretzky of the granite. Ungrudg- as well as a form both of personal expres- tition, on artificial climbing walls. In Au- ingly admired by seasoned dirtbags and sion and of moving meditation. He was gust, Ashima won gold medals in boul- muscular young rock rats, she is, even the first to use gymnastics chalk (now dering and sport climbing in the world though still young, perhaps the first fe- commonplace) to keep the hands dry. championships, in Arco, Italy, in the male climber whose accomplishments Ashima excels at sport climbing and fifteen-and-under bracket. She is not al- may transcend gender, and the first rock bouldering. She is a gym-era child who lowed to compete against adults in sanc- climber who could become a household nevertheless climbs outside whenever she tioned competitions until she turns eigh- name. There have been articles and photo can. That’s where you make a name for teen, but when she has competed against spreads in newspapers and sports mag- yourself. Still, she claims to have no in- them in other contests she has beaten azines, films and countless YouTube clips, terest in the big walls of Yosemite, to say them. In Arco, she was the only climber, an appearance on Time ’s list of Ameri- nothing of serious mountaineering. “I’m of any age, to top out (i.e., reach the top) ca’s most influential teen-agers, and, of not really into Alpine,” she told me. “I on the four bouldering problems—three course, a TED talk. (She’s no Tony Rob- don’t like the cold. I don’t like ice or snow.” of them on the first try. bins, but she held her own.) Amid all She prefers the pocked syenite humps of She and her parents have their eyes this, she still lives with her parents in a the Hueco Tanks, near El Paso—a boul- on the 2020 Olympics, to be held in rent-controlled loft on West Twenty-sixth dering Mecca. (She spent the Thanks- Japan. The host country can add several Street and trains five days a week, under giving weekend there, with her father and sporting events to the usual complement, the eye of her father, who, many years ago, some older climbing friends.) For her, a and it appears that climbing may be one gave up Butoh to coach and guide her. climb is a puzzle, not an expedition. of them. The Olympics are a proven In terms of pure talent—climbers mechanism for monetizing obscure gifts. very ascent combines, to varying speak of “strength”—she is near the top, This would be Ashima’s best chance to E degrees, elements of technical skill, but she is not too keen on taking risks. get on a Wheaties box. physical strength, imagination, concen- Anyway, her parents won’t allow it. She Another standard is the rating regi- tration, and tolerance for risk. Climbers has small, powerful fingers, a light but men. Sport and trad climbs are given a are stronger in some elements than in sinewy frame, and a seemingly efortless degree of diiculty, according to the Yo- others and so favor certain disciplines. yet peerlessly precise technique. All this semite Decimal System: 1 is a walk on The various approaches depend in large enables her to find holds in nearly im- flat land, and 5 is a vertical climb, or close part on the extent and the manner of perceptible chinks in the rock. A rock to it. So actual climbs are rated 5.0 through “protection”—the cams, nuts, bolts, and climber’s key attribute is a high strength- 5.15, with additional subcategories of “a” pitons that support the rope, and the to-weight ratio, but the ability to create through “d.” The hardest routes at the climber attached to it. Sport climbing leverage, with subtle geometric variations moment are 5.15c—there are just two. takes place on routes, either in gyms or in body positioning, is the force multi- (The system is open-ended, so it’s only a outdoors, that have fixed protection; you plier. A civilian might think crudely of matter of time before someone pioneers hook your rope into existing bolts. “Trad” climbing as something like ascending a a 5.16a.) In northeast Spain, last March, (traditional) involves climbing outdoors ladder—all reach and pull—but watch- when Ashima was thirteen, she became and putting in your own protection as ing Ashima adjust the attitude of her the first woman, and the youngest per- you go. Free soloing is climbing without hips, shoulders, or heels as she tries to son of either sex, ever to “send” (complete) protection. You fall, you die. move from one improbable hold to an- a 5.15. It is a route called Open Your Bouldering consists of short routes, other gives the impression that the human Mind Direct, which was recently up- or “problems,” of no higher than twenty body can arrange itself in an infinite num- graded from a 5.14d to a 5.15a, owing to feet or so, on freestanding boulders and ber of forms, each of slightly diferent a handhold’s having broken of. She spent accessible overhangs or in climbing utility. just four days “projecting” the route—that gyms. Boulderers eschew protection— She has an uncanny muscle memory, is, studying and solving all the problems you fall, you ache. Bouldering, the Pata- so that once she finds the right position on it by trial and error. The men who had gonia founder and rock-climbing pio- for the problem she nails it. This econ- done it before had spent weeks, if not neer Yvon Chouinard once said, is omy of motion, both innate and learned, months. Obviously, the rating system is “instant sufering.” is, at the highest levels, an esoteric art. also subjective, but for Ashima this feat

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 31 was an annunciation. If she could send a founder, Josh Lowell, who was shooting flax-colored Bijinga pattern. Her father 5.15 during spring break from eighth her that day, told me, “I’ve been to that buys fabric in the garment district, and grade, what more could she do? spot with a bunch of talented pro climb- her mother makes her clothes on a sew- Bouldering has a similar rating sys- ers over the years and never seen anyone ing machine at home. He also cuts Ashi- tem, with a scale of V1 to V15. Ashima have a day like that before. She has a ma’s hair and chooses her outfits for com- is the second woman to have sent more chance to completely change the game petitions. He had on plaid cotton pants, than one V14. (She beat her predeces- of climbing in the next few years.” a gray T-shirt, and running shoes. He is sor in a competition last year.) In a no- short and compact, with spiked hair dyed table session this fall, an hour north of he first time I saw Ashima Shirai- partly yellow. He often looks down at the city, in a wooded area that climbers Tshi climb was at the Clifs, a vast the floor when you talk to him. He call the Master Bedroom, Ashima ticked gym in Long Island City. It was a school smokes Parliaments out of a silver case. of a series of diicult problems: a V11 holiday, and she had taken the E train He carries a brown felt dufel with his called Reckless, a V12 called Wetness to from Manhattan with her father. She Ashima stuf: shoes, chalk, flip-flops, Fatness, and a V14 called Nuclear War, trains mainly at the Clifs or at Brook- thermos, snack bars, hairbrush, cream. A which, in the nine years since it was first lyn Boulders, a smaller gym that opened competitor’s mother once asked him climbed, had turned back all attempts six years ago in an old Daily News ga- whether he ever had any interest in climb- until hers. She announced her perfor- rage not far from the Gowanus Canal. ing himself, and he replied, “I don’t have mance on Instagram: “V11, V12 and Despite how young and girlish her voice time. I must clean Ashima’s shoes.” V14 in a DAY! HOLY CRAP!!!!!” On had sounded on the phone, I was sur- They went upstairs and found a quiet Thanksgiving, she posted a photo from prised by how small she is. She is just place where there were a few stationary Texas on Instagram: “I shocked myself over five feet, with broad shoulders, long bikes. Poppo lowered the seat on one, by getting the first female ascent of the arms, and neat bangs. Her face, at rest, and Ashima sat down. Standing behind legendary razor blade climb, Terre de has a melancholy air, but a ready smile her, he combed out her hair. He rubbed Sienne (V14)!” (Also Federer-like is her lights it up. She shrugs a lot and doesn’t cream into the hair by her temples and way of blending frank amazement at her talk much. She often stands like a dancer, combed that, too, then rested the little own capabilities with an air of humility with one toe pointed out, hip a-jut. She jar of cream on the rear wheel of an el- and ease.) does not look muscular, but once she’s liptical machine. She stared straight ahead. The photo from the Master Bedroom on the wall the muscles in her shoulders Her feet were bare. They are long, with showed a film crew standing beneath her and back seem to spring out of nowhere. big toes like thumbs. He put her hair in as she dangled, almost parallel to the She’s metamorphic. a ponytail. ground, from a sun-dappled gneiss over- She ducked into the locker room and This was a ritual they perform before hang. They were from the climbing-video came out a few moments later wearing every training session or competition; company Big Up Productions, which has a yellow North Face tank top and knee- they have a knack for finding the calm made several films of Ashima. Big Up’s length cotton climbing Capris in a corners of busy gyms. Then came a brief warmup. They faced each other and went wordlessly through a series of stretches. She followed his lead, not quite giving it her all. They went from one end of the body to the other: ankles, legs, shoulders, arms, fingers, wrists, neck. They kneaded their own fingertips and then their fore- arms and triceps. He slugged himself a few times on the thighs and chest with a fist, and she halfheartedly did so, too. They finished with a sumo squat and a leap into the air, and then she sat on a mat and jammed her feet into a pair of climbing shoes. The gym teemed with climbers of all ages and sizes and shapes, and as Ashi- ma walked among them some did dou- ble takes, others played it cool, and a few ofered up congratulations, for the world championships. She warmed up with a series of quick short climbs: bouldering routes, each a bit more diicult than the one before and yet easy for her, a wiz amid the rifraf. After a while, she tried some longer routes, to work on her endurance. For but it is the indisputable hub of outdoor cry.” Tears, still, but now over wanting these, she stepped into a harness, and climbing activity in the city, with a sur- to climb well, rather than not at all. Some her father belayed her from below, with prising number of tricky bouldering prob- of the Rat Rock regulars worried that, a twenty-metre rope. As she climbed, lems on its north and east sides, and a as one put it, “there’s a Svengali thing she clipped the rope into a series of car- revolving cast of characters who congre- going on here.” But they started to see abiners attached to the wall. The climbs gate there to take them on. the results. “And look at her now!” one increased in diiculty. She and her fa- When Ashima was little, her parents said. “Maybe that’s what it takes.” (Ashi- ther studied the routes. What little they often brought her to that part of the ma and her father deny that there was said to each other was in Japanese. (She Park, to visit a playground nearby. One ever tension between them or with Yuki. says that she is better in English and day, when she was six, she ran over to In general, Ashima is dismissive of any doesn’t write Japanese very well.) Her Rat Rock, intending to slide Svengali talk. “I climb for father often gives her tactical advice— down the gentle scarp on myself,” she told me.) Mar- what climbers call beta—especially after the south side. She noticed covallo also remembers the she falls. “Then he suggests a diferent people climbing, and scam- day that he and some oth- way,” Ashima told me. “And sometimes pered up an easy pitch. The ers were idly talking about it’ll be bad beta. I’m, like, ‘You try it!’ ” sensei of Rat Rock, an old climbing shoes and Ashima She worked her way up a route that Japanese gardener named exclaimed, “I’m sponsored!” had a series of overhangs. She was al- Yukihiko Ikumori, known (She now has endorsement most upside down, gripping a handhold to all as Yuki, noticed her. deals with Clif Bar, The the size of a loaf of bread. She reached Yuki had devised new ways North Face, Petzl, and Evolv.) into her bag of chalk, shook each arm, of attacking almost every prominent When Ashima was seven, Poppo and then was suddenly hanging by two problem there, including Death by Dizzy began taking her around to climbing hands, legs dangling, from a grip the size and Tweaky Shit, and he often helped gyms in the area. In White Plains, they of a dinner roll. No panic. newcomers learn them. He began to found a coach named Obe Carrion, a Two middle-aged climbers, a man work with Ashima. “I have to translate muscular Puerto Rican from Allentown, and a woman, watched from below. “I’m our climbs to the hands of a six-year- Pennsylvania, who had been a national going to project that,” the man said. “But old,” he told a friend named Vadim Mar- champion. Carrion was going to teach it’ll take me months.” covallo, who had started climbing at Rat her some real technique, and perhaps The woman said, “She’s hanging on Rock in 1981. According to Marcovallo, serve as a bufer between Ashima and freaking slopers”—that is, Ashima was Ashima would follow Yuki around, doing her father. Not long afterward, she won resting straight-armed on rounded holds everything he’d do. the nationals for the first time. Carrion that seemed to ofer no real purchase. “Then her father stepped in,” Mar- worked with her for almost four years, “The pulleys in her fingers are well covallo recalled. “He wouldn’t allow Yuki but eventually, amid tension with Poppo, developed,” he said. “She’s like a chim- to show her anything anymore. And so he quit and moved West. “It was a bit panzee. Her fingers are steel.” Yuki wouldn’t even look at her, because too much for me,” Carrion recalled. “It When Ashima was done, she started the father was there.” Marcovallo recalled wasn’t good for me to focus all my en- right in on another route. “Most people that in those early years, once Ashima ergy on one child.” would need a thirty-minute rest after showed promise, she often wanted to The first film of Ashima, “Rock Lit- that,” the man said. “This one is the hard- run around in the playground with other tle Angel: Dreaming Rat,” was shot by est they got in this gym. This is insane.” kids her age, or even hang out with a family friends, when she was eight, at He watched her edge up over a ledge. crew of high-school students who did Rat Rock. In some respects, it is less a After a few minutes, she reached the top parkour tricks on a diferent part of the proclamation of talent than a medita- and then drifted down, on her father’s rock. “But her father always insisted she tion on precocity. It features the eerie belay. For a while, she sat on a mat with climb, climb, climb,” Marcovallo said. “I music of Nocturnal Emissions, an En- her shoes of, looking almost bored. actually remember him saying it: ‘Climb!’ glish sound-art collective, which had And there was lots of tears and drama. served as the accompaniment for some s it happens, the man had been Our hearts went out to her. We all won- of Poppo’s Butoh performances. Rat Rock A around when Ashima first got dered, How is this going to play out?” comes of as a strange, wild place, and started. “She had the ugliest set of shoes,” As Marcovallo recalled, Ashima’s aunt Ashima as a mystical nymph. Sometimes he recalled. “She was, like, seven. She persuaded her father to relent and let her you get the sense that she isn’t so much used to come up to us and tell us moves.” run around a bit in the playground—and an athlete as an art project. This was at Rat Rock, a hump of schist then Ashima started to want to climb about a hundred and fifty feet wide and on her own. “She started to crush it,” hough still a girl, and very much not quite ten yards high, near the south- Marcovallo said. “She’d do the Polish Tunder the sway of her father, Ashi- ern end of Central Park. Oicially, it’s Traverse”—a horizontal route on the ma is shrewd about her career and oddly called Umpire Rock, owing to the ball rock’s north wall—“like nobody’s busi- self-suicient where business is con- fields nearby, but its denizens have given ness. I remember when she was trying cerned. She has had no professional rep- it a more honest name. By global boul- some diicult problem on the west side resentation of any kind. She handles her dering standards, Rat Rock ain’t much, of the rock. When she didn’t do it, she’d own press. When she has had to sign

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 33 contracts, her parents review them, but clippings. Ashima sleeps on the bottom Steiner, a private school on the Upper because they don’t read English very well, bunk. Poppo’s bed is out in the main East Side. It’s a Waldorf school—pro- she said, “they have no idea what’s going space, in a corner. One part of the loft is gressive, tactile, artsy—where kids make on.” Just before Christmas, however, she a kind of playpen, a fenced-of area clut- their own books and tools. The high met with RXR Sports, the agency that tered with Ashima’s old toys and art work. school is in a town house a block south represents the free soloist Alex Honnold Ashima’s favorite book is Haruki Muraka- of Michael Bloomberg’s. Ashima started and many other climbers, to discuss the mi’s “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His at Steiner when she was three and had possibility of her becoming a client. Years of Pilgrimage.” Her favorite movie Dena Malon as her main teacher in As with gymnastics and figure skating, is “Breakfast at Tifany’s.” (“I love Au- grades one through eight. This year, there are many cases of climbing prodi- drey Hepburn.”) But she doesn’t really Malon is on a sabbatical, in part to clear gies, especially girls, who are phenoms at have time for movies. She likes to watch her mind after eight years with the same twelve and done by twenty. “They don’t the Knicks when she can. group of kids and to prepare for the next want to be pawns anymore,” Josh Lowell, Her mother has a bob and dresses in group. “It’s my aim to let go of them,” the Big Up filmmaker, said. Priorities, and painter’s pants and long jackets. She is Malon said. Ashima is one of the more bodies, change. Tori Allen, who grew up in her mid-sixties. She has never tried diicult ones to let go of: “She works in Benin, was known for the stufed ani- to climb. “I’m not athletic anything,” she harder than anyone I know. I’ve never mal she kept clipped to her harness, as a says. “I make the pants.” Ashima’s par- met anyone like her.” Ashima has friends nod to a childhood spent climbing trees ents are very attuned to her weight. In there but hardly has time to hang out with a pet monkey. She was a professional October, she was eighty-two pounds. with them outside of school. by the age of twelve, an X Games cham- “She’s too skinny,” Poppo told me. “It’s Ashima intends to leave Steiner after pion at fourteen. She attracted endorse- too light. Needs more food. Six months this year for the Professional Children’s ments, and hype, to the point where peo- ago, she was a hundred pounds.” This School, a midtown high school that gives ple on the climbing scene began to resent swing seems extreme, as does the atten- its students, many of them actors, mod- her. (They called her climbing’s Anna tion to weight generally, but the concern els, or musicians, a chance to have flex- Kournikova.) She quit competitive climb- is pure physics—the strength-to-weight ible schedules. “Normal people can go, ing in favor of pole-vaulting, which got her question. Ashima is trying to optimize. too,” Ashima told me. a scholarship at Florida State. “Now I climb Her parents were trying to get her to eat for fun, not for grades, medals, or maga- more. “Professional climbers keep giving arlier this fall, Ashima flew to Bos- zines,” Allen, who is twenty-seven, told me. her advice,” Poppo said. “Gluten-free. But E ton with her parents to compete in “I know a lot of climbers still climbing now not enough calories. My wife said, be- the Heist, an annual all-female compe- who were at their peak ten years ago. They’re fore world championships, ‘Skinny bet- tition at a climbing gym in Watertown. living six to a condo in Boulder, training ter than fat.’ But yesterday I told her, ‘You (At most competitions, the women com- to go get fourth place. Some of them have take a little bit more food.’ ” He had a pete, and then the men. At the Heist, college degrees. What motivates them? number in mind. “She’s a little bit chubby the women are the main and only event.) When are they going to give it up?” at ninety. She needs eighty-eight.” By The Shiraishis were staying at a Best Ashima seems to view climbing as a Christmas, when she went to Japan on Western nearby, with a Japanese film venue for accomplishment rather than crew from Fuji TV that had been fol- as a ground for adventure. “Climbing lowing them around for almost a year used to be for the misfits who couldn’t for a series about Ashima, called “The catch a ball or the small kids like me who Spider Girl,” which was big in Japan. got cut from the baseball team,” Lowell This was the third Heist. Everyone said. “Now it’s for élite athletes. They’re involved seemed to speak wistfully of the trying to perform a perfect ten.” It’s a year before, when Ashima competed for particularly unromantic strain of rock the first time against top grownup pro- ratting; the wild allure—wandering the fessional climbers. She had beat both continent, living out of a car—has been Alex Puccio, the nine-time national boul- bred out of it. Or perhaps, for Ashima, dering champion, and Delaney Miller, it’s just down the road. a bouldering trip, she was eighty-eight. one of the country’s best climbers. Nei- Of greater concern to them is sleep. ther was back this year. The most nota- he Shiraishis’ loft is in the garment Ashima often gets just five or six hours. ble competition was Meagan Martin, a Tdistrict, five flights up in an old sew- She arrives home from climbing at eight- powerful twenty-four-year-old climber ing factory. The elevator is ancient and thirty in the evening, showers and eats, known for her appearances on “Ameri- balky, and so the family walk up and and then starts in on her schoolwork, can Ninja Warrior.” down. The apartment is two thousand which she insists on finishing. She’s often The qualifying round stretched into square feet: seven hundred and fifty dol- up well past midnight. “We say, ‘Don’t do the afternoon. Dozens of girls and young lars a month. Ashima and her mother homework!’ ” Tsuya said. When I asked women in shorts and leggings crawled all sleep on bunk beds in a back bedroom her if Ashima got straight A’s, she said, over the walls or reclined on the heavily otherwise occupied by Poppo’s archives “Yes. Well, sometimes she gets A-plus.” padded floors. Squalls of encouragement of videotapes, records, books, and press Ashima is a freshman at Rudolf sprang up here and there, as putative

