Is Your Doctor Becoming Obsolete?

Saving Kids From Bullies By Emily Bazelon

WILL SEE YOU NOW The Is Your Doctor Emancipation Becoming of Barack Obama Obsolete? By Ta-Nehisi By Jonathan Cohn Coates

Inventing Marilyn Monroe By Caitlin Flanagan

Why Romantic Comedies Are So Bad How Anthropologists Sell Vodka The New Chastity MARCH 2013 in Paris THEATLANTIC.COM

MIDSIZE BUSINESSES ARE THE ENGINES OF A SMARTER PLANET

FOR MIDSIZE BUSINESSES, REINVENT WITHOUT A REDEFINING MOMENT. 92% of midsize REINVESTING IN I.T. In the past, midsize companies say they LINK wanted a faster, more will invest in the organizations with big ideas cloud within the accurate way to measure were constrained by limited 92% next 36 months.* consumer sentiment. IT resources. Not anymore. Working with a powerful With the arrival of scalable, facial recognition solution Scale Flexibly aﬀ ordable cloud computing, created by IBM Business sophisticated ideas for new Partner nViso in the IBM products no longer languish. SmartCloud, ™ LINK is Personalized customer now capturing respondent service generates incremental reactions to marketing sales. And new, revenue-rich messages in real time, via markets are being created home webcams. Scores are every day. generated every second for 7 emotions. And LINK gets its results up to 90% faster.

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It’s shaking up industries and providing new opportunities In the past, a data-rich for new players, with many solution like LINK’s would pioneering midsize businesses have been impractical for a once again leading the way. midsize company. But in the Consider: 92% of midsize cloud, traditional research is companies say they will pilot history. And a new service or adopt a cloud solution has transformed a business. within the next 36 months. What can the cloud do for your midsize business? Get started by learning how Progressive companies like IBM and its Business Partners LINK Institute, the Swiss are helping midsize businesses consumer research ﬁ rm with “We can assess reinvent themselves at 110 employees, are doing it a consumer’s emotive response ibm.com/engines/cloud right now. more accurately.” — Tim Llewellynn, LET’S BUILD A nViso CEO SMARTER PLANET.

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*2011 IBM Institute for Business Value/Economist Intelligence Unit Cloud-Enabled Business Model Survey. IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, IBM SmartCloud, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. © International Business Machines Corporation 2012. Contents

03.13 | vol. 311 - no. 2

features

Inc. Will See You What really happened the Bullies Marilyn How companies have Now to William Spark- The inside account Anyone who thinks started using social Technology is about to man Jr., the census of the companies, the story of Marilyn scientists to probe revolutionize health worker whose body scientists, and Monroe doesn’t the deepest needs, care. How far will was found hang- hackers who are warrant such attention fears, and desires of automation go? ing from a tree in hunting for solutions doesn’t know much consumers Will doctors still Kentucky in 2009, the to the scourge of about it. By Graeme Wood be necessary? word FED scrawled online harassment By Caitlin Flanagan By Jonathan Cohn across his chest? By Emily Bazelon By Rich Schapiro SunSet Boulevard/corBiS

the atlantic march 2013 3 CONTENTS

03.13

20 30

DEPARTMENTS DISPATCHES

ENTERTAINMENT POLITICS SKETCH WORDPLAY

From literature to ap- Perfect Poll of Sally Oren It Out pointment television, Have Web surveys The woman who Why sooo many people Conversation episodic storytelling f nally come of age? links Janis Joplin, Jimi are tossing extra letters is f ourishing. By Molly Ball Hendrix, and Bibi into text messages By Megan Garber Netanyahu By Jen Doll Question STUDY OF STUDIES By Jeffrey Goldberg HISTORY TECH POETRY Too Beautiful BUSINESS Emancipation By James Hamblin Alexis Madrigal talks By Campbell McGrath Why his reelection Shrinking Ad with Flickr co-founder matters even more BY DESIGN Why ever-tinier Caterina Fake. 89 Material By Christina Pugh than his election screens should make By Ta-Nehisi Coates A lamp that Facebook and Google CHARTIST runs on gravity nervous By Derek Thompson of the Student- Loan Crisis By Nicole Allan and Derek Thompson

4 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC

Contents

03.13

highlights fRom 34 theatlantic.com

Design Restart Darhil crooks, The Atlantic’s creative director, talks to editor Scott Stossel about redesigning the magazine.

inteRactive Calling All Readers See more answers to the Big Question, offer your own, and tell us what to ask next month.

viDeo The New Playground emily Bazelon dis- 44 38 cusses online bullying with atlantic Digital editor Bob cohn.

on the cover the culture file

the omnivoRe tRavel books commentaRy Boy Meets Girl christopher Orr Groundhog Day the Minibar Images narrates scenes from On the 20th What happened to my Two beautiful new the best—and worst— anniversary of the most trusted traveling cofee-table books— romantic comedies. beloved comedy, it’s companion? except one isn’t really time to recognize the By David Samuels a book By Benjamin Schwarz viDeo Photograph by flm as a profound Bart Cooke; work of contemporary cinema Firewater 3-D model by metaphysics. books Watch bartenders ignite their favorite Gael Langevin By James Parker Romantic Comedies Under Terror flaming cocktails. DRink So Bad? In 1937, the city was The long decline from both an artistic Toasted Katharine Hepburn to capital and a The drama (and Katherine Heigl slaughterhouse. sometimes danger) By Christopher Orr By Benjamin Schwarz of the faming cocktail By Wayne Curtis

6 march 2013 the atlantic

Editor’s Note

THE ART OF IDEAS

N 1857 THE PRINTED WORD was unopposed,” Channel, Dr. James Hamblin, writes the editors of this magazine mused, a bit wistfully, our Study of Studies—an analysis of “ how academic surveys complicate one in 1957, on the 100th anniversary of the founding of The Atlantic another— while Jen Doll, of our news . “Books and magazines were a necessity site, The Atlantic Wire, delivers the f rst for the thoughtful, and reading aloud was an evening installment of our language column, pastime.” On that centennial, as the editors unveiled Wordplay. a “much more inviting” design of the magazine, the We have more clearly delineated the competition seemed to them to have grown substan- sections of the magazine by collecting tially more f erce. The printed word had to contend our book reviews and other cultural “with radio, television, the picture book, and—a new coverage in a new Culture File. Longer I books essays, together with short fic- and demanding rival—the long-playing record.” tion, will continue to run at the back Yet, as the decades waltzed by with founding ethos of The Atlantic, and this of the magazine, behind the feature varying grace, The Atlantic proved able has turned out to be a good thing, today stories that are The Atlantic’s editorial to perform its own role quite comfort- as in 1957, given all the forms and means foundation. ably alongside not only the aggressive LP, of expression that are clamoring for your The new design is the work of our but the EP, the 45, the reel-to-reel, the attention (though still not creative director, Darhil eight-track tape, the cassette, the com- drowning out the poor LP, Crooks. He set out to cre- pact disc, and—so far, touch wood—the let alone radio, television, ate a look that is as elegant, MP3 and streaming audio. How? or the picture book—maybe provocative, and accessible Partly by not changing. The purpose because, in testament to the as the prose—or, at least, as of The Atlantic as expressed by the edi- suppleness of human intel- we aspire for the prose to 1912 tors in November 1957 is its purpose now. ligence, technologies have be. One of his nods to our “We still believe, as did our founders, that a way of supplementing, heritage is his decision to the free competition of ideas has made rather than simply replacing, bring back our colophon, this country what it is,” the editors wrote. one another). the image of Poseidon that To advance these ideas, and with them With this issue, we appears on this page. In one the American project, they wanted to have redesigned and re- of our more shocking rede- create a home for ambitious, fractious structured the printed mag- signs, in 1947, The Atlantic writers. azine to, we hope, more for the f rst time presented And The Atlantic has also thrived, powerfully present stories a large image, rather than

in part, by changing. To promote the for you to think about and 1947 simply a table of contents, competition of ideas, The Atlantic now argue with. To give more on its cover. For that cover, has three Web sites and conducts doz- scope to the expertise and interests of the image was our original colophon, ens of live events a year. Our “printed” our growing staff of writers, we have also shown on this page. If you compare words are also conveyed digitally, on added several features to the Dispatch- the old version with the new, I think the Web and on tablets and phones. We es section, alongside the short essays you’ll see evidence both of continuity are reaching a far larger audience than and character sketches you are accus- and of f tting change. we ever have. Optimism about change— tomed to. For example, this month the

impatience for it—was part of the radical editor of TheAtlantic.com’s Health —JAMES BENNET LEHMAN MATT COLOPHON: TOP

8 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC THE ATLANTIC MEETS STACEY SNIDER, CO-CHAIRMAN AND CEO, DREAMWORKS THE PACIFIC

CHRIS COX, VP OF PRODUCT, FACEBOOK

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, and political

This past fall, The Atlantic Meets the Paciﬁ c gathered some of the world’s most brilliant scientists, business leaders, tech trailblazers

pundits to examine the breakthroughs poised to transform technology, OCTOBER 2-4, 2013. To learn more health, energy, media, and beyond. The Atlantic Meets the Pacific returns about the event, please visit AtlanticMeetsPacific.com.

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@Atlantic_LIVE For more information on Atlantic events, please visit events.theatlantic.com. The ConversaTion Responses and ReveRbeRations

will. And trust me: I won’t be Jefrey Goldberg makes the the only one with a packet of excellent point that armed Kleenex in one hand while the self-defense is enshrined in other rests frmly on the 9 mm our Constitution—and that strapped to my hip. In Aurora it works. “Guns are with us, we take care of our own. whether we like it or not,” he Karen Madsen writes. “Americans who are Aurora, Colo. qualifed to possess frearms shouldn’t be denied the right My understanding of the to participate in their own gun-control debate began with defense.” personal experience: I was If you think the problem present, and two of my friends of mass violence is just about were wounded, during last guns, you’re wrong. If you think GUNS AND GUN CONTROL summer’s shooting at the Au- it’s just about an entertainment rora, Colorado, movie theater. industry that markets violence On December 14, a 20-year-old man killed his Since then, I have tried to bet- to kids, you’re wrong. If you mother with her own legally obtained guns, then ter understand what happened, think it’s just about insufcient opened fre in Sandy Hook Elementary School, in and why. Knowing what I do security at our schools, you’re Connecticut. Adam Lanza murdered 20 frst-graders now, I fnd this article to be the wrong. If you think it’s just and six adults before killing himself. In December’s most intellectually sloppy piece about the lack of mental-health “The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control),” I’ve ever seen in The Atlantic. services, you’re wrong. We which appeared just before the events at Sandy Hook, Mr. Goldberg largely fails need to address all these issues. Jefrey Goldberg argued that such massacres might be to distinguish among types of We cannot have this con- stopped earlier if more civilians, after obtaining a li- gun violence, focusing instead versation without gun owners cense and training, carried weapons. The response to on mass shootings. The vast and groups like the National this article was so overwhelming, and so varied, that majority of gun violence is Rife Association. If you blame it warranted singular attention in The Conversation. not in fact committed during the NRA for what happened a mass shooting like the one I in Newtown, you’re blaming witnessed in Aurora; the plural- 4 million law-abiding Ameri- ity is committed during argu- cans. And you’re blaming me, After 60 years of not owning risk my family’s safety to make ments, followed in frequency because I am an NRA member. a gun, in 2007 I purchased a political statement. by robberies and juvenile gang Responsible gun owners my frst handgun, practiced Raymond C. Harlan activity. In assessing the poten- should be at the forefront of until I was profcient, took a Aurora, Colo. tial efects of more (or fewer) any efort to fnd a balance be- class, and got a concealed- guns in our society, ignoring tween rights and responsibili- carry permit. Why? After my The ofcer guarding the former this fact is simply negligent. ties, to make America safer for daughter was attacked by an Century 16 theater in Aurora, Mr. Goldberg might have our children. We understand ex-boyfriend/stalker, I realized Colorado, where I live, said, “I come away with a better better than most that guns a well-run police department guess people move on,” after understanding of what more made this country free and does a good job of respond- Goldberg asked whether people guns really entails had he been are an important part of our ing to crime, but a poor job of drive by to look at the scene of interested in asking why many culture and heritage. protecting against crime. If the shooting. Move on? I hardly victims of mass shootings don’t Senator Joe Manchin (D) police are in position to stop think so. Will we forget? Never. go out and buy a gun to protect Charleston, W.Va. an attack, the attacker will Will every single resident be themselves, and in some cases simply choose another time or lined up on opening night of the advocate against the further After reading this article, place. We would live in a better newly renovated Century 16, erosion of gun-free zones. the NRA’s seemingly outra- country if the 300 million guns surrounded by friends and Ethan Rodriguez-Torrent geous suggestion that we in it disappeared, but I will not family? You better believe we Southbury, Conn. install armed ofcers at our

10 march 2013 the atlantic educational institutions treating gunshot wounds, so becomes more plausible, even fewer people die from these baRometeR persuasive. Such security could injuries. deter future attacks on our stu- Goldberg efectively plays on The most-read stories on TheAtlantic.com in 2012: dents or ameliorate the efects the fears generated by isolated, of these attacks should they oc- rare, and particularly brutal cur. The response times of local attacks. The fact is, we will be SWAT teams, however fast, safer from gun attacks when cannot match those of armed there are fewer guns. personnel already on-site. David Finck How to pay for this extra Boone, N.C. security? Under the Wildlife Restoration Act, an 11 percent Goldberg provides a provoca- federal excise tax on sales of tive case for carrying a gun: “long guns and ammunition” “Guns can be used to do evil, and a 10 percent tax on pistol but guns can also be used to do sales have been in efect since good.” But perhaps there are 1937. Each year, $3 billion to better questions to ask than have used their weapons to de- start ftting ourselves in Kevlar $4 billion is generated by these whether, when a stranger is ter violent crime, where is the too? taxes and used for wildlife shooting at you, you prefer to evidence that those incidents Ta-Nehisi Coates conservation and restoration. be armed or unarmed. The fo- outnumber the occasions when Excerpt from an atlantic blog post Would it be unfair to increase cus should be on the “Zimmer- their weapons are used to kill these taxes and funnel the ad- man Syndrome”: How does or injure an innocent? Being in a shopping mall, on a ditional revenue into enhanced the gun carrier’s view of the Michael E. Santese train, in a theater, or at a school school- security programs world difer? Do political and Andover, Conn. where someone starts shooting administered by local law- social views harden? Does is statistically more frequent in enforcement ofcials? Locally suspicion of others become It is human to wish that Dawn America than anywhere else, generated revenue might also common? In other words, what Hochsprung, the principal of but is vanishingly unlikely for be raised, by increasing fees for damage is done to the carrier, Sandy Hook Elementary, who any individual. Yet if we were concealed-weapons permits and how might that fundamen- died heroically, had enjoyed to rely on the “more guns make and by charging more for tally harm a society needing to some weaponry beyond her us safer” principle, logically weapons- training courses. move away from violence as a body. But are we then ask- we’d have to carry guns all the Finally, would it be possible response to fear? ing for a world in which the time, everywhere, because … to ofer recently returned Rodney R. Jones educators of small children are you never know. Jef Goldberg combat veterans of Iraq and Af- Mendocino, Calif. strapped? Do we want our hos- and I have both railed against ghanistan some preference in pital workers, our librarians, TSA policies based on the hiring for these new positions? Referring to armed self- our baby sitters, and our Little premise that every single pas- Jack Jackson defense as something that League coaches all armed? senger is a potential terrorist. Albuquerque, N.M. “often works” and implying What is the message that such A more-guns policy would that the alternative is “encour- a society sends to itself and its involve a similar distortion in More people than ever carry aging learned helplessness” is children? What does that say everyone’s behavior based on handguns. Homicide rates are a low blow to those who, while about its government’s ability outlier threats. falling. Must mean handguns possibly naive, envision a safer, to perform the most essential There is very little real- are making us safer from gun less violent society. After all, of services—protection? And is world evidence of “good violence. Wrong. According to the primary justifcation we it enough to simply be wholly guys,” or ordinary citizens who The Wall Street Journal, “The have for obtaining a frearm for sane? What do we say to the happen to be armed, taking out reported number of people self-defense is that there are so ghost of Jordan Davis, shot shooters in the way the more- treated for gunshot attacks many guns out there already. It down over an argument about guns hypothesis suggests. from 2001 to 2011 has grown by is a self-fulflling premise. And loud music, by a man who was After all, and gruesomely, the nearly half.” What’s changed is it is most likely misleading. quite sane? And where does it mother of the murderer in that doctors and frst respond- Although there might be many end? If more mass killers don Newtown was heavily armed ers have gotten better at occasions when frearm owners body armor, should we then and well experienced with ediToriAl officeS & correSpondence The Atlantic considers unsolicited manuscripts, fiction or nonfiction, and mail for the Letters column. Correspondence should be sent to: Editorial Department, The Atlantic, 600 New Hampshire Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037. Receipt of unsolicited manuscripts will be acknowledged if accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. Manuscripts will not be returned. Please do not send manuscripts by e-mail. cuSTomer Service & reprinTS Please direct all subscription queries and orders to: 800-234-2411. International callers: 386-246-0196. 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the atlantic march 2013 11 The Conversation

weapons, and that did not help her or any- and their relatives, they unequivocally one else. disagree with him. Mr. Goldberg fails to It is all too easy to imagine the mistakes, provide alternative interviews or (prefer- chaos, fog of war, prejudices, panic, and ably) data that would support his opinion, confusion that would lead a more widely but he does not change his conclusion. A DECIDEDLY armed citizenry to compound rather than John Whiteman limit the damage of a shooting episode. Laramie, Wyo. James Fallows APPRO Excerpt from an Atlantic blog post In 1985 I was working in a suburban Atlanta dive. Late one evening, when the bar was Mr. Goldberg criticized John Gilchrist of empty, two young men robbed me at gun- FINANCIAL P Ohio for relying on anecdotal impressions point. One of them said something along of gun violence in his state after the pas- the lines of “Give me the money,” which I sage of a concealed-carry law. However, did without hesitation, further encouraged Mr. Goldberg repeatedly commits the by his companion, who several times yelled, same mistake. He describes several events “Kill ’im, kill ’im, blow his head of!” in which personal weapons were used to During the entire incident, which It always has been and always will be our stop or deter shooting sprees. Those are must have lasted less than a minute, my staunch belief that the edges are no place incredible events, but they say nothing .357 Magnum was under the bar, near the about the success rate of using guns to de- register I was emptying, well within my to be. This isn’t to discourage you from crease violence across society. Gun-control grasp. I didn’t once consider reaching for it, visiting a breathtakingly lovely sight like advocates can just as easily point to many and refecting on the incident the next day, events in which the absence of a gun would I knew with certainty that any attempt to the Grand Canyon, but have saved a life. do so would have got me shot. How many such precipices have Mr. Goldberg ofers no helpful per-capita average citizens, if armed, would be suf- Although the a tendency to induce brain has two estimates of successful uses of guns by fciently clear-minded and quick-thinking hemispheres, civilians to stop crime. He states that guns to respond to an armed attacker? vertigo. Especially as are used defensively somewhere between Yes, I realize there’s a diference be- seen through the lens 108,000 and 2.45 million times a year. But tween an armed robbery, where compli- how do we know whether the gun deterred ance will more than likely keep one safe, of financial planning. Which is why we take a criminal, or reduced the harm the criminal and Columbine/Aurora–style attacks, the painstaking steps necessary to help avoid committed? These numbers only indicate where an unstable individual is hell-bent financial edges altogether. And when we say that we have a high rate of gun ownership. on taking out as many people as possible. Mr. Goldberg states that potential vic- But c’mon: Is an armed citizenry really the painstaking, we’re referring to our carefully tims “quaking under train seats” would answer to either (potential) eventuality? considered, rigorously disciplined financial “quite possibly” be willing to accept the Jerry Kranitz planning process. One that involves a whole risk of being hit with cross fre if more Columbus, Ohio people had concealed weapons. How- lot of dotted i’s and crossed t’s—as cliché as ever, when he talks with actual victims In Canada, the household rate of owner- that may sound. In fact, what we appreciate ship of legal frearms is half of America’s, but the frearm homicide rate is one-sixth most about the world’s natural wonders is baRomeTeR of America’s. Perhaps we just have a lower propensity to blow holes in each other. The most-read stories on our sister However, these statistical diferences likely site in December 2012: have more to do with Canada’s lower levels of poverty. for Christmas Please do not take this for Canadian WEALTH MANAGEMENT BANKING smugness. Unlike Goldberg, I have not CAPITAL MARKETS Live Updates completely given up on America’s ability to generate intelligent public policy simply Know About the Apparent Newtown “because it’s too late.” Although I suspect Shooter articles like his do not help the matter. Michael Blythe Secret Unicorn Lair, Apparently Scotland, Ontario

Gun deaths are on track to exceed traf- fc deaths by 2015. Sixty-two percent of

12 mArCH 2013 THe ATLANTiC The Conversation

individual gun ownership and believe in the

baRomeTeR right to armed self-defense (President Obama is on record supporting Americans who believe

The most-read stories on our sister in this right), and a majority think the govern- Y CENTERED site in December 2012: ment should play a role in deciding who gets to own, and carry, guns. Violence Ethan Rodriguez-Torrent makes good O ACH TO arguments, but he is not arguing with me. I don’t want robbers and juvenile gang mem- alabama’s incredible light Show bers to possess guns. This is why I support gun L PLANNING. control, and strict enforcement of existing Shopping mall laws. What I want is for Americans who choose to participate in their own self-defense more Walkable to have the right to carry weapons, provided that they are screened, vetted, and trained to Prostitution do so by the relevant authorities. the exceedingly deliberate approach Mother Rodney R. Jones suggests that carrying a gun puts you in danger of becoming a Nature committed to when creating them. gun fatalities every day (53 out of 85) are vigilante. Statistics do not bear out this Coincidentally, that’s the same long-term view suicides. assertion. The population of gun owners I Jefrey Goldberg does not account for wrote about—the 9 million concealed-carry every Raymond James advisor employs when this statistic, which suggests that our large permit holders—commits crimes at a lower building financial plans. surplus of guns makes us not more likely to rate than the general population. Vigilante With unflinching client commit crimes, or even to prevent them; it behavior is not widespread in this country. our thought makes us most likely to kill ourselves. Raymond Harlan’s letter is very similar to process stays focus and a culture that near the equator. If a person wants to die, he will fnd a many letters and e-mails I have received. He provides the freedom to way to do it, but the prevalence of guns is recognizing a tragic reality of the Newtown offer objective, unbiased in America makes it much more danger- massacre and other such incidents, which is ous to be around a person who becomes that the police seldom arrive in time to stop advice, our advisors will meticulously craft suicidal. a shooting from occurring. Jerry Kranitz a plan based on your individual goals and Car deaths have decreased, even as makes the essential point that each violent the number of miles driven has gone up, situation is diferent, and that there are needs. Whether that’s planning for retirement, because cars have been engineered to be many instances in which a handgun is of no a future education or passing along family safer—safer for drivers, for passengers, use in thwarting robbery or attack. assets. For over 50 years now, our advisors and even for pedestrians. You can’t do that Adam Miller says I did not account for with something that is designed to kill. relevant suicide statistics. I wrote, “Guns have quietly served clients differently. Go to Adam Miller are responsible for roughly 30,000 deaths lifewellplanned.com to learn more. It’s time Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio a year in America; more than half of those deaths are suicides.” I would be very happy to find out what a Raymond James financial Here in Montana, we have learned that to have America resemble Canada in its rate advisor can do for you. LIFE WELL PLANNED. pepper spray is a better defense than a gun of gun ownership. But it doesn’t. Suicide by against a grizzly bear. But against humans, gun is one of the consequences of living in a even better than pepper spray is wasp spray. heavily armed society. It would be wonder- Fast and accurate at 20 feet, a hit in the face ful if the government could devise a way to disables without endangering life. On each keep guns away from the mentally ill. Again, of Mr. Goldberg’s advantages of a gun, wasp prohibiting concealed carry is not relevant to spray outperforms. this question. I would also note that roughly Robert O’Neil 65 percent of suicides in America are not LIFEWELLPLANNED.COM Kalispell, Mont. committed with guns. In reference to the assertion that pepper JeffRey GoldbeRG Replies: spray is a more efective weapon against ©2013 Raymond James & Associates, Inc., member New York Stock Exchange/SIPC. | Raymond James Financial Senator Manchin’s letter refects the feelings grizzly bears than a gun, I’ll take Robert Services, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Raymond James Bank, member FDIC. | Raymond James® and LIFE WELL of tens of millions of Americans. Most gun O’Neil’s word for it. PLANNED® are registered trademarks of Raymond James owners are responsible people; many of them Financial, Inc. | Investing involves risk and you may incur a profit or loss. Past performance is not indicative of also believe there is a place for gun control in To contribute to The Conversation, please future results. society. The gun debate was settled long ago in e-mail [email protected]. Include your this country; a majority of Americans support full name, city, and state.

the atlantic march 2013 13

dispatches

ideas & provocations | 03.13

enteRtainment serial thriller From literature to appointment television, episodic storytelling is fourishing. By megan garBer The Old Curiosity Shop owed its narrative power not just to the genius of Dickens but also to a certain type of ending: the clifanger. In this, the story was akin to Great Expectations and Anna Karenina and Heart of Darkness and the many other works of the time that began their lives as installments in periodicals like The Atlantic Monthly. That wave of serialized fction was the product of particular historical forces, among them rising literacy rates, industrial advances in printing, and periodicals’ need to sustain reader interest over time. But it was the product of something else, too, something less technologically contingent and more human: the anticipatory pleasure that can come from the simple act of waiting. The best evidence for this is that, in a plot turn Dickens himself might have appreciated, serialization is enjoying a renaissance, at what would seem to be a most efore the arrival of the 40th and fnal installment of The Old unlikely moment. The Internet, with its Curiosity Shop, in 1841, American readers of the series were forced ability to give us pretty much any content to wait. And wait. And wait—not just for Charles Dickens to fnish we want, pretty much any second we his story, but for his completed work to cross the Atlantic. When the want it, ought to have made waiting—for ship bearing the resolution of the series fnally docked in New York, entertainment, at least—obsolete. But a mob desperate to learn the fate of the tale’s protagonist, Little Nell, that same Internet is also helping revive stormed the wharf. The ensuing scene would make a modern-day the serial form. At the same time, televi- B publisher swoon: a band of readers passionately demanding to learn sion, in so many ways the legatee how the story ends. of periodical literature, is enjoying illustration by matt dorfman the atlantic march 2013 15 Dispatches a new golden age, with shows like Home- experience. Trendrr.TV, which tracks land and Breaking Bad and Downton TV viewers’ use of social media, reports Abbey challenging cinema for cultural a whopping 800 percent growth in com- supremacy. And book publishers, in an mentary about frst-run TV shows from even more overt nod to Dickens, are es- 2011 to 2012. Social viewing rewards syn- tablishing new platforms devoted explic- chronicity: it’s much more fun to tweet itly to serialization. about True Blood when your friends are Take Plympton. The digital pub- tweeting about it at the same time. Even Big in … lishing house, which promises “serial- with our ability to watch a show after it’s ized stories for the future of reading,” aired, using DVRs or online streaming, PARIS launched in 2012 with help from Amazon 43 percent of all time-shifted viewing and from the crowd-funding platform still occurs on the day of a show’s origi- Kickstarter. Plympton promptly raised nal broadcast—suggesting once more nearly double its Kickstarter funding that, whatever fexibility technology al- When the French blogger target, and is now producing tablet- lows, we still prefer to consume our sto- sophie Fontanel declared her targeted works of fiction and selling ries as a group. embrace of celibacy in her book them through Amazon. Amazon, mean- Why, though? Why choose to be con- L’Envie, published in France in 2011, while, is ofering Plympton’s stories in strained by programming schedules readers didn’t know what to make conjunction with its own venture, Kindle when so much digital life can be lived of her. Progressive or reactionary? Serials, which it describes on demand, shifted to fit Visionary or prude? in a culture as “stories published in epi- The internet, our needs rightthisminute? synonymous with sex and romance, sodes.” St. Martin’s Griffin with its Part of it, certainly, is social: whose public figures are hardly has also been experiment- ability to give simultaneous viewing gives renowned for restraint (one austra- ing with serialized e-books, us any content us something to talk about. lian paper has called Fontanel “the promoting them as “a cross we want, any Schedules are one of the anti– Dominique strauss-Kahn”), her between a novel and a dra- second we compromises we make for declaration proved polarizing. want it, ought matic television series.” And community. many readers celebrated her hon- to have made esty, confessing their own sexual in- the digital publisher Byliner But here’s another theory: waiting for difference as they would a shameful recently announced Byliner we sometimes choose de- entertainment fetish. one long-married reader told Serials, signing Margaret lay over immediacy—and obsolete. But a French publication that Fontanel’s Atwood as one of the series’ small portions over all-you- that same book elicited a sense of relief not frst authors. can-eat binges—because internet is also just in her but in her friends, most We don’t know yet how episodes bring order to our reviving serial of whom “saw themselves in this these experiments will fare, lives. A world that used storytelling. lack of desire.” others have labeled critically or commercially: to be organized by shared Fontanel backwards and regressive. blocks of time (the 9-to-5 they are young upstarts. But an italian journalist accused her of they can look for guidance to workday, the workweek, resurrecting “the catholic morals of television—the form that has, by techno- the dinner hour) has become much another century,” while a writer in logical fat, pretty much perfected serial more fluid, and much more chaotic. Le Figaro predicted the onset of a storytelling. The Mad Mens of the world The content that was once delivered to “new chastity” trend and, with it, the are remarkable not just for their writing us in the tidy containers of newspapers return of “vanilla sex.” and their exacting production values, but and magazines and, yes, books and TV booming sales of the book— also for having perfected the clifanger shows now comes in feeds and flows which will hit u.s. stores this sum- ending: that inconclusive conclusion that and occasionally foods—a sea of stuf mer as The Art of Sleeping Alone, fully exploits the agony of time-bound with no obvious beginning, no obvious a counterintuitive twist on the suspense, leaving you thinking and won- ending. best-selling live-like-a-glamorous- dering and waiting and wanting … until Serialization, the narrative form that French-lady genre (see: Bringing Up next week. relies on—that guarantees—endings, Bébé and French Women Don’t Get The clifanger has an obvious nar- ofers some refuge from all that. We may Fat)—have even prompted some to rative value, but it also has a signifcant have the capacity to watch an entire TV wonder whether France’s libidinous social one. And this is part of the debt series in one sitting, to download an ob- reputation is entirely deserved. in television now owes to the Internet: scure book with the click of a button, to Elle France, one writer suggested services like Facebook and Twitter otherwise swim in the Internet’s churn. that perhaps the French are in on and their counterparts—not to men- But those who are reviving the serial the ruse, embellishing their sex lives tion couch-friendly devices like smart- form are embracing the value of the one to maintain their national hegemony phones and tablets—make watching thing the digital world doesn’t provide on lust: “in short, do we not tell television an increasingly collaborative on its own: limits. every thing when it comes to sex?”

16 march 2013 the atlantic illustration by r. kikuo johnson HISTORY turnout may even have exceeded white turnout. You could be forgiven for looking at African American history as a long cata- The Emancipation of log of failure. In the black community, it is a common ritual to deride individual shortcomings, and their ef ect on Afri- Barack Obama can American prospects. The men aren’t Why the reelection of the f rst black president matters doing enough. The women are having even more than his election too many babies. The babies are having BY TA-NEHISI COATES babies. Their pants are falling of their backsides. But November’s electoral N EARLY 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, the Georgia politician math is clear—African Americans didn’t Henry Benning appealed to the Virginia Secession Convention to join just vote in 2012, they voted at a higher the Confederate cause. In making his case, he denounced the “Black Re- rate than the general population. publican party” of President Abraham Lincoln, arguing that his election The history of black citizenship had, portended “black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black every- until now, been dominated by violence, thing.” The predicted envelopment surely took longer than he thought, terrorism, and legal maneuvering de- but by 2008, Benning looked signed to strip African I like Nostradamus. After the Americans of as many black governors, the black legislators, privileges—jury service, the integrated juries, Benning’s great gun ownership, land phantom— “black everything”—took owner ship, voting—as human form in the country’s 44th pres- possible. Obama’s re- ident, Barack Obama. election repudiates that A sober observer could have dis- history, and shows the missed Obama’s election in 2008 as an power of a fully vested anomaly rather than a sea change. As the black citizenry. Martin f rst black presidential nominee, Obama Luther King Jr. did not naturally benef ted from record turnout create the civil-rights among African Americans—turnout movement any more that might not be sustainable in future than Malcolm X created elections. He also benefited from an black pride. And the wave opposition that was saddled with two in most cases, easily exceed the price of that brought Obama to power precedes wars, an unpopular incumbent, and an the Virginia poll tax ($10.64 in today’s him: the black-white voting gap nar- economy in free fall. In black communi- dollars), which the U.S. Supreme Court rowed substantially back in 1996, be- ties, there was a distinct awareness of famously declared unconstitutional in fore he was even a state legislator. The the situation: if white folks are willing 1966. This new type of poll tax seemed narrowing gap is not the work of black to hand over the country to a black man, to foreordain fewer African Americans messiahs, but of many black individuals. then we must really be in bad shape. at the polls, not more, and thus an elec- The second chapter of the Obama Entering the 2012 election, Obama tion that did not resemble 2008 so much presidency begins exactly a century and was no longer a talented rookie; he was as all the elections before it, elections a half after Abraham Lincoln’s Emanci- the captain of the football team, with a wherein white demography proved to pation Proclamation took ef ect. Much record vulnerable to interpretation, and be American destiny. like the proclamation, the Obama presi- to attack. The economy was still slug- In fact, these fears proved unfounded. dency has been a study in understated gish. American troops were still being If anything, the ef ort to reinstate a poll and reluctant radicalism. The procla- shot in Afghanistan. His base seemed tax appears to have backf red. The black mation freed no slaves in those lands depressed. And the most-loyal members community refused to comply with ex- loyal to Lincoln and was issued only of that base, African Americans, were pectations, and instead turned out in after more-moderate means failed. Yet facing an array of “voter ID” laws that droves. In 2012, minority turnout across Lincoln’s order transformed a war for had—what a coincidence—bloomed fol- the country exceeded 2008 levels; un- union into a war for abolition, and in so lowing his election. like the turnout of other minorities, doing put the country on a road to broad These voter-ID laws were function- however, black turnout was not fueled citizenship for its pariah class. The 2012 ally equivalent to a poll tax. The Brennan by demographic growth but by a higher election ranks among the greatest mile- Center for Justice at New York Univer- percentage of the black electorate go- stones along that road. We are not yet in sity concluded that the cost of compli- ing to the polls. For the f rst time in his- the era of post-racialism. But the time of

CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP CHARLES ance with the recent measures would, tory, according to a study by Pew, black “black everything” is surely upon us.

