The New Yorker ’S Editorial Staf

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FEBRUARY 22, 2016

5 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Amy Davidson on Democrats and black voters; a Robert Moses opera; museum song; O.I.C. Man; James Surowiecki on populism and primaries. THE POLITICAL SCENE Jill Lepore 22 The Party Crashers The system comes under challenge again. SHOUTS & MURMURS Kelly Stout 28 Juror Instructions ANNALS OF WEALTH Jiayang Fan 30 The Golden Generation China’s young go West. LETTER FROM LOS ANGELES Nicholas Schmidle 36 The Digital Dirt The man celebrities fear most. A REPORTER AT LARGE William Finnegan 50 Last Days How jihad came to San Bernardino. FICTION Don DeLillo 60 “Sine Cosine Tangent” THE CRITICS POP MUSIC Hua Hsu 66 Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo.” BOOKS George Packer 69 Six left-wing defectors. Joan Acocella 74 Alexander Chee’s “The Queen of the Night.” 77 Briefly Noted ON TELEVISION Emily Nussbaum 78 “Vinyl” and “Billions.” MUSICAL EVENTS Alex Ross 80 Works by Olivier Messiaen and Hans Abrahamsen. THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 82 “Zoolander 2,” “Deadpool,” “A War.” POEMS Kevin Young 54 “Money Road” J. D. McClatchy 63 “Dirty Snow” COVER Kadir Nelson “Schomburg Center, Harlem, New York”

DRAWINGS Chris Cater, Joe Dator, Michael Maslin, Barbara Smaller, Zachary Kanin, Tom Cheney, Frank Cotham, Paul Noth, Drew Dernavich, Liana Finck, Edward Steed, P. C. Vey, Harry Bliss, Tom Toro, Danny Shanahan, David Sipress, Christian

COVER: SOURCE: CARL VAN VECHTEN (HURSTON); WILLIAM H. JOHNSON (SEATED COUPLE); COUPLE); (SEATED JOHNSON H. WILLIAM (HURSTON); VECHTEN VAN CARL SOURCE: COVER: (HOLIDAY) ARCHIVE/GETTY HISTORY UNIVERSAL (ELLINGTON); FOUNDATION/GETTY KOBAL JOHN Lowe, Jack Ziegler, Michael Crawford, Trevor Spaulding, Peter Kuper, Liam Francis Walsh SPOTS Ben Wiseman CONTRIBUTORS

Jill Lepore (“The Party Crashers,” p. 22) Nicholas Schmidle (“The Digital Dirt,” teaches history at Harvard. Her new p. 36) is a staf writer. book, “Joe Gould’s Teeth,” will be pub- lished in May. William Finnegan (“Last Days,” p. 50), the author of, most recently, “Barbar- Amy Davidson (Comment, p. 17), a staf ian Days: A Surfing Life,” has been writer, contributes regularly to Com- writing for the magazine since 1984. ment and to newyorker.com. Kevin Young (Poem, p. 54) is the Can- Kelly Stout (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 28) dler Professor of English and Creative has been writing humor pieces for the Writing at Emory University, where he magazine since 2014. is also a literary curator. His book “Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems Jiayang Fan (“The Golden Generation,” 1995-2015” came out earlier this month. p. 30) is a member of The New Yorker ’s editorial staf. Don DeLillo (Fiction, p. 60) is the au- thor of the story collection “The Angel Kadir Nelson (Cover) wrote and illus- Esmeralda,” among other works of fic- trated the children’s book “If You Plant tion. This story was adapted from his a Seed,” which came out last year. He forthcoming novel “Zero K.” is working on new covers for a series of books by Mildred D. Taylor, the first Joan Acocella (Books, p. 74), who has of which, a fortieth-anniversary edi- been a staf writer since 1998, is writ- tion of “Roll of Thunder, Hear My ing a book about Mikhail Baryshnikov. Cry,” was published in January. Hua Hsu (Pop Music, p. 66), a fellow at Reeves Wiedeman (The Talk of the Town, New America, will publish his first p. 18), a former staf member, has con- book, “A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy tributed to the magazine since 2010. and Failure Across the Pacific,” in June.

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2 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 THE MAIL

FRAMING THE STORY I agree with Schulz that “Making a Murderer” shows a bias in favor of the As a forensic-DNA professional, I en- defense of Avery and Dassey, but I don’t joyed Kathryn Schulz’s article on “Mak- think that this bias undermines the se- ing a Murderer,” the Netflix series, by ries. The show gives the public a closeup Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, about view of a criminal murder case. It shows the police investigations of Steven Avery how heavily the odds are stacked against and Brendan Dassey in the murder of a defendant who faces the full resources Teresa Halbach (“Dead Certainty,” Jan- of the state—not to mention the media. uary 25th). However, Schulz repeats the The value of the documentary is not prosecutor’s problematic statement that in proving or disproving Avery’s and DNA from Avery’s perspiration was Dassey’s guilt; rather, it reveals the com- found in a vehicle belonging to the vic- plex machinery of criminal murder tri- tim. Forensic identification of body fluids als and makes the public aware of the is limited to blood, saliva, semen, and level of doubt inherent in many con- urine; there is no test for sweat. The victions. It would be hard to find a bet- continued mention of this as a source ter argument against the death penalty of DNA calls into question other state- than that. ments made by the prosecutor. Sjeng Derkx Karl Reich Nelson, B.C. Lombard, Ill. According to Schulz, we “make moral Schulz writes that “the point of being allowances for the behavior of law- scrupulous about your means is to help yers based on the knowledge that the insure accurate ends, whether you are jury will also hear a strong contrary trying to convict a man or exonerate position. No such structural protec- him.” In fact, preserving the process is tion exists in our extra- judicial courts itself the point, including, in some cases, of last resort.” That may have been allowing guilty parties to go free as as- true before the Internet, but it isn’t surance that no innocents are convicted. true now. Just as jurors are presented Grand conspiracies of the Steven Avery with strong contrary positions by the type—where police ignored evidence ex- two sides in court, viewers of true- onerating an imprisoned man and then crime documentaries can now get the allegedly falsified evidence that he com- oppositional arguments online. Sim- mitted an even more vicious crime—are ilarly, jurors and viewers can choose rare. More often, police and prosecutors to wrestle with the full body of avail- convince themselves that they’ve got the able evidence, or they can cherry- pick. true perpetrator, and see any weaknesses They can struggle with uncertainty in their case as natural aberrations and and reasonable doubt, and deliberate a way for criminals to get of the hook. for months, or they can quickly eval- So they ignore, omit, bury, tidy up, or uate evidence, pass judgment, and get even invent evidence, all for the sake of on with their lives. The structural pro- preserving an “accurate end.” Schulz de- tections of any system—judicial or cries the documentarians for presenting extra-judicial—are only as strong and a one-sided view and ignoring certain reliable as the people within it. facts; that is, for not preserving the pro- Alan Mairson cess. But TV (not to mention real life) Bethesda, Md. is full of shows that treat scolaw cops and swaggering defense attorneys as he- • roes. I am glad programs like “Making Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, a Murderer” and “Serial” are revealing address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to just how damaging that behavior can be, [email protected]. Letters may be edited whether the suspect is guilty or not. for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume Gary Chandler of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter Denver, Colo. or return letters.

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 3

FEBRUARY 17 – 23, 2016 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

By night, Lauren Worsham is a silver-voiced soprano who has sung with the Philharmonic and on Broadway. (She was nominated for a Tony for “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.”) By late night, she fronts an impish indie band called Sky-Pony with her husband, Kyle Jarrow—who also has another career, as a writer for stage and screen. At Ars Nova, they perform “The Wildness” (in previews; opening Feb. 29), a “rock fairy tale” that channels the couple’s penchant for dragons, ritual, and geeky-glam style.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC 1 OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS

Buried Child THE THEATRE The New Group revives Sam Shepard’s Pulit- zer Prize-winning drama from 1978, directed by Scott Elliott and featuring Ed Harris and Amy Madigan as a rural Illinois couple with a fam- ily secret. (Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212-279-4200. Opens Feb. 17.)

Eclipsed Danai Gurira’s drama, about a group of captive women during Liberia’s second civil war, trans- fers from the Public to Broadway, starring Lu- pita Nyong’o. (Golden, 252 W. 45th St. 212-239- 6200. Previews begin Feb. 23.)

Her Requiem LCT3 presents Greg Pierce’s play, directed by Kate Whoriskey, in which a high-school girl takes her senior year of to compose a requiem, only to cause a rift in her family. (Claire Tow, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200. In previews. Opens Feb. 22.)

The Humans Stephen Karam’s disquieting family drama moves to Broadway with its original cast, including Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell. Joe Man- tello directs. (Helen Hayes, 240 W. 44th St. 212- Estate Value silence, are a major part of the theatrical 239-6200. In previews. Opens Feb. 18.) experience. Discovering a Russian master. Nice Fish “The Cherry Orchard,” which will Mark Rylance stars in an adaptation of Louis It was the late actress Kim Stanley be performed by the Maly Drama The- Jenkins’s book of poems, about two men on an ice-ishing trip in Minnesota. Claire van Kampen who alerted me to Chekhov’s great- atre of St. Petersburg, at BAM’s Harvey directs the American Repertory Theatre produc- ness. Years ago, I was trying to write Theatre Feb. 17-27 (in Russian with tion. (St. Ann’s Warehouse, 45 Water St., Brooklyn. a piece, for this magazine, about the English supertitles), was the maestro’s 718-254-8779. In previews. Opens Feb. 21.) fabled performer, a process that led to a last play. It took him three years to com- Old Hats number of late-night calls. Stanley had plete, and when the Moscow Art The- The veteran clowns Bill Irwin and David Shiner a beautiful voice, memorialized as the atre premièred the work, on January 17, bring back their double act, directed by Tina Landau. (Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 uncredited narrator in the ilm version 1904, he had six months left to live. (He W. 42nd St. 212-244-7529. In previews. Opens Feb. 18.) of “To Kill A Mockingbird,” and when was forty-four when he died, from the we talked about theatre, particularly ac- efects of tuberculosis.) Mortality is Red Speedo In Lucas Hnath’s play, directed by Lileana Blain- tors, she was as brilliant a commentator central to this work, as is the imminent Cruz, an Olympic hopeful copes with the pres- as Shaw or Tynan—a constructive truth death of a way of upper-class Russian sure of competition on the eve of swim trials. teller. She asked me, had I read Chek- life, with its carelessness and infantile (New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St. 212- 460-5475. Previews begin Feb. 17.) hov? I had not, I said, not in any great absorption in the past. The play opens depth—I wasn’t excited by the latness in a nursery once inhabited by Lyubov The Robber Bridegroom of his prose—and she almost put the Andreevna, an aristocrat who’s returning Steven Pasquale plays a Mississippi bandit in the Roundabout’s revival of the 1975 musical, based phone down when I asked, on top of to her family’s country estate, which on a short story by Eudora Welty and directed everything else, why he was important. is on the brink of being sold. But can by Alex Timbers. (Laura Pels, 111 W. 46th St. 212- “Because he’s life!” she said. Stanley had she or any of her family members pay 719-1300. Previews begin Feb. 18.) played Masha in the incredible Actors attention to the estate being taken over She Loves Me Studio production of “Three Sisters” by a carpetbagger the family never paid Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi star in the 1963 (there’s a terriic ilmed record of the attention to, because he was a philis- musical, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock, in which two employees at 1966 show)—how could I give so com- tine? “The Cherry Orchard” aches with a perfume shop are unaware that they are roman- mitted an adviser the brush-of? Chekhov’s fascination with fashion and tic pen pals. (Studio 54, at 254 W. 54th St. 212-719- Years passed, and I became as snobbism, and how the limits of each 1300. Previews begin Feb. 19.) devoted as the next fan to Chekhov’s can deine us, and make life tragic. 1 indirection and rhythms—his ear was Sometimes, when reading the play, NOW PLAYING particularly attuned to how we let time I imagine Stanley’s voice as Lyubov— O, Earth ly while trying to stave of change. another lirtatious, vengeful, and true As Thornton Wilder, in Casey Llewellyn’s “Our Even when I see a production of one of character she was born to play or, rather, Town”-inspired work about theatre and politics his four major plays that doesn’t work, I inhabit, exposing that Russian’s mag- and the illusions embedded in each, Martin Moran gives such a clear, elegant performance that you learn something about him, about how netism in the process. just want to watch him. And his acting continues

the voice, combined with words and —Hilton Als to grow as the narrative takes on the issues Wilder NICOLE RIFKIN BY ILLUSTRATION

6 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 THE THEATRE kept buried during his lifetime—his sexuality, for one—and spins out into an “Ellen” episode star- ring the late transgender activists Marsha P. John- son (Julienne Brown, a.k.a. Mizz June) and Sylvia CLASSICAL MUSIC Rivera (the wonderful Cecilia Gentili). Llewellyn can write, but too often the politics precede drama, 1 and the Foundry Theatre’s production stalls. Sens- Budapest Festival Orchestra ing that he might have too little text that says too OPERA What a week for Liszt: irst Yeim Bronfman, much, the director, Dustin Wills, falls back on now Marc-André Hamelin, who performs the Wooster Group-derived tricks, such as having the Metropolitan Opera Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major as the cast do a little dance for “entertainment.” But Wills In David McVicar’s menacing production of centerpiece of a concert with Iván Fischer and is too talented for those efects, which only dimin- “Maria Stuarda,” the soprano Sondra Radva- his superlative orchestra which begins with We- ish the veracity of his vision. (HERE, 145 Sixth novsky, continuing her tour through Donizetti’s ber’s “Der Freischütz” Overture and Prokoiev’s Ave., near Spring St. 212-352-3101. Through Feb. 20.) so-called Tudor Queens trilogy, gives an out- Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major. (Carnegie Hall. standing performance as Maria (Mary, Queen 212-247-7800. Feb. 18 at 8.) Prodigal Son of Scots), embodying her character’s fear, no- John Patrick Shanley’s memory play is set in the bility, and wounded pride in long-breathed 1 mid-sixties, when Shanley was a restless teen-ager lines and big, loated high notes. Elza van den RECITALS from the Bronx who wound up at a prim Catho- Heever plays the part of the iendish, hector- lic boarding school in New Hampshire. His alter ing Elisabetta (Elizabeth I) to the hilt; the con- Dmitri Hvorostovsky ego is Jim Quinn (the rangy, charismatic Timothée ductor Riccardo Frizza is a supportive partner, The marvellous Siberian baritone continues to Chalamet), described by the headmaster (Chris giving both queens plenty of latitude to com- earn his reputation as the world’s inest ambas- McGarry) as “the most interesting mess we have mand the stage. (Feb. 20 at 1. This is the inal sador of Russian art song. He brings his darkly this year.” Jim steals records, hides booze in his performance.) • David McVicar’s production alluring voice to a survey of nineteenth-century dorm room, and rifs on T. S. Eliot and Socrates, of verismo’s classic double bill—“Cavalleria styles, from Glinka’s sturdy proto-nationalism when he isn’t composing his own plainspoken po- Rusticana,” by Mascagni, and “Pagliacci,” by to Tchaikovsky’s soaring, seductive lyricism. A etry. Painting his younger self—perhaps too admir- Leoncavallo—is delivered by an impressive cast set of old favorites by Richard Strauss provides ingly—as a working-class prodigy, Shanley has an that includes Liudmyla Monastyrska, Barbara the incongruous, if crowd-pleasing, coda. Ivari intimate, tactile feel for the “Dead Poets Society” Frittoli, Marco Berti, Ambrogio Maestri, and Ilja, Hvorostovsky’s regular collaborator, ac- milieu and for characters like Mr. Hofman (Robert George Gagnidze in the leading roles; Fabio companies him. (Carnegie Hall. 212-247-7800. Sean Leonard), a teacher with mixed motivations. Luisi. Feb. 17 and Feb. 23 at 7:30 and Feb. 20 at Feb. 17 at 8.) But the playwright shouldn’t have directed his 8.) • Puccini’s steamy “Manon Lescaut”—which own work; the pace is often stilted, carried along played at the house for thirty-six years in a ro- Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center mostly by Chalamet’s incandescent performance. coco-accented production that now seems de- The Society presents the inal installments of the (City Center Stage I, 131 W. 55th St. 212-581-1212.) cidedly antiquated—has long been due for an Beethoven quartet cycle, with two exciting young update. Richard Eyre’s new ilm-noir-inspired ensembles guiding listeners through the late Sense & Sensibility staging features Kristine Opolais, a star in the works: irst, Op. 132, Op. 130, and the “Grosse Those who prefer their Jane Austen demure should making, as the opera’s reckless seductress, and Fugue,” performed by the Escher String Quartet, and keep a restorative slug of Madeira wine at the Roberto Alagna, singing his irst-ever perfor- then the Danish String Quartet’s Op. 131, Op. 135, ready. Everyone else can relax and disport them- mances of the role of Des Grieux; Luisi. (Feb. 18 and the substitute inale of Op. 130, the last com- selves at Bedlam’s galloping adaptation of Aus- at 8.) • The company’s merry-go-round of Ital- position Beethoven completed. (Alice Tully Hall. ten’s 1811 novel, about the romantic trials of the ian opera continues with a return of Anthony 212-875-5788. Feb. 19 at 7:30 and Feb. 21 at 5.) Dashwood sisters, Elinor (a superb Andrus Nich- Minghella’s beloved 2006 production of “Ma- ols) and Marianne (Kate Hamill), spirited young dama Butterfly,” with Ana María Martínez of- Inon Barnatan women pauperized by their father’s death. The di- fering her irst performances at the house of the The stately young pianist, admired for his inter- rector, Eric Tucker, isn’t one to let his actors sit title role and Roberto De Biasio and Artur Ru- pretations of Schubert, ofers a recital featuring around and embroider. They are nearly always cinski as Pinkerton and Sharpless, respectively; the Sonata in G Major, D. 894, as well as Bach’s on their feet—rolling wheeled scenery, trading Karel Mark Chichon. (Feb. 19 at 7:30 and Feb. 22 Chaconne in D Minor (in Brahms’s transcription bits of gossip, whirling in anachronistic dances, at 8.) (Metropolitan Opera House. 212-362-6000.) for the left hand), Ligeti’s “Musica Ricercata” or tussling in a rugby scrum. Tucker should have (eleven short pieces pushing the boundaries of let them have an occasional rest and allowed the American Classical Orchestra: harmonic structure), and Brahms’s Variations and climactic scenes to unfurl with more gravitas. But “L’Isola Disabitata” Fugue on a Theme by Handel. (92nd Street Y, Lex- the show has ample energy and mischief, and, if Thomas Crawford and his excellent period-per- ington Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415-5500. Feb. 20 at 8.) some nuance is lost, much is gained in giving in- formance ensemble present a semi-staged ver- ventive performers such rein. (Gym at Judson, 243 sion of one of the best of Haydn’s operas, which, Juilliard String Quartet Thompson St. 866-811-4111.) while not frequently produced today, were cer- A chapter of New York’s classical-music history tainly good enough to inluence the more cel- will come to an end this week: Joel Krosnick, one Washer/Dryer ebrated works of his young colleague Mozart. of the city’s most insightful musicians and the In this sitcom-ish farce by Nandita Shenoy, pre- The vocal soloists include the soprano Sherezade Juilliard’s cellist for forty-two seasons, will play sented by Ma-Yi Theatre Company, the problems Panthaki and the tenor Owen McIntosh. (Alice his last concert in the group’s Alice Tully Hall se- of an inter-ethnic marriage are dwarfed by the Tully Hall. 212-721-6500. Feb. 23 at 8.) ries. His incoming replacement, Astrid Schween even more intractable expectations of a Manhattan (admired for more than two decades for her work co-op board. Sonya and Michael—her background 1 with the Lark Quartet), joins him in a program is Indian, his is Chinese—are dealing with the fall- ORCHESTRAS AND CHORUSES that, true to the ensemble’s roots, is both inno- out from their impulse Vegas wedding. Michael’s vative and deeply traditional—Mozart’s Quartet mother, a bit of a battle-axe, is still getting used to New York Philharmonic in C Major, K. 465 (“Dissonance”), the New York the idea. But Sonya hasn’t informed her co-op, be- Yeim Bronfman—the thinking man’s virtuoso première of Richard Wernick’s Quartet No. 9, cause her apartment is designated single occupancy. powerhouse—makes a slightly unconventional and Schubert’s String Quintet (with Schween). She thus faces a classic New York dilemma: Does choice for his next Philharmonic showpiece: (events.juilliard.edu. Feb. 22 at 7:30.) she leave the apartment for the man, or the man Liszt’s dreamy Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major, for the apartment? (The argument hinges on the part of an Austro-Hungarian program led by the Mitsuko Uchida built-in laundry facilities.) Many comedic compli- young Slovak maestro Juraj Valčuha, which also Carnegie Hall’s queen of the keyboard returns to cations ensue on the way to resolving this question. includes music by Kodály and Dvořák (“The perform the mostly Viennese repertory that she It’s all reasonably good fun, if slight, though the Water Goblin”) and, for sparkle, some Ravel plays with unmatched lucidity: works by Berg, characterizations sometimes tend uncomfortably (“La Valse”). (David Gefen Hall. 212-875-5656. Schubert (the Four Impromptus, D. 899), Mo- toward stereotype. Old wine, new bottle. (Beck- Feb. 18 and Feb. 23 at 7:30, Feb. 19 at 11 .M., and zart, and Schumann (the Piano Sonata No. 1 in ett, 410 W. 42nd St. 212-239-6200. Through Feb. 21.) Feb. 20 at 8.) F-Sharp Minor). (212-247-7800. Feb. 23 at 8.)

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 7 DANCE

Ms. Lear A downtown dance veteran embodies Shakespeare’s aging king. “Lear,” by the Irish choreographer John Scott and the veteran dancer Valda Setterield, is a streamlined version of Shakespeare’s play. It has only four dancers, King Lear and his daugh- ters. Plus, the daughters are played by men, and Lear is a woman, Setterield. What does cross-sex casting do for a show? The most obvious consequence, it seems to me, is what the Russian lit- erary theorist Viktor Shklovsky called “defamiliarization.” That is, it shakes us up, lets us see the play anew, not just as that old thing. When I presented this idea to Scott and Setterield, they both said yes, yes, of course, but that their show was not about men or women but just about parents and children. Setterield, actually, seemed to won- der why I was even raising the issue of gender. She’d played men before, she said: Brecht, Marcel Duchamp. Indeed, when she performed pantomimes in her youth, in England, she was expected to be able to play anything—maybe a rat, if the scene was a kitchen. Later, she came to New York and joined the Merce Cunningham company, whose resident designer at the time was Rob- ert Rauschenberg. “Rauschenberg would say things to me, like, Can you do this section while holding a garden hose? And I would say, Fine. So, with ‘Lear,’ I never said to myself, Oh, God, I’m doing a man. What I was doing was just a parent. The play is about the curious transition in the lives of parents and their children when the question Valda Setterield and John Scott’s “Lear” plays at New York Live Arts. arises: Who’s responsible now?” That question seemed very pressing I wanted the play to include that: the I said, You could do a slow dance. And to John Scott when he was working whole crisscross of parental love, ilial so that’s what she does. It’s ambiguous, on “Lear.” His father, Leslie Scott, love, with afection and guilt on both stately. I’m always happy when things who had been the lighting designer sides. But I wanted it fresh, stripped are ambiguous.” Leslie Scott died in at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre for more down. Valda and I went over every line 2013. John Scott and Valda Setterield’s than thirty years, was ninety-one and of the play together. When we got to tribute to him and to all old parents had just had a stroke, which left him Lear’s death speech, the famous ‘Never, premièred at the Kilkenny Arts Festi- mostly speechless, mostly helpless. “He never, never,’ I asked her, Doesn’t this val the following year. It plays at New had been a superdad. Suddenly, I was seem a little melodramatic? And she York Live Arts Feb. 17-20. in a position of having to be in charge. said, Well, what will I do if I don’t die? —Joan Acocella EDEL RODRIGUEZ BY ILLUSTRATION

8 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 DANCE

New York City Ballet behind computer programming.) Both Santoro The company, known for its repertory of ab- and Godard have backgrounds in science and stract ballets, is in a storytelling mood. After math—they think in code. The basic elements three inal performances of Peter Martins’s of this collaboration are twenty-four “movement ART version of “La Sylphide” (Feb. 16-18), there atoms for arms and legs,” re-assembled by the is one more chance to see Justin Peck’s “The dancers in diferent ways each night. The pos- 1 Most Incredible Thing,” based on a tale by sibilities are endless. (The Kitchen, 512 W. 19th MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES Hans Christian Andersen. An alternate pro- St. 212-255-5793. Feb. 18-20.) gram includes both “Jeux,” a kind of ballet noir by the Danish choreographer Kim Brand- Pam Tanowitz Dance Morgan Library & Museum strup, and “Paz de la Jolla,” a seaside romp (also When she doesn’t tie herself up in abstruse “Wagner’s Ring: Forging an Epic” by Peck) that includes a striking underwater knots, Tanowitz is one of the very wittiest, When the “Ring” cycle premièred, in 1876, in a dream ballet. • Feb. 16-18 at 7:30: “La Syl- most exciting choreographers working today, new opera house built with Ludwig of Bavaria’s phide” and “Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto an heir to Merce Cunningham. Following up cash to Wagner’s speciications, it was an in- No. 2.” • Feb. 19 at 8: “Ash,” “This Bitter Earth,” on her thrilling 2014 début at the Joyce, she ternational event. A reporter for the New York “The Infernal Machine,” “The Four Temper- returns with that year’s “Heaven on One’s Herald cabled four in-depth reports, printed aments,” and “The Most Incredible Thing.” • Head” and a première called “the story pro- alongside sheet music, under the headline “A Feb. 20 at 2 and 8, Feb. 21 at 3, and Feb. 23 at gresses as if in a dream of glittering surfaces.” Revolution in Opera.” If seventeen hours of 7:30: “Ash,” “This Bitter Earth,” “The Infer- For the irst part, the intrepid FLUX Quar- opera isn’t your thing, this show is a ine in- nal Machine,” “Jeux,” and “Paz de la Jolla.” tet plays a Julia Wolfe composition live; for troduction; for Wagner obsessives, the rarities (David H. Koch, Lincoln Center. 212-496-0600. the second, Tanowitz’s brilliant dancers move on view will occasion a Brünnhilde-style Ho- Through Feb. 28.) to an electronic score by Dan Siegler. (Joyce jotoho! Costumes, production stills, and prizes Theatre, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th St. 212-242- from the museum’s collection (one highlight: “Angel Reapers” 0800. Feb. 18-21.) Wagner’s libretto for the tetralogy, includ- The Shakers, a small religious community ing crossed-out dialogue between the young known for its ecstatic prayer meetings, may Sarah Skaggs Dance Siegfried and the dwarf Mime) are paired be almost extinct (the group insists on celi- In “The New Ecstatic 2.0,” Skaggs extends a with handwritten drafts of all four operas, on bacy), but it continues to fascinate artists and 2013 duet for herself and the extraordinarily loan from Bayreuth. A churning painting by particularly, it seems, choreographers. Like pliant and articulate Cori Kresge. The work, an Fantin- Latour, in which a pair of Rhinemaid- Sui spinning, Shaker songs and the repetitive austere examination of precision and abandon, ens scythe through brackish water, ofers a movements that they inspire are meant to bring with overtones that push the post-traumatic to- taste of the Wagnermania that swept across worshippers closer to the divine. “Angel Reap- ward the post-apocalyptic, is, by dint of the cast- Europe in the nineteenth century—engulf- ers,” a collaboration between the playwright ing, inevitably also a meditation on aging; the ing everyone from Thomas Mann to Aubrey Alfred Uhry and the choreographer-director veteran choreographer moves in exposing uni- Beardsley—a subject that merits a show of its Martha Clarke, uses Shaker rhythms to create a son with the younger dancer or cedes the stage own. Through April 17. musical and physical portrait of the group, evok- to her bounding force. (Abrons Arts Center, 466 ing worship, erotic longing, and spiritual tur- Grand St. 212-352-3101. Feb. 18-21.) New Museum moil. The work, a hybrid of theatre and dance, “Anri Sala: Answer Me” premièred in 2010. (Pershing Square Signature José Limón Dance Company What is it about melancholy small countries? Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212-244-7529. Feb. 17-21. The second week of the ive-week Harkness This Albanian artist’s great show recalls an- Through March 20.) Dance Festival ofers “Dialogues,” a rarity ex- other recent exhibition at the museum, by the humed from the José Limón back catalogue. Icelandic Ragnar Kjartansson. Sala combines Valda Setterfield and John Scott / “Lear” Made in 1951 and last seen in 1952, “Dialogues” beautiful video, immersive music, and occa- Valda Setterield has had a long and varied is one of Limón’s epic, historically based works, sional live performance with conceptual rigor career on both sides of the Atlantic; she did a meditation on Mexican history. (Limón was and heartbreaking ironies. So does Kjartans- classical ballet, appeared in revues, performed born in Mexico, in 1908.) After the performance, son, though with less solemn content and a pantomime, immersed herself in experimental the company’s director will talk about the pro- heavier touch. Sala’s allusions to tragic his- theatre, and, for many years, was a member of cess of reviving a dance once considered lost. tories of Europe and his manipulations of so- the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. This (92nd Street Y, Lexington Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415- phisticated music—from Ravel and Schon- collaboration with the Irish choreographer and 5500. Feb. 19-21.) berg to free jazz—sound tiresomely complex director John Scott, a distillation of the Shake- when described but are sublime when experi- speare play “King Lear,” unfolds through move- PLATFORM 2016: “A Body in Places” enced. Go prepared for the best-ever art work ment, mime, and deconstructed text. As Set- This monthlong series at Danspace Project cen- about left-handedness and for the most pro- terield puts it, it depicts “the unravelling of a ters on the solo work of Eiko, who for more than found duet between two saxophonists, one universe.” (New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th St. forty years has been half of the esteemed, gla- onscreen and the other in the room with you. 212-924-0077. Feb. 17-20.) cial-speed, Japanese-born duo of Eiko and Koma. Of peculiar note are Sala’s collaborations, Later elements will include daily performances in drawing and architectural enhancement, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo / “Cinderella” by Eiko in spots around the East Village, solos with his friend, Edi Rama, who was the irst Jean-Christophe Maillot’s reinterpretations of by other artists, ilms, installations, workshops, post-Communist mayor of Tirana and is now familiar works such as “Romeo and Juliet” and and a book club. The irst show, on Feb. 23, is a Albania’s Prime Minister. One caveat: Sala “Swan Lake” tend to follow a set formula: car- series of improvisational “Talking Duets” with is a tasteless sculptor. He should stick, as he toonish characterizations, emphatic choreogra- Eiko and such notable choreographers as Ish- mostly and gloriously does, to moving images. phy, glam-minimalist aesthetic. His “Cinder- mael Houston-Jones, Yvonne Meier, and Eliza- Through April 10. ella,” from 1999, which comes to City Center on beth Streb. (St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, Sec- Feb. 18, is no diferent. The white, semi-Cubist ond Ave. at 10th St. 866-811-4111. Feb. 20. Through 1 set is by Ernest Pignon-Ernest; the re-ordered March 23.) GALLERIES—UPTOWN (recorded) score is by Prokoiev. But the pro- duction’s saving grace is the exceptional danc- Maria Hassabi Richard Diebenkorn ers of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. (131 W. 55th For her monthlong installation “PLASTIC,” Thirty eye-opening gouaches and watercolors, St. 212-581-1212. Feb. 18-20.) Hassabi arranges a rotating cast of stellar danc- circa 1949-55, reveal a formative phase for ers, including herself, in the MOMA atrium and the American painter, who was then living in Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard / “For on various staircases throughout the museum. New Mexico. They feature furiously gestural Claude Shannon” The performers could be human sculptures, ex- attacks quite unlike the lofty poise of his ma- Santoro and Godard’s new piece is a system built cept that they move, very slowly, as passersby ture “Ocean Park” style. Splotched pigments out of discrete segments of data, which interact watch or keep walking. (Museum of Modern Art, and skittering lines rampage in dissonant col- in unpredictable ways. (Shannon, for whom the 11 W. 53rd St. 212-708-9400. Feb. 21-23. Through ors and impacted compositions. Forms lut- piece is named, was an innovator in the theory March 20.) ter like startled birds. Inluences of abstract

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 9 ART

painters (Alechinsky, Jorn, Appel) and adding hints from Americans (de Kooning, Guston, Basquiat, Wool). Martinez silkscreens blow- ups of his spontaneous drawings and then has at them with oils, enamel, and spray paint. There’s lots of white space, in which black lines and lavorful colors frolic, keyed to what Mar- tinez describes as the Cobra “embrace of the child’s hand.” Does the art world sometimes feel like school? Welcome to recess! Through March 5. (Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 534 W. 26th St.1 212-744-7400.) GALLERIES—DOWNTOWN

Catherine Opie Nothing if not versatile, the Los Angeles pho- tographer shows still lifes, portraits, and land- scapes from three very diferent series. Down- town, there are ifty pictures taken in Elizabeth Taylor’s home, shortly before and after the ac- tress’s death, in 2011. Most of them detail her staggering array of possessions, from Oscars to handbags. As a portrait of a star in absentia, it’s neither as elegant nor as revealing as William Eggleston’s “Graceland” series, which Opie cites as an inspiration. Still, Taylor’s delirious excess Carrie Moyer’s unabashedly beautiful paintings have hidden depths: they’re swarming with art- is fascinating. In Chelsea, Opie exhibits portraits historical and feminist references, such as nods to Helen Franthenthaler and Georgia O’Keefe. Her new of subjects—Kara Walker, John Waters, Glenn works (including “Intergalactic Emoji Factory,” above) are at the DC Moore gallery starting Feb. 18. Ligon, The New Yorker’s Hilton Als—cloaked in Old Master-like chiaroscuro. She plays the Surrealism pop up and are trashed. Hints of in a fun house. Through Feb. 20. (Saul, 535 W. 22nd drama up to the hilt, yet skirts heavy-handed- landscape come and, mostly, go. The show dra- St. 212-627-2410.) ness through sly wit. Unfortunately, a group of matizes a youthful craving for freedom so in- soft-focus landscapes, while gorgeous, suggests tense that it fought against the grain of the Louis Draper little more than an empty homage to Gerhard artist’s temperament, which would emerge Draper is one of the founding members of the Richter. Through Feb. 20. (Lehmann Maupin, 201 with a proit of wisdom from the adventure. Kamoinge Workshop—a New York collective Chrystie Street. 212-254-0054; 536 W. 22nd St. Through March 5. (Van Doren Waxter, 23 E. 73rd of African-American photographers—and he 212-255-2923.) St. 212-445-0444.) exempliies its activist approach to personal photojournalism. This excellent survey of more 1 “Drawing Then: Innovation and Influence than eighty pictures, most of them taken on the GALLERIES—BROOKLYN in American Drawings of the Sixties” streets of Harlem, begins in the late ifties and “Drawing Now” is a legendary survey, curated spans four decades. Draper’s work is most en- Ginny Casey by Bernice Rose, at the Museum of Modern gaging when his subjects are fellow-lâneurs or Bodies haunt still lifes in this New Yorker Art, exactly forty years ago. This show, orga- children seen in passing; his empathy is genu- painter’s enchanting solo début. Eyes peek nized by Kate Ganz, partially re-creates it, with ine, and sparks even the most casual shot. But he out from under the lid of a jar. Bulging pots seventy mostly superb works by thirty- nine also channels the subtle power of the inanimate rest on tabletops, suggestively prodded and artists. (Ganz omits some of Rose’s original world—the sensual landscape of a rumpled bed, pinched by disembodied hands in gangrenous cast and adds eighteen, eight of them women.) the ominous drapery of hanging sheets. Few re- tones of blue, green, and purple. The han- Never mind who’s in it; hardly anyone of discovered photographers could sustain a ret- dle of a hammer bends, as if made of lesh. major consequence isn’t. Minimalism and Pop rospective this large, but Draper carries it of Brushy, soaked-in, sanded-down paint imbues Art rule, with touchstones and variants that with admirable ease. Through Feb. 20. (Kasher, the mottled light and eccentric forms with a celebrate the extraordinary elorescence of 515 W. 26th St. 212-966-3978.) subaquatic softness. Casey’s homey neo-Sur- graphic invention in the sixties. You’ll have realism its right in at this gallery, housed in favorites. One nominee, from 1968: Vija Jules Olitski a live-work space shared by the artists Mitch- Celmins’s haunting, realist depiction of a let- These little-seen works from 1986 by the color- ell Wright, Ridley Howard, and Holly Coulis. ter envelope—with imagined, direly signii- ield painter, who died in 2007, are a surprise. Take note: it’s open only on Sundays. Through cant stamps—from her mother. Through March They’re lat and wall mounted, but are they Feb. 28. (106 Green, 104 Green St., Greenpoint. 19. (Lévy, 909 Madison Ave., at 73rd St. 212- even paintings? Raggedly cutout sheets of Plexi- 347-927-7106.) 772-2004.) glas are slathered with pearlescent and metallic acrylics and sprayed with enamel. There’s the Eva Kot’átková 1 artist’s usual device of edging amorphous ields This thoughtful Czech artist, a standout in the GALLERIES—CHELSEA with daubs of strong colors. Olitski once said 2015 New Museum Triennial, makes fragmen- that he wished he could spray color in the air tary collages and sculptures that invoke cruel Zeke Berman and have it stay there. Here, he dumped color (and, happily, out-of-date) psychiatric prac- These meticulously constructed, cleverly confus- onto plastic and hoped for the best. Some ef- tices. Cages and straitjackets are mournful re- ing photographs, made in the eighties, echo Cubist fulgent hues and shimmering tints beguile, minders of obsolete science; lyrical works on collage and anticipate digital manipulation. Each but they feel incidental to the fustian of an paper depict cribs and blindfolded children. black-and-white image begins with a still-life ar- incensed ambition, disdaining heedfulness. In an ambitious and engrossing video, shot rangement (a rubber ball, a hatchet, a banana, a Through Feb. 27. (Kasmin, 293 Tenth Ave., at 27th at a Prague psychiatric hospital, we see a pa- cane) against a black background, as if on an il- St. 212-563-4474.) tient caught up in a Kakaesque trial, plead- lusionist’s stage. Throughout, three dimensions ing his case before hostile judges in giant hats. are lattened into two, and vice versa (for exam- Eddie Martinez It’s a familiar story: allegedly sane and lawful ple, a wooden block and a drawing of a box stage The Brooklyn artist’s big, rambunctious, ter- citizens abusing their power. Through April 8. a trompe-l’oeil showdown). Using simple mate- riically friendly canvases collapse seven de- (ISCP, 1040 Metropolitan Ave., East Williams-

rials, Berman introduces Braque to Jasper Johns cades of painting, reviving styles of the Cobra burg. 718-387-2900.) NEW YORK DC MOORE GALLERY, COURTESY

10 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 two superb jazz percussionists, Kenny Washing- ton (Friday) and Billy Hart (Saturday and Sun- day), and if the bandstand ends up drenched in NIGHT LIFE blood, sweat, and tears, you were warned. There are few slouches in a supporting crew that in- 1 cludes the pianist Harold Mabern, the trumpeter half a decade playing sunny beach punk and lo-i Brian Lynch, and the saxophonist Abraham Bur- ROCK AND POP pop at show after show, unconcerned with how ton. (Smoke, 2751 Broadway, between 105th and the uninitiated make sense of their tongue-in- 106th Sts. 212-864-6662. Feb. 19-21.) Musicians and night-club proprietors lead cheek visuals and stoner humor. They’ll play a complicated lives; it’s advisable to check run of co-headlining shows as part of the “Sum- Buster Williams and Renee Rosnes in advance to conirm engagements. mer Is Forever II” tour, a proper sequel to their After thirty years as a committed jazz musi- 2011 split EP and mini-tour. (Terminal 5, 610 cian, irst as a noted supporting player and now Eleanor Friedberger W. 56th St. 212-582-6600. Feb. 18.) as a respected bandleader, the pianist Rosnes The indie chanteuse Friedberger, like many other qualiies as a genuine veteran. Still, compared artists turned of by the increasing unafordabil- 1 with her duet partner, the bassist Williams—a ity of New York City, recently relocated upstate. JAZZ AND STANDARDS masterful stylist who has collaborated with ev- “I don’t want to live in a shoebox in Midwood,” eryone from Sarah Vaughan and Shirley Horn she told Brooklyn Magazine, and went on to de- Orrin Evans to Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock—Rosnes scribe her funky new ixer-upper property, which Bursting at the seams with multifarious projects, the is practically a neophyte. Pooling their col- includes a cottage, a barn, and an eight-thousand- aspiring pianist, composer, and Philadelphia trans- lective experience, they make sweet sounds square-foot factory building. A sense of open space plant Orrin Evans fronts three bands in four nights. together. (Mezzrow, 163 W. 10th St. mezzrow. and rejuvenation also permeates her brilliant new Leading of with his interactive trio (Thursday), com. Feb. 19-20.) album, “New View,” which was recorded last year Evans then expands things with his Captain Black in a converted barn in Germantown, a few miles big band (Friday), and closes out the engagement Rita Wilson from her rural refuge. The album’s songs are built with a quartet featuring the pioneering jazz guitar- A gifted actress and successful ilm producer, around simple structures overlaid with afecting, ist Kurt Rosenwinkel (Saturday and Sunday). (Jazz Wilson is also a warmly appealing vocalist en- whimsical lyrics and brief intrusions of rich har- Standard, 116 E. 27th St. 212-576-2232. Feb. 18-21.) amored of the singer-songwriter movement of monies that evoke the baroque pop of the Zombies the early seventies. That she is also the wife of a and the Beach Boys. (Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey The New Drum Battle certain American icon (Tom Hanks) is her own St. 212-260-4700. Feb. 18.) The drummer Joe Farnsworth is either a man business. (Café Carlyle, Carlyle Hotel, Madison who loves a challenge or a masochist. In the Ave. at 76th St. 212-744-1600. Feb. 23. Through The Men course of the weekend, he will set himself against March 5.) Since this local punk group played its irst show, in February of 2009, it’s undergone many lineup and stylistic shifts, landing on a brash sound that strad- dles grisly eighties indie, noise, and classic rock. The band has kept fairly quiet in the past year, but recently shared a few photographs from the studio, and will likely try out some new material at a hand- ful of New York shows in the coming weeks. The Men will pull into this grungy outerborough night spot, joined by their label mates Cheena, a new band composed of some of the brightest stars of the city’s noise-punk underground. (The members’ past and current projects include Pharmakon, Dawn of Hu- mans, and Crazy Spirit.) (Trans-Pecos, 915 Wyckof Ave., Ridgewood. thetranspecos.com. Feb. 20.)