34 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 competitors egged each other on. This was not the edgy green-eyed atmosphere of the gymnastics academy or the figure-skating rink. Ashima and Poppo wandered around, scouting the more diicult problems. Little crowds gath- ered to watch her nail each one. The gym’s head route setter, a coach named Shane Messer, watched her on the hard- est, and he said that she was the only one in the gym capable of completing it. “There’s still a diference between the men and the women, but the girls are getting really close,” he said. “Ashima is stronger than, let’s say, all but twenty dudes in the world.” There were six women in the finals, which were held in the evening. The climbers mustered in an empty section of the gym, away from their parents or their coaches. The organizer had rigged a giant white sheet over the champion- ship course—it hid two bouldering prob- lems and a sport-climbing route. The “Unicorns do exist!” gym filled with several hundred specta- tors, most of them practitioners or par- •• ents attuned to the sport’s nuances. After a while, amid loud music and colored lights, the finalists were introduced, the twelve points, featured an awkward move port me, I don’t want to let them down.” curtain fell away, and the competitors from one facet to another, via a tricky Now her father looked on helplessly as got fifteen minutes to stalk the base of corner, and onto an overhang. The first Ashima worked her way through the the wall, studying the routes. They moved climber couldn’t get past it and earned crux, face to the wall. She was using toe- in a cluster, gesturing at invisible hand- eight points. Among the first five, only holds that didn’t seem to exist. For a mo- holds, as though reaching for fireflies, one, a local climber named Bimini Horst- ment, she was caught in the corner, reach- and even occasionally shared their im- mann, got through, by facing away from ing up toward the ledge, and then pressions and tactical notions with one the wall, and only on her third attempt. suddenly the implausible was made to another. Ashima ran over to her father The crowd went nuts. She topped out and seem routine. I thought of a phrase that and retrieved a pair of binoculars. She leaped of. “That’s my girl!” her mother a champion climber named Sasha Di- peered up at the higher reaches of the yelled. The next climber, Meagan Mar- Giulian had mentioned to me, about cer- roped route. He watched from the back tin, the ninja, got stuck in the corner and tain climbers having “a voice on the wall.” of the gym, taut with an unappeasable gave the crowd a “You kidding me?” gri- Ashima’s was distinctive, purposeful, fluid. urge to share beta. mace. She came of, after a pair of nines. “She make new beta very fast,” her When the competition began, the Ashima, as the top qualifier, went last. father said. “That make her very special climbers went one at a time. Each had She, too, got hung up in the corner sec- person.” five minutes—if a competitor was still tion, and, to everyone’s surprise, fell in Amid cheers and screams, she swung on the wall when the time expired, she her first attempt. She re-chalked and like a lemur onto the last two holds, hang- could keep going until she fell. The climb- studied the wall. Problems, problems. ing for a second from the top one, then ers, as they awaited their turn, sat side One of the setters said to another, “What she waved to the crowd, jumped down, by side in a row of chairs facing away if Bimini does her boulder and Ashima and gave a smile of told-you-so and from the wall and were forbidden to turn doesn’t?” The prospect seemed to con- amazes-me-too. She returned to her seat. around, lest they glean intel from their cern and astound them. “What? What?” one of the scorers rivals’ attempts. Each time the one climb- I’d heard that Ashima sometimes had gasped. “I don’t understand how that just ing made a hard move, the crowd hooted of days or, at least, that she sometimes happened.” Neither did the woman who’d and cheered, and the others could only started slow in qualifying rounds, per- set the route. Ashima had devised an un- guess at what had occurred. Ashima haps because of pressure. One day, while foreseen solution.  stared calmly ahead. talking about Serena Williams and her The climbers earned points as they as- upset loss in the semifinals of the U.S. cended from hold to hold. The first prob- Open, Ashima said, “Sometimes I feel newyorker.com lem, about twenty feet high and worth like she might feel. The people who sup- Video: Ashima Shiraishi on why she climbs.

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 35 dam Fogelson, the chairman of A Hollywood’s newest studio, lis- tened to a pitch for a film called “Un- manned” with an encouraging smile. Hollywood pitches are jolly, elaborately courteous afairs. So on this sunny after- noon the filmmakers—two producers, the director, and the star, Keanu Reeves, whose black suit and black T-shirt and black beard gave him the look of a styl- ish sexton—had cheerfully trekked over the hill to STX Entertainment’s oices in Burbank, and STX’s executives had cheerfully welcomed them with a bot- tomless supply of bottled water. Chris Morgan, one of the producers, explained that “Unmanned,” an action film about a global war set in 2033, was really “ ‘Saving Private Ryan’ five min- utes in the future.” Reeves would play Bellam, a discredited soldier who must go behind enemy lines in Hong Kong to rescue his younger brother, Royce. The film’s hook was that every soldier has an “ape”—a robot sidekick that accompa- nies him into battle and mimics his hab- its. To find Royce, Bellam would have to forge an unlikely bond with Royce’s ape. As in almost every Hollywood film about a dystopian future, humanity would out- fox and outfeel the machines. Fogelson’s face was a mask of amena- bility. At forty-eight, he is neither young nor old, neither tall nor short, neither trendy nor mainstream. Pleasantly hand- ANNALS OF HOLLYWOOD some and immensely competitive, he strives to remain imperturbable and, as he likes to say, “laser focussed.” Yet he’s THE MOGUL OF a hugger, grateful for any true sincerity or passion in a town dedicated to fab- THE MIDDLE ricating both. Though he’d never vol- unteer this in a meeting, his strongest As the movie business founders, motivation is his fear of dying without Adam Fogelson tries to reinvent the system. leaving some monument behind. (As a boy, he burst into tears whenever he BY TAD FRIEND passed a cemetery.) His supporters ad- mire his humor and his contradictions; his detractors find him arrogant. In a sense, he embodies the movie business he hopes to dominate: calculating, im- pulsive, hard-nosed, and hopeful. Morgan rolled a five-minute “sizzle reel,” essentially a trailer for an unmade film. Made by the prospective director, Tim Webber, who was the visual-efects supervisor on “Gravity” and “Avatar,” it comprised bits from twenty-three films, as well as from commercials for video games. Reeves’s voice-over—“War In a market sufused with pricey superhero films, Fogelson is betting on stories on a human scale.

36 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 But he says, “If you ask, ‘Can we make something great once or twice a year that violates a rational business model?,’ the answer is no!”

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANGIE SMITH would run well above sixty million dollars. “Unmanned” was going to have to change to fit STX’s model—the origin story that explained to investors how the company would reinvent the Hollywood formula. The six major studios, besieged by entertainment options that don’t re- quire people to get of the couch, have bet that the future lies in films that are too huge to ignore. Although they make low-budget films for targeted audiences (teen girls, say, or horror fans), they focus most of their energies on movies that cost more than three hundred million dollars to make and market. Such films are pred- icated not on the chancy appeal of indi- vidual actors but on “I.P.”—intellectual property, in the form of characters and stories that the audience already knows from books or comics or video games. These blockbusters are intended to appeal to everyone, everywhere—but they leave many people cold. STX’s founder and C.E.O., Bob Simonds, told me, “There’s a huge vacuum there. And that vacuum is the place you can tell human •• stories—what I think of as movies.” What had vanished were the kind of character- is pain . . . you hurt them, they hurt you”— “You need a clear good guy and a clear driven, John Hughes-level films that suck created a mournful mood, and the edit- bad guy, and the audience needs to know you in on a rainy Saturday morning. So ing was propulsive: shots of Royce’s ape what it’s rooting for.” “Unmanned” STX was betting on the enduring appeal flicking a lighter the way Royce did, in- satisfied that injunction. But one of Fo- of movie stars. But they had to be play- tercut with battle scenes and closeups of gelson’s own rules is “Only make a film ing the kinds of role that had made them Reeves and other actors looking weary you already know how to sell.” Having stars. Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood”? and defiant. come up as a marketer at Universal Pic- Yes. Russell Crowe in “The Water Di- Pitch meetings, rife with sucking up tures, which he ran from 2009 to 2013, viner”? No. And the movies had to be and bogus fervor, are among Fogelson’s Fogelson believes that seventy-five per sensibly priced, by current standards: be- least favorite executive tasks. When the cent of a movie’s success is due to its tween twenty and eighty million dollars. lights came on after the sizzle reel, he marketing and its marketability. One STX’s internal data showed that such said, “I was thinking, Please, God, don’t of his biggest bombs at Universal—a star- showcase films, within that budget let me have to fake enthusiasm—and hundred- and-sixty-million-dollar blood- range, were profitable thirty per cent more that was the best version of that kind of bath—was “47 Ronin,” which starred often than the average Hollywood film. thing I have ever seen! I love the wish Reeves, regrettably, as a samurai warrior. So the studio planned to make a lot of fulfillment, the idea that, even after tech- Nonetheless, Fogelson believed he could them. By 2017, STX expects to release nology takes over, a human brain and a sell Reeves here by positioning him as between twelve and fifteen movies a year, human soul still matter.” the kind of reluctant hero that he had as many as some of the major studios. “This is about brothers,” Webber said. played in “The Matrix.” Though the studio presents itself as “It’s about people!” Reeves rubbed his “What do you think you can make the shiny new disrupter, with a lean org palms as if starting a fire. it for?” Fogelson asked. The line pro- chart and business cards printed in En- Fogelson suspects that filmmakers ducer answered, “We haven’t done an glish and Mandarin, it’s fuelled by an will agree with any opinion he ofers in absolute budget. And for the battle por- ancient motivation: proving the other order to get a green light, so he lets them tions we still have to find a preëxisting, guys wrong. Bob Simonds is a shrewd, describe the film they really intend to slightly tropical Asian-feel locale that preppy fireball who dated Jennifer Beals make, then trusts his gut about whether looks not exactly bombed-out. But . . . at Yale, graduated summa cum laude, it sounds commercial. Choosing which fifty, sixty?” Fogelson glanced at his then made his name as the producer of movies to make is the crux of his job, the No. 2, Oren Aviv, who narrowed his eyes. such Adam Sandler comedies as “Happy hundred-million-dollar decision. When The script called for “the largest naval Gilmore” and “The Waterboy.” He was he was eight, his father, the head of mar- armada gathered since the Second World ofered two studio chairmanships but keting at Columbia Pictures, told him, War,” among other showstoppers, which never a job running the parent company.

38 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 “Studio chairman sounds so much big- two sides that are fighting are sort of Axis he began the job, his daughter Willa re- ger than it is,” Simonds said. “Somebody and Allies, but it’s not specified who the minded him, “The good part about being gives you the keys to the car—but you Axis are, so any country with a movie the- fired is you got to chase after a diferent can’t fucking take it of-roading.” atre can be on the side of the Allies.” dream. Just like a movie.” In the fall of 2014, he handed his Fogelson said, “I love—I hate—but I The downside to being a studio chief own keys to Adam Fogelson, who also love the idea of the U.S. and China as is that everyone hates and fears you, be- has something to prove: he had left Uni- partners in the next world war!” The cause you say no so much more often versal, the year before, because he was Chinese market is the world’s second- than yes—and because your yeses come fired, and he felt that his ouster was un- largest, and growing more than fifty per with so many provisos. Also, you rarely fair. Simonds told me—as Fogelson sat cent a year. So the meeting ended in hugs get to hold the crystal ball long. Con- nearby, frowning responsibly but not and high hopes. “That was an awesome glomerates prefer firing a studio’s leader demurring—that “Adam led that stu- reel!” Fogelson said in the hallway after- for picking the wrong films to reassess- dio to the three most profitable years in ward, high-fiving with Aviv. “This never ing the whole business. Fogelson has an its history, and he’s still sufering from happens, where we want to get it done opportune temperament for the job, be- watching the success built on his back.” today!” Aviv said. “Usually, it ends with cause he firmly believes that the world In 2015, Universal accounted for a ‘Fucking great—we’ll call you!’—and will love what he loves, once he gets its whopping twenty-two per cent of the then that’s it.” attention. Stacey Snider, the co-chairman industry’s domestic box-oice, largely of Twentieth Century Fox, told me that, from films that Fogelson green-lit. “Bob dam Fogelson’s childhood dream, when she worked with him at Univer- and Adam are the chip-on-the- shoulder A along with playing on the P.G.A. sal, “if the tracking said we open a movie guys,” one agent said. “Their brand is Tour, was to be a studio chief. It’s a sweet at ten to twenty”—million dollars—“I’m ‘We were right, and you should have deal. You get paid eight million to up- thinking ten, and Adam is thinking listened.’ ” ward of fifteen million dollars a year to twenty. I used to say to him, ‘I don’t be- With Simonds’s checkbook, Fogel- decide what the entire world will clamor lieve you’re Jewish, because you’re too son was going to demonstrate that you to see in two years. You are not a house- optimistic.’ ” Yet his optimism is tem- could build a studio without theme parks hold name, but you determine who the pered by distrust of anything highbrow and television networks to help you mar- household names will be. When Fogel- or oversubtle. The producer and record ket your films, and without anything like son joined STX, he took a salary a quar- mogul Russell Simmons said, “Adam’s the two or three thousand people most ter the size of his compensation at Uni- not interested in movies where they all studios employ. He was going to pick versal—but he also received equity that, talk too much, that Sundance shit of the right films, spend less to make them, in success, will be worth many times that. jerking of on the screen.” Fogelson’s fa- spend just as much to market them, and And he got the chance to reinvent at vorite films include “One Flew Over the win back audiences who’d forsworn the least a system, and possibly himself. As Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Kramer vs. Kramer,” moviegoing habit. He was going to save the industry. And he didn’t expect much thanks. “The studios all hate us, all six of them,” he told me. “They hate us be- cause they don’t want to have to go to New York and explain to their bosses how we’re making fifteen movies a year with only seventy employees.” In the “Unmanned” meeting, Keanu Reeves suggested that they could build up a flashback scene where Royce visits his brother in the hospital after rescuing him in a firefight. “I’m on morphine, I’m fucked up, he should have let me die, maybe he gives me a little fucking Teddy bear, be- cause our relationship has that thing”— he banged his fists together. He stood and began to pace, talking the story through. He became Bellam, tagging along behind Royce’s ape in Hong Kong, limping, he- roic, then became Royce’s ape, looking back coldly: “C’mon, keep up!” Fogelson and Aviv smiled at each other. Reeves was into the project, not just the paycheck. “And from a worldwide marketing per- “Yeah, I could walk all the way to Egypt. Or you could spective,” Chris Morgan concluded, “the just free them yourself using magic.” but also “National Lampoon’s Ani- said he wouldn’t have made them in the in total, and they had to carefully and mal House” and “National Lampoon’s first place. He’d have scotched “Blade expensively market each one—to peo- Vacation.” Runner,” because “darkness and sci-fi is ple who stayed home anyway. At most studios, prospective films are really hard”; “Fight Club,” because The average teen-ager, the movie- vetted by a green-light committee. Mar- “watching people beat the shit out of goer of the future, sees six films a year keting and distribution weigh in on each other is a tough ask”; and “The in the theatre. Movie theatres are no whether they can sell and disseminate Shawshank Redemption,” much as he longer where we go for stories about the film, and then, after totting up ex- loved it, because the obvious sell—an in- who we are. That’s become television’s pected costs and examining “comps”— nocent man trying to escape from job. We go to the movies now for the the receipts of comparable films—the prison—was a huge spoiler. same reasons that Romans went to the executives build a spreadsheet showing Fogelson is well suited to an age in Colosseum: to laugh, to scream, and to a range of outcomes. Then the chairman which studios spend less making films cheer. Comedy, horror, and triumphs of decides whether the film seems likely to than they do marketing them around the the human spirit still play better in the- help the studio hit the target margin world—and in which films and their atres than at home. What plays best of (fifteen per cent, say) that its parent com- marketing are increasingly synonymous. all, of course, is a spaceship going pany set for the year. After Fox rejected Seth MacFarlane’s kablooey all over the screen. Extrava- Fogelson looks at comps, too, but then idea for a film about a foulmouthed Teddy gant computer-generated imagery is the he applies a three-part test. First, can the bear, Fogelson made it into a half- billion- hallmark of blockbusters that are care- film be great? (By “great,” he means “dis- dollar worldwide smash for Universal. fully formulated to avoid being “execu- tinguished within its genre.” When he “In early 2012,” he said, “if you asked a tion dependent” or “review sensitive”— green-lit “The Boy,” a horror film that roomful of people ‘What’s “Ted”?,’ some to avoid needing to be good. One studio STX will release this month, he hoped might have said, ‘A conference,’ and some, head told me, “Movies may not have merely that it could be “a great blend of ‘My uncle,’ and most would have no idea. gotten better over the years, but they’ve two beloved subgenres of horror: the Four months later, all around the world, gotten more satisfying. A generation spooky doll, and the house haunted by a giant portion of people would have ago, execs made movies that they wanted a fucked-up child.”) Then, Do we know said, ‘A movie about a magical bear who to see. ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ was a really how to sell it? And, Can we make much comes to life.’ You’ve gone from a non- good movie, but it’s not satisfying to a more in success than we lose in failure? existent concept to a distant cousin of global audience. Whereas the ‘Harry Modest profit doesn’t suice. STX is Coca-Cola in four months. That is an Potter’ series and the ‘Lord of the Rings’ now filming “The Foreigner,” which stars exciting, terrifying, magical truth.” The trilogy weren’t great movies, but they Jackie Chan as a former assassin who terrifying part is how hard that success were very satisfying.” The director Billy comes out of retirement to hunt the is to repeat: “Ted 2,” last summer, made Ray traced the phenomenon to the eco- I.R.A. terrorists who blew up his daugh- less than half as much. nomic collapse of 2008, and to the de- ter. Fogelson was confident that he could cline of the DVD market. “That’s when sell it, and that it was a “free play”—that he history of the movie business is corporate timidity gave way to terror,” it would earn enough in China alone to Ta soaring ascent followed by a long he said. “Studio people actually said to recoup its costs. The low-risk strategy swoon. In 1927, when America had a me, ‘Don’t bring me anything that’s good, would be to bring in a pliable unknown third of its current population and movie because I’ll be tempted to buy it, and to direct. “We could have got a three- tickets cost twenty-five cents, the stu- I can’t.’ ” hundred-thousand-dollar director,” he dios enjoyed box-oice revenues of seven The studios’ turn to spectacle to said. “But we worked hard to get a Mar- transfix a restless audience is not new. tin Campbell to give it a chance to be When TV became popular, in the nine- great.” Campbell, the director of “Casino teen-fifties, the studios responded with Royale” and “GoldenEye,” got paid about such CinemaScope behemoths as “The two million dollars, which means that Robe” and “Beneath the 12-Mile Reef.” STX spent an extra $1.7 million to play (Billy Wilder suggested that the wide- the greatness lottery. screen technology might be best suited However, Fogelson noted, “If you ask, for filming “the love story of two dachs- ‘Can we make something great once or hunds.”) What is novel is the studios’ twice a year that violates a rational busi- hundred and eighty million dollars. heavy reliance on the string of sequels ness model?,’ the answer is no! It’s not a That’s $10.6 billion in today’s money— known as a franchise. Shawn Levy, the painting—it’s tens and tens of millions nearly three hundred million dollars director of the “Night at the Museum” of dollars. Also, none of our movies are more than the studios took in in 2014. series, said, “We have projects at six stu- being made with the idea that they have In those days, each studio owned its own dios, and ninety per cent of their atten- to turn out great. Because eighty per cent theatres and distributed as many as two tion goes to the ones that are superhero of movies don’t.” When I mentioned a hundred films a year, knowing that peo- or obviously franchisable. And every sin- number of superb films that failed at the ple would show up for whatever was gle first meeting I have on a movie, in box oice, and asked whether better mar- playing. Last year, the studios released the past two years, is not about the movie keting could have saved them, Fogelson only a hundred and seventy-eight films itself but about the franchise it would be