THE ATLANTIC MARCH 2013 17 dispatches

politics A More Perfect Poll The List As opinion researchers hung up the phone and headed online last year, The big house election forecasts grew more accurate. Has the Web-based survey fnally come of age? Harry S. truman by molly ball called it a “glamorous prison” and “the n the 2012 presidential election, we three of the top seven. Meanwhile, traditional, great white jail.” (“you all thought we were smarter than the telephone-based survey groups like Gallup and never feel at home,” pollsters. Conservatives focked to a site the Associated Press scored near the bottom of his daughter, margaret, later elaborated. called UnskewedPolls.com, whose pro- both lists. That’s right: in 2012, polls that relied on “not if you have any prietor reconstituted the polls of major people clicking on the equivalent of those “Your sense.”) over the years, media organizations in proportions bet- Opinion Counts!” pop-up ads proved a more ef- the White house— ter suited to his vision of the American fective gauge of the American electorate than the america’s oldest I electorate— that is, one with more Re- venerable Gallup Poll. still- inhabited federally funded mansion— has publicans in it. Liberals, for their part, elevated There’s reason to believe the Internet-based attracted an astonishing to demigod status the statistician and New York survey may be the future of political polling. If peo- array of negative re- Times blogger Nate Silver, who poured those same ple are increasingly inaccessible by phone, they’re views from its residents. polls into a meat grinder and produced a neatly increasingly accessible online. Market research by as the obamas begin encased pronouncement that Barack Obama was big corporations, which have economic incentives another term behind the wrought-iron gates, overwhelmingly likely to win. to pursue fast, cheap, accurate data, has largely mi- a roundup of the more We didn’t just follow the polls, as we’ve always grated to the Internet already. Darrell Bricker, the pointed digs: done; we questioned them, dissected them, tore CEO of Ipsos Public Afairs, whose online polls for them apart. Underlying all the partisan paranoia Reuters placed a respectable sixth out of 28 in the Gerald r. Ford: the was a kernel of truth: political Fordham professor’s rankings, best public housing i’ve ever seen. polling has been in crisis for told me that about 70 percent years. But the real problem has of corporate opinion studies bill Clinton: i don’t nothing to do with a conspiracy are now Internet-based. Po- know whether it’s the to favor Democrats or Republi- litical polling is another mat- finest public housing in cans. It’s that pollsters can’t get ter, however. Bricker says america or the crown you on the phone. Telephone he’s heard online researchers jewel of the prison system. polling took over from door-to- mocked on more Washington, door and mail-based surveys in D.C., political panels than he lyndon JoHnSon: it’s the 1960s because it was reliable can count. Political consul- not the kind of place you and cost-efective. Or rather, it tants and the media have been would pick to live in. was until Americans began ditching landlines: cautious, even hidebound, about changing their

Grover Cleveland: more than 30 percent of us now rely solely on cell- polling standards in recent years. “I’m all for ex- i have been thinking a phones, which are harder for pollsters to contact. perimentation,” Jon Cohen, the polling director for good deal lately how An even greater difculty stems from the fact that The Washington Post, told me. “But until it’s been nice it would be to have cellphone and landline users alike don’t answer justifed methodologically the way random polling a little home a few miles the phone anymore. Pew’s response rate for its U.S. with telephones has been, I’m skeptical.” away and live there. opinion research in 2012—the percentage of house- Some of this skepticism is understandable. ronald reaGan: holds in which someone agreed to be interviewed— Whereas most phone surveys follow a well- you’re a bird in a gilded was only 9 percent, down from 36 percent in 1997. established protocol, online polling’s sheer new- cage. But a funny thing happened last fall, even as ness means practitioners are still refining tech- polling paranoia was raging: the polls got smarter, niques and working out methodological kinks. JaCkie kennedy: i felt like a moth hanging thanks in part to Internet-based polling, a meth- The chief issue is how to get people to participate. on the windowpane. od that had previously been seen as the industry’s Most online-survey participants have opted in, redheaded stepchild. After the election, when sometimes in exchange for cash or other rewards. miCHelle obama: Silver ranked 23 pollsters by how closely they Some companies, like Ipsos, bring in additional re- one fantasy i have … approximated the presidential-election result, spondents through social media and ads on Web is to walk right out the front door and just keep frms that had conducted their polls online took sites (for example, a poll that needs more 18-to- walking. four of the top seven spots; in a separate ranking 34-year-old men might advertise on a gaming

—Garance Franke-Ruta by a Fordham University professor, they took site). Nonetheless, the traditionalists charge that aP images: White house

18 march 2013 the atlantic illustration by mikey burton attention to them [2]. attractive women are disproportionately likely online polls don’t achieve a truly “proba- to be described as hav- bilistic” sample, in which each member ing certain desirable of the electorate has a theoretically equal personality traits, such as chance of being contacted. Just about ev- extroversion and consci- eryone who votes has a phone, but only entiousness [3]. beautiful 80 percent of American adults have In- people have better sex. Women are more likely to ternet access, and those who don’t are have an orgasm during predominantly older and lower-income. sex with a man who has For Ipsos, a French opinion-research a more symmetrical face conglomerate that takes in more than and body, regardless of $1.5 billion annually, early success in romantic attachment or online market research for clients like the man’s level of sexual Coca-Cola opened minds to the Inter- study of studies experience [4]. attrac- net’s possibilities. The company began tiveness also seems to experimenting with online political go hand in hand with polling in 2004, in Canada. The coun- YES, YOU CAN BE popularity—at least try proved to be an ideal laboratory, as among guppies. in a bid a series of unstable minority govern- TOO BEAUTIFUL to deflect unwanted male attention at times of low ments led to four national elections in By James HamBLin seven years. Conducting surveys online fertility, female gup- Last year, a mod- any ratio or formula— pies prefer to surround and by telephone simultaneously, Ipsos eling contest claimed as Francis bacon said, themselves with more- refned its techniques until, by the fourth to have found the most “there is no exquisite attractive females [5]. election, its Internet surveys were con- beautiful woman in beauty without some yet life for the beauti- sistently more reliable than its phone britain: Florence colgate, strangeness in the pro- ful is not as perfect as it polling. The company later persuaded an 18-year-old who portion.” yet a number seems. in one study of Reuters to go online for the 2012 elec- worked at a chip shop of common aesthetic job applicants, beautiful tion, a decision that was vindicated in Kent. as the Daily preferences probably women who included a almost immediately, in Florida’s Janu- Mail later pointed out, developed for a reason. photo with their résumé ary 2012 Republican primary. Primaries colgate’s face is nearly evolutionary biologists were 41 percent less are notoriously difcult to forecast, be- exactly symmetrical, with argue that we favor likely to land an interview cause they involve relatively small—and measurements match- certain proportions and than “plain” women who fckle—blocs of voters. But while other ing ratios scientists have symmetries because did the same [6]. When pollsters were of by an average of nearly identified in the faces they suggest a lower accused of homicide, 6 percentage points, Ipsos came within of exceptionally beauti- likelihood of genetic beautiful women are ful people: the distance abnormalities—and so, a more likely to be pre- half a point of the Florida result. between the pupils just more viable mate. still, sumed guilty [7]. and When it came to the general election, less than half the dis- when it comes to surviv- attractive people are also online-poll results were quite a bit more tance between the ears, ing modern life, an array more likely to be associ- accurate, on average, than their ofine the distance from eyes of studies suggest that ated with a number of competitors. When Silver compared to mouth just more than physical perfection isn’t negative traits, such as polls in the fnal weeks of the presiden- one-third the distance always so ideal. conformity and self- tial campaign with the outcome, Internet from hairline to chin. First, beauty’s upside: promotion [3]. polls had an average error of 2.1 points, From the ancient greek to a degree, life is easier if, as these studies while telephone polls by live interview- “golden ratio” to leon- for people whose bodies suggest, our culture dis- ers had an average error of 3.5 points. ardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian are classically beauti- criminates against both Might the polling traditionalists fnally man to our preferences ful. attractive men the too-beautiful and the come around? You might think so, and today, physical perfec- earn 9 percent more not-beautiful-enough, yet The New York Times—the very pation seems to come than their unattractive we may be evolving per that hosts FiveThirtyEight, Silver’s down to proportion. peers [1]. We assess toward a state where blog—still refuses to cite Internet-based of course, we know the personality traits of everyone is a comfort- individual tastes can beautiful people more able, unintimidating, polls in its news reporting. be more generous, and accurately—suggesting goldilocks level of just- “In order to be worthy of publication in more idiosyncratic, than that we pay more beautiful-enough. The Times, a survey must be representative,” the paper’s policy declares. Online tHe stUDies: (Psychological Science, Fluctuating asymmetry” employable?” (nov. 2010) 1. hamermesh et al., “beauty Dec. 2010) (Animal Behaviour, 1995) 7. herrera et al., “is miss sym- polls are “therefore not reliable.” That and the labor market” 3. segal-caspi et al., “Don’t 5. brask et al., “social Prefer- pathy a credible Defendant (American Economic Review, Judge a book by its cover, ences based on sexual at- alleging intimate Partner Vio- policy was issued in 2006 and hasn’t Dec. 1994) revisited” (Psychological tractiveness” (Proceedings of lence in a trial for murder?” been revised since. Maybe it’s time for 2. biesanz et al., “What is Science, oct. 2012) the Royal Society B, Dec. 2011) (The European Journal of beautiful is good and more 4. thornhill et al., “human 6. ruffle et al., “are good- Psychology Applied to Legal The Times to get with the times. accurately understood” Female orgasm and mate looking People more Context, July 2012) illustration by mark weaver the atlantic march 2013 19 Dispatches

BY DESIGN Bright Idea Problem: many of the 1.4 billion people who lack electricity use kerosene lamps for lighting, despite their myriad dangers. they cause millions of severe burns each year. Kerosene fumes contribute to lung cancer. the fuel is ruinously expensive, and it’s a major carbon emit- ter. but oft-proposed alter- natives, like solar-powered lamps, require expensive batteries.

solution: “We reckoned, ‘Why not use gravity?’ ” says martin riddiford, a co-founder and director of therefore, a london design consul- tancy. one of therefore’s early prototypes involved a steel drum and a bicycle wheel; the final product, gravitylight, uses dirt and a bit of muscle power. mount the lamp from a wall or ceiling, fill the attached fabric bag with 20 pounds of dirt, and hoist the bag up. as the bag descends, gears turn inside the lamp, generating enough light to read by for up to 30 minutes— no batteries needed. one thousand gravitylights arrive in asia, africa, and South america for a trial run this spring, and a model selling for less than $10 is slated to hit the market next year.

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SKETCH Six Degrees of Sally Oren Just one woman links Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Bibi Netanyahu. BY JEFFREY GOLDBERG

CHOLARS OF Middle functions and speaks at Jewish commu- the Fillmore, the legendary music hall East politics and students nal gatherings; she wears elegant gowns in San Francisco operated by the equally of the San Francisco– and attends White House parties. Forty- legendary concert promoter Bill Gra- centered psychedelic- f ve years ago, however, she played Fris- ham. Oren—then Sally Edelstein—was rock movement of the bee with the Grateful Dead and served one of four daughters of a father who 1960s have for years as Jef erson Airplane’s muse. owned a clothing store called Outside asked the same vexing I have known Oren for years, but only In, in the Mission District, and a mother S question: Just how many recently did I learn about her strange and who inclined toward bohemianism. degrees of separation exist between Is- enchanting past. At a dinner that includ- The family was musically omnivorous. raeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya- ed senators and Supreme Court justices, When Oren was 13, a family friend intro- hu and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia? her daughter, Lia, told me— apropos of duced the Edelsteins to Joan Baez and The answer, it turns out, is one. The what, exactly, I cannot recall—“Jef erson brought them to a concert in which Baez person who connects Benjamin Netan- Airplane wrote a song about my mother.” had invited her sometime boyfriend Bob yahu directly to Jerry Garcia—and Shi- I trusted Lia, but something like this Dylan to play. Oren found him “grating.” mon Peres to Jim Morrison, and, for that demanded confirmation. “Did Jeffer- The great innovators of psychedelic matter, Palestinian Authority President son Airplane write a song about you?,” music—Quicksilver Messenger Service, Mahmoud Abbas to Janis Joplin—is Sally I asked Oren. Somewhat abashed, she Jefferson Airplane, the Dead—were Oren, the wife of Michael Oren, Israel’s answered, “Two songs, actually.” more to her liking. By the time she was ambassador to the United States. Oren, I eventually persuaded her to tell 15, she and her sisters were spending sev- who today is in her early 60s, plays me the full story. We met one morning eral nights a week at the Fillmore. When the role of diplomat’s spouse with dis- at the embassy residence in Washing- San Francisco authorities tried to ban tinction and grace. She hosts embassy ton, D.C. The tale begins in earnest at teenagers from the hall, the Edelsteins

22 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN CUNEO Very Short Book Excerpt testifed before the city’s Board of Su- pervisors that it was a perfectly fine place for their daughters to be. “My parents were permissive, I guess,” Oren Some think that the dwindling number of priests can be told me. As time went on, Graham, a remedied by the addition of women priests, or married priests, Holocaust survivor, became a sort of surrogate father to Oren and her sisters. or openly gay priests. In fact, the real solution is: no priests. It The Edelstein girls were, by the should not be difcult to imagine a Christianity without priests. straitened standards of our current age, Read carefully through the entire New Testament and you will remarkably free to do as they pleased. It not fnd an individual human priest mentioned in the Christian helped that the Fillmore was, in fact, a communities (only Jewish priests in service to the Temple). serene and fairly harmless place. “We Only one book of the New Testament, the Letter to Hebrews, went to the YMCA dances, but they mentions an individual priest, and he is unique—Jesus. were creepy, just a rough and very He has no followers in that ofce, according to the Letter. rowdy crowd. Not mellow like the Fill- —From Why Priests? A Failed Tradition, by Garry Wills (published in February by Viking) more,” Oren recalled. “There was some chemically induced mellowness, I ad- mit.” It also helped that the sisters were singer was closer to Oren’s older sister Oren’s reaction? “What do you say, as interested in neither sex nor drugs, just Joanie, who by then was working at the a 16-year-old?” She tried to remember in rock and roll. They were strikingly in- Fillmore. “Janis was very needy,” Oren if she’d had many sorrows. “I probably nocent: “Once, I remember, I was with recalled. “Joanie didn’t mind as much. It mooned around a lot.” my friend Fatty—we called her that be- was very hard to have a friendship with A short time later, Jeferson Airplane cause she was so skinny—and we some- her. She was so full of insecurities.” sang “Young Girl Sunday Blues” on how ended up in Jerry Garcia’s house By the Summer of Love, in 1967, Oren, the Fillmore stage. “Paul Kantner an- in the Haight. The Dead had kind of a then 16, was seeing every band worth nounced that this song is to, for, and group house there, and there was this seeing—Cream, the Doors, the Who. “I about Sally,” she said. “At which point huge, sexually explicit photograph on didn’t meet Jimi Hendrix, but he was my sister broke out crying. The whole the wall. I was so embarrassed.” fantastic.” She had only a nodding ac- thing was really freaky.” She went on, “We were kind of mas- quaintance with other artists. “With Jim When Oren was 17 and a half, she left cots for the bands. I was too naive to know Morrison it was sort of a ‘Hi, hi, how are San Francisco with Joanie to travel in Eu- if anything else was going on.” you?’ sort of thing,” she said. rope for two years. It was early 1969, and She and Bob Weir, the Grate- “Did Jefferson She knew and loved Jeffer- the magic was ending. “Haight Street ful Dead guitarist, played Airplane write son Airplane best. After the got really creepy, really druggy—ugly Frisbee in Golden Gate Park. a song about first Human Be-In, in Janu- druggy, a lot of speed and heroin. The “I would sit with these guys on you?,” I asked ary 1967, Jorma Kaukonen, whole thing came apart.” Sunday after noons at the Fill- Oren. Some- the Airplane’s lead guitarist— She eventually returned to Califor- what abashed, more dance parties. I was so “a Finnish Jew,” Oren noted— nia, got an education, moved to Israel, she answered, shy, and Jerry Garcia wouldn’t “Two songs, drove her home, where she and married Michael. She built a ca- talk a lot either. We just sat actually.” served him milk and cook- reer, had three children, experienced there eating hot dogs.” ies. And she had a schoolgirl tragedy— Joanie was killed in a Hamas Her parents were around, crush on Marty Balin, one of suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 1995, of course, and they were, at the group’s main songwriters. and one of her sons was shot and times, maddeningly, inefably parental. “I always wanted to position myself so wounded while serving in the Israeli Oren recalls running into her mother at that I would run into Marty. So one day I army. Eventually she found her way a concert in Golden Gate Park. “She was see him, and he says, ‘Hey, Sally, we just back to America, under very diferent hanging out with this circle of women, wrote two songs about you.’ I probably circumstances. From time to time, her and she was so impressed by them. I returned purple from embarrassment.” past life resurfaces. When Carlos San- member her saying, ‘Your whole scene The frst song, “Sally, Sally,” was never tana played in Israel, Oren brought her is so nice. There was this really homely recorded. The second, “Young Girl Sun- father. “We met the band, and one of girl in our circle, and everybody was dot- day Blues,” would appear on the group’s the guys said, ‘Hey, Burt, we used to rip ing on her, not ignoring her at all. They third album, After Bathing at Baxter’s. of your store!’ ” were really so kind.’ ” An hour later, Oren “Marty stood there in the hallway and As we sat in her heavily guarded em- bumped into her mother again. Her sang it to me,” she said. “ ‘Don’t you bassy residence, I asked Oren why she mother looked up to the stage. “There know what I have found? / Maybe you’ve doesn’t talk more about her teenage she is!” she said. “There’s that girl I was found it too / Today is made of yesterday years. “I don’t know,” she said. “Given telling you about!” It was Janis Joplin. and tomorrow / Young girl Sunday blues what I do today, I’m not sure people Oren knew Joplin, although the and all her sorrow.’ ” would believe me.”

the atlantic march 2013 23 Dispatches

into its own as a corporate entity,” says business the American-culture historian Jackson Lears. Television’s deep insinuation into our culture might never have happened The Incredible without a second 20th-century advertising renaissance, centered on the boxes in our living rooms. Shrinking Ad “We’re in the midst of something similar today with our phones,” Lears As our attention shifts to mobile phones—and their smaller screens—ads told me recently. “Advertising must are becoming vastly less efective. And companies built on ad revenues, come to terms with a new technology.” like Google and Facebook, should start to sweat. Now, in the opening innings of the mo- By Derek thompson bile revolution, about half of American adults own a smartphone. But if tele- n July 1, 1941, base- from frozen images and voice-overs to vision was once known as the “small ball fans watching the stories so entertaining that we occasion- screen,” smartphones are the small- Brooklyn Dodgers game ally shush each other in order to hear est, allowing mere inches of marketing on WNBT witnessed a them. But the first ads on TV weren’t space. From an advertiser’s perspective, breakthrough in market- even TV ads. They were a mash-up of ra- this has proved problematic. Mobile ads ing. For 10 long seconds, dio and print hallmarks—a slice of audio, are generally inefective today, and the before the first pitch, a single image—served to an audience ad rates companies are willing to pay O their black-and-white that was shifting to television. are minuscule. Mobile platforms, from screens showed a fxed image of a clock, The history of afordable news and phones to tablets, now command one- superimposed on a map of the United entertainment in America is, in many tenth of our media attention, but only States. A voice-over, from the watch- respects, a chronicle of advertising’s one one-hundredth of total ad spending. maker Bulova, intoned: “America runs successful shifts from one medium to That represents a $20 billion gap, and an on Bulova time.” the next. After the Civil War, the coinci- unmistakable message for tech compa- It was the frst ofcial TV advertise- dent rise of cities and department-store nies: either the mobile-ad revolution is ment in U.S. history. And it was pretty advertising budgets pushed newspaper coming, or our attention has fnally es- lousy. circulations skyward. Radio achieved its caped to a space where efective adver- As anyone who watched the Super cultural peak in the 1930s and ’40s, not tising cannot follow. Bowl knows, TV advertising has evolved long after “national advertising came This may seem like good

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1 Aﬂ ac 2011 Year in Review 2 U.S. Worksite Sales Report Carrier Results for 2009, Eastbridge Consulting Group, Inc., Avon, Connecticut, April 2010. Aﬂ ac’s family of insurers includes American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus, American Family Life Assurance Company of New York, and Continental American Insurance Company. Z130002A Dispatches What’s Your Problem? news—many ads, after all, are annoying By JeffRey and intrusive. But it could have unpleas- GolDBeRG ant side efects. The mobile-ad drought, for instance, fundamentally threatens the two biggest businesses built on the I’m the editor in chief of a national magazine. For several years, we ran back of digital advertising: Google and Q: a popular back-page advice column, but the writer whined relentless- Facebook. (In a strange twist, it is Apple’s ly about having to do it, so we finally let him drop it. Now a lot of our invention, the iPhone, that put them at readers—including the magazine’s owner—tell us that the column was one risk.) of their favorite features and say they wish we would bring it back. What Plenty of apps and companies, in- should we do? cluding Pandora and Twitter, make —J.B., much of their revenue from mobile ad- Washington, D.C. vertising. But ads account for more than Dear J.B., 90 percent of revenue at Google and Bring the column back, but in the front of the magazine—on, say, page 26— more than 80 percent at Facebook, and and have the writer answer only one question each issue. And give him a as users migrate from desktops and lap- raise. Do you know how much time these take? tops to mobile devices, only a small fraction of these companies’ ad revenues are to submit a question or a request for advice, please e-mail [email protected]. include your full moving with them. The same problem name and address. applies to many of the other companies that have been providing free content difcult to measure. A persuasive mo- people step outside their house and navi- and services on the Web as it has devel- bile promotion for, say, Best Buy, may gate the world with a phone. oped. For the next 10 years, as mobile be more likely to make us visit a brick- “We’re not too concerned about cost penetration screams past 60 percent, and-mortar store, or BestBuy.com on per click now,” he told me, although 70 percent, 80 percent, this will be the our computers, than to make us enter a recent analyst report estimated that trillion-dollar question: How do you our credit-card information on a mo- Google makes an average of just 51 cents build a thriving business selling ads on bile touch pad. As long as phones are when you click a search ad from your a four-inch screen—and what happens primarily research devices rather than phone, less than half of what it makes if you can’t? digital wallets, mobile ads will appear when you do the same from your laptop. less valuable to advertisers than they “We’re worried about getting the experi- ost mobile ads today are really are. ence right. One in three mobile queries either banner ads—little rect- The most fundamental for us has a local intent. Peo- M Advertising angles clinging to an edge of your challenge is that advertis- ple are trying to solve a prob- screen—or disruptive “interstitials” that ing is still an old-fashioned is still an lem called lunch. Or they’re pop up and require you to click on them game of “lookie here!”—and old- fashioned shopping and want to look or close them. In other words, they are on a four-inch screen, there game of something up. Or they want “lookie lousy desktop ads, shoehorned into your isn’t much to look at. Across here!”—and a locksmith right away.” smartphone. platforms, ad rates on a per- on a four-inch Those are three totally dif- This deficit of imagination stems, person basis correlate with screen, there ferent contexts, Spero point- in part, from a deficit of information. display size. TV ads are the isn’t much ed out, and Google wants to Despite the notion that smartphones most expensive. Then come to look at. respond to them with distinct incessantly track where we are and full-page ads in printed news- types of ads. For example, what we’re doing, mobile-advertising papers and magazines. Then “click to call” buttons, which systems are in fact generally worse than banner ads on your desktop. allow users to dial the adver- desktop browsers at targeting custom- And fnally, way, way down at the bottom tiser from their phone in seconds, work ers or learning how they respond to ads. of the list, are the little rectangles on your for travel agencies and insurance com- “Mobile advertising has been in the dark smartphone. Ad rates per mobile viewer panies, where the frst interaction might ages,” says Gokul Rajaram, Facebook’s are, on average, five times lower than naturally involve a phone call. But what director of product management for those per desktop viewer and, by one es- about for local businesses like dry clean- ads. Most mobile programs lack the timate, some 10 times lower than those ers? “People don’t call dry cleaners, they desktop’s sophisticated user-tracking per print-magazine reader. just walk in, so that ad should be a map.” technology, such as cookies that collect Jason Spero, Google’s head of mobile information and help serve relevant ads advertising, approaches the mobile-ad yperlinked phone numbers on Web pages. puzzle more like a behavioral economist H and pins on maps barely scratch Further, he says, conversion rates— than a marketing executive or an accoun- the surface of mobile capabilities. the percentage of people who take ac- tant. He thinks about moods, intents, and But with the advent of location- tion after seeing an ad—are devil ishly incentives, and how they change when based services, we are starting

26 march 2013 the atlantic

Dispatches

to see the germ of a bigger, if perhaps creepier, idea—ads that talk to you and know you personally. Imagine you introduce a friend to your favorite cofee woRdplay shop. You both point your phones toward a bar code displayed at the counter. You receive a loyalist’s deal on your Why DRag It Out? phone—10 percent of anything—while An investigation into what inspires soooo many people your friend gets a onetime coupon on to toss extra letters into their text messages cofee, because the ad knows that it’s By jen Doll morning. This is the promise of place- "hiiiii," he texteD. certain vowels—o, a, tend to flourish in those based advertising, and companies like “hiiiii,” i responded. “how and e—are the most venues most starved for Scanbuy are working to introduce it are youuuuu?” frequent candidates for nuance. “When you’re everywhere. rest assured: i am multiplication. Words dealing with im, text “One of the biggest problems with mo- an adult. i even write are most frequently ing, and twitter, those bile advertising is that it’s not inter active, for a living— often about elongated by two or discursive functions it’s just a passive ad,” said Scanbuy CEO grammar, punctuation, three letters at a time. that add to the simple Mike Wehrs. “We can make it a full inter- and how we use words elongations are com message are really active engagement: ‘Thank you for scan- in these tech enhanced mon in instant messag crucial,” he said. these ning. Do you want to watch a video? Are times. ing and texting, but less tactics suggest that the my phone buzzed frequent in email. and process linguists call you interested in sellers nearby? Would again. “Fiiiiiine,” he as with other linguistic “accommodation”—the you like to order it online?’ ” replied. almost invol trends— tagliamonte way speaking styles con “I think mobile advertising is going to untarily, i responded: mentioned the use of verge when humans talk be more lucrative than Web,” said Marc “What are you dooooo like for quotation and to one another, facilitat Andreessen, the tech entrepreneur and ing? i misssss youuuuu!” so for intensification ing both conversation investor, during an interview in New evvvvverywherrrre, (“i was like, ‘that’s so and a sense of common York City in December. He described from instant mes funny!’ ”)—“women are identity—is not limited a smartphone that knows you, your sages to texts to tweets at the forefront.” to spoken communica money, your habits, your wants: “The and even emails, i but why is anyone tion. “We’re navigating targeting is going to be amazing [and] see examples of what adding extra letters in different registers all the more valuable.” He paused, and added, language watchers call the first place? blame time, finding out what’s “These formats don’t exist yet. They have “word lengthening.” the our everloosening appropriate,” Zimmer to be invented.” habit began among standards for written said. but “when those You should hope that Andreessen is teens and 20some language, our desire registers don’t match things, but it is no longer to express ourselves our expectations”—when right. Even more than newspaper, radio, limited to them. adults independently and our best friend begins a or TV, all of which are supported by sub- are adding o’s to their uniquely, and the brief text with “Dear Jennifer,” scribers or subsidies in addition to ads, no’s, s’s to their yes’es, time we devote to creat or someone responds the emerging generation of news and and i’s to their hi’s, to ing an electronic mes Hello to our Hiiiiiii— entertainment—begun on the Web, and say nothing of a glut of sage. Perhaps, suggests “that’s when we wonder now migrating fast to our smartphones— exclamation points. in michael erard, a linguist if things are running relies on advertising. The fact that most response to some recent and the author of Babel afoul.” of our iPhone distractions are free makes news, my 60something No More, we’re simply tagliamonte suggest us forget that businesspeople built them. mom wrote, “loVe it trying to incorporate ed a test: try commu For most, survival means serving up ads anD you too!!!!” What aspects of verbal speech nicating with someone that work. is going on? into our digital commu i was close to without There is a case for tempered opti- For the past five nications. “When people using elongations, and mism. Six years ago, the iPhone debuted. years, sali tagliamonte, talk, they use intonation see how quickly i’d get By 2015, a projected 2 billion people a linguist at the uni in a number of varied a response of “What’s worldwide will own smartphones. If the versity of toronto, and subtle ways,” he wrong?” i wrote, via has been gathering told me. “there’s a lot of im, “hello. how are 100-year history of advertising tells us digital communications emotional nuance that you?” to my boyfriend. anything, it’s that advertisers shift to data from students. can be conveyed that his response belied no new technologies more slowly than au- in analyzing nearly you can’t do in writing.” concern, so i explained, diences, but eventually, they get there. 4 million words, she’s ben Zimmer, a lin “i was attempting to be In 1941, a Brooklyn baseball fan might found some interesting guist and lexicographer, disaffected in my Gchat have wondered whether radio ads would patterns. “this redupli notes that elongations, to see if you noticed.” ever work on television. He couldn’t cation of letters, it’s not like emoticons and “i could kiiiinda tell,” have known the answer. We do now. all crazy,” she told me. initialisms (omG! lol!), he wrote. “Fewer i’s.”

28 march 2013 the atlantic illustration by nishant choksi THE ATLANTIC MEETS STACEY SNIDER, CO-CHAIRMAN AND CEO, DREAMWORKS THE PACIFIC

CHRIS COX, VP OF PRODUCT, FACEBOOK

JESSICA JACKLEY, FOUNDER, PROFOUNDER AND KIVA

, and political

This past fall, The Atlantic Meets the Paciﬁ c gathered some of the world’s most brilliant scientists, business leaders, tech trailblazers

JANE MCGONIGAL, CCO, SUPERBETTER LABS

SANTOSH KESARI, UCSD SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

J. CRAIG VENTER, CEO, SYNTHETIC GENOMICS

JAMES FALLOWS WITH GRETCHEN RUBIN, AUTHOR, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT WITH THANKS TO OUR 2012 UNDERWRITERS

PRESENTING LEVEL

SUPPORTING LEVEL

@Atlantic_LIVE For more information on Atlantic events, please visit events.theatlantic.com. Dispatches

Alexis MAdrigAl: You’ve been working at consumer-oriented Internet companies for more than a decade. How has the Internet changed in that time? CAterinA FAke: We’ve gone through this really expansive phase, and we are in a state of reunifcation and refocus on the local. I don’t know how long you would say the expansive period lasted, maybe 10 years. It was a period of all-embracing, global vision. When we were making Flickr, we called it the “Eyes of the World.” The idea was that every body, everywhere, is looking. It was this sense of being able to penetrate worlds that you had never been able to access before—of global, universal travel. It was really big and really amazing and mind-blowing and mind-boggling, and it’s the reason that I was into the Internet to begin with. When I frst got online, it was in the ’80s, and I was on all these bulletin- board services. I was really into [Jorge Luis] Borges, and I found this whole group of Borges scholars in Denmark. Here I am, I’m a teenager, I’m living in suburban New Jersey, and I don’t have anybody to talk to, but I meet all these people online, and I learn all about Borges. When you’re remote like that, the Internet can give a sense of connection to people. So we built a lot of tools to make it easier and easier for everybody to get online and do the same thing. I think we’ve reached capacity in that sense— tech in the sense of the globalization of the individual mind. AM: And now things are changing. Are Look Smarter we entering a new phase? CF: I think we are gaining a new ap- preciation for the here and now, for Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake talks with Alexis Madrigal about how new location-based tools will the place we live, for the people in our help us to see our surroundings with fresh eyes. neighborhood, for groundedness. This may be something that comes from here is a world of information on the Internet. There is a world social-media exhaustion. You see the of information in people’s brains. And then there is the world around early indications of a return to the local. us. These three realms are merging in new and weird ways: in the time it The computers people have are no takes to read a menu in a restaurant window, we can look up 67 reviews longer on their desks, but in their hands, of that restaurant; while we’re waiting to order dinner, we can look at sat- and that is probably the transfor mative ellite photographs of the block via Google Earth. And yet vast quantities feature of the technology. These T of local wisdom, lore, and data remain difcult to access. That’s about computers are with you, in the world. to change. Caterina Fake is a co-founder of the Yahoo-owned photo- So your location is known. It used to sharing site Flickr and a co-founder of Hunch, which used machine learning to predict be that you would search for a forist in what consumers might like. Her new start-up, Findery, is designed to help users share Bellingham, Washington, and get the stories about their surroundings. most popular forist in the world. But

30 march 2013 the atlantic illustration by thomas porostocky Metadata now the computer knows where you are; it even knows what block you’re on. AM: How will this change what people actually read and watch and listen to? And how will Findery work? CF: Findery lets you tease out local knowledge, hidden secrets, stories and information about the world around you. People can annotate places in the real world, leave notes tagged to a specifc geographic location—an address, a street corner, a stream, a park bench, Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of the rock at the end of the road. Then, Americans who Americans who women and men, other people fnd those notes. believe believe they respectively, who To give you some examples, I’ve they have achieved are still chasing report being chased lived for years in my house in San the American Dream: the American Dream: in their dreams: Francisco but had no idea, till Findery, that Anne Rice wrote Interview With 24 40 83, 78 the Vampire down the street, and that Sources: Public Agenda; Tore Nielsen et al., University of Montreal/Sacré-Cœur Hospital Courtney Love lived on the block when she was dating Kurt Cobain. The Safe- technology more real and bringing it community, this is the history of the way near my house turns out to almost back into human interactions. place, here’s the important stuf that’s have been a funeral home designed AM: What do you want Findery to feel going on now.” That can’t happen unless by Frank Lloyd Wright, and there’s a like? How are we going to see this kind you give people a place to talk. If a news- famous artist working out of an aban- of content layered onto the planet? paper reports on Hunters Point, the “if it doned building nearby. I’ve learned CF: It will be like a magic book, like The bleeds it leads” attitude dominates. The the names of plants I’d never noticed Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when news doesn’t tell you the story of a place before. Someone has grafted branches it is fully built out. It’s this sort of magi- as the locals know it. from fruit trees onto the trees in the cal little board that you fip open and AM: Are there any other downsides to park near my ofce, and you everything around you is consuming all this local knowledge? can forage fruit from them. “I had no idea revealed. CF: If you have a beginner’s mind You shouldn’t cross the street that anne AM: An adventure machine. when you arrive in a new place, it can on the south side of Gough rice wrote CF: An adventure machine! be very wonderful. I went to Rome for but on the north side, which Interview Information and queries the frst time in 2006, and I honestly will save you time, the way With the start coming up around you. didn’t know how wonderful it would the trafc lights are timed. Vampire AM: Do you think we might be. I thought, Oh, it’s a city of ruins. Not People do lovely things on down the see these things pop up on a much more than that. When I got there, Findery, like leave drawings of street from hands-free, head-mounted my mind was blown. I had never seen a a place in that place, and write me, and that augmented-reality display, place so dense with amazing things. So Courtney poems about places and leave Love lived like Google’s Project Glass? there’s something to showing up some- them there. People make little on the block CF: I actually fnd that where without any local knowledge. scavenger hunts and leave pri- when she heads-up displays in cars AM: It seems like every distribution vate notes for each other. was dating and on Google Glass remove medium ends up coalescing around AM: You are a longtime Kurt Cobain.” you from the presence of certain forms, specifc ways of writ- Internet person. Why do you the people around you. But ing. Newspapers have the 600-word care so much about sense of in the end, I’m not really a story. Magazines gave us longer profles. place? hardware person. I’m ecu- What will be Findery’s defning form? CF: My background is in art. I was a menical about delivery systems—I’m CF: The form Findery is zeroing in on painter and an occasional sculptor, and more focused on the what than the how. is shorter than a blog post, longer than I really like materials—you know, stuf. AM: Could more knowledge lead a tweet. It’s pithy—a paragraph, maybe Physical objects. The world and the trees people to shun dangerous or crime- two. Because you’re mobile, you’re and the sunshine and the fowers. And ridden areas? not going to read a novel; you want the all of that doesn’t seem to really exist CF: There was a lot of crime informa- précis, the distillation, the thing that out in the ether of the Internet. Bringing tion on Findery for Hunters Point, a you need to know. And then, if you want people back into that actual, feel-able poor neighborhood in San Francisco. to dig deeper, you dig deeper. world is very important. My life project As a team, we felt an urge to make the is humanizing technology: making place come alive, to say, “This is the read an extended interview at TheAtlantic.com. illustrations by andrew rae the atlantic march 2013 31 1995, compared witha50percent increase inthecost of Dispatches 32 debt crisis.” thecost 150percent ofhasspiked college since accompanied by national anxietyover thegrowing “student- 5. as investments go, around. isthebestbet college 4. two-year schools. and$15,267at schools is on campus, itturns out, full-time student living yearly tab for afirst-time, to harvard. theaverage most students don’t go costs 1. marcH 2013 tHe atlantic

internal rate of return This moNTh, 14.1% one year at harvard $27,453 at four-year the economic valuethe economic ofmeanwhile, college, isindisputable. The Myth of Student-Loan the Myth The Crisis unemployment rate in2011 associate’s degree . but $57,950. but 20.2% 9.4% average: 7.6% 8.7% Bachelor’s 6.8% degree 15.2% college-admission letters are being 4.9% 3.6% 2.4% 2.5% market stock stock 6.8% high-school diploma professional degree (adults ages 25+) doctoral degree no high-school no high-school some college, college, some associate’s bachelor’s no degree aaa-rated master’s corporate diploma degree degree degree bonds 2.9% By Nicole AllANandDerekThompsoN aid owed$17,360. year student whoreceived nationwide, theaverage four- year; the 2009–10school $16,459for owed students ships into account, these taking grants andscholar- end uppaying fullprice. who dogoto harvard don’t 2. even most of thestudents odlong-term gold 2.3% median weekly earnings in2011 $451 average: $797 treasury $638 2.2% bills $719 $768 $1,053 ChaRtist $1,263 Housing 0.4% $1,551 $1,665 other andservices. goods last year, outstanding student 2003. isanundeniablyrisky college investment, seemingly more thanever. so butare risingdebt levels anational crisis? loans soared to nearly$1trillion—a 300percent jumpsince than goingto college. not goingtomore canbe college expensive forms. butfor students from families, these scared off by thecomplexity of financial-aid of andsuggested college, that they may be families are likely to overestimate thecost tage of them.another found that low-income for government loansweren’t taking advan- dents at four-year whowere schools eligible a 2012 study found that 1in6full-time stu- that itmight even justify morestudent debt. investment,college issuchagood 6. infact, as rare asthey are terrifying. frompeople enrolling butthey incollege, are $100,000+ debt might discourage young 3. horror stories of students drowning in is abargain—for students andfor taxpayers. compared withthisfigure, thecost of college lost tax revenue, andhigherpublicspending. costs thecountry $37,450 ayear inlost wages, to 24 whoare neitheremployed norinschool each of7. the6.7millionamericans ages16 1.2% $150K+ indeBted students, By amountowed $1K–$10K 43.1% illustration by name here $10K–$25K 29.2% $25K–$50K 16.5% $75K–$150K 4.2% $50K–$75K 5.9%

1.art/photography Harvard University; National creditCenter for Education Statistics. 2. National Center for Education Statistics. 3. Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 4. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 5. Brookings Institution. 6. Brian C. Cadena, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Benjamin J. Keys, University of Chicago; Eric Bettinger et al., National Bureau of Economic Research. 7. Clive R. Belfield et al., Civic Enterprises.