Tibet House Benefit In 1987, at the request of the Dalai Lama, this non- proit organization was formed to insure the sur- vival of Tibetan civilization and culture at a turbu- lent point in the county’s history. Its annual beneit concert, which brings together politically and spiri- tually minded musicians, is now in its twenty-sixth year, and continues to be led by the experimen- tal composer Philip Glass, who helped the institu- tion in its infancy. He is joined here by an eclectic group of musicians, including Sharon Jones, Iggy Pop, and the British singer-songwriter, producer, and highly kinetic dancer Tahliah Debrett Barnett, who goes by the stage name FKA Twigs. (Carnegie Hall, Seventh Ave. at 57th St. 212-247-7800. Feb. 22.)

Wavves and Best Coast “We’re called Best Coast and Wavves because we love the ocean,” Bethany Cosentino once ex- plained, referring to the bands that she and Nathan Williams head up, respectively. “But secretly, we hate it.” Her vague “it” is left open to interpreta- tion. Does the young couple (they’ve dated since they were teen-agers) hate the ocean, the puns, or the impulse to pine meaning from names and genres and lyrics? Williams’s most quoted line— “Well, I hate my writing, it’s all the same”—pokes

ILLUSTRATION BY KRISTIAN HAMMERSTAD KRISTIAN BY ILLUSTRATION at a similar idea. The two indie outits have spent The punk pair Best Coast and Wavves split top billing for a three-week tour this winter.

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 11 MOVIES

Agyness Deyn stars in “Sunset Song,” which screens on opening night of “Film Comment Selects.”

Heart of the Country until the end of the First World War. Brutalized by her tyrannical father The director Terence Davies inds (Peter Mullan) and unprotected by her inspiration in the Scottish landscape. long-sufering mother (Daniela Nardini), This year’s edition of Film Society the sharp-minded Chris plans to leave of Lincoln Center’s “Film Comment the farm and become a teacher. But after Selects” series (running Feb. 17-24) her parents die in quick succession (in opens with a major coup: the New York separate, gravely dramatic incidents) she première of “Sunset Song,” a new ilm marries Ewan Tavendale (Kevin Guth- by Terence Davies, who has long been rie), a young farmhand, and settles down among the world’s most original direc- with him on her family’s property, until tors, despite his relatively scant output. they’re wrenched apart by his military After his exquisite adaptation of Edith service in the war. Both with him and Wharton’s “The House of Mirth,” in on her own, Chris bears the drudgery of 2000, Davies didn’t ilm another drama farming and the stiling norms of rural until “The Deep Blue Sea,” in 2012. society in order to realize her private Davies’s career-long obsession is passion, one greater than romantic love emotional archeology. None of his dra- or intellectual fulillment: an ecstatic de- matic features are set in the present votion to the land itself. Davies, aided by day, and whether he is ilming his own Michael McDonough’s cinematogra- childhood experience (as in his irst fea- phy, depicts Chris’s dedication in images tures, “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and that are frankly sensual and glowingly “The Long Day Closes”) or adapting lyrical. “Sunset Song” is a grand-scale works of literature, his subject is mem- melodrama compressed into the qui- ory, and its blend of the intimate with etly burning point of a single soul. Now the historical. “Sunset Song,” based seventy, Davies is picking up the pace on the 1932 novel by Lewis Grassic of production even as he delves deeper Gibbon, traces the fortunes of a young into intimate history: his next ilm, “A woman, Chris Guthrie (Agyness Quiet Passion,” is a bio-pic about Emily Deyn), who lives in an isolated farm Dickinson, starring Cynthia Nixon.

village in Scotland, from around 1910 —Richard Brody PICTURES MAGNOLIA COURTESY

12 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 1MOVIES OPENING Embrace of the Serpent The Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s fanat- Embrace of the Serpent Reviewed below in ically detailed and starkly visionary historical Now Playing. Opening Feb. 17. (In limited re- ilm, set along the Amazon, dramatizes the en- lease.) • Race Stephan James stars as Jesse Owens counters of Karamakate, a shaman, with two Eu- in this bio-pic centered on the track star’s compe- ropean explorers whose real-life travel diaries tition in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Directed by inspired the ilm. In the early twentieth cen- Stephen Hopkins; co-starring Carice van Hou- tury, the young Karamakate (Nilbio Torres)— ten, Jason Sudeikis, and Jeremy Irons. Opening believing himself to be the last of the Cohiuano, Feb. 19. (In wide release.) • The Witch A horror whose people fell victim to colonial rubber com- ilm, set in New England in 1630, about a teen- panies—meets the German ethnographer The- age girl who is accused of witchcraft. Directed odor Koch-Grunberg (Ja Bijvoet) and his local by Robert Eggers; starring Anya Taylor-Joy, guide, Manduca (Yauenkü Migue), who take him Ralph Ineson, and Kate Dickie. Opening Feb. 19. to meet other Cohiuano survivors. Years later, the (In wide release.) aged Karamakate (Antonio Bolivar) meets the American botanist Richard Evans Schultes (Bri- 1 onne Davis), who is searching for a rare medici- NOW PLAYING nal plant. With poised and attentive black-and- white images and a soundtrack that’s loud with The Big Short insects and rushing water, Guerra depicts the Years before the inancial crisis of 2008, early rum- harsh environment and the shaman’s profound blings are detected by Michael Burry (Christian understanding of it. The sharp, spare dialogue Bale), whose investment skills are in sharp con- captures the meeting of penetrating minds with trast to his social unease. Unlike most of his peers, difering world views; a scene of a Christian mis- he spies the cracks in the housing market and wa- sion gone to seed ofers a terrifying tableau of gers that, before too long, it will all come tum- cultural corruption that’s worthy of Buñuel. In bling down. Word of his gamble inspires a few Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Amazonian more players to take the plunge, including a mis- languages.—R.B. (In limited release.) erable hedge-fund manager (Steve Carell), a pair of greenhorns from out of town (John Magaro and Hail, Caesar! Finn Wittrock), and our sly narrator (Ryan Gos- Joel and Ethan Coen’s new comedy, set in Hol- ling), who works at Deutsche Bank. These are just lywood in 1951—the era of McCarthyite inqui- some of the unlovely igures who pace back and sitions and menacing sexual taboos—is scin- forth through Adam McKay’s new ilm, based on tillating, uproarious, playfully personal, and the noniction book by Michael Lewis. The movie rigorously substantial. A handful of Hollywood pops and izzes with invention, and even takes time Communists kidnap Baird Whitlock (George out, now and then, to educate—screeching to a halt Clooney), the hunky star of a New Testament and summoning a celebrity (Selena Gomez, say, epic titled “Hail, Caesar!”; Eddie Mannix (Josh or Margot Robbie) to steer us through the eco- Brolin), the ixer for Capitol Pictures Studios, nomic verbiage. Everything you always wanted to needs to bring Baird back. Eddie, a devout and know about credit-default swaps but were afraid guilt-riddled Catholic in a Jewish-run business, to ask: it’s all here. So winning are these tactics, has a host of other troubles to deal with, includ- and so cheerfully headlong is the mood, that we’re ing a pregnant aquatic star (Scarlett Johansson), hardly aware of rooting for a bunch of utter cynics a Western singer (Alden Ehrenreich) cast in a who are poised to make tens of millions of dollars drawing-room comedy, a pair of prowling gos- from the misfortunes of others.—Anthony Lane sip queens (both played by Tilda Swinton), and (Reviewed in our issue of 12/14/15.) (In wide release.) a quartet of clergymen who vet the Christian drama’s script. With loose-limbed performances Born in Flames and visual rhythms that have the spontaneous Lizzie Borden’s ierce and trenchant independent authority of jazz, the Coen brothers gleefully ilm—completed, in 1983, after ive years of work— rif on the essence of Hollywood and the idio- ofers political futurism without science iction. syncratic personalities that ind surprisingly It’s set in New York ten years after a second Amer- free expression within the conines of a studio. ican revolution, peaceful yet drastic, which has They contrast classical belief systems, religious brought about democratic socialism and sparked and political, with the new-new gospel of mov- new conlicts centered on race and gender. Two ies—their own American faith, which comes to underground feminist radio stations are in compe- life onscreen.—R.B. (In wide release.) tition—one led by Honey (played by the actress of the same name), a black woman who considers the Mountains May Depart revolution unfulilled, and another by the white With audacious leaps of time and intimate echoes lesbian musician Isabelle (Adele Bertei), whose ac- spanning a quarter century of intertwined lives, tivism is cultural. Meanwhile, the vigilante Wom- the director Jia Zhangke endows this romantic en’s Army patrols the city by bicycle, a govern- melodrama with vast geopolitical import. In 2000, ment employment program provokes riots, and in the city of Fenyang (Jia’s home town), Tao (Zhao three female journalists (one of whom is played Tao), a twenty-ive-year-old shopkeeper, rejects by Kathryn Bigelow) report on divisions within Liangzi (Liang Jin Dong), a laborer whom she the socialist movement. After an activist (Jean Sat- loves, to marry Jinsheng (Zhang Yi), a wealthy terield) dies in police custody, the feminist the- young businessman. (When the couple has a son, oretician Zella Wylie (played by the activist and Jinsheng ominously names him Dollar.) In 2014, writer Flo Kennedy) calls for direct action to get Liangzi is dying of cancer and can’t pay for treat- the message out in the one way that matters—on ment; his wife asks Tao (who has divorced Jin- television. Borden’s exhilarating collage-like story sheng) for a loan. At the same time, Jinsheng buys stages news reports, documentary sequences, and a house in Melbourne and plans to move there with surveillance footage alongside tough action scenes Dollar. That’s where the last part of the ilm—set and musical numbers; her violent vision is both in 2025—takes place. The teen-age Dollar, an An- ideologically complex and chilling.—Richard Brody glicized and alienated college student, begins a (Anthology Film Archives; Feb. 19-25.) surprising love afair that causes him to face his

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 13 MOVIES memories of China. Jia ilms these interlocking stories and their diverse tributaries with a bare and restrained simplicity that contains his many levels of rueful outrage. Incidental touches, rang- ABOVE & BEYOND ing from music and food to industrial catastrophes and looming violence, evoke a nation out of joint and its lost generations to come. In Mandarin and English.—R.B. (In limited release.)

Spotlight There are many ways in which the new Tom Mc- Carthy ilm could have gone wrong. The subject could hardly be thornier: the uncovering, by an investigative team at the Boston Globe, of wide- spread sexual abuse by Catholic priests. The vic- tims were children, but we meet them as adults, when they tell their stories. The movie, scripted by McCarthy and Josh Singer, resists any temp- Late Night Tonight projects. They’ll read and show slides from the tation to reconstruct the original crimes, and the Atish, a San Francisco d.j., brings his inter- book “The New Shingled House,” a collection sole focus is on the progress of the journalistic view-performance series to Good Room for of fourteen summer homes peppered across task. The result is restrained but never dull, and, its New York City début. Late Night Tonight New England seasides, southern mountain barring a couple of overheated moments, when a starts like many other dance parties, pulling to- lakes, and California peninsulas. (1133 Broad- character shouts in closeup, we don’t feel harried gether a bill of exciting young names in elec- way. 212-759-2424. Feb. 18 at 6.) or hectored. The ilm becomes a study in togeth- tronic club music. But about an hour into the erness, both bad and fruitful; on the one hand, we set the event adopts the veneer of a late-night CUNY Graduate Center get the creepy sense of a community closing ranks, talk show, with Atish taking a break from the New York’s 2014 mayoral election brought con- while on the other there is the old-school pleasure music to conduct sit-down interviews with versations of inequality throughout the city to of watching an ensemble in full spate. The report- guest d.j.s. This week, Atish invites London’s peak volumes. Bill de Blasio famously kicked ers are played by Michael Keaton, Brian d’Arcy club darling Jozif—who’s released singles on of his campaign with a speech espousing “a James, Mark Rufalo, and Rachel McAdams; their such labels as Leftroom, Bedrock, and Cul- tale of two cities,” calling for a local govern- superiors, by John Slattery and Liev Schreiber; and prit—to the booth, and to the couch. (98 Mese- ment that focussed on the needs of families the lawyers, by Billy Crudup and Stanley Tucci, role Ave., Brooklyn. 718-349-2373. Feb. 19 at 10.) and residents over those of commercial devel- who, as usual, calmly pockets every scene in which opment and the inance industry. De Blasio, he appears.—A.L. (11/9/15) (In limited release.) 1 now halfway through his term, will sit down AUCTIONS AND ANTIQUES with the Nobel Prize-winning economist and Stations of the Elevated New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to The documentary ilmmaker Manfred Kirch- The two-day “Modern Visions” sale at Chris- discuss his progress. The talk will be moder- heimer’s New York street poem, from 1981, be- tie’s (Feb. 17-18) aims to illustrate the pivotal ated by Janet Gornick, a professor of political gins with a painterly, sun-dappled celebration of moment, at the start of the twentieth century, science and sociology at the CUNY Graduate graiti on subway trains. But the ilm’s range of when photography turned from pictorialism Center. (Proshansky Auditorium, 365 Fifth Ave. subjects and ideas quickly expands to probe the to modernism and abstraction, from compo- 212-817-7000. Feb. 18.) exhilaration of city life. The accidental magic of sitions that focussed on their subjects to im- relections and shadows meshes with the pure ages that emphasized the values of shape and Cornelia Street Café forms of architecture and the overlooked artistry texture. The nearly three hundred lots (almost The poet and Bensonhurst native Bernard of advertisements to conjure a feeling of unre- all rendered in black and white) are dominated Block presents the thirteenth edition of “From lenting sensory adventure. Shots of abandoned by benchmark works by such photographers as Whitman to Ginsberg: Poems That Challenged buildings, turned into improvised playgrounds Alfred Stieglitz (including the quasi-Impres- Conventional Wisdom,” a politically engaged by neighborhood kids, evoke the care and thought sionist “Miss S.R.”), Paul Strand (such as the poetry series with roots at the Bowery Poetry that went into their construction, lending the am- Cubist-inluenced “Taos, New Mexico, Ranchos Club. Conceived, in 2012, to celebrate the sub- bient degradation an extra layer of tragedy. Music Church No. 2”), Edward Weston, and Doro- versive works of such irebrand poets as Blake, by Charles Mingus melds with the urban racket to thea Lang (the instantly recognizable “Migrant Dickinson, Yeats, and Auden, the series invites provide rhythmic counterpoint to Kirchheimer’s Mother”). (20 Rockefeller Plaza, at 49th St. 212- authors to share writing that shouts up to estab- incisive editing. In his vision, the aesthetic and 636-2000.) • Bonhams capitalizes on the wave lished systems and speaks out to disillusioned the utilitarian fuse in a riot of abstract igures and of dog-lovers who descend on the city for the audiences. Guests this week include the poets incidental symbols; a shadow on a red brick build- Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this time Barbara Newsome, Robert Gibbons, and Dave ing of a person leaning on the railing of an over- of year to present one of its canine-art auctions Johnson, as well as the composer and satirical head subway station evokes the craggy grandeur (Feb. 17), a bevy of images depicting dogs at essayist Terry Batts. (29 Cornelia St. 212-989- of Rodin’s “The Thinker.”—R.B. (Museum of the work, in repose, daintily posed on cushions, 9319. Feb. 19.) Moving Image; Feb. 21.) and involved in various forms of mischief. (580 Madison Ave. 212-644-9001.) WORD Bookstore 1 The Grammy-winning world-music producer REVIVALS AND FESTIVALS 1 Ian Brennan has worked on records by the Tua- READINGS AND TALKS reg band Tinariwen and the American folk Titles with a dagger are reviewed. singer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott; he recently re- Rizzoli Bookstore leased the Zomba Prison Project, an album Anthology Film Archives In revival. Feb. 19-25 Rizzoli opened a bright, spacious new book- recorded with inmates at the maximum-secu- at 7:15 and 9:15: “Born in Flames.” F Film So- store last July, a welcome return to Manhat- rity Zomba Central Prison, in Malawi. Brook- ciety of Lincoln Center “Film Comment Selects.” tan after the closing of its lagship Fifty- lyn’s Kyp Malone, a member of bands includ- Feb. 17 at 7: “Sunset Song” (2015, Terence Da- seventh Street location, in 2014. The store’s ing T.V. on the Radio and Rain Machine, has vies). • Feb. 18 at 6:30: “Diary of a Chamber- towering wooden shelves, faux lanterns, and a more focussed résumé. In this talk, enti- maid” (2015, Benoît Jacquot). • Feb. 21 at 5:30: hand-painted trimmings evoke a sprawling li- tled “How Music Dies,” Brennan and Malone “Return to Waterloo” (1984, Ray Davies). • Feb. brary tucked away in a wing of an old Brook- will attempt to answer big questions about 23 at 6:30: “Notilm” (2015, Ross Lipman) and lyn Heights town house; the team behind the the state of music and examine the lack of ef- “Film” (1964, Alan Schneider). Museum of the new space, Ike Kligerman Barkley, will join fective distribution and promotion of music Moving Image “See It Big! Documentary.” Feb. the interior designer Alexa Hampton to dis- from regions that spill over with innovative 20 at 4:30: “Forest of Bliss” (1986, Robert Gard- cuss the versatile, gracious design philosophy artists. (126 Franklin St., Brooklyn. 718-383- • Feb. 21 at 4: 0096. Feb. 19 at 7.) ner). “Stations of the Elevated.” F that has guided more than a dozen of the irm’s AMARGO PABLO BY ILLUSTRATION

14 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 FßD & DRINK

1 TABLES FOR TWO trend-conscious restaurant might call BAR TAB Avra Estiatorio “small plates.” There are classics, includ- ing grilled haloumi, which has just the 141 E. 48th St. (212-75 -8550) right amount of bounce as you chew Some time has passed since Lawrence and swallow, and ouzo mussels in a to- Durrell, in his book “The Greek Islands,” mato-infused broth which explode with cited a friend’s claim that retsina tastes anise. These compete with a few cross- like “pure turpentine which has been over dishes—Chilean souvlaki places Flowers for All Occasions strained through the socks of a bishop.” hunks of grilled sea bass over a roasted- 1114 DeKalb Ave., Brooklyn At Avra, a standout Greek restaurant in red-pepper sauce, and tuna tartare is Sometimes, the ideal place to drink is in the com- a Midtown pocket of skyscrapers that sprinkled with so much sesame that fort of your own apartment—or it would be, were hasn’t quite escaped the Bloombergian its lavor proile lits toward the East. it not for the dirty dishes, the sick cat, and the thunderbolt, there are three types of the At the back of the restaurant, rows alarming thuds from upstairs. Luckily, on the Bushwick-Bed-Stuy border, there’s now Flowers resinated wine, each boasting more or- of shining ish are laid out in a counter for All Occasions, a homey bar away from home. ganic credo than the next. The best is crowned with pineapples, the inter- This former lower shop was retroitted into a the Gaia Ritinitis Nobilis, which tastes national symbol of luxury. These ish “tavern / café / gallery” by Erik Zajaceskowski and Rachel Nelson, the husband and wife behind Se- like a waft of pine-scented air of the are Avra’s pride and joy. There are cret Project Robot and Happyfun Hideaway. One back of an Aeolian island in summer’s twelve available by the pound, cooked recent evening, a lady evading her unbearably swelter—fresh and full of possibility. over charcoal, and served simply, with overheated living room curled up in a human-size driftwood cubbyhole and nursed a Cali Mucho— The other day, a waiter commented lemon and a caper berry (vegetables rioja and Mexican Coke—amid potted plants, that retsina “does taste better when the come separately). Lavraki (branzino) Christmas lights, and old board games. The games sea is lapping your feet.” True though has a saline char and crunch to it, while had been donated by a dear friend and “hoarder of American-cool vintage stuf,” whose pregnant that may be, Avra is the next best thing. tsipoura (dorado) is chewy and creamy. wife, Nelson said, demanded that he clear room In a room accented with muted beiges Fresh crustaceans are also a good bet; a for the imminent baby. The prodigiously bearded and browns, drapes hang like sails full recent dish of grilled Nigerian jumbo artist Gregory (Stovetop) McKighan dispensed Franzia boxed wine, beer, and soju-based cocktails with the wind, covering noise-absor- shrimp was bursting with velveteen eggs. (there’s a church next door, so no liquor) and the bent ceiling tiles, and friendly staf in Dessert might seem impossible at kind of snacks you wish you’d bought at Trader sand-colored waistcoats shepherd huge the end of such a feast, but the kari- Joe’s (hummus bagel, cheddar pretzels) beneath TVs playing “Inland Empire” and the “Cremas- ish to tables of suited men and made-up dopita, a walnut and cinnamon-spiced ter” cycle. Between orders, Stovetop worked on women. On a recent evening, all the cake, is so good that it seems to it in a drawing of a groovy dude—a re-creation of a noise-prooing in the world couldn’t even the fullest of bellies. After the painting that had been stolen from the bar’s back gallery, a space currently bathed in psychedelic mule a casually tanned young gentle- cake is consumed, you could be for- black light. “It’s a weird compliment,” he said. “‘I man asking his raven-haired date, “Are given for seeing the twinkle of the like your art so much, I took it.’ It’s like, Thank you a gazeuse person? Sparkling water?” Aegean beyond the lights of Forty- you, but fuck you!” Most of the bartenders are artists, with pieces in the exhibit. “It’s a family The only way to start at Avra is eighth Street. (Fish $2 -$53 a pound.) afair,” Stovetop said, and ofered to share his —Emma Allen TOP: PHOTOGRAPH BY JEREMY LIEBMAN FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE JOOST BY ILLUSTRATION THE NEW YORKER; JEREMY LIEBMAN FOR BY PHOTOGRAPH TOP: with mezedes—dishes that a more —Nicolas Niarchos markers.

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 15

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT COURTING BLACK VOTERS

n March, 1988, Bernie Sanders, the democratic-socialist Southern states with large numbers of African-American vot- I mayor of Burlington, Vermont, held a press conference to ers, on March 1st. Clinton, who has a civil-rights record stretch- say that, for the first time, he would be attending his state’s ing back over forty years, is overwhelmingly more popular with Presidential caucus, in order to support the “historic” candi- black voters than Sanders. Commentators have called this ad- dacy of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. “All political observers, re- vantage her “firewall.” The gap narrows among young black gardless of their ailiations, now believe that Jesse Jackson in voters, however, and so both campaigns have set to work. fact has a fighting chance to become the nominee of the Dem- The appeals started the morning after New Hampshire. ocratic Party, and has a fighting chance to become the next Sanders flew to New York and had breakfast with the Rever- President of the United States,” Sanders said. That was an ex- end Al Sharpton, at Sylvia’s, in Harlem. (“It’s very important aggeration. Jackson was still seen as an improbable choice, com- that he sent a signal,” Sharpton told reporters.)Ta-Nehisi pared with Michael Dukakis, Richard Gephardt, or Al Gore. Coates, the author of “Between the World and Me,” who had But Sanders sounded absolutely persuaded that the nomina- previously criticized Sanders for not supporting reparations tion could come down to “a few votes” at the Convention, in (neither does Clinton), said that he would vote for him, largely Atlanta, and that it was his duty to rally Vermonters to deliver because of his ambitious economic vision. And Michelle Al- those delegates. Sanders, as a student in the early sixties, had exander, the author of “The New Jim Crow,” published an ar- been a leader of the University of Chicago chapter of the Con- ticle in The Nation titled “Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t De- gress of Racial Equality, and was once arrested at a demonstra- serve the Black Vote.” Alexander asks why Clinton continues tion. Yet he framed Jackson’s message as primarily an economic to receive the endorsements of black leaders, given that, during one, emphasizing Jackson’s willingness to stand up to the “banks the passage of her husband’s welfare-reform bill and the 1994 that presently own and control America.” crime bill, she used “racially coded rhetoric,” speaking about Sanders is still delivering a version of that speech, but the “super-predators.” (Sanders voted for the crime bill but against issue now is whether Sanders himself is a serious challenger welfare reform.) Then, as Sanders supporters began gleefully to Hillary Clinton. Clinton only barely won in Iowa, and citing Coates and Alexander, Charles Blow, the Times colum- she lost New Hampshire to Sanders nist, warned against what he called by twenty-two points. But Iowa and “Bernie-splaining,” the process through New Hampshire are not representative which minorities are instructed that, states. For one thing, they are, respec- whether they realize it or not, Sanders tively, ninety-two and ninety-four per will make everything better for them. cent white. Vermont is ninety-five per This all may have felt familiar to cent white, and early in the campaign Clinton. She was the front-runner for Sanders’s rallies were only marginally the Democratic nomination in 2008, more diverse. The next Democratic when Senator Barack Obama won the contests, though, are this Saturday’s Iowa caucuses. But she went on to caucuses in Nevada, a state that has a win the New Hampshire primary, and significant Latino population, and a South Carolina became the crucible. primary, on February 27th, in South Bill Clinton, in particular, said things Carolina. Almost a third of South Car- that were seen as leveraging race against olinians are black, as are more than Obama, a charge that both Clintons half the state’s Democratic-primary found painful. After Obama won South

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATIONS voters. More primaries follow, in more Carolina, and then more Southern

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 17 states, Representative John Lewis, of Georgia, who had sup- tional rifts. When Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem ported Hillary, switched to Obama. Lewis had been severely seemed to disparage young women for supporting Sanders, beaten as a young activist leader in Selma, in 1965, but this and not the woman in the race, they did no one any good. shift was “much tougher,” he told NBC. The Clintons were There is no transitive property of indebtedness. In Thursday “friends, people that I love.” night’s debate, Clinton argued that Sanders has been disre- Last Thursday, in Washington, D.C., Lewis stood with spectful to the President, a theme that she is pushing strongly; the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Commit- Obama is very popular among black voters in South Caro- tee as it announced that it would be endorsing Hillary Clin- lina. Sanders’s reply, though, recalled why the state is com- ton. When a reporter started to ask how Sanders’s record on plicated for her: “Well, one of us ran against Barack Obama. civil rights fit into the equation, Lewis interrupted him and I was not that candidate.” said, “I never met him. I was chair of the Student Nonvio- There has been, in this contest, a valuable dialogue about lent Coordinating Committee for three years, from 1963 to the relationship between economic justice and simple jus- 1966. I was involved in the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the tice, as well as about the balance between compromise and March on Washington, the march from Selma to Montgom- dreams. Democratic voters have a choice between a candi- ery, and directed the voter-education project for six years. But date who, in 1988, believed that Jesse Jackson was on the road I met Hillary Clinton. I met President Clinton.” to victory and one who, in 2008, believed that Barack Obama’s Lewis’s comment should not be taken to mean that San- moment had not yet come. They were both wrong, Sanders ders is a civil-rights phony. His college activism may have been erring in the direction of idealism and Clinton in that of that of a minor supporting player, but it was legitimate. More pragmatism—the same qualities they hold out to voters now. broadly, there is a suggestion that the discussion about San- Jackson lost the nomination, but not before winning prima- ders, Clinton, and the black vote is really a discussion about ries or caucuses in nine states, all of them in the South, with the basis on which any candidate can or should claim the loy- two exceptions. One was Michigan, which had a significant alty of any group. In speaking about firewalls, there is a risk number of black voters. The other was Vermont. that the tone will turn proprietary, and there can be genera- —Amy Davidson

DEPT. OF ARIAS which premières next month, has two the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, who MOSES FIGURES acts—“Robert Moses wouldn’t fit in- wrote the libretto, said. (Sample line: side a one-act play,” Rawls said—and “We’ll have to issue new bonds to cover traces Jacobs’s mid-century fights against these costs.”) In the rehearsal, Green- Moses’s attempts to build a four-lane stein coaxed a baritone who was playing road through the middle of Washington an employee of the Triborough Bridge Square Park and a ten-lane crosstown and Tunnel Authority to pronounce “you” expressway along Broome Street. Jacobs more like “youse,” and deliberated on ill Rawls was waiting in the thought that Moses was trying to “Los where to put the musical rest in the phrase W Lorimer Street subway station one Angelize” New York. Moses thought the “Interborough Parkway.” Dashon Bur- recent Sunday, trying to get to a rehearsal only people opposing his plans were “a ton, the opera’s Moses, was struggling to in Chelsea—Rawls is the choreographer bunch of mothers.” enunciate his character’s decree to “Drive for a new opera about Robert Moses, the “The requisite background reading the first stake,” which kept sounding like dictatorial city planner, and Jane Jacobs, took some time,” Judd Greenstein, the “Drive the first take.” the populist city un-planner—when he opera’s composer, said, referring to “The “That’s Moses’s mantra,” Greenstein had a thought. The L train wasn’t com- Death and Life of Great American Cit- said. “He happened to choose something ing, and pretty soon, with repairs threat- ies,” Jacobs’s four-hundred-page ode to that’s impossible to say.” ening to suspend service between Brook- city life, and “The Power Broker,” Rob- During the rehearsal, Megan Schu- lyn and Manhattan for more than a year, ert Caro’s thirteen-hundred-page biog- bert, who plays Jacobs, ran through an the train wouldn’t be coming at all. “I raphy of Moses. “If you bring the phys- aria from a municipal hearing—“Maybe was, like, this shit is always broken,” Rawls ical book on the subway, people love the cars would be happier without the said, after arriving in Chelsea. “I almost talking to you,” Frankel said, noting that impediment of sidewalks and neighbor- want Robert Moses 2.0 to come back few riders sided with Moses, save for a hood blocks”—but much of the focus and fix the M.T.A.” couple of Long Island residents wistful was on helping Burton, a bass-baritone, “That’s a very human emotion, to for his unrealized bridge from Rye to who was wearing hot-pink Converse want a Moses-like figure to come in and Oyster Bay. All-Stars, to make Moses into less of a fix everything,” Joshua Frankel, the op- An urban-planning opera is perhaps villain and more of an antihero. “Jane is era’s director, said. no longer strange—thanks, “Hamilton”— our Moses figure, Biblically speaking,” “What did Moses do about public but it does present a number of chal- Frankel said. “But it’s not very useful to transit, anyway?” Rawls asked. lenges. The source material, for starters, look at them as ‘pure’ Jane Jacobs and “Starved it of money,” Frankel said, isn’t exactly “The Marriage of Figaro.” ‘evil’ Robert Moses.” Moses razed neigh- with a shrug. “It’s not easy to fit ‘Lower Manhattan borhoods and displaced families, but he The opera, “A Marvelous Order,” Expressway’ into verse,” Tracy K. Smith, also built Lincoln Center. In one scene,