40 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 starting.” Twenty-nine sequels and re- boots came out last year, many of them further illuminations of a comic-book universe. One senior studio executive told me, “As a moviegoer, I don’t like see- ing all these sequels and franchises. But we have to do justice by the sharehold- ers, and from a marketing perspective it’s a lot easier: ‘Star Wars’—Gee, I wonder what that’s about?” Getting any movie right is hard, so why not make one that can bring in five hundred million dollars? The blockbuster game is a fantastic business to be in when it works, which is why conglomerates keep buying stu- dios. But it’s getting steadily less fantas- tic, which is why conglomerates keep selling them. A studio head told me, “The hundred-million-dollar Roland Emmerich movie that does five hundred million worldwide—every year, our profit on it goes down.” Making less and less of a product with declining margins is probably not a recipe for long-term suc- “Say your prayers, liturgies, tefillah, daily salat, sacred mantra, ritual cess. And competition is everywhere. incantation, or the secular armation of your choice, varmint!” One longtime film executive predicted, “With Google, Verizon, A. T. & T., Com- •• cast, Hulu, YouTube, Facebook, Ama- zon, and Netflix getting into original content, studios won’t be able to com- Roth told me. “But the problem with survives in the long term. The subtext pete with digital distribution. Within living in the mid-range is you gotta have of every conversation I have, nowadays, three years, Paramount won’t be in exis- taste.” Revolution débuted with “Tom- is the good old days.” tence, Sony will disappear, Fox will buy cats,” a conspicuous turkey, and later re- Warner Bros., and you’ll have Fox, Dis- leased the infamous “Gigli.” The studio very studio head is ceaselessly peti- ney, and Universal left.” died in 2007. “Frankly,” Roth said, “we E tioned by filmmakers who appeal Yet the studio executives I spoke with didn’t make enough good movies.” to his humanity, hoping he’ll be so in- don’t seem to fear being supplanted. One And taste isn’t enough. “At Univer- spired by their talent that he’ll bet the noted coolly, “Despite its current vola- sal, Adam found breakout winners in the studio on it. The ones who listen don’t tility, this is the most stable business in mid-budget category, and I’ll bet that he stick around long. In this climate, Adam the history of the United States. The six can find them for STX,” Fox’s Stacey Fogelson’s warmth and buried anger, his studios that are here today have been Snider told me. “But the challenges STX habit of taking deals personally, are un- here since the beginning, early in the last faces are absolute. There are very few re- usual. “Adam has a soul,” Billy Ray said. century. That’s a function of some seri- lease dates when they won’t be facing the “I wouldn’t say it’s singular in this in- ous impediments to getting into the busi- big behemoths from the studios. What dustry, but it doesn’t take long to call ness.” Hollywood has proved so resistant makes movies uniquely cinematic is re- roll.” Like most studios, STX doesn’t to disruption because relationships with ally compelling I.P.—and their movies grant final cut to directors, or allow them talent, a feel for disparate audience seg- won’t have that. And because STX’s mov- to approve trailers and marketing ma- ments, and a knack for providing global ies won’t have big special efects, either, terials, but Fogelson solicits their com- satisfaction aren’t things that a startup they’ll be domestic in their appeal, not pliance. “It’s not making widgets,” he can easily replicate. global. If the domestic market is flat at said. “Our widgets have thoughts and The bygone aspirants include Orion best, and STX can’t aford to make mov- feelings and, in a perfect world, want and Hemdale and Artisan and Overture ies that play in China, it’s, like, Wa, to be widgetized by you again in the and Morgan Creek and Relativity Media waaa”—she made the sad-trombone future.” and a dozen others. The producer Joe sound. Pete Berg, the director of “Friday Roth started Revolution Studios in 2000 One leading agent told me, “I think Night Lights” and “Hancock,” is devoted with a billion dollars in financing and a STX is kidding itself with its business to Fogelson, who loyally defended him remarkably advantageous deal with Sony. model, trying to disrupt the studios at after a film that he directed for Uni- “Our assignment was to fill out a third the end of the studio age. Even if it can versal, “Battleship,” lost a hundred and of Sony’s slate with mid-range movies,” develop a franchise, I don’t know how it fifteen million dollars. So, over a lunch

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 41 of short-rib sandwiches at STX’s oices shoveled shit on four continents,” wasn’t no particular inflection, whether Berg last spring, Berg ofered Fogelson first a superstar’s role. And, in any case, the had seen her cameo in “Furious 7.” dibs on an action film he hoped to pro- budget wouldn’t accommodate a super- “You’re concerned about her acting?” duce, “Mile 22.” star; because Fogelson had released suc- Berg said. Fogelson nodded emphati- The film’s story was slender: a female cessful microbudget films at Universal, cally. “I’m on that. I’m on that this after- C.I.A. agent (the mixed-martial-arts star STX had begun considering less expen- noon,” Berg said. Assessing Fogelson’s Ronda Rousey) and an Indonesian cop sive projects, and this one was budgeted expression, he continued, “I’ll set a din- (the Indonesian actor and fight chore- at just ten million dollars. Yet Fogelson’s ner, and you’ll see how charming and ographer Iko Uwais) race to the Jakarta goal was to cast a star, or at least a legit- talented she is. She’s a lethal weapon— airport to escape the country, battling imate name. “That tells the audience this and she’s beautiful.” bad guys the whole way. Berg, together is a film, not a vanity exercise,” he told “Great!” Fogelson said. “Let’s make it with another producer and the film’s me. “If Liev Schreiber wanted to do it, lunch.” A homebody, he’d almost always director, emphasized the action, which we’d talk about the film in one way, the rather be making dinner with his wife would be kinetic, brutal, and original— ten-million-dollar version, and if Dwayne and two young girls. though they also reassured Fogelson that Johnson or Mark Wahlberg wanted to “Dinner’s better,” Berg said, with a it would closely resemble what Uwais do it we’d talk about it in another—the crooked smile. had done in “The Raid 2,” a bloody blur fifteen-to-eighteen-million version.” “I’m excited for a lunch,” Fogelson said. of serendipitous weaponry, including With studied casualness, Berg re- Afterward, Berg explained, “I have a chairs, hammers, broom handles, and a marked, “There’s a Will Smith play for gym, and I train fighters. Rule No. 1 is griddle. Berg described it as “the new Silva—he’s a huge U.F.C. fan. It would ‘Don’t ever fall in love with your fighter.’ wave of combat cinema.” be sick!” Rule No. 2 is ‘You always fall in love with “Nice!” Fogelson said, warming to the “Totally sick!” Fogelson agreed. They your fighter.’ Adam’s job is to maintain marketing possibilities. The other pro- both leaned back, imagining it. Then a healthy distance—he might have to ducer said they’d found a good facilita- Berg broached the key point: “What say no to us, or shut the movie down. tor in Jakarta, who’d supervised scenes would you pay Will Smith?” My job is to make that impossible. So I in the Michael Mann thriller “Black- “Two million dollars a week,” Fo- want it to be dinner, to have it be inti- hat”—a spectacular dud. “We called all gelson said, instantly. “Most he’s ever mate—to make him fall in love.” the people who worked with him—” gotten. A million a week is ‘Use me.’ Fogelson pounced: “And apologized?” Two million a week is ‘Wow, you really he conventional wisdom in Holly- Berg added, “On behalf of all of love me!’ ” Twood is that “you get killed in the America?” Berg brightened. “I’m going to say, middle.” A fifty-million-dollar film costs Fogelson cracked up. Then he said, ‘Let me come to your house with Ronda more to make than a genre film, and “We’ve got to talk about Silva”—the and explain why you should do it.’ ” nearly as much to market as a tentpole— third lead role. “And if it’s not Brad- “Be heroic!” Fogelson suggested. and, being neither for a sharply defined ley Cooper or Brad Pitt . . .” Everyone With that problem solved, or at least group nor for everyone, it often can’t find laughed. Silva, described in the screen- deferred, he raised another one: Ronda a suicient audience. “It’s such a weird play as “a salty intelligence hack who’s Rousey’s acting chops. He asked, with thing to say, but sometimes it’s better to spend more than less,” Stacey Snider said. “Production values and star power are reasons for consumers to come to the theatre.” In 2014, the studios released seventy fewer star-showcase films than they did in 2005. Though such films are the ones that people tend to remem- ber—“Michael Clayton,” “Argo,” “Amer- ican Hustle,” “American Sniper”—each studio’s annual slate includes only one or two, as Oscar bait. But for decades star showcases were a Hollywood staple. In the eighties, Car- olco, Miramax, and New Line all used the “B-movie stars doing what they do best” formula, as Disney did on such films as “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” ( Jefrey Katzenberg, then at Disney, got Bette Midler to accept only six hundred thousand dollars for the film by remind- ing her agent that her career was “in the “Does your car have any idea why my car pulled it over?” fucking toilet.”) The producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told me that when he ing costs; they make as much as seventy- monds told me, “and buying it was a was an executive at Warner Bros., in the five per cent of their revenues later, with layup.” It was for sale for a billion dol- nineties, “We were making lots of ‘Bat- home video and sales to television. Ideally, lars, and he believed he could secure it man’-scale movies, but Steven Seagal’s you need $1.5 billion in funding, which for about half that. “I was shut down deal was the most profitable one we had, allows for fifty bombs in a row (though not only by my board—which said, because his movies didn’t cost much, you’d lose credibility long before that). ‘What the fuck are you doing?’—but by played in every foreign market, and did Simonds sought funding in China— people in Hong Kong, who told me it really well on TV.” as all Hollywood has begun to do. It’s would be a terrible acquisition because As Bob Simonds considered creating home to both the money and the audi- it confuses our story.” Libraries were yes- a new studio, he was convinced that his- ence. In 1980, the international terday; STX was supposed to tory was right and conventional wisdom market contributed less than be tomorrow. wrong. In 2011, he sat down with Bill a quarter of studios’ box-oice So, to begin, Simonds had McGlashan, the managing partner of the revenues; by 2018, the Chi- to rely on Adam Fogelson, private-equity firm TPG Growth, to dis- nese market alone should ex- and his mastery of the third cuss the opportunity. McGlashan, whose ceed the North American mar- realm of a studio’s domain: firm became STX’s largest shareholder, ket. And Simonds was an old marketing. told me, “You’ve got a billion unsatisfied China hand: the scion of an people in China and a billion more in Arizona water-rights fortune, ogelson knows early in India desperate for content!” They would he once attempted to take over F development what the sell sate the clamoring masses. Simonds com- the Chinese water industry. of a movie is, and he shapes missioned a study of ten years’ worth of He secured the Chinese pri- the film accordingly. He’s an twenty-to-eighty-million-dollar films fea- vate-equity fund Hony Capital as his optician, swapping out the lenses in his turing a star in a signature role. Such films third-largest shareholder—Simonds him- refractor and inquiring, “Clearer now? proved to have an average profit margin self is the second-largest—and used that Or now?,” until the image is crisp. When of twenty-four per cent—roughly double coup to help amass $2.5 billion in cash STX was negotiating with the owners the average studio return. Confirmed in and credit lines. of UglyDoll, a line of mischievous, mis- his own experience, Simonds laid the Last April, an investment banker shapen plush dolls, for the rights to make groundwork for STX Entertainment (“S” named Donald Tang arranged for thirty an animated movie, Fogelson told his for Simonds, “T” for TPG Growth, and Chinese entrepreneurs to visit Fox, Sony, staf that he could already see the tag- “X” for secret project). and STX. They toured Hollywood in line over “a cute-looking version of that To call yourself a studio, you basically the way that one might tour Detroit— one-eyed character: ‘Beauty is in the eye need to do three things: finance movies, as a cautionary ruin. Tang explained, of the beholder.’ How do you not want distribute them, and market them. Stu- “Your relationship with content will very to see that? There are so many good and dios have distribution deals that insure soon be more important than your rela- easy ways to make you care about crea- that their big releases can play on at least tionship with other members of society. tures who know they’re not attractive.” three thousand movie screens. So Si- As much as the Chinese would like to As a boy in Hidden Hills, in the San monds negotiated deals with the four tell the best stories in the world, every- Fernando Valley, Fogelson seemed im- leading theatre chains. It took a year, but body knows Hollywood is still the king mune to this kind of self-doubt: omni- he made sure that STX’s biggest releases of content—but with a backward, bro- competent at playing soccer, hitting a could open on three thousand screens— ken process.” After the tour, Huayi Broth- golf ball, cooking duck à l’orange. In high and he got a revenue share equal to that ers, a Chinese film conglomerate, in- school, he was the president of his class, of the major studios. His leverage was vested in STX’s entire slate, putting up then of the student body. His father, An- exhibitors’ desperation for a wider range a quarter of the studio’s production costs. drew, recalled, “Somebody told me, ‘He of movies. Gerry Lopez, who was then Tang said, “They saw how enthusiastic truly is a magic boy!’ Had Adam heard the head of AMC Entertainment, Amer- STX’s employees were, and that they that, it would have shocked him. He was ica’s second-largest chain, explained that were willing to take less in compensa- convinced that he sucked and that he he made the deal with STX because “we tion for much more in incentives. They would always suck. Forty years later, I still need more movies. The studios are in didn’t see that at the traditional studios.” think he sees himself as a little outside the the sixteen-week-a-year business, so they The Chinese backing came with a normal human flow.” Fogelson’s mother, worry about sixteen Fridays. I worry about new set of expectations. Simonds had Susan, nicknamed him Raskolnikov. fifty-two Fridays. And STX will bring considered buying a library of old films, Because Andrew Fogelson ran mar- back a broader audience for the brain- a standard startup strategy for provid- keting at Columbia, and later at Warner ier, more intricate movies—not just the ing a revenue stream to cover the films Bros. and United Artists, his son learned twenty-one-year-old who’s there for the that fail. Lionsgate, the only studio in to see movies as a construct. “The first explosions.” recent years to make a real run at the time I spent real time with my father on For a new studio, a war chest is crucial, majors, began by buying libraries, and a set, on an unmemorable horror film because costs mount hugely while income its backlist now brings in five hundred called ‘The New Kids,’ I watched them trickles in. Studios lose money showing million dollars a year. “I thought Mira- lay tracks for the camera to dolly on— films in theatres, because of the market- max was the best library out there,” Si- and then I later saw the dailies of that

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 43 scene,” he recalled. “From that day for- cast, was skeptical of the film business.” In September of 2013, the C.E.O. of ward, some piece of me has never watched Given a mandate to build franchises, NBCUniversal flew to Los Angeles and, a movie without thinking about where Fogelson was immediately stuck with without much preamble, let Fogelson go; the tracks are.” “Battleship,” based on the Hasbro game. a Comcast exec would now supervise In college, at Stanford, he adopted a The project was troubled, and it would the studio. Hillary Fogelson said, “When deeper and more authoritative voice to have cost the studio thirty million dol- Adam called to tell me the news, I ab- broadcast basketball and baseball games. lars if he shut it down. Instead, he de- solutely thought he was fucking with He considered a career in sportscasting, cided that Universal had a chance to lose me.” Moments before the meeting, Fo- but shrank from so much travel. After less if he not only made the film but gelson had called Steven Spielberg to graduating, he tried writing screenplays, added spectacular visual efects. The bud- green-light “Jurassic World,” which be- including a “Big Chill”-style reunion get, first pegged at a hundred and fifty came the third-highest-grossing film of movie about quarter-lifers called “Round- million dollars, ended up three years later all time. Scott Stuber said, “The firing ing First.” The trailer moments came at two hundred and nine million—for a wasn’t about Adam. It was Comcast say- easily, but he found that his interstitial noisy, cluttered bomb. Another would-be ing, ‘We’ve had enough time to analyze material—characters and dialogue and franchise extravaganza, “Cowboys & the division, and now we want to bring so forth—was, essentially, “shit.” Aliens,” also failed to interest anyone in in our guy.’ ” So he took marketing jobs at Trimark seeing a sequel. Fogelson felt embarrassed and stung; Pictures and then, in 1998, at Univer- Given his slow start, Fogelson’s de- he hadn’t been able to keep his emotional sal. He was determined to keep a certain meanor grated on some. “His tone and distance after all. He said, “Half the peo- emotional distance: “I saw my dad get confidence came across, to the Comcast ple at my daughters’ school work in the fired numerous times, and I vowed I’d guys, as cocky,” one Universal exec said. entertainment business, and they’re look- never let the job define me.” At Univer- And his inexperience with the protocols ing at you as ‘the guy who just got fired.’ ” sal, Fogelson became known for hom- of production showed. Fogelson’s friend He eventually decided that the real ques- ing in on a film’s most salable element. Scott Stuber, a producer at the studio, tion wasn’t why he’d got fired but “ ‘How It was he who advocated the poster for said, “I’m sure there were times when did I get that job in the first place?’ It re- “American Pie,” with its suggestive photo Adam didn’t express ‘We can’t make your quires spending a significant part of your of an all-American boy and a pie with a movie’ as tactfully as he might have.” day wondering ‘Who’s trying to kill me?’ hole in it. “A lot of people in marketing At the end of 2011, Fogelson told his and ‘Who do I need to kill?’ ” He sug- tests were turned of by the guy screw- team that he was no longer going to make gested to Hillary that they move to Boise, ing the pie,” he acknowledged. “But the big-budget, non-sequel, non-I.P. films. Idaho, always highly ranked as a place water-cooler conversation about it was Instead, he made expensive sequels—an- to retire to, and he’d teach marketing at valuable.” An eleven-million-dollar teen other “Bourne” film and another “Fast and Boise State University. She told me, “I film became a four-picture franchise. Furious”—and lots of mid-budget films. said, ‘You’d weigh six hundred pounds, Universal, one of the smallest of the “There was a concern there that that was because you’d just sit around and watch major studios, was struggling, but Fogel- too conservative,” Fogelson told me. It sports.’ What became clear, over time, son prospered. He became president of wasn’t. He approved fifty-three films at was that Adam had unfinished business marketing and distribution, and then, in Universal; of them, thirty-nine cost less here—he wanted to prove that his idea 2009, the studio’s chairman. The night than eighty million dollars, and they grossed about how to make and market films of the announcement, he and his wife, $7.3 billion worldwide, for a return on in- was right.” These days, when Fogelson Hillary, attended the première of a Uni- vestment of a hundred and fifty-three per shows visitors the view from his new versal comedy, “Couples Retreat.” “After cent. He was particularly proud of “Brides- oice, atop the tallest building in Bur- the screening,” he said, “I remember look- maids,” “Lone Survivor,” and “Pitch Per- bank, he points southwest and notes, “I ing up and seeing a line of people com- fect,” movies with heart that proved a lot can look right down on Universal.” ing over to say hello. It looked five miles of doubters wrong. Universal’s market share long.” Hillary Fogelson said, “It was like rose to third, and Comcast extended his few days after STX’s promising you were the new mob boss, and they all contract a year ahead of schedule. A first date with Keanu Reeves and wanted to kiss the ring. Most of it felt Fogelson was making nearly ten mil- the “Unmanned” team, the filmmakers very insincere.” “It wasn’t insincere,” Fo- lion dollars a year, flying on the corpo- got back to the studio with a precise gelson said. “It was a practical reality.” rate jet, mixing with Barack Obama and budget: it would cost just fifty-three mil- A week later, Fogelson had to intro- Barbra Streisand. Still, when I saw him lion dollars to go steady. Oren Aviv gave duce himself to executives from Com- a few times during this period, he bore Fogelson a blunt assessment: “Their cast, which was about to buy NBCUni- the glassy aspect of a man trying to con- budget is absurd.” STX’s head of phys- versal from General Electric. They would vince himself that all is well. “Adam’s old ical production, Ross Fanger, calculated be the fifth owners he’d worked under oice, in marketing, was a busy, happy the true cost at twice that. He noted in eleven years. “Adam inherited a dam- toy shop,” Allison Shearmur, a former that geographic savings could be had: aged company,” one of his colleagues Universal executive, said. “The new one “We can shoot it in South Africa, which said. Universal was last among the six was empty and corporate. I think he was is ten to fifteen per cent cheaper than studios, with an 8.5-per-cent share of surprised at how little of his old self was Budapest, which is thirty per cent the box oice. “And the new owner, Com- relevant to that job.” cheaper than Vancouver, which is twenty