CultureThe File

{ THE OMNIVORE } RELIVING GROUNDHOG DAY On the 20th anniversary of the beloved Bill Murray comedy, it’s time to recognize it as a profound work of contemporary metaphysics.

BY JAMES PARKER

HAT A TERRIBLE YEAR 1993 note I remember came from a monk in Germany. He had dis- was. Terrible for me personally, covered Groundhog Day as a perfect articulation of his Chris- but terrible globally too, because tian beliefs.” As his movie penetrated the noosphere and his the whole world at that time f t mailbag swelled, Rubin found himself similarly embraced by snugly inside my private cosmos Kabbalists, Buddhists, Nietzscheans, and excitable therapists. of terribleness. Everything was Drilling away in the Hollywood fashion, a hole here and a hole going wrong. I had fallen prey to there, the makers of Groundhog Day appeared to have struck, depressions, vapors, and runaway libido. I had panic attacks almost by accident, a water main of meaning. The Message, as onW public transport. I doubted, quite sincerely, my own exis- I heard it, was this: There is a way back, a way through the impris- tence. I was 25. oning mystery of yourself, a way back into life. And then, precisely 20 years ago, I saw So let’s retell, relive, the central plot Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray. The device one more time. Weatherman Phil counsels of the universe are constant, I think, Connors, of Channel 9, Pittsburgh, is dis- but perhaps more easily heard when one is patched one freezing February to the town freaked-out or metaphysically exposed. The of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. His as- movie spoke to me, at any rate, this bizarre signment: to cover the Groundhog Festi- romantic comedy about a grumpy, middle- val, a strange bit of real-life pagan whimsy aged weatherman who must relive the same involving a groundhog, its shadow, and day over and over until at last he bursts the the possibility of six more weeks of winter. spirit’s sleep and gets Andie MacDowell to Phil (Murray) is bored and hostile; he f irts fall in love with him. It spoke at me, in my spikily with his producer, Rita (MacDowell), deeper-than-deep cluelessness, with inti- and bullies his cameraman; he disdains the macy and authority: it was a Message. cheery locals and their festivities (“hicks … Perhaps you received the Message too. Or did Groundhog morons …”); he spurns a dozen occasions to chat/connect/ Day just bounce of your noggin like a slightly more abstract relate; he can’t wait to wrap up this piddling gig and get back Trading Places? If so, you were probably not, at that particular to Pittsburgh. But a huge snowstorm—which he had predicted, moment, a seeker: spiritually curious, mystically a-tremble, with meteorological hubris, would pass by harmlessly— blocks slightly mentally ill, whatever. “I started getting mail from a re- his way home. Trapped in Punxsutawney for the night, com- markable cross section of people,” screenwriter Danny Rubin prehensively disaf ected, he signs of and crashes out. tells us in his book, How to Write “Groundhog Day.” “The f rst When he wakes up the next morning, it’s Groundhog

{ DRINK } { TRAVEL } { CINEMA } { BOOKS } Getting Toasted Elegy for the Minibar Why Are Romantic Classic Images, Page 38 Page 40 Comedies So Bad? and the Great Terror Page 42 Page 44

SUDDENLY, JUNGLES LOOKED LIKE RUNWAYS.

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Day. Again. Same conditions, same TWO mORe mOVIeS every wrinkle and ficker on the face of people, same ritual. So it goes the morn- TO WATCH WHeN Time. He sits on a wall, poised, almost ing after, and the morning after that, meditative: “A gust of wind, a dog barks. YOU’Re DePReSSeD and on and on ad (apparently) infini- Cue the truck.” The critic Tom Shone tum. Phil is in a loop, a temporal locked fnds on Murray’s face “the unshockable groove. He’s stuck. expression of a man who knows exactly That’s the premise. It’s high-concept, what everyone is about to say seconds but then, so was Franz Kafa. At early before they say it. That's what deadpan meetings between Rubin and Groundhog is, essentially, a physiognomical register Day director Harold Ramis (with whom of omniscience.” he collaborated on the screenplay), the A New Leaf (1971) Unusually for a mainstream Holly- two discussed the possibility of an ex- a smirking spendthrift (Walter wood three-act drama, with solid char- ternal cause for Phil’s predicament—a matthau) must make a marriage of acter arcs and all the rest of it, Ground- magical clockmaker, maybe, or a gyp- convenience. he selects a clueless but hog Day has no Mentor fgure guiding sy’s curse. In the end, however, they wealthy botanist (elaine may), plan- the protagonist: no sagacious hobo, mad thought it best to leave the recurrence ning soon to murder her. But lo, she professor, or salty sidekick for Phil. He beguiles him with her gaucheries, and of Groundhog Day unexplained. This must work out his salvation, with fear he stays his homicidal hand. the film was a profound creative decision. As and trembling and many attempts at leaves you snuffling gratefully. in Kafa’s The Metamorphosis, the rup- suicide (toaster in the bathtub, swan ture with normality—the hex, the di- dive of the bell tower), all by himself. vine accusation, the black joke—has He must organize his own jailbreak from the appearance of arbitrariness. Gregor the pusilla anima, to use the terminology Samsa awakes one morning to discover of the theologian Robert Barron, and that he has turned into a giant insect; into the magna anima: from the small Phil Connors awakes one morning to soul into the great one. How long does discover that the world is repeating it- it take him? How long does he spend in self. The onset is sudden. No reason is Bottle Rocket (1996) the loop? Danny Rubin gets asked this a given. And yet, the rupture is not quite Wes anderson’s first, and one of his lot, apparently, by preoccupied fans. To arbitrary: just as Gregor’s new beetle- finest. Fresh from a stint in a mental me, it never seemed that important: A life seems to have something to do with hospital, a confused young man (luke week, 100 years, who cares? The point his stifing domestic circumstances and Wilson) embarks upon an incompetent is not the duration but the stasis. “Sufer- crime spree with his best friend (Owen his awful job, so Phil’s stopped clock is ing is one very long moment,” wrote Os- Wilson). But he’s really only doing it all about his Phil-ness, his unrecognized car Wilde in De Profundis. “We cannot to make his friend happy, a fact that despair. Depression, by its very nature, becomes clearer and more beautiful divide it by seasons. We can only record feels like the crime and the punishment as the movie progresses. its moods, and chronicle their return. at the same time: your primary relation With us time itself does not progress. It to life is distorted, you are a stranger to revolves.” gratitude and fidelity, your spirit sick- But Phil learns. He learns content- ens, and somehow—and this is the real Rita, it is his “defning characteristic.” ment, and he learns forgiveness, and pisser—you know it’s your own fault. We She quotes Sir Walter Scott at him, al- he learns kindness. He sits in the Punx- accept Phil’s never-ending Groundhog most spitting the line: “The wretch, sutawney diner, happily reading—but Day as a sentence passed upon his char- concentred all in self …” Ego centricity he’s not just reading, he’s radiating acter, the net result of his accumulated is bad: this is one of our modern sub- Buddha-nature. It’s all expressed in misbehaviors in Punxsutawney. psychological pieties. It’s not nice to the trajectory of his relationship with It’s time to talk about Bill Murray: be OCD, it’s not nice to be passive- Rita. He wants her, he tries to seduce the dimmer switch inside his face; the aggressive, and it’s not nice to be ego- her—frst with meanness, then by fraud, micro-delay in his reactions, like John centric. But where exactly is the center then with recitations of French poetry Bonham dragging the beat; his genius to be, if not in the ego? Where, if not and engineered perfect moments. It is for stillness and expressionlessness; his there, are we to be seated? Ego is the hub, only when he gives up, when he accepts comic orbit, within which everything ro- the axis, and if you’re looking outside the blessing of her company, free from tates at a pace of his choosing; his long of it for some kind of numinous pivot desire— at which point she, too, magi- loafer’s body, surprisingly strong in point, well, now you’ve gone mad, or got cally becomes a far more interesting the calves and forearms—somewhere religion. This is the philosophy of Phil character—that she is delivered into his behind his navel is the hidden fulcrum Connors— and the philosophy of most of arms. Oh, it deepens with every encoun- of the universe. Which is why, you see, us, when you get right down to it. Deep ter, this movie. I watched Groundhog he had to play Phil Connors. Phil is ego- inside his Groundhog Day, Phil knows Day twice while writing this column. I

centric. According to the goody-goody everything, anticipates everything, think I need to watch it again. cOllectiOn Pictures/everett BottLe Rocket : cOlumBia A New LeAf : everett cOllectiOn;

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Notting Hill neighborhood, bartenders used to set the mood with a fre- breathing act, spitting spirit-fueled fames toward GettinG toasted the liquor-misted copper ceiling, where a blaze would linger for several seconds, The drama (and sometimes danger) of the faming cocktail churning like mammatus clouds over Mordor. Alas, when new owners assumed By wayne cuRtis control of the bar last year, they found that the practice “had worn all the copper he Ceres Joker a layer of high-proof rum is foated on away from the bar ceiling, exposing the may be the most Rube top and ignited into a small, pale-blue plasterboard beneath,” according to Rich Goldberg–esque cocktail flame—have been common over the Hunt, one of the owners. It seemed wise I’ve ever encountered. years, but more-dramatic variations to desist, so they did. T A scotch-and-sloe-gin seem to be on the rise. At Apotheke, a That’s probably for the best. Though drink, it is served at the bar in New York’s Chinatown, the bar- impressive, such extreme pyrotechnics subterranean London bar Purl, and it tender Albert Trummer’s fondness for tend to detract from the ways in which, comes with a helium balloon tethered fre attracted considerable attention in done right, flame and heat can trans- to the glass. The tether is actually a fuse, 2010, for both good and ill. He enjoyed form a drink beguilingly. At Booker and which the server lights upon delivering unleashing a small stream of high-proof Dax, part of the Momofuku empire in the drink. The freed balloon, which has spirit down his long marble bar, lighting Manhattan, “red-hot poker” drinks are been coated with lemon zest, rises made with electrically charged about a foot before it detonates, rods modeled after the colonial-era infusing the immediate area with loggerhead, a tool used to keep tar complicated scents of citrus and pliable. The modern version heats burnt nitrates. The goal, according up to 1,500 degrees, and when it’s to the drink’s inventor, Ryan Cheti- plunged into a drink, it caramelizes yawardana, is “to emulate the aro- the sugars, giving the beverage a ma of gunpowder/rubber/struck slightly butter scotchy favor and a match that’s sometimes found in toasted top note. sherry and extra-aged spirits.” The “flaming volcano bowl” Chetiyawardana may be a pio- has been a fixture at tiki bars neer in heliated mixology, but fery since the 1950s. But Martin Cate, theatrics with cocktails have a long the owner of the San Francisco and noble pedigree. The original rum bar Smuggler’s Cove, has faming drink was the Blue Blazer, given the drink new life with his which appeared in the first bar- Top Notch Volcano Bowl, which tender’s guide ever, published by features a towering yellow fame Jerry Thomas in 1862. The drink fueled by a crouton soaked in involves high-proof scotch mixed high-proof lemon extract. The with boiling water, which is then lit server sprinkles the flame with on fre and poured back and forth cinnamon and nutmeg, which several times between two metal spark and snap above the bowl, mixing cups. Adept bartenders creating a Lilliputian fireworks could perform the pour with consider- display. The room flls with the smell of able distance between the cups, achiev- top notch Volcano bowl is sprinkled with the toasted spices, which then settle in cinnamon and nutmeg, which spark and snap, ing what Thomas described as “the creating a lilliputian fireworks display. the fruit-heavy drink, adding what Cate appearance of a continued stream of calls “a nice roasty favor, with a little liquid fre.” It is surely a coincidence that up a curtain of blue-and-yellow fame sharpness so it cuts the sweetness.” Thomas got his start in San Francisco, a three feet high and six feet long. The In the past, Cate went further still, city plagued by disastrous fres during his first time he did this, he was cited for spraying high-proof liquor through the residency. lacking an open-fame permit; during a fame with a mister to create a formidable Cocktails that make relatively dis- later display, he was arrested by fre mar- freball. But he recently cut back on that creet use of fre—typically ones in which shals. (He subsequently had a falling-out practice, after several out-of-town, off- with the bar owners, and recently moved duty fre inspectors stopped in for a drink Watch bartenders ignite their to Miami to open another establishment and, witnessing the process, asked him favorite flaming drinks. with the same name.) about the “accelerant.” As Cate puts it, theatlantic.com At Trailer Happiness, in London’s “That’s a red fag when you own a bar.”

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college classmate, Sean O’Brien, might term “a patch of bad weather” in my personal life, which left me with the use of ElEgy for a broken couch in a rented ofce three blocks from the apartment where I had thE Minibar formerly lived. Because sleeping in my What has happened to my most trusted traveling companion? ofce was forbidden by the terms of my lease, I made sure to leave there at a nor- By DaviD SamuelS mal hour, eat dinner somewhere, and then reenter the premises under cover ne of the most hundreds of faceless travelers who have of darkness, with an alarm set so I could enduring mysteries peed in the toilet and tossed and turned safely exit by 7 a.m. When the stress of of love is how it can and done God-knows-what-else in the these arrangements got to be too much burn so brightly and same bed you have rented for 24 or 48 for my nerves or my back, I would rent a then die out. Sifting or 72 hours. room at a good hotel, where I could sleep through the ashes While I am hardly a romantic when it as late as I wanted and an abundance of Oprovides work for poets and psycholo- comes to hotels, I have a great deal of ap- water pressure might make me feel like gists. The rest of us seek solace where preciation for those who toil there. I have a new man before meeting my long-lost we can. In my case, that often means a an aunt in the hotel business in Boston, children at the playground. rented room in a faraway city, stocked and I even once helped open an estab- To distract myself from my emo- with liquor, candy, and other plausible lishment that rented rooms in North tional trauma, and to pay my mounting bills, I took on an unusual number of reporting assignments that required significant amounts of travel. I went to Los Angeles for the Grammys. I went to a Jewish flm festival in Toronto. I went to Wash- ington to speak with high state ofcials. I few to Beirut and to Rio. Sufce it to say that anyone who has ever spent time on the road, let alone parented two small children part-time while dealing with lawyers, knows the pleasures of a package of peanut M&M’s plus a miniature bottle of Ketel One when no other forms of solace are available. So imagine my disappointment upon arriving in room after room to fnd that the familiar refrigerated cube was absent. substitutes for human kindness provid- Miami Beach with a woman to whom I The frst time I realized my room was ed by my favorite travel companion and was subsequently engaged; neither the missing its minibar, at a Hilton in Chi- muse, the refrigerated minibar. engagement nor the hostelry survived. I cago, I thought it was peculiar. By the Hotels like the Albergo in Beirut, the feel a respectful kinship with the man- time I checked into the Mercer, I knew Bristol in Warsaw, the Mercer in New agers, the bellhops and maids, and the enough to call ahead and order some York, the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los room-service waiters, who push heavy bread, chocolate, and artisanal cheese Angeles, and the Hay-Adams in Wash- steel carts that seem made for the deck from Dean & DeLuca, along with a copy ington, D.C., ofer enough loving conve- of a destroyer down endless corridors to of Anna Karenina. I took a bath, then nience and atmospherics to do the work the doors of tetchy souls like me, with wandered down to the restaurant in the of the minibar on their own. Yet even in our complaints about overcooked spa- lobby, where I ate Jean-Georges tuna those places, the minibar is an essential ghetti or cold English mufns. spring rolls in the company of French part of being alone, which is what ho- I should also mention that I spent models who gestured with their long tels are about—the high-end toiletries even more time in hotels than usual this fingers while I texted about my kids and the pictures of exfoliated women past year because of what a gentle thera- with their nanny. When I came back to in spa brochures being more or less ob- pist might call “a time of transition,” or the room, I found all the place-giving, vious distractions from the shades of what my trusted attorney and former sense-making things I had ordered, plus

40 march 2013 the atlantic illustration by frank stockton an actual minibar cleverly concealed in- The brainchild of the globe-trotting leading to offerings such as Pez, dog side a cabinet. developer Marshall Coyne—a friend to biscuits, chocolate-covered pretzels, fa- Yet my sense of being powerfully U.S. senators and a collector of histori- vored condoms, and $6 blues harmonicas comforted and protected by hotels cal documents and Sotheby’s-quality on which lonesome travelers might ignite proved to be short-lived. Sometime after china—the Madison was built to be the the kinds of unreasoning hatreds in their midnight at the Sutton Place Hotel in To- capital’s most sophisticated hotel. Of- neighbors that, once kindled, last for life. ronto, I opened the door to the minibar fering foreign television broadcasts and Yet for some hotels, neither high-tech cabinet only to find a rat’s nest of dis- other amenities of the time, the Madison rabbit traps nor promises of new favors connected wires. On top of the cabinet, became a favorite destination for D.C. of condoms seems to have been enough. I found a laminated card that regretted political heavies, as well as for promi- In 2004, the management of the Marriott the end of the hotel’s minibar service. If I nent Soviet ofcials, like Georgi Arbatov, Marquis in Times Square pulled refriger- wanted something, I was welcome to call who turned their hotel rooms into an an- ated minibars from all of the hotel’s 1,946 the front desk, and the item I requested nex of the Kremlin, thus pioneering what rooms. Hilton and Hyatt pulled minibars would be brought to my room. I called might be called minibar diplomacy. from many of their hotels, too. While re- and ordered a Coke with ice. Half an According to potted histories of this liable numbers are hard to come by—in hour later, my order still hadn’t arrived. sort of thing, minibars went global in part because of the changing defnition “I ordered a Coke,” I told the hotel op- 1974, when the Hong Kong Hilton intro- of minibar, which may now include trays erator. “There’s no minibar anymore.” duced liquor-stocked refrigerators into of gourmet snacks in addition to the “That’s our policy,” the operator said all 840 of its rooms, leading to a 500 per- iconic refrigerated unit—the upper-tier brightly. cent increase in room-service drink sales hotels to which I have often turned for Fifteen minutes later, I complained and an estimated 5 percent boost to the solace seem to be forsaking the minibar, again. “You can order anything you company’s bottom line. But hoteliers while most of the cheap hotels where I’ve want from the front desk,” the operator later claimed that once labor, spoilage, passed out after long days on the road repeated, ignoring my protests that my Coke with ice had never arrived. Then I had a bright idea. The minibar was a faithful sentry that had “I’d like to order a minibar,” I request- stayed up late and kept me company in times of ed. But my hopes were in vain. danger and personal sorrow. There was no minibar at the Hyatt where I stayed in San Francisco, or at the boutique hotels I visited in Kansas City and theft were factored in, minibars were never had them to begin with. Travelers and New Orleans, either. Somewhere a selfless gift to travelers. Meanwhile, like me, dismayed to fnd themselves in during my valedictory tour, I forgot all companies like eRoomSystem Technolo- a room without a minibar, are now ex- about the stale potato chips, the out- gies tried to monitor stock with infrared pected to order room service or buy a rageous bar charges, the lonely condom sensors and other devices that eventually soda from a vending machine or a nearby packets, the legions of guardian sensors transformed Marshall Coyne’s dream of 7-Eleven. Hotel bean counters prefer the that charged me $8.95 for moving a bottle grown-up hospitality into a supermax Internet—an in-room amenity that never of orange juice from its motion-sensing prison for sodas and candy. spoils or requires restocking. pad. I forgot the impacted emptiness and Other vending companies tried less Whatever the virtues of Facebook and displacement. Despite its shortcomings, oppressive efforts to make the minibar Twitter and other late-night pleasures of the minibar was a faithful sentry that had pay of. As the Cold War drew to a close the Web, I remain loyal to the minibar, stayed up late and kept me company in (thanks in part to Mikhail Gorbachev’s which babysat me through major and mi- times of danger and personal sorrow. It 1987 visit to Washington, D.C., where nor traumas. Yes, the charges were often had never failed to deliver something— his coterie enjoyed minibar service at the outrageous, and sometimes hard to ex- liquor, candy, clean T-shirts, fresh socks— Madison), Wanda Jones and Michael Am- plain to my employers. But I still believe that made me feel less alone. rose founded In-Room Plus, a company in the promise that the minibar offers. The stages of my mourning—denial, based in upstate New York, dedicated Not the miracle of instant and endless anger, bargaining, depression, accep- to expanding and updating the norms of communication, but a much more lim- tance, and late-night snacking—were minibar stocking. Every hotel minibar, ited promise of companionship by what- eventually overtaken by my curiosity. I the company decreed, should offer the ever means necessary in the midst of the learned that the refrigerated minibar proper balance of sweet, salty, healthy, loneliness and displacement that are part was invented in the early 1960s by a “signature,” branded, and need-fulflling of the traveler’s lot. It is in our discom- German company called Siegas, and items, each with a minimum shelf life of forts that we come to know what we are first attained fame in 1963—as the six months, in order to generate profit afraid of—and what we are looking for. world was recovering from the Cuban and stave of crippling anomie. In-Room missile crisis—with the opening of the Plus’s philosophy manifested itself with David Samuels is a regular contributor Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C. increasing force throughout the ’90s, to The Atlantic.

the atlantic march 2013 41 T e Culture File

WHY ARE ROMANTIC COMEDIES SO BAD? The long decline from Katharine Hepburn to Katherine Heigl

BY CHRISTOPHER ORR

HE ROMANTIC com- been so lackluster for decades? The fact This is certainly true, but it in turn edy has fallen on tough that the 2009 Katherine Heigl vehicle begs the question of why today’s genu- times. After a decade The Ugly Truth made a great deal of ine stars (with all due respect to Kate of essentially print- money in no way alters the fact that it Hudson and Matthew McConaughey) T ing money, the genre was atrocious. I am not by nature a cine- no longer bother to find the time for abruptly ran out of box- matic declinist, and it’s true that classics romantic comedy. Will Smith, for in- office steam in 2012. As the producer of the genre have been sprinkled across stance, displayed tremendous chops in Lynda Obst, a rom-com doyenne (Sleep- the years, from the bittersweet doubt of Hitch—but apart from that toe-dip, he’s less in Seattle, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), Annie Hall, to the ascending optimism of stayed clear of the water. And this gen- told New York magazine’s Vulture blog in When Harry Met Sally and Pretty Woman, eration’s most obvious f t, George Cloo- December, “It is the hardest time of my 30 to the raunchy resuscitations of Judd ney, has modeled his career on that of years in the business.” In a departure from Apatow. But when one thinks back on the Cary Grant in almost every way save his Februaries gone by, the weeks leading up works reliably churned out by the likes profound reticence to explore the genre to Valentine’s Day this year were devoid of Tracy and Hepburn and Grant and that made the latter an icon. of a single helping of romantic froth fea- the other Hepburn (apologies, Audrey— No, there’s more at work here than turing Drew Barrymore or Kate Hud- you, too, were one of a kind!), it’s rather the vagaries of stars or studios. It’s not son or any of the multitude of Jennifers. hard not to get dispirited. just them; it’s us. No 50 First Dates. No Fool’s Gold. No He’s A few years ago, A. O. Scott of The Among the most fundamental ob- Just Not That Into You. So what happened? New York Times suggested that for ex- ligations of romantic comedy is that A range of explanations have been of ered, planation we need look no further than there must be an obstacle to nuptial from studios ever more obsessed with the names just mentioned and others bliss for the budding couple to over- blockbuster franchises to a generation like them: the downslope from Katha- come. And, put simply, such obstacles of moviegoers less starry-eyed than their rine Hepburn to Katherine Heigl is sim- are getting harder and harder to come predecessors. ply too steep, and “the few remaining by. They used to lie thick on the ground: But this line of inquiry misses the stars who show the kind of audacity parental disapproval, dif erence in so- point. The proper question isn’t Why and charisma that great romantic com- cial class, a promise made to another. have romantic comedies suddenly stopped edy requires tend to be busy with other But society has spent decades bus- being prof table? but rather Why have they things.” ily uprooting any impediment to the : TOUCHSTONE/EVERETT COLLECTION; COLLECTION; A LOT LIKE LOVE : TOUCHSTONE/EVERETT COLLECTION; HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS : PARAMOUNT/EVERETT SABRINA : EVERETT COLLECTION COLLECTION; 50 FIRST DATES : COLUMBIA/EVERETT COLLECTION; PICTURES/EVERETT THE UGLY TRUTH : COLUMBIA

42 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC A Brief sociAl History of tHe rom-com

more frankly, but its annie Hall with a happy Mid-1930s through Early 1940s through faith in happy outcomes ending, and pretty early 1940s: increased early 1950s: during and recedes. Woman reestablishes censorship has the after World War ii, the Key Films: the gradu- that love conquers all. ironic effect of ushering genre darkens, and ten- ate, Harold and maude, Key Films: moonstruck, in a heyday of verbal sion over gender roles Key Films: gentlemen the Heartbreak kid, When Harry met sally, sparring between the becomes more evident. prefer Blondes, How to shampoo, annie Hall, say anything, pretty sexes. Key Films: Woman of the marry a millionaire, the the goodbye girl, man- Woman, sleepless in Key Films: It Happened year, a foreign affair, Un- seven year Itch, some hattan, Hannah and Her seattle, Jerry maguire, one night, the awful faithfully yours, adam’s like It Hot, pillow talk, sisters shakespeare in love truth, Bringing Up Baby, rib, the marrying kind the apartment, Break- His girl friday, the shop fast at tiffany’s, that around the Corner, the touch of mink Early 2000s through philadelphia story, the Early 1950s through present: romantic lady eve mid-1960s: conflicting optimism gives way to sexual goals become reinvention narrative laziness. more clear-cut and Mid-1960s through Key Films: maid in man- cynical. men want sex mid-1980s: integrat- Mid-1980s through hattan, fool’s gold, the without strings; women, ing the counterculture, early 2000s: When proposal, the Ugly truth, matrimony. the genre presents sex Harry met sally rewrites Valentine’s day

marriage of true minds. Love is increas- each other. Where’s a flm to go when is still dotted with exceptions, experi- ingly presumed—perhaps in Hollywood the “happy ending” takes place at the ments in romantic chemistry that in most of all—to transcend class, profes- beginning? many cases beneft from steering wide sion, faith, age, race, gender, and (on Serious obstacles to romantic fulfll- of the usual tropes. There’s a case to be occasion) marital status. ment can still be found—illness, war, made that the two best romantic com- When Sydney Pollack, for example, injury, imprisonment— but they have a edies of 2012 succeeded in large part made the disastrous decision to update tendency to be just that: serious. There because they weren’t really framed the Billy Wilder classic Sabrina in 1995, aren’t likely to be many laughs, after as romantic comedies at all. David one of the remake’s (many) faws was all, in the story of a love that might be O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook may its failure to modernize the obsolete di- torn asunder by an IED. It is perhaps no have had a rom-com structure, but lemma of the rags-and-riches romance. coincidence that romantic melodramas it was darker and more idiosyncratic, As Samuel Taylor, who wrote the origi- (such as last year’s The Vow and the re- with a premise at once novel and true nal Broadway play and collaborated on cent epidemic of Nicholas Sparks adap- to life: two lovers thwarted by mental Wilder’s script, told The New Yorker at tations) are doing quite well at the multi- illness. Better still was Wes Anderson’s the time, “If they really wanted to make plex even as their comic siblings falter. Moonrise Kingdom, which ofered as its it interesting, they’d fnd a really good So new complications must be in- obstacle an ironic update of the old black actress to play [Sabrina].” Eigh- vented, test-driven, and then, as often parental-disapproval plot: young Sam teen years later, of course, that wouldn’t as not, themselves retired. (The idea that and Suzy can’t run of together and get be enough. She’d have to be a mummy. geography posed a substantial challenge married because they’re 12 years old. (It’s Perhaps the most obvious social con- to true love seemed a stretch all the way an obstacle that, incidentally, is not pre- straint that’s fallen by the wayside is also back in 1993, for Sleepless in Seattle. In the sented as insurmountable.) the most signifcant: the taboo against Internet age, it doesn’t pass the laugh One could argue that the easy prof- premarital sex. There was a time when test.) The premises grow more and more itability of the past decade was the carnal knowledge was the (implied) end- esoteric: She’s a hooker. He’s a stalker. worst thing to happen to the romantic point of the romantic comedy; today, it’s She’s in a coma. He’s telepathic. She’s a comedy— an invitation to stale formu- just as likely to be the opening premise. mermaid. He’s a zombie. She’s pregnant. las and ridiculous conceits alike— and a In 2005’s A Lot Like Love—a dull, joyless He’s the president. few lean years might do the genre good. rip-of of When Harry Met Sally—Amanda And if worst comes to worst—as it It was, after all, 75 years ago this Valen- Peet and Ashton Kutcher meet cute by does, all too often—there’s the ever- tine’s Day that Howard Hawks’s comic having sex in an airplane lavatory be- accommodating fallback that one part- masterpiece Bringing Up Baby opened in fore they’ve spoken a single word to ner is uptight and the other is a free spirit theaters—and bombed. (if a woman) or a slob (if a man), requir- the author narrates scenes from the ing the two to work in tandem to respec- Christopher Orr is an Atlantic senior history of romantic comedy. tHeAtlAntic.com tively unwind and domesticate. editor and the principal flm critic for

: everett collection; Breakfast at tIffany’s : SunSet Boulevard/ It Happened one nIgHt : everett collection; collection WHen Harry met sally : columBia/everett corBiS; Happily, the cinematic landscape TheAtlantic.com.

the atlantic march 2013 43 Te Culture File

IndelIble Images Two beautiful new cofee-table books—except one isn’t really a book

By Benjamin SchwaRz

n 2006, Phaidon, the re- the franchise, as it were, with The Phaid- book covers, Alexey Brodovitch’s Harp- nowned publisher of art and on Archive of Graphic Design. This in- er’s Bazaar covers, Man Ray’s London design books, issued Phaidon novatively designed project ofers brief Transport posters, Andy Warhol’s Vel- Design Classics, a 3,000-page, assessments of 500 graphic works— vet Underground & Nico album cover). I 18-pound work that intelli- typefaces, logos, posters, books, ad- And Phaidon has chosen nearly as many gently catalogs and succinctly vertisements, and covers of books, works from the 21st century (Shepard explicates 999 industrially manufac- magazines, albums, and CDs— Fairey’s Progress/ Hope posters) tured instances of classic design, from that have appeared since the as from the period up to 1900, the clothespin to the Barcelona chair. As beginning of mechanical re- which lends a faddish quality to much a consumer product as a reference production. Although the earli- too much of the enterprise. Still, guide, the compilation—three volumes, est entry, a Korean anthology of the vivid images, selected with with their bold yellow covers and heavy Zen Buddhist texts, which was exceptional imagination, along black typeface—has become a fixture the frst book printed with metal with the zippy, compressed on the shelves and cofee tables of the movable type, is from 1377, the text, illuminate the works’ his- design-besotted, and a marker of the hip vast bulk of the archive draws The Phaidon torical, aesthetic, and—most aRchive of and happening household. from the 20th century (the Esso GRaPhic deSiGn refreshingly— commercial The publisher now seeks to expand logo, Edward Young’s Penguin Phaidon signifcance.