18 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 Christopher Herbert, who plays a Moses drug. It addressed the condition, not the it was ‘You’re looking at a snail, and you underling, is tasked with telling his boss cure. For the latter, you’ll have to have a smile.’ ” Still, he was excited when he got that a plan to bulldoze through a cem- conversation with your doctor.) Depend- the job. The word was: hot director, black- etery to make way for what would be- ing on your point of view, the ad was and-white, Woody Allen style. come the Jackie Robinson Parkway was ofensive, confusing, gross, or kind of They shot for three days. “A day into being stalled by families upset that their hilarious. It was certainly controversial. it, I got a sense of the story. The big relatives’ remains would be disinterred. Some felt that it won the Super Bowl. surprise, that day, was that this was a “It’s not quite like going to Darth Vader Others found it to be (not unlike the Super Bowl ad. I thought, Oh, this is with bad news,” Greenstein told Herbert. game itself) a rank illustration of the something that’s going to be seen, not “You’re nervous,” Frankel said. “But cynicism and greed underlying our over- he’s not going to make you start to choke.” medicated, addictive culture. President “So it’s more ‘The Devil Wears Obama’s chief of staf criticized it for Prada’?” Herbert said. encouraging drug abuse. “Thank you for choosing a less nerdy The ad, called “Envy,” is a minute long. example,” Greenstein said, before turn- A middle-aged gent in a sports coat— ing to Burton. “Dashon, any questions?” our O.I.C.M.—is shown in various sce- “When I sing ‘Why should the dead narios around New York, envying those lie in the way of progress for the living?,’ not sufering from O.I.C.: a suave dude is it mocking?” Burton said. emerging triumphantly from a café bath- “That’s genuine,” Greenstein said. room, a dog pooping in a planter, a woman “It’s a love for the people who live in the strutting down the street with toilet city now.” paper trailing from her shoe. Meanwhile, “From an intention point of view, O.I.C.M. struggles with a clogged sugar you believe it,” Frankel added, before shaker, gets stuck behind pedestrians, and ofering further encouragement. “Ev- looks plaintively at a jar of prunes. A lit- erything’s so transient these days. Moses tle obvious, perhaps, but not so direct as, builds for perpetuity.” Burton nodded say, the old Pepto-Bismol ad (later lam- James Waterston skeptically, then asked about the moti- pooned by Johnny Carson): “Do you vation behind another one of his lines: mind if I talk to you about diarrhea?” just something that is going to run. Every “By now, I think the dead have gotten One minded then, as now. job exacts its pound of flesh.” where they’re headed.” The man playing O.I.C.M. is a It had been a decade or so since “That’s a joke,” Frankel said. “We need forty-seven-year-old actor named James he’d done commercial work: he was the all the jokes we can get.” Waterston. He has had plenty of work guy who said “wow” in a Microsoft spot. —Reeves Wiedeman over the years. He was one of the stu- There’d been a time, too, when he was 1 dents in “Dead Poets Society,” and is playing Konstantin, in “The Seagull,” DOUBLE TAKE DEPT. now in the TV shows “Red Oaks” (Am- “and everyone knew me as the guy in the SIDE EFFECTS VARY azon), “The Deuce” (HBO), and “Flesh Heineken ad.” and Bone” (Starz). Next month, he’ll per- Waterston doesn’t usually watch the form at the Théâtre National de la Col- Super Bowl, but he tuned in to this one, line, in Paris, in Jean Genet’s “Splen- at home, in Harlem. As soon as the ad did’s.” But this week, and for who knows ran, his phone blew up. “It was a funny how long, he shall be known as Opi- window into fame. It suddenly dumped oid-Induced Constipation Man. on me, as it were.” wo old friends met for cofee last In December, Waterston’s agent called His father, the actor Sam Waterston T week, after dropping the kids of at to say that he’d lined up an audition for (TD Ameritrade Guy), complimented school. Were the other people in the café a national network ad campaign. “It’s a his work. “He said it was clever, subtle, aware that the taller one was Opioid- laxative,” the agent said. funny.” One friend texted, “Get of drugs Induced Constipation Man? Apparently “The phrase ‘national network’ is a lot NOW! (Take a shit and find love!!!).” not. No one snickered, or asked him to bigger than the word ‘laxative,’ ” Water- (For what it’s worth, Opioid-Induced sign a bottle of Vicodin pills. ston recalled. He was in the cofee shop, Constipation Man has encountered opi- This was four days after the Super paying the bathroom exiters little mind. oids only once, after being stabbed Bowl—four days after Opioid-Induced “National network is the crown jewel of during an attempted mugging in New Constipation Man had made his début commercial work. An ad like this could Orleans, in 1995. He doesn’t recall what in an advertisement, during the first half be worth, like, five years of theatre gigs.” they induced.) of the game, for a drug that supposedly He went on, “At the audition, they were If the ad gets into regular circulation, alleviates opioid-induced constipation, secretive. They didn’t make any reference he stands a chance of being known for it, or O.I.C. (Actually, the ad, paid for by to the product. Just ‘You’re sitting in a like other actors in iconic ads: Time to the pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca café and you see a really cool guy.’ I didn’t Make the Donuts Man; Where’s the Beef and Daiichi-Sankyo, didn’t mention the understand the material. At the callback, Lady; or Mikey, Boy Who Likes It. For

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 19 a time, Bryan Cranston was the face of the wind. He has a new record, called had fifteen minutes to move between Preparation H. But the adverto-sphere “Arts & Leisure,” which has songs about tasks, which was more than he needed. is more difuse these days. “I’d need to art and artists and museums. There is no “I used to like to go to the American do fifteen of these ads,” Waterston said. song about selling tickets at the Met on Wing,” he said. During a recent visit, he “ ‘Now he’s in the country, walking weekend nights, when, if Martin was wanted to find two things it contains, around.’ I don’t think that’s likely.” bored, he would let women in for free “Panoramic View of the Palace and Gar- On the day after the Super Bowl, he and tell them that it was ladies’ night. dens of Versailles,” painted in 1818 and took his nine-year-old son to school. There is a song with a verse about work- 1819, by John Vanderlyn, and a gallery He asked him, “What did you think?” ing at the switchboard, though. “It was with portraits by John Singleton Cop- “You’re famous, you’re famous!” the a big switchboard, with square buttons ley, because there is a song about Cop- boy exclaimed. you punched,” Martin said recently, in the ley on “Arts & Leisure.” Passing through “What about the subject matter?” Met’s lobby. “Callers would ask for some- rooms of glassware and dark, heavy fur- “Oh, it’s inappropriate.” one rudely, and I’d send them to the wrong niture, Martin appeared to be lost. “Noth- —Nick Paumgarten person, or just hang up. There was no way ing looks familiar from when I worked 1 for them to know it wasn’t a mistake.” here,” he said. He paused in front of AT THE MUSEUM Having grown up making prank calls, Whistler’s portrait of Théodore Duret. PLEASE HOLD Martin found that being seated in front “I used to have a poster of this,” he said. of a switchboard “was thrilling.” After “Maybe it was a postcard, but I definitely about a week, he realized that he could had it.” A few minutes later, he said, “I connect callers to outside lines. “People think we’re going in circles.” He asked a would ask for Philippe de Montebello. guard about the panorama. The guard I didn’t really know who he was—I pointed to a hallway, the entrance to knew he was the director—but I thought, which was barred by a braided rope. An- f you think that Friday and Satur- Anybody who wants to talk to him is other guard might open the gallery later, I day nights at the Metropolitan Mu- not going to call the nineteen-year-old he said. Martin decided to look for the seum are ladies’ nights, you may have at the switchboard. They would have a Copleys. When, after wandering briefly, met Walter Martin. In 1994, when Mar- more direct number.” he found five of them in a small gallery, tin was nineteen, he worked at the Met In Martin’s song “Jobs I Had Before he stood before a portrait of a boy with as a visitor-services assistant. He sold I Got Rich and Famous,” Philippe de a squirrel on a chain—Daniel Crom- tickets and helped operate the switch- Montebello rhymes with “unsuspecting melin Verplanck, in 1771. board. He had spent a year in college fellow.” The five members of Jonathan “In my song, it’s a boy with a squir- in Colorado and had come back East— Fire*Eater lived in a one-bedroom apart- rel on a chain, but the painting’s in Bos- he is from D.C.—to play in a band called ment on the Lower East Side. The singer ton,” Martin said. “Strangely, he has Jonathan Fire*Eater, and later in a band was named Stewart Lupton. “Stewart two paintings of boys with squirrels on called the Walkmen, which made seven was always asleep,” Martin said. “I would chains.” In the song, “Watson and the records between 2002 and 2012, then, say, ‘Please hold,’ then I’d call the apart- Shark,” named after a Copley painting according to its Web site, went on hia- ment and hit the clunky button. Un- at the National Gallery of Art, in Wash- tus in 2013, but is probably broken up, fortunately, I had to imagine the rest, ington, Martin says of the squirrel, “It’s Martin says. since I couldn’t hear the calls. That was an unusual toy / for a little boy. / But those Martin is tall, with a narrow face and the heartbreaking part.” were diferent days.” hair like a field that has been battered by Under the terms of his job, Martin Martin sings in a confiding tone. “I’m a very reluctant singer,” he said. “I just want to be like a person saying the words. I have no ability to sing ‘I love you’ and make it sound like something anybody would care to hear. So I put a lot of de- tail in the songs, hoping people will lis- ten, because it’s real. Detail always seems so funny. Adding little details about what- ever I think about—it just seems funny to me that I would go to all the efort to record it.” On his way out, Martin was asked whether he ever came home and found Stewart Lupton annoyed. “The thing was, he always fell back asleep and never remembered,” Mar- tin said. —Alec Wilkinson THE FINANCIAL PAGE Hillary Clinton, he called America’s trade policies “disastrous,” ECONOMIC POPULISM AT THE PRIMARIES a way for businesses to drive wages down and profits up. He’s voted against every trade agreement that has come before Congress since he’s been in oice, and he opposed normal- izing trade relations with China. Trump, too, hits out at China week ago Sunday, one of the two eventual winners of and Japan in nearly every appearance he makes, and trade A the New Hampshire primaries assailed the power of cor- was the first issue he mentioned in his New Hampshire vic- porate lobbyists over the U.S. government, labelling them “blood- tory speech. Instead of viewing the global trading system as suckers.” He attacked defense contractors for forcing the gov- a free marketplace, Trump describes it as a battlefield, and ernment to buy missiles it didn’t need. He blasted oil companies one where the U.S. is “always losing.” Free trade may get and insurers. And he vowed to use the bargaining power of the American consumers cheaper goods, but that’s outweighed, U.S. government to drive down drug prices. Surprisingly, this for Trump, by lost American jobs and lost American wealth. was a speech not by the democratic-socialist Bernie Sanders Both Trump and Sanders downplay the enormous eco- but, rather, by the self-proclaimed billionaire Donald Trump. nomic benefits of globalization for American consumers of Even before the Trump and Sanders victories in New all incomes, and their proposed solutions are vague and could Hampshire last week, the surface parallels between the men well be harmful if implemented. But their words resonate with had attracted lots of comment: both are insurgents, channel- many voters, because they articulate an important truth: free ling widespread political disafection. Less apparent, but more trade has created major winners and major losers in the U.S. interesting, is the fact that they’re also economy, and the losers—mostly channelling profound disafection with blue-collar workers—have received lit- three decades of American economic pol- tle or no help. Trade with China, in par- icy. Trump and Sanders are popular not ticular, has inflicted serious damage on just because they’re expressing people’s American communities across the coun- anger but because they ofer timely cri- try, damage from which they have yet to tiques of American capitalism. recover. As the economists David Autor, That’s obvious in the case of Sanders, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson have whose campaign has focussed on income documented, what they call the “China inequality and the undue influence of cor- shock”—beginning in 1991 and lasting porate élites. Trump’s economic populism, into this century—demolished manu- on the other hand, tends to be drowned facturing in much of the U.S. Workers out by his incendiary anti-immigrant and in the afected communities had a hard anti-Muslim positions. Nonetheless, it’s time finding and keeping new jobs, and what distinguishes him most strongly from unemployment stayed high and wages other hard-line conservatives, like Ted low for at least a decade afterward. Cruz. Trump has called for abolishing the Trade isn’t the only reason that blue- carried-interest tax loophole for hedge- collar workers’ standard of living has de- fund and private-equity managers. He’s clined; automation and weaker unions vowed to protect Social Security. He’s called for restrictions on have also played a part. By focussing on trade, though, both highly skilled immigrants. Most important, he’s rejected free- candidates are acknowledging something important: what has trade ideology, suggesting that the U.S. may need to slap tarifs happened to U.S. labor was not a natural disaster but, in part, on Chinese goods to protect American jobs. These views put the product of government policies designed to accelerate glo- Trump at odds not only with the leadership of the Republican balization and expose American workers to foreign competi- Party but also with the main thrust of economic thinking since tion. That admission is more than working-class Americans the nineteen-eighties, which has been to embrace globalization. have got from most Presidential candidates. Under both Republican and Democratic Presidents, the U.S. Economic populism may not ultimately be a winning strat- has led the drive to expand global free trade. The passage of egy. Blue-collar voters in Iowa and New Hampshire came out NAFTA was one of the signature accomplishments of the Clin- in force for Trump and Sanders, but, over all, they represent a ton Administration, which also played a key role in making shrinking portion of the electorate. Trump’s nativist rhetoric China a member of the World Trade Organization. More re- will surely (one hopes) limit his appeal. And while Sanders cently, the Obama Administration pushed for the Trans-Pacific could, in theory, reach across and win over some Trump vot- Partnership deal, and has been working on a similar trade agree- ers—much as Robert Kennedy did in 1968, with supporters of ment with Europe. Integrating the U.S. ever more fully into George Wallace—defeating Hillary Clinton is obviously tough. the global economy has been seen as both inevitable and benefi- But even if neither candidate wins the nomination the basic cial. Global competition would make companies and workers anxiety they’re responding to is here to stay. American work- more productive, and the benefits to American exporters and ers used to believe that a rising tide lifted all boats. But in the American consumers would outweigh any potential losses. past thirty years it has sunk a whole lot of them. Sanders isn’t buying this. In his most recent debate with —James Surowiecki CHRISTOPH NIEMANN CHRISTOPH

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 21 During their months vying for the THE POLITICAL SCENE right to carry the Democratic Party standard, the former Secretary of State and the senator from Vermont have THE PARTY CRASHERS been on the same stage often, if not al- ways at the same time. Sanders had Is the new populism about the message or the medium? spoken in this very school in Decem- ber. “Winnacunnet High School BY JILL LEPORE Feels the Bern,” ran the headline of a lead story in the Winnachronicle, the school newspaper. Two crackerjack stu- dent staf writers had reported, “The senator ended his speech by saying, ‘Brothers and sisters, welcome to the political revolution.’ ” For Clinton’s visit, the cafeteria was packed with stalwart Clinton support- ers, mostly women, mostly white, mostly within a decade of Clinton’s age. Mem- bers of the press had been escorted through the kitchen, and then corralled into a pen at the rear of the cafeteria, separated from the rest of the room by steel police barriers. Those who stood shouldered cameras; those who sat cra- dled laptops. Instruction sheets had been taped to the chairs: WIFI Network: WHS Public Password: warriors

Three television reporters sat in a row: ABC, CBS, CNN. “We’re the slow-news team,” one of them told me. A hipster photographer had perched his super-skinny tripod atop a blue plastic chair, setting its camera to peer over the crowd. He’d found a good spot, but his unobstructed view didn’t he clock on the wall in the slender black hand of the clock ticked last for long. The instant Clinton began T cafeteria at Winnacunnet High and twitched, like an old man tapping speaking, dozens of arms reached high School, in Hampton, New Hampshire, and jerking his cane. Hillary Rodham into the air, all across the room, wield- is mounted behind a wire cage that pro- Clinton was running late. ing smartphones. It was like watching tects its face from the likeliest weapons “I feel great being back in New a flock of ostriches awaken, the arms (French fries, foam balls) deployed in Hampshire after winning in Iowa!” she their necks, the phones their heads, the uprisings of adolescents (food fights, said when she finally arrived, walking the red recording buttons their wide, dodgeball). Or maybe that was to pre- onto the stage with Gabrielle Gifords, blinking eyes. pare it for politics. Two weeks ago, the the former U.S. congresswoman from Clinton and Sanders had been wag- day after the Iowa caucuses and one Arizona who was shot in the head while ing a remarkably polite battle. “I’m proud week before the New Hampshire pri- meeting with voters in 2011, and Gifords’s of the campaign we’re running on the mary, a makeshift stage had been built husband, the astronaut Mark Kelly. Democratic side,” Clinton told the at the far end of the cafeteria, catercor- Clinton had won in Iowa, but just crowd. “It’s in stark contrast to the in- nered from the caged clock. Its back- barely. Her only remaining rival, Ber- sults you see on the other side.” drop was an American flag; a campaign nie San ders, was expected to win New Less than ten miles away, Marco poster, an “H” with an arrow running Hampshire, and by a wide margin. She Rubio had just finished speaking at the through it; and three rows of Granite didn’t look like she was feeling great. town hall in Exeter, a brick Federal-style State citizens, a political Greek chorus And after the New Hampshire results building made famous by Abraham positioned behind the lectern, awaiting came in—Sanders went on to win, in Lincoln, who spoke there in 1860. A the candidate. Minutes passed. The a rout—she’d have cause to feel worse. statue of Justice stood on the cupola,

22 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY NISHANT CHOKSI high above an asphalt lot where satel- mounted on a stage at the rear of the lite-dish-equipped television trucks hall, and a dozen more perched on each were parked, one from Liberty Uplink, of the hall’s balconies) and infantry (re- another from the Freedom Broadcast porters propping computers in their Group. On the front steps were stacks laps). But with every third person in of yard signs: “Don’t Believe the Lib- the crowd tapping at a phone, sending eral Media.” words and pictures out to the world, it Rubio had made a strong third-place was hard to tell the civilians from the showing in the G.O.P. race in Iowa, military. Who are the people, and who not far behind Ted Cruz and Donald are the press? “I wasn’t tweeting,” a Trump. Before Chris Christie deflated young long-haired woman in a blue him in a debate over the weekend, he wool coat told me. “I was Snapchat- seemed to be surging, the establish- ting.” Even before Rubio finished de- ment’s last best hope, not too weak, not livering his stump speech, an A.P. pho- too mean, not too wild, not too bland, tographer plunked down on the floor, the G.O.P.’s Goldilocks. The hall in opened his laptop, and began cropping Exeter had filled early with an enthu- a shot. “I can’t talk now,” he said, ex- siastic crowd, more men than women: cusing himself. “I’m filing right now.” blue Red Sox caps, black knitted Bru- ins hats. Police oicers stationed at the n the right now, when what hap- doors had turned away disappointed I pened in New Hampshire already latecomers. Inside, where the walls are feels as old as the Parthenon, it’s hard painted Colonial green, blue-and-white to care about the long ago, but there campaign banners had been draped haven’t always been parties, and there across the balconies: “New Hampshire haven’t always been primaries, and this Is Marco Rubio Country.” may be the first Presidential-primary Rubio has an appealing Mickey season with free Wi-Fi pretty much Mousiness. Also, he can be funny, es- everywhere. A lot of people, not least pecially if you haven’t seen his shtick the candidates themselves, have been more than a few times. (A stump speech talking about political revolution and, at a campaign stop is a lot like standup more modestly, about party realign- comedy. It would turn out that Rubio ment. None of the candidates, not even had learned his lines only too well.) the party favorites, are campaigning on While he was listing all the things he’d behalf of their party; most are cam- do on his first day in oice—swear to paigning to crash it. Outsiders are in. uphold the Constitution, defend the Insiders are out. “We’ve always taken Second Amendment, and repeal “every on the establishment,” Rubio says. “Of single one of Obama’s illegal and un- course we’re an underdog,” Sanders says. constitutional executive orders”—the On the day of the Iowa caucuses, Cruz’s crowd began chanting, “Mar-co, Mar-co, campaign called voters and sent out an Mar-co.” e-mail blast suggesting that Carson was “As long as you don’t say ‘Polo,’ ” about to quit the race, and so Trump Rubio said. He smiled. “I hated that was saying that Cruz had stolen the game.” He made as if he were return- election. Rush Limbaugh took Trump’s ing to his Oval Oice to-do list. “When protest as the latest, best evidence that I’m President, we’re banning that game!” “Trump is not your typical Republi- Rubio is funny mainly in order to can-establishment candidate.” call out his seriousness. He ofered an- The people who turn up at Sanders other of his one-liners: “Bernie San- and Trump rallies are wed, across the ders is actually a nice guy, and he’d be aisle, in bonds of populist unrest. They’re a really good candidate for President— revolting against party élites, and espe- of Sweden.” Then he gathered himself cially against the all-in-the-family can- up, turning grave: “Hillary Clinton is didates anointed by the Democratic and no laughing matter.” Rubio says that the Republican leadership: Clinton and Clinton is not qualified to be President. Bush, the wife and brother of past party The scene in Exeter, uplinked by leaders. (More attention has been paid Liberty and broadcast by Freedom, was to the unravelling of the G.O.P.; the captured by a media army composed Democratic Party is no less frayed.) of artillery (five large video cameras There is, undoubtedly, a great deal of

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 23 discontent, particularly with the role of John Adams, against the Democratic- system, if adopted by both parties, will money in elections: both Sanders and Republicans, who supported Thomas make our government a prize to be Trump damn the campaign-finance sys- Jeferson. In the seventeen-nineties, the sought after by political gamblers,” the tem as rigged and the establishment as number of newspapers, each of them governor of Illinois warned. corrupt. But to call the current state of partisan, grew four times as fast as the The second party system lasted until afairs, in either party, a political revo- population. At a time when there were 1854, by which time its inability to ad- lution isn’t altogether accurate. The party very few national institutions, parties dress the matter of slavery was proving system, like just about every other old- exerted a tremendous, and vital, nation- to be the undoing of the Whigs, and line industry and institution, is strug- alizing force. Once much maligned as the Know-Nothings, and the Free Soil- gling to survive a communications rev- destructive of public life, parties, driven ers, and the Liberty Party. It wasn’t only olution. Accelerated political commu- by newspapers, became its machinery. slavery, though. The system had entered ni cation can have all manner of good “The engine,” Jeferson said, “is the a state of disequilibrium because polit- efects for democracy, spreading news press.” ical communication was undergoing a about rallies, for instance, or getting The men who drafted the Consti- revolution. Revolutions in communi- hundreds of thousands of signatures on tution hadn’t anticipated parties, and cation tend to pull the people away a petition lickety-split. Less often no- made no provision for them. Parties from the élites. (The printing press is ticed are the ill efects, which include are an add-on. They make their own the classic example; think of its role in the atomizing of the electorate. There’s rules. At first, they chose their Presi- the Reformation. But this happens, to a point at which political communica- dential nominees by legislative caucus: varying degrees, every time the speed tion speeds past the last stop where dem- each party’s congressional caucus nom- and scale of communication makes a ocratic deliberation, the genuine con- inated its Presidential candidate. That leap.) In 1833, refinements in printing sent of the governed, is possible. An practice lasted until Andrew Jackson technology lowered the cost of a daily instant poll, of the sort that pops up on campaigned against “King Caucus,” newspaper to a penny or two; in the your screen while you’re attempting to calling the method anti-democratic, eighteen- forties, newspapers got their read debate coverage, encourages snap and said that the people needed to have news by telegraph; the post oice set a and solitary judgment, the very opposite a more direct role in the choice of the special, cheaper rate for newspapers; of what’s necessary for the exercise of party nominee. Jackson came to power and, in the eighteen-fifties, newspapers good citizenship. Democracy takes time. through a new form of political com- began printing illustrations based on It requires civic bonds, public institu- munication, the campaign biography: photographs. Meanwhile, literacy rates tions, and a free press. And in the United after the publication of “The Life of were skyrocketing. Candidates began States, so far, it has needed parties. Jackson,” in 1824 (when Jackson won campaigning, speaking and writing to the popular vote but lost the election), the people directly. For a while, party he American two-party system no campaign season was ever again élites lost control, until the system T is a creation of the press. “The idea without one. Jackson’s rise also marked reached equilibrium in the form of a of a party system,” as Richard Hof- the end of the first party system and relatively stable contest between Dem- stadter once pointed out, is an Ameri- the beginning of the second: Jackson- ocrats and a new party, the Republi- can invention, one that not only toler- ian Democrats versus Whigs. Histori- cans. Walt Whitman complained about ates but requires the practice ans like to date the shift from “the neverending audacity of elected of loyal opposition, political one party system to another persons,” damning men in politics as criticism, and organized dis- to a single year—in this case, members of the establishment, but voter sent. It began in 1787, during 1828, the year Jackson won— turnout rose from 36.9 per cent in 1824 the debate over the Consti- but, in truth, such shifts are, to 57.6 per cent in 1838 and 80.2 per tution, a debate waged in rat- by their very nature, grad- cent in 1840. And so it churned, and so ifying conventions but also, ual. And, while they’re ob- it churns. more thrillingly, in the na- viously driven by ideolog ical The third party system lasted until tion’s hundreds of weekly movements, by the emergence 1896. (Dating party realignments is an newspapers. Some favored of new economic issues and uncertain afair; it depends on how and ratification; these became circumstances, and, espe- what you’re measuring. By some ac- Federalist newspapers. Oth- cially, by changes in the com- counts, the second party system ended ers, the Anti-Federalist newspapers, op- position of the electorate, they’re also in 1860, and we’re still in the third.) posed it. If it hadn’t been for the all-or- influenced by novel forms of political Like the first party system, it came to nothing dualism of this choice, the communication. an end with a populist revolt, which United States might well have a multi- So are the methods by which Amer- took place during another acceleration party political culture. But the model icans elect their Presidents. The first in the speed of communication, brought held, and the Federalist–Anti-Federal- Presidential nominating convention was about by the telephone, the Linotype, ist cleavage, with some adjustments, be- held in 1832; state delegates met to make and halftone printing, technologies that came the basis of the first party system, the choice after hearing stump speeches allowed daily newspapers and illustrated which took shape in 1796. It pitted Fed- from the contenders. Critics said this magazines, in particular, to carry polit- eralists, who supported the election of was a bad idea, too. “This convention ical news faster, and to more readers,

24 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 than ever before. The eighteen-nine- ties saw a war between the Pulitzer and the Hearst newspaper empires; the number of newspapers exceeded ten thousand, including more dailies than exist today, some with a circulation of more than a million. Meanwhile, cam- paign posters papered the walls of build- ings on every city block. In 1896, Puck printed a two-page color spread called “The Poster Craze in Candidateville”: a lanky Uncle Sam strolls down Pres- idential Avenue, inspecting posters for a slew of Presidential aspirants, among them William McKinley and William B. Allison, the “Farmer’s Friend.” Everyone ran as an outsider. The disequilibrium of that political moment led not only to the beginning of the fourth party system but also to the birth of the primary system. Once “Hi, welcome to the Uncanny Valley of Pancakes.” the fourth party system got started, populists and progressive reformers began making the same complaints •• about the nominating convention that Jacksonians had made about the legis- The fifth party system began in 1932, voter, who considers the evidence and lative caucus: the choice of the parties’ the very year that George Gallup concludes, “Me? I like Ike!” Presidential nominees shouldn’t be in started conducting pre-election pub- Historians and political scientists the hands of a select group of party lic-opinion polls and just months be- have been arguing for a long time about leaders, whether legislators or conven- fore the founding of the world’s first when the fifth party system yielded to tion delegates. By 1917, states had started political consulting firm, Campaigns, a sixth. Some say it happened in 1964, holding direct primaries, mini-elections Inc. These forms of political commu- with Barry Goldwater and the G.O.P.’s in which all party members get to vote nication—voters communicating with conservative turn. Some say 1968, given for the Presidential nominee. But the candidates through polls, and can- the mayhem at the nominating con- fourth party system was short-lived, didates communicating with voters ventions. A great many, with good ev- toppled by a new media era. William through consultants—characterize the idence, date the beginning of the sixth Jennings Bryan recorded campaign era of the fifth party system, as much party system to 1972, by which time speeches on wax cylinders in 1908. By as the ideological positions of the par- Southern whites had abandoned the the end of the First World War, the ties themselves. Despite the upheavals Democratic Party and the G.O.P., hav- speed and the spread of political com- of the Depression, the Second World ing lost African-Americans to the op- munication had picked up again. In War, the Cold War, and Vietnam, the position, began folding evangelicals 1920, Warren Harding became the era of national newsmagazines, news- into its ranks. This was when the cur- last Presidential candidate to send his reels, and network broadcasting was a rent era of political polarization arose; speeches to voters, on a vinyl album. period of remarkable party stability. it was about then that “Republican” His successors turned to radio. Time, True, with campaign ads from every began meaning conservative and “Dem- the first weekly newsmagazine, débuted side being broadcast night after night, ocratic” began meaning liberal. Also, in 1923; its aim was to cut the time it voters might have been muddled. In the populist anger that had spelled the takes to read a week’s worth of news one television ad from 1956—produced decline of the legislative caucus, the down to an hour. Radio started reach- by political consultants, relying on pub- rise of the nomination convention, and ing everyday Americans in 1926, when lic-opinion polling—a cartoon voter the first primaries led, in 1972, to NBC began broadcasting, followed by despairs, “I’ve listened to everybody. the first Presidential nominating cau- CBS in 1928. A Presidential campaign On TV and radio. I’ve read the papers cuses. (Iowa was the first state to hold speech, by F.D.R., was recorded, and and magazines. I’ve tried! But I’m still them.) More significant, a Commis- heard and seen, in movie theatres in confused. Who’s right? What’s right? sion on Party Structure and Delegate 1932, the year that marked the end of What should I believe? What are the Selection established new rules to in- the fourth party system, as both the facts? How can I tell?” But the parties clude more women, minorities, and Democratic and the Republican Par- made their choices clear: “Words have younger people (a response to their ties rearranged themselves around the been flying at you hot and heavy,” a lack of representation during the 1968 New Deal coalition. comforting narrator tells the cartoon Democratic National Convention, and

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 25 the attendant protests). It led, as well, the G.O.P. at the dawn of a new era of ate student at Ohio University, said. to a huge rise in the number of states political communication. The F.C.C. “And what I can tell you now, with that conducted primaries. And then abandoned the Fairness Doctrine in one-hundred-per-cent absolute cer- there was, after 1972, a feeling of grim 1987, leading to the creation of a new tainty, is we are now at a fundamental dismay about American party politics, breed of partisan political communica- crossroads. This election—and I know a new kind of cynicism, and even a new tors. “The Rush Limbaugh Show” was it’s a cliché, but it’s true—this election kind of political reporting, drunk with heard nationally for the first time in is the most important election in our anti-establishment swagger. “It was just 1988. A fair argument can be made for lifetimes.” Dipiero waved his flag. The before midnight when I left Cambridge the significance of 1996, too. That was crowd rose to its feet. Kuhner said, and headed north on U.S. 93 toward the start of the first Web browser— “Senator Ted Cruz, I honestly believe, Manchester—driving one of those during his campaign, Bob Dole fa- is a Latino Reagan.” big green rented Auto/Stick Cou- mously provided voters with his Web Cruz strode onstage. He was wear- gars,” Hunter S. Thompson wrote, in site, but gave them the wrong address— ing a navy sweater, bluejeans, and rug- “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign and the first year of Fox News and ged boots. He reminded his audience Trail ’72,” about travelling north to re- MSNBC, which were equally keen to that, in 1980, Reagan won the New port on the New Hampshire primary, animate the party base. A new party Hampshire primary. With their votes “running late, as usual: left hand on the system, a new age of news. that year, he said, Granite Staters had wheel and the other on the radio dial, made the world safe for democracy: seeking music, and a glass of iced Wild ’m so glad to be back with so many “Because of the men and women of Turkey spilling into my crotch on every “I friends, so many patriots, so many New Hampshire, we won the Cold War turn.” (My worry, on the drive, was lovers of liberty,” Ted Cruz said to a and we tore the Berlin Wall to the whether I’d remembered to put the la- packed auditorium at Elm Street Mid- ground.” The smartphones came out: sagna in the oven for my kids.) The dle School, in Nashua, New Hamp- portrait for the candidate, landscape for year 1972 is even taken, sometimes, as shire, on Wednesday, the night after the stage. not only the end of the fifth party sys- Rubio spoke at the Exeter town hall Apart from the bluejeans and the tem but the end of the two-party sys- and Clinton at Winnacunnet High boots, which Reagan liked to wear, too, tem altogether. “The Party’s Over” was School. I’d driven to Nashua in the rain, very little about Ted Cruz is reminis- the title that the political columnist David and parked on a residential street be- cent of Ronald Reagan. Where Rea- Broder gave to a polemic published in hind the school. When I got out of my gan was warm and prided himself on 1972, which was also the year that a de- car, in the dark, I walked straight into being welcoming, Cruz is cold: he likes spairing Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a big, boxy television set that had been to make threats. Also, Cruz is a prod- wrote the introduction to a four-volume left on the sidewalk, to be hauled away uct of political disequilibrium rather “History of U.S. Political Parties,” in with the trash. than a creator of it. Howard Dean’s which he declared, of the system, “Its In the auditorium, Cruz’s stage had MoveOn.org-fuelled campaign, in 2004, prospects have rarely appeared more two American flags flanking his cam- was, in hindsight, a dry run. Facebook clouded than they do today.” No one’s paign banner: “TRUSTED.” Cruz was launched in 2004, YouTube in 2005, ever published volume five. introduced by Jef Kuhner, the host of Twitter in 2006, the iPhone in 2007. Less convincingly, some scholars have a political talk show on AM radio in When Dean was running, Twitter had suggested that the sixth party system Boston. He led the crowd in the Pledge a million users, and only about one in began in 1980. “Without parties there of Allegiance, facing a third flag, held six Americans had a smartphone. Today, can be no organized and coherent pol- by Gary Dipiero, a Cruz supporter from Twitter has more than three hundred itics,” the Committee for Party Re- Saugus, Massachusetts, who was car- million users, and two out of three newal, a bipartisan group of political rying a “Hillary for Prison” sign. (Di- Americans own smartphones. These scientists, proclaimed that year, just be- piero told me that he expects this of a have become political tools, a handheld fore the Reagan revolution realized what Cruz Presidency: “He’s going to pros- pollster, lobbyist, donor, and, maybe one Goldwater had only promised, and cable ecute her and throw her in jail.”) “As day, voter. Trump, the Kardashian can- guys began knocking on American doors. many of you know, I’m an American didate, has six million Twitter follow- Reagan, the Great Communicator, led historian,” Kuhner, who was a gradu- ers, which is more than five times the

“You’re such a romantic.” population of New Hampshire. “What is to do what Reagan did, go over the of a substantial segment of the citizenry, is this Snapshot thing and why do I head of the media.” But, as Cruz pointed usually in ways contended to be pro- only get ten seconds?” Sanders tweeted out, that’s a lot easier today than it was motive of the national weal.” in November, joking, the day he signed when Reagan was running. “We don’t The American party system is not up. He now has the biggest Snapchat live anymore in a world of three net- only a creation of the press; it is depen- following in this campaign. works that have a stranglehold on in- dent on it. It is currently fashionable, in- At the Cruz rally, I talked to a fel- formation,” Cruz went on. “We have dispensable, even, to malign the press, low from Nashua named Paul Fortier, got the Internet. We have got the whether liberal or conservative. “That’s forty-six, who was there with his daugh- Drudge Report. We have got talk radio. the media game,” Sanders said, dismiss- ter. He thinks that once people get to We have got social media. We’ve got ing a question that Cooper had asked know Cruz better they won’t like him. the ability to go directly around, and him during CNN’s town hall. “That’s Fortier considers Trump to be the only directly to the people.” what the media talks about. Who cares?” true outsider: “He’s the only candi- But when the press is in the throes of date that can turn Washington upside hat’s wrong with a revolu- change, so is the party system. And the down.” Fair enough. Trump is likely to “W tion?” Anderson Cooper asked national weal had better watch out. It’s turn a lot of things upside down; he Hillary Clinton at CNN’s Democratic unlikely, but not impossible, that the ac- already has. But, while his gambit is Town Hall, in the three-hundred-and- celerating and atomizing forces of this anti-establishment, his success is en- fifty-seat Derry Opera House. “Well, latest communications revolution will tirely due to the establishment: his. The that’s for Senator Sanders to explain,” bring about the end of the party system G.O.P. and the Democratic Party are she said. “I think the progress that we and the beginning of a new and wobblier reeling in the disequilibrium created have made, and particularly the Dem- political institution. With our phones in by the latest communications revolu- ocratic Party has made, has been hard our hands and our eyes on our phones, tion, the membership careering out of fought for, hard won, and must be each of us is a reporter, each a photogra- the party leaders’ control. It didn’t help defended.” pher, unedited and ill judged, chatting, that the Republican National Com- There will not be a revolution, but snapping, tweeting, and posting, yikking mittee and the Democratic National this election might mark the begin- and yakking. At some point, does each Committee presumed that Jeb Bush ning of the seventh party system. The of us become a party of one? and Hillary Clinton would win the Internet, like all new communications I watched Wednesday night’s Dem- party nominations, despite each can- technologies, has contributed to a pe- ocratic Town Hall from inside the Hal- didate’s known weaknesses. But Trump riod of political disequilibrium, one in ligan Tavern, an Irish pub housed in an is the last person to credibly claim to which, as always, party followers have old brick fire station across the street be an outsider. He is a media emperor, been revolting against party leaders. So from the Derry Opera House. CNN tweeting from his Tower. far, neither the R.N.C. nor the D.N.C., had reserved the entire restaurant for It is rare to meet a non-supporter nor any of their favored candidates, has the press, since there was no room in- at an event like Cruz’s. Fortier had man- been able to grab the wheel. Trump, side the dollhouse-size opera house. aged to wander in; his fourteen-year- meanwhile, is barrelling down the high- CNN played on screens above the bar old son had a basketball game in the way toward the White House, ignor- and on the walls. More than a hun- gym down the hall. Cruz’s night at the ing every road sign, a man without a dred reporters huddled with their Elm Street School, like Rubio’s eve- party. laptops at tables, upstairs and down. A ning in Exeter, was billed as a “town The fate of the free world does not few people followed the response on hall,” an invocation of a long-standing hinge on this election. But the direc- #DemTownHall. On side tables, fried democratic institution, in which ordi- tion of the party system might. And chicken, macaroni and cheese, and po- nary citizens get to ask candidates ques- that’s probably worth thinking about, tato skins were served from platters tions and weigh their answers. But, re- slowly and deeply. Parties, while not warmed by cans of Sterno, their blue ally, these gatherings are rallies for written into the U.S. Constitution, do flames flickering. Power strips rested on supporters (Cruz’s was advertised on sustain our system of government. As every table, like so many centerpieces. and sponsored by Kuhner’s show), per- the political scientist V. O. Key pointed The cofee was free. So was the Wi-Fi. formances as much for the Internet as out, half a century ago, “They perform The password was the date, 02032016. for the audience. Some Republican an essential function in the manage- Six days later, New Hampshire vot- candidates deny press passes to jour- ment of succession to power, as well as ers went to the polls. Sanders beat nalists they consider to be part of the in the process of obtaining popular con- Clinton; Trump beat everyone else. “liberal media,” preferring to bypass sent to the course of public policy. They Rubio had been demoted to a meme: the press in favor of a direct feed. amass suicient support to buttress the a talking machine. Cruz had wobbled. Trump’s decision to sit out the last de- authority of governments; or, on the Kasich gained strength; Bush got out bate in Iowa before the caucuses took contrary, they attract or organize dis- the vote. But, among both Republicans this one step further, but in the very content and dissatisfaction suicient to and Democrats, even the second-place same direction. “Reporters want Hil- oust the government. In either case, candidates lagged behind the winners lary to win,” Cruz said in an interview they perform the function of the artic- by double digits. The party had been on Fox News last month.“The answer ulation of the interests and aspirations crashed; the system had been hacked. 