44 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 per cent cheaper than L.A. Or Jakarta, which is astronomically cheaper than South Africa.” But STX didn’t necessar- ily want to become known as Indone- sian outsourcers. Fogelson has a knack for making Realpolitik seem reassuring. “We are fully committed to your realizing your vision at a price point that acknowledges that this hasn’t been tried before” sounds supportive, where the same message shorn of ornament—“We’ll make your ify project but only dirt cheap”—might rankle. He’s a master of the non-note note: “No one here is advocating this, but what about . . . ?” If the filmmaker resists, he’ll nod agreeably and say, “To- tally understood, and wasn’t suggesting it.” Often, in the end, his note gets taken. With stars, sometimes the best man- agement technique is delegation. When Reeves phoned STX to object to the bean counting, Aviv took the call as Fogelson looked on. “No, Keanu, we love it! We do love it,” Aviv insisted. “Believe me, we’re excited. Listen, I hear your frustra- tion—but the idea here is to come down from the budget we have for the next version of the script, and then move ahead full speed.” He listened, nodding, then said, brightly, “And if it all works on our end you’re available to shoot in January, as we discussed?” He wagged his head playfully at Fogelson: “Well, there’s a chance you’re available then? Great!” After hanging up, Aviv explained, “Keanu is arguing that there’s no point in budgeting a script that’s not going to be the final script anyway, and that we’re “But having less legroom puts you closer to your screen.” losing all this momentum.” “So they’re acknowledging that the •• budget they gave us with great confi- dence in that meeting was a complete fantasy.” Fogelson’s neck and mock-throttling him. China, the government’s film board de- “Absolutely,” Aviv said. “It’s how the He cackled, then picked up a putter and cided to count him as Chinese. game is played.” made a few passes with it as he rattled of The Chinese market required con- Fogelson thought that over. “To questions about “The Foreigner,” the stant attention. John Zhao, the founder be fair, if they had come to us at the thriller that STX was making with Jackie of Hony Capital, told me, “STX’s films beginning and said, ‘It’s an eighty-five- Chan. It was crucial that it meet all the will incorporate Eastern elements, and million-dollar film,’ we’d have said no.” criteria for a Chinese co-production— then, if they’re a hit, we can roll out de- “So they win!” which would qualify it for a much larger rivative products—television shows, user- Fogelson shook his head serenely: slice of theatrical revenues from China. driven content, and so on.” To get for- “We can always say no later.” One requirement is that a third of the lead eign films shown in China, however, cast be Chinese; Simonds had been cha- you have to trim out anything remotely ne July afternoon, Bob Simonds grined to learn that Chan was from Hong problematic: after an outcry in the local O veered into Fogelson’s oice and con- Kong, which didn’t count. Fogelson said, media, the makers of “Red Dawn,” a sidered the stack of still unopened boxes “Totally fair questions, totally valid, and 2012 invasion thriller, digitally trans- from his Universal days. “Are your balls in I’m sure we’ll be able to work it out.” And, formed its villains from Chinese into there?” he asked, flinging his arm around indeed, because Chan is a huge star in North Koreans. So last summer, when

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 45 Fogelson heard a screenwriter’s pitch a lazy, greedy bastardization of the cre- million each, plus three million for an about an Italian-Chinese couple, he sug- ative process. If you said that now, you’d A-list director. We give them much less, gested that they switch the backstories be telling the entire world that they’re with participation in the back end, and of the couple’s parents: “What if the Chi- wrong. Sequels have become a duty—a we shoot it in thirty-five days instead of nese mom had passed away, and the Ital- form of storytelling that, thanks to great fifty-five, saving another five million— ian dad had divorced?” When the writer television, audiences have grown accus- so it ends up costing $19.4 million in- said, “Divorce is also a really big deal in tomed to. You can aspire to create six stead of fifty million.” But, when Fogel- the Catholic Church,” Fogelson gently two-hour movies that develop your con- son saw a cut of the movie, he worried replied, “But it doesn’t prevent a movie cept across multiple resolutions—which that he’d trimmed the shooting sched- from being made.” makes movies easier to sell, and creates ule too severely, curtailing airiness and Later that week, Fogelson drove his scope. (In November, the film’s weak Tesla to Beverly Hills to meet Jackie début proved him right.) Chan in his suite at the Montage Hotel STX kept budgets down by exploit- to discuss “The Foreigner.” Noting the ing an anomaly in the economics of brutality of the story, Chan said, “We filmmaking: the bigger the studio, the need a happy ending. Otherwise the au- more it pays its talent. “It’s as if Walmart dience leaves, and—” He stood and were paying its venders a whole lot more shuled of, shoulders bowed. than mom-and-pop shops do,” a studio “Otherwise, it’s not suicient reward C.F.O. told me. STX arranged to pay for the journey you’ve asked the audi- Jennifer Lopez in the range of five hun- ence to go on,” Fogelson agreed. a more predictable business model. Half dred thousand dollars to star in a com- Chan then suggested that a female the films we’ll say yes to will have se- edy that Fogelson characterized as “a character who got killed of in the script quelable potential.” little bit ‘Working Girl’ and a little bit be kept alive. “We save her for No. 2,” a bunch of great J. Lo movies from fifteen Chan said. “Now the I.R.A. goes after s STX began to roll films of its years ago,” and Will Ferrell roughly the her—and that’s the story.” Fogelson A production line, Fogelson used same to star in a quirky, low-budget grinned and shook the actor’s hand. every technique he knew to give each one comedy about the pornographer Russ Chan was just the kind of brand- the shimmer of quality. “Unmanned” ’s Meyer. They’d get much more if the extension expert that Fogelson needed budget remained vexingly high, so he films became hits. to crack the Chinese market—and to at- ordered a rewrite that would preserve Squeezing budgets was easier than tract wayward American viewers. Tele- “some of the eye candy of a world war” meeting the star-in-a-wheelhouse-role vision has posed what might be called but that would cost no more than eighty requirement. Pete Berg couldn’t persuade the “Game of Thrones” problem: once million dollars. Meanwhile, his team Will Smith to play Silva in “Mile 22,” cinematic sex and violence, complete opened discussions with six Chinese firms so he found another way to be as heroic with dragons, are available on your phone, about co-producing the film and shar- as Fogelson had asked. After volunteer- why pay a sitter and drive to a mall to ing its costs. ing to direct the film himself, he got his see them? Even as the studios seek to Fogelson’s goal was to make films that frequent collaborator Mark Wahlberg to distinguish their franchises from televi- looked twice as expensive as they were, take the role. Wahlberg told me that Berg sion, they have begun to shape them ac- so he was usually careful to budget for won him over by situating the role in the cording to television’s dictates. A sequel enough spectacle to sell. For “The Free annals of cinematic history: “We talked like last May’s “Avengers: Age of Ul- State of Jones,” a Civil War epic starring about this guy being like Marlon Brando tron,” from Marvel, is less a self- contained Matthew McConaughey, he added five in ‘Apocalypse Now,’ one of the great, film than a loose amalgam of ongoing hundred thousand dollars to provide more great movie villains. But with a lot more stories. The film lays track for two fu- cameras and extras for the opening bat- screen time.” ture sequels and allots significant screen tle sequence, insuring “enough huge Civil The script was “written up” for Wahl- time to each of the film’s fourteen main War action to justify the more intimate berg. In the original, Silva was a turn- characters so they can serve as calendar movie that follows.” And he told Pete coat, who served as Ronda Rousey’s men- reminders of forthcoming spinofs and Berg early on that “Mile 22” should have tor before dying in the third act; in the other ancillary products, including, of a separate, two-million-dollar budget for new version, constructed with a potential course, TV shows. The film is essentially two set pieces “with fistfights in cars as franchise in mind, Silva was the star, a a two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar they fly around, to give it the look and complex man with a shot at redemption. episode of a television drama that airs feel of a much bigger movie.” Not incidentally, these changes reduced every few years. The revenge drama “Secret in Their Rousey’s role: same fighting, less emot- To Fogelson, this Scheherazade sen- Eyes,” starring Julia Roberts and Nicole ing. Or, as Fogelson tactfully put it, hav- sibility makes both financial and cre- Kidman, exemplified the studio’s deli- ing avoided both dinner and lunch with ative sense. Driving back to the oice cate balance of grandeur and thrift. Ross her, “It allows Ronda to do everything after meeting with Chan, he remarked, Fanger told me, “If a studio were mak- she can and should do without having to “A few years ago, thinking about the se- ing ‘Secret in Their Eyes’ six years ago, carry any undue acting weight.” The ne- quel that way would be characterized as it would have paid the stars ten to fifteen gotiations over Wahlberg’s contract were

46 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 protracted—so much so that his agent, and directed by Joel Edgerton, was about keting advantages; they have not only Ari Emanuel, sent Fogelson two tortoises, a high-school loser named Gordo who plenty of spectacle to sell but plenty of and Fogelson sent back a vat of molas- returns years later to mess with his high- ways to sell it. “If you’re one of Univer- ses. In the end, STX paid Wahlberg flying former tormentor, Simon, and sal’s ‘Symphony Projects,’ ” Neal Moritz, three-quarters of his top quote, plus a siz- his innocent wife, Robyn. As there were who produces the “Fast and Furious” able share of the profits. Partly as a result only three real roles, casting would be films, said, “every tentacle of their em- of that payment, the film’s budget tripled, crucial. Edgerton, who played support- pire is promoting you—at the theme to thirty-five million dollars. On the other ing roles in “The Great Gatsby” and parks, on ‘The Voice,’ in Comcast Cable hand, “Mile 22” became the kind of proj- “Zero Dark Thirty,” had the right, advertising, in being trailered onto their ect that the studio was predicated on: a slightly menacing mien to play Gordo. other big movies.” star showcase. Rebecca Hall, who appeared in the With “The Gift,” Fogelson had no Yet STX’s original model was under Johnny Depp film “Transcendence,” spectacle to sell—only the film’s prem- stress. In June, it had twenty-four proj- would make a sympathetic trophy wife. ise. “The movie’s original title was ects in production or active development, For the linchpin role of Simon, the ‘Weirdo,’ which sounds indie, so we and just six of them fit the star-showcase onetime bully who had gone on to an changed that,” he said. He didn’t want template—and some of those fit only if executive career, Fogelson suggested people thinking the film was weird; he you were generous. For instance, Fogel- Jason Bateman, best known as the be- wanted them thinking it was creepy. son contended that Matthew McCon- leaguered but caring family man on “We did a campaign with fifty enter- aughey’s role in “The Free State of Jones” “Arrested Development.” tainment bloggers and reporters, doing was absolutely the actor’s signature brand: The film’s co-producer and financier, a deep dive into their social-media past “a character fighting injustice, as in ‘Dal- Jason Blum, contended that Bateman to figure out what they needed or wanted, las Buyers Club.’ ” He admitted, how- was too associated with comedy, and then sending them personalized gifts, ever, that McConaughey—before the up- worried that marketing wouldn’t be able like a replacement mug for one they’d tick in his fortunes known as “the to sell him as a bad guy. But, Fogelson broken, all signed ‘Your friend, Gordo.’ McConaissance”—had been typecast said, “the question of being haunted by A day later, a second box, containing a playing smooth-talking sharpies. “So past mistakes is cleaner if you have Jason trailer for the movie, would arrive. That some of it is brand extension,” he sug- than if you have a Tom Hardy. Jason is successfully got ‘creepy’ out there in the gested, “some of it is making an edu- the best version of us. He’s not even discussion.” cated bet on trajectory, and some of it ‘lovable but dangerous.’ He’s the class In the end, “The Gift” cost just five is him being the face of a hugely suc- president.” million dollars to make and $27.5 mil- cessful Lincoln campaign.” Major studios have pronounced mar- lion to market, so the studio would profit To get projects under way, Fogelson had to keep squeezing the definition of a movie star. The producer Paul Brooks is developing a romantic comedy at STX called “The One That Got Away.” Brooks said, “We want to make the actors younger, make it more of a concept sell, which would mean we’re casting some- where between a star and a recognizable face.” Fogelson’s gloss was that stardom is contingent on budget. “Emma Wat- son and Ansel Elgort in ‘The One That Got Away’ are stars for the audience you’re making the film for if it costs fifteen mil- lion,” he said. “Emma Stone and Zac Efron are stars in that film at thirty mil- lion. And Jennifer Lawrence and any- one, including me, can work at fifty mil- lion.” This idea—that content and cost define a star—was almost exactly the op- posite of the model Bob Simonds had pitched to his investors.

he studio’s first release, “The Gift,” Thad its début last summer, and in the weeks beforehand Fogelson de- clared that it showcased the studio’s thesis and strengths. The film, written came over and threw an arm around him: “I owe a lot of this to you, my friend!” “You were so great—you’re why the movie works,” Fogelson said. “Who would think you could be so evil?” “Yeah, I give it room for a reverse, I guess,” Bateman said, a little mystified, unable to see himself, as Fogelson could, as an element. “The Gift” opened at nearly twelve million dollars, and went on to gross forty-four million. The film earned a “B” from Cinemascore, which surveys audi- ence members, and a ninety-three-per- cent-positive rating from Rotten Toma- toes, which tracks critics’ responses—so it was perceived as both satisfying and actually good. Fogelson felt quietly vin- dicated. “For five million dollars,” he said, “Jason Bateman, Joel Edgerton, and Re- becca Hall are the most A-plus movie stars in the world.”

ob Simonds was pleased by the B success of “The Gift.” He was al- most equally pleased by the failure of “Secret in Their Eyes.” “I’d rather have fifteen mediocre-performing movies than five big hits,” he told me recently. “We believe in tonnage, because this is •• a landgrab. We’re using stars and brands to cut through the fucking cat videos.” The more films, the more attention, and if it grossed twenty million dollars in pet again, with Escalades disgorging star- the more new divisions that mushroomed North America. “If the movie does fifteen, lets and photographers clicking away. of them. In September, Simonds an- it’s a bad outcome, and we lose three,” Earlier that day, trying to dispel launch- nounced the first: a digital division, led Fogelson said. “If it does forty, we make party jitters, Bob Simonds had told Fo- by Kathy Savitt, who’d been the chief fifteen million. Am I willing to risk three gelson, “I’m going to wear a honeybee marketing oicer at Yahoo. million to make fifteen? Yes.” outfit, with antenna, and just not explain “The movie side is not a loss leader, Together with Oren Aviv, Fogelson it.” He showed up in a navy suit, and the exactly,” he said. “But it’s the flypaper spent hours staring at a scheduling two men hugged. for other activities. Great storytellers whiteboard, looking for the best week- Inside the theatre, Fogelson stood come to us for films, and we ultimately end to open it. They finally decided on up front, his arms crossed protectively, channel them into streaming, digital, August 7th. It was late enough in the to introduce the film. (Earlier, he’d television, games, virtual reality, the Chi- summer that audiences might have joked that his pre-première routine nese arena.” He had closed a slate deal “spectacle fatigue.” And the chief com- would be to “shower, shave, and vomit.”) with a major Chinese group that would petition would be “Fantastic Four,” which “Jason Blum is a friend who I worked cover a further twenty per cent of STX’s had poor word of mouth, and “Mission with in my prior . . . job,” he said. There production costs, and nearly finalized Impossible: Rogue Nation,” in its sec- were knowing chuckles. “You can another deal, with one of the country’s ond week. laugh, it’s O.K.” He praised the film- largest companies, to be its partner in a A week before the début, STX spent makers, promised that this was “the television-streaming venture. “In China, more than three hundred thousand dol- first of what will be many, many, many we’ll have the whole thing locked up,” lars on a première for seven hundred premières for STX Entertainment,” Simonds said. Chinese businessmen people in downtown Los Angeles. The and bolted ofstage. The film played trooping through STX’s oices became tracking showed that the film would well, and by 11:30 P.M., at the party, so common that one afternoon, as Fogel- open at only seven million dollars, the Fogelson was in a cheerful frame of son watched Simonds give another tour, lowest end of Fogelson’s hopes. But he mind, drinking red wine and huddling he said, “ ‘I love Chinese people.’ ” Then seemed exhilarated to be on a red car- with his daughters. Jason Bateman he said, “Movie, movie?”—checking

48 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 whether his executives caught the ref- away aboard a shuttle bound for Earth keting plan. He also commissioned a pro- erence to “I love black people.” The pres- to find out who his father is—and to duction rewrite, intended to cut five ident of production, Cathy Schulman, meet a tough-talking Facetime crush million dollars from the budget, inten- cried, “ ‘Jerry Maguire’!” nicknamed Tulsa. sify the romance, and give Gardner a pro- Simonds told me, “My job is to get Fogelson had concerns. Gary Old- fession-of-love speech to Tulsa that would us public on the Hong Kong exchange man, who would play the head of the “make him someone any girl in the world as fast as possible, at a 16 or 17x mul- space program, was a terrific actor but could really fall for”—and, not inciden- tiple on earnings.” He continued, “If not a star, and neither was Asa Butterfield, tally, anchor the trailer. Gardner’s other- I’ve got billions in capital, in a year I who would play Gardner. But he told worldliness, the other big sell, would be can buy a lot of Hollywood divisions. his team, “What interested me was the achieved through a combination of act- I don’t think anyone will want the Sony ‘Starman’ of it, that he’s a human alien ing, camera angles, and short-armed shirts. library, but Sony TV? Fuck, yeah! And who grew up apart from the world, so When Britt Robertson, the star of I’d love to go after stuf like the Bond he sees everything fresh and clear. The “Tomorrowland,” was cast as Tulsa, rights and build it out across our plat- sell would be if we could show that vi- Fogelson was thrilled. He showed me forms, with licensing, records, brand- sually, by making Gardner’s arms five per Robertson’s audition tape, a scene ing, gaming.” Ideally, he calculated, “the cent longer.” where Tulsa lit up at being promised movie division will end up being about When the filmmakers came in, one a piano: she was vulnerable, intense, twenty per cent of the business. We Thursday afternoon, Fogelson asked and startlingly real. “Lots of people never wanted to be Universal, we what sort of story they hoped to tell. can laugh on cue, or cry on cue, or wanted to be Comcast.” Peter Chelsom, the director, said, “The smile through tears on cue,” he said. The goal was to look enough like theme is isolation and connection am- “Very, very few people can do it in a a Hollywood studio to get a huge in- plified by the vastness of space.” He way that embodies how the audience fusion of money from Chinese inves- added that the romance would be cen- feels—how I feel at least half of my tors, then use the money to cherry-pick tral, evoking the hugely popular young- day.” He was talking himself into fall- Hollywood’s assets en route to becom- adult film “The Fault in Our Stars”: “As ing in love. ing a global conglomerate. The story a nickname for this film, ‘The Fault in So often, though, the movie doesn’t Simonds originally told, about mak- Our Mars’ is perfect.” love you back. Immediately after the ing old-fashioned, human-scale sto- “A great Romeo and Juliet story is pitch meeting, Fogelson had told me, ries, had given rise to its own sequel, always good,” Fogelson said, “and so is “The only thing that gave me pause was about ramifying digital exploitation. the idea that the world will beat you that nothing was giving me pause. Be- Aiming at being a studio, today, is like down, but you have to keep your spirit cause part of me is always looking for aiming at being a caterpillar. The end intact. My daughter, who is amazing a reason to say no. Every time you say game is metamorphosis. and bright and innocent, was bullied yes, you’re opening yourself up to the the other day for the first time, and possibility that people will laugh at you ogelson understands that Simonds because of those qualities she and call you names and even- Fintends to turn his film division into will be bullied for the next tually fire you for your dumb the headlamps of an entertainment jug- ten years. The better you are, choices. I will read the script gernaut. He understands that the more the more a target you are one more time this weekend successful he is the faster that happens, going to be. The challenge before I decide, to make sure and that in complete success films be- for Gardner, this honest, in- I can see a trailer that fulfills come completely marginal. But his job nocent character—I think our wish to remember what is to focus less on what shareholders want that can resonate for young a wonderful place this Earth now than on what audiences will want people.” After asking the film- can be, our wish to see a rain- in two years. makers whether the budget bow through the eyes of In June, Relativity Media, the lat- could shrink from thirty- someone who’s never seen one est contender to become a major stu- seven million dollars—Abso- before. I’ll want to recomfort dio, began to founder. The filmmakers lutely!, they said—he prom- myself with trailer lines and of a Relativity project that was about ised to get back to them very soon. moments.” One scene in particular had to go into production set a clandestine As they walked out, Allan Loeb said clung to Fogelson: Gardner, yearning meeting with Fogelson to see if he to Fogelson, “That was beautiful, what to leave his mark on Earth, writes “I would take it over. The script, by the you said about your daughter. That’s why WUZ HERE” on a bathroom wall. As Fo- prolific screenwriter Allan Loeb, was we all do this, right?” “No,” Fogelson re- gelson considered the image, he fell si- called “Out of This World”: a story plied, pleasantly, still fighting to distin- lent, slipping away in his mind to con- about a teen-age orphan named Gard- guish STX from everyone else. “That’s duct the rising feeling in darkened ner who was born in space—his astro- why we all do this.” theatres everywhere. He nodded: yes, naut mother died in childbirth—and In the weeks that followed, Fogelson just possibly, yes. “With the right music grew up on Mars. Although his body agreed to make the film, with a new title: and the right setup and the right shot, won’t be able to withstand Earth’s “The Space Between Us,” which syn- for the audience we’re aiming for, that heavier atmosphere, Gardner stows chronized the film’s premise and its mar- tugs at you.” 