faddish quality to too much of the enterprise. Phaidon

44 march 2013 the atlantic But this “book” will almost certainly be coveted or criticized more for its format than for its contents. The entries, rather than being printed on bound pages, have been produced on single, 9.5-by-12.5-inch cards, with the main image on the front and explicatory text and supporting images on the reverse— all enclosed in a heavy-cardboard fling box. Accompanying dividers allow readers to arrange the entries chronologically, or by designer or category. Some design professionals may find working with individual entries on individual cards useful or at least novel; one suspects that far more readers will fnd that this format all but guarantees lost or dam- aged entries. With great intelligence and taste, the publisher has curated an invaluable archive; but in the pursuit of fexibility and invention, they have re- placed what is, after all, a tried-and-true

design classic—the bound book—with nebraskan ever to be sent to the house of representatives while living in a sod house”—with a somewhat cumbersome and fragile puckish humor and clear-eyed empathy. arrangement. The handsome, durably bound, and ranchers—with puckish humor and collection, Solomon D. Butcher: Photo- slightly squat volumes of Phaidon De- clear-eyed empathy. He mostly photographing the American Dream, by John sign Classics are a model of sturdiness; graphed families posing in front of their E. Carter, which contains the amplest the $235, 25-pound Phaidon Archive of corrals and sod houses with their live- assemblage of Butcher’s work available Graphic Design book-in-a-box—with its stock and their beloved dogs and their between covers (and it’s still in print— stapled, pamphlet-like, but indispens- possessions—including, say, pump or- God bless university presses). In his old able index and its assemblage of mis- gans, stoves, birdcages, and portraits of age, Butcher, facing fnancial ruin, agreed layable cards, housed in a crush-prone dead children—arranged before them. to sell his collection to the Nebraska His- cardboard container that opens on tear- Set against what Willa Cather torical Society for a mere $1,000 prone hinges—is a spify study in fimsi- called “the vast hardness” of (the state later reneged, and paid ness. Editorially, this book is a triumph; the landscape, these portraits Butcher only $600). The entire here’s hoping that the publishers decide highlighted the flat expanse collection has been digitized and to issue a bound version of it. of the horizon and the fragility is now available on the Library of and impermanence of man’s Congress’s Web site. n 1880, Solomon d. Butcher, presence in a bleak and lonely Still, Plain’s and Carter’s a patent-medicine salesman, land. (After all, the population Light on the books provide the broad and trekked west with his father of the rural Great Plains today PRaiRie necessary historical background and brother by wagon across a is less than it was a century ago, nancy Plain missing from the collection on nebraska I sea of grass, from Illinois to the during the brief eforescence of its own. Butcher’s photographs desolate frontier of the central- human settlement.) make up an unrivaled documentary Nebraska plains. There, in Custer Coun- Nancy Plain’s Light on the Prairie, an record of homesteaders’ implements, ty, he quickly failed as a homesteader, as inexpensive paperback aimed primar- wares, and housing. But these portraits did about a third of the pioneers. But he ily at young-adult readers—albeit young of invariably worn, often broken, un- eventually developed an obsession with readers with peculiarly grown-up read- failingly stoic people also attest to the photography, and spent most of the next ing tastes and abilities— and written in a terrible cost of the efort to subdue an 30-odd years roaming central and west- surprisingly sophisticated style, places austere and beautiful piece of the con- ern Nebraska in a rickety wagon, where Butcher’s work in its historical and socio- tinent. Above all, then, they are testi- he created a sweeping, precise pictorial logical context, and provides a well- mony to the truth Cather revealed in record of pioneer life and the settlement chosen sampling of his photographs. O Pioneers!: “The great fact was the land of the Great Plains, made up of nearly Readers with larger pocketbooks and itself, which seemed to overwhelm the 3,500 glass-plate negatives. Butcher uncluttered cofee tables can buy instead little beginnings of human society that

nebraska captured his subjects—homesteaders the publisher’s handsome, classic 1985 struggled in its sombre wastes.”

the atlantic march 2013 45 Te Culture File

late-19th-century townhouses built by the nobility and later appropriated by moscow the party; the hundreds of theaters that under terror littered the still-drama-mad city; the communal apartments crammed with In 1937, the city was both a world capital of artistic ferment recent migrants from the countryside; and a slaughterhouse. the fancy shops selling sturgeon and czarist antiques to the Soviet elite and By Benjamin SchwaRz the endless fow of visiting progressives from the West; the just-completed mar- n this dazzling 650-page an almost impossibly rich masterpiece. vel of Soviet engineering that brought feat of historical reconstruc- In Moscow 1937, Schlögel uses as a leit- the five seas to Moscow, the Moscow- tion, Karl Schlögel, a profes- motif the themes and settings of Mikhail Volga Canal (whose opening celebration sor at the European University Bulgakov’s great allegorical 1937 novel of coincided with the arrest, persecution, I Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), has the city under the Terror, The Master and and execution of the overseers of its con- summoned up a great city— Margarita. He opens with an exegesis of struction); Spaso House, the American what was once the New Jerusa- ambassador’s residence, site of lem for much of the world’s intel- incongruously clinquant balls and ligentsia and downtrodden—as it receptions; the spacious, refned consumed itself in an orgy of fear, apartments where the new Soviet paranoia, denunciations, mass upper class held glittering salons, arrests, suicides, and executions. at which the likes of Shostakovich Schlögel’s book is a frag- and Isaac Babel mixed with the mentary yet meticulous social high officials of the NKVD, the history of Moscow in the grip secret police (a group that deeply of the Great Terror—the period prized its literary and artistic con- from the summer of 1936 to the nections); the NKVD’s immense end of 1938, when the already network of ofces, garages, shoot- sanguinary Bolshevik regime let ing ranges, isolation cells, interro- loose on itself its apparatus of gation chambers, and execution suppression, purging, in waves, cellars, metastasizing from the all Soviet institutions and at all citadel-like headquarters at the levels of society, from the nomenklatura , Margarita’s fantastical fight over the city Lubyanka and devoted to the investiga- the highest echelons of administrative, in the 1930s, which allows him to establish tion, arrest, incarceration, deportation, cultural, and scientifc life, through the the scene and dissect Moscow’s cultural and slaughter of enemies of the people. high command of the Red Army, to the and social geo graphy. For the remain- Schlögel dexterously mines an array engineers and apparatchiks, down to der of the book, he continues to take the of sources. He assesses archaeological the factory workers and peasants. It is reader on a tour of the urban center—the reports from one of the NKVD’s killing

demornex’s Balenci- and salon as well The MasTeR of Us all aga), until now he has as the subtle evolu- cover to cover eluded probing and tion of his lines. the Mary BluMe • fsg discerning biographi- result is not—given cal treatment. Blume, Balenciaga’s lifelong couturier’s couturier— scorned pub licity and a cultural columnist for secretiveness and christian dior ac- the social scene; dur- the Paris-based Inter- remoteness—a chatty knowledged him as ing his 50-year career, national Herald Tribune tell-all (although “the master of us all”; he gave no interviews. from the 1960s to Blume does confirm coco chanel said, so he was always a 2009, interviewed the open secret of “only he is capable mystery—in fact, he Balenciaga’s former Balenciaga’s homo- of cutting material, was at times rumored clients, his fellow sexuality); rather, assembling a creation not to exist. although a designers, and—most this thoughtful and cristóbal balen- and sewing it by hand. number of books have important—his chief stylishly written book ciaga (1895–1972) was the others are simply assessed his body of vendeuse and adviser, is perhaps the most the greatest couturier fashion designers.” work (most success- florette chelot, to serious and intelligent of the golden age of severe, uncompro- fully marie-andrée reveal the day-to-day biography of a fashion

Paris couture. he was a mising, Balenciaga Jouve and Jacqueline workings of his studios designer ever written. Pimenov/ ivanovich of GeorGy © estate art liBrary art new york/BridGeman moscow/vaGa, rao,

46 march 2013 the atlantic felds, the Butovo shooting range on the outskirts of the city, to reveal the soci A ThousAnd PARdons ology and tempo of the slayings. He cover to cover Jonathan Dee • random house analyzes the occupancy records of the most exclusive apartment block of the party elite, the fortresslike House on misdeeds become and their atten- search for a job public. the plot is dant emotions— after more than a the Embankment—made famous by energetic: the first for instance, the decade of stay-at- Yuri Trifonov’s eponymous novel—to big event happens schadenfreude home-mom work disclose the terrible history of a building in the course of of a lawyer is met with a “sort almost entirely depopulated in the space a few pages, and who works in a of quizzical cock of a year as its nearly 2,500 occupants other sudden and bedroom com- of the head” from were imprisoned, executed, or driven to dramatic twists munity outside an interviewer. kill themselves. Here, as in His five follow, giving the new york when he Ultimately, the Schlögel’s approach marries sweep previous novels— certainly false but witnesses the fall book seems to with depth. He anatomizes, for instance, the most recent nevertheless excit- of a fellow lawyer be about how the Moscow’s gigantic railroad yards to illu a finalist for the ing impression who commutes to private world has minate both the awesome expansion of Pulitzer Prize—dee that dee is chasing a white-shoe firm substance, while Soviet infrastructure and the obvious but continues to es- his story, rather in the city. dee’s the public world never theless wholly unpredictable way tablish himself as than painstak- exactness of tone has only story. if the Terror fed on that unsustainable ef an ironic observer ingly construct- and economy that idea is hardly of contemporary ing it. But most of language are surprising, it still fort, which overtaxed the railways and behavior. in this compelling is the such that he can provides much factories, leading to a paranoid hunt for case, his subject acuteness of the convey, say, a opportunity for the “saboteurs” and “wreckers” respon is the scorched details. dee has woman’s inevitable dee to exercise his sible for the damage in fact done by wear earth that results a precise eye for bewilderment and sharp yet sympa- and tear. He reproduces the inventory of when private social distinctions humiliation as her thetic pen. luxuries from the apartment of Genrikh Yagoda, the head of the NKVD (1,229 bottles of wine “mainly imported … from precision and artifce that gives readers edition of the Directory was, perforce, the the 1897, 1900 and 1902 vintages,” 43 access to a most foreign place and time. fnal one: “No editorial board could have astrakhan pelts, 3,915 pornographic pho Schlögel’s analysis of the 1936 Moscow kept pace with the frantic rate at which tos and flms, 11,075 imported cigarettes, Directory, for example, generates a por people were driven from their posts and “including Egyptian and Turkish” ones), trait of the magnifcently varied cultural destroyed while their places were taken compiled by his former henchmen when and intellectual life of a great metropolis. by others.” Completed on the eve of the the Terror turned against him. Schlögel The 680page Directory devoted six of Terror, this last Directory “encapsulates details the gala concert at the Bolshoi its triplecolumned pages to the organi a moment in time in which the accusers Theatre that the NKVD threw for itself and zations of the Academy of Sciences alone; and the accused, the perpetrators and the its predecessor organization, the it listed 280 “Clubs and Houses victims, the executioners and the execut Cheka, in December 1937, on its of Culture,” 540 magazines, and ed of the morrow, still sit side by side.” 20th anniversary—a celebration at least three jazz bands; and Although wholly absorbing, Moscow presided over by Yagoda’s suc it untangled the thick web of 1937, owing both to its subject matter cessor, Nikolai Yezhov, who in libraries that covered the city. and, alas, to its occasionally clotted Teu just under three years would him “This diversity of social and semi tonic prose, is hardly light reading. But it self be shot by the very organiza governmental institutions and is among the most enthralling works of tion he was lauding. Throughout, Moscow 1937 organizations gives us not mere scholarship and of the historical imagi Schlögel trains a sharp eye on tell karl ly an insight into the immense nation that I have read in years. Schlögel ing details: the machinery for dis schlöGel complexity of an urban society,” has grasped what a very diferent histori Polity patching to the provinces the vast Schlögel notes with typical dis an, G. M. Young, called “the real, central crop of orphans that the Terror yielded; cernment, “but also an inkling of the theme of History”—“not what happened, the Kafaesque—no other word will do— huge eforts and even violence required if but what people felt about it when it was reasons why demographers, statisticians, they are to be disciplined, levelled down happening: in Philip Sidney’s phrase, geologists, and, of all professions, Alpin and made uniform.” ‘the afects, the whispering, the motions ists endured especially grim treatment; the In this chapter and throughout his of the people.’ ” The density and serious array of cream gâteaux and petits fours on book, Schlögel is the master of the chill ness, the deliberation and literary art of ofer at the renowned Bolshevik Confec ing counterpoint. He subtly makes clear this exhilarating tour de force testifes to tionery Factory on Leningrad Highway. to readers that the 1936 Directory is brim the enduring value and purpose of that The result: Moscow 1937 is a lay ming with the names of people destined perhaps nowvanishing triumph of the ered, hallucinatory panorama of great for the abattoir, and he notes that this human intellect, the book.

the atlantic march 2013 47 Forget online surveys and dinnertime robo-calls. A consulting firm called ReD is at the forefront of a new trend in market research, treating the everyday lives of consumers as a subject worthy of social-science scrutiny. On behalf of its corporate clients, ReD will uncover your deepest needs, fears, and desires.

Anthropology Inc.

BY GRAEME WOOD Illustrations by Viktor Koen

a hot Austin night last summer, 60 natives convened for a social rite involving stick-on mustaches, paella, and a healthy f ow of spirits. Young lesbians formed the core of the crowd. The two organizers, who had been lovers for a couple months, were celebrating their birthdays with a Spanish-themed party, decorated in bullf ghting chic. It was a clas- On sic hipster af air, and everyone was loose and at ease, except for one black-haired interloper with a digital camera and a tiny notepad. This interloper was Min Lieskovsky, a 31-year-old straight New Yorker who mingled freely and occasionally ducked into a bathroom to scribble notes. She’d left a Ph.D. program in socio cultural anthropology at Yale two years earlier, impatient with academia but still eager to use the ethnographic skills she’d mastered. Tonight, that meant she partied gamely and watched her subjects

48 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC with a practiced eye, noting everything: when the party got started and when it reached its peak, who stuck mustaches on whom—and above all, what, when, and how people drank. For Lieskovsky, it was all about the booze. The consulting frm she worked for, ReD Associates, is at the forefront of a movement to deploy social scientists on feld research for corporate clients. The vodka giant Absolut had contracted with ReD to infltrate American drinking cul- tures and report back on the elusive phenomenon known as the “home party.” This corrida de lesbianas was the latest in a series of home parties that Lieskovsky and her colleagues had joined in order to write an extended ethnographic survey of drinking practices, attempting to fgure out the rules and rituals—spoken and unspoken—that govern Americans’ drinking lives, and by extension their vodka-buying habits. “There’s a huge amount of vodka that’s sold for drinking at home,” Lieskovsky says. “But no one knew where it was really going ”—apart from down someone’s throat eventually, and on a bad night perhaps back up again. Was it treated or Mexico.” The stories were a way to let people show humor, as a sacred fuid, not to be polluted or adulterated except by or to declare that they’re, for instance, the kind of Austin lesbi- an expert mixologist? Some Absolut advertising and iconog- ans who, upon fnding exotic elixirs in far-of lands, are brave raphy suggested exactly this, assuming understandably that enough to try them. buyers of a “premium” vodka would want laboratory precision ReD consultants fanned out and shadowed drinkers at for their cocktails. Another possibility was that the drinkers about 18 diferent parties, trying to see which drinking prac- might not care much about the purity of the product, and that tices held constant, whether in Austin, New York, or Colum- bringing it to a party merely lubricated social interaction. “We bus. This is one that did. Which meant that if a premium vodka wanted to know what they are seeking,” Lieskovsky says. “Do brand tried to market itself solely as a product with chemistry- they want the ‘perfect’ cocktail party? Is it all about how they lab purity, it risked misunderstanding the home-party market present themselves to their friends, for status? Is it collabora- and leaving money on the table. tion, friendship, fun?” Over the course of the company’s research, the rituals grad- corporate anthropology that ReD and a few oth- ually emerged. “One after another, you see the same thing,” ers are pioneering is the most intense form of Lieskovsky told me. “Someone comes with a bottle. She gives The market research yet devised, a set of techniques it to the host, then the host puts it in the freezer and listens that make surveys and dinnertime robo-calls (“This will take to the story of where the bottle came from, and why it’s im- only 10 minutes of your time”) seem superfcial by comparison. portant.” And then, when the bottle is served, it goes right out ReD is one of just a handful of consultancies that treat every- onto the table with all the other booze, the premium spirits and day life—and everyday consumerism—as a subject worthy of the bottom-shelf hooch mixed together, in a vision of alcoholic the scrutiny normally reserved for academic social science. In egalitarianism that would make a pro bartender or a cocktail many cases, the consultants in question have trained at the snob cringe. graduate level in anthropology but have forsaken academia— What mattered most, to the partygoers and their hosts, and some of its ethical strictures—for work that frees them to were the narratives that accompanied the drinks. “We found do feld research more or less full-time, with huge budgets and that there is this general shift away from premium alcohol, agendas driven by corporate masters. at least as it’s defned by price point, toward something that The world of management consulting consists overwhelm- has a story behind it,” Lieskovsky says. “They told anecdotes ingly of quantitative consultants, a group well known from the from their own lives in which a product played a central role— successes of McKinsey & Company, the Boston Consulting humorous, self-deprecating stories about frst encountering a Group, and Bain & Company. ReD’s entry into consulting rep- vodka, or discovering a liqueur while traveling in Costa Rica resents an attempt to match the results of these titans without

50 march 2013 the atlantic relying heavily on math and spreadsheets, and instead focus- isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want,” he famously ing on what anthropologists call “participant observation.” said.) This method consists, generally, of living among one’s research subjects, at least brief y. Such immersive experiences Lieskovsky, the ReD consultant on the Absolut lead not only to greater intimacy and trust, but also to a slowly project, has been a friendly acquaintance of emerging picture of the subjects’ everyday lives and thoughts, Min mine for nearly a decade. Christian Madsbjerg, complete with truths about them that they themselves might a co-founder of ReD, gave me access to ReD consultants on not know. two other projects, one on home appliances and the other on Absolut, which paid ReD to observe home parties, is using health care, and allowed me to tag along while they did their both quantitative analysis and this new form of ethnographic research. I agreed not to disclose the clients behind these two research. “We are intensive consumers of market research,” projects, and to change the names of the two women whose Maxime Kouchnir, the vice president of vodka marketing for households the company was studying. In each case, ReD Pernod Ricard USA, which distributes Absolut, told me. “The paid the households a nominal amount to answer its consul- McKinseys and BCGs of the world will bring you heavy data. tants’ questions. And I think those guys sometimes lack the human factor. What Both interviews I attended felt unusually intrusive. As a ReD brings is a deep understanding of consumers and the dy- journalist, I’ve interviewed people about sensitive topics, such namics you f nd in a society.” That means f nding out not only as their murderous past, or their fondness for sex with children. what consumers say they want in a liquor, but also what their But a six-hour ethnographic interview felt in many ways even actions reveal about the social ef ect they crave from bringing more intimate. After all, the corporate clients who commis- it to a party. “If you observe them, they will be humans, ex- sioned these studies already knew the type of consumer infor- posed with all their contradictions and complexities,” Kouch- mation they could get through phone or Internet surveys. They nir says. “At the end of the day, we knew everything except their cus- manufacture a spirit, but we have to tomers’ naked, innermost selves, sell an experience.” and now they wanted ReD’s eth- The method dates back nearly a nographers to get them those, too. century in academic anthropology, The first ReD anthropologist I though its pedigree in the business went into the field with was Esra world is somewhat more recent. Ozkan, an MIT Ph.D. who had Xerox PARC, the legendary Palo Microsoft is joined the company less than a year Alto think tank that birthed many earlier. She wrote her dissertation of the ideas that made the personal- said to be the on the study of corporate culture computing revolution possible, second-largest in the U.S., but she was a trained employed anthropologists as early employer of ethnographer, and spoke f uently as 1979. Leslie Perlow, a Harvard about how Michael Fischer, a cul- Business School professor who has anthropologists tural anthropologist at MIT, and applied participant observation in the world. Joseph Dumit, an anthropologist in corporate environments, says, at the University of California at “There is a long history of doing Davis, had inf uenced her work. By this in the study of organization— birth a Muslim from eastern Turkey, taking the ethnographic method Ozkan is married to an American from anthropology and, instead of taking it to faraway places, Jew, whose family provided the connection to the woman she’d trying to understand the culture of our own work worlds.” be interviewing. Now a handful of consultancies specialize in ethnographic The household we were about to visit was in Forest Hills, research, and many companies (including General Motors and New York, and Ozkan said it was a home kept so strictly ko- Dell) retain their own ethnographers on staf . Microsoft is said sher that it had two kitchens, one for daily use and another, to be the second-largest employer of anthropologists in the ultraclean one for Passover. The plan, she said, was to ask the world, behind only the U.S. government. ranking female, a 50-something working mother I’ll call Re- Tech f rms, certainly, appear to be major consumers of becca, how she and her family used their living space—how ethno graphic research. “Technology companies as a whole they negotiated the kitchens, the bedrooms, the living rooms; are in danger of being more disconnected from their custom- what rules they followed and, more important, which ones ers than other companies,” says Ken Anderson, an ethnogra- they sometimes broke. “We want to hear them describe their pher at Intel. Tech designers succumb to the illusion that their homes, both for functionality, but also to hear what emotion users are all engineers. “Our mind-set is that people are really they use to describe places,” Ozkan said. just like us, and they’re really not,” Anderson says. Ethnog- She said much of her method involves noting which ob- raphy helps teach the techie types to understand those con- jects are assigned special importance. Interviewees carefully sumers who “aren’t living and breathing the technology” the select the parts of their lives they exhibit to an ethnographer, way an Intel engineer might. (A curious exception to this cau- and sometimes they will pause over a certain item—say, a tious embrace of ethnographic methods is Apple, whose late kitchen utensil that cost $5 at Walmart, but that carries with co- founder, Steve Jobs, trusted his designers—and especially it the memories of 30 Passovers— indicating that the object’s himself—more than he trusted consumers or researchers. “It meaning is greater than its utility. “Those moments, when

THE ATLANTIC MARCH 2013 51 something is more than itself, are the ones I pay attention to,” Rebecca responded, her implicit consecration of her kitchen Ozkan told me. became evident. She seemed to care less about whether her We drove to the house, a detached two-story Tudor in a kitchen remained well stocked or running smoothly than quiet wooded neighborhood, and parked on the street. Upon whether it remained her sacred space, controlled by her for exiting the car, Ozkan immediately whipped out an iPhone and her family, and not by, say, a talking robot. As with the vodka began photographing everything, from the front lawn to the drinkers, the key elements were emotional ownership and con- windows to the mezuzah on the doorjamb. Rebecca answered nection. the door before we had a chance to knock, and introduced her The client’s goals were, in this case, never made fully clear poodle—a little yapper named Sir Paul—before introducing to me. But Rebecca’s was only one of 21 homes the consultants herself. would visit, and the only kosher one on the list. The visit would, We walked into the house, where the children’s photos and however, begin to tell a story about Americans who love and religious decorations—every room in the “public” areas of hate their own kitchens, fetishizing some gadgets while simul- the house showed signs of Jewish practice—gave a clear sense taneously viewing them as instruments of their own enslave- of self-presentation and values. Upstairs, away from the area ment. most visitors would see, she showed us her room-size shrine to If the lessons were indistinct, they were deliberately so. the Beatles, packed f oor-to-ceiling with concert posters, gui- ReD is gleefully def ant of those who want clear answers to tars, and other memorabilia. simple questions, and prefers to inhabit a space where answers Rebecca sat us down in a slightly messy dining room adjoin- tend not to come in yes/no formats, or in pie charts and bar ing a large and well-used kitchen, and Ozkan set up a camera graphs. “We know numbers get you only so far,” the com- to record everything. Our host dove pany’s Web site announces. “Stan- right in, pointing to various appli- dard techniques work for standard ances and explaining what each one problems because there’s a clear meant to her, and where it f t in with benef t from being measured and kosher law. For every note I made, systematic. But when companies Ozkan made two. Although she If you're are on the verge of something new knew Jewish practice well through selling a or uncertain … those existing for- her husband and past research, Oz- personal computer mulas aren’t easily applied.” kan asked Rebecca to explain the Jun Lee, a ReD partner, says that holidays and purity laws, just to see in China, the when clients are confronted with how she talked about them. whole concept the company’s anthropological Rebecca confessed without any of “personal” is research, they often discover fun- prompting that she would occa- damental dif erences between the sionally let her kosher vigilance slip culturally businesses they thought they were slightly when she ate out, and that wrong. in, and the businesses they actu- her husband, also Jewish, would ally are in. For example, the Kore- drop the kosher thing entirely with- an electronics giant Samsung had out her. “He’d eat a bacon cheese- a major conceptual breakthrough burger if I weren’t around,” she when it realized that its televisions said, perhaps half-joking. But Rebecca also said that inside the are best thought of not as large electronic appliances, measur- house itself, and especially around the inner-sanctum Pass- able by screen size and resolution, but as home furniture. It over kitchen, she never considered defying kosher law. “It’s matters less how thoroughly a speaker system rattles the bones like breathing, for us,” she said. and eardrums of its listeners than how these big screens occu- Over lunch the next day, I asked Ozkan what she had con- py the physical space alongside one’s tables, chairs, and sofas. cluded from the visit. She noted all the things that Rebecca had The company’s project engineers reframed their products never stated explicitly, but that were clearly what mattered accordingly, paying more attention to how they f t into living most in her life. “She treats the kitchen as a holy place,” Ozkan spaces, rather than how they perform on their technical spec said. That made three holy places in the house, if you count the sheets. two kitchens separately, and the Beatles shrine upstairs. Her deviance on the outside was, Ozkan said, a point well worth Madsbjerg co-founded ReD al- noting. “If you listen really carefully, you’ll f nd some things most a decade ago, after a brief that don’t quite match the super-ideal framework of kosher,” Christian stint in journalism. He dresses she said. “And it’s always great to see that. It’s a way to see how the part of the Nordic intellectual, alternating slick minimal- people deal with practicalities and challenges in life, and how ist threads (think Dieter from Saturday Night Live’s “Sprock- they choose to break that ideal image.” Listen to people talk ets”) with modish Western wear that no American could re- about how they break the rules, in other words, and you’ll f g- ally pull of . After more than 30 years in London and his native ure out what they consider the important rules in the f rst place. Denmark, he f ed for New York, where ReD operates out of Ozkan’s questions had hinted at product ideas that ReD’s a wood-paneled Battery Park office once occupied by John client, a home-appliance maker, was considering. Would Re- D. Rockefeller. becca contemplate buying an automated fridge that would ad- The founding story of ReD sounds more like the genesis of vise her when she was running short on orange juice? And as a doctoral dissertation than of a multimillion-dollar company.

52 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC

Madsbjerg says he became enamored frst with post-structural you’ve just made $1 billion. A source told me, for instance, that theory, and then with the 20th-century German philosopher Coca-Cola approached ReD after years of trying and failing Martin Heidegger, who argued that the distinction between to sell bottled tea in China. (ReD would not confrm that the objects and their beholders needed to be efaced. When we client in question was Coca-Cola.) The beverage company consider a hammer, we might naturally think of its objective had imagined that this would be a simple variant on the fzzy- scientifc properties: a certain weight and balance, a hardness, sugared-water business that had made it a global icon. Instead, a handle with a rubber grip that has a particular coefcient it failed to seize a respectable market share, even though it was of friction. What Heidegger posited is that these objective competing with lightweight local competitors. attributes are in fact secondary to the hammer’s subjective Long-term observation revealed that when it comes to tea relationship with the person wielding it. The hammer has uses in China, what is for sale isn’t merely a tasty beverage. Instead, (a weapon, a tool), meanings (a symbol on the Soviet fag), and the consumption of tea takes place in a highly specifc web of other characteristics that do not exist independently of the cultural rules, some of them explicit but many others not. For meeting of subject and object. A common mistake of philoso- instance, you might serve strong tea to close friends, or to peo- phers, he claimed, is to think of the object as distinct from the ple you want to draw closer. But you would never serve strong subject. If all of this sounds opaque, I can assure you that in tea to new acquaintances. That meant that no tea, however the original German it is much, much worse. tasty, would sell if its strength was uniform. Let the consumer But before long, Madsbjerg had a list of clients desperate choose the strength, however, and you may be able to sell the for Heideggerian readings of their businesses. The service product within the culture. Coca-Cola’s Chinese tea products he provides sounds even more improbable to a scholar who are now on course to change accordingly. knows his Heidegger than to a layperson who does not. Many philosophers spend their lives trying and failing to understand sell the ReD idea—that products and objects are in- what Heidegger was talking about. To interest a typical ReD evitably encrusted with cultural meaning, and that client—usually a corporate vice president who is, Madsbjerg To a company that neglects to explore social theory is says, “the least laid-back person you can imagine, with every bound to leave profts on the table—Madsbjerg has evangelized minute of their day divided into 15-minute blocks”—in the with great success, giving what are surely the only successful philosopher’s turgid, impenetrable post-structural theory is corporate sales pitches salted with words like hermeneutics and as unlikely a pitch as could be imagined. phenomenology. Most of his consultants don’t have the usual But it’s the pitch Madsbjerg has been making. The funda- business pedigree; M.B.A.s are very scarce (“tend not to ft in,” mental blindness in the sorts of consulting that dominate the he says). Rather, many employees come from academia, and market, he says, is that they are Cartesian in their outlook: some from another interview- and observation- based realm: they view objects as the sum of their performance and physi- journalism. (I came to know the frm frst through Lieskovsky— cal properties. “If you are selling personal computers, you look the former anthro pology student on the Absolut project—and at the machine and say it’s this many gigahertz, this many pix- through another employee, who is a former editor at GQ.) els,” he says. And you then determine whether a potential new The second consultant I followed, Rachel Singh, also came market needs computers that perform faster than the ones cur- from academia. A native of Manitoba, she’d joined ReD a year rently on ofer, and how big that market will be. and a half earlier, after doing ethnographic work for Intel’s Ire- These specs, as well as data about how many households in, land ofce and attending graduate school in digital anthropol- say, China will reach income levels that will allow a personal- ogy at University College London. computer purchase, ft nicely into spreadsheets and graphs. We met a few blocks from the apartment of the day’s inter- But they overlook human elements that exist in plain sight, the view subject, at a café in the Los Angeles suburb of Tarzana—a things the Anglo-Polish founder of the ethnographic method, concrete jungle named after the principal literary creation of Bronisław Malinowski, called “the imponderabilia of actual Edgar Rice Burroughs, an early celebrity resident of the area. life.” These are, he wrote, “small incidents, characteristic It occurred to me that in a previous era, before anthropologists forms of taking food, of conversing, of doing work, [that] are discovered that their own societies were as irrationally rule- found occurring over and over again.” bound as so-called primitive ones, Singh might have aspired These imponderabilia turn out to have huge consequences to perform feldwork in actual jungles, and to study actual if you want to sell a personal computer in China. “We fnd Tarzans. that these objects have meanings, not just facts,” Madsbjerg The view of anthropologists as tourists in exotic lands is old says, “and that the meaning is often what matters.” So to sell a and tired, which is not to say dead. Singh surprised me with personal computer in China, for example, what matters is the her candor several times over the course of the day, but the whole concept of a “personal” computer, which is culturally frst occasion was when she described her entry into the world wrong from the start. “Household objects don’t have the same of anthropology, which sounded to me like exactly that sort of personal attachment [in China as they do in America]. It has to romantic vision. “I came to university as a premed, and one be a shared thing.” So if the device isn’t designed and marketed day I just wandered into a lecture hall and heard a guy giving as a shared household object, but instead as one customized a lecture about his feldwork with the Kwakiutl of British Co- for a single user, it probably won’t sell, no matter how many lumbia. He went on a ‘vision quest,’ and after falling asleep gigahertz it has. on a secluded beach, he woke up surrounded by seals. He China is a huge potential market, and every corporation returned to the village and was told by an elder that he had with any ambition wants its piece of that pie, on the idea that found his guardian animal.” Then, she said, the lecturer hiked if you make a dollar of each man, woman, and child in China, up his sleeve to reveal a seal tattoo. Singh was hooked on the

54 march 2013 the atlantic study of culture. She changed her major, and she sees continu- scholars to the corporate world looks like a betrayal at best, and a ity between her academic work and what she does now as an devil’s bargain at worst. I told Singh that academic anthropolo- ethnographic hired gun. gists had already shared some harsh words for their applied- In Tarzana, Singh was scheduled to meet, on behalf of a anthropology brothers and sisters. “Well, they’re endangered,” ReD client in the health-care f eld, a woman I’ll call Elsie. It she said of the academics, a little snootily. “We’re doing work was 10 a.m. on a beautiful Southern California Sunday—a per- that’s needed. We’re dealing with human issues.” fectly awful time to sit inside and discuss the day’s topic, the The corporate anthropologists I met generally come across visible precancerous skin lesions from which Elsie suf ers. “It as people who acknowledge the limits of what they do. Ken makes me feel like a leper,” Elsie conf ded after we began, and Ander son, the Intel ethnographer, co-founded a conference Singh nodded sympathetically, like an old friend. “It makes me called EPIC for corporate ethnog raphers. Over the phone, he feel like hiding.” was warm and jokey, seemingly without rancor when he told The interview started much the same way the previous one me about his failed quest for an academic job out of gradu- had, with the anthropologist documenting the setting in minate school (“At the time, the employment opportunities for ute detail. With her iPhone, Singh snapped shots of the street, white guys in academic anthropology were pretty darn slim”). the parking garage, the squares of grass and the tropical trees He found instead a corporate career that has encouraged in the neighborhood. Once inside, her eyes darted over every anthropological work—as long as it could hold relevance to surface, and she noted the vacuum track marks on the f oor; the corporation at some point. He has spent weeks in London the drawers full of tubes of prescrip- hanging out with bike messengers tion creams; the European posters. for Intel, and hunkered down in Singh set up a video camera to re- the Azores as digital technology cord every minute of the six-hour reached remote settlements. Sure interview—the better to capture the enough, his research sounds very moments when Elsie’s re sponses blue-sky, and on a recognizable revealed traces of un expected ReD offers continuum with the anthropo- emotion or meaning. Singh asked businesses logical research cultivated in the Elsie, a hefty, sun-spotted redhead Heideggerian groves of academe. of 52, about her medical regimen, A few years ago, he conducted then about the basic details of her analysis, which an ethnographic study of “tem- life—what her childhood had been sounds even more porality,” about the perception of like, where she had lived, when she improbable to a the passage and scarcity of time— woke up every morning, what she scholar than noting how Americans he studied ate, and whom she spoke with. had come to perceive busy-ness Singh unpacked Elsie’s re- to a layperson. and lack of time as a marker of sponses methodically, adding an well-being. “We found that in so- occasional compassionate or sym- cial interaction, virtually everyone pathetic word. When Singh asked would claim to be ‘busy,’ and that about Elsie’s lesions, she phrased the questions carefully, sug- everyone close to them would be ‘busy’ too,” he told me. But gesting that she could feel Elsie’s pain. “How would I get this in fact, coordinated studies of how these people used tech- condition?” she asked. “What would be the symptoms?” nology suggested that when they used their computers, they Elsie’s was the f rst of perhaps two dozen similarly in-depth tended to do work only in short bursts of a few minutes at a interviews, Singh told me later. The client had created a prod- time, with the rest of the time devoted to something other uct to treat one of Elsie’s conditions. The company knew very than what we might identify as work. “We were designing well what would happen to a lesion if it were frozen, zapped, or computers, and the spec at the time was to use the computer rubbed with cream. But what about the person attached to the to the max for two hours,” Anderson says. “We had to make lesion? A simplistic model of patient behavior might say that chips that would perform at that level. You don’t want them to patients want whatever the most ef ective treatment is. But the overheat. But when we came back, we f gured that we need- conversation with Elsie revealed a much more fraught human ed to rethink this, because people’s time is not quite what we experience. She had her taboos, such as being forced to even imagine.” For a company that makes microchip processors, say the word lesion. She wanted to escape not just her lesions, this discovery has had important consequences for how to but the shame they brought on. engineer products—not only for users who constantly need high-powered computing for long durations, but for people Singh had completed the interview, before who just think they do. we parted ways, she made clear that there Among the luxuries of working for a corporate master is, of Once was at least one argument within anthropol- course, deliverance from the endless hustle to f nd funding. My ogy that she was tired of hearing about: “Just don’t make this partner is an academic anthropologist, and she goes from year another story about the clash between practicing anthropolo- to year having to pull together funding for trips to f eld sites gists and academics.” in the Central African Republic—which, unlike China, is not a The politics of anthropologists in academia tends to hotbed of corporate interest. (By contrast, Madsbjerg told me, the Marxist left, even more so than the politics of academ- “Our resources are not inf nite. But almost.”) ics in general. And to many of them, the defection of young But the bigger issue for academics is the fear that corporate

THE ATLANTIC MARCH 2013 55 anthropology is an ethical free-fire zone. “If there isn’t an IRB [institutional review board], a sort of neutral third party CARROWMENAGH that watches out for the interests of those who are being researched, then obviously there is cause for concern,” says Along the last stretch of coast that day Hugh Gusterson, a George Mason University professor who we found the mournful, unwounded land we sought, has led anthropologists in opposing cooperation with certain stone-galled meadows fraught U.S. military projects. He pointed to fury among his colleagues a few years ago, when it became known that Disney had paid with gorse, slopes of a headland running away ethnographers to study teenagers’ spending habits, the bet- to embrace the downfallen moon ter to sell them Disney products. “They were learning about of its valley, and the sky refecting a sea people—and not just any people, but minors—so they could exploit them, for proft.” like a stitched and thistled moor To get a research project approved at a modern univer- the blues and slates of Donegal tweed, sity, a researcher faces a review board of professors com- water the color of milk tea poured across black rocks missioned to scrutinize the proposal and check for ethical sticking points—ways the project could hurt the people it gritty with limpets and barnacles, studied, disrupt their lives, or take advantage of them. ReD, tresses of glinting kelp bound in torcs meanwhile, is bound only by the sense of decency of its se- beaten from the supplest of submarine metals. nior partners. Luckily, they are Danish. I asked Madsbjerg if he had ever turned away a contract on account of scruples, Found—and lost to the wheel and grind and he told me the military of a South American country had of downshifting stars. Lost. But found. approached him to discuss an ethnographic project on weapons design. He refused, on the grounds that helping people —Campbell McGrath shoot other people wasn’t what ReD was about. Nor would he do work for a company that wanted to sell junk food to Campbell McGrath’s recent books include In the Kingdom of the children. On the other hand, even contracts that are less obvi- Sea Monkeys (2012) and Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and ously perilous, ethically speaking, could raise the hackles of Clark Expedition (2009). He lives in Miami. an academic review board. Helping Coca-Cola feed sweet- ened beverages to 1.3 billion Chinese, for example, will probably not have a healthy impact on that country’s incidence just an efect of putting an impressive ethnographic sheen on of diabetes. the work of many smart, right-brained individuals in a sector Roberto González, a cultural anthropologist who teaches at that overvalues quantitative research. Much of what I encoun- San Jose State University, goes so far as to argue that those who tered while shadowing ReD’s consultants seemed like the type don’t follow the American Anthropological Association’s code of insight that any observant interviewer might have produced, of ethics should no longer be considered anthropologists at all. with or without an anthropology degree or a working knowl- “Part of being an anthropologist is following a code of ethics, edge of Heidegger. and if you don’t do that, you’re not an anthropologist”—just Madsbjerg’s admiration for Heidegger does, however, show as you’re no longer ft to call yourself a doctor if you do un- something of his genius for self-marketing. Many consulting authorized experiments on your patients. “Of course,” Hugh firms plot growth curves and recommend efficiency strate- Gusterson adds, “we don’t license anthropologists, so we can’t gies, but few ofer the kind of research ReD does. Still fewer un-license them either.” frms immerse themselves so happily in academic language, Some anthropologists caution against assuming that the and only Madsbjerg has the cojones to walk into a corporate work done by ReD consultants and their corporate brethren boardroom and tell his audience that the impenetrable works is really ethnography at all. During the U.S. invasions of Iraq of a long-dead German philosopher hold the keys to fnancial and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army convened a team of purported success. ethnographers to staf a group called the Human Terrain Sys- I asked Madsbjerg how he would sell his frm to a poten- tem, which was tasked with producing militarily signifcant tial employee currently teaching at a university, and he leaned ethnographic reports and providing cultural advice. Profes- toward me with a smile, slipping comfortably into the Marx- sional anthropologists raised hell, condemning the partici- ist lingo of academia. “Do you want to sit and write about the pants for using their training inappropriately, but in time it world,” he asked, “or do you want to do something in it?” became clear that there weren’t many anthropologists on the I couldn’t help but think of Steve Jobs’s famous entreaty to HTS staf at all. (One team member I knew had a doctorate John Sculley, then the president of PepsiCo, asking him to join in Russian literature.) The civilians on the staf were, for the Apple in 1983 as CEO. “Do you want to sell sugared water for most part, just a bunch of well-educated people reading up on the rest of your life?,” Jobs asked. “Or do you want to come with Iraqi and Afghan tribes and writing reports that were quasi- me and change the world?” anthropological at best. The irony, of course, is that ReD is changing the world in That, it seems to me, is probably the best way to view much part by helping a global beverage company sell more sugared of what ReD does as well. The value the frm brings to clients water. comes partly from anthropology, practiced in a way that may or may not please those still in academia. But the value is also Graeme Wood is an Atlantic contributing editor.