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 27 table and the acoustics of the restau- SHOUTS & MURMURS rant were weird, that does not count as evidence. Jurors, I remind you that part of JUROR INSTRUCTIONS your duty today is to avoid discussing the details of this case with anyone BY KELLY STOUT outside this jury. Do not, for example, Gchat with your best friend from col- lege, because she lives in Philly and doesn’t know any of the restaurants around here, and always says dumb, unhelpful stuf, like, “Falafel isn’t as healthy as you think.” Information from the news or from social media must not influence your finding in this case. For example, do not use Instagram to try to figure out whether Rob’s friend Warren got a Skrillex haircut or if it just looks like that because of the light. Also, Warren may not even be able to come, because his stepmom is in town. You are allowed to make reasonable inferences, as long as they are based on the evidence. It is O.K. to speculate that Rob’s roommate may get on your ood morning, jurors, and wel- that was Rob’s bad, because his phone case for being pro-Hillary and have lit- G come to what may be the most had died, and he apologized, like, ten erally zero sense of humor about it important civic role you perform as a times. Further, tacos could be quick when you call him a Bernie Bro, be- participant in this great democracy. and cheap, plus that place near Rob’s cause that is what happened when you Since this case, Just Staying In v. house does a mango-cayenne marga- guys met up for dim sum. Meeting Up with Rob and Those Guys, rita that’s supposed to be incredible. If during the trial I, the judge, strike is a civil case, your job as a juror is to Allison, your B.F.F. from work, an testimony from the record or tell you weigh the merits of the evidence pre- expert witness for the plaintif, has to disregard something—such as the sented by the plaintif against that of testified that it’s a bad night for tacos, defendant’s statement that it’s really the defendant. since it’s raining and aren’t tacos more classic of you to turn a mellow night Both sides have stipulated that all of a summer thing anyway? into a big political discussion—you you have in the fridge is a zucchini, The defendant has alleged that stay- must not consider it. half a bell pepper, and a thing of al- ing in would be fine, except that you Jurors, if, after a full consideration mond milk. The zucchini is the yellow always want to “make it special” and of the evidence presented in court today, kind that you think sort of tastes like cook homemade gnocchi or what- it is your opinion that there is no com- soap. Further, neither side disputes that ever, and then you don’t end up eating ing back from Rob’s shitty potluck no- you had a weirdly late lunch, and that until, like, eleven and are more tired tion, where basically everyone brings you feel like you’ve been eating a lot than if you’d just gone out and seen chips and salsa, it is your duty to find of Italian lately so would prefer that, Rob. for the plaintif. whatever you do, it not be pizza, if You have heard from the defendant But if you decide that, indeed, you’ve that’s O.K. that, furthermore, cleanup just feels been trying to take advantage of living The evidence includes only the tes- like a headache tonight. in the city more, and that going out timony that the witnesses have given On redirect, the plaintif claimed will be fine as long as Rob’s friend Gwen under oath. You have heard, for exam- that Rob always does that thing where doesn’t talk about Ayurvedic medicine, ple, from the plaintif, that last time he talks to everyone at the table but you should find for the defendant. you went out with this particular group you. Or it’s more like he’s sort of talking Also, I’m going to put it out there they changed the plan, like, ten min- through you, allegedly. that I would be totally fine having ev- utes before you were supposed to meet However, the lawyers’ statements eryone meet at my place. We can do up. It was allegedly a huge pain in the and arguments are not evidence. So B.Y.O.B. and order Thai and you guys ass to go all the way to Gowanus from when the lawyer for the defendant could just Venmo me for it. Fort Greene, especially because the G countered that, last time, Rob proba- Thank you for your service today. train was messed up that night. bly just had trouble hearing you be- You are playing an indispensable role

The defendant has submitted that cause the group was seated at a long in our justice system.  KLETSEL GREG

28 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016

thousand dollars—on drinks in less ANNALS OF WEALTH than an hour. In the store, Weymi spotted a for- mer classmate from a Vancouver fash- THE GOLDEN GENERATION ion institute, who was now working as a salesgirl there. She talked about the Why China’s super-rich send their children abroad. attitude of Chinese customers. “They treat this place like a supermarket,” she BY JIAYANG FAN said. “A three-thousand-dollar outfit is like a carton of milk.” Another salesgirl n a crisp Sunday morning in No- Holt Renfrew, Vancouver’s equiva- joined in and lamented that such profli- O vember, Weymi Cho picked me up lent of Barneys, is one of Weymi’s cus- gacy negated any sense of exclusivity. at my hotel, in downtown Vancouver, tomary weekend haunts, though she is Weymi agreed. “I can’t even look at in her new car, a white Maserati Gran- aware of its limitations. “It doesn’t com- Chanel bags anymore,” she said at one Turismo with a red leather interior. pare to Vegas, where there is obviously point. “Everyone and their auntie now She had slept only two hours the night a better selection,” she explained as we has a boy bag.” before. A new karaoke machine had drove there. Weymi speaks English Weymi moved to Vancouver at the been installed in her apartment, a four- with a subtle but noticeable accent, age of fourteen, to attend boarding million- dollar condo with a view of and was relieved when I switched to school. Her family owns a successful

A reality show, “Ultra Rich Asian Girls of Vancouver,” chronicles the lives of Weymi Cho (left) and a group of friends. the city’s harbor, and she and some Mandarin. Her speech was punctuated semiconductor business in Taiwan, where friends had spent the night singing and by European brand names, which func- she grew up, but her parents are from drinking Veuve Clicquot. Weymi is tioned as a kind of currency. A maid’s the mainland. She and her sister attended twenty years old and slim, with large monthly wages, she said, were proba- an international school, which prepared eyes and waist-length hair that cascaded, bly the price of a pair of Roger Vivier them for studies abroad, and she spent on this occasion, over a silk Dior blouse. satin pumps. A night out can cost half summers travelling in America or Aus- She has a reserved, almost aristocratic a suède Birkin bag. On Weymi’s last tralia. “My dad always wanted our En- air. It was a little past ten, and we were birthday, in March, she’d spent more glish to be strong,” she told me. “The going shopping. than two Fendi totes—around four plan was always to send us out West.”

30 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 PHOTOGRAPH BY ANGIE SMITH The West is the plan for many of whip-fast edits of bling and scornful ies major at the University of British China’s new rich. In the past decade, gazes. The women spend wildly to Columbia, who is twenty-three and has they have swept into cities like New prove their status, but afect disdain lived in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, York, London, and Los Angeles, snap- for the ostentation of others. Season 1 and Hong Kong. A friend of hers from ping up real estate and provoking anx- ends with a woman being accused of the university, Chelsea, was the only ieties about inequality and globalized ghastly crimes—attempting to pass of married woman in the cast. She had wealth. Rich Chinese have become a fake Hermès bags and wearing non- recently had her first child but seemed fixture in the public imagination, the designer attire. Season 2 picks up in remarkably slender, and wore a pink way rich Russians were in the nine- L.A., where two of the women are scop- baby-doll dress so elaborately feath- teen-nineties and rich people from the ing out luxury houses. ered that, in combination with her tow- Gulf states were in the decades before Contempt for the nouveau riche is ering Gucci heels, it gave her the ap- that. The Chinese presence in Vancou- hardly limited to China, but the Chi- pearance of a tottering baby ostrich. ver is particularly pronounced, thanks nese version is distinctive. Thanks to Ray, a finance student at U.B.C., had to the city’s position on the Pacific Rim, the legacy of Communism, almost all brought her boyfriend, who is also a its pleasant climate, and its easy pace of wealth is new wealth. There are no old fuerdai. Pam, at twenty-six, was the life. China’s newly minted millionaires aristocracies to emulate, no templates oldest of the group and the most re- see the city as a haven in which to place for how to spend. I asked some of the flective. As the women waited for the not only their money but, increasingly, women on “Ultra Rich Asian Girls” filming to start, they inspected one an- their ofspring, who come there to get about being the objects of both envy other’s outfits and accessories in foren- an education, to start businesses, and and censure. “In Web forums about the sic detail, but there was warmth as well to socialize. show, people are always, like, Why do as competitiveness in their manner, as The children of wealthy Chinese are they have to show of like that?” Weymi if a life of continual consumption had known as fuerdai, which means “rich said with a shrug. “I don’t think I’m fostered a kind of intimacy. second generation.” In a culture where showing of. I’m just living my life.” In this episode, Kevin would be on- poverty and thrift were long the norm, screen, leading a roundtable discussion their extravagances have become noto- fter shopping, Weymi and I went of the women’s experiences during the rious. Last year, the son of China’s rich- A to the filming of the show’s second- season. Contention arose about whether est man posted pictures online of his season finale, in an upscale Thai restau- an actual round table was desirable. Chel- dog wearing two gold-plated Apple rant that had been cleared for the oc- sea was concerned that it covered up too Watches, one on each front paw. On casion. We arrived early, and I chatted much of the clothes—“We could just Web forums, citizens complain that with the show’s creator, Kevin K. Li. be wearing p.j.s underneath”—but Kev- fuerdai are “flaunting what they haven’t Kevin, who is thirty-seven, was born in in’s eye was on the composition. “I know earned” and that “their grotesque dis- Vancouver to a Cantonese-speaking what look you are going for,” he said, plays are a poison to the work ethic of family and has worked for various broad- nodding sympathetically. “But we have Chinese society.” President Xi Jinping cast networks in the city. He told me six pairs of legs, and it’s just going to has spoken of the need to “guide the that he had envisaged the show as a look messy.” younger generation of private-enter- mashup of “Lifestyles of the Rich and The episode began with a cham- prise owners to think where their money Famous,” his favorite program growing pagne toast, after which Kevin posed a comes from and live a positive life,” and up, and the “Real Housewives” fran- series of softball questions: How did the government recently held an edu- chise. He said, “I figured, if I wanted to Diana’s experiment living on a low-in- cational retreat for seventy children of know the kind of deluxe lives these kids come budget for one day go? (Not well.) billionaires, who were given a crash led, so would people in Canada and the How was house-hunting in L.A.? (Nice course in traditional Chinese values and U.S. and Asia.” mansions but all in the wrong areas.) social responsibility. Casting the show was easy. Kevin Kevin asked the women about the po- Yet fuerdai continue to fascinate. shot a short promotional video in which tential diiculties of dating outside their Some of the most popular Chinese TV a friend of a friend displayed a collec- class. There was a slight pause before dramas in recent years—such as “Noble tion of bags and rode around in a Lam- Diana ventured, “It can be hard. I’ve Bride: Regretless Love” and “Ice and borghini. “It just went viral after a local done it before and it’s just”—she took Fire of Youth”—have plots centering media outlet picked it up,” he told me. a second to smooth out her bangs— on fuerdai, whose love lives enhance or People began bombarding him with re- “just awkward and uncomfortable for endanger the family fortune. There is quests for interviews. “The subject of everyone.” also a fuerdai reality show: “Ultra Rich fuerdai was just ripe for the time. Ev- It was one of the few discordant mo- Asian Girls of Vancouver,” in which eryone is curious and everyone has some- ments in the discussion, but of-camera Weymi features. thing to say.” exchanges were more revealing. At one The show, filmed in Mandarin and Gradually, other members of the point, Diana announced, to no one in English, is broadcast online and is cast arrived at the restaurant—a parade particular, “I am going to fix my face.” watched avidly by Chinese people of Helmut Lang, Alexander McQueen, She’d heard about a recent Korean inno- worldwide. It follows the lives of half a and rose-gold iPhones. There was vation in plastic surgery called 3-D mold- dozen young women in disorienting, Diana, an economics and Asian-stud- ing. It was noninvasive, and involved a

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 31 variety of braces and other devices de- Most of that money has gone into real gation or they’d be brought down in a signed to give the face the oval shape estate. According to the National As- corruption scandal,” he said. valued in Asian culture. sociation of Realtors, Chinese buyers In Vancouver, Weymi mentioned the Weymi chimed in, saying, “Last time, have become the largest source of for- pervasiveness of such anxieties: “Some when I went to Korea with my parents eign cash in the U.S. residential real- of my relatives in Shanghai who are and my sister, I wanted to do it but my estate market. oicials—all clean ones, of course—have parents wouldn’t let me.” Moneyed people leave China for told me stories about their friends who “It’s a high-tech thing,” Diana said various reasons. Some are worried about are fretting about the recent corruption nonchalantly. “And very natural. Recov- pollution. Others want to secure a good crackdown. In China, it’s not just about ery can take only eight months.” education for their children. Zhou what you did but what your network of When I asked why she would en- Xueguang, a sociology professor at Stan- relationships is.” dure such a process so young, Diana ford who received his bachelor’s degree This is the first time that China’s rich looked at me with a perplexity that bor- have sought to emigrate in significant dered on pity. numbers. For thousands of years, the “For a more beautiful face, of course,” ruling class was proudly isolationist. she said. “People now refer to China as an emerg- ing economy, but it was the world’s dom- bout a third of China’s wealth inant economy for two millennia, until A belongs to just one per cent of the 1810,” Shamus Khan, a sociology pro- population. While China’s poor still in- fessor at Columbia who specializes in habit a developing-world economy, a élites, told me. “Before that, the Chinese recent report found that the country élite were very reserved and almost snob- now has more dollar billionaires than bish in their view of foreigners. They the U.S. does. “What is happening in in China, told me, “The competition thought of the European élite as back- China constitutes one of the most rapid in the Chinese school system is known ward people who wanted to acquire emergences of wealth stratification in to be brutal.” He went on, “There are culture from China.” Westerners made human history,” Jefrey Winters, a pol- only so many slots in good schools, and, hazardous journeys to obtain prized com- itics professor at Northwestern Univer- at a certain level, it doesn’t matter how modities—porcelain, tea, silk—from the sity, told me. Winters, the author of the much money you have—you won’t be Middle Kingdom, which considered it- book “Oligarchy,” pointed out that able to get in.” But, for aluent Chi- self the center of the world. China is one of a small number of coun- nese, the most basic reason to move Only in the nineteenth century did tries—Russia is the other notable ex- abroad is that fortunes in China are it become evident that the West had ample—where extreme wealth stratifi- precarious. The concerns go deeper than outstripped China, especially in the field cation was eliminated in a Communist anxiety about the country’s slowing of military technology. The Opium Wars, revolution and then later reëmerged. As growth and turbulent stock market; it which were fought over China’s trade in Russia, the sudden formation of a is very diicult to progress above a cer- imbalance with Britain, resulted in a hu- new oligarchy in China means that tain level in business without cultivat- miliating defeat and, ultimately, the end there are many super-rich people who ing, and sometimes buying, the support of the Empire. “China’s first encounter are unfamiliar with the ways in which of government oicials, who are often with globalization led to its collapse, one more entrenched aristocracies quietly ousted in anti-corruption sweeps insti- from which the country has never com- protect their wealth. “No matter the gated by rivals. pletely recovered,” Khan said. “The emer- culture or age, old money knows from John Osburg, an anthropologist who gence of a new Chinese élite is China’s long experience that it is far safer to be spent years studying successful business- second moment of encounter with these secluded and less seen,” Winters said. men in Chengdu, told me that “there’s global processes, and it’s interesting how But new money, as Thorstein Veblen always a fear that, if the oicials to whom certain dimensions are reversed.” theorized, asserts itself through con- they’re tied are brought down in an anti- spicuous consumption. corruption campaign, it could bring trou- party followed the filming, and A study by the Bank of China and ble for them, too, and lead to the seizure A went on until the early hours of the the Hurun Report found that sixty per of their assets. There’s also a concern morning. Ray and her boyfriend pointed cent of the country’s rich people were that business rivals who may be better out a man who they said knew every- either in the process of moving abroad connected to people in the government body. He owned an Aston Martin, they or considering doing so. (“Rich” was could use their ties to the party-state to said—not in itself a distinction, as they defined as being worth more than ten bring down their competitors.” Some were each considering buying one, but million yuan—around $1.5 million, a people he knew considered being on this particular car was modelled on the considerable fortune in China, though Forbes ’s annual list of the richest peo- one that appeared in the latest James not stratospheric.) The Chinese are ple in China a curse. “The people on Bond movie, and was the only one of currently transferring money out of the that list, for several years in a row, within its kind in British Columbia. country at a rate of around four hun- a year or two of appearing, would be the This was Paul Oei, a loquacious fifty- dred and fifty billion dollars a year. target of some kind of criminal investi- year-old with bristly silver hair. When I

32 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 introduced myself, he immediately took usually the children, who graduate, and neurs. Having amassed vast amounts of a selfie of us and posted it to Instagram— they say, ‘I love Canada. This is like heav- capital in the transition to a market econ- his usual manner of salutation, it turned en—I don’t want to go back.’ ” omy, they can aford to bring up their out. Then he presented me with three The owner of the restaurant, Hu Yan, children in a new atmosphere of privi- business cards. The first identified him stopped by our table to say hello to Oei. lege, and the legacy of the one-child pol- as the founder and C.E.O. of Organic A woman in her mid-forties, with weather- icy gives the beam of parental expecta- Eco- Centre Corp., a composting com- beaten cheekbones and an eicient de- tion an especially tight focus. Furthermore, pany that is also a sponsor of the show; meanor, she had been a successful restau- the memory of poverty and backward- the second as the chair of the Miss Chi- rateur in the northern city of Xi’an and ness is ever-present in the collective con- nese Vancouver Pageant; the third as the had come to Vancouver two years ear- sciousness. I remembered something Ray head of Canadian Manu Immigration & lier. When I asked her how she had made had told me: “The poorer your parents Financial Services. Manu, which Oei the decision to move, she smiled and were when they were young, the more founded a decade ago, provides advice on shook her head. “My husband was in they want a better environment for their immigration strategies, investments, and Vancouver on vacation, and his buddies kids.” The desire to have a Western- assimilation for Chinese nationals mov- dragged him to a few open houses,” she educated child is spurred by consider- ing abroad. For fuerdai seeking to estab- said. “The next thing I know, we are sign- ations of prestige as much as by practi- lish themselves in Vancouver, he is the ing the deed to property in the city.” calities. Also relevant is Oei’s observa- go-to fixer and an unoicial ambassador. Even though it was an expensive pur- tion that his clients aren’t the richest or Oei said that so many Chinese want chase, she didn’t feel that she was making the best-connected people in China; they to move to Vancouver that Manu has a commitment to the city. It just seemed want their children to have access to the many more potential customers than it like insurance against the vagaries of the cultural and political capital that is un- can accommodate. “They buy proper- Chinese economy. available to them. Underpinning the dis- ties without hesitation,” he said. “It’s What made her think about staying cussion of fuerdai in China is a national very cheap in comparison to, let’s say, was her eleven-year-old son. She told apprehension about the future élite of a New York, L.A., Hong Kong, or Japan. me that he was currently in L.A. for a country that is just coming of age. First, it’s very economical to buy prop- junior golf tournament and that she was erties, and then, second, these folks have making plans to gradually move East hile in Vancouver, I met up with so much money, they want to diversify for him. With some pride, Hu explained W Andy Yan, an urban planner who and put it in a country that is safe.” her plan to open restaurants in Los An- has done extensive studies of the city’s I asked him if the people he works geles, Las Vegas, and, ultimately, New real-estate market. We drove out to West with could be considered China’s one York. I asked her why New York, and Point Grey, one of the most expensive per cent. “I wouldn’t say that they are she looked at me with surprise. “For my areas, which overlooks an inlet. (In gen- the one per cent,” Oei replied. “More son, of course. The Northeast is where eral, the most desirable real estate is in like between the one and two per cent.” all the best universities are, and that’s the west, toward the ocean, and the influx His clients tend to have prospered in where he’ll be living one day.” of international money has pushed long- regional manufacturing cities, whereas Hu’s priorities are typical of her gen- time residents inland.) It was a bright, the very wealthiest people are from Bei- eration, China’s first wave of entrepre- cool afternoon, and, as we drove down jing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. “The tippy top of the pyramid have political backing or connections,” he said. “They don’t need to export the wealth.” A few days later, Oei took me to din- ner at a Chinese restaurant that had opened recently in downtown Vancou- ver. Bentleys and Range Rovers in the parking lot and the expansive water- front view gave me a good idea of the clientele, as did the Peking duck, which was eighty-eight dollars. Over aromatic shiitake soup, poured from tiny clay pots, Oei expanded on the aims and the at- titudes of Chinese families who decide to put down roots in Canada. Early on, they often think of it as a temporary ar- rangement. “When they come, in the first month or two months they want to go back,” he said. “It’s too boring in the new world.” The turning point gen- erally comes after a year and a half. “It’s “I’m used to him finishing my sentences, but now he starts them, too.” block after leafy block, the only other to the community or take part in it.” money to start a small venture, to test vehicles we saw were maintenance trucks. Under pressure, the mayor of Van- their business acumen. Weymi’s parents “It feels a little like a movie set,” Yan said. couver, Gregor Robertson, has proposed promised her half a million dollars to The houses we passed, palatial proper- a tax on luxury homes and a tax on in- launch a bilingual luxury- life-style mag- ties with views of the water, represented come from property speculation. He has azine, which will be distributed free at a cut-and-paste approach to Old World recommended raising the tax on vacant high-end stores, in order to foster a sense European glamour: there were French investment properties and called for “far of exclusivity. “I don’t plan on making a windows flanked by Corinthian pillars better tracking” of international invest- huge fortune from it,” Weymi said. “But and topped by Tudor roofs. Yan pointed ment and absentee owners. But it seems my friends all agree: this project is so out the lion statues that stood beside unlikely that such measures will be im- Weymi.” Ray’s boyfriend, who has yet to many of the security gates: “That’s a dead plemented. As prices have risen, ordi- graduate from college, is going to open a giveaway the owner is Chinese.” nary Canadians have found that their conveyor-belt sushi restaurant in down- Yan was born in Vancouver and his homes represent more and more of their town Vancouver, with a sizable parental family has been in Canada for nearly net worth. Many people in the federal stake. “I plan to have menus on iPads, and a century. He studied urban planning government, including the Prime Min- there will be a video-game component to at U.C.L.A. and then got a job in the ister, Justin Trudeau, have advocated cau- the ordering,” he told me. oice of the prominent architect Bing tion when it comes to steps that would Of all the women I met from the Thom—a Vancouver native whose fam- depress property values. Besides, rich in- show, the only one who had a job was ily is originally from Hong Kong— ternational buyers mean higher tax rev- Pam, who was cheerfully squeezing three monitoring the impact of the city’s prop- enues. “The state is addicted to the rev- gigs into seventy-hour workweeks. She erty boom. In a recent study, Yan found enue,” Eby told me. was a producer on the show, worked at that about seventy per cent of the single- I asked Bing Thom about the changes. a Vancouver auction house owned by family homes sold in three high-end The property boom has, of course, been an uncle, and ran her own modelling west-side neighborhoods were bought good for the architectural profession, agency. One morning, I accompanied by Chinese. Many occupants of these but Thom, who is now in his early sev- her as she flitted from one job to the properties described themselves as enties, is troubled by what is happen- next. We met in a clothing store with a housewives or students—twenty-seven ing to his home town. “By all accounts, makeshift runway, where she’d been per cent of the respondents in homes I have done pretty well in my business, casting models for an upcoming char- with an average value of $3.05 million. but I made more money from sitting ity event, and then took a car to the auc- The finding led Yan to speak of so- on my Vancouver property than I made tion house. She clearly enjoyed this kind called “astronaut” family arrangements. by working an entire lifetime,” he said. of juggling. “Doing a nine-to-five, it’s The home buyer, typically the husband, “That tells you something.” too boring, and you don’t get to meet lives and works in Asia, where cash can Thom was alarmed that consump- people,” she said, laughing. “My biggest be made fast, while establishing his tion has efectively replaced production flaw is that I have trouble finishing bor- family members in Canada in order to as Vancouver’s growth industry. “The city ing tasks.” She cited a Chinese proverb move the money to a place of social and has become a hotel,” he said. He was op- about beginning with the ferocity of a political stability. Yan has coined the posed to what he called “selling citizen- tiger and ending with the anticlimax of term “hedge city” for places like Van- ships”—the practice whereby countries a snake’s tail. couver: they are a hedge against vola- including Canada and the U.S. grant res- Pam is uncommonly energetic. Her tility at home. idency in exchange for investment. “I speech, alternating between slangy En- In the past six years, the value of think any country should be against that, glish and proverb-laden Mandarin, puts single-family homes in Vancouver has because you’re not buying the best peo- one in mind of a human split screen. She risen seventy- five per cent, to an average ple,” Thom said. “They don’t invest in came to Vancouver, from Harbin, to at- of $1.9 million. At the same time, the their country. There’s no belonging. But tend middle school. By the age of fifteen, median household income has barely it’s a worldwide trend. It’s happening in she was renting a place of her own. She budged. The disparity is not lost on lo- England. It’s happening in France. It’s told me, “If I had stayed in China, I think cals. Last year, an indignant twenty-nine- happening in Australia. Everywhere.” I would have been very sheltered. Being year-old woman tweeted a selfie with so far away from my family has made the hashtag #don’thave1million. Hun- here is a common conception that me more appreciative of their sacrifices.” dreds of other Vancouver residents fol- T the fuerdai are being groomed to in- Pam recalled a moment in college when lowed suit. herit their parents’ businesses, but this she was waiting for a fifteen-thousand- David Eby, who represents Vancouver- isn’t necessarily the case. One of the dollar wire transfer to arrive. After a few Point Grey in the Legislative Assem- women on the show told me, “My daddy days, she called her mother, who said bly of British Columbia, told me that doesn’t want me to kill the company he that there were some minor bank clear- he recently met with the district’s resi- has worked so hard to build. He told me, ance issues. Later, a relative revealed that dents’ association. “All the talk was about ‘If you don’t have the ability to take over, her mother’s business had been close to mainland money. There is a lot of anx- it’s better for you to collect a monthly in- bankruptcy. “It was, like, the first real iety, and a sense that mainland buyers come and give the reins to someone else.’ ” moment when I saw how far my mom purchase houses but don’t contribute Parents often provide their children with was willing to go to spare me the worry.

34 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 It made me shudder to think how care- less I’d been.” We pulled into a strip mall and parked in front of a sign that read “Vanderful Auction INC.”—a pun on “wonderful” and “Vancouver.” Pam led me into a dis- play room filled with brush-and-ink landscape paintings, porcelain horse statues, and intricately carved rosewood tea tables. She is the firm’s marketing director and, as the sole English speaker in the business, had spent the past two months translating the auction cata- logue from Chinese. On a tour of the warehouse, Pam pointed at a small curved bamboo plank in a glass vitrine, which she said was for calligraphers to rest their arms on. “What do you call this?” she whispered, and then said sheepishly that she had ended up ren- “You know, this isn’t helping convince people you’re not a witch.” dering it in English as “Elbow Lifter.” “This business of translation,” she sighed. “It’s harder than people realize, and •• there isn’t the vocabulary in English for everything.” restaurant called Little Szechuan, in than a thousand people each year.) The lament was one I heard often Richmond, an enclave of Canadian- As we ate, the conversation turned in Vancouver, and it seemed to express born Chinese, not unlike Flushing, to inequality, and the extent to which something about the dislocation that Queens. As Weymi drove, I asked it is visible in China and Canada. comes with an enviable international whether she preferred Vancouver to “Have you been to East Hastings?” existence. As we paused before an ex- Asia, and she said she did. She tapped she asked, referring to a neighbor- quisite Qing-dynasty armoire, I asked the steering wheel and said, “It’s like hood that contains Vancouver’s equiv- Pam if she ever thought about working this: when I am driving here and need alent of Skid Row and is bordered by in China. As she considered the ques- to make a turn, I turn on my signal fashionable bars and million-dollar tion, she ran her fingers over a phoenix light and do it. It’s the most normal condos. “That’s where you see it the carved on the cabinet’s front panel. thing in the world. When I first drove most. But for the most part every- “The thing is, I’m not sure I’d fully fit in Asia, I flashed my signal and im- one’s life is O.K. here.” She paused. in there now,” she said slowly. “I lack my mediately people, instead of slowing “A lot better than in China, at least.” parents’ Chinese business know-how. down, all sped up to cut me of. It She recalled a visit to Shanghai when Westerners are all about being straight- was so maddening, and then, after a she had strayed into a shantytown of forward and direct. But, when you ne- little while, I became like everyone migrant workers from the Chinese gotiate a deal in China, it’s all about what’s else. I never signal when I turn in countryside, and then spoke of the unsaid, simultaneously hiding and hint- Asia. I just do it. You don’t have a impoverished rural region of Yunnan, ing at what you really want. In China, choice.” in southern China, from which her I’m treated like a naïve child, and some- Little Szechuan was bigger than its mother came. “When I was little, times I feel like an alien.” Pam and many name suggested. Almost everyone there my mom would tell me stories about of her friends, having emigrated in their was Chinese, and Weymi waved to a how poor they were,” she said. “It was teens, exist between two cultures. Cana- table of rowdy young men as we en- a kind of poverty that makes you fear- dians, and the West generally, could be tered. “In this town, everyone knows ful the rest of your life.” Weymi’s inscrutable. The cultural capital that their each other,” she said absently. After we grandmother and aunt took in laun- parents had hoped would be theirs was ordered, she asked, “Do you want to dry to make a living. “She didn’t want elusive. But having been away from China see my pic with Justin Trudeau?” She to be like her mom or older sister, during years of dizzyingly rapid change scrolled through her phone. “He wasn’t always gossiping about those in the made them foreigners there, too. the Prime Minister then, and I just village a smidgen better of than asked him for a photo. I like Justin. themselves.” Weymi put down her eymi and I had dinner one I like most Canadian politicians, actu- chopsticks. “It’s that kind of typical W night. For once, she was dressed ally.” But she said that Westerners were provincial pettiness, but that was her casually—a knee-length wool cardi- too liberal on issues like marijuana and entire life if she had stayed.” She shook gan, sensible flats, no makeup—and the death penalty. (China executes more her head and drew a breath. “I mean, we headed to a no-frills Chinese people than any other country, more can you just imagine?” 

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 35 LETTER FROM LOS ANGELES THE DIGITAL DIRT How TMZ gets the videos and photos that celebrities want to hide.

BY NICHOLAS SCHMIDLE

n the early-morning hours of nal footage. Please call me for price.” with certainty which employee had re- February 15, 2014, Ray Rice and his Fifty-nine minutes after a producer for- corded the footage with a phone. I fiancée, Janay Palmer, stepped into warded the tip to colleagues, TMZ posted When the video was posted on TMZ, an elevator at the Revel hotel and ca- a clip showing the rapper accidentally Rice’s attorney issued a statement, warn- sino, in Atlantic City. Palmer and Rice, dropping thousands of dollars outside a ing viewers not to make judgments until a running back for the Baltimore Ra- Washington strip club. (In a message to “all of the facts” emerged, adding, “Nei- vens, were arguing as the doors slid shut. a TMZ staf member, the source asked ther Ray nor myself will try this case in When the elevator arrived in the lobby, to be paid five thousand dollars.) Russ the media.” Three months later, Rice Palmer was lying unconscious, face down, Weakland, a former TMZ producer, told and Palmer held a press conference. Rice on the floor. me that he sometimes negotiated pay- expressed regret, saying, “Me and Janay According to a former security su- ments with tipsters who were anxious wish we could take back thirty seconds pervisor at the Revel, nearly eighteen about releasing sensitive information. In of our life.” What happened during those hundred cameras streamed video to a 2009, for example, he took the call that thirty seconds? Rice, the Ravens, and the pair of monitoring rooms on the mez- led to TMZ’s breaking the news that N.F.L. did not seem especially deter- zanine floor. After guards responded to Chris Brown had physically assaulted mined to find out. The league suspended the incident in the lobby, several surveil- Rihanna. (The site subsequently pub- Rice for two games, but by early Sep- lance oicers gathered and wondered lished a police photograph of Rihanna’s tember he was preparing to return to aloud if a tape of Rice and Palmer could battered face.) Weakland told me that play. Then, on September 8th, TMZ be sold to TMZ—the Web site that, his attempts to persuade sources to fol- published a second surveillance video since its inception, in 2005, has taken a low through with a leak often resembled from the Revel. This one, bought for al- merciless approach to celebrity news. a therapy session. “I’d have to talk peo- most ninety thousand dollars, revealed At around 4:30 a.m., one of the sur- ple of clifs,” Weakland said. “I’d tell them, what occurred inside the elevator: after veillance oicers, sitting at a monitor- ‘We’re not going to reveal our sources, the doors shut, Rice punched Palmer on ing-room computer, reviewed footage because we want you to be a source for the left side of her head. from a camera that faced the elevator us again. We want you to trust us.’ ” The clip pitched the N.F.L. into a and, using a cell phone, surreptitiously On February 19th, four days after crisis. TMZ, the Times declared, “has the recorded the screen. The oicer then the incident at the Revel, TMZ posted league on the run.” Roger Goodell, the called TMZ. a fuzzy clip of Rice dragging Palmer’s N.F.L.’s commissioner, ducked questions It was the middle of the night in Los limp body from the elevator. (Accord- about why its own investigators had not Angeles, where TMZ is based, so a mes- ing to a former TMZ photographer, the obtained the footage, and said, “We don’t sage was left on the tip line. More than site paid fifteen thousand dollars. TMZ seek to get that information from sources a hundred tips arrive every day. On Sep- would not discuss payments, or other that are not credible.” But the video was tember 29, 2015, an internal e-mail sum- internal matters, but called this figure unimpeachable, and its impact was im- marizing tips from the previous night overblown.) The video, which went viral, mediate. Rice was cut by the Ravens and referred to “info regarding George Cloo- had the phrase “TMZ SPORTS” em- suspended indefinitely by the N.F.L. ney’s wedding,” “a video of a pro athlete bossed in the center—a branding prac- Sportswriters declared that TMZ had getting attacked by a goat,” and “pic- tice known as “bugging.” shaken the league “to its foundation.” tures of Meek Mill being incarcerated.” Investigators at the Revel, trying to (The e-mail is one of many that were discover who had taken the video, ascer- ix days later, Harvey Levin, the leaked to The New Yorker.) The tip line tained its timing by scrutinizing the clip’s S founder of TMZ, appeared on the also recorded a claim that a major pop audio track; while the phone was record- Fox News program “Media Buzz” to dis- star “wears a fake booty in her music ing the footage, a general request for cuss the Rice story. Levin is sixty-five. videos” and employs a “person who chips to be refilled could be heard on the He has a jittery manner, a wide smile, makes the fake butts.” casino intercom. The former security su- and a deep tan. For the TV appearance, Many tipsters ask to be paid, and the pervisor told me that casino oicials also he was wearing a tight black T-shirt, site often complies. In October, 2014, identified which computer had been used which showed of his physique—he works TMZ received an e-mail that, under the to review the footage. But Loretta Pickus, out every weekday before dawn, prior to subject heading “Drake at Stadium Club the former general counsel at the casino, going to the oice. Several of Levin’s col- in D.C.,” announced, “I have the origi- told me that it could not be determined leagues told me that he is determined to