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 49 ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS THE CUSTODIANS

How the Whitney is transforming the art of museum conservation.

BY BEN LERNER

walk south on Manhattan’s High nology to create sculptural assemblages detail. But part of the conceptual con- I Line toward the Whitney Museum based on scans of their bodies. The tent of the work is, will have been, the of American Art: international tour- physical work consists of a janitor’s process of switching out the objects ists with their selfie sticks, sunbathers cart, to which L.E.D. lights have been over time. Kline is reversing the tra- on the wooden benches in various stages taped, and on which are several ob- ditional temporality of the “original” of undress. The power of the High jects, printed in plaster and cyanoac- art work: what comes first are copies; Line—abandoned railway tracks re- rylate: brushes, sponges, a bottle of the real work will arrive in the future. purposed as a popular park—is that it cleaning fluid. Also on the cart are None of this complexity is indicated feels at once triumphant and post-apoc- two 3-D prints of the digitally imaged in the placard beside Kline’s sculpture alyptic. Grass grows over the rails, trees head of “Aleyda,” a housekeeper at the in the current show; the museum doesn’t among the trestles; it’s almost as if na- Hotel on Rivington, along with a print know how to represent it yet. ture had reclaimed the infrastructure of her hand, enclosed in a plastic glove, How does the museum determine of a civilization wiped out by an un- and of her foot, in a sock and shoe. when to reprint the objects? And, once specified disaster. I feel as if I were wan- The surface of one of the heads shows you start replicating parts, when is the dering through a composite, the rails Aleyda’s face; the other has been re- work no longer the work? These and peeking through the C.G.I. And the placed by the label from a bottle of other questions are the domain of the elevation itself is eerie, an acknowledg- Stain-X. Her body is not only seg- Whitney’s replication committee, a ment of rising seas. mented; it is becoming another clean- little-known but increasingly crucial The park now terminates in a great ing product. body within the museum. The com- ship: Renzo Piano’s nine-story Whit- Standing before the sculpture, I mittee is, as far as I know, the only one ney building, one of many architectural think of how it has long been fashion- of its kind. Founded in 2008, it is com- nods to the largely vanished industries able in the art world to speak of “de- posed of fourteen people—conserva- on which the surrounding neighbor- materialization”: the dematerialization tors, curators, archivists, a lawyer, and hood once depended. (Piano was born of labor in our so-called information- a registrar. The committee convenes to into a family of Genoan builders; his based economy, the dematerialization determine when a work of art, or a part Astrup Fearnely Museum, on the water of the art object in conceptual practice. of a work of art, cannot be fixed or re- in Oslo, resembles a giant glass sail.) To confront the severed head and frag- stored in the traditional ways—when The Whitney was, in fact, erected with mented body of a janitor in a museum and how it must, instead, be replicated. flooding in mind. Hurricane Sandy space is a discomfiting reminder of the These discussions result in recommen- struck early in the construction process, undocumented (in more than one sense) dations that afect the way art works leading Piano to adjust the museum’s material labor from which such dis- are maintained, classified, and described design; the steel frame is built to bend, courses can help distract us. Somebody in exhibitions. not break, whenever the next storm ar- is still making the hardware from which As I leave the building, I find my- rives. I can’t help thinking of it as the you upload data to the cloud; some- self thinking of the ship of Theseus, Noah’s Ark of American Art. You are to body is still scrubbing the toilets at the king of Athens. According to Plutarch, bring into the ark two of every kind of museum that hosts your symposium the ship painting, two works of every school. . . . on Internet art. was preserved by the Athenians down even I enter through the museum’s glass More subtly, “Cost of Living” could to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they façade—the lobby is crowded, but the be said to pun on the museum as “cus- took away the old planks as they decayed, lines move quickly—and take one of todian” of art works. Kline’s 3-D ob- putting in new and stronger timber in their the elevators to the fifth floor. The jects are not intended to last. There is place, insomuch that this ship became a walls of the elevator are panelled with what he calls a “resolution gap” be- standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; mirrors; half of the occupants are film- tween the digital files and current 3-D- one side holding that the ship remained the ing their reflections as we ascend. I’ve printing technology, meaning that same, and the other contending that it was come to see a sculpture entitled “Cost printers capable of matching the res- not the same. of Living (Aleyda),” by Josh Kline, one olution of his scans don’t yet exist. At of a series, for which Kline, who is a certain point—five years or fifty, it’s If it isn’t the same ship—if resto- thirty-six, interviewed janitorial work- hard to say—technology will improve, ration has crossed into replication— ers and then used 3-D-printing tech- enabling the scans to be realized in full which piece of timber was decisive? And

50 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 Josh Kline’s 3-D-printed objects, such as “Cost of Living (Aleyda),” above, are not intended to last. The sculpture stages a confrontation between the culture of museum conservation and the culture of the disposable prototype.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERIC HELGAS THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 51 where does the identity of an art work drew Petryn, the chief conservator at many considered the state of the Yale reside if it will be fully realized only in the Yale Art Gallery, who took her on collection to be a scandal. (The current the future, plank by printed plank? as an apprentice. (She still has no oi- director of the Yale Art Gallery, Jock cial credential as a conservator.) For Reynolds, has described Petryn’s tenure t the head of the replication com- five years, she was in the workshop as a time of “aggressive over- cleaning.”) A mittee is Carol Mancusi-Un- with Petryn almost every day. She sup- Attitudes in the field had shifted to- garo, who also leads the Whitney’s con- plemented her apprenticeship with a ward a more aesthetically oriented ap- servation department. (It had no con- Yale course in organic chemistry to ad- proach, in which conservators disguise servation department before her—why, vance her understanding of paints and losses, with the goal of enabling the some wondered, would a museum of solvents. work to be experienced as a picture, not recent American art need such a Petryn, who died in 2013, remains a just as an archeological artifact. In the thing?) In 1968, two years after the controversial figure in the field of con- nineties, Yale sent some of its Italian Arno flooded Florence, Mancusi- servation. In the nineteen-fifties and collection to the Getty Museum to be Ungaro was a first-year graduate stu- sixties, he undertook the restoration of re-restored, undoing what Petryn had dent in art history at N.Y.U. When Yale’s collection of early Italian paint- undone. she saw a show at the Met featuring ings. Or, rather, he undertook their I asked Mancusi-Ungaro about Pet- damaged Florentine frescoes, her in- de-restoration: advocating a purism then ryn during one of my first visits to the terests turned from the study of peri- popular among some conservators, he Whitney conservation studios. “I un- ods and styles to the material fate of decided to remove previous restoration, derstand the opposition to his work, but art objects in time. leaving, or aspiring to leave, only the I’m grateful for the rigor of his teach- Mancusi-Ungaro left N.Y.U. with hand of the artist. And the hand of time: ing,” she told me. He tasked her with a master’s degree and moved with her what conservators call “losses”—lacu- making from scratch every black pig- then husband to New Haven, where nae, expanses of bare wood—over- ment listed in “Il Libro dell’Arte,” a Re- he was a medical student. A former whelmed the original images. By the naissance treatise. “To make ‘vine black,’ professor put her in touch with An- time Petryn retired, in the mid- eighties, I had to use young tendrils from grape- vines,” she recalled. “I got them from my Italian grandmother’s relatives. To make ‘ivory black,’ I gathered some dis- carded shards of ivory from a keyboard factory in Ivoryton, Connecticut.” The conservation department, on the sixth floor of the new Whitney, oc- cupies more than three thousand square feet, about six times as much space as in the old building. In the department’s main studio, where Mancusi-Ungaro and I talked, a wall of windows faces north, ofering stunning views and steady, difuse light of the kind paint- ers have coveted for centuries. The space is open and airy, despite giant fume extractors that snake down from the ceiling; they keep the air breathable when conservators are working with solvents. Mancusi-Ungaro showed me a Rothko painting that was, she said, “exhibiting some unexplained, incon- sistent coloration.” Matt Skopek, a painting conservator, was examining the canvas with an infrared camera, looking for evidence of damage and traces of prior interventions. “It might be that Rothko himself restored this, and did a poor job,” Mancusi-Ungaro explained. In that case, conservators would improve on the artist’s attempt to play conservator, protecting the art- ist’s hand from the artist’s other hand, “We’re quietly confident that it smells of cinnamon.” so to speak. But they were also studying other Rothkos to make sure they weren’t misinterpreting his intentions. If the inconsistent coloration was an aesthetic decision, their priority would be to pre- serve it, not undo it. My attention was drawn away from the Rothko by a painting I found vaguely familiar. It was Barkley Hendricks’s “Steve,” a full-length portrait of a man wearing a white suit and mirrored sun- glasses, in which the windows of Hen- dricks’s studio—and, if you look closely, part of Hendricks’s head—are reflected. Mancusi-Ungaro reminded me that it had been on a 2009 cover of Artforum, which is probably why I recognized it. But that cover had been cropped. In the painting, there are yellow patches on the glossy white suit, probably due, Sko- pek told me, to a previous restorer’s ap- plication of a glue that was originally clear but had yellowed with time. Sko- pek had been cleaning the surface with a scalpel—“I work with the scalpels used in eye surgery; they’re more precise”— “This is an opportunity to simplify your life—don’t blow it.” and was preparing to reinforce an area of the back of the canvas with acupunc- •• ture needles, selected for their mixture of strength and flexibility. Talking about undoing previous and theorist Eugène-Emmanuel flatter color, or a subtle line drawn around restoration led us back to Petryn. His Viollet- le-Duc—who, beginning in a restored area. The guiding ethos of approach was part of a long history 1845, oversaw the restoration of Notre- conservators is “reversibility”—making of “cleaning controversies,” as conser- Dame—represented the opposing sure that the future has the right to a vators call them. (That Kline’s sculp- view. He advocated reconstructing lost diferent vision of the past. tures involve cleaning products helps components of a building in order to position them, perhaps unintention- “reëstablish it in a finished state, which ratteggio might work on a Renais- ally, in relation to the conservation may in fact never have actually existed Tsance fresco, but what is the equiv- practices that his work subverts.) Such at any given time.” alent for an abstract painting, let alone disputes are as old as Pliny, who These days, conservators tend to seek a work of conceptual art? How much claimed that a painting by Aristides a middle ground between Ruskin’s po- time has to pass before its passage might of Thebes was ruined by whoever tried sition, which risks fetishizing damage, be worth preserving? Medieval and to clean it up for the Games of Apollo. and Viollet-le-Duc’s, which risks the Renaissance painters working within These debates are fundamentally Disneyfication of the historical record. a guild system had firsthand knowl- about temporality: should we cele- In certain instances, the conservator will edge of their pigments, what was likely brate the patina of time or what’s be- protect an image’s over-all composi- to last and what wouldn’t. By the neath it? tional efect while also seeking to ac- nineteen-fifties, American artists often In “The Lamp of Memory,” written knowledge the newness, the falseness, of used cheap, mass-produced materials in 1848, John Ruskin, a pioneer of what what she has done. Such strategies can that weren’t intended to endure—at has been called the “anti- restoration be traced to Cesare Brandi, a twentieth- least, not across centuries. Postwar art- movement,” argued that buildings and century Italian art historian and critic, ists didn’t go to the art-supply store, objects must be left to decline, even who developed a method called tratteg- Mancusi-Ungaro has said; they went die—that the “greatest glory of a build- gio, in which the restorer fills in lacu- to the hardware store. ing . . . is in its Age.” He wrote that res- nae with a series of small lines. From a For many modern and contempo- toration “means the most total destruc- distance, the lacunae recede, allowing rary artists, ephemerality is part of the tion which a building can sufer: a the viewer to experience a pictorial unity; point. Dieter Roth, to take just one ex- destruction out of which no remnants upon closer inspection, the addition de- ample, didn’t cover his canvases with can be gathered: a destruction accom- clares a loss. Tratteggio is just one such yogurt for the sake of durability; they panied with false description of the technique—alterations can also be sig- were built to biodegrade. Picasso and thing destroyed.” The French architect nalled by a slightly recessed surface, a Braque told friends that they would

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 53 Jackson Pollock, among others. “With the exception of one canvas by Joan Miró, I’d never conserved a work of modern art before I came to the Menil,” Mancusi-Ungaro told me. “I was ex- cited by the immediacy of it—how I was often the first person restoring a canvas, as opposed to dealing with a century of past restorations. And I loved, whenever possible, consulting with the artists themselves.” In 1964, Mark Rothko painted two black-form triptychs (black rectangles on a plum-colored ground) for the Menil Chapel. The paintings were finished in 1967 and installed in 1971. Shortly thereafter, the paint began to whiten, and a mysterious crystalline pattern spread across the surface. This wasn’t Rothko’s hand or the hand of time; it was the material’s instability in the chap- el’s humid conditions. Removing the disturbance became one of Mancusi- Ungaro’s chief preoccupations during her time at the Menil. She and her team could have sim- ply remade the Rothko paintings— after all, assistants had helped to paint them in the first place—but Mancusi- Ungaro wasn’t going to pursue repli- cation. “Although Rothko may not have physically painted every inch, he or- chestrated the brushwork of his assis- tants in a way that asserted his author- ship,” she told me. Rothko committed suicide in 1970, but she tracked down one of the assistants, Ray Kelly, and Carol Mancusi-Ungaro is the head of the replication committee. “We’re not trying to asked how Rothko’s colors had been influence the work,” she said. “We want the artist to be heard.” prepared. The blacks, velvety and matte, were made fresh every morning by mix- rather let their canvases deteriorate once said; for him, to conserve was to ing (in unrecorded proportions) oil than have them varnished, which they embalm. paint, turpentine, damar resin, and felt would ruin the subtle texturing of In 1976, Mancusi-Ungaro moved to whole egg. Mancusi- Ungaro, working the surfaces. For a long time, their pref- Los Angeles, where she took a job at with scientists at Shell, painstakingly erence was disregarded. (According to the Getty Museum. “I don’t know why simulated this process and eventually the art historian John Richardson, a they hired me, exactly,” she said. “This determined that the egg was causing postwar public raised on glossy repro- was when the Getty was still in a villa the white film on the paintings’ sur- ductions found the varnished look fa- in Malibu and didn’t have the money it face. She and her collaborators devel- miliar; original paintings, he suggests, has now. But I loved California. I was oped a fast-evaporating solvent mix- were being “restored” to resemble their eating avocados of the trees for lunch.” ture that could remove the whitening. color-plate copies.) Conceptual and A year and a half later, she moved to It was, deliberately, a superficial inter- performance artists—in part as a pro- Ohio and took a position at the Inter- vention. The discoloration has not re- test against the commodification of art museum Conservation Association, then curred, but if it does the treatment can objects—sought to dispense with ma- situated at Oberlin. In 1982, she was be repeated indefinitely without dam- terial art works altogether (although recruited to be the chief conservator at aging the work. such happenings were then preserved the Menil collection, in Houston, where Mancusi-Ungaro’s frustration that for the future through collectible doc- she stayed for nearly twenty years, un- she couldn’t consult with Rothko dur- umentation). “Art history only begins dertaking major restorations of works ing the restoration process led her, in after the death of the work,” Duchamp by Cy Twombly, Barnett Newman, and 1991, to start the Artist Documentation