56 march 2013 the atlantic The most effective way to manage change successfully is to create it. – Peter F. Drucker

Read the business classic Management by Peter F. Drucker and more than 9,000 other summaries. Anytime, on any device.

www.getabstract.com/atlantic 3-D moDel by Gael lanGevin The Health/Tech Report

IBM’s Watson—the same machine that beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy—is now churning through case histories at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, learning to make diagnoses and treatment recommendations. This is one in a series of developments suggesting that technology may be about to disrupt health care in the same way it has disrupted so many other industries. Are doctors necessary? Just how far The might the automation of medicine go? RObOT Will See YOu bY JONaThaN COhN photogRaph by NOW baRt cooke

the atlantic march 2013 59 harley lukov didn’t need a miracle. He just needed of all information is “unstructured.” In medicine, it consists the right diagnosis. Lukov, a 62-year-old from central New of physician notes dictated into medical records, long-winded Jersey, had stopped smoking 10 years earlier—fulfilling a sentences published in academic journals, and raw numbers promise he’d made to his daughter, after she gave birth to his stored online by public-health departments. At least in theory, frst grandchild. But decades of cigarettes had taken their toll. Watson can make sense of it all. It can sit in on patient exami- Lukov had adenocarcinoma, a common cancer of the lung, nations, silently listening. And over time, it can learn. Just as and it had spread to his liver. The oncologist ordered a biopsy, Watson got better at Jeopardy the longer it played, so it gets testing a surgically removed sample of the tumor to search for better at fguring out medical problems and ways of treating particular “driver” mutations. A driver mutation is a specifc them the more it interacts with real cases. Watson even has genetic defect that causes cells to reproduce uncontrollably, the ability to convey doubt. When it makes diagnoses and rec- inter fering with bodily functions and devouring organs. Think ommends treatments, it usually issues a series of possibilities, of an on/of switch stuck in the “on” direction. With lung can- each with its own level of confdence attached. cer, doctors typically test for mutations called EGFR and ALK, Medicine has never before had a tool quite like this. And in part because those two respond well to specially targeted at an unofcial coming-out party in Las Vegas last year, dur- treatments. But the tests are a long shot: although EGFR and ing the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and ALK are the two driver mutations doctors typically see with Management Systems Society, more than 1,000 professionals lung cancer, even they are relatively uncommon. When Lu- packed a large hotel conference hall, and an overfow room kov’s cancer tested negative for both, the oncologist prepared nearby, to hear a presentation by Marty Kohn, an to start a standard chemotherapy regimen—even though it emergency-room physician and a clinical leader of meant the side efects would be worse and the prospects of the IBM team training Watson for health care. Stand- success slimmer than might be expected using a targeted ing before a video screen that dwarfed his large agent. frame, Kohn described in his husky voice how Wat- But Lukov’s true medical condition wasn’t quite so grim. son could be a game changer—not just in highly spe- The tumor did have a driver—a third mutation few oncolo- cialized felds like oncology but also in primary care, gists test for in this type of case. It’s called KRAS. Researchers given that all doctors can make mistakes that lead to have known about KRAS for a long time, but only recently have costly, sometimes dangerous, treatment errors. they realized that it can be the driver mutation in metastatic Drawing on his own clinical experience and on lung cancer—and that, in those cases, it responds to the same aca demic studies, Kohn explained that about one- drugs that turn it of in other tumors. A doctor familiar with third of these errors appear to be products of misdiag- both Lukov’s specifc medical history and the very latest re- nosis, one cause of which is “anchoring bias”: human search might know to make the connection—to add one more beings’ tendency to rely too heavily on a single piece biomarker test, for KRAS, and then to fnd a clinical trial test- of information. This happens all the time in doctors’ ing the efcacy of KRAS treatments on lung cancer. But the ofces, clinics, and emergency rooms. A physician national treatment guidelines for lung cancer don’t recom- hears about two or three symptoms, seizes on a di- mend such action, and few physicians, however conscientious, agnosis consistent with those, and subconsciously would think to do these things. discounts evidence that points to something else. Or Did Lukov ultimately get the right treatment? Did his on- a physician hits upon the right diagnosis, but fails cologist make the connection between KRAS and his condition, to realize that it’s incomplete, and ends up treating and order the test? He might have, if Lukov were a real patient just one condition when the patient is, in fact, suf- and the oncologist were a real doctor. They’re not. They are fering from several. Tools like Watson are less prone fctional composites developed by researchers at the Memorial to those failings. As such, Kohn believes, they may Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, in order to help eventually become as ubiquitous in doctors’ ofces train—and demonstrate the skills of—IBM’s Watson super- as the stethoscope. computer. Yes, this is the same Watson that famously went on “Watson flls in for some human limitations,” Kohn told me Jeopardy and beat two previous human champions. But IBM in an interview. “Studies show that humans are good at tak- didn’t build Watson to win game shows. The company is de- ing a relatively limited list of possibilities and using that list, veloping Watson to help professionals with complex decision but are far less adept at using huge volumes of information. making, like the kind that occurs in oncologists’ ofces—and That’s where Watson shines: taking a huge list of information to point out clinical nuances that health professionals might and winnowing it down.” miss on their own. Watson has gotten some media hype already, includ- Information technology that helps doctors and patients ing articles in Wired and Fast Company. Still, you probably make decisions has been around for a long time. Crude online shouldn’t expect to see it the next time you visit your doctor’s tools like WebMD get millions of visitors a day. But Watson is ofce. Before the computer can make real-life clinical recom- a diferent beast. According to IBM, it can digest information mendations, it must learn to understand and analyze medical and make recommendations much more quickly, and more information, just as it once learned to ask the right questions intelligently, than perhaps any machine before it—processing on Jeopardy. That’s where Memorial Sloan-Kettering comes up to 60 million pages of text per second, even when that text in. The famed cancer institute has signed up to be Watson’s is in the form of plain old prose, or what scientists call “natural tutor, feeding it clinical information extracted from real cases language.” and then teaching it how to make sense of the data. “The pro- That’s no small thing, because something like 80 percent cess of pulling out two key facts from a Jeopardy clue is totally

60 march 2013 the atlantic diferent from pulling out all the relevant information, and its and business think Watson will work (IBM says that it could be relationships, from a medical case,” says Ari Caroline, Sloan- widely available within a few years). And many of these same Kettering’s director of quantitative analysis and strategic ini- people believe that this is only the beginning—that whether or tiatives. “Sometimes there is conficting information. People not Watson itself succeeds, it is emblematic of a quantum shift phrase things diferent ways.” But Caroline, who approached in health care that’s just now getting under way. IBM about the research collaboration, nonetheless predicts that Watson will prove “very valuable”—particularly in a feld hen we think of breakthroughs in medicine, we like cancer treatment, in which the explosion of knowledge W conjure up images of new drugs or new surgeries. is already overwhelming. “If you’re looking down the road, When we think of changes to the health-care system, there are going to be many more clinical options, many more byzantine legislation comes to mind. But according to a grow- subtleties around bio markers … There will be nuances not just ing number of observers, the next big thing to hit medical care in interpreting the case but also in treating the case,” Caro- will be new ways of accumulating, processing, and applying line says. “You’re going to need a tool like Watson because the data—revolutionizing medical care the same way Billy Beane complexity and scale of information will be such that a typical and his minions turned baseball into “moneyball.” Many of the decision tool couldn’t possibly handle it all.” people who think this way—entrepreneurs from Silicon Val- The Cleveland Clinic is also helping to develop Watson, frst ley, young researchers from prestigious health systems and as a tool for training young physicians and then, possibly, as universities, and salespeople of every possible variety—spoke at the conference in Las Vegas, proselytizing to the tens of thousands of physicians and administrators in attendance. They say a range of innovations, from new software to new devices, will transform the way all of us interact with the health-care system— making it easier for us to stay healthy and, when we do get sick, making it easier for medical professionals to treat us. They also imagine the transformation reverberating through the rest of the economy, in ways that may be even more revolutionary. Health care already represents one-sixth of America’s gross domestic product. And that share is growing, placing an ever-larger strain on paychecks, corporate profts, and government resources. Figuring out how to manage this cost growth—how to meet the aging population’s medical needs without bankrupting the country—has become the central economic- policy challenge of our time. These technology enthusiasts think they can succeed where generations of politicians, business leaders, and medical professionals have failed. Specifcally, they imagine the application of data as a “disruptive” force, upending health care in the same way it has upended almost a tool at the bedside itself. James Young, the Watson “fills in for every other part of the economy—changing executive dean of the Cleveland Clinic medi- some human limita- not just how medicine is practiced but who is The Plain Dealer tions,” says IBM’s cal school, told , “If we can get Marty Kohn, a physi- practicing it. In Silicon Valley and other cen- Watson to give us information in the health- cian, who empha- ters of innovation, investors and engineers care arena like we’ve seen with more-general sizes that Watson is talk casually about machines’ taking the place being developed to sorts of knowledge information, I think it’s support doctors, not of doctors, serving as diagnosticians and even going to be an extraordinary tool for clinicians to replace them. surgeons—doing the same work, with better and a huge advancement.” And WellPoint, the results, for a lot less money. The idea, they insurance company, has already begun testing say, is no more fanciful than the notion of self- Watson as a support tool for nurses who make treatment-ap- driving cars, experimental versions of which are already cruis- proval decisions. ing California streets. “A world mostly without doctors (at least Whether these experiments show real, quantifiable im- average ones) is not only reasonable, but also more likely than provements in the quality or efciency of care remains to be not,” wrote Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist and co-founder seen. If Watson tells physicians only what they already know, of Sun Microsystems, in a 2012 TechCrunch article titled “Do or if they end up ordering many more tests for no good reason, We Need Doctors or Algorithms?” He even put a number on Watson could turn out to be more hindrance than help. But his prediction: someday, he said, computers and robots would plenty of serious people in the felds of medicine, engineering, replace four out of fve physicians in the United States. photograph by kareem black the atlantic march 2013 61 Statements like that provoke skepticism, derision, and online bookstore, selling texts to his classmates at a discount. anger— and not only from hidebound doctors who curse (He later sold the business, for considerable proft.) At Stanford, every time they have to turn on a computer. Bijan Salehiza- Kraft says he used his knowledge of social media to develop a deh, a trained physician and a venture capitalist, responded to better method for communication among doctors, allowing reports of Khosla’s premonition and similar predictions with them to exchange pertinent information while making rounds, a tweet: “Getting nauseated reading the anti-doctor rant- for instance, rather than simply texting phone numbers for ings of the silicon valley tech crowd.” Physicians, after all, do callbacks. “Here we are at Stanford, heart of Silicon Valley, more than process data. They attend at patients’ bedsides and and all we had were basic SMS text pagers—they could only counsel families. They grasp nuance and learn to master un- do phone numbers,” Kraft recalls. “So I hacked into a Yahoo certainty. For their part, the innovators at IBM make a point Groups thing, so we could send actual text messages through of presenting Watson as a tool that can help health-care pro- servers. Then it spread to the rest of the hospital.” fessionals, rather than replace them. Think Dr. McCoy using Thus began Kraft’s second, parallel career as an inventor, an his tricorder to diagnose a phaser injury on Star Trek, not the entrepreneur, and a professional visionary. He audited classes droid ftting Luke Skywalker with a robotic hand in Star Wars. in bio-design and business, hanging out with computer nerds To most experts, that’s a more realistic picture of what medi- as much as doctors. Today he holds several patents, including cine will look like, at least for the foreseeable future. one for the Marrow Miner, a device that allows bone marrow to But even if data technology does nothing more than arm be harvested faster and less painfully. (Kraft is the chief medi- health-care professionals with tablet computers that help them cal ofcer for a company that plans to develop it commercially.) make decisions, the efect could still Kraft is also the chairman of the medi- be profound. Harvey Fineberg, the cal track at Singularity University, a former dean of the Harvard School of think tank and educational institution Public Health and now the president in Silicon Valley. Initially, Kraft’s pri- of the Institute of Medicine, wrote of “In Brazil and India, mary role at Singularity was to ofer a IT’s rising promise last year in The New machines are few hours of instruction on medicine. England Journal of Medicine, describ- already starting to But Kraft says he quickly realized that ing a health-care system that might be do primary care, “a lot of people, in gaming, IT, Big Data, transformed by artifcial intelligence, because there’s devices, virtual reality, psychology— robotics, bio informatics, and other they were all converging on health advances. Tools like Watson could no labor to do it. care, and interested in applying their enhance the abilities of professionals They may be better skills to health care.” That led Singular- at every level, from highly specialized than doctors. ity to establish Future Med, an annual surgeons to medical assistants. As a Mathematically, conference on medical innovation that result, physicians wouldn’t need to they will follow brings together fnanciers, physicians, do as much, and each class of profes- evidence—and and engineers from around the world. sionals beneath them could take on Kraft is the director. greater responsibility—creating a fi- they’re much more Exponential improvements in the nancially sustainable way to meet the likely to be right.” ability of computers to process more aging population’s growing need for and more data, faster and faster, are more health care. part of what has drawn this diverse As an incidental beneft, job oppor- crew to medicine—a field of such tunities for people with no graduate degree, and in some cases complexity that large parts of it have, until recently, stood out- no four-year-college degree, would grow substantially. For the side the reach of advanced information technology. But just as past few decades, as IT has disrupted other industries, from signifcant, Kraft and his fellow travelers say, is the explosion manufacturing to banking, millions of well-paying middle- of data available for these tools to manipulate. The Human class jobs—those easily routinized— have vanished. In health Genome Project completed its detailed schematic of human care, this disruption could have the opposite efect. It wouldn’t DNA in 2003, and for the past several years, companies have be merely a win-win, but a win-win-win. It all sounds far too provided personal genetic mapping to people with the means good to be true—except that a growing number of engineers, to pay for it. Now the price, once prohibitive, is within reach investors, and physicians insist that it isn’t. for most people and insurance plans. Researchers have only just begun fguring out how genes translate into most aspects ne of these enthusiasts is Daniel Kraft, age 44, of health, but they already know a great deal about how certain O whose career trajectory tracks the way medicine itself is genetic sequences predispose people to conditions like heart evolving. Kraft is a physician with a traditional educa- disease and breast cancer. Many experts think we will soon tional pedigree: an undergraduate degree from Brown and a enter an era of “personalized” medicine, in which physicians medical degree from Stanford. He trained in pediatrics and tailor treatments—not just for cancer, but also for conditions internal medicine at Harvard-afliated hospitals in Boston. like diabetes and heart disease—to an individual patient’s ge- Then he returned to the West Coast, to Stanford University netic idiosyncrasies. Hospital, to complete fellowships in hematology and oncology. A potentially larger—and, in the short run, more But Kraft always had a fair for entrepreneurship and a taste consequential— data explosion involves the collection, transfor technology: While in medical school, he started his own mission, and screening of relatively simple medical data on a

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siemens.com/answers much more frequent basis, enabling clinicians to make smarter, quicker decisions about their patients. The catalyst is a device most patients already have: the smartphone. Companies are developing, and in some cases already selling, sensors that attach to phones, to collect all sorts of biological data. The companies Withings and iHealth, for example, already ofer blood-pressure cufs that connect to an iPhone; the phone can then send the data to health-care professionals via e-mail, or in some cases, automatically enter them into online medical records. The Withings device sells for $129; iHealth’s for $99. Other frms sell devices that diabetics can use to measure glucose levels. In the U.K., a consortium has been developing a smartphone app paired with a device that will allow users to test themselves for sexually transmit- ted diseases. (The test will apparently involve urinating onto a As more and more data are Ari Caroline and chip attached to the phone.) captured, and as computers be- his colleagues at Sloan-Kettering are AliveCor, a San Francisco–based frm, has developed an come better and faster at pro- leading Watson’s app and a thin, unobtrusive smartphone attachment that can cessing them autonomously, the training in cancer take electrocardiogram readings. The FDA approved it for use possibilities keep expanding. One care. “You’re going to need a tool like in the U.S. in December. While the device was still in its trial medical- data start-up getting Watson,” he says, phase, Eric Topol, the chief academic ofcer at Scripps Health some buzz is a company called given the rapidly in- in San Diego and a well-known technology enthusiast, used a Predictive Medical Technolo- creasing complexity of the field. prototype of the device to diagnose an incipient heart attack gies, based in San Francisco. It is in a passenger on a transcontinental fight from Washington, developing a program that sucks D.C., to San Diego. The plane made an emergency landing in all the data generated in a hospital’s intensive-care unit, near Cincinnati and the man survived. plugs the information into an algorithm, and then identifes As sensors shrink and improve, they will increasingly allow which patients are likely to experience a heart attack or other health to be tracked constantly and discreetly— helping people forms of distress— providing up to 24 hours of warning. A trial to get over illnesses faster and more reliably—and in the best is under way at the University of Utah’s hospital in Salt Lake of cases, to avoid getting sick in the frst place. One group of City. The eventual goal is to expand the program’s capabili- researchers, based at Emory University and Georgia Tech, ties, so that it can monitor conditions throughout the hospital. developed a prototype for one such device called StealthVest, “You don’t just want more data,” Kraft says. “You want actual which—as the name implies—embeds sensors in a vest that information in a form you can use. You need to be able to people could wear under their regular clothing. The group make sense of this stuf. That’s what companies like Predic- designed the vest for teenagers with chronic disease (asthma, tive Medical do.” diabetes, even sickle-cell anemia) because, by their nature, teenagers are less likely to comply with physician instructions o how would all these innovations fit together? about taking readings or medications. But the same technol- S How would the health-care system be different—and ogy can work for everyone. For instance, as Sloan-Kettering’s how, from a patient’s standpoint, would it feel diferent— Ari Caroline notes, right now it’s hard for oncologists to get from the one we have today? Imagine you’re an adult with a the detailed patient feedback they need in order to serve their chronic condition like high blood pressure. Today, your contact patients best. “Think about prostate surgery,” he says. “You with the health-care system would be largely episodic: You’d really want to check patients’ urinary and sexual function have regular checkups, at which a doctor or maybe a nurse- on a regular basis, and you don’t get that when they come practitioner would check your blood pressure and ask about in once every three or four months to the clinic—they’ll just recent behavior—diet, exercise, and whatnot. Maybe you’d say generally ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ The data will only get collected give an accurate account, maybe you wouldn’t. If you started when people are inputting it on a regular basis and it captures experiencing pain or had some other sign of trouble, you’d their daily lives.” make an appointment and come in—but by then, the symptom

64 march 2013 the atlantic photograph by kareem black might well have subsided, making it hard reflls … The fascinating thing is that people of all ages are us- to fgure out what was going on. ing it … I have people in their 90s who secure-message me.” In the future as the innovators imag- It’s a long way from Group Health to Health 2.0, and Hand- ine it—“Health 2.0,” as some people have ley is among those who are wary of the hype. Sure, the demos started calling it—you would be in con- for products like Watson look great. They always do. But can stant contact with the health-care system, such tools really winnow down information in a way that phy- although you’d hardly be aware of it. The sicians will fnd useful? Can they efectively scour new medi- goal would be to keep you healthy—and cal literature—some 30,000 articles a month, by Handley’s any time you were in danger of becom- reckoning— and make appropriate use of new evidence? Will ing unhealthy, to ensure you received they actually improve medicine? “While Watson could some- attention right away. You might wear a times be helpful, it may actually drive up the cost of care,” bracelet that monitors your blood pres- Handley says, by introducing more possible diagnoses for each sure, or a pedo meter that logs movement patient— diagnoses that clinicians will inevitably want to in- and exercise. You could opt for a monitor- vestigate with a bevy of expensive tests. A study in the journal ing system that makes sure you take your Health Afairs, published in March 2012, found that physicians prescribed medication, at the prescribed with instant electronic access to test results tended to order intervals. All of these devices would trans- more tests— perhaps because they knew they could see and mit information back to your provider of use the results quickly. It’s the same basic principle Handley basic medical care, dumping data directly has identifed: if new tools allow providers to process far more into an electronic medical record. information than they do now, providers might respond by try- And the provider wouldn’t be one doc- ing to gather even more information. tor, but rather a team of professionals, Another reason for skepticism is the widespread lack of available at all hours and heavily armed good electronic medical records, or EMRs, the foundation on with technology to guide and assist them which so many promising innovations rest. Creating EMRs as they made decisions. If, say, your blood has been a frustratingly slow process, spanning at least the pressure suddenly spiked, data-processing past two decades. And even today the project is a mess: more tools would warn them that you might be in trouble, and some than 400 separate vendors ofer EMRs, and the government is sort of clinician—a nurse, perhaps—would reach out to you im- still trying to establish a common language so that they can all mediately, to check on your condition and arrange treatment “speak” to one another. “Our doctors have state-of-the-art elec- as necessary. You could reach the team just as easily, with tronic health-record systems,” says Brian Ahier, the health-IT something as simple as a text message or an e-mail. You’d be evangelist (yes, that is his real title) at the Mid- Columbia Medi- in touch with them more frequently, most likely, but for much cal Center, in northern Oregon, and a widely read writer on shorter durations—and, for the most part, with less urgency. medical innovation. “But for clinical communication” outside Sometimes, of course, ofce or hospital visits would be nec- the medical center, “they have to print it out, fax it, and then essary, but that experience would be diferent, too—starting scan” what they get back. with the hassle of dealing with insurance companies. Watson But despite these risks and stumbling blocks, there are has a button for submitting treatment proposals to managed- reasons to think the next wave of innovations might really care companies, for near-instant approval, reducing the time stick. One is legislation enacted by the Obama administra- and hassle involved in gaining payment authorization. The tion. The 2009 Recovery Act—the $800 billion stimulus transformation of the clinical experience could be more pro- designed to end the economic crisis—set aside funds for the found, although you might not detect it: someone in a white creation of a uniform standard for electronic medical records. coat or blue scrubs would still examine you, perform tests, pre- It also made changes to Medicare, so reimbursement to doc- scribe treatment. But that person might have a diferent back- tors and hospitals now depends partly on whether they adopt ground than he’d have today. And as the two of you talked, your EMRs and put them to “meaningful use.” The incentives exam information would be uploaded and cross-referenced seem to be working: according to a September 2012 survey against your medical record (including the data from all those by the consulting frm CapSite, nearly seven in 10 doctors wireless monitors you’ve been toting around), your DNA, and now use EMRs. The trade publication InformationWeek called untold pages of clinical literature. this tally a “tipping point.” The evolution toward a more connected system of care Under the Afordable Care Act, a k a “Obamacare,” Medi- has already begun at some large organizations that use team care will also begin rewarding providers who form integrated models of care. One such institution is the Group Health Co- organizations, like Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, operative of Puget Sound, a nonproft, multi-specialty group and groups that accept “bundled” payments, so that they are practice. Matt Handley, the medical director for quality and paid based on the number of patients in their care rather than informatics, says that about two-thirds of Group Health’s pa- for each service rendered. In theory, this fnancing scheme tients now use some form of electronic communication, and should encourage medical practices and hospitals to keep that these methods account for about half of all “touches” be- patients healthier over the long term, even if that means tween patients and the group’s doctors or nurses. “They set up spending money up front on technology in order to reduce the their own appointments … They don’t need to call somebody frequency of patient visits or procedures. In other words, the and ask when I’m free,” Handley says. “They send messages new, digital model for health care should eventually become to doctors; look up lab tests and radiology results; and order more economically viable.

the atlantic march 2013 65 ne sign that medical care is in the midst of a mas- central data bank, then receive regular reminders about care O sive transformation, or at least on the cusp of one, is the for pregnant women. extraordinary rise in demand for information-technology “In Brazil and India, machines are already starting to do workers within the health-care sector. All over the country, primary care, because there’s no labor to do it,” says Robert hospitals are on a hiring binge, desperate for people who can Kocher, an internist, a veteran of McKinsey consulting, and a develop and install new information systems—and then man- former adviser to the Obama administration. He’s now a part- age them or train existing workers to do so. According to one ner at Venrock, a New York venture-capital frm that invests government survey, online advertisements for health-IT jobs in emerging technologies, including health-care technology. tripled from 2009 to 2010. And the growth is likely to continue. “They may be better than doctors. Mathematically, they will The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that in this decade, follow evidence—and they’re much more likely to be right.” the health-IT workforce will grow by 20 percent. Most ex- In the United States, Kocher believes, advanced decision- perts believe that such growth still won’t be nearly enough to support tools could quickly fnd a home in so-called minute fll the demand. But it’s the data revolution’s ability to change clinics—the storefront medical offices that drugstores and jobs within health care—to alter the daily workfow of medi- other companies are setting up in pharmacies and malls. There, cal assis tants, nurses, doctors, and care managers—that might the machines could help nonphysician clinicians take care of have the most far-reaching efects not just on medicine, but routine medical needs, like diagnosing strep throat—and could also on the economy. potentially dispense the diagnoses to patients more or less au- Economists like to say that health care sufers from a phe- tonomously. Years from now, he says, other machines could end nomenon called “Baumol’s disease,” or “the Baumol efect,” up doing “vascular surgery, fstulas, eye surgery, microsurgery. frst described half a century ago by the economist William Bau- Machines can actually be more precise than human hands.” mol, in collaboration with a fellow economist named William Nobody (including Kocher) expects American physicians Bowen. In most occupations, wages rise only when productiv- to turn the keys of their practices over to robots. And nobody ity improves. If factory workers get an extra dollar an hour, it’s would expect American patients accustomed to treatment because they can produce extra value, thanks to better training from live human beings to tolerate such a sudden shift for or equipment. Baumol and Bowen observed that certain labor- much of their care, mall-based minute clinics not withstanding. intensive occupations don’t operate by the same principle: job But because of a unique set of circumstances, the health-care productivity doesn’t rise much, but wages go up anyway, be- workforce could nonetheless undergo enormous change, with- cause employers need to keep paying workers more in order to out threatening the people already working in it. stop them from pursuing other lines of work, in other sectors Between the aging of the population and the expansion where productivity is rising quickly. That forces the employers of health-insurance coverage under Obamacare, many more to keep raising prices, just to provide the same level of service. people will seek medical attention in the coming years— Over time, industries aficted with Baumol’s disease tend to whether it’s basic primary care or ongoing care for chronic consume a larger and larger proportion of a nation’s income, be- conditions. But we don’t have nearly enough primary-care cause their cost, relative to everything else, climbs ever upward. doctors—in practice today or in training—to provide this The health-care industry has a textbook case of Baumol’s dis- care. And even if we trained more, we wouldn’t have enough ease, and so far, technology hasn’t made much of an impact. Just money to pay them. With the help of decision-support tools as it still takes fve string players to play a Mozart quintet (Bau- and robotics, health-care professionals at every level would mol’s famous example), so it still takes a highly trained surgeon be able to handle more-complicated and more-challenging to operate on somebody. “We do now have robots performing tasks, helping to shoulder part of the load. And fnding enough surgery, but the robot is under constant supervision of the sur- nurses or technicians or assistants would be a lot easier than geon during the process,” Baumol told a reporter from The New fnding enough doctors. They don’t need as many years to York Times two years ago. “You haven’t saved labor. You have train, and they don’t cost as much to pay once their training is done other good things, but it isn’t a way of cheapening the pro- fnished. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, doctors’ cess.” Likewise, a doctor in a clinic still sees patients individually, median annual salary is $166,400, while nurses’ is $64,690 listens to their problems, orders tests, makes diagnoses—in the and medical assistants’ is $28,860. classic economic sense, the process of an ofce visit is no more Health professionals at all levels tend to guard their turf efcient than it was 10, 30, or 50 years ago. ferociously, lobbying state ofcials to prevent encroachments Now technology could actually change that process, not from other providers. But the severe shortage of professionals by making the exam faster but by enabling somebody else to to provide primary care means there should be plenty of work conduct it—or to perform the test, or carry out the procedure. to go around. Already today, there’s a push within health- The idea of robots performing surgery or more-routine medicare-policy circles to more consistently allow providers to cal tasks with less supervision is something many experts take “practice at the top of their licenses”—that is, to let the people seriously— in part because, in the developing world, burgeon- at each level of training do as much as their training could ing demand for care is already pushing medicine in this direc- possibly allow them to do. That would enable higher-wage, tion. As part of an experimental program in Tanzania, rural more-highly-skilled professionals to focus on work that’s truly health workers, many of whom have relatively little medical commensurate with their education. It would also reduce the training, have access to a “decision-support tool” that can cost of care. Watson and its ilk could help us take this concept help them diagnose and treat illness based on symptoms. And further, by augmenting the capabilities of workers at every thanks to an initiative called the Maternal Health Reporter, skill level. Physicians could lead large teams of mid- and low- similar caregivers in India can submit patient information to a level providers, delegating less complicated and more routine

66 march 2013 the atlantic tasks. “Having nurses, with the assistance of these artifcial- us to push more care down to people with less training and fewer intelligence tools, [do more] frees physicians to perform the skills, more middle-class jobs will be created along the way. higher-level interventions, allowing everyone to practice at “I don’t think physicians will be seeing patients as much in the top of their license,” Brian Ahier says. the future,” says David Lee Scher, a former cardiac electro- That model actually isn’t so diferent from the collaborative physiologist and the president of DLS Healthcare Consulting, approach that institutions like Group Health have been deploy- which advises health-care organizations and developers of ing with such success. “We focus on developing teams—teams digital health-care technologies. “I think they are transition- of several doctors, physician assistants, nurse-practitioners, ing into what I see as super-quality-control ofcers, over seeing and/or nurses,” Matt Handley says. “Every day starts with a physician assistants, nurses, nurse-practitioners, etc., who are huddle: the team talks about the day and reviews a couple of really going to be the ones who see the patients.” Scher rec- topics and cases, fgures out who is going to need what, from ognizes the economic logic of this transition, but he’s also which provider, and so on.” deeply ambivalent about it, noting that something may be The providers with less medical training can be more tech- lost— because there are still some things that technology can- nologically adept, anyway. “The doctor or clinician of course not do, and cannot enable humans to do. “Patients appreci- has the high analytic skills, makes the judgment calls, the di- ate nonphysician providers because they tend to spend more agnoses, prescribes medications,” says Catherine Dower, an time with them and get more humanistic hand-holding care. associate director at UC San Francisco’s Center for the Health However, while I personally have dealt with some excellent Professions. “But the medical assistants are frequently the mid-level providers, they generally do not manage complex ones who can actually use this new technology really well, in- diseases as well as physicians. Technology-assisted algorithms cluding tele-health—they can get bio-feeds from patients sit- might contribute to narrowing this divide.” ting at home, they can tap insulin and Even Watson, which has generated cardiac rates. And then, as this infor- so much positive buzz in medicine mation is fed into a central site, the and engineering, has its doubters. medical assistant can read and make “Watson would be a potent and clever “i don’t think a decision on which patient should companion as we made our rounds,” come in and be seen by the doctor, physicians will be wrote Abraham Verghese, a Stanford and which one needs some minor seeing patients as physician and an author, in The New modifcation”—whether that means much in the future. York Times. “But the complaints I hear adjusting medication or scheduling i think they are from patients, family and friends are a visit to discuss more-significant transitioning into never about the dearth of technology changes in treatment or therapy. but about its excesses.” For the health-care system as a what i see as Marty Kohn, from the Watson whole, the efciencies from the data super-quality- team, understands such skepticism, revolution could amount to sub- control officers.” and frequently warns enthusiasts not stantial savings. One estimate, from to overpromise what the machine can the McKinsey Global Institute, sug- do. “When people say IT can be trans- gested that the data revolution could formative, I get a little anxious,” he told yield onetime heath-care savings of up to $220 billion, fol- me. Partly that’s because he thinks technology can’t change an lowed by a slower rate of growth in health-care costs. Total industry, or a culture, if the professionals themselves aren’t com- health-care spending in the U.S. last year was $2.7 trillion, so mitted to such a transformation—Watson won’t change medi- that would be roughly the equivalent of reducing health-care cine, in other words, if the people who practice medicine don’t spending by 7.5 percent up front. That’s the best reason to want it to change. As a physician, Kohn is careful to describe Wat- believe that the data revolution will make a diference, even son as a “clinical support” tool rather than a “decision making” if it never lives up to the hype of its most enthusiastic propo- tool—to emphasize that it’s a machine that can help health-care nents. The health-care system is so massive, so full of waste, professionals, rather than replace them. “Some technologies are so full of failure, that even a marginal change for the better truly transforming health care, providing therapies that never could save billions of dollars, not to mention quite a few lives. existed before. I don’t view IT that way. I view IT as an enabler.” And, in a small way, it could help us begin to fll the hole Still, Kohn has reconciled himself to hearing people talk that’s developed in the middle class. David Autor, an economist about Watson as if it were a person—he says he’s now used to at MIT, has noted that for the past generation, technological answering the question “Who is Watson?” rather than “What change in the U.S. has tended to favor highly skilled workers is Watson?” He also likes to tell a story about a speech he gave at the expense of those with mid-level skills. Routine clerical in Canada, one that, like the Las Vegas presentation, attracted functions, for instance, have been automated, contributing to more people than the room could hold. That evening he called the hollowing-out of the middle class. But in the coming years, his wife, to tell her about the enthusiasm. “That’s really great, health care may prove a large and important exception to that Marty,” he recalls her saying. “Just remember, they were there general rule— efectively turning the rule on its head. “Look at to meet Watson, not you.” physician- assistant positions,” Dower says. “They don’t require college or a bachelor’s degree, just a technical program.” And Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic and the once you’re certifed, “you come out with a pretty good salary, author of Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care up in the $75,000-to-$80,000 range.” If technological aids allow Crisis—and the People Who Pay the Price.

the atlantic march 2013 67 The body of William Sparkman Jr., a 51-year- old census worker, was found in 2009 in an isolated cemetery in the Appalachian region of Kentucky. He hung naked from a tree, hands bound, the word FED scrawled in black marker across his chest. Sparkman’s death briefy made headlines: to some, it seemed to implicate our polarized politics; to others, a region long known for its insularity. And then the case disappeared from national view. Here is the story of what really happened to Bill Sparkman, a complex man whom few people truly knew.