36 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 Harvey Levin, TMZ’s founder, leaving an L.A. gym. TMZ resembles an intelligence agency as much as a news organization.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER BOHLER THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 37 maintain his youth. Gillian Sheldon, news operation. I mean, that’s what you’re on Delta Flight 1061, from Orlando to TMZ’s first publicist, who later be- supposed to do.” Indeed, the site has built Los Angeles, when his plane was re- came a supervising producer, said, a deep network of sources, including en- routed to Dallas—the result of a bomb “Once, Sumner Redstone”—the for- tertainment lawyers, reality-television threat issued on Twitter. Such informa- mer executive chairman of Viacom, who stars, adult-film brokers, and court oi- tion helps TMZ’s crew of a dozen or so is ninety-two—“told him that one of cials, allowing Levin to knock down the paparazzi know when and where to “drop the secrets of his longevity was that he walls that guard celebrity life. (He de- in on” a celebrity who is transiting through ate blueberries every day. So then, for clined repeated requests for an inter- an airport. One day’s list, from June, 2010, months, Harvey was, like, ‘Blueberries!’ view.) TMZ has paid at least one mole included the flight details for Robert all the time.” inside B.L.S., a limousine service, to pro- Redford and Jack Kevorkian; another Howard Kurtz, the host of “Media vide lists of celebrity customers, their one, two months later, had the itiner- Buzz,” reminded his audience that TMZ planned routes, and the license-plate aries of Julius Erving, Kathy Ireland, and had published memorable scoops, such numbers of their vehicles. (In a 2015 Malcolm-Jamal Warner. “It’s not an ac- as posting police records, in 2006, that e-mail, a TMZ employee asked colleagues cident the guy with a camera is waiting exposed Mel Gibson’s drunk-driving ar- if anyone had yet established a source at at the Delta check-in counter at 8 a.m.,” rest and anti-Semitic rant. Later that Uber.) Justin Kaplan, a former produc- a former TMZ employee wrote, anon- year, the site released video footage of tion associate at TMZ, recalls meeting ymously, on Defamer, a Hollywood site Michael Richards making racist com- a B.L.S. source—“a Hispanic gentle- owned by Gawker. ments during a comedy-club routine. In man”—at a gas station in Van Nuys, TMZ resembles an intelligence 2009, TMZ broke the news of Michael handing over an envelope filled with agency as much as a news organization, Jackson’s sudden death, and two years cash, and receiving in return a client list. and it has turned its domain, Los An- ago it revealed a recorded phone call be- The process had been so well honed, geles, into a city of stool pigeons. In an tween Donald Sterling, then the owner Kaplan told me, that “we barely said a e-mail from last year, a photographer re- of the Los Angeles Clippers, and his word to each other.” ported having four airport sources for mistress, in which Sterling urged her At least one employee of Delta Air- the day, including “Harold at Delta, Leon not to bring her African-American lines supplies TMZ with the names and at Baggage service, Fred at hudson news, friends, including Magic Johnson, to itineraries of celebrity passengers travel- Lyle at Fruit and nut stand.” A former Clippers games. ling through Los Angeles and New York. TMZ cameraman showed me expense “How does TMZ get this stuf?” In an e-mail dated January 29, 2014, a reports that he had submitted in 2010, Kurtz asked. TMZ manager informed her colleagues reflecting payments of forty or fifty dol- “It’s so funny to me that people ask that the star of an ABC drama had been lars to various sources: to the counter girl that question,” Levin replied. “We’re a spotted sitting in first class, in seat 2A, at a Beverly Hills salon, for information on Goldie Hawn; to a valet, for Pete Sampras; to a shopkeeper, for Dwight Howard; and to a waiter, for Hayden Christensen. “Everybody rats everybody else out,” Simon Cardoza, a former cam- eraman for the site, told me. “That’s the beauty of TMZ.” Though Levin has changed the rules for confirming gossip, by insisting on documentary proof, scandal has been chronicled for millennia. Thirty-five hun- dred years ago, Mesopotamian scribes used cuneiform to record the impeach- ment hearings of a mayor who had been accused of corruption, kidnapping, adul- tery, and the theft of manure. In 1709, the first modern gossip magazine, The Tatler, started publication, in London. The medium arrived in America in the late nineteenth century, when a weekly named Town Topics began publishing blind items, in a section called “Saunter- ings.” (In 1905, the section’s editor at- tempted to blackmail Emily Post’s hus- band after learning of his infidelity.) Tycoons and politicians were the initial “Several complaints that the meatballs are gritty.” focus of the gossip trade; one British photographer bribed a gardener to gain entrance to Winston Churchill’s house, where he hid, waiting for the perfect shot, until Churchill spotted him and chased him away. With the rise of Hol- lywood, actors became gossip’s prime quarry; the magazine Confidential courted lawsuits by printing stories with titles like “Mae West’s Open Door Policy.” On the Fox News program, Kurtz asked Levin whether his willingness to buy material “tarnished” TMZ’s integ- rity. Last year, Page Six reported that TMZ paid two hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars for surveillance footage of Beyoncé’s sister, Solange, attacking Jay Z in an elevator at the Standard, in New York. (According to a former TMZ em- ployee knowledgeable about the deal, the price was closer to five thousand dollars.) The Society of Professional Journalists condemns the practice of paying sources, saying that it “threatens to corrupt jour- nalism.” Levin was unapologetic. “There’s “I’d like a full canteen with lemon.” nothing wrong with it,” he said. “The video is still the video. So who cares whether you pay money for it?” •• Kurtz noted that, amid all the gossip, TMZ had aired some consequential sto- for his age but amusingly out of step Web site is wholly owned by Warner ries. In 2012, the site published a video with his younger colleagues’ fads and Bros., but Levin is an executive producer showing four marines in Afghanistan jokes. On the October 19th episode of of TMZ’s TV shows.) urinating on dead insurgents, which “TMZ on TV,” one stafer mentioned The attention that Levin receives is prompted a criminal investigation and that the rapper The Game had recently not always so adulatory. The estranged disciplinary action against the marines. given Diddy a Ferrari. husband of a former sitcom star recently Did such posts, Kurtz asked, signal an “Why did he?” Levin asked, several made threats against him, persuading intent to change TMZ’s reputation as “a times. him to take on a twenty-four-hour se- raunchy tabloid operation”? (On the day “We get it,” a colleague retorted. “It’s curity detail. The Guardian, in a 2009 the Fox interview aired, TMZ’s home a terrible joke.” profile of Levin, referred to him as the page featured an “exclusive” about Iggy Later in the show, the conversation “high prince of sleaze.” Alec Baldwin, Azalea, the Australian rapper, who was turned to a photograph of Diana Ross who has been the subject of several harsh threatening to sue an adult-film com- leaving a CVS, at night, wearing sun- TMZ stories—including one, from 2007, pany over the release of a sex tape.) Levin’s glasses and carrying a package of toilet in which the site posted a voice-mail re- face lit up. “We’ve been around for nine paper. Levin seemed afronted to see cording of Baldwin calling his eleven- years, and if you look at the stories that Ross so stripped of glamour. “Back in year-old daughter a “rude, thoughtless we’ve broken they are stories that liter- the day, she wouldn’t do that,” he said. little pig”—told me, “There was a time ally every newscast in America has put Levin’s exposure on television has when my greatest wish was to stab Har- on the air,” he said. turned him into a celebrity himself. The vey Levin with a rusty implement and Los Angeles Times has followed his at- watch his entrails go running down my part from running the Web site, tempts to sell his house in Hollywood forearm, in some Macbethian stance. I A Levin hosts two syndicated televi- Hills West, for which he is asking al- wanted him to die in my arms, while sion shows: a one-hour newscast, “TMZ most four million dollars. Gossip sites looking into my eyes, and I wanted to Live,” and a thirty-minute program, have published paparazzi shots of Levin say to him, ‘Oh, Harvey, you thought- “TMZ on TV,” which is taped each drinking iced cofee with his partner, less little pig.’ ” Baldwin added, “He is a morning, between seven and nine, on the Andy Mauer, a chiropractor. When Levin festering boil on the anus of American floor of the TMZ newsroom, and fea- appeared on “The Howard Stern Show,” media.” tures Levin clutching a mug of iced green in 2011, Stern said he’d heard that TMZ But for some the significance of the tea and bantering about the latest celeb- was worth as much as four hundred mil- Sterling and Rice stories called for a re- rity news with his colleagues. Levin as- lion dollars. “That’s nothing to sneeze assessment. In 2014, Adweek named Levin sumes the role of semi-hip uncle—cool at for a fucking Web site,” he added. (The the digital editor of the year, noting,

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 39 “Whatever topic your co-workers are Levin took Stone’s class on evidence. “Superior Court” more credibility. In talking about around the water-cooler, One day, Stone was sick and cancelled February, 1987, to commemorate the bi- they probably read it first at TMZ.” The the class. At home, he turned on the centennial of the U.S. Constitution, he television journalist Jane Velez-Mitch- TV and, to his surprise, saw Levin on- set out to book a Supreme Court Jus- ell, who is a friend of Levin’s, told me, screen: “I was flipping through the chan- tice. He initially contacted Warren “Harvey’s a truth-teller—he has exposed nels, and there was Harvey on ‘High Burger, who had just stepped down as things that people want to keep secret.” Rollers’ ”—a game show hosted by Chief Justice. Burger’s assistant, accord- Sports Business Daily wrote, “Like it Alex Trebek. “It was a pretty terrible ing to Levin, told him to “quit trying.” or not, the efect that show.” Levin lost. The Then, Levin has said, he reached out to TMZ’s coverage had with next week, Stone con- Harry Blackmun, who had written the its Ray Rice and Don- fronted his student. Levin majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, and ald Sterling stories was replied, “If you won’t tell who had a contentious relationship with Watergate-esque.” And anyone I lost, I won’t tell Burger. “I played Burger against Black- after Ben Bradlee, the for- anyone you were watch- mun,” Levin recalled, in an interview mer editor of the Wash- ing ‘High Rollers.’ ” with a local newspaper. Blackmun agreed ington Post, died, in late In the mid-seventies, to go on the show. It was a coup for 2014, Deadline Holly- Levin accepted a teach- Levin, even though, he conceded, Black- wood praised TMZ’s ing job with the law fac- mun’s appearance turned out to be “ter- “game- changing” work, ulty at the University of rible television.” and asked of Levin, “Is he the next gen Miami, a period that he recently de- In 1990, “Superior Court” was can- Ben Bradlee, or just the face of the new scribed as “the single greatest year of my celled, and Levin took a reporting job incarnation of the National Enquirer?” life.” He loved combining the serious- with NBC’s Los Angeles ailiate. He ness of academia with the wild fun of shared desk space with another general- n May 7, 1968, Levin, then a senior South Beach. He subscribed to a new assignment reporter, Kent Shocknek, O at Cleve land High School, in magazine, People, and read it in his oice. who later became the anchor of the morn- Reseda, California, stepped up to a mi- After hours of poring over casework, it ing newscast. At the time, Shocknek told crophone, faced a football stadium filled was, he says, “just like crack.” me, the station had more reporters than with his classmates, and did his best im- Levin returned to California, to teach cameramen; Levin, he recalled, perfected pression of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, at the Whittier College law school. At “a great trick” to secure a crew, “regard- who was running for President. Levin the time, a conservative named Howard less of the merit of his story.” Shocknek had volunteered to stand in for him Jarvis was campaigning to pass a ballot explained, “He would be on the phone, during Cleveland’s mock election. He initiative in California limiting real-es- setting up an appointment, and then had carefully followed the campaign and tate taxes. Levin, who opposed the mea- he would slam the phone down, and yell, learned Kennedy’s mannerisms: the Los sure, faced of against Jarvis in several ‘I got it! This is the guy! We have to get Angeles Times, which covered Levin’s public debates. Though the proposition him before he leaves!’ I can’t tell you how speech, noted that Levin even “jabbed ultimately passed, Levin made a positive many times I had to wait for a crew be- his finger” the Kennedy way. impression, and the Los Angeles Times cause Harvey convinced the dispatcher A month later, Kennedy came to Los hired him to contribute an advice col- that he had the story of the year, every Angeles for an event at the Ambassador umn, titled “The Law and You.” Levin single day.” Hotel. Levin attended. After the speech, wrote about, among other things, a pas- After a few years, Levin quit and as Kennedy was walking through the senger’s rights when he or she is bumped joined the CBS ailiate. On June 13, hotel’s kitchen, an assassin shot and killed of a flight, and whether blood tests 1994, O. J. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole him. Soon afterward, Levin formed a can conclusively establish paternity. Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald local committee called Citizens for a When Carol Burnett sued the National Goldman were found dead outside her Safe Society, and he lobbied the Reseda Enquirer for defamation, in 1981, he ob- Brentwood condominium. The case com- city council for a gun-reform initiative served that her lawsuit faced significant bined Levin’s core professional inter- that would require prospective gun buy- challenges: she “must prove that the ests—law, celebrity, scandal—and he ers to complete a written competency Enquirer published the article about her worked tirelessly on it. A month after test. “Anyone buying a gun should be fa- with either an intentional or reckless dis- the murder, he was reviewing footage miliar with its deadly potential,” he told regard for the truth.” taken outside Simpson’s home and no- the Los Angeles Times. Levin began consulting on “The Peo- ticed that the prosecutor Marcia Clark That fall, Levin enrolled at the Uni- ple’s Court,” and in 1986 he joined the had been on the premises before a search versity of California, Santa Barbara, staf of a rival program, “Superior Court,” warrant was issued: the time stamp read where he studied political science. He where he was eventually promoted to “10:28,” though Clark did not receive the considered pursuing a Ph.D. but chose managing editor. These shows, in which warrant until 10:45 a.m. KCBS promoted law school instead, at the University of legal disputes were resolved in fake court- Levin’s discovery as “a bombshell,” and Chicago. One of his professors, Geofrey rooms, represented a fresh form—real- Levin referred to himself on the radio Stone, recalled him as a confident stu- ity TV—that blended the everyday and as “a constitutional police oicer.” dent who was “always eager to debate.” the outlandish. Levin attempted to give But Levin had made an error. The time

40 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 stamp depicted the moment that the already publishing such documents on- another project. Paratore had been con- footage had been filed—at 10:28 p.m.— line. But Levin “taught us what else to templating a new Web site that could instead of the moment it had been shot, look for,” Angela Laughlin, one of the feature unused footage amassed by “Ex- hours after the warrant was issued. The early hires at TMZ, said. “How to reach tra,” also a Telepictures production. Para- station issued what the Los Angeles out to all those named in the complaint, tore discussed the idea with Jim Bankof, Times called “an extraordinary public how to stay on top of these cases, how an executive at America Online. (Time apology.” to find statements and depositions bur- Warner, the corporate parent of Warner Levin went on the air and said, “We ied in the file.” Bros., had recently merged with AOL.) made a mistake, we know how it was In September, 2002, Levin’s new TV Bankof, who is now the chairman of Vox made, we’ve corrected it, and it is some- show, “Celebrity Justice,” premièred. It Media, liked the concept: Telepictures thing that will not happen again.” He often aired late at night, and it struggled would supply the content, and AOL added, “I stand on my record and the to find viewers. Sheldon, who was the would handle the technical and com- stories that I’ve broken. I don’t apologize publicist at “Celebrity Justice,” recalls, mercial side. Telepictures ofered Levin for being an aggressive reporter.” “We were breaking news all the time, the opportunity to run the site. but we weren’t doing it on the show.” But Levin was not interested in eo Braudy, in his 1986 book, “The Rather than unveiling scoops in the mid- managing a site that functioned as “an- L Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its dle of the night, to meagre audiences, other thing to puf up Hollywood,” Ban- History,” defines fame as “the interplay Levin and his reporters often took the kof recalled. Instead, Levin proposed between the common and the unique best material to more established shows adapting the combative spirit of “Cele- in human nature.” For Levin, nothing like “Access Hollywood,” or to CNN and brity Justice” to the pace of the Web. captured this dynamic quite like stars Fox News. “Celebrity Justice” continued “ ‘Urgency’—Harvey used that word all posing for mug shots or appearing in to do poorly in the ratings, and after the time,” Jef Rowe, another former court. In the early aughts, he success- three years it was cancelled. AOL executive, told me. “He wanted a fully pitched an idea to Telepictures, a Nevertheless, Jim Paratore, the pres- site that created a sense of urgency.” division of Warner Bros.: a weekday ident of Telepictures, wanted to find Levin The site needed a name, and “Feed newscast dedicated to celebrity court cases. His “mission,” he once said, was “not to make celebrities look bad but to make them real.” To Levin, the O. J. Simpson case ofered a glaring example of how diferently the law was applied to celebrities and to ordinary citizens. Levin had witnessed this double stan- dard himself. His father had run a liquor store in Reseda, and in Harvey’s youth it was subjected repeatedly to sting op- erations by police oicers who suspected that minors were being allowed to buy alcohol. At the same time, celebrity- friendly clubs in Hollywood touted their lenient policies with respect to minors. “Harvey thought it was so unfair that these clubs would get away with it, just because they were selling to celebrities,” Gillian Sheldon, the former TMZ pub- licist, told me. Levin also disapproved of the way that publicists leveraged access to celeb- rities in order to control the media cov- erage of their clients. “The stories that were being told weren’t real,” he said, in a 2009 interview. “Producers knew that they weren’t real, but they played ball to get interviews with the stars.” Most jour- nalism about stars, he said, was “built on a lie.” He set out to infuse celebrity coverage with an investigative ethos by tracking legal filings and court cases. A Web site called the Smoking Gun was like organ rejection—it just didn’t work.” At the start, Levin had only a dozen or so employees. He was selective about whom he brought on, prizing loyalty, en- ergy, and connections over experience. “We’ll hire kids, and we’ll train them,” he has said. One early hire was the daugh- ter of Paris Hilton’s attorney. Another was the son of the assistant sherif in Orange County—Mike Walters, now the head of TMZ’s news desk. “He ran a forklift at one point,” Levin once said of Walters. Los Angeles was, as he put it, a “very Kevin Bacon-like city,” and he wanted reporters who either had celeb- rity connections or showed an eagerness to build them. In July, 2006, a tipster called a TMZ employee to say that he had just seen Mel Gibson on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway. Levin made some in- “The ambient nature sounds are making me too sleepy to hunt.” quiries, and learned that Gibson had been pulled over for driving under the influence, and that he had called the ar- •• resting oicer a “motherfucker.” Gibson also had launched into an anti-Semitic the Beast,” “Frenzie,” and “Buzz Feed” unique visitors a month. (Last month, tirade, saying, “Jews are responsible for were all considered, according to Rowe’s according to Quantcast, TMZ.com re- all the wars in the world.” notes. Then, one day, a Telepictures ex- corded more than seventeen million.) Levin went to the Los Angeles ecutive suggested “Thirty Mile Zone.” Levin has compared the launch to the County sherif ’s department for confir- It was an old movie-industry phrase, opening of the Gap in Russia, after the mation. He was told that his account dating back to the mid-twentieth cen- fall of the Soviet Union: “Everybody was “absolutely untrue.” But later that tury, which designated the industry’s wore gray coats, and then the Gap came day he secured a copy of the original boundaries in Los Angeles. Levin sug- in and suddenly you saw blue coats and police report, which contained four gested an abbreviated version: TMZ. red coats and green coats. People had pages, excised from the version on file, The domain name tmz.com, how- choices. When people have choices, you detailing Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant. ever, was owned by a man who built can’t sell that gray coat anymore.” The document supplied both evidence robots—the site’s initials stood for of Gibson’s bigotry and proof that the “Team Minus Zero”—and he showed rom the start, Levin’s “crusader sherif ’s department had attempted to little interest in selling. “We had the F mentality” at TMZ caused some cover it up. After TMZ published im- guy’s name, and we knew that he consternation, Lewis D’Vorkin, a for- ages of the four pages, the story made worked at a computer-parts company,” mer senior vice-president of AOL, told national headlines. Citron said, “That Rowe said. One day, Levin decided to me. “Harvey believed that every celeb- was the moment the rest of the world go see the man, and he asked to bor- rity was fake, and that it was his job to discovered TMZ.” row Rowe’s modest rental car, so that expose that.” Four months later, Michael Richards, he wouldn’t appear to be wealthy. Alan Citron, TMZ’s first general the former “Seinfeld” star, was perform- (Levin drove a Mercedes.) “Harvey manager, recalls fielding concerns from ing at a comedy club in L.A. when he called him up, went over, wrote him a both AOL and Telepictures over “the singled out an African-American in the check for five grand, and bought the tabloid direction of the stories.” He crowd: “Fifty years ago, we’d have you URL,” Rowe said. told me that executives urged him to upside down with a fucking fork up In November, 2005, TMZ began op- “move the coverage into the middle.” He your ass.” One of Levin’s deputies, Evan erations, on the second floor of an aging hired a reporter from Variety to write Rosenblum, got a call from a college studio complex in Glendale. On one of more traditional features about the in- friend in the middle of the night. The the first nights, its lone cameraman dustry—the comings and goings of friend had a sister, and one of her boy- caught Paris Hilton and her boyfriend agents—and experimented with real- friend’s buddies had been at the club leaving a club in her Bentley, crashing estate coverage. But when Citron re- and had recorded Richards’s outburst on into a parked truck, and fleeing the scene. viewed the traic data one thing became a digital camera. “We started working It was an auspicious start, and Web traic “undeniably clear”: “The tabloid mate- on it at 4 a.m.,” Rosenblum said, in a soon soared to more than ten million rial was what people wanted. The rest was Los Angeles Daily News article. The

42 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 resulting piece left Richards’s career in ternal e-mail that noted, “Got a tip from founder of Radar Online, recalls, “Ev- ruins. Rosenblum later said that the Gib- a friend I know from high school. She erything that was hitting the window in son story “put us on the map,” but the didn’t wanna say how she knew, but told the courthouse, they were getting in- Richards video “made us what we are.” me Hope Solo’s husband Jerramy Ste- stantly.” To Perel’s frustration, Levin In less than a year, TMZ had be- vens was arrested in Manhattan beach 2 consistently secured documents before come a dominant venue for celebrity nights ago for DUI.” (Solo is a top soc- others had access to them. “They were news. “We were getting our asses kicked,” cer player.) Two minutes later, a senior throwing around a lot of money,” Perel Brittain Stone, who was Us Weekly’s pho- news producer confirmed the arrest from claims. According to a former TMZ tography director from 2001 to 2011, an online database. At 8:41 a.m., “Hope news reporter, documents constantly said. “They were at police precincts, Solo’s Husband Busted for D.U.I.” flowed into the oice from the court- doing real beat reporting, and getting appeared on the TMZ home page. house. “Assistants and couriers would things like surveillance video.” In terms bring them in stacks,” the former news of photography, he said, “they were com- use my law degree every five min- reporter said. “We had court documents ing up with things that we would never “I utes,” Levin has said. Over the years, coming out of our ass.” touch: cell-phone pictures, video grabs, he has trained many employees in the Levin also maintained close relation- things that wouldn’t hold up in print. art of court reporting. Ben Presnell, who ships with defense attorneys. Many of Our mission was to be aspirational— worked at “Celebrity Justice” and, later, them received free publicity on TMZ, something that was pretty, shot in a cer- at TMZ, told me he spent most of his and were referred to by cheeky nick- tain kind of light, people looking good. days at the Los Angeles County Mu- names. Laura Wasser, a divorce attor- TMZ never really did that.” TMZ did nicipal Courthouse, searching for new ney, was the Disso-Queen. This nick- not create its aesthetic. Ryan Linkof, an filings and trying to charm clerks into name has appeared on TMZ hundreds associate curator at the Academy Mu- giving him information. Currently, TMZ of times. In October, 2011, Kim Kar- seum of Motion Picture Arts and Sci- has three reporters stationed full-time at dashian, a Wasser client, filed to divorce ences, has noted that, in 1911, the Daily the courthouse; the Los Angeles Times Kris Humphries, the basketball player, Mirror published a photo spread of has one court reporter. after seventy-two days of marriage. “Kim Prime Minister H. H. Asquith’s wife, In May, 2012, the judge overseeing has hired disso-queen Laura Wasser, Margot, which showed her looking the case of a man who allegedly ex- who has repped the likes of Britney “pinched, pale, almost skeletal,” and “her torted Stevie Wonder caught a TMZ Spears, Maria Shriver, Angelina Jolie, dress crumpled.” But TMZ’s crude look cameraman illicitly taping the court- Ryan Reynolds, and Robyn Gibson,” also emphasized that it prioritized speed room proceedings. The judge an- the accompanying story read. TMZ over polish. “It was single-handedly cre- nounced, “The court’s just been made published exclusive images of the di- ating the news cycle,” Stone said. By aware that, unbeknownst to counsel vorce papers moments after Wasser filed February, 2007, TMZ was drawing more and the court, a microphone was placed them in court. (Wasser said, “This firm Web traic than the sites of People and at counsel table.” (The tape was turned has a strong policy of not speaking with “Entertainment Tonight” combined. over to the judge for review.) media about our cases.”) Steve Honig, a public-relations ad- David Perel, the former editor-in- Multiple sources told me that Levin viser who, for a time, represented Lind- chief of the National Enquirer, and a is close to Shawn Holley, a lawyer who say Lohan, told me, “When my phone rings and it’s TMZ, I pretty much stop what I’m doing and pick it up. Not be- cause I’m bowing to the gods at TMZ but because, when something from TMZ runs, it spreads so quickly that, if there is any inaccurate information, within five or ten minutes it’s been picked up by a hundred other outlets.” (In 2009, TMZ published a black-and- white photograph supposedly showing John F. Kennedy sunbathing on the deck of a yacht, in the company of four topless women. It was widely circulated. By the end of the day, the Smoking Gun revealed that the photo had been lifted from the November, 1967, issue of Playboy, and showed a male model, not J.F.K.) At TMZ, tips often turn into stories within minutes. On January 20, 2015, at 8:32 a.m., a senior producer sent an in- has represented Lindsay Lohan and Angeles night club, while Paris Hilton— producer told me. “He used to say, to all other celebrities. In 2011, when Lohan Reid’s former best friend—walked right of us, ‘My fucking dogs are smarter than went on trial for theft, TMZ repeatedly in with a new friend, a previously un- you!’ You become like a battered child. posted confidential information. The known woman named Kim Kardashian. He beats you down, but the second you’re presiding judge compared the site to the “That video just went everywhere,” Levin about to say, ‘Screw this place,’ he gives C.I.A., and expressed bewilderment at said. “Literally, that video made Kim.” you a compliment, and you live for that.” “how these things leak out.” He added, The former TMZ photographer re- “Thankfully, this case doesn’t involve he success of the Web site inspired counted that Levin once screamed, “I military secrets where people’s lives are T Levin to branch out. In 2007, he could get a monkey to do your job!” and, at stake.” (Holley denies giving infor- created “TMZ on TV,” and the “TMZ on another occasion, “Do you want me mation to TMZ.) Live” newscast followed, in 2012. He to draw this out in crayons for you fuck- Despite its belligerent reputation, started celebrity-spotting bus tours in ing idiots?” The former news reporter TMZ’s coverage could be as fawning as L.A. and New York. (The tours are man- said that, on one occasion, Levin com- other celebrity news: the day the Mi- aged by Andy Mauer, Levin’s chiroprac- pared his staf to “a roomful of handi- chael Richards video appeared, the site tor partner. ) Some stars call ahead with capped people.” Rory Waltzer, another featured a picture of Britney Spears in their location, and then act surprised former cameraman, told me, “Harvey fishnet stockings at a Las Vegas club, when the bus drives by. “It’s almost like Levin would have been a great dictator: and one of Evangeline Lilly surfing in an African jungle safari—they’ll come he is charming enough so that you want Hawaii. Josh Levine, TMZ’s first cam- up to the bus,” Levin said recently. to follow him, but terrifying enough so eraman, told me that, once the site be- In July, 2007, Levin moved TMZ that you don’t want to fail.” came successful, many publicists changed into a space in West Hollywood. In- Some of Levin’s subordinates, such as their strategy. “They started tipping us stead of taking a corner oice, he placed Evan Rosenblum, the TMZ deputy, of,” Levine said. He remembered film- his desk on a riser in the center of the mimic his style. “There was definitely a ing Paris Hilton and her boyfriend at a newsroom, creating an editorial panop- misogynistic culture in the oice that movie theatre in Los Angeles in 2007; ticon. “Anytime you went to talk to him, was perpetuated by Evan,” a former pro- Hilton appeared surprised by Levine’s you felt like a supplicant,” a former se- ducer said. Last year, Taryn Hillin, a presence, even though, according to nior producer told me. former TMZ writer, took legal action, Levine, he was acting on a tip from Hil- On TV, Levin always appears conge- alleging sexual discrimination and un- ton’s own publicist, Elliot Mintz. Gil- nial, but, according to numerous accounts, lawful termination. According to the lian Sheldon told me, “I can’t tell you when the cameras switch of he often lawsuit, Rosenblum “routinely belittled, how many times we got calls from Brit- turns abrasive and domineering. “If there berated and humiliated” her, “screaming ney Spears, or her people, who called to were gaps in your stories, if you didn’t at her in front of co-workers,” and tell- say, ‘She’s going to get a tan.’ ” have enough detail, if he wanted another ing her, “I fucking hate this shit you hand In 2006, Levin told the Times, “What question answered, he would fly of the in.” She called the workplace environ- I love is the business of creating and pre- handle,” a former news-desk reporter ment at TMZ “hostile or ofensive.” serving celebrity.” His “proudest mo- told me. The former senior producer re- (Levin isn’t named in the suit, although ment,” he said, during a talk in 2010, at membered Levin impetuously firing peo- TMZ Productions is.) the University of Chicago Law School, ple. “We roll through a lot of people,” Dozens of current and former em- was when Levine captured footage of Levin conceded, in a speech last year. ployees characterized the TMZ oices the actress Tara Reid standing behind “Harvey has no problem publicly as an uncomfortable workplace. “Sex was the velvet rope outside of Hyde, a Los shaming you,” a former assignment-desk discussed casually, as a commodity,” an- other former producer said. He described employees regularly gathering around computer monitors to watch footage of celebrities having sex. (Stills from these clips appeared on TMZ.) Many people declined to discuss TMZ on the record, citing nondisclo- sure agreements and a fear of antagoniz- ing Levin. Gillian Sheldon called Levin to ask him for permission to speak to me—though she left TMZ in 2008. One former employee came to lunch in a dis- guise, worried that she might be recog- nized speaking to a reporter. Another stood me up; she later apologized, say- ing, “I was scared.” Numerous former employees confessed to going on medi- “It’s an exact replica of the kind of zoo they would usually live in.” cation to manage workplace anxiety. “Harvey is ruthless,” Simon Cardoza, the orous as any other: “You could take me, someone that values children and fam- former cameraman, said. “He is able to put me in Afghanistan, and I’ll use the ily relationships.”) Levin is sensitive to treat people like shit because everybody same principles I’d use with Britney any insinuation otherwise. In 2012, Ellen wants to be near the limelight.” Spears.” DeGeneres, whose show is produced by Levin continued to break big stories. Telepictures, implied on the air that TMZ In February, 2009, a private bank, North- n January, 2011, an anonymous tip- outed gay people. Levin called a Telepic- ern Trust, which had just received $1.6 I ster, using a voice modulator to dis- tures executive and said, of DeGeneres, billion in federal bailout funds, hosted a guise her identity, called TMZ, ofering “She’s ruining the brand!” DeGeneres golf tournament and party in the Los to sell a compromising video of Justin phoned Levin to apologize, according to Angeles area. TMZ reporters sneaked Bieber. At the time, Bieber was fifteen three former TMZ employees, but he into the tournament and recorded spon- years old and about to star in a bio-pic, refused to take her call. When she sent sored performances by Chicago and “Never Say Never.” him a gift basket, Levin refused that, too. Sheryl Crow, and took photographs of The caller e-mailed a teaser from the Despite Bieber’s age, the clip was too Tifany gift bags that were being dis- video that reached Diana Dasrath, who compelling for TMZ to pass up, and tributed to guests. The piece, which was until recently was TMZ’s “clips-clear- Dasrath was involved in eforts to pro- titled “Bailout Bank Blows Millions ance manager.” The teaser showed Bie- cure it. (She declined repeated requests Partying in L.A.,” sparked immediate ber, sitting alone in a room, singing his for comment.) Dasrath managed several condemnation of Northern Trust. John hit “One Less Lonely Girl” a cappella. of TMZ’s critical sources, including those Kerry, then a senator, declared that he In place of the usual lyrics, Bieber had inside Delta and the limo company. She was “sick and tired” of “reading about an- substituted “nigger” for “girl.” He gig- also fostered relationships with hackers. other idiotic abuse of taxpayer money gled as he sang, “There’ll be one less In 2013, TMZ broke a series of stories while our country is on the brink.” (The lonely nigger” and “If I kill you, I’ll be about hackers “swatting” celebrities: call- bank insisted that it did not use any bail- part of the K.K.K.” ing 911, falsely claiming to be the celeb- out funds for the tournament.) Levin faced a tough decision. “You rity victim of a home invasion, and then Levin called the Northern Trust have no idea how many stories cross our watching as a swat team descended on story “the most important thing we’ve desks that we don’t do,” he said in 2013. the celebrity’s house. During this period, ever done,” and commended his team He has pointed out that he frequently Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, and Selena for dealing with the financial crisis in passes up “the juiciest stuf.” In 2008, he Gomez were all victims of “swatting.” terms that ordinary Americans could received photographs of Michael Phelps, While the L.A.P.D. searched for the cul- appreciate. “It’s hard for people to wrap the Olympic swimmer, smoking a bong, prits, TMZ continued publishing scoops their heads around $800 billion in bail- but elected not to publish them.“It felt about the incidents. out money,” he told the Times. “It’s like he was set up,” he told an audience After a deal was made for the Bie- much easier to understand paying for at the National Press Club. (The News ber clip, Justin Kaplan—the former pro- a Sheryl Crow concert.” The Times of the World published the photos.) Two duction associate who had received the piece quoted Waltzer, the former cam- years later, Levin declined to post voice limo lists at the gas station—was sent eraman, saying, “Britney is fluf, but the mails and lewd text messages that pur- to Levin’s house. stories about Northern Trust and portedly had been sent by the quarter- “They liked the way I handled things, Madof and politicians in D.C. really back Brett Favre to a New York Jets and they used to pick me to go on these have an impact on the country.” (TMZ cheerleader. “It felt like bedroom police cool trips,” Kaplan told me. At the house, reported that Kevin Bacon and Larry to me,” he said at the time. (Deadspin Andy Mauer gave Kaplan an envelope King had invested in Madof ’s Ponzi published the messages.) In November, containing a check for about eighty thou- scheme.) Waltzer told me that Levin 2014, according to a leaked e-mail, Jon- sand dollars. Kaplan drove to the Bur- prepared the quote for him. “All Har- athan Stinson, a publicist from Relevant bank airport and caught the next flight vey wants is respect,” he said. Relations PR, submitted gossip about a to Las Vegas. He rented a car and headed Five months after the Northern Trust former child star, backed up with “legal/ to an apartment building on the out- story, Michael Jackson died. A first re- hospital documents left in a backpack of skirts of the city. On the second floor, a sponder, upon arriving at Jackson’s house, her former roommate.” Mike Walters, middle-aged African-American woman called TMZ to tip of the site. (Ed Win- TMZ’s news director, told his colleagues, in an oversized T-shirt answered the ter, the L.A. assistant chief coroner, is “We don’t want to be involved with hos- door. Kaplan tried to ascertain the wom- also a regular source, according to nu- pital rec ords.” (When reached by phone, an’s identity: did she have a son who was merous former employees; Winter says Stinson claimed that he had been try- friends with Bieber? But she didn’t want that it is part of his job to speak to re- ing to sell the records on behalf of an to chat. “She handed me a laptop, and a porters.) TMZ confirmed the death acquaintance.) disk, and I gave her the check. I got on through one of Jackson’s security guards Levin claims to live by a code that the next flight back to Burbank.” and Jackson’s father, Joe, and broke the precludes him from crossing certain lines, In the newsroom, stafers made news eighteen minutes after Jackson such as targeting minors or policing bed- preparations to publish. “It’s part of the stopped breathing. room afairs. (Dr. Phil, on a 2014 epi- machine—you own every angle related In a 2013 radio interview, Levin said sode of his program, said, “I know Har- to the original story,” another former that his kind of journalism was as rig- vey Levin . . . and I know him to be production assistant told me. “You find

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 45 ber’s good will, than by running it and ruining his career. (Older gossip publi- cations followed this strategy as well. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, the “dark genius” of William d’Alton Mann, the publisher of Town Topics, was his realization that “stories that came into his possession were per- haps worth more untold than told.” In the nineteen-fifties, Confidential gained access to the head of Columbia Studios by leveraging tapes of Rock Hudson that referred to his homosexuality.) In the months before TMZ obtained the video, its coverage of Bieber had often been antagonistic; it ran a post suggest- ing that he had hit a twelve-year-old boy during a game of laser tag. After Braun and Levin had their phone conversation, numerous flattering Bieber-related ex- clusives appeared on the site: a photo- graph of Bieber backstage during a com- “Coarsely ground pepper that’s way too coarse mercial shoot; pictures of him getting a for a conventional pepper mill.” haircut; a video of him and his girlfriend Selena Gomez performing karaoke; a story about how he bought “every sin- •• gle flower” at a florist’s and sent the flow- ers to Gomez’s house; video from a trip family. You find neighbors. You find as- confided that he’d been unable to sleep. that Bieber took to Liverpool; and oth- sociates and friends. You find afected “A lot of people call me and tell me ers, including a report of him watching groups. You call the record label, you I’m an asshole—they say, ‘Fuck you,’ ” “Titanic” one night, with Gomez, inside call the N.A.A.C.P.—what do they have Levin said. “You didn’t. I’m not put- an otherwise vacant Staples Center. to say about it?” Such posts draw more ting the video up.” Braun broke down (“Sources connected to the Biebs tell readers to the original story, helping it in tears. Bieber later called Levin and us . . . Justin hatched the idea after seeing to go viral. “That’s the way Harvey con- thanked him. the movie ‘Mr. Deeds’—where Adam trols the game.” In the 2010 lecture at the University Sandler surprises Winona Ryder with a That afternoon, TMZ contacted Bie- of Chicago Law School, Levin hinted date at Madison Square Garden.”) Bie- ber’s manager, Scooter Braun, for com- at his calculations in such moments. “I ber also made some appearances on ment. A source close to the situation don’t live by hard-and-fast rules in this “TMZ Live.” told me that when Bieber was informed job,” he said. “I can’t give you a rigid prin- In June, 2014, the Sun published a of the leak he broke down, confessing ciple on where the line of privacy is.” copy of the scandalous “One Less Lonely” that he had made the video a while back, He claimed that he struggled with this video. (Unbeknownst to Levin, the seller as a joke, and that he thought he had dilemma “all the time.” had continued to shop around copies of deleted it from his laptop, which was Twenty-four hours after the Bieber the footage. Radar Online also owned a later stolen. video came in, the newsroom learned copy of the footage.) In a phone conversation, Braun that Levin had decided not to run the Levin dedicated a segment to the clip pleaded with Levin not to post the story. He did not destroy his copy of the on “TMZ on TV.” Mike Walters, the video, saying, “You’re going to ruin this video, however, and Bieber’s camp was head of the news desk, said, “So there’s kid’s life.” Levin hesitated for four sec- aware that Levin could reverse his po- a video of Justin Bieber, when he was onds, then said that he was moving sition and post it. Celebrity secrets are fourteen, singing a parody of his own ahead, and that he would need a state- treated like commodities at TMZ, not song, ‘One Less Lonely Girl,’ where the ment from Braun by the morning. unlike the way they were treated by ‘girl’ is replaced by the n-word.” Levin “Harvey, whatever those four seconds J. Edgar Hoover’s F.B.I. “The power of feigned shock. were—whatever that place is—that’s secret information was a gun that Hoover the place that I want you to go back always kept loaded,” Tim Wiener writes, few weeks after TMZ acquired to,” Braun said. He and other mem- in “Enemies,” a 2012 book about the bu- A the Bieber video, Charlie Sheen bers of Bieber’s team stayed up all night reau. A former writer for TMZ told me was rushed to the hospital following a crafting a statement. In the morning, that, for Levin, there was more to gain party at his house involving wine, co- Braun and Levin spoke again. Levin by sitting on the clip, and earning Bie- caine, and sex workers. Kevin Blatt, a