54 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 Program, a series of interviews with research resources but a less expansive centripetal, focussing on the object; her artists about their “materials, working collection of modern art. So she took experiment at Harvard is centrifugal, techniques, and intent for conservation both positions at once, serving as a spinning away from the actual. of their works.” The interviews are both bridge between the two institutions. illuminating and a little eerie, because Mancusi-Ungaro’s final project at he room on the seventh floor of the they are essentially living wills. (She Harvard—as of last year, she’s been at TWhitney where the replication com- plans to conduct such an interview with the Whitney exclusively—also involved mittee interviewed Kline about “Cost Kline.) Rothko. In both its boldness and its cau- of Living (Aleyda)”—the Frances Mul- In the absence of explicit and com- tiousness, it typifies Mancusi-Ungaro’s hall Achilles Library—has a huge bank plete instructions—that is, most of the voice as a conservator. In 1962, five large of sloped windows facing the Hudson time—conservation is fundamentally mural paintings by Rothko, ranging River. When I was told we’d be meet- an interpretive act. After Rothko’s death, from light pink to deep purple, were ing in the “Achilles Library,” I remem- many critics described (or dismissed) displayed in Harvard’s Holyoke Cen- bered how the Greek hero would have his late, dark works as monochromatic ter. A decade of exposure to sunlight been immortal, wouldn’t have had a vul- dead ends, evidence of his despair. But had destroyed the original coloration: nerable heel, if his mother had fully var- Mancusi-Ungaro felt that the subtle some areas were washed out, others faded nished him in the River Styx. But when contrasts between the plum-colored bor- to blue. The compromised canvases were I arrived at the library I was put in mind ders, which are painted with pigments determined to be beyond repair and of more recent mythology: the architec- dissolved in rabbit-skin glue, and the moved to storage. ture recalled the observation deck of the black expanses represented a more com- In 2007, Mancusi-Ungaro helped U.S.S. Enterprise in “Star Trek: The Next plex range of aesthetic and emotional form a team to study the murals. The Generation,” a show that I watched late concerns. “These paintings aren’t about team developed a series of colored-light in the last millennium in my childhood darkness,” Mancusi-Ungaro told me. projections that, when thrown against home, in Topeka. On the Enterprise, “They’re about light—about reflectance.” the canvases, would return the works to you asked the computer’s “replicator” Her interpretation helped to change their original colors. It was a radical, when you wanted something to eat or critical attitudes about Rothko’s later digital tratteggio. Last year, the enhanced drink and it materialized before you— work. A less exacting conservator (“ivory canvases were displayed publicly for the no alien workers necessary. black”; “vine black”), or a conservator first time; the efect was of the mirac- As I sat watching a plane trailing a blinded by the common view (black ulous and instantaneous resurrection of banner that read “Happy Birthday Dalai works; bleak time), might have missed the paintings. (At least, according to Lama” above the sparkling water, I this element of the Rothkos, and likely those who saw the exhibit. It was closed thought about the Prime Directive, from destroyed it. by the time I learned about it—the light “Star Trek”: Starfleet oicers may not Talking about Rothko with Mancusi- projections stored digitally, the canvases interfere with the development of alien Ungaro, I was struck, not for the first in a climate-controlled facility.) Yet the civilizations. This imperative has a kind time, by how the work of a conservator projections are a little larger than the of Petryn-like absolutism about it, and can re-sacralize the original art object. canvases, and the projector makes noise, many “Star Trek” episodes revolve around Had Mancusi-Ungaro and her team breaking the spell. Bold: we’re no lon- the moral quandaries that arise as a re- replicated the Rothko murals, I’m not ger looking at paintings but at a multi- sult. Conservators also strive to avoid sure that I would have been able to tell. media installation. Cautious: this might interference—conservation is not sup- An awareness of her labor, however, in- be the most fully reversible restoration posed to afect creation—and yet, as vests those particular surfaces with a in history. Mancusi-Ungaro and the other Whit- powerful charge. The care the paintings Does this light projection difer in ney “oicers” prepared to interview Kline, inspired feels like evidence of their im- kind, or only in degree, from a gallery I was struck by how contact between portance, as if it were not just a clean- controlling its lighting conditions? The the museum and the artist inevitably ing but a veneration (an efect amplified Harvard team insists on the specificity changes the art it would conserve. The by the fact that the surfaces are in a of the interaction between the damaged questions, however neutrally posed, com- chapel, no matter how modern). Con- canvases and the light display, but surely pel the artist to make decisions about servation can help produce—not just that’s a technical “problem” that could what is permitted and what isn’t, deci- protect—the aura of the original. eventually be overcome. What if the sions that then become part of the work’s projections alone could produce the same conceptual content. n 2001, Mancusi-Ungaro was ofered optical efects? Then the “Harvard Mu- Kline arrived at the meeting flanked I two jobs simultaneously: the Whit- rals” could be displayed anywhere in the by two fabricators from N.Y.U.’s Ad- ney wanted her to start a department world, or in multiple places at once, and vanced Media Studio, who oversee the of conservation, and Harvard wanted the paintings themselves could be dis- printing of his sculptures. Mancusi- her to establish a center for the study carded. This is not replacing the wooden Ungaro introduced everyone and asked of modern and contemporary artists’ planks of Theseus’ ship(s) with new Kline if he’d like to say a few words about materials. She felt that the Whitney wooden planks; it is changing media, “Cost of Living.” Kline said that the had great art but limited research re- pigment for projection. Mancusi- digital files contain the still unrealized, sources, and that Harvard had great Ungaro’s work at the Rothko Chapel is the still unrealizable, scans, and that

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 55 “there is nothing precious about the current prints.” Everyone nodded politely. There was a pause during which the WHEN GRACE AT THE BLISS CAFÉ CALLS only sound was a curatorial assistant taking notes by hand. (I thought it was It’s a terrible day in Baltimore, strange that a meeting about archives and in Kathmandu, and in the port and cutting-edge technologies was not itself digitally recorded.) Then came a city of Salerno gloom pervades, and barrage of questions: your own private sorrow’s throbbing “Can and should the Whitney retain old prints as part of the archive?” Far- in the exact center of your right ris Wahbeh, an archivist, asked. “And hand, a pain that radiates outward what about old file formats of the scans as software changes?” Kline deferred to from palm to fingers that cannot find the museum to make a decision. the shape of your mechanical pencil, “Can individual components of the assemblage be reprinted?” Margo De- a Mont Blanc in the burgundy they lidow, a sculpture conservator, asked. De- don’t make anymore, a gift given lidow was interested in immediate issues of material care. (I later heard her say, “If long ago, engraved, and obviously I can bump into it, I have to conserve it.”) too good for you since now you’ve lost “Is the kind of tape holding the L.E.D. lights significant?” she asked Kline. If so, it, and this lack fixes you in a place is it the color of the tape that matters, or of grief age-old and physical, an the make, or the level of adhesiveness? Kline said that the color temperature of ache so similar to the pulsing you’d the lights was important, and that he feel in the exact center of either palm preferred gray; as long as that condition was met, the tape could be replaced. I had after your father killed himself and the sense that he was thinking out loud. you felt the immediate need to write Dana Miller, a curator and the di- rector of the Whitney’s permanent col- lists, words invented for some self- lection, had concerns that were both administered spelling test, your then philosophical and practical. “If there’s a show in, say, China, do we need to ship being told this was an odd, wrong, these objects, or can they just be re- cold thing to do. America, you’d printed there? If they can be reprinted and not shipped, could the same work write, if you had your pencil, will you be shown in two locations at once?” now turn out to be only a beautiful Mancusi-Ungaro remained focussed on fundamental issues. “How much does idea? You dreaming the weight of the printing technology need to im- a loss that feels as incalculable as prove—or how much do these prints need to degrade—in order to trigger re- being orphaned at nine or seeing printing?” Kline said that he hadn’t es- another neighborhood gutted or tablished clear thresholds, and that he would need to reassess over time. No- body brought up the fact that these ques- tions might outlive him. Kline is a thoughtful artist, and he clearly didn’t like the word “collabora- Mancusi-Ungaro put it in another con- was frank about what he hadn’t yet de- tion” when I brought it up in a later con- versation, “unencumbered by traditional termined. The goal of the Whitney’s staf versation. “We’re not trying to influence structures.” To boldly go where no con- was to honor his intentions with the the work,” she said. “These decisions will servator has gone before. greatest degree of exactitude possible. have to be made at some point, and we But, precisely because of the thorough- want the artist to be heard.” n an unpublished lecture that ness and intelligence of their queries, But why not embrace conservation I Mancusi-Ungaro gave at N.Y.U.’s I felt that I was watching conservation as collaboration? The Whitney was Institute of Fine Arts, in 2011, she de- shade into collaboration. This didn’t founded to focus on living artists, to ex- scribed how conservators of modern bother me at all, but Mancusi- Ungaro periment with new media—to be, as art are increasingly confronted with

56 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 materials, including three motors and six fans designed to make the bag move our communal need to witness the more or less at random—to make it next 300 lost at sea. Your name seem alive. It’s hard not to joke about Olden- almost exactly his, the etching now burg giving the Whitney a headache. faint along its barrel, and how you’ve According to an academic paper de- tailing its exhibition history, “ ‘Ice Bag’ given pens and pencils to your own never functioned for longer than a few kids extravagantly, each birthday, every days at a time, and, even then, it per- formed only part of its intended mo- Christmas, then found them still in tion. Throughout its exhibition history, boxes stufed in a sock drawer after ‘Ice Bag’ had broken gears, exuded nox- ious fumes, leaked oil, ripped its own they’d returned to school. It was the fabric exterior, growled, squeaked, and classroom that saved you, the clean set itself on fire.” It is described in mu- seum archives in psychological terms: notebook, the word September, and the sculpture is reported to be “moody” all that white around the black block at one point, “suicidal” at another. In 2009, the Whitney decided to of text where you could write what restore “Ice Bag.” The conservator El- you really thought, which was that eonora Nagy, who oversaw the efort, had little information about the sculp- the dead could talk to you, like when ture’s original construction; she told you stayed in bed all day drawing me that she “had to restore it in order to figure out what it was.” The acrylic lilacs because Ross’s wife was Orthodox lacquer on the cap of the ice bag was so there was was no time to get to his refinished by an autobody expert who works on vintage cars. The sculpture’s funeral. Stones thrown, cop cars exterior fabric was discolored, brittle, torched, bells ringing out across our permanently creased. The team searched everywhere for the same fabric (18404 riven land, and it’s exactly here, typing Black Aluminum buf-free neoprene- the word riven, then wondering if coated nylon, for the record) and found a perfect match in every way but one: you know what it really means, that the the color was close but not identical. phone rings, the read-out saying Bliss The Whitney asked Oldenburg if he would approve the change in color, and and it’s Grace, your server at the he did. vegetarian café by the creek 200 miles But Nagy decided to repair the in- ternal mechanisms whenever possi- away where you ate three days ago, ble, rather than replace them. She and saying she needs your address so she Mancusi-Ungaro hired experts of var- ious sorts—a guitar maker, an electri- can mail your pencil back to you. cian, a robotics engineer—to fix most of the original motors and wiring. —Jane Vandenburgh The replication committee ultimately determined that “Ice Bag” had been conserved, not replicated—that the the problem of the “elusive original.” Many Oldenburg sculptures present sculpture remained original—because, “Traditionally, scientific analysis has everyday objects on a monumental although the exterior was replaced or been able to distinguish authenticity scale, and “Ice Bag” is—well, an ice repainted, most of the internal parts by the nature and age of materials,” she bag, the kind people once used for were maintained. This allows the mu- said. But what is the status of the “orig- headaches. Oldenburg worked with a seum to continue to exhibit the work inal” when the artist’s hand wasn’t di- TV-production company to build the as “Ice Bag Scale C,” not as a version rectly involved in the fabrication of the sculpture, which is eleven feet high of “Ice Bag Scale C.” work? and more than thirteen feet in diam- Oldenburg made his name, in part, The Whitney acquired Claes Ol- eter. Inside is a combination of cus- by mocking art-world pretension, and denburg’s “Ice Bag Scale C” in 1972. tom-made and commercially available yet the Whitney treated his sculpture

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 57 with an attention that would have been the replication committee. Mancusi- tion, its reflectance levels, its history appropriate for a religious icon. It Ungaro opened the discussion about of usage (and if they don’t know they’ll would have been easier to jettison the “Cost of Living (Aleyda)” by saying, find out). In an era when many crit- original motors and wiring and re- “This work represents an emerging cat- ics speak of the rise of curation as place them with a new system. The egory of object.” art—when artists arrange objects as bag would have moved as intended; Dana Miller agreed. “Plenty of works often as they make them— conservation the change would have been imper- in our collection involve a split between is deeply curatorial, as conservators ceptible. Why are the mechanical guts a file and an output”—any film or dig- choose which aspects of a work are worth preserving? I don’t believe that ital work does. And many works might presented and how. To treat conser- they have a patina, or that they show require partial refabrication (re-creating, vation as it has traditionally been the artist’s hand—they are invisible, for example, the nylon exterior of “Ice treated—as the behind-the-scenes after all, and Oldenburg outsourced Bag”). But with Kline’s sculpture, Miller work of minimally invasive techno- most of that labor. Furthermore, if the said, “we have no ‘correct’ physical work crats, bursting onstage every few de- eccentricity of the original machine to match new iterations against.” cades during a cleaning controversy was valuable, isn’t something lost when The discussion circled back repeat- and then receding into the shadows— it actually works? The replication com- edly to a central question about Kline’s is to exclude essential questions about mittee here approaches the contradic- project: “What is the medium?” This culture and value from the domain of tory logic of Viollet- le-Duc, attempt- is both a deep philosophical query contemporary art. ing to “reëstablish” that “which may and, for an archivist registering works What will be the new tratteggio? I in fact never have actually existed at or a lawyer defining them in contracts, don’t mean a technique for covering any given time.” an urgently practical one. The com- losses in new media. I mean a strat- mittee thinks of Kline as a maker of egy for acknowledging the hand of he replication committee assumes objects, but much of the making has the institution in the life of the work—a Tthat replication should be avoided been deferred into the future. Listen- way of showing when and how and whenever possible. But Josh Kline’s ing to the committee’s discussion, why the museum has altered what it work makes it impractical to privilege however, I increasingly felt that Kline’s displays. In the Whitney’s recently rehabilitation over replication. “Cost medium, rather than digital files or concluded inaugural exhibition, the of Living (Aleyda)” stages a confron- 3-D prints, is museum conservation museum label describing “Cost of Liv- tation between the culture of museum itself. And it’s a rich medium. At a ing (Aleyda)” was somewhere between conservation and the culture of the dis- time when so many artists outsource insuicient and misleading. It said that posable prototype. fabrication, Mancusi-Ungaro and her the objects on the cart were made by A few weeks after the session with peers are conservators of skill: they 3-D printing, but it said nothing about Kline, I attended an oicial meeting of know a material’s chemical composi- the planned obsolescence of those par- ticular objects; it did not indicate that the work remains unfinished, await- ing more advanced printers. (Cura- tors, as if granting Duchamp’s pessi- mism about conservation, call museum labels “tombstones.”) This placard is a placeholder until Kline and the Whit- ney can settle on a more accurate de- scription of the work. What’s clear is that the traditional data—measure- ments, materials, even dates—will be inadequate. These omissions seem particularly significant given that the sculpture was displayed in a gallery whose wall text described “a revolution in digital tech- nologies” that has altered the produc- tion and consumption of images. The exhibition in which “Cost of Living (Aleyda)” was included was called “America Is Hard to See.” Kline’s work is, indeed, hard to see—one could argue that, owing to the “resolution gap,” you can’t yet see it at all. The vast conservation spaces in the “I suspect a challenger from the right. Let’s slaughter everyone on the right.” new Whitney are visible from outside the building—from the High Line, from the street—as if to announce that the institution will no longer treat conservation as marginal. “Everybody who walks in here feels that this space is an endorsement of the importance of conservation,” Mancusi-Ungaro told me during my last visit. To me, it feels like the bridge of the ship. And I admire the mixture of openness and expertise that I hear in the commit- tee’s conversations. No single profes- sional vocabulary—conservatorial, curatorial, legal, archival—is more im- portant than another; nobody pre- tends that the questions that are en- countered can be answered impartially or finally. We stood on her oice’s outdoor deck overlooking the Hudson. I could see happy-hour drinkers atop the Stan- dard hotel; I watched a blue tugboat push something, probably a trash barge, slowly upriver. As we discussed the sweep of her career, from Renais- “Michael self-published his novel and then bought up his own film rights.” sance pigments to disposable 3-D prints, I registered how the replica- •• tion committee had dissolved much of my initial skepticism about the Whitney—how the tone of the place to lament, and one New York is al- that inconsistency somehow touching; had changed for me. Instead of see- ways passing into another anyway. I don’t want these statues to look like ing the new building as pure trium- Meanwhile, ISIS continues to make its the loudly painted figures of the phalism, another “capital project” in a horrifying video art; I watched that miniature-golf courses of my youth, sinking city, I’d grown aware of a gen- video of men in Mosul destroying even if they did. uine exploratory current—a mixture statues with sledgehammers while In my favorite nineteenth- and of boldness and caution, strength and my Q train idled on the Manhattan twentieth-century European-painting flexibility. Bridge. Oxford and Harvard arche- galleries, I see van Goghs (many of ologists are distributing thousands his paintings ruined, say some conser- ecently, I’ve been walking around of 3-D cameras in Middle Eastern vators, by wax lining) and Braques R listening to Nina Simone’s ver- conflict zones, hoping to capture im- (many destroyed, supposedly, by var- sion of “Who Knows Where the Time ages that will allow them to replicate nish), and I wonder what to make of Goes.” The recording sounds partic- crucial artifacts once they are de- the fact that several of the defining ularly beautiful, because my head- stroyed. In Kline’s work, I discover (or aesthetic experiences of my life took phones are staticky, a false patina that at least I project) vulnerability as well place in front of canvases that were interacts well with the lyrics and the as technophilia: rather than produc- merely a “false description of the thing grain of Simone’s voice. (“I do not ing works that can be shattered or destroyed.” At the moment, I find it count the time / for who knows where lost, he is sending blueprints into the enlivening rather than depressing. the time goes?”) Everywhere I look, future. Spending time among the replicators I see development that’s hard to difer- I wander through the Met, which has helped me become aware of what entiate from destruction: the prolif- will soon take over the Whitney’s old it’s easy to acknowledge intellectually eration of Chase Bank branches; the location on the Upper East Side. I walk but more diicult to feel: that a piece speakeasy storefronts bearing the com- among the ancient sculptures that we of art is mortal; that it is the work of modified image of the Brooklyn that leave fragmented and paintless even many hands, only some of which are preceded the Brooklyn they’re replac- though we could try to restore the vivid coeval with the artist; that time is the ing, as if gentrification were resto- polychromy they originally possessed. medium of media; that one person’s ration. I have little right to lament, We refuse to undertake such resto- damage is another’s patina; that the Ruskin-like, the passing of “the old ration, however, because it would dev- present’s notion of its past and future New York”—I’m part of the gentrifi- astate the image of antiquity we’ve in- are changeable fictions; that a museum cation it’s fashionable for gentrifiers herited from the Renaissance. I find is at sea. 