T h e h a n g i n g By Rich Schapiro

68 march 2013 the atlantic winds toward the site of the hanging.

PhotogRaPhs by Danny Wilcox-FRazieR Outsiders say that if you stumble across The road to Hoskins any people in these woods, chances are they’re up to no good. It’s the kind of Cemetery snakes place you don’t go without a gun. At 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, Septem- ber 12, 2009, a 41-year-old Ohio man deep into the Daniel named Jerry Weaver turned his silver Chevy Equinox onto Arnetts Fork Road. Boone National Forest, With him were his wife, Connie, and their 19-year-old daughter, Brittany. The a 700,000-acre swath Weavers were heading to the cemetery to visit the graves of some of Connie’s of rugged wilderness in relatives. Riding in two cars ahead of them were her parents, plus her sister and brother-in-law and their two kids. southeastern Kentucky. They had all converged on Kentucky for The cemetery isn’t easy to fnd; it lies selling wild ginseng and other herbal a family reunion. hidden about 100 yards off Arnetts roots. Jagged ridges wall of this tiny When the convoy reached the gravel Fork Road, a narrow, winding stretch of community, making it a lot like many road leading to the cemetery, each car pavement that ends abruptly at a grassy other places in Clay County—remote, stopped on the roadside. A metal gate clearing, about a mile farther on. Hun- clannish, and foreboding, even to Ken- blocked the entrance, but the men saw kered down along its ﬁnal half mile are tuckians from the next county over. that the creek running next to the road about 15 weathered ranch houses and To reach Arnetts Fork, you must drive was dry, and decided they could cross ramshackle trailers. Most of the fami- two miles into the forest on Big Double it and rejoin the road beyond the gate. lies living along the road have been do- Creek Road. In late spring and summer, Everyone but Weaver piled into his ing so for generations, eking out a hard- the thick brush lining the road and a father- in-law’s black Toyota pickup, fll- scrabble existence driving tow trucks canopy of leaves overhead form a sort ing the cab and truck bed. Weaver told or repairing cars or digging up and of cocoon. Cellphone service is spotty. them to go ahead, then pulled out his

70 march 2013 the atlantic gun, a Taurus .357 Magnum. He had man’s two census tags. The frst featured the knot was secured to the second tree, seen things in these woods before that a head shot. On the second was the Cen- suggesting it had been tied, then untied, he didn’t like. Holding the revolver at his sus Bureau’s “Oath of Non- Disclosure,” tightened, and retied. The area around side, Weaver started following the truck under the legend Sworn for Life to the body appeared to be undisturbed, on foot. Protect confidentiaLity. and no tire tracks from vehicles other It was a glorious day—mid-70s and The gruesome scene haunted Weaver than Sparkman’s were visible in the clear- clear, with a light wind. Weaver walked for weeks. He was certain the middle- ing. Inside the bed of Sparkman’s truck with his eyes trained on the Toyota. As aged census worker had been murdered was a pile of clothes, neatly folded: a pair the vehicle curled slightly to the right, and hung up for display. “Like some kind of navy dress pants, a three-button polo just out of sight, he heard Connie scream. of calling card,” he later said. For days shirt, gray Fruit of the Loom boxer briefs. Weaver rushed forward and at frst saw after, Weaver’s teenage daughter re- No shoes. No wallet. That the truck was only a red pickup truck at the near edge mained so traumatized, she slept on the left untouched struck Wilson as curious. of a clearing. But as he walked around foor of her parents’ bedroom. Criminals in the area were known to burn the empty vehicle, a fgure at a far corner vehicles to eliminate evidence. of the clearing came into view, about 40 entucky State PoLice At 9:30 p.m., two veteran officers, yards away. It was motionless: a naked Detective Donald Wilson Sergeant Tom Atkin and Detective Mike man hanging from a tree. K was at home, settling into Bowling, arrived on the scene. All four Weaver froze. Within seconds, his his weekend, when the call investigators combed through the dirt, father- in-law, Clinton Hibbard, stepped came. “Deceased person found hang- grass, and leaves near Sparkman’s body. beside him, holding his own gun, a ing in Hoskins Cemetery.” No cause for Atkin discovered a syringe and an empty .38-caliber revolver. He had parked far alarm, Wilson thought; suicides weren’t vial about 25 feet away, leading the men away from the body. No reason for the all that uncommon in the area. to wonder whether Sparkman had been rest of his family to stare at that. The Tall and well built, with a boyish drugged. But the paraphernalia might forest was eerily quiet; both men felt as face and light-brown hair cropped just as easily have been left behind by though they were being watched. They close, Wilson, age 28 at the time, had an addict. were still too far from the body to make been a state trooper for six years. Just Wilson had on his hands what is out its condition. Hibbard asked Weaver two days earlier, he’d been promoted to known as an “equivocal death,” a case what he thought they should do. “Get detective. This would be his ﬁrst case. in which the manner of death is un- out of here and call 911,” Weaver replied Wilson hopped into his unmarked known. Any seasoned homicide detec- instantly. police cruiser and headed for the scene. tive will tell you that an equivocal-death About an hour later, Weaver and his He arrived at the cemetery at 8:30 p.m. investigation cannot be closed until all father-in-law met up with a state troop- “Holy shit,” he mouthed as he got his scenarios but one are ruled out. Wilson er at a forest-ranger station fve miles frst good look at the body. Besides the mentally mapped out the possibilities: away and led him to the scene. For the nakedness, the tape, the ID card, and the autoerotic asphyxiation (accident); frst time, Weaver walked up close to the word on the corpse’s chest, Wilson no- an elaborate suicide; forcible hanging suspended corpse. ticed that Sparkman’s face was a bloody (murder); or the hanging of the body He was horrifed. mess. A trickle of blood had leaked out postmortem (murder). The man’s wrists and ankles were of his right ear. Wilson wondered wheth- It certainly looked as though Spark- bound with gray duct tape. A red rag er he had been bludgeoned. man had been murdered, but on that was stuffed into his mouth, secured Something else caught Wilson’s at- balmy September evening, Wilson with tape wrapped around his head. A tention. The tape binding Sparkman’s couldn’t eliminate any of the scenarios. U.S. Census Bureau identifcation card ankles was tightly wrapped, but the tape dangled from the tape, near his right ear. around his wrists was loose and full of he hiStory of Clay Coun- And scrawled across the man’s chest, in kinks. Stranger still, a separate strip of ty is soaked in blood. Violence ink from a black felt-tip pen, were three tape ran over the top of Sparkman’s head, T roiled this remote corner of giant letters: F E D. securing his eyeglasses to his face. Appalachia in the late 19th The man was slumped forward, his Waving fashlights, Wilson and the century, fueled by grisly feuds between feet touching the ground, a noose of trooper who’d arrived with Weaver rival families. The hostility between white nylon rope around his neck. The scoured the scene. About 10 feet from the wealthy and infuential clans—the rope had been tossed over the branch the body, they found three red rags Bakers versus the Howards, the Phil- directly above him, wrapped around a matching the one in Sparkman’s mouth. pots versus the Griffins, the Garrards nearby tree, and tied of on a third tree. They also discovered a short length of versus the Whites—spanned decades He was wearing only socks. rope, apparently cut from the one used and spawned national headlines. “It is a The state trooper ran the license plate to hang him. The pair searched for a strange, bloody story, this of Clay Coun- on the red Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck. cutting instrument, but didn’t fnd one. ty’s two recent feuds,” read a New York The name matched the one on the ID Whoever was responsible for Spark- Times report published on November 26, card: William Sparkman Jr. He was 51 man’s death must have ditched it in the 1899. “Its ferocity, barbarity, and cruelty years old and lived 40 miles away in Lon- surrounding woods or taken it away. are appalling.” don, the seat of nearby Laurel County. Wilson pulled out a pad and pen. He The county’s reputation for law- The trooper took a close look at the noted that there was excess rope where lessness continued into the 1900s.

the atlantic march 2013 71 Assassinations were common, espe- Clay County is full of hollows, and neaRly cially around election time. Newspapers described the place as a cloistered hive eveRybody seems to have a stoRy about of bloodshed, a place that didn’t take wandeRing into one and ending up staRing kindly to the prying eyes of journalists or detectives. The violence ebbed in the down the baRRel of a Rifle. some desCRibe the 1940s, however, and a coal boom soon way of life in the hollows as little Changed brought the region a degree of prosperity. oveR the past Couple CentuRies. It didn’t last. The coal mines were largely stripped bare by the mid-’80s. By then, marijuana had supplanted coal as the on a darkened road that climbs up and region’s most notable export. Eastern down steep hills, and you come across Kentucky had long been known as a ha- people who are quick to dismiss politi- ven for moonshiners, so producing pot cians and authority figures as “crooks” was a natural next step. According to one and “liars.” Their resistance to authority estimate, by 1989, perhaps 40 percent dates back centuries, to when illegally of the county’s residents were growing distilling whiskey was big business and marijuana. Most of the crop was being eluding federal agents was a crucial part cultivated in the Daniel Boone National of the enterprise. The vigilantism that Forest, where farmers reportedly booby- reigned centuries ago has no doubt faded, trapped their pot patches using boards but some people haven’t moved on. studded with rusty nails and fshing lines If you walk up Arnetts Fork Road to strung with sharp hooks. the frst house after the cemetery, you’ll When details of Sparkman’s death fnd a wiry 59-year-old man named Elzie exploded in the media, Clay Wagers, who keeps a semiautomatic rife County was thrust back into under his mattress. “That’s the answer tor at the Flaming arrow Scout reservation in central the spotlight; the story led of Florida. Sparkman spent much of his career with chil- to a lot of problems,” Wagers says in a The Rachel Maddow Show on dren, as a scout leader and later as an educator. slow drawl, as he shows of his weapon. September 23, received nation- He doesn’t trust the local authorities or wide newspaper coverage, and politicians. “When you got a bunch of drew breathless commen- crooks and you can’t get justice, there’s tary from bloggers and talking heads. badges—concluding, in the words of Ed- ways of getting justice.” Suspicion that Sparkman had been mund Shelby, the editor of The Manches- Communities like the one Wagers slain because of his afliation with the ter Enterprise, “that antigovernment types lives in, built along a dead-end road government fueled the coverage. Anti- got ahold of him and did some nasties.” tucked into a wooded valley, are known government sentiment was on the rise, Despite Clay County’s violent histo- as hollows—pronounced “hollers.” Clay and the Tea Party movement was fast ry, murders are rare there now; only six County is full of hollows, and nearly gaining momentum. President Obama have been recorded since 2006. Poverty every body seems to have a story about had been in office eight months, and is a far more dire problem. Clay is peren- wandering into one and ending up star- Glenn Beck had recently told his follow- nially one of the poorest counties in Ken- ing down the barrel of a rifle. Some ers, “The time for silent dissent has long tucky. The area’s biggest employers are describe the way of life in the hollows passed.” Five months before the hang- the school system, the city hospital, and as little changed over the past couple ing, a Department of Homeland Securi- a nearby federal prison. There are no centuries. ty report titled “Rightwing Extremism” large factories, only a Walmart. Per cap- Jimmy Lyttle, formerly a Clay Coun- had warned of the growing potential of ita income is $12,500, and 45 percent of ty magistrate and the owner of Jimbo’s violence from domestic fringe groups. the county’s residents receive Medicaid. Four-Lane Tobacco, put it this way: In Manchester, the county seat and The 21,730 people living in Clay “Once you go east of I-75,” the inter state the sleepy five-stoplight hub of Clay County are predominantly white that lies 20 miles west of Man chester, County, locals debated the case in tobac- (94 percent) and predominantly Repub- “there’s two things they don’t like: change co stores and pawn shops, in the smatter- lican (84 percent), but you don’t find and strangers.” ing of fast-food restaurants, and at the much passion for politics. Tea Party Huddle House, a greasy spoon where a groups have sprouted up in several other 11 p.m., country-fried steak goes for $7.29. Some parts of Kentucky, but are absent in this satuRday, septembeR 12, 2009 suspected that Sparkman had stumbled one. Politicians are largely seen by the upon a pot patch or a methamphetamine destitute as lacking the ability or the will he night was pitch-black. mill and had been rubbed out by drug to reverse their plight. With the lights of their police dealers. Others thought he might have Nonetheless, outside the county seat, T cruisers illuminating the just knocked on the wrong door in a place sentiments toward political authorities woods, Donald Wilson and where people don’t welcome strang- tend to have a rough edge. Head east from the other investigators walked circles

ers, especially those with government Manchester toward Hoskins Cemetery, around the body, searching up to 300 feet BSa GulF ridGe council,

72 march 2013 the atlantic • the site of Sparkman’s hanging. red rags were found scattered around the body; a syringe and an empty vial lay nearby. away for additional evidence. Nothing. driveway was empty, and there was no had leaked out of Sparkman’s ear, Rolf By the time Wilson helped the coroner sign of forced entry. concluded, was the result of insect infes- cut down Sparkman’s corpse, it was Wilson opened the front door and tation. She detected traces of red fbers nearly midnight. Wilson peered through stepped inside. Cobwebs clung to walls stuck to the duct tape that had bound the windows of Sparkman’s truck and and corners, and a thick layer of dust Sparkman’s wrists and ankles. The lack saw evidence that it had been ransacked. covered parts of the foor and shelving. of bruising around the taped areas led Papers were scattered throughout the Clothes were strewn about the master Rolf to believe that Sparkman had not vehicle, the glove box and console were bedroom. Though the house was untidy, struggled against the bindings. That open, the passenger seatback was lean- there was no indication that a struggle was significant. It meant that he was ing forward. The investigators opted to had taken place. Wilson and the others already dead or unconscious before he wait until morning to search the interior; moved through the house methodically. was bound; or he had died accidentally the night was too dark, and they didn’t In the kitchen, they found a Jack Russell from autoerotic asphyxiation; or he had have the proper equipment. While the terrier and several bags of dog food. A deliberately killed himself. men waited for a tow truck, Atkin found newish-looking printer sat on the kitch- Rolf noticed one other oddity. Spark- the keys to Sparkman’s vehicle on the en table, with cords attached, but there man’s colon had apparently been ground underneath it. was no computer. cleansed with an enema—a possible Soon after the investigators returned The time was nearing 8 a.m. when indicator of homosexual activity. She to their base in London, Atkin called they left. Wilson, who’d been awake for subsequently ordered a rape kit. Nextel, hoping the telecommunications 24 hours, returned to the crime scene At 8 o’clock the next morning, Mon- company could pinpoint the location of alone, hoping daylight would reveal ad- day, September 14, Wilson called the Sparkman’s phone. No luck. A Nextel ditional clues. His search, again, turned FBI’s regional ofce in London and set rep said the phone was either turned of up empty. up a meeting. Since Sparkman seemed or out of service. At about the same time, roughly to have been targeted because of his Armed with a search warrant, Wil- 100 miles north, a forensic pathologist government affiliation, Wilson knew son and three fellow ofcers arrived at was performing an autopsy on Spark- the FBI would want a piece of the case. Sparkman’s modest white ranch house man at the state police’s central lab, in Speaking to Special Agent Tim Briggs, at about 6:20 a.m. The house, surround- Frankfort. The pathologist, Cristin Rolf, Wilson described the condition of Spark- ed by trees, sits beside a sloping road determined the preliminary cause of man’s body and emphasized the letters that runs past three other houses. Its death to be asphyxiation. The blood that scrawled on his chest. Briggs was pissed.

the atlantic march 2013 73 He made clear that Wilson should not the pathologist noticed one otheR oddity. have waited two days before contacting him. The FBI immediately opened a spaRkman’s colon had appaRently been cleansed joint investigation with the state troop- with an enema. she ordered a Rape kit. ers and requested assistance from its evidence-recovery unit in Louisville. After the meeting, Wilson drove to knife and a pair of black cargo pants wood and how to make tea out of dande- the lab in Frankfort to drop of evidence, in Josh’s old bedroom. When they in- lions and pine needles. Sparkman rose which included Sparkman’s clothes, the spected the pants, they detected what rapidly through the scouting ranks and scraps of rag and rope from the ground, appeared to be the same red fbers seen became an Eagle Scout at age 16, just and the duct tape from Sparkman’s body. in Sparkman’s truck. The agents also dis- three years after joining. For capturing fngerprints, few surfaces covered a large syringe with an unknown “He was very eager to achieve what- are more reliable than tape. But the substance on the plunger. None of these ever was out there that was achievable,” tests came back negative. Whoever was items alone constituted a smoking gun, says Chuck Cooper, his Boy Scout troop responsible for Sparkman’s death appar- but taken together, they began to tell a leader in the 1970s and ’80s. “He had a ently had been careful enough to wear story. Wilson would soon fnd out that thirst for knowledge. He was sharp. He gloves. Josh was a misfit who’d had a rocky had an inquiring mind.” Wilson received a phone call from relationship with his father. A high- Sparkman’s family was not surprised Sergeant Atkin the following morning. school dropout, he’d fallen in with the when, after brief stints at Vanderbilt Sparkman’s 20-year-old son, Josh, had wrong crowd as a teen and, according University and the University of South shown up at the state police’s London to the FBI, had had trouble with drugs. Florida, he decided to become a pro- post with several documents, and his His clothing refected his rebelliousness; fessional scout. He went on to oversee demeanor had struck the ofcers as odd. one of his shirts was emblazoned with scouting programs in several Florida He was unnervingly calm and spoke in the words Psycho Path. Those close to counties. a flat, emotionless voice. Among the Sparkman knew that he had lost control Throughout this period, Sparkman documents he turned over was a “just in of Josh, who was notorious for wrecking showed little interest in dating. The case” letter written by his father, which cars and screaming at his father. Boy Scouts were his life. While he was Josh had found buried in a fling cabinet. Four days after Sparkman’s body was in the process of adopting Josh, Spark- William Sparkman had been diagnosed found, Wilson had his first person of man was promoted to assistant direc- with non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2007, interest. tor of the Order of the Arrow, the Boy but had been cancer-free for the past Scouts’ national honor society. He year. The letter spelled out what Josh Parkman adoPted Josh moved near the Boy Scouts’ national needed to do with the family’s fnances if in 1991. Josh was 2 years old at headquarters, in Irving, Texas, and f- the elder Sparkman passed away. While S the time and had been living nalized his adoption of Josh soon after. meeting with Atkin, Josh asked whether with a foster family in Orlando, The following year, 1993, Sparkman ac- Sparkman’s gun had been found. He Florida. Sparkman didn’t fit the mold cepted a district- executive position in couldn’t recall the make, but he was cer- of the typical adoptive parent. He was Lexington, Kentucky, and relocated to tain it was a .22-caliber pistol. His father 33 and single, a Boy Scout director sta- London, about 75 miles south. had been no gun afcionado, but said one tioned in Texas. People close to Spark- Boasting quality schools and a bu- never knew who or what he might run man were surprised when he told them colic charm, London must have seemed into in Clay County’s backwoods. Josh he wanted to adopt. He just wanted a like an ideal place to raise a child. But said Sparkman had kept the gun in his child, he said, and was confident his life with Josh didn’t go as planned. After truck. experience with the Boy Scouts primed Sparkman was found dead, his mother That afternoon, FBI agents scoured him to be a dad. He didn’t expand on the and others closest to him immediately the truck. They found a laptop brief- reasons. suspected Josh or his pals. She soon case, but no laptop. Also missing were The Boy Scouts were central to found out that Sparkman had made Sparkman’s gun, wallet, and phone. The Sparkman’s life. The oldest of three Josh a benefciary of one of his two life- agents found his credit-card holder, but boys, he grew up in a middle-class insurance policies. Sparkman had laid the cards were gone. They scanned the neighborhood in Mulberry, a tiny town this out in his “just in case” letter. Josh, truck interior with a light used to locate in central Florida. His mother, Henrie, in other words, had a motive. microscopic evidence. No blood or other was a high-school principal, and his dad, bodily fuids were found. The dashboard Billy, worked as an executive at a large 12:55 p.m., and steering wheel held traces of red f- furniture chain. Sparkman excelled in thuRsday, septembeR 17, 2009 bers, indicating that the surfaces had school, but scouting was his passion. been wiped down to eliminate finger- “Bill really eats this scout stuf up,” his ilson’s colleague, prints. The fbers appeared to match the father would say. Sparkman devoured Detective Doug Boyd, red rags found at the scene. books devoted to such topics as coin W hopped into his cruiser Federal agents descended on Spark- collecting and compass use. He loved and set out for Cooke- man’s house the next morning. Combing the hands-on training as well, learning ville, Tennessee, a bustling city where through it, they discovered a fxed-blade such skills as how to make fre with wet Josh was living, about 125 miles

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KNOPF AAKnopf.com • Facebook.com/DavidGoldhill southwest of London. Josh had told bring along a government-issued laptop, up all her vacation days while her 8-year- investigators he worked at a fast-food a personal laptop, and his pistol, which old son, Zachary, was hospitalized with chain called Church’s Chicken. In the he kept in a hard-plastic case in the truck. bleeding ulcers. Around Christmas, he week before his father was found, he Lowell admitted that he was uncom- developed strep throat, and doctors told them, he had worked the closing fortable the frst time he accompanied wanted to take his tonsils out. It pained shift every day but September 12, the day Sparkman— they had little in common— Johnson not to be able to stay home and Sparkman’s body was discovered. Josh but their bond grew over time. Asked take care of him. The moment Sparkman said that his car had broken down ear- about Sparkman’s romantic life, Lowell heard about her predicament, he solved lier in the week and he was dependent said they never discussed it. Lowell, in it. “I gave you 10 days”—vacation he’d on friends to get around. He hadn’t left fact, didn’t know of his ever dating, but accrued but hadn’t used—“so you don’t Cookeville that entire week. he knew Sparkman had a strained rela- have to worry about that anymore,” he Boyd was dispatched to Tennessee tionship with Josh. told her. with a specifc order: suss out Josh’s alibi. In the fnal minutes of the interview, “I never asked him for days … He just His frst stop was Church’s Chicken. Lowell said he’d last accompanied insisted,” Johnson would say later. “That There, Josh’s manager confirmed that Sparkman on September 5, exactly a explains what kind of person he was. He the young man had worked that week, week before he was found dead. On was a real giving person, a compassion- but not on September 12. She gave September 8, Lowell missed a call from ate person.” Boyd a time sheet, which listed Josh as Sparkman, who didn’t leave a message; Nonetheless, the school’s teachers working from 7:08 p.m. until 11:56 p.m. Lowell never spoke to him again. would sometimes discuss among them- on September 10, and 4:31 p.m. until The interview was revealing, but it selves how “unusual” he was. Social- 10:56 p.m. on September 11. brought the investigators no closer to izing with adults didn’t seem to come Boyd drove to Josh’s house and understanding what had happened. naturally to him. Sparkman could appear spoke with his roommate and close They didn’t fully grasp Lowell’s relation- distant and, at times, be quite blunt, the friend, Gracie Thomas, age 21. Josh and ship with Sparkman, and scheduled him kind of person around whom others trod Gracie had been inseparable since they for a polygraph. They could not have carefully, so as not to say the wrong thing. had frst met a decade earlier through known that Lowell knew more than he He was also intensely private. Even the a church group. She treated him like a was letting on. A lot more. teachers who worked closely with him younger brother. Gracie confrmed to didn’t know much about his personal Boyd that Josh’s green Chevy was un- parkman had few friends life. Sparkman never spoke about dat- drivable. She said she’d seen him every before he moved to Kentucky, ing, and his colleagues never knew him day that week. S and once there, he didn’t go to have any romantic partner. Around the time Boyd was interview- out of his way to make any new Outside of work, Sparkman was a ing Gracie, a skinny 20-year-old named ones. At Josh’s Little League baseball homebody. He liked to surf the Web and Lowell Adams walked into the state- games, he would sit by himself in a fold- play Sudoku. He had a serious coin col- police station in London. A day earlier, ing chair near left field, recording his lection, and various pieces of Star Trek investigators had stopped by his house son’s every at-bat in a notepad. He would memorabilia. He delighted in playing and told his mother they wished to speak greet the other parents but never speak with his dog, Jack. He spent Friday eve- with him about Sparkman’s death. Low- with them for very long. nings on the phone with his mother, the ell’s name was mentioned in the letter Shortly after Josh started school, two of them watching the TV game show that Josh had found: Sparkman had listed Sparkman resigned from his Boy Scout Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? him as the benefciary of his second insur- post and later started volunteering at his When Sparkman did go out to eat, ance policy. Sparkman wrote that Lowell son’s elementary school. He was deter- he gravitated to budget-friendly places sometimes accompanied him while he mined to help Josh, who was struggling like Applebee’s and Cracker Barrel. performed his census duties, “for secu- in the classroom, succeed. This devotion Money was always tight in the Spark- rity purposes.” did not go unnoticed. “It seemed his man household. Josh was a huge fnan- Lowell met with Sergeant Atkin, one whole heart was into Josh,” says Beverly cial drain. After he left school he got his of Atkin’s detectives, and an FBI agent Johnson, who had a son in the same class. GED, but he could never hold down a in a cramped, cream-colored ofce. He Sparkman was eventually offered job, and was constantly begging his dad told the investigators that he and Josh a job at Johnson Elementary School as to replace his wrecked vehicles. Spark- had been good friends until 10th grade, an instructional assistant, a position he man’s mother occasionally sent him when they began to drift apart. William held for nine years. The job paid a pit- cash to help him make ends meet. (He Sparkman became a friend of the fam- tance, but it gave Sparkman the oppor- always paid her back, she says.) ily and occasionally tutored Lowell in tunity to work with kids, which he loved. In 2005, Sparkman started supple- math. For the past two years, Sparkman He was always upbeat and eager to help menting his income by working part- had paid him $7.50 an hour, in cash, for students, who adored him. Sparkman time for the Census Bureau. His territory security and navigational help while was also a model colleague—prompt, included several rural counties in east- carrying out his census work—a practice proper, and willing to do anything for a ern Kentucky, including Clay. One of that the FBI agent knew was a violation fellow teacher. Sparkman’s closest colleagues at John- of official census policy. Lowell went One year, Beverly Johnson, who also son Elementary, a retired state trooper on to say that Sparkman would always worked as an instructional assistant, used named Gilbert Acciardo, repeatedly

76 march 2013 the atlantic THE FOUNDERS TRIUMPHS OF THE GREAT THE EAGLE AND FINANCE EXPERIENCE PERSUASION UNBOWED How Hamilton, Gallatin, The Men of the Harvard Reinventing Free Markets Poland and the Poles in the and Other Immigrants Grant Study since the Depression Second World War Forged a New Economy GEORGE E. VAILLANT ANGUS BURGIN HALIK KOCHANSKI THOMAS K. MCCRAW ★ ★ “In case after case, the magic An American Spectator An Economist Best Book, 2012 ★ A Wall Street Journal Gift Pick, 2012 Best Nonﬁ ction Book, 2012 formula is capacity for “Until Halik Kochanski’s The intimacy combined with “A concise account of how Eagle Unbowed nobody had “Well told by McCraw are persistence, discipline, order F.A. Hayek and later Milton written a comprehensive the familiar stories of and dependability . . . The big Friedman disseminated the English-language history Hamilton’s consolidation finding is that you can teach virtues of free markets and of Poland at war . . . Readers and funding of the public an old dog new tricks. enlivened conservatism reared on Western accounts debt, of his incessant fight- The men kept changing all in Britain and the United of a war between good and ing with Thomas Jefferson, the way through, even in States, culminating in evil may be shocked to and of his final duel with their 80s and 90s.” the triumphs of Margaret learn that for Poles the

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But law-enforcement fgures in Acciardo added. “You could tell that he Clay County remained skeptical. “Typi- wasn’t taking me seriously.” cal murders in this area, you get shot. They throw you over the hill,” Sheriff midday, the interview, she kept getting lost in Kevin Johnson would say later. “There’s ThuRsday, sepTembeR 17, 2009 elaborate and often incomprehensible not this kind of ‘I’m going to send you a tangents. He had experience dealing message’ type thing.” phone rang at the Man- with people like Moore. Sometimes, they When Manchester Police Chief Jef chester Police Department. want to help a little too much. Culver learned about Sparkman’s death, A It was Willie Jean Moore, a Then again, Robbie Collins was his frst thought was that it was tied to 46-year-old resident of Ar- known to run with a rough crowd, and he the FBI’s presence in the area. In the pre- netts Fork Road whose past arrests for had a long criminal history that included vious decade, methamphetamine and theft had made her a well-known fgure arrests for arson and illegal gun posses- prescription-drug use had skyrocketed, in law-enforcement circles. But this call sion. The 29-year-old stood just 5 feet overdoses were common, and dealers had nothing to do with any of her cases. 8 inches, but he weighed 225 pounds. were becoming more brazen. Fed up, a She told an officer that she had infor- Around his right eye was a crude tribal coalition of more than 60 churches had mation about the death of the census tattoo. When Wilson discovered that staged an antidrug march in May 2004 worker. Collins had indeed skipped town, his that drew some 3,500 people. Federal When Moore showed up at the po- interest grew. agents swooped in not long after and, lice station, Detective Wilson and an While on his way to interview one of over six years, arrested dozens of people, FBI agent were waiting. She walked Collins’s friends, Wilson was flagged including drug dealers and some of the into the small interrogation room look- down by a tow-truck driver. The driver county’s most powerful political fgures, ing haggard and talking fast. According told Wilson that a few days before Spark- on charges ranging from racketeering to police reports, Moore said Hoskins man’s body was discovered, he’d gotten and extortion to vote-rigging and drug Cemetery was a favorite hangout behind a slow-moving Toyota pickup dealing. Culver speculated that Spark- among local druggies. In recent weeks, truck and spotted what he believed to man had been killed to send a message Moore said, she had seen an SUV be- be a pair of hands, bound together, ris- to the FBI: Get out. longing to one of them, Robbie Collins, ing out of the truck bed, amid a group Wilson was still no closer to learn- parked at the cemetery. She also said of three to fve people. The driver said ing what had happened to Sparkman, Collins was acting suspiciously in the he’d even called 911 to report it. Wilson and the state police and FBI remained days before Sparkman was found dead. immediately called the emergency- tight-lipped about the case. “We’re not At 9 p.m. on September 9, she said, she dispatch line to check the complaint. A responding to any of the speculation, the saw Collins riding an ATV down Ar- rep said the driver had fled the report innuendo, or the rumors that are foating netts Fork Road, before turning of the that Tuesday evening. Wilson couldn’t around,” state-police spokesman Don road and riding through the creek bed be sure what the man saw, but he was Trosper said at the time. “The Kentucky toward the cemetery. confident it wasn’t Sparkman. One of State Police concerns itself with facts.” At 7 p.m. the next day, Moore said, Sparkman’s neighbors had reported see- Wilson did his best to tune out the Collins and a friend stopped by her ing him that Wednesday. noise. His job was to follow the evidence. house. They appeared unhinged and The next day, a confdential source Unbeknownst to him, the investigation told her they had to get out of town for a told an FBI agent that the word on the would soon take a sharp turn. while. Collins gave Moore his cellphone street was that Sparkman had been a number and asked her to call him every “rat for the feds.” Investigators knew that parkman had relished few days to let him know what the talk if such a tantalizing piece of evidence his census job. He loved explor- was around the community. Sparkman’s leaked to the media, it would act like gas- S ing different places. The posi- body was found two days later. oline on a fre. The case had just ignited in tion brought him into contact Moore’s story was intriguing, but Wil- the press after a law-enforcement ofcial with people like Mary Hibbard. A mar-

son didn’t think much of it. Throughout anonymously tipped of an Associated ried mother of two from Manchester, Police State of the KentucKy courteSy