46 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 source for TMZ who also worked in the Levin did not post explicit videos on and so on. Stills featuring Shakur were pornography industry, got a call a few TMZ, he was adept at translating the posted as “evidence” for “non-believers.” hours later from an adult-film director. existence of a tape into news, Blatt said. The tape itself was never made public. One of Sheen’s escorts wanted to talk: “If I know who got ofered the tape, Courtney Roskop, a twenty-two-year- that’s a story,” he said. “And if there’s a n a Thursday evening not long old who had just been with Sheen. Blatt cease-and- desist that comes after that, O ago, I met Blatt at Craig’s, a popu- drove across town to see her. that’s another story.” lar steakhouse in West Hollywood. Sev- Roskop recounted her evening with Blatt gave the Shakur tip to Mike eral paparazzi stood outside, fiddling Sheen, which included “tennis-ball- Walters. Walters wanted to see the video, with their cameras. Photographing ce- size” hunks of cocaine and attempting so Blatt called his source, who lived in lebrities going in and coming out was to have sex. Blatt feared that Roskop’s Oakland, and, a few hours later, the three like fishing an overstocked pond. statement alone would not be enough of them met at a Kinko’s in the Bay Levin insists that his photographers for TMZ to run a story; he knew that Area. “We went in with an envelope full are not paparazzi. On a recent episode Levin expected documentary proof. of money and said, ‘Let’s see the video,’ ” of “TMZ Live,” he said, “There are a (The National Enquirer also seeks pho- Blatt recalled. It showed Shakur receiv- group of renegade photogs out there that tographic and video evidence, but when ing oral sex. “Mike took a picture with are dangerous and act like criminals— it is not available the Enquirer will sub- his phone, we threw down the cash, and where they run people of the road, where ject sources to polygraph examinations. we left.” They had paid eight thousand they chase people, where they go after Levin, in the absence of video, gener- dollars, according to Blatt, who, apart people’s kids, where they incite people. ally tells his reporters to keep digging.) from his commission on the deal, also And it’s terrible, and I’m the first one to Roskop said that Sheen had written received a tip fee. say those guys should be dealt with very her a thirty-thousand-dollar check, Three days later, Levin promoted the strongly, thrown in jail, when they do it.” which she had already deposited. Blatt story on Twitter, saying, “It’s the real Josh Levine, TMZ’s original photogra- drove with her to her bank, photo- deal.” Over the coming days, TMZ pub- pher, questions this statement: “ ‘We don’t graphed the check, and brokered a deal, lished eight stories pertaining to the tape: follow people or do car chases’? They in which, according to Blatt and Roskop, “Sex Tape Surfaces,” “6-Figure Bidding had me do that all the time.” Levine re- Roskop sold TMZ the licensing rights War Erupts,” “2Pac’s Family: We’ll Sue called pursuing Britney Spears’s black to the image for roughly eight thou- anyone Who Tries to Sell the Sex Tape,” Lexus through Beverly Hills. “She’d do sand dollars. Blatt took fifteen per cent, as his commission. Blatt, citing a clause in his TMZ contracts that prohibits publicizing the terms with anyone other than an accountant, an attorney, or a judge, refrained from disclosing precise amounts that he has received, adding, “Even if I could tell, I would probably undershoot.” Blatt arranged other deals for Roskop, including an appearance on “Good Morning America.” He helped make a video of her discussing Sheen’s “binge,” which she sold to TMZ for twenty-five hundred dollars. TMZ also bought a screen shot of a text in which she in- formed Sheen that she was pregnant. Roskop told me that she received “a small sum” for it. The Roskop stories boosted Blatt’s status at TMZ. Soon afterward, he ofered TMZ a lead on a tape involv- ing Tupac Shakur. The tape’s owner had called Blatt anonymously. Sex tapes were Blatt’s specialty. He had obtained and marketed a video of Paris Hilton, and one of Verne Troyer, the actor who played Mini-Me in the “Austin Pow- ers” franchise. “There’s nothing like a good sex-tape story to really drive clicks and searches,” Blatt told me. Though “Let’s work on opening up that fourth chakra.” U-turns on Beverly Boulevard to mess layed the tip to TMZ, which confirmed He estimated that he had made more with us. I was on my motorcycle and the story and broke the news of Wein- than a hundred and fifty deals with TMZ there were, like, twenty-five other cars, traub’s death.) over the years, collecting, on average, more all paps, weaving in and out of traic, The host led us to a leather banquette than thirty thousand dollars a year. At running red lights. It was a shit show. near the bar. Scanning the menu, Blatt first, most of his earnings resulted from Harvey would yell if we didn’t get the recalled coming to Craig’s one night with his connections in the porn industry, but shot.” Other photographers ofered sim- his fiancée, a model in the adult-enter- he had begun diversifying. In February, ilar accounts. (TMZ said that its em- tainment business, and spotting Elton 2012, after Whitney Houston was found ployees are expected to obey the law.) John and his husband, David Furnish, dead in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton, Inside Craig’s, the bar area was dining with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. Blatt drove there and checked into a room. crowded with women in stiletto heels (That night, a TMZ cameraman cap- He cultivated sources among the hotel and sleeveless furs. One woman held a tured John at the door. “Why don’t you employees. “I had a whole pocketful of Pomeranian under her arm. Blatt, who just fuck of!” John shouted.) hundreds,” he told me. “That’s what makes has thinning hair and a goatee, made Blatt surveyed the room. “I’m a hus- the world go round—cash.” He soon ob- small talk with the bartender and the tler,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been tained photographs taken in Houston’s cocktail waitress. “These are the people doing since I was born. I’ve had over room, including one of her service cart, who call me with stuf,” he said. (In July, a hundred and fifty jobs in my life- which had an open can of Heineken on an employee at a hotel in Santa Barbara time. I’ve sold aluminum siding. I’ve it. Most valuable was a shot of the bath- notified Blatt that Jerry Weintraub, the sold cell phones. I’ve sold porn. But tub, still filled with water, where para- “Ocean’s Eleven” producer, had just been there’s nothing like selling celebrity medics discovered Houston’s body. Blatt taken away in an ambulance. Blatt re- fucking dirt. It’s recession-proof.” sold this to TMZ for about a thousand dollars. He recalls paying a member of the hotel staf about a hundred dollars to take the photo for him. Two years later, Blatt learned that V. Stiviano, Donald Sterling’s mistress, was taping an interview with Barbara Walters at the Four Seasons, in Beverly Hills. He went to the hotel, drank sev- eral Martinis at the bar, and eventually snapped a cell-phone photo of Stiviano in the lobby, while paparazzi—who were prohibited from entering the hotel— waited outside. TMZ covered Blatt’s ex- penses for the day, and paid him a free- lance-producer’s fee of around seven hun- dred and fifty dollars. “Five hundred here, five hundred there—it adds up,” he said. More recently, a transgender sex worker from Dennis Hof ’s Love Ranch, near Carson City, Nevada, contacted Blatt to inform him that one of her clients, the former basketball player Lamar Odom, had just collapsed at the brothel. She also sent Blatt text messages she had exchanged with Odom: “My manager said she would personally pick you up in a unmarked car back to a closed of room so no one will see you or know you’re here.” (Odom replied, “I’m ready for that car!!”) The waitress at Craig’s placed a dish of jalapeño creamed corn on the table. Blatt waved his fork and declared, “This is of the hook.” Then, across the restaurant, he spotted Alexis and Jim Bellino, the co-stars of “The Real House- wives of Orange County.” Blatt said that he contacts TMZ whenever he sees someone famous. “If you see a dollar on That’s not gonna last. And it was really ing a nerve,” Sanders replied.) With Don- the road, you pick it up,” he said. “If I a stupid comment. . . . Ask me anything ald Trump: “Donald, a lot of rappers call in now and say, ‘I’m with Alexis Bel- about rap now. Almost anything. Hon- always use your name in their lyrics.” lino,’ and they give me fifty bucks, that’s estly, I go to a black barbershop now. I (“That’s right. ’Cause they’re smart.”) fifty bucks that paid for my dinner.” do. I’m into it.” Levin once tried to set up a bureau The Bellinos slid into the banquette In a Q.-and-A. session after the talk, a in Washington, D.C. In early 2007, he beside ours. Blatt leaned over and intro- student asked Levin how he had obtained sent Gillian Sheldon there on a scout- duced himself to Jim Bellino, who was the video of Solange attacking Jay Z in ing mission. He mapped out a new site, wearing a gray sports coat over a white the elevator of the Standard. “I’m not TMZDC, and interviewed several local T-shirt picturing Ringo Starr. After Blatt gonna say,” Levin replied, emphasizing gossip reporters, including Patrick Ga- commended Bellino for his performance the importance of protecting sources. vin, who produced a 2015 documentary on the show, he commented that he Other hands went up. “I watch your about the White House Correspondents sometimes worked for Harvey Levin. Dinner, titled “Nerd Prom,” and Anne “We actually really appreciate Har- Schroeder, who was working at Politico vey,” Bellino said. at the time. Both Gavin and Schroeder “They’ve never done anything slanty told me that they remained skeptical that on you?” Blatt asked. TMZ could ever reproduce its tipster “No,” Bellino said. “Harvey gets it. regime in Washington. Schroeder said, You don’t burn bridges. We did a news- “It’s not like you could pay a stafer twenty cast with Harvey, and we even coöper- bucks to get a schedule—they are gov- ated with the bus.” He went on, “It was ernment employees who can be prose- convenient. We were going to be shop- cuted for leaks.” ping in Beverly Hills, or whatever, so I In L.A., numerous oicials have lost said, ‘If the bus is coming by …’ ” show so much, read the Web site, like, their jobs for allegedly giving informa- After a few more minutes of con- all the time, so you’re just, like, my idol,” tion to TMZ. Two L.A.P.D. oicers were versation, Bellino turned back to his table. a young woman said. Levin replied, reprimanded in 2009 for purportedly He and Alexis finished their meal, “Thank you. Wow. That’s sad.” selling TMZ the photograph of Rihan- then stepped outside, into a battery of Another woman asked Levin what na’s bruised face; one was later fired. In camera flashes. he thought went into making a success- 2010, the Los Angeles County Superior ful journalist. “Good stories don’t come Court dismissed its chief spokesman, ast april, Levin gave a lecture at easy,” Levin said. “You get shut down Allan Parachini, for supposedly provid- L the University of California, Santa all the time, and if somebody shuts the ing confidential information to TMZ. Barbara, titled “The New Journalistic door you’ve got to find the way around (Parachini, who now lives in Hawaii, de- Environment.” A few minutes after the door.” He said that he told his staf, nies the allegation.) 7 p.m., he came onstage wearing a blue “Find twelve ways around the word And in 2006, after Levin broke the V-neck sweater, slip-on sneakers, and ‘no.’ ” After Levin finished, students story about Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic baggy stonewashed jeans. crowded around him, asking for auto- tirade, the Los Angeles County sherif ’s In opening remarks, Sheila Sullivan, graphs and selfies. As they dispersed, I department launched an investigation to the acting executive director of the stepped forward to introduce myself. identify Levin’s source. According to the U.C.S.B. media center, which served as Arms crossed, he expressed displeasure Los Angeles Times, the sherif ’s depart- host for the event, described Levin’s re- over the fact that I had contacted cur- ment examined his cell-phone records porting as “very powerful and impact- rent and former TMZ employees, and and discovered two calls from the home ful.” When she mentioned that Levin referred me to his publicist. of James Mee, the deputy who arrested graduated from the University of Chi- A middle-aged woman at the talk Gibson, to Levin in the hours after Gib- cago, “one of the top five law schools in encouraged Levin to dedicate more son’s arrest, and an additional eight calls the nation,” Levin interjected, “Three.” coverage to national politics. TMZ has, from Levin to Mee’s home in the fol- He spoke for thirty minutes, describ- in fact, done so, though the results have lowing days. (Mee declined to comment.) ing how TMZ had broken down the been awkward. Last year, a TMZ pho- During his 2010 talk at the Univer- barriers once maintained by publicists. tographer went up to Hillary Clinton, sity of Chicago, Levin discussed the He discussed his plan to create another at Ronald Reagan Washington National legality of the Gibson story. “What we news show, and said he was in the midst Airport, and asked her, “Hillary, with the did, we did legally,” he said. “The issue of developing a game show. (The first blunder on the e-mails—was that just a is, did somebody else do something that episodes of the game show, “South of generalizational gap or can that be cor- might have gotten them in trouble?” Wilshire,” recently aired.) He predicted rected?” Clinton smiled and walked past. Without naming Mee, he likened him the demise of cable television (and the In July, TMZ caught up with Bernie to Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pen- Internet) and said that, in an age of dig- Sanders: “Senator, your campaign is al- tagon Papers to the Times and other pub- ital disruption, media companies need most like the ‘Passion of Christ’ movie. lications. Then Levin seemed to catch to “evolve or we die.” At one point, he Senator, why do you think you are bring- himself, and he laughed. “Just on a slightly said, “When I first heard rap, I thought, ing out so many people?” (“We are touch- diferent level,” he added. 

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 49 A REPORTER AT LARGE LAST DAYS Preparing for the apocalypse in San Bernardino.

BY WILLIAM FINNEGAN

ennifer Thalasinos lay motion- San Bernardino Mountains, seventy Where we’re going, the apostasy is go- less across the altar steps, her head miles east of Los Angeles. Just across a ing to be great. Do you believe in the J and upper body covered by a white frontage road, Interstate 10 rumbled Last Days?” prayer shawl. Around her, the Shiloh with Saturday-morning traic. It had “Yes!” Messianic congregation, eighty or ninety been exactly a month since the attack. “Then the apostasy is going to be strong, sang and prayed. Worshippers “We will be reunited,” the pastor prom- great.” Dowell spoke about “the bat- turned toward Jerusalem, their arms ised from the stage. tlefield of Armageddon, where the blood raised. The pastor, Bruce Dowell, But the service, a Shabbat, was more is going to run as deep as the horse’s strummed a guitar and, in a warm bari- rocking and joyous than condolatory. bridle.” tone, sang, “These are the final days.” A drummer and two electric guitarists After the service, I sat with Jennifer The shawl that covered Thalasinos had drove most of the songs, with lyrics pro- Thalasinos. She is soft-spoken, pale- belonged to her husband, Nicholas. He jected high above the altar, while women skinned, forty-one. She wore large- and thirteen others were killed by gunfire danced, holding hands in a circle. Men framed glasses. Her eyes are green. She in the December 2nd attack on a county prostrated themselves on the floor. This and Nicholas had been married nine workers’ holiday party in San Bernardino, was charismatic worship, and there were years. It was his second marriage. He California. meet-your-neighbor intervals where big had been an extraordinarily gentle man, Nicholas Thalasinos was fifty-two. men embraced me and women touched she said, and a serious student of the He was a restaurant inspector who, ac- my face, looked into my eyes, and asked Bible. “I have his iPad,” she said. “He cording to his widow, loved Godzilla— me what I was searching for. A sweet- took an incredible number of notes, lit- he once took his two sons to a Godzilla smelling grandmother asked where I erally thousands, all Biblical.” The cou- convention in Chicago. Raised in New was from, laughed when I told her New ple had renewed their marriage vows Jersey, Thalasinos had been a county York, and said that she was a “Jewish last winter. Nicholas had been in a rush health inspector in Cape May, and a American princess” from Long Island. to do so. “He said he felt like something member of a Greek Orthodox church There was an abundance of praise of dark would happen. He was preparing in North Wildwood, before moving to Yeshua, and much passionate, less than for Armageddon, or whatever was com- California in 2002. He and Jennifer, fluent Hebrew. ing.” She added, “We’re preppers, from who teaches second grade, liked to watch “It’s like a marriage, like husband and even before he was saved.” the Food Network, particularly cooking- wife,” Pastor Dowell had told me. “Nich- After joining Shiloh, Nicholas, who competition shows. A few years ago, olas fit right in. He had just discovered, described himself as a Messianic Jew, they joined Shiloh Messianic. Its mem- or concluded, that he was Jewish. He wore tzitzit, the knotted tassels some- bers study both the Torah and the Bible, was growing in the Lord, growing in times worn by observant Jews, and a with the aim of uniting Judaism and his spiritual walk. He became an im- Star of David tie pin. He had been con- Christianity. They take their inspiration portant servant in the congregation. He fronted once by an anti-Semite in a from Paul, in Ephesians: “Joining Jew was thrilled to be here. Everybody knew parking lot. “Nick was very outspoken and Gentile together as One New Man.” where Nick went to church. He had about his faith,” Jennifer said. “But we Nicholas became a deacon. At his oice, come home.” agreed we were going to stay strong. I he was known for his red suspenders, Dowell’s sermon was relaxed and wear my Star of David all the time, and bright button-down shirts, and fedora. funny, at his own expense, but also apoc- it has the Cross in it, which makes it He liked to think of himself, Jennifer alyptic. “Today is very much a warfare even more controversial.” Jennifer had told me, as “the gentleman inspector.” message,” he said. “We’re preparing for belonged to an evangelical megachurch “Keep Torah, and you will succeed battle. Prepare for whatever the enemy in Colton, her home town, which bor- in all that you do,” Pastor Dowell in- may throw at you this year.” He gave ders San Bernardino to the south, be- toned. Jennifer Thalasinos had returned practical advice. “Don’t get tattoos— fore she and Nick began worshipping to a front-row seat. She still had the your body is a temple, not a scratch pad.” at Shiloh Messianic. “We just found prayer shawl over her head and shoul- For some of his members, the advice out, through ancestry.com, that we’re ders. All the women wore head scarves was too late. But Dowell’s main theme both part-Jewish,” she said. of some kind. The building wasn’t ac- was strife and reckoning. “There are two Jennifer believes that her husband tually a church but a rented space in Cali- bloodlines running through the world,” was one of the principal targets of the mesa, a small city in the foothills of the he said. “So there’s going to be a fight. December 2nd attack. He had been

50 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 SOURCE: FBI/GETTY (PORTRAITS); JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY (BUILDING, TREES) SULLIVAN/GETTY JUSTIN (PORTRAITS); SOURCE: FBI/GETTY Farook had harbored carnage fantasies for years. He already had the weapons. Now, in Malik, he had a willing partner.

ILLUSTRATION BY MATT CHASE THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 51 particularly outspoken—vitriolic, re- the Islamic State. But their families, after, he turned him on to the sermons ally—about his beliefs on Facebook and neighbors, former classmates—and, in of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American- Twitter, and he had been arguing about Farook’s case, colleagues and fellow- born imam who had joined Al Qaeda religion in the preceding weeks at his worshippers—expressed only astonish- in the Arabian Peninsula. Together, they oice with another county health in- ment after the attack. There had been read Inspire, the Al Qaeda magazine, spector, Syed Rizwan Farook. In an irony no displays of anger, no indication. Only and other jihadist literature online. Fa- too grotesque to unpack, Thalasinos had growing piety. rook confided that he was considering refused to agree with Farook, a devout Farook, born in Chicago to Pakistani going to Yemen to join Al Qaeda. Muslim, when Farook insisted that Islam immigrants, grew up in the sprawling, Awlaki was, to a certain cast of mind, is a religion of peace. Farook and his sunny suburbs of Riverside, just south- a mesmerizing preacher. This world is wife, Tashfeen Malik, were, of course, west of San Bernardino. Malik, born in but a station, he proclaimed. It is the the two attackers. Jennifer did not know Pakistan, had been raised largely in Saudi next station, the Hereafter, that matters. for certain that their rifle fire was con- Arabia, where her father was an engi- “We do not belong here. We are trav- centrated on her husband. No forensic neer. She earned a degree in pharma- elling. . . . We need to prepare for death.” report has been released, and she chose cology in Pakistan in 2012, met Farook Awlaki called for jihadists in the West not to go to a debriefing held by the on a matrimonial Web site called Best- to attack soft targets, particularly in the F.B.I. for the families of the fourteen Muslim.com, married him, and moved United States, and many took inspira- dead. “A woman who was wounded con- to the United States in 2014. A daugh- tion from him, including the London tacted me, and she told me that my hus- ter was born in May, 2015. He was Tube and bus bombers (2005); Major band, who was already mortally wounded, twenty-eight and she twenty-nine when Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychi- told her to get under the table,” Jenni- they died in a storm of police gunfire atrist, who killed thirteen and wounded fer said. “She thinks that he saved her after a car chase. dozens at Fort Hood, Texas (2009); life. That was all I needed to know.” Then surfaced the strange tale of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the air- Nicholas had spoken to her about Fa- Enrique Marquez, Jr. In 2004, his family line underwear bomber (2009); Faisal rook, Jennifer said, but he hadn’t seemed moved in next door to the Farooks on Shahzad, the Times Square van bomber wary of him. “I knew Nick and Syed Tomlinson Avenue, in Riverside. Mar- (2010); and the Tsarnaev brothers, who talked. I knew Nick tried to bring him quez was fourteen, lonely, struggling. carried out the Boston Marathon bomb- to Christ several times.” He started hanging out with Farook, ing (2013). An American drone strike who was eighteen, tall and shy, and killed Awlaki in Yemen in 2011, but his hy did the attack happen? Fa- worked on cars in his driveway. Mar- message continues to resonate through W rook and Malik did not make a quez became the older boy’s acolyte. the Internet. A recent issue of Inspire re- martyr video or leave a manifesto. They Neither of them seems to have had prints his work, again stressing that it didn’t wear suicide vests or scream “Al- other friends. Farook taught Marquez is best for the believer “to perform his lahu akbar” when they opened fire. Malik motor mechanics, and introduced him duty of Jihad in the West.” did post to Facebook a short, garbled, to Islam. In 2007, at sixteen, Marquez Inspire, like much of the Islamic last-minute shout-out to the leader of converted. Farook prayed with him. Soon State’s propaganda, is directed at dis- afected youth. Across a double-page photograph of a brooding young man in a dark room is a caption in verse: For how long will you live in tension? Instead of just sitting, having no solution, Simply stand up, pack your tools of destruction. Assemble your bomb, ready for detonation. That issue included an article called “Car Bombs Inside America,” which had detailed instructions for building such a device at home. “This type of car bomb is used to kill individuals and NOT to destroy buildings. Therefore, look for a dense crowd.” The objective was “maxi- mum carnage” in order to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah.” According to Marquez, he and Fa- rook came up with two maximum- carnage plans in 2011. One was to throw pipe bombs into a crowded cafeteria at Riverside City College, where each of “And Perkins will be there if you drop the ball.” them had studied at diferent times. The cafeteria had a second-floor balcony. coöperating with prosecutors, hoping The operator asked, “Your neighbor They could attack from above and then for lighter sentences. The other two was in the San Bernardino shooting? escape. The other idea was to hit a local were looking at twenty-five years, pos- He died or what? He was the shooter freeway, State Route 91, at rush hour. sibly more. Somehow this news slapped or what?” They chose a stretch of highway west Marquez awake. He saw his own future, “He was the shooter.” of Riverside. It had hills on the south best case. He backed out of the massa- “He was the shooter?” side and no exits. First, Farook would cre plans with Farook. They stopped Marquez said, “The fucking asshole halt the eastbound traic with pipe hanging out. used my gun in the shooting.” bombs. Then he would walk down the Three years later, Marquez was work- “You said he used your gun?” line of cars, shooting trapped motorists ing as a security guard at Walmart. Still “Yes. Oh my God.” where they sat. Marquez, stationed on living at home, still no girlfriend. He Marquez tried to explain that he a hill with a sniper rifle, would pick of had stopped going to mosque. Now he had given his neighbor the gun for police oicers as they arrived, and then safekeeping. emergency workers. Marquez, who was “You had him store your gun?” nineteen, bought two semiautomatic “Yeah. And then he. . . .Why did he rifles. (They were concerned that Fa- have to do it?” rook’s South Asian looks might arouse “What was the guy’s name that had suspicion.) Farook reimbursed Marquez. your gun?” Marquez also bought smokeless pow- “Syed Farook.” der for the pipe bombs, and Farook Later that day, Marquez drank nine bought two handguns. All legal. They beers and found his way to a hospital started practicing at local shooting emergency room, where he was placed ranges. wanted to join the Navy, but for that he on involuntary hold in a psychiatric It felt cool, I’m guessing, to have this needed to lose weight. He started bik- ward. He was not arrested, but on De- bloody-minded project. Things looked ing, and hiking. He rode his bike to a cember 6th he started talking to the peaceful, normal, banal. Nobody sus- part-time job at a dive bar called Mor- F.B.I. He declined to call a lawyer, and pected what was coming. Divine ven- gan’s Tavern. Punk bands played there he talked for ten days. He is the sole geance. Their little corner of Riverside— on weekends. Marquez got into punk, source for the story of his terrorist part- ranch houses, pickup trucks, the Sonic and made some new friends. One of his nership with Farook. (Actually, the ver- (“America’s Drive-in”) at the corner, the new friends told me, “He was just a lost sion we have is the F.B.I.’s version of his Macy’s and Cheesecake Factory down young adult. A lot of people are.” He tale.) After Marquez finished talking, by 91, certainly those self-involved, told her about being a Muslim. “It was he was arrested. He was charged with blithely sinful college students, with all something he tried out,” she said. She multiple felonies, including providing their partying—had no clue. The two had been in the Army and done a tour material support to terrorists, and de- young warriors would smite the necks in Afghanistan, so she was not unfamil- nied bail. of the infidels, as the Koran said. It would iar with Islam. “Enrique was definitely At Morgan’s, a manager told me, “He be a crushing defeat for the enemies of not into it anymore,” she said. “But he thought he’d be safer in there. He don’t Allah. Farook had become extremely wasn’t really out about his de- conversion. want no fourteen families coming after devout. He went to mosque before dawn I mean, not to his Muslim friends.” She him. He knew he couldn’t survive that.” every day, and again every night, for last meant Farook and his family. None of prayers. Marquez was more easygo- these disparate local scenes struck her here were three Syed Farooks ing. He couldn’t match his friend’s level as mutually exclusive. She was an athe- T in the immediate family. The fa- of zeal. ist hiker. “A lot of people in the punk ther, Syed, Sr., was not a mosquegoer, Then Marquez got cold feet. In No- scene here, they end up going to the though he often wore traditional Paki- vember, 2012, a federal terrorism bust military,” she said. “Most places, those stani shalwar kameez. He had a degree went down in Chino, only twenty miles two things don’t go hand in hand.” in mechanical engineering but worked away. Four men were arrested. One was Marquez was drinking, sometimes as a truck driver. The family had finan- from Riverside. The men had met at a heavily, at Morgan’s. Another bar patron cial troubles, filing for bankruptcy in mosque in Pomona. Their plan, allegedly, later told a Times reporter that when Mar- 2002, and barely avoiding foreclosure was to travel to Afghanistan to join the quez was drunk he would say things like on the Tomlinson Avenue house. The Taliban and, eventually, Al Qaeda, to “There’s so many sleeper cells.” Nobody elder Syed was often unemployed, and, kill American soldiers. The ringleader believed him, of course. He was a goofy in 2006, his wife, Rafia, filed for divorce, was an Afghan who had served in the kid, eager to be liked, not remotely tough. accusing him in court papers of being U.S. military. He had used Awlaki vid- On December 2nd, Marquez pan- physically abusive, “irresponsible, neg- eos to help recruit the others, who in- icked. He called 911 the next day, sui- ligent, and an alcoholic.” He sometimes cluded a Mexican immigrant and a cidal. The operator asked him, “What’s threatened suicide, Rafia said. Syed, Sr., Filipino immigrant. (The group also in- going on?” denied the accusations. The family split cluded a confidential informant for the “I don’t know. My neighbor. He did after an argument, he said, about the F.B.I.) Two of the suspects quickly began the San Bernardino shooting.” historical figure of Jesus. His younger

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 53 MONEY ROAD

On the way to Money, away, along the Money now reads UN Mississippi, we see little Or SIN, I swear— ghosts of snow, falling faint Road, past grand houses whose giant gin fans, & porte cochères set back as words while we try to find from the lane, over the bridge like those lashed & anchored Robert Johnson’s muddy to your beaten body, maybe grave. Beside Little Zion, to find markers of what’s still turn. Shot, dumped, no more there—even the underpass along the highwayside, this stone bears a name. It’s all dredged, your face not even keeps its oferings—Bud & Louisiana a mask—a marred, Hot Sauce—the ground giving too grave—the fake unspared, sightless stump— sharecropper homes way beneath our feet. of Tallahatchie Flats rented out * The blues always dance all your mother insists cheek to cheek with a church— along the road, staged bottle trees we must see to know chasing away nothing, the new outhouse What they did Booker’s Place back whose crescent door foreign tourists in Greenwood still standing, to my baby. The true its long green bar * Tallahatchie twisting pay extra for. Cotton planted south, the Delta beautiful, Friendship Church just in strict rows a holler away. Shotgun, for show. A quiet Death’s second cousin shotgun, shotgun— once removed. You down snow globe of pain for only the summer, to leave * I want to shake. rows of colored While the flakes fall the stifling city where later houses, as if the same can you will be waked, of bright stain might cover the sins like ash we race displayed, defiant, the train to reach the place of rotting wood, now Emmett Till last a dark glass. mostly tarpaper & graiti There are things holding McLaurin Street together— whistled or smiled that cannot be seen or did nothing. RIP Boochie—the undead walk Money more but must be. Buried these streets seeking something barely, this place we take pictures of a crossroads no one can keep— than the crossroads be— & soon flee. The hood its gnarled tree—the Bryant Store * of a car yawns open Yet how to kill in awe, men’s heads facing the tracks, now turnt a ghost? The fog the color of earth, tumbling down of our outdoor talk— peer in its lion’s mouth slow as the snow, white seeking their share. FOR SALE: we breathe, Squash & Snap Beans. The midden * we grieve, we drink & insistent as the woman our tidy drinks. I think of oyster shells behind Lusco’s— who sent word the tiny O of a bullethole of that uppity boy, her men now winter will out— in Booker’s plate-glass window. the snow bless who yanked you out & kiss * your uncle’s home Even the Salvation into the yard, into oblivion— this cursed earth. Army Thrift Store Or is it cussed? I don’t closed, bars over into this store abutting yet know. Let the cold keep the MONEY GIN CO. every door. whose sign, worn away, still your bones. We’re on our way again, —Kevin Young

54 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 son—known by his middle name, Riz- drassa in Multan, Pakistan. She and Asian by extraction, Kuko said, and half wan—sided with his mother, calling his Rizwan e-mailed. They agreed to meet Middle Eastern. Mostly Sunnis, but also father “an unbeliever.” Rizwan’s mother in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in October, Shiites. “It’s a very moderate, passive was more religious, more conservative 2013. He would be making his hajj pil- community,” Kuko said. “Barely con- than his father. His father had chided him, grimage—the spiritual summit, tradi- nected to religion, really. Between mild to no efect, to enjoy his youth more— tionally, of a Muslim life. Her parents, and minimal, I would say. They come make friends, go to parties. Rizwan re- who lived in Riyadh, would bring her on Fridays, and after services immedi- plied that a good Muslim saw only one to Mecca. According to an “Intention ately disappear. Everybody is doing their woman dance: his wife. to Marry Statement” that Farook sub- own thing—their business, their pro- A separation agreement stipulated mitted three months later in a U.S. visa fession. Everybody is looking for the that Rizwan, who was nineteen at the petition for Malik, they met for the American Dream. We’re very careful time, must supervise visits between his first time at the home of a relative of hers that our children are in school, not in father and his younger sister. His older in Mecca, and were engaged the same jails, and we’re doing very well in that brother, Syed Raheel, was by then in the day. His petition statement suggested regard.” Kuko, who received a Ph.D. Navy, serving as an information tech- that his parents were present—“my par- from the University of California, has nician on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. En- ents and I decided to perform the four American-born children, all grown terprise, where he received, among other Hajj . . . we decided to have both of our and thriving. He is white-haired, lean, awards, the Global War on Terrorism families meet.” In the end, he travelled deeply courteous. Unprompted, he said, Expeditionary Medal and the Global only with his mother. With the visa in a strained voice, “Why did he do it? War on Terrorism Service Medal. Ra- granted, he returned to Saudi Arabia It’s beyond me.” heel was gregarious. He left the Navy in 2014, and the couple arrived in the The main problem that Muslim fam- in 2007, got a job monitoring business- United States in July. ilies bring to him constantly, he said, is tax compliance for the State of Califor- Mustafa Kuko remembers their wed- that the children are too independent, nia, and married a Russian beautician, ding reception. Kuko is the director of too American. They don’t obey their Tatiana Chernykh, whose parents live the Islamic Center of Riverside, the parents, who are shocked. When they in Israel. Photographs show the couple mosque where Rizwan prayed in the were kids, in the old country, disobedi- in Cancún, at Disneyland, and at the morning and in the evening. Rizwan ence was not an option. I asked if he beach, with Tatiana, who is blond and came to him for advice. “How to pray,” saw many young people who were more attractive, in a bikini. They soon had Kuko said. “And how Islam views the religious than their parents. He thought their first child. The elder Syed lived marital relation. Many young men come about it. “No,” he said. “Only Rizwan.” with them. and ask me to help them find wives. But Rizwan’s increasingly intense Rizwan, meanwhile, looked for a We try to help them. Mr. Rizwan didn’t identification with Islam, and the wife on Muslim dating sites based in tell me how he got to know his wife, conflicts that came with it, undoubtedly South Asia and the Middle East. On but I told him to double-check on her resonated with Kuko. He himself grew Dubaimatrimonial.com, he described family background before he made a up amid religious-political battles in himself as coming from a “religious but decision. He went to hajj in 2013 to Khartoum, as Islamists clashed with modern family” whose values were an meet her. Then he came back and asked Communists, and he later lived in Saudi “Eastern and Western mix.” He was six to have his wedding reception here.” Arabia. He lectures widely on Islam in feet tall, he reported, with a “wheatish” We were talking in Kuko’s small oice America. “America has a diferent brand complexion; on another site, he wrote at the mosque, on a sun-drenched De- of Islam,” he told me. “We cannot be that he enjoyed “working on vintage cember morning. There were civic Jamaat-e-Islami or Muslim Brother- and modern cars” and reading about awards on the walls—plaques from a hood”—major Islamist groups, based in religion, and liked to “just hang out in Catholic high school and the Loyal Pakistan and Egypt, respectively. “We back yard doing target practice with Knights of the Round Table, Redlands are American Muslims. We have to for- younger sister and friends.” Later, on chapter—along with a banner: “There mulate our own ideas that fit with the BestMuslim.com, he sounded more de- is no God but Allah, Muhammad is society we are in. This is not a Muslim vout. “I spend much of my free time in the Messenger of Allah.” Kuko, who country. Our children should learn the the masjid memorizing the Quran,” he was born and raised in Sudan, came to public-school curriculum. And then also wrote. And: “I am looking for a prac- Riverside in 1978. He said that the Muslim history and Arabic.” ticing muslimah, someone who takes memorable thing about Rizwan’s wed- It’s a pluralist, assimilationist mes- her religion very seriously and is always ding reception, which was held after sage, and the greatest pressure on it trying to improve her religion and en- Friday-evening services, was the peo- now is coming not just from nativist couraging others to do the same using ple he didn’t meet. “I never met his wife. politicians but from young Muslims, hikmah and not harshness.” Hikmah is I never met his father. He introduced some of them American-born. Kuko Arabic for “wisdom.” me to no one. That’s very unusual.” mentioned two young men in Orange Tashfeen Malik replied. She seemed The Islamic Center of Riverside is County, which is near Riverside, who to fill the bill. She had finished her large and well appointed. More than a were recently arrested by the F.B.I.; they pharmacology degree and was study- thousand people show up for certain were trying to join the Islamic State. ing the Koran at a conservative ma- prayers—roughly half of them South One is from a Palestinian family. The