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 59 60 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY JON GRAY/GRAY31 FICTION 1 = 1

BY ANNE CARSON

he visits others. Before they’re up, ters worse. And she finds no momen- grip to survive, uncountable arms and S dawn, she walks to the lake, lis- tum in sharing, in benevolence, in char- legs, torn-open eyes, locked in the train tening to Bach, the first clavichord ex- ity, no interaction with another person all night waiting for dawn, a scene so ercise, which she plans to have played ever brought her a bolt of pure alive- much the antithesis of her own morn- at her funeral someday, has had this ness like entering the water on a still ing she cannot enter it. What sense it plan since she first heard the music morning with the world empty in every makes for these two mornings to exist and, thinking of it, she weeps lightly. direction to the sky. That first entry. side by side in the world where we live, The lake is whipped by wind and tides Crossing the border of consciousness should this be framed as a question, (big lake) doing what tides do, she into, into what? would not be answerable by philoso- never knows in or out. There is a man And then the (she searches for the phy or poetry or finance or by the shal- standing on shore and a big dog swim- right word) instruction of balancing lows or the deeps of her own mind, ming back to him with stick in mouth. along in the water, the ten thousand she fears. Words like “rationale” be- This repeats. The dog does not tire. adjustments of vivid action, the stain- come, well, laughable. Rationales have She peels a swim cap onto her head, ing together of mind and time so that to do with composite things—mi- goggles, enters the water, which is cold she is no longer miles and miles apart grants, swimmers, the selfish, the but not shocking. Swims. High waves from her life, watching it diferently damned, the plural—but existence and in one direction. The dog is gone. Now unfold, but in it, as it, it. Not at all like sense belong to singularity. You can she is alone. There is a pressure to swim meditation—an analogy often thought- make sentences about a composite well and to use this water correctly. lessly adduced—but, rather, almost fo- thing, you can’t ask it to look back at People think swimming is carefree and rensic, as an application of attention, you. Sentences are strategic. They let efortless. A bath! In fact, it is full of while at the same time, to some de- you of. anxieties. Every water has its own rules gree, autonomic. These modes do not She goes downstairs and out to the and ofering. Misuse is hard to explain. exclude each other, so swimming in- stoop, hoping it’s cooler there. Traic Perhaps involved is that commonplace structs. There is a stoniness. Water is crashes past. Chandler on the side- struggle to know beauty, to know as diferent from air as from stones, walk making a chalk drawing. Com- beauty exactly, to put oneself right in and you must find your way through rade Chandler, she says. He doesn’t its path, to be in the perfect place to its structures, its ancientness, the his- look up. What’s the drawing? He goes hear the nightingale sing, see the groom tory of an entity without response to on chalking. His gaze is ahead and kiss the bride, clock the comet. Every you and yet complicit in your obsti- within. He lives in the back of the water has a right place to be, but that nate intrusion. You have no person- house somewhere, speaks not much, place is in motion. You have to keep hood there, and water is uninterested draws a lot. She calls him Comrade finding it, keep having it find you. Your in itself, stones don’t care if you tell because she’d been reading Russian movement sinks into and out of it with their story nicely. Your bowels, your books the summer she met him and each stroke. You can fail it with each miraculously lucky life, your love of she thought him secretive. This was stroke. What does that mean, fail it. your mother, your well-crafted simi- an error. Secrecy implies a concern After a while, she climbs out over les, all are lost in the slide from depth for one’s own personality. You hardly stones, puts on small flippers, reënters to depth, pure, impure, compassion- ever see Chandler enter a room, he’s the water. The diference is like the less. There is no renunciation in this just there, or leave a room, he seeps diference between glimpsing a beau- (cf. meditation), no striving to detach, away, small tide of person, noticed as tiful thing and staring at it. Now she all these things, all the things you a retraction. can stream into the way of the water can name, being simply gone. Mean- She stands nearer. The drawing is and stay there. She stays. She is one of ing, gone. a pear tree. She can see the pears all the most selfish people she has ever over it, small, perfect green chalk globes known, she thinks about this while er visit ends. Back at home, the with yellow-cream-white highlights. swimming and after, on the beach, in H newspapers, front-page photos She wants to lean down and bite them. her towel, shivering. It is an aspect of of a train car in Europe jammed floor You’ve hit the nail on the head here, personality, hard to change. Generous to door with escaped victims of a war Comrade, she says. He doesn’t answer. gestures, when she attempts them, seem zone farther south, people denied tran- Once they had a conversation, extend- to swipe through the lives of others like sit. Filthy families and souls in despair ing over many months, in broken bits, a random bear paw, often making mat- pressed flat against one another in the about mushrooms. He’d said the thing

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 61 he hated about being in prison was the tually, putting aside gleaming Burt mushrooms. For several days, she won- Lancaster, someone should be using dered if he meant the food, but it didn’t all that water. Across the level ocean make sense they served mushrooms in of her mind come floating certain ref- prison often enough to be a problem, ugees in a makeshift plastic boat so or if he had a damp cell with fungus crowded with passengers they are sprouting in the corners, but this, too, stacked in layers and dropping over seemed extreme, and gradually she un- the sides. She has seen this picture. derstood him to mean he had been She has read that larger ships might able to see a patch of mushrooms, bo- sail very near, that they might stop to letus, from his window and he used to consider the woe and the odds, then go hunting for those in the woods with keep going. Sometimes bottles of water his mother when he was a kid and it or biscuits were tossed from the larger made him sad. Not a mushroom fan- ships before they started their engines cier herself, she didn’t have anything again. What could she put against the subjective to say at the time, so she told desolation of that moment, watching him John Cage was a mushroom hunter, the ship start its engines again. What too, and wrote a book about it, a sort is the price of desolation, and who of mushroom guide, that she could pays. Some questions don’t warrant a lend him. Chandler didn’t answer. She question mark. wasn’t sure he read books or knew who Passengers. To pass. To pass mus- John Cage was. Conversation is pre- ter. To pass over. To be passed over. carious. Now, as she looks at the very To pass the buck. To pass the butter. round, chalky pale pears, mushrooms To pass out. To pass to one’s reward. come to mind again, and she says, One She is eating yogurt when the door- day, as I remember it, John Cage was bell rings. Didn’t know that bell out mushrooming with his mother, worked, she says, wiping her mouth after an hour or so she turns to him with her sleeve, as she gets to the door. and says, We can always go to the store Comrade Chandler doesn’t answer. and buy some real ones. He gestures with his head toward the Silence from Chandler. He is add- street. They descend. Yogurt on your ing touches of red to the pear array, eyebrow, he says over his shoulder as here and there. Then suddenly all his they go down. Oh, she says, thanks. five teeth laugh. The laugh slams out The finished fox drawing is under a of him and is gone. He returns to chalk- street lamp. It glows. He has used some ing. Quickenough quickenough, mut- sort of phosphorescent chalk, and the tering to himself, and something she fox, swimming in a lucent blue-green can’t quite hear, had a kidscad butt- jelly, has a look on its face of escap- ended, it sounds like. She returns to ing all possible explanations. She stares the stoop and stands on the bottom at the blue-green. It has clearness, wet- step. Evening now. Still hot. Long day, ness, coolness, the deep-lit self-im- Chandler, she says to the back of his mersedness of water. You made a lake, head. He’s moving down the sidewalk she says, turning to him, but he is gone, to mark out a new drawing, red chalk now it is night, of to wherever he goes in hand. It will be a fox. He likes a fox when he is absolved. She stands awhile, at the end of the day. watching the fox swim, looking back Upstairs, she finds herself thinking on the day, its images too strong, and again about the failure to swim. It can yet the soul—how does it ever get be quantitative as well as qualitative. peace in its mouth, close its mouth on Imagine how many pools, ponds, lakes, peace while alive. To be alive is just bays, streams, stretches of swimmable this pouring in and out. Find, lose, shore there are in the world right now, demand, obsess, move head slightly probably half of them empty of swim- closer. Try to swim without thinking mers, by reason of night or negligence. how strong it looks. Try to do what Empty, still, perfect. What a waste, you do without mockery of our heart- what an extravagance—why not make broken little era. To mock is easy. She oneself accountable to that? Why not feels a breeze on her forehead, night swim in all of them? One by one or wind. The fox is stroking splashlessly all at once, geographically or concep- forward. The fox does not fail. ♦

62 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 THE CRITICS

A CRITIC AT LARGE A VIEW FROM THE FRINGE

The John Birch Society and the rise of the radical right.

BY THOMAS MALLON

have several reasons for keeping a ward those colleagues—which would needle in the matter of the John Birch I half-century-old “Goldwater for be all of them—who find Goldwater’s Society. Founded in 1958 by the busi- President” poster on a wall of my uni- world view, if they know it, even more nessman Robert Welch, the society was versity oice. It serves as a reminder of abhorrent than antique. the most robust political fringe group youthful political passion (I turned thir- There were things about him not of its day, intent upon thwarting any teen the day before Lyndon Johnson to like, chief among them his consti- U.S.-Soviet coöperation, withdrawing crushed the Arizona senator at the tutionally based refusal to vote for the America from the United Nations, ex- polls), and it pays tribute to the plain- 1964 Civil Rights Act. There was also posing Communists in the federal gov- spoken candidate’s libertarian anti- his ongoing attempt, in the run-up to ernment, and impeaching Chief Jus- Communism. It also, I suppose, ofers the nomination and throughout the tice Earl Warren. Rick Perlstein, in his

ABOVE GUIDO SCARABOTTOLO ABOVE my own bit of micro-aggression to- Presidential campaign, to thread the 2001 book, “Before the Storm: Barry

ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER MUNDAY THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 63 Goldwater and the Unmaking of the forgotten congressional committee hower vanguard at the 1952 Conven- American Consensus,” summarizes the hearing. Suddenly I was brought up tion was especially embittering to trimming strategy: “Goldwater would sharp by a quotation of some words an Welch, “providing one of the principal take the line that Robert Welch was a army captain had spoken on the day launching pads for his career in con- crazy extremist but that the Society it- of his death eight years before.” Welch spiracism,” according to Mulloy. Two self was full of fine, upstanding citi- tells his readers it is “no accident” that years later, in “The Life of John Birch,” zens working hard and well for the neither he nor they heard of Birch until Welch argued that “suppression” of the cause of Americanism.” Throughout years after his death—never mind that truth about Birch’s killing was “a minor the 1964 race, Goldwater availed him- Welch’s own awareness, however de- chore” for the Communist conspiracy self of Bircher money and manpower ferred, came from reading the oicial within the American government. at the risk of being soldered, by his op- transcript of a legislative hearing. For a full understanding of that con- ponents, to the Birchers’ more addled In “Before the Storm,” Perlstein spiracy, Welch directed his readers to views, the most notorious of these being describes Welch as a “very curious” “go back further”: past urgings by Dean Welch’s suggestion that Dwight Ei- combination of “arrogance and inno- Acheson and Henry Morgenthau, in senhower had consciously acted as an cence,” and Terry Lautz, Birch’s most 1933, that the U.S. recognize the agent of the international Communist recent biographer, believes that the U.S.S.R.; past the prior radicalization conspiracy. founder may have envied Birch’s reli- of American labor unions; even past The association of Goldwater and gious certainty and seen in him “the the social-welfare experimentation of the society helped to take both of them heroic figure that he always wanted Bismarck’s Germany, which resulted in down. By 1968, Richard Nixon, a nee- to be,” something beyond a prosper- more “minute controls over the lives of dle-threader extraordinaire, had cap- ous executive in his brother’s candy its subjects than had been seen since tured the Presidency and cemented an business. (The James O. Welch Com- the time of Constantine.” As the years identification with conservatism de- pany’s most distinguished product was went on, Welch became lengthily fix- spite being loathed by the Birch lead- Pom-Poms, my nickel-a-box confec- ated on the Illuminati of the eighteenth ership for a lack of true belief. Nixon tionary preference during the years of century. But, in 1954, the immediate had famously withheld his applause Goldwater’s ascendancy.) The subti- aim of his lives-of-the-saints prose when Goldwater declared, at the 1964 tle of Welch’s book—“In the story of (“love for his parents that amounted Convention, that “extremism in the de- one American boy, the ordeal of his almost to reverence . . . his deep and fense of liberty is no vice”; two years age”—reveals an author who can’t wait glowing afection for his brothers and before that, he had been badly bruised to be of to the races, and by the sec- sisters”) was to make John Birch into by the society during his failed run ond page of his foreword Welch is in the first Bircher. The conditional-per- for the governorship of California. full gallop toward his goal of exem- fect tense provided much help: “he (Screeching Bircher resistance during plarity: “even the purity of character would never have been willing to ac- the Republican primary had left him and nobility of purpose of a John Birch cept peace, even for a short time, when exhausted for the general election.) can atone for only a small part of so purchased by a tolerance of such evils After Nixon reached the White House, much human vileness. But there is strong as he would soon have seen the Com- the dignified, mainstream suferings encouragement in finding so firm an munists spreading across China and of the “silent majority,” not the rants entry on the credit side.” the world.” of the Birchers, became the engine of D. J. Mulloy, in “The World of the his feinting, flexible conservatism, John Birch Society,” published in 2014, ost treatments of Birch’s life which pivoted most audaciously with shows how Welch’s anti-New Deal M have tended to present it as a his decision to visit China in 1972. views, ordinary enough in a business- short preface to the history of the so- No destination could have been more man, contained an “embryonic” radi- ciety carrying his name. But now, in infuriating to the J.B.S., China being calism that expanded during the early “John Birch: A Life” (Oxford), Terry where its eponymous idol, a twenty- years of the Cold War. He describes Lautz reverses the usual proportions seven-year-old American missionary Welch’s “belief that both his great po- and pre sents a biography of Birch turned military intelligence oicer, litical heroes, Robert Taft and Joseph in which the society figures as a sort met his death at the hands of Mao McCarthy, had been ‘betrayed’ at cru- of epilogue. Lautz has the kind of Zedong’s Red Army, on August 25, cial points in their careers by the Re- credentials—a trustee of the Harvard- 1945—becoming, in Welch’s estima- publican political establishment”—an Yenching Institute; a member of the tion, “the first casualty” of the Cold entity that remains a given to both far- Council on Foreign Relations—guar- War. Welch did not discover Birch’s right Republicans and mainstream jour- anteed to give fits to any Bircher past story until 1953: in his brief book “The nalists. It has no clear counterpart in or present, but his book is thorough, Life of John Birch,” published the fol- the Democratic Party, which even in judicious, and, except for a few over- lowing year, he describes how “all alone, periods of insurgency (Eugene Mc- done academic references to Cold in a committee room of the Senate Carthy’s candidacy, say, or George Mc- War “paranoia,” respectful of larger his- Oice Building in Washington, I was Govern’s) is rarely imagined to be op- torical realities. Even conservatives reading the dry typewritten pages in erating by directives whispered from near the mainstream’s right bank will an unpublished report of an almost on high. Taft’s defeat by the Eisen- be hard-pressed to see it as another

64 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 anti-anti-Communist undertaking. miles away. In time, he became skilled by General Claire Lee Chennault. He John Birch went to China in 1940 in Mandarin, an attainment that likely retained his ambition to do evangeli- not to fight Communists but to create reflected not only professionalism but cal work in Tibet once the war ended, Christians. He was born in India, in also a respect for the Chinese that but by the middle of 1945 he was 1918, during the overseas missionary exceeded the norm for proselytizers. depleted by malaria—“physically and service of his parents, a three-year pe- (There is evidence from Birch’s Geor- mentally exhausted.” When he received riod that ended in “frustration and dis- gia youth that he recognized his own a final military assignment in August— appointment” for Ethel and George racial prejudice and struggled to over- just after the Japanese surrender was Birch, whose evangelical zeal conflicted come it.) Birch’s love of China, and his announced and at the beginning of re- with the more material progress being oft-expressed intention to stay there, newed conflict between the Chinese pursued by the missionary Sam Hig- eventually dissuaded his mother from Nationalist and Communist forces— ginbottom, their boss at the Allahabad making eforts to repatriate his body. he was, Lautz writes, “showing signs Agricultural Institute. By April, 1942, Birch had become of paranoia” and possible post-trau- Birch grew up with six siblings in discouraged by illness, hunger, and mis- matic stress disorder. New Jersey and Georgia, absorbing the sionary “bureaucrats” far from the scene. This last mission involved search- fundamentalist outlook of parents ever He wrote a letter volunteering for ser- ing for documents left behind by the more opposed to liberal American Prot- vice, preferably as a chaplain, with the Japanese in Jiangsu Province and as- estantism, and entered Mercer Univer- American Military Mission to China. sessing the state of the local railways sity, in Macon, Georgia, in 1935. Slim Before getting a reply, he fortuitously and roads. Birch’s party ran into a group and attractive, he was also, according encountered some of Jimmy Doolit- of Red Army soldiers; the Americans to Lautz, “obstinate, passionate, and tle’s Raiders, who had landed a plane were told to disarm. Birch became angry headstrong.” The most notable State- near Quzhou after their famous air and insulting; things quickly escalated side episode of his brief life involved raid on Tokyo. “They saw a gaunt West- and he was shot. Immediately after- participating in a thirteen-member stu- ern man with several-days’ growth of ward, at least one of the Communist dent group against five professors whose beard,” Lautz writes, “and one of the soldiers mutilated his face “beyond rec- theological views they deemed hereti- airmen exclaimed, ‘Well, Jesus Christ!’ ognition with a bayonet or knife.” Mao cal. The accusing students were a de- The missionary replied, ‘That’s an aw- Zedong apologized for the killing to cided minority on the Baptist campus, fully good name, but I am not he.’ ” the American general Albert Wede- and charges against the faculty were Birch began playing what his biogra- meyer, but came away from their meet- dismissed after a ten-hour hearing. pher calls a “useful but limited role in ing feeling “incensed and humiliated” Birch went on to graduate at the top assisting the Doolittle Raiders”—aid by Wedemeyer’s insistence on “being of his class but found himself “shunned” that would later be pufed up by J. Frank able to send American troops anywhere by a portion of its members. He began Norris and, finally, by Welch—and in China without necessarily inform- to feel that he had been used, provoked went on to serve as “the eyes of the ing the Chinese beforehand.” into the fight by some of Macon’s townie 14th Air Force,” the Flying Tigers, led Lautz conscientiously presents the Baptist ministers. Lautz rejects argu- ments that he was a temperamental ex- tremist of the Robert Welch sort, and some signs of a greater maturity and forbearance in Birch’s postgraduate years support this view, though it’s worth noting that Welch, in his own biogra- phy of Birch, says of the Mercer epi- sode, “In the ardent certainty and fer- vor of his own early faith, he had been guilty of intolerance—or of what might be so construed by many people.” This is a mouthful coming from the founder. Birch followed Mercer with a year of study at a Fort Worth Bible insti- tute run by J. Frank Norris, a funda- mentalist radio preacher. Seeing great potential in Birch, Norris kept track of the evangelist after pointing him to the Sweet Baptist Mission in Hangzhou, China, where he arrived in September, 1940. After a year in the country, then at war with Japan, Birch moved at some peril to Shangrao, about two hundred “I dreamed I was being chased by a giant standardized test.” D. J. Mulloy sees the Birchers as having “played a crucial role in conser- vatism’s revival” because of these inter- necine smackdowns: the society helped “by providing something for more ‘re- spectable’ conservatives to define them- selves against and diferentiate them- selves from.” This seems a stretch: the more that mainstream conservatives downplayed the Birchers’ influence, the more efectively liberal-minded media and politicians tended to overestimate it—and to condemn moderate con- servatives for insuciently distancing themselves from the society. What Mulloy calls the society’s “uncanny ability . . . to draw attention to itself and its causes and activities” can bet- ter be attributed to the Birchers’ lib- eral opponents than to themselves. Conservatives both mainstream and fringe were surrounded by what Mulloy, Perlstein, and others see as a much larger civic “consensus.” E. J. Dionne, in his new book, “Why the Right Went “Have you tried looking in the ocean?” Wrong: Conservatism—From Gold- water to the Tea Party and Beyond” •• (Simon & Schuster), recalls the con- servative strategist Richard Viguerie explaining to him how direct-mail killing as a fog-of-war incident in which had ordered his murder. She gave Welch fund-raising, which came of age in the Birch’s “frustration and exhaustion” may her permission to use John Birch’s name Goldwater campaign, “created lines of have impaired his judgment. Still, if for the society, but she hoped to see her communication among conservatives the author’s evenhanded efort shows son accorded a religious rather than a unimpeded by mainstream media.” If more respect to John Birch than to the political martyrdom. moderates and liberals didn’t feel sim- ideological martyrology that followed, ilarly impeded, it’s because by and large it is remarkable that he finds it neces- eadquartered in Belmont, Mas- they weren’t. sary to note how “all of the damage H sachusetts, near both Harvard The aggrieved sense of being di- done by the likes of McCarthy and and the Welch candy company, the so- vorced from the nation’s ethos helped Welch paled by comparison with the ciety’s membership peaked, in the early to push some conservatives beyond the massive ideological witch hunts in to mid-nineteen-sixties, at between sixty pale, into the exhilarating battle (and China under Mao.” The inclusion of thousand and a hundred thousand. In- fellowship) that the Birch Society, op- this wildly self-evident stipulation—a structed by the J.B.S. “blue book” and erating locally in kafeeklatsch-size sort of bland, unconscious concession— kept up to date by its magazine, Amer- chapters, seemed to ofer. Claire Con- says something, in its small way, about ican Opinion, members participated, ner, in “Wrapped in the Flag: A Per- the long-standing pervasiveness of during the organization’s first decade, sonal History of America’s Radical American anti-anti-Communism, a in those eforts to cancel U.S.-Soviet Right” (2013), tells of growing up in quiescent orthodoxy that drove some summits and impeach Chief Justice Chicago during the fifties and sixties conservatives to extremes. Warren, circulating petitions, conduct- after “the John Birch Society became There was indeed something slip- ing letter-writing campaigns, and screen- my parents’ lifelong obsession.” (Her fa- shod, if not sinister, about the initial ing informational filmstrips. But the ther, Jay, she says, spent thirty-two years reports of Birch’s death: Ethel Birch Birch leadership fought its deadliest on the society’s National Council.) Con- was first told that her son had been battles against non-rogue elements of ner’s memoir has its afecting moments, killed by “stray bullets.” Sturdier infor- the conservative movement. Trying to but much of its dialogue is recalled with mation came her way later, but requests thread the same needle as Goldwater, a kind of camera-ready convenience for a full accounting from the Penta- William F. Buckley, Jr., had National meant to penetrate the thickest skull: gon and the O.S.S. left her convinced Review show Welch the conservative “Suddenly Dad erupted, ‘The god- of a whitewash and even susceptible to door in 1962; three years later, the mag- damned liberal press smeared us again.’ the theory that his own government azine shut it on the whole society. He raged on about extremism, loyalty,