78 march 2013 the atlantic Hibbard is a retired special-education The visit led to the discovery of a cyst cancer was in remission. He had won. teacher. She and her husband, Greg, on the side of his neck. He was immedi- With his cancer retreating and his di- are devout Baptists; Mary doesn’t go ately sent to the hospital. The diagnosis ploma in hand, he must have been brim- anywhere without her EvangeCube, his doctors feared came 45 days later: ming with confdence. an evangelism tool fashioned after a Sparkman had Stage 3 non-Hodgkin’s Rubik’s Cube that presents the story of lymphoma. It was early November 2007. midday, Jesus Christ in pictures—to “introduce He was weeks away from graduating. monday, sepTembeR 28, 2009 people to Christ who may not know Sparkman was shaken by the diagno- him,” she says. When Sparkman drove sis but not devastated by it. In a conver- owell adams was seat- up the Hibbards’ steep driveway in the sation with a colleague later that day, he ed in the FBI office in Lon- spring of 2009, he was met by their two revealed that he had cancer by explain- L don, awaiting the start of a powerful boxers, Bocephus and Boo- ing that he was planning to write a book— polygraph test. Ten days had boo. Sparkman honked the horn, and How My Big Toe Saved My Life. passed since his initial police interview. out came Mary. He remained in the seat Sparkman started chemotherapy that He had decided to come clean. of his pickup truck during the interview, month. The sessions stretched across During the pre-test interview, Lowell recording her answers on his computer. four months, stripping him of his hair told the polygrapher that he wanted to After a few minutes, Mary started ask- and much of his strength. Through it all, correct his earlier statement. Then he ing the questions. “Do you know Jesus?” Sparkman continued working at Josh’s dropped a bomb: Sparkman had spoken she asked. old school, as a substitute teacher and with him several times about killing him- Religion is woven deeply into the an after-school stafer. self. In fact, on the Saturday before he social fabric in these parts. Clay County Sparkman vowed not to let the can- was found dead, Sparkman told Lowell has no movie theaters and only a hand- cer derail his pursuit of a college degree, that he was going to do it that Wednes- ful of bars, but more than 100 churches. and in December 2007, he graduated day. In August, Lowell explained, Spark- For many people, life revolves around with a bachelor’s of science in math- man had told him that his cancer had re- the church. It’s where weekends are ematics education. His resilience in- turned, the experimental drugs were not spent, where lifelong friendships are spired the staf at Western Governors working, and he didn’t expect to make forged, where husbands- to-be meet so deeply that they chose him to be a it beyond October. Sparkman said he their brides. Mailboxes are emblazoned commencement speaker. But by the wanted to commit suicide to spare him- with Christian-themed signs: Be still time the ceremony rolled around in self the agony of dying from cancer. and know that i am God. Sparkman February 2008, Sparkman’s blood-cell Lowell had a lot more to say. Spark- told Hibbard he was a Christian. A for- count was so low that his doctors told man had told him he’d already selected a mer altar boy, he was a member of a him he couldn’t safely fy. Determined place in the woods in Clay County to do Methodist church in London. to receive his diploma in person, Spark- the deed. He had it all planned out. He Ultimately, however, Sparkman be- man decided he’d drive the 1,735 miles intended to hang himself by throwing lieved education was his true calling. to Salt Lake City. a rope around a tree, attaching cinder He longed to become a full-time teacher. At eight and a half minutes, Spark- blocks to his feet, and hurling himself Over the course of his nine years in the man’s speech was the longest of the day. down a hill. He was going to tie his hands Laurel County School System, he had “I wanted to share a little about the road I behind his back to give the appearance seen several other instructional assis- took to get here today,” Sparkman began. that someone had murdered him. To tants gain full-time positions after re- He told of his Boy Scout days, his move to further confuse investigators, he was turning to school to get teaching degrees. Kentucky, his experience working in the going to dispose of his gun and laptop, With a son to care for and bills to pay, school system, and of course, his battle and wipe down his truck to eliminate Sparkman didn’t think he’d ever get the with cancer. The speech was folksy and fngerprints. opportunity to do the same. But then he funny and poignant. “I’d been knocked Lowell continued: Sparkman told learned about Western Governors Uni- down, but I refused to be knocked out,” him he’d already practiced asphyxiat- versity, an online college with ofces in Sparkman said. “Those brick walls will ing himself by putting a bag over his Salt Lake City, Utah, and in the summer appear from time to time in your career. head. Sparkman wasn’t sure he could of 2005, he enrolled. Do not let them stop you. There are no pull every thing off on his own, so he Two years later, Sparkman went to failures, just teaching moments.” asked Lowell to help. Lowell refused. see his doctor for an ingrown toenail. That April, Sparkman found out his On that Saturday, Sparkman asked Lowell to get drunk with him later in The dRiveR Told Wilson ThaT a feW days befoRe the day, one last hurrah. Sparkman picked up a case of Budweiser, but Low- The body Was discoveRed, he’d goTTen behind ell turned him down, saying he had to a sloW-moving ToyoTa pickup TRuck and work the next day. He was concerned that people might think either that he spoTTed WhaT he believed To be a paiR of hands, was “in on it” or that they were engaged bound TogeTher, Rising ouT of The TRuck bed, in homosexual activity, which, he emphasized, was not the case. amid a gRoup of ThRee To five people. Lowell was done. The polygraph test

the atlantic march 2013 79 was postponed; it could render inaccu- The invesTigaToRs didn’T fully gRasp lowell’s rate results after such an extended pre- interview. The polygrapher wrote out RelaTionship wiTh spaRkman, and scheduled Lowell’s statement on white computer him foR a polygRaph. They could noT paper. At the bottom of the three-page note, Lowell signed his name and added have known ThaT lowell knew moRe Than he a one-line mea culpa: “I have read this was leTTing on. a loT moRe. sorry I didn’t tell this before.” Wilson learned about Lowell’s statement the next morning in a meeting at enough. A few months after Josh’s house upside down. It seemed Sparkman had the FBI ofce. From the outside, it may arrest ended, Sparkman told him it was scrawled F E D on himself. have been hard to reconcile the cancer- time he moved out. Lowell’s account was bolstered by beating, college-graduating Spark- After Josh moved in with Gracie two other discoveries revealed at the man with the despondent, apparently Thomas in the summer of 2009, she of- meeting: Rolf, the forensic pathologist, cancer-stricken Sparkman whom Lowell ten heard him berating his dad over the backed of from her original statement had described. But Lowell’s account ft phone. For years, Gracie had watched that Sparkman’s colon appeared to have many of case’s particulars. What’s more, Josh walk all over his father. Sparkman been cleansed; instead, she said, it was Lowell didn’t describe every last detail. still hadn’t cut him off; he regularly simply empty. And the toxicology report That would have aroused suspicion. Had added money to Josh’s prepaid Walmart showed no sign of any drug that would Lowell gotten it exactly right, Wilson credit card. If Sparkman hadn’t given up render Sparkman unconscious. would have placed him at the scene. on Josh by now, he was never going to. A few days after the meeting, Wil- Lowell took the polygraph test eight “Bill lived and breathed for Sparky,” says son brought Sparkman’s glasses to the days later. He passed. Gracie’s mom, Candice Smith, referring Walmart in London and found out that The evidence pointing to suicide to Josh by his nickname. they were made to correct 20/400 vision. was mounting, but Wilson still couldn’t Now it made sense: Sparkman wouldn’t reach a definitive conclusion. There 10:30 a.m., have been able to pull it all of without was still too much physical evidence ThuRsday, ocTobeR 8, 2009 his glasses. He had taped them on for a that couldn’t be explained: the letters simple reason: to allow him to see. on his chest, the small length of rope, t a meeting at the Wilson sensed that the investiga- the missing knife or other cutting in- state-police headquarters, tion was nearing its end. On October 22, strument. And there was another mys- A in Frankfort, Emily Craig Josh Sparkman and Robbie Collins tery: If it was suicide, how did he pull addressed Wilson and the were called in to take polygraph tests. it of? other investigators. A renowned foren- They both passed. (Collins could not sic anthropologist, Craig had been asked be reached for this story. Neither Josh hen the glow of to review the case. She started by sug- nor Lowell returned requests for com- his graduation and his gesting that the time of death, given the ment.) No link was found between the W cancer triumph faded, contents of Sparkman’s stomach and the fbers on Josh’s pants and the red rags at Sparkman was still bal- condition of his body, could have been the scene. In Collins’s case, cellphone ancing three low-paying jobs: substitute as early as Wednesday night. She said records confrmed that he was nowhere teacher, after-school stafer, and census a fractured bone in his neck was heal- near Hoskins Cemetery the week Spark- taker. His main priority became finding, a sign that the injury had occurred man vanished. The DNA results would ing a full-time teaching job. Sparkman in the past and had nothing to do with come in not long after. The red rags con- kept a close eye on the openings post- his death. This supported Lowell’s claim tained only Sparkman’s DNA, and the ed on the Laurel County Schools Web that Sparkman had practiced sufocating small piece of rope found on the ground site. Months passed, and he was still himself. contained a partial DNA profle that also struggling to fnd work. When a math- Craig’s third fnding was by far the was consistent with Sparkman’s. teacher position opened up at a high most significant. While studying the On October 26, the lead investiga- school near his house, Sparkman told lettering on Sparkman’s chest, Craig, tors held one fnal meeting. At this point, his colleagues how badly he wanted it. who is also a professional illustrator, was the group acknowledged, all leads had When he learned that the job had gone struck by a mark at the top of the letter been exhausted. The evidence pointed to someone else, he didn’t hide his dis- E. It looked to her to be what illustrators to only one scenario: Sparkman had appointment. refer to as a “bead,” a drop of ink that killed himself, but staged the scene to Things weren’t going particularly appears at the end of any marker stroke create the appearance that he was mur- well at home, either. According to court on a nonporous surface. At the bottom dered. The tape around his wrists and documents, in August 2008, Josh was of the letter, she noticed that the black ankles, the rag in his mouth, the cen- arrested for receiving a stolen gun from ink was evenly dispersed, which sig- sus ID taped to his head, the letters on a friend. A judge sentenced him to six nals the start of a stroke. The other let- his chest—it was all a ruse. Sparkman months’ house arrest and had him out- ters had the same features. This, Craig wanted the police to believe he was ftted with an electronic ankle bracelet. determined, indicated that the letters murdered because he worked for the Sparkman decided he had finally had on Sparkman’s chest had been drawn government. But why?

80 march 2013 the atlantic Lowell had claimed that Sparkman “all Mr. Sparkman had to do at any time Sparkman waved to Wilder. Wilder told him he wanted to kill himself rather was stand up.” waved back. than die from cancer. But Sparkman’s The case proved to be far less sinister It was the last time Bill Sparkman was two cancer doctors contradicted that than the early theories amplifed by the seen alive. theory. In interviews with the FBI, they press. There were no antigovernment Later that day, according to the po- said Sparkman was told in April 2008 zealots. No murderous drug trafckers. lice, he drove to Clay County and turned that his cancer was in remission. In fact, No bloodthirsty backwoodsmen. down Arnetts Fork Road. He had already on his last visit, on August 13 of that year, After the investigation was closed, ditched his census laptop and pistol, and his chemotherapy port was taken out. Sparkman’s house was seized, and Josh he had already written F E D on his chest. The doctors gave Sparkman no reason to seemed to drop out of sight. Because In his vehicle was a long white rope, fve believe his cancer had returned. Sparkman’s death was ruled a suicide, red rags, possibly a small blade, and Without a suicide note, determining the insurance money was never paid out. strips of gray duct tape, just enough for with certainty why someone took his One person who was not at all sur- the job. Sparkman crossed the creek or her own life is impossible. At least prised by the outcome of the case was and parked his truck in the clearing. He one person close to Sparkman thinks Charles House, the president of the Clay pulled out the rope and carried it to a he might have been struggling with his County Genealogical and Historical So- tree at the opposite edge of the clearing, sexuality. Wilson concluded that fnan- ciety. An author and biographer, House his socks making the faintest of impres- cial problems pushed him over the edge. has spent more than a decade research- sions on the dirt and leaves. Sparkman had had a hard time keeping ing Clay County’s past and people. Now, according to the police, his up with his house payments, and his “This place has had lots and lots of mur- Boy Scout training kicked in. He tossed home was in foreclosure. His fnances ders throughout its history, going back the rope over a branch about 15 feet up, were in such disarray, he had started to the blood feuds in the 1800s and even wrapped it around the trunk of a nearby taking out credit cards to pay of other up until the 1970s,” House says. “But I tree, and then tied it of at the base of a cards, compounding his debt. At the don’t think there’s ever been a single third tree. He tied the other end into a time of his death, Sparkman owed more case of an outsider coming in here and noose, and cut of the loose end with a than $50,000, according to the FBI. getting whacked.” He told the reporters knife or a sharp rock that he chucked into Then there were the life-insurance who called him—and call they did, from the dense woods. Then, he likely walked policies, payable to Josh and Lowell. places as far away as France—that the back to the truck and wiped down the Each was valued at $300,000, and each media were sensationalizing the case steering wheel and dashboard with one went into efect in 2009. Both policies by recycling old stereotypes about the of the rags. He stripped of his polo shirt, were for accidental death only; they region. “We’re not so backward that pants, and underwear and placed them wouldn’t pay out for a suicide. we get angry about this stuf anymore, neatly in the truck bed. Naked except The investigators believed Spark- because it’s been going on since the for his socks, he tiptoed back to the tree. man’s inability to fnd a full-time teach- 1960s,” says House. “We’re just more Holding a rag in each hand, he care- ing job had left him increasingly de- amused than angry.” fully wrapped his ankles together with spondent. Josh couldn’t hold down a the tape, making sure his fngers never job, and was in and out of trouble with n September 8, four touched the adhesive. He then took of the law. The future seemed grim for days before he was found his glasses, placed a strip of tape over his Bill and his boy. Wilson believed that O dead, Bill Sparkman head, and secured them onto his face. Sparkman saw his dramatic fnal act as called Sara Upchurch, his He stufed a rag into his mouth, then ran the only way to spare his son a lifetime lead feld representative at the Census a strip of tape around his head. Grabbing of fnancial hardship. Bureau. Sparkman told her he planned another rag, he bound his wrists togeth- The investigators called a press con- to spend the next two days doing cen- er with the fnal piece of tape by rolling ference for November 24. At 2 p.m. that sus runs in Clay County and nearby one around the other. day, in a conference room at the state- Knox County. He didn’t specify exactly Everything was in place. But Spark- police lab in Frankfort, Captain Lisa where he was going, and Upchurch had man realized the rope was too long. He Rudzinski ticked of the evidence point- no reason to ask. Sparkman was his hopped over to the second tree, loos- ing to suicide. Wilson, standing ramrod- usual chipper self. He told Upchurch ened the tape around his wrists, untied straight, looked on. Rudzinski took her there were several festivals and fam- the knot, and then retied it with less time while discussing the most combus- ily reunions going on in town over the slack. Satisfed with the new length, he tible element of the case, the three let- weekend. Then they exchanged good- hopped back to the noose and slid his ters scrawled on Sparkman’s chest. With byes and hung up. head inside. He steadied himself. And a black marker, she drew each letter on At about noon the next day, Linda then, according to the police, Bill Spark- a dry-erase board, from the bottom up, Wilder stepped out of her house to walk man took one fnal breath and let his feet emphasizing the bead at the top of each her dog and saw Sparkman’s red truck go out from under him. one. Describing Sparkman’s final mo- heading down the street. Wilder lived ments, Rudzinski didn’t mince words. at the bottom of Sparkman’s block. In Rich Schapiro is a staf writer at The She pointed out that his body was in 16 years, they had spoken infrequently; New York Daily News and an adjunct contact with the ground almost to his the bulk of their contact came via ca- professor at the Columbia University knees. To have survived, Rudzinski said, sual waves. This time was no diferent. Graduate School of Journalism.

the atlantic march 2013 81 the angst and ire of teenagers is finding new, like Twitter, Facebook requires its users to sign up with sometimes dangerous expression online— their real names. Drama Queen easily got around this precipitating threats, fights, and a scourge of rule, however, by setting up Let’s Start Drama with a harassment that parents and schools feel powerless specially created e-mail address that didn’t reveal her to stop. the inside story of how experts at Facebook, identity. Wrapped in her cloak of anonymity, she was computer scientists at mit, and even members free to pass along cruel gossip without personal con- of the hacker collective anonymous are hunting for sequences. She started by posting a few idle rumors, and when that gained her followers, she asked them to solutions to an increasingly tricky problem. send her private messages relaying more gossip, promising not to disclose the source. Which girl had just lost her virginity? Which boy had asked a girl to sext him a nude photo? As Drama Queen posted the tantalizing tidbits she gathered, more kids signed up to follow her exploits—a real-life version of Gossip Girl. She soon had an audience of 500, many drawn from Woodrow Wilson’s 750 students, plus a smattering from the local high school and a nearby Catholic school. How Students didn’t just message rumors to Drama Queen; they also commented in droves on her posts, from their own real Facebook accounts, or from other fake ones. As one kid wrote about Drama Queen on the Let’s Start Drama page, “She just starts mad shit and most of the time so do the ppl who comment.” to Stop Drama Queen was particularly ingenious at pitting kids against each other in contests of her own creation. She regularly posted photographs of two girls side by side, with the caption “WHOS PRETTIERRR?!” Be- low the pictures, commenters would heckle and vote. One such contest drew 109 comments over three the days. When it became clear which contestant was losing, that girl wrote that she didn’t care: “nt even tryinqq to b funny or smart.” The rival who beat her answered, “juss mad you losss ok ppl voted me ! If you really loooked better they wouldve said you but THEY DIDNT sooo sucks for you.” This exchange Bullies nearly led to blows outside of school, other students By emily Bazelon told me. And they said a fght did break out between Illustrations by Geoff Mc fetrIdGe two boys who were featured on Let’s Start Drama, in dueling photos, above the caption “Who would win in a fght?” They reportedly ended up pummeling each other of school grounds one day after classes. Melissa Robinson, who was a social worker for the Middletown Youth Services Bureau, quickly got wind of Let’s Start Drama because, she says, “it was causing tons of confict.” Robinson worked out of an ofce at n the annals of middle-school mischief, Woodrow Wilson with Justin Carbonella, the bureau’s director, the Facebook page Let’s Start Drama deserves trying to fll gaps in city services to help students stay out of an entry. The creator of the page—no one knew trouble. Their connecting suite of small rooms served as a kind her name, but everyone was sure she was a of oasis at the school: the two adults didn’t work for the princi- girl—had a diabolical knack for sowing conflict pal, so they could arbitrate confict without the threat of ofcial among students at Woodrow Wilson Middle discipline. I often saw kids stop by just to talk, and they had a lot School in Middletown, Connecticut. “Drama to say about the aggression on Let’s Start Drama and the way Queen,” as I came to think of her in the months it was spilling over into real life. “We’d go on Facebook to look I spent reporting at the school to write a book at the page, and it was pretty egregious,” Carbonella told me. about bullying, knew exactly how to use the Surfng around on Facebook, they found more anonymous vot- Internet to rile her audience. She hovered over ing pages, with names like Middletown Hos, Middletown Trash them in cyberspace like a bad fairy, with the Talk, and Middletown Too Real. Let’s Start Drama had the larg- power to needle kids into ending friendships est audience, but it had spawned about two dozen imitators. and starting feuds and fistfights. Carbonella fgured that all of these pages had to be break- In contrast with some other social networks, ing Facebook’s rules, and he was right. The site has built its I82 march 2013 the atlantic

brand by holding users to a relatively high standard of decency. when they go online comes from other kids: the hum of low- “You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user,” Facebook grade hostility, punctuated by truly damaging explosions, that requires people to pledge when they sign up. Users also agree is called cyberbullying. not to fake their identities or to post content that is hateful or What can be done about this online cruelty and combat? pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic violence. In As parents try, and sometimes fail, to keep track of their kids other words, Facebook does not style itself as the public square, online, and turn to schools for help, youth advocates like Rob- where people can say anything they want, short of libel or slan- inson and Carbonella have begun asking how much responsi- der. It’s much more like a mall, where private security guards bility falls on social-networking sites to enforce their own rules can throw you out. against bullying and harassment. What does happen when you Carbonella followed Facebook’s procedure for fling a re- fle a report with Facebook? And rather than asking the site to port, clicking through the screens that allow you to complain to delete cruel posts or pages one by one, is there a better strategy, the site about content that you think violates a rule. He clicked one that stops cyberbullying before it starts? Those questions the bubbles to report bullying and fake identity. And then he led me to the Silicon Valley headquarters of Facebook, then to waited. And waited. “It felt like putting a note in a bottle and a lab at MIT, and fnally (and improbably, I know) to the hacker throwing it into the ocean,” Carbonella said. “There was no group Anonymous. way to know if anyone was out there on the other end. For me, this wasn’t a situation where I knew which student was The people aT Facebook who decide how to wield involved and could easily give it to a school guidance coun- the site’s power when users complain about content belong selor. It was completely anonymous, so we really needed Face- to its User Operations teams. The summer after my trips to book to intervene.” But, to Carbonella’s frustration, Let’s Start Woodrow Wilson, I traveled to the company’s headquarters Drama stayed up. He fled another report. Like the frst one, it and found Dave Willner, the 27-year-old manager of content seemed to sink to the bottom of the ocean. policy, waiting for me among a cluster of couches, ready to Facebook, of course, is the giant among social networks, show me the Hate and Harassment Team in action. Its mem- with more than 1 billion users worldwide. In 2011, Consumer bers, who favor sneakers and baseball caps, scroll through the Reports published the results of a survey showing that 20 Tmil- never-ending stream of reports about bullying, harassment, lion users were American kids under the age of 18; in an up- and hate speech. (Other groups that handle reports include date the next year, it estimated that 5.6 million were under 13, the Safety Team, which patrols for suicidal content, child ex- the eligible age for an account. As a 2011 report from the Pew ploitation, and under age users; and the Authenticity Team, which looks into complaints of fake accounts.) Willner was wearing fip-fops, and I liked his blunt, clipped way of speaking. “Bullying is hard,” he told In the early days of the Internet, the danger me. “It’s slippery to defne, and it’s even harder to kids seemed to be from predatory adults. when it’s writing instead of speech. Tone of voice But it turns out that those perils are rare disappears.” He gave me an example from a recent compared with the problems that come report complaining about a status update that said from other kids. “He got her pregnant.” Who was it about? What had the poster intended to communicate? Looking at the words on the screen, Willner had no way to tell. Internet and American Life Project put it, “Facebook domi- In an attempt to impose order on a frustratingly subjective nates teen social media usage.” Ninety-three percent of kids universe, User Operations has developed one rule of thumb: if who use social-networking sites have a Facebook account. you complain to Facebook that you are being harassed or bul- (Teens and preteens are also signing up in increasing numbers lied, the site takes your word for it. “If the content is about you, for Twitter—Pew found that 16 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds and you’re not famous, we don’t try to decide whether it’s actu- say they use the site, double the rate from two years earlier.) ally mean,” Willner said. “We just take it down.” Social networking has plenty of upside for kids: it allows All other complaints, however, are treated as “third-party them to pursue quirky interests and connect with people reports” that the teams have to do their best to referee. These they’d have no way of fnding other wise. An online community include reports from parents saying their children are being can be a lifeline if, say, you’re a gender- bending 15-year-old bullied, or from advocates like Justin Carbonella. in rural Idaho or, for that matter, rural New York. But as Let’s To demonstrate how the harassment team members do Start Drama illustrates, there’s lots of ugliness, too. The 2011 their jobs, Willner introduced me to an affable young guy Pew report found that 15 percent of social-media users be- named Nick Sullivan, who had on his desk a sword-carrying tween the ages of 12 and 17 said they’d been harassed online Grim Reaper fgurine. Sullivan opened the program that he in the previous year. In 2012, Consumer Reports estimated that uses for sorting and resolving reports, which is known as the 800,000 minors on Facebook had been bullied or harassed Common Review Tool (a precursor to the tool had a better in the previous year. (Facebook questions the methodology name: the Wall of Shame). of the magazine’s survey; however, the company declined to Sullivan cycled through the complaints with striking speed, provide specifcs.) In the early days of the Internet, the pri- deciding with very little deliberation which posts and pictures mary danger to kids seemed to be from predatory adults. But came down, which stayed up, and what other action, if any, to it turns out that the perils adults pose, although they can be take. I asked him whether he would ever spend, say, 10 min- devastating, are rare. The far more common problem kids face utes on a particularly vexing report, and Willner raised his

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Six presentation on the latest version of this tool, Stern explained months after Carbonella sent his reports, the page was still up. that some of those follow-ups simply encourage reaching out I asked why. It hadn’t been set up with the user’s real name, so to the person posting the objectionable material—who typi- wasn’t it clearly in violation of Facebook’s rules? cally takes down the posts or photos if asked. After a quick search by Sullivan, the blurry photos I’d seen Dave Willner told me that Facebook did not yet, however, many times at the top of the Let’s Start Drama page appeared have an algorithm that could determine at the outset whether a on the screen. Sullivan scrolled through some recent “Who’s post was meant to harass and disturb—and could perhaps head hotter?” comparisons and clicked on the behind-the-scenes it of. This is hard. As Willner pointed out, context is everything when it comes to bullying, and context is maddeningly tricky and subjective. When I asked whether they’d rather be One man looking to create such a tool—one that catches troublesome material before it gets posted—is suspended from school or from Henry Lieberman, a computer scientist whose back- Facebook, most middle- and high-school ground is in artifcial intelligence. In November, I took students picked school. a trip to Boston to meet him at his ofce in MIT’s Me- dia Lab. Lieberman looked like an older version of the Facebook employees: he was wearing sneakers and history of the page, which the Common Review Tool allowed a baseball cap over longish gray curls. A couple years ago, a him to call up. A window opened on the right side of the screen, rash of news stories about bullying made him think back to showing that multiple reports had been made. Sullivan checked his own misery in middle school, when he was a “fat kid with to see whether the reports had failed to indicate that Let’s Start the nickname Hank the Tank.” (This is hard to imagine now, Drama was administered by a fake user profle. But that wasn’t given Lieberman’s lean frame, but I took his word for it.) As the problem: the bubbles had been clicked correctly. Yet next to a computer guy, he wondered whether cyberbullying would this history was a note indicating that future reports about the wreck social networking for teenagers in the way spam once content would be ignored. threatened to kill e-mail—through sheer overwhelming vol- We sat and stared at the screen. ume. He looked at the frustrating, sometimes fruitless process Willner broke the silence. “Someone made a mistake,” he for logging complaints, and he could see why even tech-savvy said. “This profle should have been disabled.” He leaned in adults like Carbonella would feel at a loss. He was also not im- and peered at the screen. “Actually, two diferent reps made pressed by the generic advice often doled out to young victims the same mistake, two diferent times.” of cyberbullying. “ ‘Tell an adult. Don’t let it get you down’—it’s There was another long pause. Sullivan clicked on Let’s all too abstract and detached,” he told me. “How could you Start Drama to delete it. intervene in a way that’s more personal and specifc, but on a large scale?” With millions of reports a week, most processed in To answer that question, Lieberman and his graduate stu- seconds—and with 2.5 billion pieces of content posted daily— dents started analyzing thousands of YouTube comments on no wonder complaints like Carbonella’s fall through the videos dealing with controversial topics, and about 1 million cracks. A Facebook spokesperson said that the site has been posts provided by the social-networking site Formspring that working on solutions to handle the volume of reports, while users or moderators had fagged for bullying. The MIT team’s hiring “thousands of people” (though the company wouldn’t frst insight was that bullies aren’t particularly creative. Scrolling discuss the speciﬁc roles of these employees) and building through the trove of insults, Lieberman and his students found tools to address misbehavior in other ways. that almost all of them fell under one (or more) of six categories: WOne idea is to improve the reporting process for users who they were about appearance, intelligence, race, ethnicity, sexu- spot content they don’t like. During my visit, I met with the engi- ality, or social acceptance and rejection. “People say there are neer Arturo Bejar, who’d designed new fows, or sets of respons- an infnite number of ways to bully, but really, 95 percent of the es users get as they fle a report. The idea behind this “social posts were about those six topics,” Lieberman told me. reporting” tool was to lay out a path for users to fnd help in the Focusing accordingly, he and his graduate students built a real world, encouraging them to reach out to people they know “commonsense knowledge base” called BullySpace— essentially and trust —people who might understand the context of a nega- a repository of words and phrases that could be paired with an tive post. “Our goal should be to help people solve the under- algorithm to comb through text and spot bullying situations. Yes, lying problem in the ofine world,” Bejar said. “Sure, we can BullySpace can be used to recognize words like fat and slut (and take content down and warn the bully, but probably the most all their text-speak misspellings), but also to determine when important thing is for the target to get the support they need.” the use of common words varies from the norm in a way that After my visit, Bejar started working with social scientists at suggests they’re meant to wound. Berkeley and Yale to further refne these response fows, giving Lieberman gave me an example of the potential ambiguity kids new ways to assess and communicate their emotions. The BullySpace could pick up on: “You ate six ham burgers!” On researchers, who include Marc Brackett and Robin Stern of its own, hamburger doesn’t fash cyberbullying—the word is

86 march 2013 the atlantic THE ATLANTIC MEETS STACEY SNIDER, CO-CHAIRMAN AND CEO, DREAMWORKS THE PACIFIC

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This past fall, The Atlantic Meets the Paciﬁ c gathered some of the world’s most brilliant scientists, business leaders, tech trailblazers

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@Atlantic_LIVE For more information on Atlantic events, please visit events.theatlantic.com. neutral. “But the relationship between hamburger and six speech. We don’t want to censor kids, or ban them from a site.” isn’t neutral,” Lieberman argued. BullySpace can parse that More efective, Lieberman thinks, are what he calls “lad- relation ship. To an overweight kid, the message “You ate six ders of refection” (a term he borrowed from the philosopher hamburgers!” could easily be cruel. In other situations, it could Donald Schön). Think about the kid who posted “Because he’s be said with an admiring tone. Bully Space might be able to tell a fag! ROTFL [rolling on the foor laughing]!!!” What if, when he the diference based on context (perhaps by evaluating per- pushed the button to submit, a box popped up saying “Waiting sonal information that social-media users share) and could fag 60 seconds to post,” next to another box that read “I don’t want the comment for a human to look at. to post” and ofered a big X to click on? Or what if the message BullySpace also relies on stereotypes. For example, to code read “That sounds harsh! Are you sure you want to send that?” for anti-gay taunts, Lieberman included in his knowledge base Or what if it simply reminded the poster that his comment was the fact that “Put on a wig and lipstick and be who you really about to go to thousands of people? are” is more likely to be an insult if directed at a boy. Bully Space Although Lieberman has had exploratory conversations understands that lipstick is more often used by girls; it also rec- about his idea with a few sites, none has yet deployed it. He has ognizes more than 200 other assertions based on stereo types a separate project going with MTV, related to its Web and phone about gender and sexuality. Lieberman isn’t endorsing the app called Over the Line?, which hosts user-submitted sto- stereotypes, of course: he’s harnessing them to make BullySpace ries about questionable behavior, like sexting, and responses smarter. Running data sets from the YouTube and Formspring to those stories. Lieberman’s lab designed an algorithm that sorts the stories and then helps posters fnd others like them. The idea is that the kids posting will The superintendent at one school felt take comfort in having company, and in reading responses to other people’s similar struggles. appreciative of anonymous for intervening. Lieberman would like to test how his algorithm “We would have never done anything if they could connect kids caught up in cyberbullying hadn’t notified us,” he said. with guidance targeted to their particular situation. Instead of generic “tell an adult” advice, he’d like the victims of online pummeling to see posts through his algorithm, he found that BullySpace caught alerts from social-networking sites designed like the keyword- most of the insults fagged by human testers— about 80 percent. specifc ads Google sells on Gmail— except they would say It missed the most indirect taunting, but from Lieber man’s point things like “Wow! That sounds nasty! Click here for help.” of view, that’s okay. At the moment, there’s nothing efective in Clicking would take the victims to a page that’s tailored to place on the major social networks that screens for bullying be- the problem they’re having—the more specifc, the better. For fore it occurs; a program that fags four out of fve abusive posts example, a girl who is being taunted for posting a suggestive would be a major advance. photo (or for refusing to) could read a synthesis of the research Lieberman is most interested in catching the egregious in- on sexual harassment, so she could better understand what it stances of bullying and confict that go destructively viral. So is, and learn about strategies for stopping it. Or a site could another of the tools he has created is a kind of air-trafc-control direct a kid who is being harassed about his sexuality to re- program for social- networking sites, with a dashboard that sources for starting a Gay-Straight Alliance at his school, since could show administrators where in the network an episode of research suggests those groups act as a bufer against bullying bullying is turning into a pileup, with many users adding to a and intimidation based on gender and sexuality. With the right stream of comments—à la Let’s Start Drama. “Sites like Face- support, a site could even use Lieberman’s program to ofer book and Formspring aren’t interested in every little incident, kids the option of an IM chat with an adult. (Facebook already but they do care about the pileups,” Lieberman told me. “For ex- provides this kind of specifc response when a suicidal post is ample, the week before prom, every year, you can see a spike in reported. In those instances, the site sends an e-mail to the bullying against LGBT kids. With our tool, you can analyze how poster ofering the chance to call the National Suicide Preven- that spreads—you can make an epidemiological map. And then tion Lifeline or chat online with one of its experts.) the social-network site can target its limited resources. They can Lieberman would like to build this content and then deter- also trace the outbreak back to its source.” Lieberman’s dash- mine its efectiveness by asking kids for their feedback. He isn’t board could similarly track the escalation of an assault on one selling his algorithms or his services. As a university professor, he kid to the mounting threat of a gang war. That kind of data could applies for grants, and then hopes companies like MTV will be- be highly useful to schools and community groups as well as the come sponsors. He’s trying to work with companies rather than sites themselves. (Lieberman is leery of seeing his program used criticize them. “I don’t think they’re trying to refexively avoid re- in such a way that it would release the kids’ names beyond the sponsibility,” he told me. “They are conscious of the scale. Any- social networks to real-world authorities, though plenty of teen- thing that involves individual action on their part, multiplied by agers have social-media profles that are public or semipublic— the number of complaints they get, just isn’t feasible for them. meaning their behavior is as well.) And it is a challenging problem. That’s where technology could I know some principals and guidance counselors who help a little bit. My position is that technology can’t solve bullying. would pay for this kind of information. The question is what to do with it. Lieberman doesn’t believe in being heavy-handed. emily Bazelon discusses online bullying with atlantic Digital “With spam, okay, you write the program to just automatically editor Bob cohn. TheaTlanTic.com delete it,” he said. “But with bullying, we’re talking about free