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 55 with their beards growing in every di- rection? They think they are still in Pakistan. We are in the West.” He was originally from Lebanon. He showed me, on his phone, a library of Biblical texts that included the entire New Tes- tament. He was ecumenical, he said. He studied all religions. Tashfeen Malik normally wore a niqab—the face veil, leaving only the eyes visible. After her death, Rizwan’s male relatives said that they had never seen her face or heard her voice. Her extended family in Pakistan belongs to a Sufi-influenced branch of Islam, which takes a relatively moderate view of re- lations between the sexes, but she had embraced the Wahhabist severity of the ruling tribes in Saudi Arabia. Even at the conservative madrassa in Multan, she was notable for wearing the niqab, “Your approach is perfect for the primaries, but and for urging others to become better it could be problematic in the general.” Muslims. They called her “the Saudi girl.” She was active on social media, and the F.B.I. has found at least two •• private messages on Facebook that she sent, before coming to the U.S., to friends other is Sudanese. The Sudanese fam- Two young men with full beards, in Pakistan expressing, in Urdu, her sup- ily had asked him to visit their son in learning that I was a reporter from New port for Islamic jihad and her wish to jail. “They fear he is losing his mind,” York, asked me how they could correct join the fight. Kuko said. He sounded weary. mistakes in an article in the Times. I In California, Malik declined to drive Rizwan switched mosques after he had a look on someone’s phone. The ar- a car. She and Rizwan rented a town got married, and Kuko never saw him ticle was actually in the Post, and it chal- house in Redlands, a placid, leafy city again. He began praying at the Dar Al lenged Abbassi’s claims that he barely ten miles east of downtown San Ber- Uloom Al Islamiyah mosque, a more knew Syed Rizwan Farook. Phone rec- nardino. Malik seems to have spent modest, obscure venue, in the semi- ords showed otherwise, according to the nearly all her time indoors. She remained rural flatlands of northwest San Ber- Post. The story also connected the active online, creating a pseudonymous nardino. Each time I visited Dar Al mosque to Anwar al-Awlaki, through Facebook page she called Larki Zaat— Uloom, an elderly Pakistani man with Abbassi’s brother, who teaches English Urdu for “girl with no name.” Her profile a huge orange beard opened the doors at a San Diego mosque where Awlaki picture was a goat, and one of her first for afternoon and evening prayers. He was once the imam. Finally, it connected posts from the United States, in Au- gave his name as Sultana. “Shaitan is the mosque to Tablighi Jamaat, a Sunni gust, 2014, was simply, “Woe to coco- the Devil,” he told me. “He wants us revivalist movement that Al Qaeda has nut muslims.” The reference was to to take it easy. Not to pray. Do the sometimes used as a cover to recruit new Muslims who were, by her lights, in- bad things. Allah keeps sending proph- members. suiciently militant. It’s a popular slur ets to correct people. A hundred and “We don’t know these people,” one among ISIS recruits. twenty-four thousand. Last one was of the young men said, indignant. He Muhammad. Whoever prays gets more gave his name as Hameed. He said he n Joan Didion’s 1966 essay “Some reward.” had only seen Rizwan come and go to IDreamers of the Golden Dream,” the This was not the Islamic Center of prayers. Rizwan’s wife, somebody said, San Bernardino Valley is “the country Riverside. A few men turned up for stayed in the car, and was veiled. of the teased hair and the Capris and prayers. The imam at Dar Al Uloom, An argument broke out, only some the girls for whom all life’s promise Roshan Zamir Abbassi, was elusive, un- of it in English, among several men. comes down to a waltz-length white available. Dar Al Uloom had issued, on I got the gist. A middle-aged man in wedding dress and the birth of a Kim- its Facebook page, a declaration of sad- a button-down shirt, whose English berly or a Sherry or a Debbi.” The neigh- ness and solidarity with the victims on was fluent, was berating the young borhood has changed since 1966. Mil- the day of the December 2nd attack, men for being defensive and parochial. lions of people have moved to Riverside but the mosque had received harsh press Afterward, the older man told me, and San Bernardino counties in search treatment. “How do they expect to be accepted, of afordable housing. Their names are

56 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 more likely to be Pedro or Tatiana than “Tucson Stands with San Bernardino.” lieved, had harbored carnage fantasies for Debbi. The urbanized area, now known There were wooden stars from Mas- years. He already had the weapons. Now, as the Inland Empire, has quadrupled in sapequa and Breezy Point, New York. it seemed, he had a truly willing partner. population, to more than four million, Quotes from the Bible were taped up. Indeed, it has been suggested (by the with roughly a million first-generation “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and F.B.I., by Jennifer Thalasinos) that he immigrants, speaking dozens of difer- Thou Shalt Be Saved.” The Khmer figured in Malik’s plans even more than ent languages. The region has no dis- Buddhist Society of San Bernardino she figured in his. They were stockpiling cernible center. It is a continuous mass ofered its condolences, as did Indian ammunition and, in the garage behind of old and new, seemingly overlapping Springs High School. the town house, building pipe bombs ac- towns and city-size suburbs, all knit- How did Tashfeen Malik under- cording to a recipe they found in Inspire. ted together by freeways. Karthick stand her new, ultra-diverse, thoroughly And their infant daughter? A psychi- Ramakrishnan, a professor of public pol- American surroundings? When she got atrist would say that the parents must icy at the University of California Riv- pregnant, she registered online at Tar- not have formed a normal bond with erside, notes that religious institutions get for baby items, or maybe Rizwan their child. But what is normalcy when figure more prominently in the Inland did it—or his mother, who sold the the prospect of holy martyrdom beck- Empire than in the coastal conurba- house on Tomlinson Avenue and moved ons, when disgust with the fallen world, tions—Los Angeles, the San Francisco in with them in the rented town house— the enemy’s world, is so chokingly thick Bay Area. Indeed, churchgoing is so but the account was in Malik’s name. that you are willing to gun down ordi- pervasive that it drains energy from Diapers, swabs, a car seat. Rizwan’s col- nary people as if they were evil ghosts? other forms of civic involvement. Mor- leagues at the health department, who In the death cult of apocalyptic jihad, the mons, Catholics, mainline Protestants, never met Malik, held a baby shower. final battle between the righteous and Seventh-Day Adventists, and seemingly After his daughter’s birth, in May, he the wicked is nearly at hand. The Islamic every stripe of evangelical Christian fill took paternity leave. State trades extensively in end-times ide- the local churches. Muslims, Hindus, Malik received a conditional green ology. It was to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Buddhists are all amply represented card in July. She didn’t speak to the neigh- the leader of the Islamic State, the self- as well. bors. Presumably, everything beyond her appointed caliph, that Malik dedicated Makeshift memorials sprang up doorstep was haram—forbidden. Like her bay’ah—her pledge of allegiance— along South Waterman Avenue, in San all places not ruled by Islam, America on Facebook after she and Rizwan fled Bernardino, after the December 2nd was Dar Al-Kufr (the territory of disbe- the site of the attack. The Islamic State massacre, which occurred in a confer- lief) or, possibly, Dar Al-Harb (the ter- seemed not to know who these two mass ence room at a complex called the In- ritory of war). The couple’s landlord, murderers were but soon enough declared land Regional Center, on South Water- Doyle Miller, an eighty-one-year-old them “soldiers of the caliphate” and asked man, a mile north of Interstate 10. The white man, told reporters, “She did not God to accept them as martyrs. center, a community-based nonprofit, like to be seen. She did not seem to like serves people with developmental dis- people around here. He seemed ordinary, lthough the operation appeared abilities. The county health department no worries for me at all. I’m only now Aill-planned, there was some evi- had reserved the conference room for a thinking that maybe she wore the pants. dence of forethought. Malik and Fa- training session (“Ready to be bored?” It could be that she was behind it all.” rook rented a black Ford Expedition a colleague muttered to Syed Rizwan Rizwan, if Enrique Marquez is to be be- with Utah plates, which might delay Farook, before he ducked out), to be followed by a party. After the shooting, the complex was closed and was sur- rounded by a chain-link fence with green netting. The largest of the spontaneous memorials grew at the corner of South Waterman and East Orange Show Road. There were flowers, flags, candles, Christmas trees, wreaths, and hundreds of fervent notes. There was a banner for Aurora Godoy, the youngest of the dead. She was twenty-six. The banner carried a photograph of her with her husband and baby. A thousand people went to Godoy’s funeral. Isaac Amanios, an im- migrant from Eritrea, was the oldest of the dead. He was sixty. A California state flag shivered in the wind. The flag had been signed by dozens of people, including Vicky and Juan C, Indio, CA. “Twinkie! You haven’t changed a bit! What’s your secret?” identification during a getaway. They grandmothers carried wrapped presents a devastating mystery to him. “I de- smashed and discarded phones and com- from houses to cars and drove of. Ex- spair and I do not understand.” Syed, puter drives. But they did not attack a cited kids ran giggling to wreathed door- Sr., sounded ready to return to Paki- school or a concert or a gridlocked free- ways and were ushered in. The wide, stan. “My life here is over,” he said. But way. Instead, they attacked a room full quiet street was lined with palm trees, the F.B.I. has placed him and his ex- of people who knew Farook, and who pine trees, sycamore, eucalyptus. A mail- wife on the terrorist no-fly list. recognized him despite the ski mask he man wheeled his cart, blue canvas bag was wearing. There are difering ac- sagging, from door to door. I tried to he day before his death, Nich- counts of the murder scene. In one, Fa- imagine all this as Dar Al-Kufr. Three T olas Thalasinos reported on Face- rook had left the party angry after an teen-agers walking by paused, staring at book that he had received an online argument and then come back, half an the boarded-up town house. “Oh,” one threat saying he would “die and never hour later, armed. In another, the at- said. Another took a photo with a phone. see Israel.” The message was not, as tackers were three white men. In a third, “Why is there an American flag?” the some assumed, from Malik or Syed published by the Sunday Times of Lon- third kid asked, as they walked away. Rizwan Farook. Thalasinos led a dis- don, and attributed to “witnesses,” it was The adjoining town houses each had putatious life on Twitter and Facebook, Malik who fired first, “aiming semiau- American flags on poles, and Christmas writing with a vehemence that is nor- tomatic fire at people gathered around decorations: little sparkling stars, wooden mally reserved for comments posted a Christmas tree, knocking it sideways.” signs saying “Joy” and “Noel.” At the anonymously, or pseudonymously. At her side, “Farook appeared to hesi- bottom of a window, two passages from Thalasinos wrote under his own name, tate, perhaps momentarily losing his Scripture were taped to the glass. From under photos of himself and his wife. nerve or maybe to seek out a specific Psalms: “The Lord is near to the bro- He was sometimes barred from post- victim, such as Thalasinos.” ken-hearted, and saves those who are ing—placed in what’s known as “Face- People fled deeper into the build- crushed in spirit.” From Timothy: “For book jail,” with his account temporar- ing, that was certain. Ceiling sprin- God gave us a spirit not of fear but of ily disabled, for violating the company’s klers were set of by the gunfire. The power and love and self- control.” standards concerning hate speech— shooters emptied four thirty-round A few days after the attack, Syed, and during those periods he used the magazines, striking thirty-six people Sr., who still lives with his son Raheel, name Michael Thalasinos to continue and killing fourteen, and then imme- gave a doorstep interview to the Ital- posting. He berated, often several times diately fled, although they were wear- ian paper La Stampa. He called Riz- a day, liberals, Democrats, terrorists, ing vests packed with more ammuni- wan a “mama’s boy.” He also called him Iran, ISIS, Planned Parenthood, Presi- tion. They left a bag with three pipe an “angel.” He told the story of the fam- dent Obama, Michelle Obama, gun bombs on a table—the remote-control ily argument about Jesus, and Rizwan’s control, and Muslims. detonator was in their vehicle—but calling him an unbeliever. He said that It was his rage against Muslims that the bombs failed to explode, perhaps Rizwan had been obsessed with Israel drew the threats and the bans. On Oc- because of the sprinklers. and once told him that he shared the tober 30th, he tweeted, “Islam—the Then they spent four hours driving, ideology of Baghdadi and the Islamic CULT of RAPE, PEDOPHILIA, ANTISEM- in no discernible pattern, around Greater State. Later, he said he did not remem- ITISM and MURDER.” He posted a ban- San Bernardino. You have to wonder ber saying these things to the Italian ner describing the Koran as a “training what they talked about. They normally book for terrorism.” He applauded the communicated, apparently, in English— destruction of mosques and advocated hers labored, his fluent. They did not that the United States “nuke” Iran and appear to have a second act planned— ISIS. In 2013, Thalasinos wrote, “IF Is- neither another attack nor an escape or lams Allah exists AT ALL—it could just a suicide mission. At 2:56 p.m., they be the fantasy of a STONED ANTISEMiTIC drove slowly past their town house on PEDOPHILE named Muhammad for all North Center Street, in Redlands. Their I know . . .” He called Palestinians daughter was inside, with her grand- reporter. But the transcript of their con- “FAKESTINIANS.” His comments about mother. The police were outside, in un- versation rings true. Syed, Sr., laments Obama, whom he believed to be a marked cars. The chase began, with the end of his marriage and the loss of Muslim supremacist who secretly sup- Farook driving and Malik firing from his house: “I bought a beautiful house ported ISIS, were no more temperate. the back seat, blowing out the vehicle’s and planted twenty fruit trees in the To those who advocated lynching the rear window. garden. They sold the house and de- President, he replied that, because he On Christmas Eve, I watched the stroyed my family.” His son’s marriage believed in the Constitution, he would light slowly fade on North Center Street. to the reclusive Malik was another di- prefer to see Obama tried for treason The front door and windows of Farook saster. “I told my son that it was de- and executed. Two days before he died, and Malik’s place were boarded up. It stroying our family, but he didn’t care.” Thalasinos wrote, “Now our President was a crisp afternoon. Well-dressed The young couple’s final rampage was MAKES DEALS WITH HaSatan that gives

58 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 Iran TIME, MONEY, and GUARANTEED PROTECTION so they can BUILD NU- CLEAR WEAPONS and do what OBAMA (the UTTERLY VILE PAGAN FILTHY ANTISEMITIC DRUG ADDICTED MAGGOT that he is) PROBABLY DREAMS OF DOING EVERY DAY—NUKING ISRAEl!” Many people unfurl a ferocious dop- pelgänger online. Aggressive speech is legal and categorically diferent from acts of violence. What is eerie about the preoccupations and fury of Thalasinos is how, in retrospect, they foretell the terrible end of his life. He wrote regu- larly about jihadist terror attacks in the U.S.—September 11th, Fort Hood, the Boston Marathon—and about work- place violence. He wrote a long post about a Muslim in Oklahoma who threatened to behead a co-worker, under the headline “ARE YOU AWAKE YET AMERICA?” He heaped scorn on the pos- sibility that incidents he considered “I’m suspending my campaign, gentlemen, until such time jihadist attacks might be dismissed as as I can obtain a fresh supply of pixie dust.” workplace violence. He celebrated guns, posting pictures of women with pistols •• tucked under their bras or rifles slung across their hips, and singled out the AR-15 rifle—“Hold on to your AR-15s.” “They dominate the discourse because focussed on the question of whether the Malik and Farook used AR-15-style they’re violent.” Some jihadist groups shooters belonged to a network. If they rifles on December 2nd. Thalasinos are regional. Some, like the Islamic State, did, it’s important to try to roll it up. even posted a picture of a goat’s-head are global. Jihadism did not emerge from But at the moment it looks as if they symbol sewn on a sneaker, intending to a vacuum. Its adherents have chosen the carried out their plan and achieved their show that Satan is making his way ev- revolutionary path of direct action, but pitiless martyrdom without the support erywhere. The symbol looked, at least they operate with a disturbing amount of a group. to me, like Tashfeen Malik’s profile pic- of passive support from other, less mo- There were more terrorism ar- ture on her Facebook page. tivated Muslims. rests—fifty-six—in the United States Were Malik and Farook following Killing Osama bin Laden and Anwar in 2015 than in any other year since the sulfurous posts and tweets of Thala- al-Awlaki—even defeating the Islamic 2001. Last fall, James Comey, the di- sinos? The killers tried to erase their State militarily, essential as that may rector of the F.B.I., said that the bu- electronic footprints. If the F.B.I. has re- be—will not stop the ideology, or re- reau was pursuing nine hundred ac- constructed their browsing history, it has verse its growth. Terror is jihadism’s tive investigations, in all fifty states, not said so. When you read what Thala- most frightening weapon but not its against homegrown violent extrem- sinos wrote, it is diicult, in any case, core. Its ideas, which can be summed ists, most of them connected to ISIS. not to picture the colleague with whom up as Muslim supremacism, are its Hundreds of Americans—and thou- he argued about religion reading the greatest strength. These ideas are righ- sands of Europeans—have made their same inflammatory invective. Malik, the teous, utopian, salvific. They promise way to Syria and Iraq to join the fight- postpartum shut-in—Jennifer Thalasi- to relieve an enormous experience of ing for the so-called caliphate. But nos called her a “mail-order bride for impotence and humiliation. Even to now ISIS is asking its supporters, as ISIS”—would have been, I imagine, certain young Westerners, living in Al Qaeda did before it, to stay home even more appalled and implacable. comfort and freedom, with no credi- and stage attacks where they are, par- ble personal grievances, they seem to ticularly in the Dar Al-Kufr. The goal he world has 1.6 billion Mus- ofer an exciting counterculture. The is to provoke crackdowns and divi- T lims. Jihadists are a tiny minority, world is ending, and it is ending in sions—within the West, between Mus- but for now they are the unavoidable blood. Choose Paradise. lims and the West, between diferent topic. As the British Muslim reformer The investigation into the San Ber- groups of Muslims. The strategy is (and ex-Islamist) Maajid Nawaz says, nardino massacre appears to be largely working. 

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 59 FICTION

60 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 DESIGN BY ABBOTT MILLER e was a man shaped by money. abandoned. My mother and I understood ing to read a lengthy and intense Eu- He’d made an early reputation and trusted each other. We went to live in ropean novel, written in the nine- H by analyzing the profit impact Queens, in a garden apartment that had teen-thirties, and translated from the of natural disasters. He liked to talk to no garden. This suited us both. I let the German, and I came across the word me about money. My mother said, What hair grow back on my aboriginal shaved “fishwife.” It swept me back into the about sex? That’s what he needs to know. head. We went for walks together. Who marriage. But when I tried to imag- The language of money was compli- does this, mother and teen-age son, in ine their life together, mother and cated. He defined terms, drew diagrams, the United States of America? She father minus me, I came up with seemed to be living in a state of emer- did not lecture me, or rarely did, on nothing. I knew nothing. Ross and gency, planted in the oice most days for my swerves away from observable Madeline alone, what did they say, ten to twelve hours, or rushing to airports, normality. We ate bland food and bat- what were they like, who were they? or preparing for conferences. At home, ted a tennis ball back and forth on a All I felt was a shattered space where he stood before a full-length mirror re- public court. my father used to be. And here was citing from memory speeches he was But the robed priest and the small my mother, sitting across a room, a working on about risk appetites and grinding action of his thumb implant- thin woman in trousers and a gray ofshore jurisdictions, refining his ges- ing the ash. And unto dust thou shalt shirt. When she asked me about the tures and facial expressions. He had an return. I walked the streets looking for book, I made a gesture of helpless- afair with an oice temp. He ran in the people who might look at me. I stood ness. The book was a challenge, a sec- Boston Marathon. in front of store windows studying my ondhand paperback crammed with What did I do? I mumbled, I shuled, reflection. I didn’t know what this was. huge and violent emotions in small, I shaved a strip of hair along the mid- Was it some freakified gesture of rev- crowded type on waterlogged pages. dle of my head, front to back—I was his erence? Was I playing a trick on Holy She told me to put it down and pick personal Antichrist. Mother Church? Or was I simply at- it up again in three years. But I wanted He left when I was thirteen. I was tempting to thrust myself into mean- to read it now, I needed it now, even doing my trigonometry homework when ingful sight? I wanted the stain to last if I knew I’d never finish. I liked read- he told me. He sat across the small desk, for days and weeks. When I got home, ing books that nearly killed me, books where my ever-sharpened pencils jutted my mother leaned back away from that helped tell me who I was, the son from an old marmalade jar. I kept doing me as if to gain perspective. It was who spites his father by reading such my homework while he spoke. I exam- the briefest of appraisals. I made it a books. I liked sitting on our tiny con- ined the formulas on the page and wrote point not to grin—I had a gravedigger’s crete balcony, reading, with a fractional in my notebook, over and over, “sine grin. She said something about the bor- view of the ring of glass and steel cosine tangent.” ing state of Wednesdays throughout where my father worked, amid Lower Why did my father leave my mother? the world. A little ash, at minimum Manhattan’s bridges and towers. Neither ever said. expense, and a Wednesday, here and Years later, I lived in a room-and-a- there, she said, becomes something to was afraid of other people’s houses. half rental in Upper Manhattan. One remember. I After school, sometimes a friend evening, there was my father on TV, an ob- Eventually, my father and I began to might talk me into going to his house scure channel, poor reception, Ross Lock- jostle our way through some of the ten- or apartment to do our homework hart in Geneva, sort of double- imaged, sions that had kept us at a distance, and together. It was a shock, the way speaking French. Did I know that my I accepted certain arrangements he made people lived, other people, those who father spoke French? Was I sure that this concerning my education but went no- weren’t me. I didn’t know how to man was my father? There was a refer- where near the businesses he owned. respond to the clinging intimacy of ence, in the subtitles, to the ecology of it, kitchen slop, pan handles stick- unemployment. I watched standing up. nce, when they were still mar- ing out of the sink. Did I want to O ried, my father called my mother be curious, amused, indiferent, su- sh Wednesday, once, I went to a fishwife. This may have been a joke, perior? Just walking past a bathroom, A church and stood in line. I looked but it sent me to the dictionary to look a woman’s stocking draped over the around at the statues, plaques, and up the word. “Coarse woman, a shrew.” towel rack, pill bottles on the win- pillars, the stained-glass windows, I had to look up “shrew.” “A scold, a dowsill, some open, some capsized, and then I went to the altar rail and nag, from Old English for shrewmouse.” a child’s slipper in the bathtub—it knelt. The priest approached and made I had to look up “shrewmouse.” The made me want to run and hide, partly his mark, a splotch of holy ash thumb- book sent me back to “shrew, sense 1.” from my own fastidiousness. The bed- printed to my forehead. Dust thou art. A small insectivorous mammal. I had rooms with unmade beds, somebody’s I was not Catholic. My parents were to look up “insectivorous.” The book socks on the floor, the old woman in not Catholic. I didn’t know what we said that it meant feeding on insects, nightclothes, barefoot, an entire life were. We were Eat and Sleep. We were from the Latin insectum, for “insect,” gathered up in a chair by the bed, Take Daddy’s Suit to the Dry Cleaner. plus the Latin vorus, for “vorous.” I had hunched frame and muttering face. When he left, I decided to embrace to look up “vorous.” Who were these people, minute to the idea of being abandoned, or semi- Three or four years later, I was try- minute and year after year? It made

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 61 me want to go home and stay there. seum cafeteria where we’d met for lunch. It was the most interesting idea of my The smell of other people’s houses. The vivid boy, she whispered. The life up to then, Gale or Gail, even if it There was the kid who posed for me shapeless man. yielded nothing in the way of insight in his mother’s hat and gloves, although into the spelling of a woman’s name and it could have been worse. The kid who y mother had a roller that picked its efect on the glide of a man’s hand said that he and his sister had to take M up lint. I don’t know why this fas- over her body. turns swabbing lotion on their father’s cinated me. I used to watch her guide toenails to control some hideous the device over the back of her cloth coat. oss dragging me along to the Mor- creeping fungus. He thought this was I tried to define the word “roller” with- R gan Library to read the spines of funny. Why didn’t I laugh? He kept out sneaking a look in the dictionary. I fifteenth-century books. He stood gaz- repeating the word “fungus” while we sat and thought, forgot to keep think- ing at the jewelled cover of the Lindau sat at the kitchen table to do our home- ing, then started over, scribbling words Gospels in a display case. He arranged work together. A half slice of withered on a pad, feeling dumber, on and of, into access to the second and third tiers, toast slumped in a saucer still damp the night and the following day. the balconies, after hours, up the hidden with spilled cofee. Sine cosine tangent. A rotating cylindrical device that col- staircase, the two of us crouching and Fungus fungus fungus. lects bits of fibre sticking to the surface whispering along the inlaid walnut of a garment. bookshelves. A Gutenberg Bible, then thought that I would eventually There was something satisfying and another, century after century, elegant I build a life in opposition to my hard-won about this, even if I made it a grillwork crisscrossing the shelves. father’s career in global finance. We point not to check the dictionary defi- That was my father. Who was my talked about this, Madeline and I, half nition. The roller itself seemed like an mother? seriously. Would I write poetry, live eighteenth-century tool, something to She was Madeline Siebert, originally in a basement room, study philoso- wash horses with. I’d been doing this for from a small town in southern Arizona. phy, become a professor of transfinite a while, attempting to define a word for an A cactus on a postage stamp, she called mathematics at an obscure college in object or even a concept. Define “loyalty,” it. She drapes her coat on a hanger whose west-central somewhere? define “truth.” I had to stop before it hooked upper part she twists so that it Then, there was Ross, buying the killed me. fits over the top of the open closet door. work of young artists, encouraging The ecology of unemployment, Ross Then she runs the roller over the back them to use the studio he’d built on his said on TV, in French, with subtitles. I of the coat. It’s satisfying for me to watch property in Maine. Figurative, abstract, tried to think about this. But I was afraid this, maybe because I can imagine Made- conceptual, post-minimal, these were of the conclusion I might draw, that the line taking commonplace pleasure in the unheralded men and women needing expression was not pretentious jargon, simple act of draping her coat on a hanger, space, time, and funding. I tried to that the expression made sense, open- strategically arranging the coat on a closet convince myself that Ross was using ing out into a cogent argument con- door, and then removing the accumu- them to smother my response to his cerning important issues. lated lint with a roller. bloated portfolio. In the end, I followed When I found an apartment in Man- Define “lint,” I tell myself. Define the course that suited me. Cross-stream hattan, and got a job, and then looked “hanger.” Then I try to do it. These oc- pricing consultant. Implementation casions stick and hold, among other bent analyst—clustered and non-clustered relics of adolescence. environments. These jobs were swal- I returned to the library a few times, lowed up by the words that described regular hours, main floor, tapestry over the them. The job title was the job. The mantelpiece, but did not tell my father. job looked back at me from the mon- itors on the desk where I absorbed my hen I was fourteen, I developed situation, in full command of the fact W a limp. I didn’t care if it looked that this was where I belonged. fake. I practiced at home, walking halt- Systems administrator at a net- ingly room to room, tried not to revert working site. Human-resource plan- for another job, I spent whole weekends to normal stride after I rose from a chair ner—global mobility. The drift, job walking, sometimes with a girlfriend. or got out of bed. It was a limp set be- to job, sometimes city to city, was in- There was one so tall and thin she was tween quotation marks, and I wasn’t sure tegral to the man I was. I was outside foldable. She lived on First Avenue and whether it was intended to make me vis- the subject, almost always, whatever First Street, and I didn’t know whether ible to others or just to myself. the subject was. The idea was to test her name was spelled Gale or Gail and I used to look at an old photograph myself, tentatively. These were mind I decided to wait a while before asking, of my mother, Madeline in a pleated challenges without a negative subtext. thinking of her as one spelling one day, dress, age fifteen, and I’d feel sad. But Nothing at stake. Solutions research the other spelling the next day, and try- she wasn’t ill, she hadn’t died. manager—simulation models. ing to determine whether it made a difer- When she was at work, I’d take a Madeline, in a rare instance of judg- ence in the way I thought of her, looked phone message for her and write down ment, leaned across the table in the mu- at her, talked to her, and touched her. the information, making certain to tell

62 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 ing of a segment of a single towel and wiping her mouth on it and then fold- DIRTY SNOW ing the segment over the smudged part and bringing it to the table to use again, Three weeks ago leaving the paper napkin untouched. They plowed it to the curb— The limp was my faith, my version of This continental shelf of ice and snow, flexing muscles or jumping hurdles. After Undisturbed the early days of its development, the limp began to feel natural. At school, the kids Until a thaw’s mainly smirked or mimicked. A girl threw Revealed the sparrow corpse, a snowball at me, but I interpreted this The butts and cofee lids and bloodied gauze, as a playful gesture and responded ac- How salting warps cordingly, clutching my groin and wagging my tongue. The limp was something to The flow of freeze cling to, a circular way to recognize my- A confetti of plastic scraps self, step by step, as the person who was Is buoyed on, and how the neighbor’s Maltese doing this. Define “person,” I told my- Has charted maps self. Define “human,” define “animal.” Madeline went to the theatre occa- Of piss on treads sionally with a man named Rick Lin- The garbage trucks had made. ville, who was short, friendly, and beefy. And still atop each drift a pinhead It was clear to me that there was no ro- Serenade— mance between them. Aisle seats, that’s what there were. My mother did not like An oily mange, to be hemmed in and required a seat Sewage smuts and pocks— on the aisle. She did not dress for the Of notes almost delicately arranged, theatre. She stayed plain, always, face, A paradox hands, hair, while I tried to find a name for her friend that was suited to his To which clings, height, weight, and personality. Rick Read rightly—what? A Linville was a skinny name. She listened Tattered score of Beethoven’s melting to my alternatives. First names first. “Spring Sonata.” Lester, Chester, Karl-Heinz. Toby, Moby. I was reading from a list I’d made at —J. D. McClatchy school. Morton, Norton, Rory, Roland. She looked at me and listened. I didn’t think of the untouched paper her when she came home. Then I waited point. Once I had decided to steep my- napkin as a marginal matter. This was for her to return the call. Actively watched self, there was no need to read the work. the unseeable texture of a life, except that and waited. I reminded her once and I tried at times, made an efort, but failed. I was seeing it. This was who she was. then again that the lady from the dry I was technically unsteeped but also ever- And as I came to know who she was, cleaner had called, and she looked at me intentioned, seeing myself in the chair seeing it with each visit, my sense of at- with a certain expression, the one that reading a book even as I sat in the chair tentiveness deepened. I tended to over- said, I am looking at you this way because watching a movie on TV with French or interpret what I saw, yes, but I saw it there is no point wasting words when German subtitles. Later, living elsewhere, often and could not help thinking that you can recognize the look and know I visited Madeline fairly often and began these small moments were far more tell- that it says what should not need to be to notice that when we ate a meal to- ing than they might appear to be, al- said. It made me nervous, not the look gether she used paper napkins instead of though I wasn’t sure what they told, the but the phone call waiting to be returned. cloth, because, understandably, it was only paper napkin, the utensils in the cabinet Why isn’t she calling back? What is she her, just another solitary meal, or only drawer, the way she removed the clean doing that’s so important that she can’t her and me, which came to the same spoon from the drain basket and made call back? Time is passing, the sun is set- thing, except that after she set out a plate, a point of placing it in the cabinet drawer ting, the person is waiting, I am waiting. a fork, and a knife next to the paper nap- not on top of all the other clean spoons I wanted to be bookish and failed. I kin she avoided using the napkin, paper of the same size but beneath the others, in wanted to steep myself in European lit- or not, using a facial tissue sticking out order to maintain a chronology, a proper erature. There I was, in our modest gar- of a nearby box, Kleenex Ultra Soft, ultra sequence. Most recently used spoons, den apartment in a nondescript part of doux, to wipe her mouth or fingers, or forks, and knives at the bottom, next to be Queens, steeping myself in European lit- walking over to the roll of paper towels in used at the top. Utensils in the middle erature. The word “steep” was the whole the rack above the kitchen sink and tear- would work their way to the top as those

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 63 at the top were used and then washed by block, and she was always able to re- fingers and toss it in the trash can under and dried and placed at the bottom. port the time within a three- or four- the kitchen sink. She and the bird and I wanted to read Gombrowicz in Pol- minute margin of error. This was Made- the way I stood and watched, a sparrow, ish. I didn’t know a word of Polish. I line. She watched the traic channel sometimes a goldfinch, knowing that if knew only the writer’s name, and kept with accompanying weather reports. She I moved my hand the bird would fly of repeating it, silently and otherwise. Wi- stared at the newspaper but not neces- the rail and the fact of knowing this, the told Gombrowicz. I wanted to read him sarily at the news. She watched a bird possibility of my intercession, made me in the original. The phrase appealed to land on the rail of the small balcony that wonder if my mother would even no- me. Read him “in the original.” Made- jutted from the living room and she kept tice that the bird was gone, but all I did line and I at dinner, there we are, some watching, motionless, the bird also watch- was stifen my posture, invisibly, and wait kind of muggy stew in cereal bowls. I’m ing whatever it was watching, still, sun- for something to happen. fourteen or fifteen and keep repeating lit, alert, prepared to flee. She hated the I’d take a phone message from her the name softly, Gombrowicz, Witold small orange Day-Glo price stickers on friend Rick Linville and tell her he’d Gombrowicz, seeing it spelled out in my grocery cartons, medicine bottles, and called and then wait for her to call back. head and saying it, first name and last— tubes of body lotion, a sticker on a peach, Your theatre friend Rick, I’d say, and then how could you not love it—until my unforgivably, and I’d watch her dig her recite his phone number, once, twice, mother elevates her gaze from the bowl thumbnail under the sticker to remove three times, out of spite, watching her and delivers a steely whisper: Enough. it, get it out of her sight, but, more than put the groceries away, methodically, as She was adept at knowing what time that, to adhere to a principle, and some- if forensically preserving someone’s war- it was. No wristwatch, no clock in view. times it took minutes before she was torn remains. I might test her, without warning, when able to pry the thing loose, calmly, in She cooked sparse meals for us and we were taking a walk, she and I, block fragments, and then roll it between her drank wine rarely—and never, to my knowledge, hard liquor. Sometimes she let me prepare a meal while she issued casual instructions from the kitchen table, where she sat doing work she’d brought home from the oice. These were the simple timelines that shaped the day and deepened her presence. I wanted to be- lieve that she was my mother far more compellingly than my father was my fa- ther. But he was gone, so there was no point matching them up. She wanted the paper napkin un- touched. She was substituting paper for cloth and then judging the paper to be indistinguishable from the cloth. I told myself that there would eventually be a lineage, a scheme of direct descent— cloth napkins, paper napkins, paper tow- els, facial tissues, toilet tissues, then down into the garbage for scraps of reusable plastic packaging minus the Day-Glo price stickers, which she’d already re- moved and crumpled. There was another man, whose name she would not tell me. She saw him on Fridays only, twice a month maybe, or just once, and never in my presence, and I imagined a married man, a wanted man, a man with a past, a foreigner in a belted raincoat with straps on the shoulders. This was a coverup for the uneasiness I felt. I stopped asking questions about the man and then the Fridays ended and I felt better and started asking questions again. I asked whether he wore a belted raincoat with straps on the shoulders. “I can’t believe Eric just went and helped himself to our dinghy!” It’s called a trenchcoat, she said, and there was something final in her voice, so I de- me that the pale crescent at the base of cided to terminate the man in the crash the fingernail was called the lunula, the of a small plane of the coast of Sri Lanka, loon-ya-la. She told me that the inden- formerly Ceylon, body unrecovered. tation in the skin between the nose and Certain words seemed to be situated the upper lip was called the philtrum. In in the air ahead of me, within arm’s reach. the ancient Chinese art of face reading, Bessarabian, penetralia, pellucid, falafel. I the philtrum represented such-and-such. saw myself in these words. I saw myself She could not remember exactly what. in the limp, in the way I refined and nur- I decided that the man she saw on tured it. But I killed the limp whenever Fridays was probably Brazilian. He was my father showed up to take me to the more interesting to me than Rick Lin- Museum of Natural History. This was ville, who had a name and a shape, but the native terrain of estranged husbands, there was always the implicit subject of and there we were, fathers and sons, wan- how the Friday evenings ended, what dering among the dinosaurs and the they said and did together, in English bones of human predecessors. and Portuguese, which I needed to keep She gave me a wristwatch and on my nameless and shapeless, and then there way home from school I kept checking was her silence concerning the man him- the minute hand, regarding it as a geo- self, and maybe it wasn’t even a man. graphical marker, a sort of circumnavi- That was the other thing I found my- gation device indicating certain places I self confronting. Maybe it wasn’t even a might be approaching somewhere in the man. Things that come to mind, out of Northern or Southern Hemisphere, de- nowhere or everywhere, who knows, who pending on where the minute hand was cares, so what. I took a walk around the when I started walking, possibly Cape corner and watched the senior citizens Town to Tierra del Fuego to Easter Is- play tennis on the asphalt court. land and then maybe to Tonga. I wasn’t Then came the day and the year when sure whether Tonga was on the semicir- I glanced at a magazine on a newsstand cular route, but the name of the place in an airport somewhere and there was qualified it for inclusion, along with the Ross Lockhart on the cover of News- name Captain Cook, who sighted Tonga week, with two other godheads of world or visited Tonga or sailed back to Brit- finance. He wore a pin-striped suit and ain with a Tongan on board. restyled hair, and I called Madeline so I When the marriage died, my mother could refer to his serial-killer’s sideburns. began working full-time. Same oice, Her neighbor picked up the phone, the same boss, a lawyer who specialized in woman with the metal cane, the quad real estate. She’d studied Portuguese in cane, and she told me that my mother her two years of college, and this was had sufered a stroke and that I must useful, because a number of the firm’s come home at once. clients were Brazilians interested in buy- In memory, the actors are locked in ing apartments in Manhattan, often for position, unlifelike. Me in a chair with investment purposes. Eventually, she a book or a magazine, my mother watch- began to handle the details of transac- ing TV without the sound. tions among the seller’s attorney, the Ordinary moments make the life. This mortgage firm, and the managing agent. was what she knew to be trustworthy, People buying, selling, investing. Father, and this was what I learned, eventually, mother, money. from those years we spent together. No I understood years later that the leaps or falls. I inhale the little drizzly strands of attachment could be put into details of the past, and know who I am. words. My mother was the loving source, What I failed to know before is clearer the reliable presence, a firm balance now, filtered up through time, an expe- between me and my little felonies of rience belonging to no one else, not re- self-perception. She did not press me to motely, no one, anyone, ever. I watch her be more social or to spend more time on use the roller to remove lint from her homework. She did not forbid me to cloth coat. Define “lint,” I tell myself. watch the sex channel. She said that it Define “time,” define “space.” ♦ was time for me to resume a normal stride. She said that the limp was a heart- NEWYORKER.COM less perversion of true infirmity. She told Don DeLillo on seeing oneself in words.