66 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 and conspiracies. ‘We are patriots!’ he William Manchester’s “The Death of a for the nuclear variety), immigration screamed. ‘Do you hear me? We are President” (1967) to Bill Minutaglio and (a call for the enforcement of “existing patriots! ’ ” Steven L. Davis’s “Dallas 1963” (2013), laws”), and trade agreements (opposi- Jay Conner particularly admired the argument is made that a hateful cli- tion to the Trans-Pacific Partnership). Fred Koch, a Bircher businessman mate created by extreme conservatives— None of these positions are especially whose travels in the Soviet Union during particularly General Edwin Walker, a radical, but it takes only a minute to the nineteen-thirties engendered a ha- Dallas resident and perhaps the most fa- find the rabbit holes: “Agenda 21 seeks tred of Communism and organized mous Bircher after Welch—somehow for the government to curtail your free- labor. Claire Conner’s treatment of hastened the President’s killing. It sim- dom to travel as you please, own a gas- Koch’s now famous sons, Charles and ply does not matter that Lee Harvey Os- powered car, live in suburbs or rural David, devotes no attention to how wald, a defector to the Soviet Union, had areas, and raise a family”; the fight they have moved away from their fa- espoused an ill-tutored form of Marx- against ISIS “is a charade to help build ther’s more outré positions. She tends ism from the time he was a teen-ager, or the New World Order”; the most trou- to ring the sort of conspiracy bells her that seven months before killing Ken- bling aspect of “Our Nation’s Expand- parents once did, as when she describes nedy, Oswald, with the same rifle, shot ing Refugee Program” appears to be the funding of President George W. at and nearly succeeded in killing Walker. “the UN’s role” in it. One page on the Bush’s Inaugural balls in 2001:“Much In April, we are supposed to believe, he site displays “Myths vs. Facts” about later”—really?—“America learned that was shooting at hate; by November, he the society, an exercise that ends up a lot of that cash had come from big was shooting from it. striking a visitor as less defensive than corporations that did business, or J. Allen Broyles, in a book published vestigial: six of the nine myths, includ- wanted to do business, with the fed- the year after Kennedy’s death, “The ing how “the JBS considers public water eral government.” John Birch Society: Anatomy of a Pro- fluoridation part of a Communist Conner is routinely confounded by test,” wrote, “The assassination of Pres- mind-control plot,” relate to contro- revelations of the nefarious, but when ident Kennedy brought home to all versies from the society’s half-century- she learns, in 2007, “that the F.B.I. had thoughtful people our laxity in allow- old heyday. investigated the John Birch Society as ing the creation of an atmosphere in Scholars and survivors of the soci- part of its Subversive Trends of Cur- which assassination is not only possi- ety are frequently determined, beyond rent Interest Program,” she expresses ble, but almost expected.” Broyles makes what is warrantable by the facts, to see none of the alarm that typically greets three references to General Walker in the spectre of Birchism in any full- the discovery of similar Cold War sur- his slender volume, but none to Os- throated contemporary manifestation veillance of the left. The former sort wald’s attempt on his life. “Commu- of conservatism. In 2008, with the elec- can be presented, even in Birch histo- nism killed Kennedy” remains one of tion of Barack Obama and “a financial ries less personal than hers, as pardon- the few defensible statements that the crisis that paralleled the Great Depres- able or consoling. Mulloy may seem to John Birch Society ever issued. Of sion,” Claire Conner found herself, as have reservations about how Governor course, Welch added his own evi- so often, stunned, this time by a reali- Pat Brown had California’s attorney dence-free explanation of how Oswald zation that “the slumbering John Birch general investigate the society’s activi- received his orders from the American Society was about to be born again.” ties in 1961, but when Perlstein asserts portion of the international Commu- In “Why the Right Went Wrong,” that President Kennedy “ordered an nist conspiracy. Dionne quotes Columbia professor aide to begin preparing monthly re- Alan F. Westin’s prediction from 1962— ports on the right” and “asked the di- n 1989, the John Birch Society moved “The future of the Birch Society and rector of audits at the IRS to gather in- I its headquarters to Appleton, Wis- the radical right will very largely be telligence on organizations receiving consin, the hometown of Senator shaped by the way business, conserva- tax exemptions,” he doesn’t break into Joseph McCarthy, a fact usually men- tives, and the Republican Party police a new paragraph, let alone a sweat. tioned with just-sayin’ brevity in his- the boundaries of their movement”— The most interesting facet of Con- tories of the J.B.S. Reporting from the and updates it with the observation that ner’s unfortunate youth involves her hav- time of the move, however, indicates that “those boundaries were to become quite ing been a student at the University of the choice of a new location derived from porous with the rise of the Tea Party.” Dallas, and a witness to the Presidential its proximity to the business enterprises Even the levelheaded Terry Lautz, in motorcade, on November 22, 1963. “Did of the society’s C.E.O. at the time, describing Ted Cruz’s September, 2013, the Birch Society have anything to do G. Allen Bubolz. filibuster against funding for Obamacare, with this?” she asks her father, just after- The diminished society can also declares that “this efort to restrict gov- ward, over the phone. “He hung up with- today be found on the Web, its friendly ernment in the name of protecting in- out answering,” Conner tells the reader; home-page banner showing, when I dividual freedoms was entirely consis- the gesture is meant to be read as fur- clicked my way to it, a happy, ethni- tent with both the principles and tactics tiveness, not indignation. For fifty years, cally diverse group of young people, once advocated by Robert Welch.” Cruz’s the judgment that the far right was at one of them literally wrapped in the of-the-deep-end positions on a num- least indirectly guilty of Kennedy’s kill- American flag. Issues highlighted by ber of matters, including climate change, ing has been a mainstream position. From the Web site include energy (support are amply and regularly on display, but

68 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 how, exactly, does the use of parliamen- tary procedure by an elected senator square with Welch’s pamphleteering BRIEFLY NOTED fantasies about twenty-five thousand traitors in our midst? THEBIGGREENTENT, by Ludmila Ulitskaya, translated from the “All thoughtful people”—Broyles’s Russian by Polly Gannon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Spanning phrase for that civic consensus—might the period from the fifties until the collapse of the Soviet ask themselves if they sometimes Union, this epic chronicle of dissidence daringly subverts the aren’t guilty of erasing the boundaries reader’s expectations of the classic Russian novel. The story they would have responsible conser- begins during the school years of three promising friends vatives “police” by exhibiting a ten- initiated into the cult of great literature by a new teacher. dency to see and speak of conserva- Gradually, the bildungsroman unravels into a web of inter- tism as a single fairly despicable connected stories, depicting the friends’ lives, and the lives continuum. It was Goldwater who of their families, lovers, friends, and neighbors from a mul- walked conservatives into a trap fifty tiplicity of angles. The most memorable and afecting por- years ago, embracing the word “extrem- trait is that of a daughter of Party oicials who finds her life’s ism” without in fact being an extrem- purpose in the production and dissemination of samizdat. ist himself. The result was to make the term forever available as a kind of MARTINJOHN, by Anakana Schofield (Biblioasis). The titular branding iron to be applied from left character of this frenetic, risk-taking novel is an obsessive to right. public masturbator (an “inadequate molester”) who has a These are deeply depressing times complicated relationship with his “mam.” He is one of the for moderate conservatives who are do- book’s narrators, along with his mam and women he has nating their time and money and shred- touched. Through jumbled prose, often formatted as poetry, ded nerves to fending of the takeover we discover him to be Pynchonian in his conspiratorial sus- of the Republican Party by far-right picions, and Beckettian in voice. Deliberately cryptic and elements and non-ideological egoma- bleakly funny, the novel puts you inside the mind of a per- nia. As they do so, they nonetheless son you’d strive to avoid in real life, but also points to the find themselves routinely equated with fundamental elusiveness of character. “There are simply the very forces to which they are in- going to be things we won’t know,” Schofield writes. “It’s tramurally opposed. D. J. Mulloy’s how it is. As it is in life must it be unto the page.” book quotes Robert Welch’s old com- plaint that he was excoriated while his CUSTER’STRIALS, by T. J. Stiles (Knopf ). Romantic, flamboyant, “compatriots on the ideological battle imperious, priapic, courageous, foolhardy, ambitious, George ground”—the mainstream conserva- Armstrong Custer is most famous for his death, but this sym- tives of his day—were “accorded by the pathetic biography attempts to demythologize and reassess a Left all the respect and privileges of a complicated figure who both embodied and chafed against a ‘loyal opposition.’ ” Today’s temperate modernizing society. Stiles captures his subject with verve. As conservative feels less secure of such a political player, Custer attempted to follow where the wind status. He listens to his party being blew but often misread the weather; his published writing was called “crazy” and accused of “insanity” characterized more by floridity than by clarity; his investment in editorials by the nation’s newspa- decisions approached pure gambling. Yet in war he was “de- per of record; finds himself tiptoeing cisive, not reckless; shrewd, not foolish.” Stiles marks the irony through the watch-your-language world that, despite Custer’s acumen on the battlefield, he is most of the American university (where the often remembered as a leader who took his men to slaughter. Free Speech Movement took of during the year of the Goldwater campaign); BLOODBENEATHTHESKIN, by Andrew Wilson (Scribner). “My and endures more and more instances work is like a biography of my own personality,” the late of left-wing triumphalism, such as the fashion designer Alexander McQueen said, a thought that New York City Council’s recent proc- informs the structure of this account of his life and work. lamation honoring Ethel Rosenberg’s Detailed discussion of his sometimes macabre runway shows one-hundredth birthday. Clinging to reveals a man obsessed with death and spectacle and haunted neither guns nor religion, and anything by childhood sexual abuse. Wilson reads in McQueen’s but blind to red-state fevers past and clothes a complicated relationship with women. Some crit- present, he wonders only if those on ics, observing the near-brutality of the shows—one featured the other side of our ever more emo- a model whose mouth was splayed open by metal braces— tive and reflexive politics can at least charged McQueen with misogyny, but Wilson sees the more see him apart from company he isn’t extreme costumes as “armor,” a “sartorial force field,” and, even keeping.  perhaps, an invitation to empowerment.

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 69 musicians swanned about, became an MUSICAL EVENTS ostentatiously becalmed ritual. Abra- mović, a performance-art celebrity who has lately been concerned with coun- PIANO THEATRE tering digital-age distractions, did noth- ing to disrupt this latter-day norm; Igor Levit and Evgeny Kissin revise the recital format. indeed, she further sacralized the for- mat. Listeners were told to place elec- BY ALEX ROSS tronic devices in a locker, take a seat in the Drill Hall, and meditate in si- lence for more than half an hour while the automated platform contain- ing Levit and his piano glided to the middle of the space. Noise-cancelling headphones were provided for the pur- pose of “plunging audience members into a sonically neutral and calming state.” I found this purgative exercise un- helpful. Far from being calming, the headphones gave me a panicky sensa- tion of being isolated and entombed. If we were supposed to unplug from modernity, why were we being outfit- ted with yet another gadget? At the risk of incurring the artist’s wrath, I removed the headphones and relaxed into the Armory’s reverberant acous- tic, which resembled that of a cathe- dral after hours. I thought of Cage’s “4'33'',” which is derived from the re- alization that there is no such thing as total silence: rather than trying to shut out extraneous noise, we should absorb it. Abramović’s concept seemed to be more a symptom of the culture of dis- traction than an antidote to it. More successful was the lighting environment, which was designed by Urs Schönebaum, a veteran of the in- n the middle of December, the city tend to forget its origins in the flam- ternational opera circuit. (He recently I experienced some peculiar pianist boyant self-display of Paganini and worked on William Kentridge’s “Lulu,” behavior. At the Drill Hall of the Park Liszt. The very idea of a piano “recital,” at the Met.) It consisted of a few sim- Avenue Armory, the fast-rising Rus- introduced by Liszt in 1840, took in- ple but striking elements: rectangular sian-German pianist Igor Levit played spiration from stage monologues and illuminated screens on each wall; a the “Goldberg Variations” on a gradu- poetry readings. thin band of light extending above the ally rotating platform, as part of a clas- The “Goldberg” project seems to rectangles; and a light aixed under- sical-music installation designed by the have arisen from a historical misun- neath the keyboard lid. In the course artist Marina Abramović. At Carnegie derstanding. In an interview printed of the performance, these lights slowly Hall, the established virtuoso Evgeny in the program book, Abramović de- dimmed. The scheme succeeded in di- Kissin intermingled pieces by early- clares that “classical-music concerts recting the audience’s attention toward twentieth-century Jewish composers have always been the same for centu- the pianist while preserving an aware- with his own dramatic recitations of ries.” In fact, as accounts of Liszt’s re- ness of the Armory’s immensity. The Yiddish-language poems by I. L. Peretz. citals show, they have undergone enor- band of light was like a horizon be- These departures from routine were mous changes in the past hundred and hind which an artificial sun had set. welcome. The recital format has be- fifty years. What had been a rather un- The conceit came to life once Levit come so robotically predictable that we ruly afair, with listeners swooning as began to play. He is among the finest young pianists before the public, one At Carnegie, Kissin played Jewish-themed pieces and recited Yiddish poetry. in whom impeccable technique is allied

70 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY RUI TENREIRO with inborn musicality. Having an- But he hardly faltered in the faster- poems are intricate creations, fusing a nounced himself, three years ago, with tempo variations; if anything, he drove German Romantic vocabulary with a a recording of Beethoven’s last piano them harder. The wonder of the “Gold- rhapsodic Russian manner. As far as I sonatas, he has shown even greater am- berg” is that it seems to darken and could tell, Kissin was alert to their nu- bition in releasing, on the Sony label, brighten simultaneously: a few short ances of irony and melancholy. A bit a three-disk set of monumental varia- minutes after the cosmic sadness of the of theatre might have heightened the tions: Bach’s “Goldberg,” Beethoven’s so-called “black pearl” variation, Bach occasion: I wish the lights had been “Diabelli,” and Frederic Rzewski’s daz- unleashes the Quodlibet, in which old lowered, as at the Armory. zling 1975 fantasia on “The People folk songs irreverently intermingle. Levit No less bracing was to see Kissin United Will Never Be Defeated,” a caught that awesome doubleness: in engage with repertory far outside his— Chilean anti-authoritarian anthem. He his enigmatic brilliance, he is Bachian or anyone’s—usual fare. The program delivers this thunderous program with to the core. consisted of Ernest Bloch’s Piano So- instinctive authority. His collaboration nata, Alexander Veprik’s Second So- with Abramović signals that he won’t o my ears, Kissin has long been nata, Alexander Krein’s “Suite Dansée,” be content with a conventional busi- Tsomething of a cipher: a pianist of and, for an encore, Mikhail Milner’s ness-class career, shuttling from one staggering native skill who has never “Farn Opsheyd” (“Before Separating”). élite venue to the next. quite outgrown his wunderkind status. All the pieces mixed Jewish folk ma- Levit’s recording of the “Goldberg” For many people, the skill is suicient: terial with early-twentieth-century finds a middle ground between two Kissin is an artist-in-residence at Car- modernist gestures: they often smacked historical poles: the antic manner of negie this season, and in November he of Bartók in the shtetls. I was espe- Glenn Gould and the spaciousness of accomplished the rare feat of selling cially taken with the Veprik sonata, Rosalyn Tureck. A shade cool and re- out two iterations of the same recital. with its hammering, double-octave in- served, he lacks the geniality of Mur- At the second, a hyperkinetic “Appas- sistence on intervals of a fourth and a ray Perahia, on a classic Sony disk, or sionata” elicited a loud ovation. For tritone. The Yiddishkeit emerged only the playfulness of Jeremy Denk, on those who may have wondered what at the end, and in a hard-nosed, per- Nonesuch. Yet Levit, as in his Beetho- lies behind the bashful-virtuoso façade, cussive fashion. Strong in itself, the ven performances, shows an extraordi- the Jewish-themed program in De- score was further elevated by the co- nary ability to coax a singing line from cember was a revelation, foreground- lossal conviction that Kissin brought the piano, and he introduces myriad ing the player’s passions. You needn’t to it. subtleties into the purr of counterpoint, have looked at a personal Web site, The pianist is about to take a sab- often inserting elegant little ornaments which is weighted with links to polit- batical from performing; as he recently on the repeats. The efect is of strong ical articles on Israel and terrorism, to told Vivien Schweitzer, of the Times, emotion held in check by a magiste- know that his engagement with Jew- he plans to study repertory ranging rial intellect. ish culture is profound. from Bach to Bartók. The next phase At the Armory, Levit played more The recitations were by no means of his career may turn out to be the freely, lingering over certain phrases as a vanity project. Kissin has mastered liveliest—the one in which he forges a if he wanted to hear them echo through the art of declamation, his speech as- distinct identity. At the end of the Car- the space. The dimming of the lights suming songlike character, his grasp of negie evening, he ofered a short poem perhaps led him to emphasize the deep- emotional arcs acute. More than at the of his own, “Ani Maymin,” or “Credo.” ening gloom of the minor-key episodes, Abramović afair, there was a sense of It closed with a line that every touring in which chromaticism entwines the modernity melting away, as a venera- artist can take to heart: “If I am like rock-solid bass line underlying the cycle. ble oral culture rematerialized. Peretz’s the others, who will be like me?” 

THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2016 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

VOLUME XCI, NO. 43, January 11, 2016. THE NEW YORKER (ISSN 0028 792X) is published weekly (except for five combined issues: February 8 & 15, June 6 & 13, July 11 & 18, August 8 & 15, and December 19 & 26) by Condé Nast, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: Condé Nast, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Elizabeth Hughes, publisher, chief revenue officer; Beth Lusko, associate publisher advertising; James Guilfoyle, director of finance and business operations; Fabio Bertoni, general counsel. Condé Nast: S. I. Newhouse, Jr., chairman emeritus; Charles H. Townsend, chairman; Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr., president & chief executive officer; David E. Geithner, chief financial officer; Jill Bright, chief administrative officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 123242885-RT0001.

POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE NEW YORKER, P.O. Box 37684, Boone, IA 50037 0684. FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK ISSUE INQUIRIES: Please write to The New Yorker, P.O. Box 37684, Boone, IA 50037 0684, call (800) 825- 2510, or e-mail [email protected]. Please give both new and old addresses as printed on most recent label. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. If during your subscrip- tion term or up to one year after the magazine becomes undeliverable, you are ever dissatisfied with your subscription, let us know. You will receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of order. For advertising inquiries, please call Beth Lusko at (212) 286-4454. For submission guidelines, please refer to our Web site, www. newyorker.com. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to The New Yorker, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. For cover reprints, please call (800) 897-8666, or e-mail [email protected]. For permissions and reprint requests, please call (212) 630-5656 or fax requests to (212) 630-5883. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the consent of The New Yorker. The New Yorker’s name and logo, and the various titles and headings herein, are trademarks of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. Visit us online at www.newyorker.com. To subscribe to other Condé Nast magazines, visit www.condenet.com. Occasionally, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, please advise us at P.O. Box 37684, Boone, IA 50037 0684 or call (800) 825-2510.

THE NEW YORKER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS, UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY THE NEW YORKER IN WRITING.

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 11, 2016 71 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 Mick Stevens, must be received by Sunday, January 10th. The finalists in the December 21st & 28th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the January 25th 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

“Now who’s laughing all the way?” Monte Vognsen, Madison, Wis.

“I just think it sends the wrong message.” “Our contract has a subordinate Claus.” Jean-Marie Gard, Lexington, Mass. Benjamin Marcus, New York City

“This will go down in history.” Alvin Cannon, Jr., Richmond, Va.

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

“ ”