88 march 2013 the atlantic This is a people problem. But technology can make a diference, either for the negative or the positive. And we’re behind in paying MATERIAL attention to how to make the social-network universe a better place, from a technological standpoint.” Such galactic dips of abstraction— Internal fndings at Facebook suggest that Lieberman’s light sumptuous, celestial, laced touch could indeed do some good. During my visit to Silicon within the fguring oils themselves, Valley, I learned that the site had moved from wholesale banish- ment of rule-breakers toward a calibrated combination of warn- so blued rick-rack of Victorian stick ings and “temporary crippling of the user experience,” as one style will plume bright white as it employee put it. After all, if you’re banished, you can sign up mirrors a lighthouse in swelled again with a newly created e-mail address under an assumed orthogonal swells of light; electric name. And you might just get angry rather than absorb the message of deterrence. Instead, Facebook is experimenting with cobalt steel blue rimming the threats and temporary punishments. For example, the Hate and windows, then chiseling a chimney, Harassment Team can punish a user for setting up a group to much as atoms pack and hive encourage bullying, by barring that person from setting up any other group pages for a month or two. (If the account associated into the shape; thus abstraction with the ofensive group uses a made-up name, then the site’s shores up ground, lends it (fying only leverage is to remove the group.) According to an in-house buttress) supreme weight. study, 94 percent of users whose content prompted a report had never been reported to the site before. As Dave Willner, the content-policy manager, put it when he told me about the study: —Christina Pugh “The rate of recidivism is very low.” He explained, in his appealingly blunt way, “What we have Christina Pugh’s new collection, Grains of the Voice, will be over you is that your Facebook profle is of value to you. It’s a published this spring. She teaches at the University of Illinois at hostage situation.” This didn’t surprise me. In the course of Chicago. my reporting, I’d been asking middle-school and high-school students whether they’d rather be suspended from school or from Facebook, and most of them picked school. threatened to “gang bang” her, and one even told her to kill herself. “I’m gonna take today’s anger and channel it into talking The hacker group Anonymous isn’t the ﬁrst place most shit to this 12 year old girl,” one wrote. “Blow up [her Twitter parents would want their bullied kids to turn. Launched a handle] till she deletes her twitter,” another one added. The girl decade ago, Anonymous is best known for its vigilante op lived far from the boys, so she wasn’t in physical danger, but she position to Internet censorship. The group has defaced or was disturbed enough to seek help online. “I have been told to shut down the Web sites of the Syrian Ministry of Defense, kill myself alot its scary to think people in the world want you the Vatican, the FBI, and the CIA. Its slogan, to the extent a to die :( ,” she wrote to another Twitter user who asked me to loosely afliated bunch of hackers with no ofcial leadership call her Katherine. “He has deleted some of them he was saying can be said to have one, is “When your government shuts things like do you have a rope? and didnt the bleach work?” Tdown the Internet, shut down your government.” Anony Her pleas reached Katherine in the wake of the suicide of a mous has also wreaked ﬁnancial havoc by attacking Master 15-year-old Canadian girl named Amanda Todd. Before Amanda Card, Visa, and PayPal after they froze payments to the died, she posted a video of herself on YouTube, in which she si- accounts of WikiLeaks, the site started by Julian Assange to lently told her story using note cards she’d written on. Amanda publish government secrets. said that a man she’d met online had persuaded her to send him Since Anonymous is anarchic, the people who answer its call a topless photo, then stalked her and released the photo, caus- (and use its trademark Guy Fawkes mask in their online pho- ing her misery at school. The video is raw and disturbing, and it tos) speak for themselves rather than represent the group, and moved Katherine and a member of Anonymous with the screen protest in all kinds of ways. Some, reportedly, have not been name Ash. “It made me choke up,” Ash told me. When Kather- kind to kids. There was the case, for example, of a 15-year-old ine discovered that people were still sending the compromising named McKay Hatch, who started a No Cussing Club in South photo of Amanda around online, she and Ash teamed up to help Pasadena, California. When the concept took of in other cities, organize a drive to stop them and report ofending users to Twit- a group referring to itself as Anonymous launched a counter- ter, which removes pornographic content appearing on its site. campaign, No Cussing Sucks, and posted Hatch’s name, photo, As Katherine and Ash came across other examples of bullying, and contact information across the Web; he got 22,000 e-mails like rape jokes and suicide taunts, they found that “Twitter will over two weeks. suspend accounts even if they are not in violation of Twitter rules But other people in Anonymous have a Robin Hood bent, when simply 1000s of people mass report an account as spam,” and this fall, they rode to the rescue of a 12-year-old girl who’d Katherine explained to me in an e-mail. A Twitter spokes person come in for a torrent of hate on Twitter. Her error was to follow said this was possible (though he added that if spam reports turn the feed of a 17-year-old boy she didn’t know and then stop fol- out to be false, most accounts soon go back online). Twitter bans lowing him when he posted remarks she found rude. The boy direct and specifc threats, and it can block IP addresses to pre- took ofense and, with three friends, went after her. The boys vent users whose accounts are deleted from easily starting new

the atlantic march 2013 89 ones. But the site doesn’t have an explicit rule against harass in any way,” he continued. “If you can’t show a disruption at ment and intimidation like Facebook does. school, the courts tell us, that’s none of our business.” Still, Light While monitoring Twitter for other bullying, Katherine told me he that he felt appreciative of Anonymous for inter found the 12yearold girl. When Katherine told Ash, he un vening. “I don’t have the technical expertise or the time to keep covered the boys’ real names and fgured out that they were track of every kid on Facebook or Twitter or whatever,” the highschoolers in Abilene, Texas. Then he pieced together superintendent said. “It was unusual, sure, but we would have screenshots of their nasty tweets, along with their names and never done anything if they hadn’t notifed us.” information about the schools they attended, and released I talked with Ash and Katherine over Skype about a week it all in a public outing (called a “dox”). “I am sick of seeing after their Texas operation. I wanted to know how they’d con people who think they can get away with breaking someone’s ceived of the action they’d taken. Were they dispensing rough confdence and planting seeds of selfhate into someone’s justice to one batch of heartless kids? Or were they trying to head,” he wrote to them in the dox. “What gives you the fuck address cyberbullying more broadly, and if so, how? ing right to attack someone to such a breaking point? If you Ash and Katherine said they’d seen lots of abuse of teen are vile enough to do so and stupid enough to do so on a public agers on socialnetworking sites, and most of the time, no adult forum, such as a social website, then you should know this … seemed to know about it or intervene. They didn’t blame the We will fnd you and we will highlight your despicable behav kids’ parents for being clueless, but once they spotted danger, iour for all to see.” as they thought they had in this case, they couldn’t bear to just “I informed them that the damage had been done and there stand by. “It sounds harsh to say we’re teaching people a les was no going back,” he explained to me. “They understood this son, but they need to realize there are consequences for their to be an act by Anonymous when they were actions,” Ash said. then messaged in the hundreds.” At frst the He and Katherine don’t have professional boys railed against Ash on Twitter, and one experience working with teenagers, and I’m played down his involvement, denying that he sure there are educators and parents who’d see had ever threatened to rape the girl. But after a them as suspect rather than helpful. But read while, two of the boys began sending remorse ing through the hateflled tweets, I couldn’t ful messages. “For two solid days, every time help thinking that justice Anonymousstyle is we logged on, we had another apology from better than no justice at all. In their own way, them,” Ash said. “You hear a lot of lies and Ash and Katherine were stepping into the same fake apologies, and these guys seemed quite breach that Henry Lieberman is trying to fll. sincere.” Katherine thought the boys hadn’t under stood what And while sites like Facebook and Twitter are still working out impact their tweets would have on the girl receiving them— ways to address harassment comprehensively, I fnd myself they hadn’t thought of her as a real person. “They were actually agreeing with Ash that “someone needs to teach these kids to shocked,” she said. “I’m sure they didn’t mean to actually rape be mindful, and anyone doing that is a good thing.” a little girl. But she was scared. When they started to understand For Ash and Katherine, this has been the beginning of that, we started talking to them about anti bullying initiatives #OpAntiBully, an operation that has a Twitter account provid they could bring to their schools.” ing resource lists and links to abusereport forms. Depending I tried contacting the four boys to ask what they made of their on the case, Ash says, between 50 and 1,000 people—some encounter with Anonymous, and I heard back from one of them. of whom are part of Anonymous and some of whom are out He said that at frst, he thought the girl’s account was fake; then side recruits—can come together to report an abusive user, or he assumed she wasn’t upset, because she didn’t block the mes bombard him with angry tweets, or ofer support to a target. sages he and the other boys were sending. Then Ash stepped in. “It’s much more refned now,” he told me over email. “Certain “When i found out she was hurt by it i had felt horrible,” the boy people know the targets, and everyone contacts each other via wrote to me in an email. “I honestly don’t want to put anyone DMs [direct messages].” down. i just like to laugh and it was horrible to know just how In a better online world, it wouldn’t be up to Anonymous hurt she was.” He also wrote, “It was shocking to see how big hackers to swoop in on behalf of vulnerable teenagers. But [Anonymous was] and what they do.” social networks still present tricky terrain for young people, Ash also emailed his catalog of the boys’ tweets to their princi with traps that other kids spring for them. My own view is pals and superintendents. I called the school ofcials and reached that, as parents, we should demand more from these sites, by Joey Light, the superintendent for one of the districts in Abilene. holding them accountable for enforcing their own rules. After He said that when Anonymous contacted him, “to be truthful, I all, collectively, we have consumer power here—along with didn’t know what it was. At frst the whole thing seemed sketchy.” our kids, we’re the site’s customers. And as Henry Lieber Along with the emails from Ash, Light got an anonymous phone man’s work at MIT demonstrates, it is feasible to take stronger call from a local number urging him to take action against the action against cyber bullying. If Facebook and Twitter don’t boys. Light turned over the materials Ash had gathered to the po like his solution, surely they have the resources to come up lice ofcer stationed at the district’s high school, who established with a few more of their own. that one of the boys had been a student there. The ofcer investigated, and determined that the boy hadn’t Emily Bazelon, a senior editor at Slate, is the author of done anything to cause problems at school. That meant Light Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and couldn’t punish him, he said. “I realize bullying takes a lot of Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy, from forms, but our student couldn’t have harmed this girl physically which this piece is adapted.

90 march 2013 the atlantic Mind over Chatter

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See our E-Books at press.princeton.edu Essay InvenTIng MarIlyn

anyone who thinks the story of Marilyn Monroe doesn’t warrant such attention doesn’t know much about it. By Caitlin Flanagan

hump—it landed on the doorstep had taken to serious books, and how last summer like an abandoned baby: quickly she’d abandoned them—real the newest biography of Marilyn Mon- life had to be attended to, and it was the roe, a bouncing 515 pages and obviously busy season: the summer months that loved. Tucked between its covers were begin with the anniversary of her birth 51 pages of footnotes, an 88-person list and round with that of her death. of interviewees, a four-page guide to ab- On the June night of what would have breviations and “manuscript collections been her 86th birthday, a small crowd of consulted.” Had it found a forever family? celebrants ambles about the forecourt Sadly, no; it had been left at yet another of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, pok- hateful group home. After some ing our clodhoppers into her mild bureaucratic processing—its tiny shoe prints; smiling at the publicity materials and padded Marilyn impersonators who mailer confscated and tossed in have gathered for the occasion; the recycling bin, its well of fa- offer ing one another shy nods miliar photographs perfunctorily of greeting. We love her, each in ticked through—it ended up on a shelf crammed with other Marilyn bios, our own deep and private way— some tall and lovely and flled with pictures, others squat and densely writ- MaRilyn: The each of us feeling we possess a ten, a few handsomely published and seemingly important. It would have Passion and The unique connection to her—and PaRadox to fnd its place. we’re here to prove our love. It’s lois Banner TBut before any actual reading could begin—how quickly Marilyn herself Bloomsbury night one of Playboy’s Marilyn

92 march 2013 the atlantic hulton archive/Getty hulton

the atlantic march 2013 93 Monroe Film Festival. Some Like It Hot— should be our collective response to his pursuit of his father will be largely com- projected on the huge screen of the ma- emissary? It’s too complicated a ques- posed of early breakfasts and back gates: jestic old movie palace. Sensational! tion to answer, as a crowd, in these few Marilyn’s kind of person, all the way. You Inside, the 1,000-seat theater—it’s a seconds. For example: Are any of us fem- could imagine her sitting attentively on ravishing place, the giant red-and-gold inists? If so, are we second-wavers? This the edge of one of the theater’s seats velvet curtain falling in plush waves to would mean we see him as the brute face and fxing him with her marshmallow- the foor of the vast stage, ghosts every- of male sexuality, the force that stripped moonbeam glow, transfxed, as though where—is almost full, and all of us are and exploited Marilyn Monroe, that listening to him deliver a canned and alive with the delicious combination hounded her down to her terrible, frantic unenlightening movie review were on of fzzy happiness and expansive trist- death, nude under the sheet, one hand par with hearing Cicero delivering his esse that is the soul of Marilyn fever. A resting on the telephone, as though to speech against Catiline. You could imag- tuxedoed emcee walks to the micro- send out one last message to the world: ine her getting him through it. phone to welcome us (this is how we Rescue me. Or are we third-wavers, who Not so the audience at the Marilyn want it: tuxedoed, formal, haute-’50s see Marilyn as a feminist icon, using her Monroe Film Festival. When Cooper Tinseltown, but maybe with an usher sexuality as a powerful tool with which mispronounces Pauline Kael’s name, locked tight onto a popcorn girl behind to dominate men, a person whose ideas there are giggles, and for a bad moment a hammered-brass door somewhere about sexual liberation dovetailed with it seems he might actually get laughed close by, panties at ankles, melted but- Hef’s and who took Playboy for a ride of or even booed of the stage, but then the ter spilling out of the auto pump back at her own making—her last telephone call: reading comes to its blessed end, and he the counter), and he says that a percent- Check the foreign gross on Showgirl. There scurries away up a side aisle, defated. It’s age of the night’s take will go to support is nothing for us to do but sit tight and a tough Hollywood crowd, and no one Hollygrove, which he calls “Marilyn’s see what happens next.) wants to get dicked around by an amateur. orphanage.” There is an immediate Cooper eagerly approaches the And so it is the start of a perfect Mari- frisson of understanding, and a rever- microphone, and he turns out to be both lyn evening: tender, beautiful youth ent, pained murmur runs through the very young and very handsome, and also making a go of it against Hollywood the crowd. He says that one important destroyer, starting out hopeful, ending thing to know about Some Like It Hot up humiliated, and leaving behind only is that Marilyn was pregnant during Serious books about a monument: Some Like It Hot. flming, and this fact produces another Marilyn describe the excited, anguished murmur. Everyone transformation he new biography, Mari- knows that these two themes—the des- T lyn: The Passion and the Paradox, perate childhood, and its answering of a ’50s sex symbol is the work of Lois Banner, a adult desperation, the wish to make into something historian at the University of Southern it all right with a magical baby of her California who writes that she was own—were the two central sorrows of shockingly urgent. propelled toward her subject because the passion. That there are no more it had never been tackled by someone orphanages in Los Angeles, or any- to be a man in possession of an evident, like her: “an academic scholar, feminist where else in America—that the old touching, and boyishly uncritical respect biographer, and historian of gender.” Hollygrove, no longer a residential fa- for his father. (“Heading over to my dads The book took her 10 years to write, cility, is now one component of a vast for an early breakfast,” he had tweeted which is about how long it takes to read, California social-services agency, the the previous month, and—two weeks albeit for the best possible reason: it is grounds transformed into the campus later—“Setting up a lemonade stand rigorously, at times obsessively, well of a trendy charter school with an Alice tomorrow at the back gate of my dads researched. More appealingly, Banner’s Waters Edible Schoolyard and a bevy of to celebrate the beginning of summer. academic orientation did not preclude wealthy entertainment executives in its Come if you’re free.”) In addition, he her from going native. In the course of parent body—is immaterial. Ditto that turns out to be someone with signifcant her work, she joined a Marilyn fan club, Monroe’s desire for a baby was matched difculty reading aloud to a large audi- became a major collector of the star’s by an equally ferce ambivalence about ence. He stumbles over several words artifacts, contributed to a fund that paid the prospect. What matters is the idea and mispronounces others, and his for a new bench outside the Westwood of a little girl, age 9, showing up at reading of the too-long-for-the-occasion crypt, and published a coffee-table an institution for unwanted children, essay starts to become uncomfortable, book devoted to items from Marilyn’s staring at the blinking red light of RKO an embarrassment. personal archive. For those of us who Studios, and dreaming her way into Cooper is, in short, exactly the sort of love Marilyn, The Passion and the Para- movie history. person—a good-looking kid with a com- dox constitutes an invaluable resource, And then the emcee introduces Coo- plicated past, unraveling in public and a compendium of the latest discoveries, per Hefner, Hugh’s youngest son, who on the ugly verge of becoming a joke— a settling of long-festering questions, has been charged with reading a longish to whom Marilyn would have attached and a thoughtful and thorough revisit- movie note that the old man wrote years her greatest sympathy and encourage- ing of the subjects we love most. For the ago about Some Like It Hot. ment. For all his wealth and privilege, general reader, however, the book will (How do we feel about Hef? What he seems destined to be a person whose be overwhelming and impossible. How

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96 march 2013 the atlantic Marilyn memoirs written by her cook; Marilyn was always Henri Cartier-Bresson. She managed— her masseuse; her call-girl neighbor; the on the strength of limited dramatic tal- half- sister whom she met as a teenager; doing something to ent and within a studio system that paid Lili St. Cyr’s f fth husband, who claims align herself with part no atten tion to individual ambition—to he brought the two women together in of the culture. work with some of the greatest directors a three-way; Lee Strasberg’s jealous in movie history: twice with John Huston, daughter; several of the photographers Billy Wilder, and Howard Hawks, and who shot her; men who claimed to be people do their part to keep it alive—all once each with George Cukor, Joseph former lovers; former husbands—the of this reminds us that the life was not Mankiewicz, and Laurence Olivier. She list is endless. She lived in the days mere, that the scope of the legend is was the f rst Playboy centerfold and one before the nondisclosure agreement not preposterous. Anyone who thinks of the f rst women to own her own pro- became commonplace in Hollywood, the story of Marilyn Monroe doesn’t duction company; she was a nudist and a and the trail of “As I remember her” warrant attention doesn’t know much champion of free love long before these dispatches (many of them legitimate, about it; at every turn and in every mo- concepts emerged into the national some of them surely hoaxes) reveals as ment, she was doing something either consciousness. She maintained a deep much, to say nothing of the hundreds to align herself with an important part association with the American military of detailed interviews granted over the of the culture or to impress herself im- that, all on its own, lent her a mythic years to players big and small. But this is perishably upon it. stature. When the Second World War just one branch of Marilynology. Also to broke out, she became both a teenage be considered are the doorstop biogra- ARILYN MONROE was war bride and an actual Rosie the Riveter phies and the pop bios, the luxe books of M baptized by Aimé e Semple (long days spent working in the fuselage- photographs and quotations, the novels McPherson, analyzed by varnishing room of the Radioplane plant inspired by her legend, the “What can it Anna Freud, befriended by Carl Sand- in Burbank); her f rst cheesecake photo- all mean?” reveries. Hers is the original burg and Edith Sitwell, romanced (if graphs were taken in the spirit of “mo- True Hollywood Story, and that writers you can call it that) by Jack and Bobby rale boosters” for the boys overseas; her keep writing it and readers keep read- Kennedy, painted by Willem de Koon- famous appearance in Korea—wriggling ing it, that studios keep optioning it and ing, taught acting by Michael Chekhov onstage in her purple sequined dress, adapting it, that magazines keep telling and Lee Strasberg, photographed by popping her glorious platinum head out it, while all around the world millions of Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, and of the hatch of the camouf aged touring The World’s Best

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THE ATLANTIC MARCH 2013 97 tank rolling her to the next appearance— washed-up from week one. What would remains the standard against which any she do, an early pal earnestly asked her, American sex symbol sent to entertain if 50 percent of the experts in Holly- the troops is measured. She was the f rst wood told her she didn’t have any tal- Introducing the Morley Rocker celebrity to talk openly about her child- ent? “If 100 percent told me that,” she hood sexual abuse, a kind of admission replied, “100 percent would be wrong.” that has become so common today that And then, just like that, a few months we hardly take notice of it. But to tell re- after her 36th birthday, she was gone— porters in the 1950s that you had been the brilliant platinum head yanked back raped as an 8-year-old—and to do so down the hatch forever. Never has death Graceful, without shame, but rather with a justif - been so good for the back catalog. Billy simple and able sense of fury and vengeance—was a Wilder was correct in the one compli- extremely breathtaking act of self-assurance. ment he reliably paid her: she really did comfortable Few adults have had less impetus to have perfect timing. Almost as soon as become serious readers— her people she’d choked down the last of the Nem- rarely ventured beyond Science and butal, the culture took a sharp turn away Health; a studio doctor once diagnosed from everything she seemed to repre- her as dyslexic—but she tried again and sent. Think of it this way: at the time of again to read the great books, holing her suicide, the Rolling Stones had just herself up in bedrooms with Dexedrine played their first gig; Timothy Leary $1,295 and champagne and willing herself was two years into his experiments with through Antigone. She may have rarely finished the volumes she attempted, but she thought reading was an im- Almost as soon as portant and ennobling enterprise, and Marilyn choked down she gave it her all. When she died, her possessions included—along with a fa- the Nembutal, the Call for a brochure culture turned away 800-972-5940  www.michaelcolca.com mously meager assortment of battered kitchen utensils and down-at-the-heels from everything she Ferragamos, a broken Golden Globe, represented. some pottery and serapes she’d hauled back from Mexico with the vague idea of decorating her last house in the ha- LSD; and the Vietnam War was about Eyes closed cienda style— an astonishing collec- to turn a pinup girl’s visit to the troops Against the sun tion of books. She had Turgenev and into a sexually reactionary act, so there Seeing saffron Dostoyevsky, Robert Frost and Wil- would have been only a slow, ugly death liam Blake, a book on snobbery and coming for her if she hadn’t cashed out the 1836 album of the Garrick Club. when she did. The next few years made Some Poem-Like She was the stroke-book queen of the a mockery of women like her, banishing Thought Things 1950s, stretched nude and willing on them to television variety shows and gag red crushed velvet, and yet she was roles: the bottle blonde with the chin- the Hollywood actress most interested chilla stole and the sugar daddy, stuck in intellectual life and in intellectuals, like a La Brea Tar Pit mammoth in the committing herself to method acting hardening pastel Bakelite of ’50s popu- Ross C. Follett and psychoanalysis, plugging away at luxe. Only a veterinary-level dose of Crime and Punishment, and marrying barbiturates stood between Marilyn and (I don’t mean to imply she had some a second callback for Eva Gabor’s role on Some Poem-Like kind of native genius for all this) Arthur Green Acres. Maybe she even saw it com- Miller. She loved dogs and cats and ing: “Please don’t make me a joke,” she Thought Things children, and all her life she had the is supposed to have said, not long before foster child’s animal craving for fam- the end. Offbeat ily, so she was forever inserting herself And so began the hibernation of Unpretentious Thought Provoking into other people’s stable households— Marilyn Monroe, starting of with a New Thirty-Seven Short Poems moving in with her drugs and her sexual York Times obituary printed the day after eagerness, her kitten sweetness and her her death that clearly understood she “This guy only throws strikes.” blinding anger, her father f xation and was a phenomenon—the “golden girl - A pleased reader her nighttime wanderings— and wreak- of the movies”—but casually listed her ing havoc on them. With the trembling measurements as a relevant matter of FIND IT ON AMAZON! lip and laughably bad line readings of public record, marveled at her “flesh her earliest days, she should have been impact,” and mentioned by name only

98 MARCH 2013 THE ATLANTIC four of her movies: one she’d been fred from, one in which she’d had a tiny part, one that was apparently signifcant only because it had led a deranged Turk to slit his wrists while watching it, and one bona fde stinker, which she’d caused to go $1 million over budget. In essence, the obituary correctly identifed her—as Gloria Steinem, conducting a very diferent bit of business, would also later identify her—as a minor American actress. And so she slept, the minor actress, while the country began its forgetting of her and DiMaggio’s roses wilted, week after week, out in the Westwood sun. Elizabeth Taylor ballooned into sexual irrelevance and Eva flattered Arnold the pig, and “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” ofered up a kind of sexuality that seemed, on the surface of things, completely foreign to the one Marilyn had purveyed. Better, too, that she missed the moldering decline of those with whom she had been young: Joltin’ Joe putting on a cardigan and turning into Mr. Cofee; Jane Russell tugging at her giant Playtex bra as the full-figured gal; Arthur Miller becoming even more Arthur Miller than ever. Time passed and passed, until the strange and wonderful year of 1973 rolled around, and Marilyn Monroe was located by the strangest search-and-rescue team in history: Norman Mailer and Elton John.

ailer appoints himself, M in Marilyn: A Biography, the “psychohistorian,” which was one of the few job openings available on the project, given that he had brazenly— and, as it would turn out, scandalously— farmed out the role of actual historian to Fred Guiles, the author of the one signifcant biography that had been published since the star’s death, Norma Jean. That book is an old-school movie-star bio, and a generally excellent one; what a pity that it’s rarely read. Nonhysterical, unburdened by the notion that the subject was anything more or less than a Hollywood star with a singularly interesting life, Norma Jean is mostly right on the big things while always fascinating on the small ones. It was written at a time when many of the players were not yet wary of the press, and were in fact eager to tell their stories. Come across some interesting fact about Marilyn Monroe’s life nowadays—that her frst groom’s white jacket got splashed with tomato soup at the reception, or that canvas of unjust sufering onto which an- her mother used to pick her up from her gry teens could cast their own ’70s-size boardinghouse on the weekends to go collections of slights and sorrows. Tau- to Gay’s Lion Farm in El Monte—and pin has said that the inspiration for the nine times out of 10, you can trace it song came from a remark he heard after back to Guiles. Or, as Mailer would have Janis Joplin’s death—that she was like a it, Guiles’s work is “of much estimable “candle in the wind”—but he had prob- value for verifying the events of her life,” ably also read the Guiles book, a chap- surely the loosest interpretation of the ter of which is called “Goodbye, Norma term verifying on record. “The fnal vir- Jean.” The song evokes a particular emo- tue of Norma Jean,” says Mailer, “is that tional state, one familiar to readers of, a great biography might be constructed say, Truman Capote and Tennessee Wil- on its foundations.” What is a “great” liams. It celebrates the aching ardor that Marilyn biography? One that dwells on a certain kind of gay man can feel for a the similar letters in the subject’s name beautiful, tortured woman, whose plight and his own (“If the ‘a’ were used twice is to be dependent sexually and emo- and the ‘o’ but once,” he ponders, they tionally upon the often brutal and bru- would spell out his own name, “leaving talizing force of straight-male lust. The only the ‘y’ ”); that vets the nutty pos- song has a coherent inner logic, even if it sibility that she had been killed by the doesn’t match up with the facts of Mari- Kennedys, in a sort of single- Nembutal lyn Monroe’s life. Nobody else set her conspiracy theory; and that stirs every- on a treadmill, and nobody else created thing together with a heaping helping of the superstar she became; full credit for Norman Mailer deep-think: both achievements goes, deservedly, to Marilyn, who worked as hard for fame In her ambition, so Faustian, and in her ignorance of culture’s dimensions, as anyone who’s ever achieved it. But it’s in her liberation and her tyrannical the sufering itself that matters; it’s the desires, her noble democratic longings idea of some shadowy malevolent force intimately contradicted by the widen- sending a delicate soul on a dark journey ing pool of her narcissism (where every that was the appeal of the song and that friend and slave must bathe), we can was the true birth of Marilyn Monroe as Made in USA Since 1982. see the magnifed mirror of ourselves, one of the greatest Hollywood stars of our exaggerated and now all but de- all time. feated generation, yes, she ran a recon- Just don’t watch the movies! She has naissance through the Fifties, and left her moments in The Misfts, and she does a message for us in her death, “Baby tm something interesting and often afect- go Boom.” The The OnlyOnlyOnly Traditional Pima Cotton Oxford ing in Bus Stop—but no one could call Our look is unmistakeable, our comfort unmatched. In short, Mailer’s book was brilliant those great flms. And there’s an awful Distinctive, unlined 3 7/16 full roll collar, single needle stuf because, in its incomprehensible lot of rotten tomatoes in the oeuvre, pic- throughout, generous cut, with long sleeves and tail. Guaranteed impeccable after 150+ washes. badness, it performed a bit of wizardry: tures she tried her best to save but didn’t 1st Time Buyers- Save 25%. it turned the life and times of Marilyn know how. Have you ever seen her wan- Classic Blue, White, Pink, Yellow. $94, free shpg. Monroe into weighty material. In her dering around in Niagara, with her pastel Pullovers, 140’s, Sport Shirts, Traditional Boxers, Custom. New York Times review, Pauline Kael suits and zombie stare, like a My Little WWW.MERCERANDSONS.COM writes that Mailer “pumps so much Pony on Thorazine? Or mewing her kit- CATALOG 1-800-705-2828 SWATCHES wind into his subject that the reader ten mew in The Seven Year Itch? But all is may suspect that he’s trying to make redeemed with Some Like It Hot, which I $3,000 LITERARY AWARDS Marilyn Monroe worthy of him, a sub- frst saw a very long time ago and which Send for our free brochure ject to compare with the Pentagon and converted me forever. Eaton Literary Agency the moon.” It’s the moon-size Marilyn, When I was 13, I owned a copy of P. O. Box 49795 brought to us by the periphrastic bard Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which my Sarasota, FL 34230 of Provincetown, whom we have in- sister had given me as a Christmas pres- www.eatonliterary.com 941-366-6589 herited. ent, and a copy of Marilyn: A Biography, For its part, “Candle in the Wind,” in which friends had given my parents as which Elton John inhabits the lyrics of a gag gift and I had promptly liberated Bernie Taupin, performed the next im- from the coffee table, not seeing it as portant bit of work: repackaging Marilyn ridiculous at all, but rather as deep and as someone deeply relevant to young tragic and life-changing (the book’s people—not just a moving-picture idol ideal reader, it turns out, is the 13-year- from their parents’ drippy, musty past, old girl). I can remember sitting on the www.hollins.edu/jacksoncenter but someone whose life was a blank nubby brown couch in the living room,

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Investing in bonds involves risk including possible loss of Hennion & Walsh, Bond Guide Offer principal. Income may be subject to state, local or federal alternative 2001 Route 46, Waterview Plaza • Parsippany, NJ 07054 minimum tax. listening to “Candle in the Wind” over is her terrible loneliness, the raw injus- U.S. Silver and over, and turning the pages of the tice that such a sweet and trusting person $ .95 book to look at all the portraits of my should be cut of from human friendship Eagle 39 new heroine: the ballerina sitting, the and af ection. From the minute she f rst Shipping Something’s Got to Give nudes, the pre- encounters Curtis and Lemmon, who $6.95 posterous pictures from her early teen- do not mean her well, she turns to them; $3.45 age years, when she didn’t look any more she’s like a pure light pouring over the with code N5340 beautiful than I did, which was not very screen, her radiant happiness at their beautiful at all. Maybe there was hope friendship an illuminating force. “I got for plain girls everywhere; maybe magic a cold chill,” said the f rst man who ever could happen to anyone. So I was al- saw Monroe on film, the cameraman ready enchanted, already on the road who shot her f rst screen test. “This is to losing my heart to her, when I came the f rst girl who looked like one of those U.S. 2013 1-oz. silver eagle BU — not home from school to an empty house lush stars from the silent era.” More than sold to the public by the U.S. Mint! one day, clicked on the TV, and lo and any other role she ever played, Marilyn It contains a full troy ounce of pure behold: Some Like It Hot. Monroe was Sugar Kane: manipulative silver and is the largest U.S. silver She was at her worst making that and kind, innocent and mercenary, mad- dollar in American minting history. movie: late as hell, unprepared, in- cap and melancholy, and most of all des- Brilliant Uncirculated. Just $39.95 each capable of remembering her lines, sick perately lonely. I remember watching while supplies last (#45453). Limit from pregnancy, and tanked up on vodka her that school-day afternoon and fall- 20 per household. Call for information and pills, all the time willing to tease and ing a little bit in love with her. “She was on additional quantities. Act now, taunt people until they were on their last so seductive,” Strasberg’s son said of her, price subject to change due to market nerve. Billy Wilder told Tony Curtis and “that she made you feel like you were the conditions. NO CLUBS TO JOIN; NO ON-APPROVAL COINS SENT. Jack Lemmon that they’d better keep only person who could save her.” 30-day no-risk home examination. their f ngers out of their unmentionables That was Marilyn Monroe’s shtick International Coins & Currency whenever they were on camera, because and her truth, and it’s still selling books 62 Ridge St., Dept. N5340, Montpelier, VT 05602 “anytime she gets it right, I’m going to and calendars and posters, still f lling 1-800-451-4463 print it.” But it’s the only movie she ever up Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. She www.iccoin.com/n5340 N5340 made that f res on all cylinders: a perfect was the girl who always got the fuzzy script, co-stars who were better than she end of the lollipop, the abandoned baby was, a role that let her play dumb without and the mean foster kid and the woman in any way giving a dumb performance. who took off her clothes for the cam- The part also came with a sad past, as era when she felt like it. I drive past the had so many of her signature roles, but old Hollygrove orphanage two or three this was the only past set in the midst of times a week, and usually I don’t give not a drama but a comedy, which was a it a second thought. But sometimes I fair approximation of the whole Monroe think of that 9-year-old girl, dropped of enterprise: It’s been a kick in the head, screaming but forced to stay, and I think this sorry life, but why not have another of the astonishing fact that somewhere drink and laugh about it? between Holly grove and the Hollywood This was also the movie that most Studio Club, which she moved into at directly benef ted from her association 20, she dried of her tears and stopped with Lee Strasberg, because for once in believing in the realities of this ugly old his life the old windbag gave an actor a world, made up her own set of rules and specif c bit of advice about a particular played by them. If 100 percent of the role, one that could carry her through the men in movies told her she had no tal- whole picture. The reason Sugar Kane ent, she decided, 100 percent of them latches on so quickly to Josephine and would be wrong. Daphne, he told her, is because they’re nice to her; they want to be her friends. Caitlin Flanagan’s most recent book is The def ning aspect of Sugar’s existence Girl Land.

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Connect directly with these advertisers at www.theatlantic.com/emporium The Big Question

What day most changed theQ: course of history?

Ken Burns, documentary press in 1440, Western Freeman Dyson, professor sort of magical. And Barack filmmaker civilization turned onto a emeritus of physics, Obama is basically a walking June 28, 1914. Franz Ferdi- path toward more efcient, Princeton University sequin. nand’s carriage driver took a accessible communication The day the asteroid hit wrong turn and they ended of knowledge. The ensuing the Yucatán Peninsula Oliver Stone, director and up in a cul-de-sac, giving the democratization of ideas and wiped out the dinosaurs, co-author of The Untold Serbian nationalist Gavrilo had a profound impact on making room for our little History of the United States Princip a chance to kill the societies in the second half primate ancestors to grow July 20, 1944, when archduke. This was the frst of the second millennium. big and brainy and to take Henry Wallace lost the vice- in a set of dominoes that put over the planet. presidential nomination at in motion the two largest Philip Jenkins, professor of the Democratic Convention wars in world history—and history and religion, Penn Diana Gabaldon, author of in Chicago. Had he won, it all came down to a wrong State University the Outlander series Wallace, not Harry S. Tru- turn by a carriage driver. For several years leading The day, in 1675, that Anton man, would have become up to June 22, 1941, it had van Leeuwenhoek frst looked president when Roosevelt looked as though dicta- through the lens of the micro- died. The U.S. would have tors and militarists would scope he invented. There are had a much better relation- soon rule virtually the a whole lot of people making ship with the Soviet Union, whole world outside North history who wouldn’t have and I don’t think Wallace America. But Operation been here save for the discov- would have dropped the Barbarossa—Germany’s eries that followed from that atomic bomb on Japan. decision to send 3 million of drop of pond water. its soldiers smashing across Anne-Marie Slaughter, Timothy Snyder, professor the Soviet border—would Atlantic contributing editor of history, Yale University ultimately lead to Hitler’s and professor of politics On December 11, 1241, the defeat and the destruction of and international affairs at Mongol warrior Batu Khan Nazism. Princeton University was poised to take Vienna Trite as it may seem, the and destroy the Holy Roman Neera Tanden, president, signing of the Declaration Empire. No European force Center for American of Independence on July 4, could have kept his armies Progress W. Kamau Bell, host, Totally 1776, was the frst public from reaching the Atlantic. By empowering half the Biased With W. Kamau Bell assertion of human equality But the death of Ögedei population with the re- There’s no way I can get this as a legitimate rationale for Khan, the second Great sponsibilities of citizenship, correct, so: It has to have af- political action. The Declara- Khan of the Mongol empire, August 26, 1920—the day fected me personally. It has tion would eventually eat forced Batu Khan to return women gained the right to to have had a big impact on away at the formal barriers of to Mongolia to discuss the vote—allowed the U.S. to live America, culturally and his- gender, race, religion, ethnic- succession. Had Ögedei up to its fundamental values torically. And it has to have ity, sexual orientation, and Khan died a few years later, of opportunity and equality. involved sequins. There- any other diferences that European history as we know fore, the obvious answer is human beings have created it would not have happened. Paul Kennedy, professor of May 16, 1983, when Michael to hold some down and raise history, Yale University Jackson frst performed the others up. Christina H. Paxson, presi- The day Thomas Newco- moonwalk on TV. I think it’s dent, Brown University men invented his steam one of the reasons we have a see more responses The day Johannes Gutenberg engine. America would be black president today. People and submit your own. TheaTlanTic.com fnished his wooden printing like a giant Angola without it. went, Wow, black people are

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