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 65 THE CRITICS

POP MUSIC A GOD DREAM Kanye West unveils a new album, “The Life of Pablo.”

BY HUA HSU

ne of the reasons Kanye West in- artist Vanessa Beecroft. The event was sang from behind a crystal mask, often Ospires such a devoted following is streamed online and simulcast to movie launching into long, seemingly free- that, despite all of the changes in his theatres in the United States and Eu- associative rambles about creativity and life and in his music, we can still rec- rope. Rows of models dressed in West’s genius, comparing himself to Steve Jobs ognize him as the same character he Yeezy Season 3 fashion collection stood and Alejandro Jodorowsky, criticizing was when his story began. He is his own in formation onstage, doing their best members of the fashion industry, name- muse. When West débuted as a solo not to acknowledge West’s album as it checking the Nike executives with whom artist, in 2004, he came across as an Ev- rang through the arena. After “Pablo” he had fallen out. eryman striver whose petty arrogance concluded, West and his friends took On “Freestyle 4,” a “Pablo” highlight masked a deeper set of insecurities. turns plugging devices into the sound featuring instrumentation that sounds Puing his chest one moment, self- system and playing their favorite new like a fingertip being rubbed around scrutinizing the next, he seemed to ofer songs. At one point, West unveiled a clip the rim of a wineglass, West raps, “Name a novel archetype: the grounded hip- from Only One, a video game he helped one genius that ain’t crazy.” Perhaps his hop star. He was never a great rapper, create, which features his late mother recent behavior was meant to under- but he made a style of his enthusiastic ascending to Heaven on a winged horse. score his status as slightly crazy and, clumsiness, surrounding his verses with West said that he hoped to become, one therefore, a genius. A little more than proud soul samples, on “The College day, the creative director of Hermès. “I a month ago, West imposed a Febru- Dropout” (2004); high-res orchestra- just want to bring as much beauty to the ary 11th release date for his album. (As tions, on “Late Registration” (2005); and world as possible,” he added. of late afternoon on February 12th, it arena-size triumphalism, on “Gradua- As life goals go, bringing beauty to was still not available to stream.) He tion” (2007). As fame came to seem in- the world isn’t bad. But “beautiful” isn’t documented his long workdays on Twit- creasingly like a game that could be the most obvious word to describe West’s ter, breaking occasionally to squabble rigged, West remained a man of erratic recent output. His career-long fixation with the rapper Wiz Khalifa—an ex- shifts and intense, flitting curiosities. In on his own contradictions eventually change that ended with West’s distress- 2008, following the death of his mother, consolidated into an aesthetic, one that ingly sexist smear of the model and ac- he released “808s & Heartbreak,” a di- gave rise to a generation of male art- tress Amber Rose, whom West used to visive, stripped-down masterpiece built ists, such as Drake and The Weeknd, date and from whom Khalifa is cur- around the strange, bluesy efect of sing- who wallow in soft self-loathing and rently separated—and to tout Bill Cos- ing against the grain of Auto-Tune. explain away their loutish behavior as by’s innocence in the face of dozens of With each new project, West was curi- the result of melancholy and bruised sexual-assault allegations. At a time ous and questing: sometimes he seemed ego. As West’s fame has grown, he has when major albums are rolled out in like a grad student fresh from an art- seemed uninterested in moving beyond secret and social-media accounts are history seminar; at other times, he spoke this narcissistic stance, apologizing only carefully managed—a time when say- like an executive at a Silicon Valley man- intermittently, and halfheartedly, for the ing very little earns you the benefit of agement retreat. Whatever his world persistence of his asshole ways. His pre- the doubt—West’s tendency to over- view in a given moment, he always vious album, “Yeezus” (2013), was a bril- share, in songs and online, often in spec- wanted, desperately, to share it. liant collection of prickly, squelching tacularly tone-deaf ways, makes him The main diference between then songs that seemed designed to vet rather seem more human and, sometimes, and now is that West has long since sur- than expand his fan base. It was para- troublingly misogynistic. On “Pablo,” passed his early dreams. Last Thursday, noid and resentful, its harsh textures this latter trait is especially evident on he premièred his seventh solo album, partly inspired by a range of frustrations the track “Famous,” in which West spec- “The Life of Pablo,” at Madison Square with the music industry and with the ulates about a sexual encounter with Garden, alongside a large-scale perfor- insular world of high fashion. While Taylor Swift and takes credit for her

mance piece by the Italian conceptual touring the album, West rapped and renown. It’s a throwaway boast on an SCARABOTTOLO GUIDO ABOVE:

66 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 On his new album, Kanye West tells stories about the pressures of fame, and the madness brought on by having too much.

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL CHO THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 67 otherwise good song. And yet, as West “We surrounded by the fuckin’ wolves.” began taking heat for besmirching West hasn’t released much music Swift, he doubled down, invoking, on since “Yeezus,” an album on which his Twitter, the familiar defense of the mis- voice began to sound mangled, swal- understood artist who should be free lowed by a digital rasp. Instead, we’ve to do as he chooses. heard more of his normal speaking voice. He’s lectured at Oxford and given he vision of a life free of respon- a talk at Harvard. After years of expe- T sibility is one of the great drivers riencing West through Auto-Tune and of pop music. But we are also drawn mike efects, hearing his natural voice to stories about the pressures of fame, is a reminder that doubt remains his and the madness brought on by sim- greatest motivation. There’s a slight ply having too much, even if few of us quaver to it, a tendency to sound like can relate to such tales. On “Real he’s making an appeal, even when he’s Friends,” one of the strongest tracks ofering bold, declarative statements. on the new album, West raps about It’s as though the man who refers to swooping in for a family reunion, then himself in song as a “God” and a “ge- wondering why it doesn’t feel right. nius” still craves validation; the arro- “When was the last time I remembered gance is real, but it’s also a pose. a birthday? / When was the last time I So now there are new dreams. Not wasn’t in a hurry?” He deserves the just becoming a designer but becom- spoils of his success. But maybe, he ing bigger than Walmart. Making a thinks, he also deserves the disap- video game to bring his mother back pointed faces of old friends and fam- to life, as a character who might fly this ily, having time for nothing more than way or that but who is always flying. a quick photo at a party. It’s not quite Last year, West sat for a two-hour in- regret that peeks through his rhymes, terview with a European fashion Web but there is a worried awareness of just site. One of the questions was from how much things have changed. Anna Wintour, who wanted to know On the glorious “Ultra Light Beams,” what hopes he had for his son. West West is joined by Chance the Rapper, started to answer by talking about “pur- The-Dream, and Kelly Price, who help pose,” but couldn’t quite find the words. him try to keep the faith: “This is a God So he began telling the interviewer dream / This is everything / This is ev- about a recent night in Paris, when he erything,” West sings. Later, we hear the saw three high-school-age boys run- voice of the gospel icon Kirk Franklin: ning down the street. He realized that “Father,” he intones, “this prayer is for they were running to catch a bus—per- everyone that feels they’re not good haps, West speculated, the last one until enough. This prayer’s for everybody that morning. “I was really saddened,” he feels like they’re too messed up.” A choir said, his voice rising, because he wasn’t picks up where Franklin leaves of. But, sure that his son would ever feel that minutes later, as West contemplates a sense of desperation, the humility of model’s bleached nether regions on the struggle. gorgeous “Father Stretch My Hands, The best moments on “The Life of Pt. 1,” he has returned to a place that’s Pablo” echo that desire to embrace old “not good.” On “FML,” he grouses, over principles, and linger on the dreams tiptoeing synths, “You ain’t never seen that once seemed distant: “Thinking nothing crazier than / This nigga when back to how I got here in the first he of his Lexapro,” as he tries to make place,” he raps on “No More Parties sense of “the layers to my soul.” West in L.A.” It’s a past to which you would has built a career toggling between the never hope to return, but also one light and the dark. But the poles seem where the world seemed much sim- more drastic on “The Life of Pablo,” pler—before you knew whom to re- from the arching euphoria of West’s sent, back when ambition and drive Auto- Tuned vocals on “Father Stretch and passion alone could propel you My Hands, Pt. 2,” which pays tribute to forward. When the pressures of the his parents, to the desperation on the day didn’t compel you to invent con- stunningly emaciated “Wolves,” which spiracies, and when you didn’t feel the reaches its climax with a note of disgust: need to have all the answers. 

68 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 turned-lover David Brock defected from BOOKS the right to the left. That’s about it. The most common explanation is the one variously attributed to Churchill, TURNED AROUND Clemenceau, and Lloyd George: “Any man who is not a socialist at age twenty Why do leftists move to the right? has no heart. Any man who is still a so- cialist at age forty has no head.” The BY GEORGE PACKER move rightward is thus a sign of the hard wisdom that comes with age and expe- rience—or, perhaps, the callousness and curdled dreams that accompany sta- bility and success. Irving Kristol, the ex-Trotskyist who became the godfa- ther of neoconservatism, quipped that a neoconservative was “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” Most peo- ple are hardly aware of the shift until it’s exposed by a crisis, like a major po- litical realignment that forces us to cross party lines. Even then, they want to be- lieve that it’s the politics, not them- selves, that changed. My maternal grandfather, George Huddleston, an Alabama congressman in the early de- cades of the twentieth century, began his career voting with the only Social- ist in Congress and ended as a bitter opponent of what he saw as the federal overreach of the New Deal. In 1935, on the floor of the House, a Democratic colleague mocked him for reversing his position on public ownership of elec- tric power. Fuming, Huddleston in- sisted, “My principles and myself re- main unchanged—it is the definition of ‘liberalism’ which has been changed.” Or, as Reagan famously (and falsely) claimed, he didn’t leave the Democratic Party—the Democratic Party left him. It’s like blaming your spouse for your own unfaithfulness. Political conversions are painful afairs, as hard to face up to as falling out of love or losing your reli- Political conversions are painful, like losing your religion or falling out of love. gion. Or maybe harder. Religious faith, being beyond the reach of reason, doesn’t he biggest story of the past fifty rades and former selves in the Reagan have to answer gotcha questions about T years in American politics has been years. Ronald Reagan, whose Presidency a previously held position. There’s a spe- the ascendancy of the right, and it’s a brought the movement to its high-water cial contempt reserved for the political story of apostasy. At each stage of the mark, was himself once a New Deal lib- apostate—an accusation of intellectual conservative movement’s long march to eral. In the course of a lifetime, the pre- collapse, an odor of betrayal. When you power, crucial aid was provided by her- vailing political winds are westerly—they switch sides, you have to find new friends. etics from the left. Progressives recoiled blow from left to right. Try to think of Political identities are shaped mainly by from the New Deal and turned reaction- public figures who made the opposite factors that have nothing to do with ra- ary; ex-Communists helped to launch journey: Elizabeth Warren, Garry Wills, tional deliberation: family and tribal or- National Review, in the nineteen-fifties; and Joan Didion come to mind, and igins, character traits, historical currents. recovering socialists founded neoconser- Kevin Phillips, the disillusioned Nixon In “Partisan Hearts and Minds,” pub- vatism in the sixties and seventies; New strategist; more recently, the writer Mi- lished in 2002, three political scientists Left radicals turned on their former com- chael Lind and the Clinton-hater- made an empirical case that political

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK PERNICE THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 69 ailiations form in early adulthood and psychology. Its mini-biographies pro- between good and evil, and the only seldom change. Few people can be rea- vide the author with enough thread to form of political commitment was ab- soned into abandoning their politics. weave the larger story of the Ameri- solute. His story has already been told In the twentieth century, the void left can left in the twentieth century, from extremely well twice—first in the mor- by the loss of religion was sometimes the Daily Worker to the Hitler-Stalin bid exaltations of “Witness,” then in filled by totalizing political systems, and Pact, from the House Un-American Sam Tanenhaus’s magisterial biography, the result was a literary genre of confes- Activities Committee to “The Fire from 1997, both essential sources for Op- sion that is as powerful and probing as Next Time,” from Partisan Review to penheimer. Chambers was born in 1901 the Augustinian kind. “The God That Ramparts, from Vietnam to 9/11. In and grew up on Long Island, in a middle- Failed,” published in 1950, compiled per- addition to Chambers, there’s James c lass family whose chaos and decay gave sonal narratives by six former Commu- Burnham, a Trotskyist philosopher of the boy intimations of a wider illness in nists and fellow-travellers, including the nineteen-thirties who became a the modern world. His father, a half- André Gide, Arthur Koestler, Ignazio closeted homosexual, was cruel to Whit- Silone, and Richard Wright. Each one taker; his mother was a loving but deeply told a tale of coming of age in a world neurotic woman; his brother was a fu- riven with crisis, finding meaning in ture suicide. The Chambers house fell Marxism, identity in the Party, and in- into disrepair, along with Whittaker’s spiration in the Soviet Union, gradually teeth. Oppenheimer devotes a lot of growing disillusioned, and finally break- space to Chambers’s early years, because ing with Communism. In some cases, it they explain his flight into the encom- was an experience akin to watching a passing arms of the Communist Party, former self die. It was nearly impossible in 1925. “It ofered me what nothing else for these writers to discover a new faith, in the dying world had power to ofer political or religious, to replace Commu- founding editor of National Review; at the same intensity,” he wrote in “Wit- nism and its power to erase the sense of Ronald Reagan, who started out closer ness”—“faith and a vision, something insignificance that awaits any sentient to the mainstream than any of the oth- for which to live and something for person. ers; Norman Podhoretz, who, in the which to die.” Two years later, in 1952, came “Wit- sixties, took Commentary first leftward In 1932, Chambers became an agent ness,” by the century’s most tormented and then rightward with him; David of the Communist underground, and ex-Communist, Whittaker Chambers. Horowitz, the son of Communist Party within a few years he was serving as a Daniel Oppenheimer’s sequence of bi- members and a radical friend of the courier between a cell of oicials in the ographical essays about six left-wing de- Black Panthers, until their violence sent Roosevelt Administration and their fectors, “Exit Right: The People Who him fleeing to Reaganism; and Chris- coarse, brutal Soviet handler, Boris Bykov, Left the Left and Reshaped the Amer- topher Hitchens, who belongs in an- who could have come from Koestler’s ican Century” (Simon & Schuster), be- other category, having never been an “Darkness at Noon.” While passing along gins with Chambers. This is Oppen- orthodox leftist and having never re- microfilmed government secrets to the heimer’s first book, but he writes with ally fit with the new conservative friends Soviets, Chambers, married and a father, the assurance and historical command of his final decade. was able to indulge his attraction to men. of someone who has been thinking about Among the six characters, there’s no Cruising followed some of the same pat- his topic for a long time. The colors of recurring type, only a hectic impulse to- terns as spying: “A large part of his job his own flag are hard to discern, which ward self-revision that is captured in a was to move in the shadows, to exchange makes him a reliable guide. His sympa- line from Cliford Odets’s play “Paradise meaningful glances with strangers, to thy goes to the candidly conflicted, the Lost”: “We cancel our experience. This take midnight ambles punctuated with nakedly shattered. He wants to know is an American habit.” But each tale of intervals of purposeful loitering.” why people come to hold the political defection reveals a personal temper that There was no single reason that beliefs they do. Stories of apostasy, he makes these men passionately hostile to Chambers ceased to be a Communist. writes, “are worth telling because it’s the politics of pluralism. They embrace In “Witness,” he says the break began during the period of political transition, new truths with the convert’s fervor and when his daughter was eating porridge when the bones of one’s belief system certitude—Oppenheimer’s “contingency in her high chair, and he came to the re- are broken and poking out through the and complexity of belief ” is not for them. alization that she—and, more specifi- skin, that the contingency and complex- What they loathe most is liberalism. cally, her ear—had been created by some ity of belief become most visible.” This design. But he stayed in the Party for quest is particularly relevant at a time hambers’s tale is one of sufer- years after feeling the finger of God on when Americans are dug deep into two C ing and high drama out of Dosto- his forehead. Around 1936, news of the opposing trenches, and crossing no man’s yevsky. “Life is pain,” he wrote to his Moscow purge trials of leading Bolshe- land is a great way to get picked of. children in the letter that prefaces “Wit- viks began to make its way to those in Oppenheimer never quite answers ness,” and “each of us hangs always upon America willing to hear—and Cham- his central question: “Exit Right” is the cross of himself.” For Chambers, pol- bers didn’t close his mind to the terri- more history than political theory and itics was religious, a continual struggle ble truth. (Millions of people perished

70 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 in what came to be called the Great But Chambers didn’t become just an disdain for liberalism, there’s a tendency Terror.) There was also “the accumulated anti-Communist. In substituting God to admire history’s hard men. You sense tedium of years of underground work, for Stalin, he pointed his sword at what it in the story of James Burnham, who and how little there was to show for it,” he called “man’s second oldest faith.” He passed through the inferno of the thir- Oppenheimer writes. “There were the went on, “Its promise was whispered in ties unscathed, because, unlike Cham- sappingly antisocial patterns of under- the first days of the Creation under the bers, he lived it intellectually, not spiri- ground life, all the dislocations and se- Tree of the Knowledge of Good and tually. Chambers replaced one zealous crecy and lying.” In “Witness,” though, Evil: ‘Ye shall be as gods.’ It is the great faith with another; Burnham—a nearly Chambers describes his reason in the alternative faith of mankind.” Chambers forgotten figure who dominated the scene simplest terms: “This is evil, absolute was a Manichaean, and to him the Hiss while he was alive—kept changing sys- evil. Of this evil I am a part.” case was a conflict between God and tems. He was a well-of native of Chi- The metaphysical strain is what makes Man without God. The enemy wasn’t cago, a brilliant student at Princeton and Chambers diferent from most of the merely Communism—it was “those who Oxford, and then a philosophy profes- millions of other Communist believers believe in the primacy of secular Man.” sor at New York University. He became who wasted their years and corrupted This is why, when he became a heretic, a Marxist after the crash of 1929, when themselves before losing their faith, and in 1938, Chambers didn’t turn to New he made the acquaintance of his depart- what makes “Witness” a successor to Au- Deal liberalism. Disillusionment with mental colleague Sidney Hook and read gustine’s “Confessions” and Bunyan’s “Pil- the liberal values of skepticism, toler- Trotsky’s “History of the Russian Rev- grim’s Progress.” The autobiography has ance, and reason had driven him to Com- olution.” A driving tour in the summer little to say about dialectical material- munism in 1925, and the same aversion of 1933 through the Depression-stricken ism, social fascism, or the Popular Front. made him a high priest of the religious cities of the Midwest sealed the deal. After reading “Witness,” the critic Har- right. The worst thing was to be mud- American Trotskyists led a couple of old Rosenberg said, “This man is not in- dled. An old friend told Chambers, near industrial strikes, but their main action terested in politics.” When Chambers the end of his life, “You never changed, was on paper and in meetings—essays let his friend Alger Hiss, a State Depart- Whit, you just changed sides.” and ripostes in The New International, ment oicial and fellow-spy, know that factional fights, disputes over the proper he was on his way out, he tried to per- ppenheimer’s heretics aren’t definition of the Soviet Union (degen- suade him to leave, too. But Hiss was a O conservatives at all, in the spirit of erated workers’ state? bureaucratic col- bureaucrat, not a soul in Hell, and he Edmund Burke or Russell Kirk. Incre- lectivism?). When, toward the end of the brushed Chambers of: “What you have mental progress isn’t a strong enough thirties, famous comrades like Hook and been saying is just mental masturbation.” drink—they need a perpetual showdown, the writer Max Eastman began to turn Chambers’s break with the Party put a binary apocalypse. Along with their away from revolutionary Marxism and his and his family’s life in jeopardy, and it plunged him into an inevitable spiri- tual crisis. He couldn’t bear to live with- out a purpose. He began to pray to the Being who had created his daughter’s ear; he became a Christian. “In God,” Oppenheimer writes, “he’d found a re- placement vision that seemed deep enough to sustain him emotionally and rich enough, in its explanatory power, to provide answers to the questions about modern life that still haunted him.” Op- penheimer leaves the story there. He doesn’t describe Chambers’s subsequent career as Henry Luce’s star writer at Time, or his sudden fame (and infamy) when, in 1948, Representative Richard Nixon put him under the lights and elicited his testimony against Hiss (who denied ev- erything, then and for the rest of his long life). The Hiss-Chambers faceof in Con- gress and the courts divided Americans; in a way, it was the opening battle in the culture wars of the past half century. Per- haps Oppenheimer felt that this dénoue- ment was already familiar, or superflu- “Talk about Byzantine—try pulling a permit for ous to his main concern. a flying buttress in this neighborhood.” In 1983, President Reagan awarded Burnham—by then ailing and in his last years—the Medal of Freedom. In 1984, Chambers received it posthumously. Rea- gan claimed both men as major in- fluences—he read and reread “Witness” until, Oppenheimer notes, “its cadences were native to him, memorizing entire passages, quoting and paraphrasing them at length in political speeches”—but their pessimism sat uneasily next to his sunny faith in the providential American fu- ture. Oppenheimer tells the familiar story of Reagan’s youthful ardor for Roosevelt; his career as a Hollywood labor leader; his growing hostility to Communist in- filtration of the unions; and his turn to the right when he became a pitchman for General Electric, began to associate with anti-Communists, and married Nancy Davis. Reagan ascribed his de- fection to “the newfangled ‘liberals’ who rejected” Roosevelt’s faith in the wisdom of the American people, and who in- stead entrusted power to government engineers. It’s a sentimental and ahistor- ical view. Roosevelt allowed Commu- nists like Hiss to go on working for him “Use your inside scream.” even after being presented with Cham- bers’s account of their perfidy, and he was more statist than the “newfangled” •• Democrats of the Eisenhower era. Reagan needed to believe himself in- toward “good old-fashioned liberalism Princeton friends, the comfortable fam- capable of disloyalty to his father and to and bourgeois moralism,” Burnham set ily life, the position at N.Y.U. “There the President they both revered. Those about dismantling their eforts with the was a visible, plausible life for Burnham attachments were part of the narrative full force of his systematic intellect. His on the other side,” Oppenheimer writes. of patriotism and virtue that remained scorn was all the more withering because Oppenheimer leaves Burnham too constant throughout his life. “He’d been he, too, was starting to question the truth soon as well, at the end of his Marxist a liberal because it was his inheritance,” of Marxist dialectics. “I stopped arguing years—stopping short of Trotsky’s mur- Oppenheimer writes. “But the fit had about religion long ago,” he remarked to der, in August of 1940, by an ice-pick- never been completely comfortable. And a comrade, and when the line got back wielding agent of Stalin. We don’t learn as the reasons to keep bargaining with to Trotsky, in his Mexican exile, the two about the books and ideas for which the old liberalism fell away, one by one, men exchanged a series of increasingly Burnham became best known: “The he began to accept that there was an- ferocious essays and letters that couldn’t Managerial Revolution,” published in other mantle that might drape more conceal personal hurt. 1941, which announced the rise of new comfortably.” In April, 1940, Burnham helped to totalitarian superstates, neither capital- form a splinter party of disillusioned ist nor socialist but collectivist, controlled ithout anti-communism to Trotskyists, then immediately quit. “To by a caste of “managers”; “The Struggle W give it shape and meaning, the the degree that he still shared any strong for the World,” a postwar tract that pre- quality of apostasy goes into decline in convictions with the new party, they were dicted and implicitly called for a third the course of the book. Podhoretz, born almost exclusively negative convictions,” world war; and “Suicide of the West,” in the generation after Chambers, Burn- Oppenheimer writes. “The Soviet Union published in 1964. “Liberalism,” Burn- ham, and Reagan, is a conundrum—an wasn’t a workers’ state anymore. The ham stated—meaning belief in rea- irascible, narcissistic, “ravenously ambi- world war was an imperialist war, fought son—“is the ideology of Western sui- tious” writer and editor of consider- by all sides in the pursuit of profits and cide.” His predictions, consistently wrong, able talent, but with nothing overwhelm- territories. The era of bourgeois liberal- were always in efect the same one: de- ingly urgent to say. In his mildly leftist ism was over.” But Burnham had never mocracy was doomed, and deservingly younger years, the political question was: given up his bourgeois trappings—the so, because it was too soft. “What did it all mean for him?” In the

72 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 nineteen-fifties, he sensed the country’s hypocrisy of liberal intellectuals who were driven to crippling despair. After a restlessness because he felt it in himself; wouldn’t acknowledge the good their lukewarm stopover in liberalism (he voted in the sixties, as the editor of Commen- country had done them. As Oppenheimer for Jimmy Carter in 1980), Horowitz de- tary, he embraced the new spirit. The puts it, with fine irony, “Podhoretz began fected to the Reagan-era right and be- decade’s star writer, his friend Norman to reorganize his very self around the came a provocateur, choosing race and Mailer, was more talented and more free, fight to win the war he hadn’t been aware campus politics as his battleground. There and filled Podhoretz with excitement he was launching when he wrote Mak- he met enough intolerance to keep his and competitive envy. ing It—in defense of America against anger at the left and his former self per- Then, in 1967, he published a mem- the barbarians of the Left.” petually stoked. But identity politics oir called “Making It,” a confession and By one standard, Podhoretz emerged doesn’t ofer as worthy an enemy as the a celebration of his hunger for success. victorious from the sixties: leftism rap- global Communist conspiracy. Cham- Podhoretz saw himself as the one intel- idly burned out, while his neoconserva- bers, Burnham, and Reagan became con- lectual willing to tell the truth about the tism fed magazines and think tanks and servatives in response to an ideology they importance of money and fame and so- White Houses for the next generation. believed to be evil. Podhoretz and Horo- cial status to supposedly high-minded He kept insisting, though never convinc- witz were reacting against something people, and in telling it he imagined that ingly, that he was glad to be rid of his more like stupidity. all of these would accrue to him in greater old friends; he became a dogmatic sour- The lives in “Exit Right” belong de- amounts. Instead, the book was reviled, puss and ended up a fan of Sarah Palin. cidedly to the past. The denunciations and by the writers he most admired. It’s hard to imagine Chambers landing and warnings from today’s ex-leftists seem “ ‘Making It’ generated an almost phys- there, but then politics had a diferent wildly exaggerated: the less real power iological cringe in its critics,” Oppen- meaning for him. the left has in American life, the more heimer writes. The coup de grâce was dire its image on the right grows. An an- delivered by Mailer himself, who, in avid Horowitz was an editor of thology called “Why I Turned Right,” Partisan Review, the holy grail of the D Ramparts in the late sixties and published in 2007, collected the latest New York intellectuals, called it “a blun- the seventies—just the kind of cocky generation’s tales of heresy. It’s a long way der of self-assertion, self-exposure, and New Left radical, thundering against from “The God That Failed”: most of self-denigration.” (Literary moves that criminal Amerika, who drove older left- the authors never got over their first en- were safe only in the skilled hands of ies like Podhoretz to neoconservatism. counters with those ruthless juggernauts Norman Mailer.) For Horowitz, the Moscow trials came of history, critical theory and campus Podhoretz went into a depression so in the form of the Black Panther Party’s feminism. Chambers thought he was de- black that it lasted two years. It ended descent into criminal gangsterism. In fecting to the losing side, and even now one day in 1970, when, outside his sum- late 1974, he asked a woman from Ram- conservatives feel like a beleaguered mi- mer farmhouse, Martini in hand, he had parts named Betty Van Patter to be a nority; meanwhile, the right has secured a vision, Chambers-like. At the depth of bookkeeper for a school run by the Pan- power in just about every American in- his crisis in trying to leave the Party, thers in Oakland. When her bludgeoned stitution except the academy. Political Chambers had heard a voice saying, “If corpse washed up from San Francisco correctness is, in part, a reaction to the you will fight for freedom, all will be well Bay, Horowitz concluded that the Pan- defeat of the left’s egalitarian dreams, the with you”—an intimation of divinity, to thers, and he, were responsible. In the kind of mutation that occurs in isolation which he surrendered. Three decades ensuing years of self-recrimination, his from the larger gene pool. If you can’t later, Podhoretz looked up at the sky and, Marxism died, though, like Chambers, overturn Citizens United, you can at least he later recalled, beheld “a kind of dia- he felt that his life might be at risk if he rename a university building. gram that resembled a family tree. And declared his defection too openly or too We’re due for a new crop of writers it was instantly clear to me that this di- soon. The existential vision came in a to start recording their disillusionment— agram contained the secret of life and Berkeley bookstore, amid shelf after shelf this time with the right. The downward existence and knowledge: that you start of titles: suddenly the Marxist ones, in- slide from Chambers and Reagan to with this, and you follow to that.” cluding his own, meant no more than any Coulter and Trump has surely swept The diagram pointed Podhoretz away others. “For the first time in my conscious along a few young idealists who thought from radical freedom, toward the bind- life I was looking at myself in my human they were joining the side of freedom ing identities of religion and family and nakedness,” he later wrote, “without the and truth, then realized too late that they nationality. He had always argued for support of revolutionary hopes, without had signed on for junk science and white the legitimate claims of self-interest, eth- the faith in a revolutionary future—with- identity politics. Ted Cruz’s vision would nic and otherwise, and he itched to pop out the sense of self-importance conferred require the toppling of just about every the more fragile bubbles of liberal ide- by the role I would play in remaking the pillar of the country’s social and eco- alism, as in his 1963 essay “My Negro world. . . . I was nothing.” nomic structure. You don’t have to look Problem—And Ours.” Now he turned Horowitz followed a path similar to elsewhere for the destructive utopianism bitterly against the shibboleths of the Chambers’s: both were total creatures of that turns believers into apostates. In a left and began to tell himself a comfort- Marxist belief, who confronted brutal few years’ time, we’ll be reading the chill- ing story: that the brutal response to revelations about their comrades, aban- ing inside story, written by a campaign “Making It” was political. It revealed the doned the revolutionary movement, and aide who barely got out alive. 

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 73 made her living in, among other places, BOOKS a New York circus and a Parisian brothel. At the ball, she meets a mysterious stranger who says that he is writing an NIGHT MUSIC opera just for her. She discovers that its subject is her past, and she vows to hunt A novel of nineteenth-century Paris. down the person who betrayed her. As we learn her story, scene after scene un- BY JOAN ACOCELLA folds in a sort of blaring Technicolor. At one point, during the siege of Paris at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, in 1871, Lilliet flees the city in a hot-air bal- loon launched from the roof of the Paris Opera by one of her lovers. As it lurches upward, she turns to get one last glimpse of her beloved and sees him being stabbed by another of her lovers. Later, she de- cides that a third lover, a man she calls “the tenor,” has to be got rid of. She am- bushes him one dark night on the banks of the Seine and sinks a barb into his neck, having taken the backup measure, earlier, of soaking the blade in prussic acid. As the tenor is splattering blood, she pulls out a flask that she has filled with petrol, pours the liquid into her mouth, and spits it at his face, lighting it with a match as it passes between them. His hair begins to smoke; she lets him drop into the river. Then she goes home and sits, naked, in front of a roaring fire, making plans for the future. Every grand action is followed by a great, empurpled outpouring of words. After Lilliet performs an aria at the Sen- ate Ball, she declares, “I sang it as a gift to the audience, to the composer, to me. Alexander Chee’s second novel is operatic both in content and in style. I sang it as a taunt to the Fates, too. I was weary of my fears as well as my de- he ˆueen of the Night” (Hough- hurt the woman, and they buy her a new sires, and so I sang it in simple defiance “T ton Milin Harcourt), Alexander dress afterward. Lilliet links arms with of all of it, even defying myself. I cov- Chee’s second novel, fifteen years in the these useful gentlemen and goes with ered the night and its secrets and regrets making, is a sort of postmodern bodice them into the palace’s garden: “I drew in coloratura cavatina, until all that could ripper. On its opening page, Lilliet Berne, the first saber myself, holding my first be remembered was me.” Look at the famous across Europe as a soprano and new friend’s gaze as I plunged it into the last sentence. It doesn’t really mean any- as a courtesan, arrives at the Senate Ball, tafeta flounces and cut all the way to thing. It just sounds terrific. It sounds in Paris’s Luxembourg Palace—the year the hem. He uttered a soft cry of hap- like opera. is 1882—and suddenly realizes that her piness and fell to his knees to press the Nothing is more critical to the book gown is all wrong. When she put it on, dress to his face before he lay back in than the opera connection. The title is at home, it had seemed nice enough—a ecstasy, groaning.” She hands back the taken from “The Magic Flute,” and in confection of pink tafeta and gold silk, weapon, the brothers go to work, and an afterword Chee says that he meant by Worth—but, seeing it in the light of soon Lilliet’s gown is reduced to a spe- his book to be a novelistic “reinvention” the palace’s blazing chandeliers, she says, cies of tutu. The three then leave the ball, of Mozart’s creation. Actually, it is far “I nearly tore it of and threw it to the to get her re-outfitted. more indebted to nineteenth-century floor.” She doesn’t have to, though, be- What are we to make of this? It’s a opera—“La Sonnambula,” “Lucia di cause among the guests are two dukes, comedy, right? Ditto scenes of the high Lammermoor,” “Il Trovatore,” “Faust,” brothers, whose sexual interests, she melodrama that fill the book. Lilliet is and “Carmen” are all invoked, some- knows, are limited to slicing of wom- hiding a secret past, of course. Originally times at length. Opera also supplies the en’s gowns with their sabres. They never from the American Midwest, she has linchpin of the plot. Lilliet is a type of

74 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY GUIDO SCARABOTTOLO lyrico-dramatic soprano known as a “fal- choirmaster. The choirmaster, a sinister dead women. Finally, Aristafeo slips a con,” after the French singer Cornélie Fal- character, preys on most of the choir- cloth over Lilliet’s head. She thinks he con (1814-97). Falcon lost her voice after boys. (When he is sent to prison, it is on is going to kill her—she seems to wish only five years onstage—she had to retire twelve counts.) Among them are Fee’s he would—but this is when he carries at twenty-three. Lilliet believes that she two best friends, and they do not sur- her to the roof of the opera house and operates under a curse, that before long vive the experience: one pours gasoline dispatches her in the balloon, securing her voice, too, will break down. over his body and sets himself on fire, her escape from the city. But the function of opera in the book and the other blows his head of with a What makes these doings more bi- is more complicated than that. “The shotgun. The prose rises to the occasion. zarre is Chee’s apparent belief that they Queen of the Night” is a historical novel, There are wheeling, visionary passages. constitute a regular human drama. He set, for the most part, in France during At the same time, the book is an exem- seems to want it both ways, evoking not the Second Empire, and grand opera, the plary piece of realism. It takes place in only the outsized passions of opera but nineteenth-century song spectacular, Maine; the boys are middle class. The also the world of nineteenth-century arose, organically, as part of the sheer story, needless to say, is topical. coming-of-age novels, those long narra- plenitude that marked that period’s After “Edinburgh,” Chee may have tives in which a young person of no ad- styles—of dress, of décor, of manners, of wondered how he might fare without vantages—David Copperfield, Balzac’s just about everything. Chee deliberately the realism. What if he dispensed with Eugène de Rastignac—makes his way situates himself in that tradition. His the anchor of the everyday and just went through a cruel world, usually to land on novel is five hundred and fifty-three pages for the extremity, the hallucination? What his feet. Back in America, Lilliet grew long, and it wallows in Second Empire if the setting were not contemporary up in a homesteading family. One fall, glut. (It takes him four pages, in his af- America but something glamorous, and everyone else in her family died, of “the terword, to list the sources he consulted.) foreign, and historical? Hence “The fever.” She buried them one by one, sold We hear of the two hundred new gowns— Queen of the Night.” Crammed with the horses, burned down the house, and each, of course, with its accompanying Romantic formulas, the novel approaches took a coach to New York, where she shoes, jacket, fan, etc.—that Empress Eu- pastiche, in a way that inevitably dis- wandered the streets half frozen. A génie took each year to her country cas- tances the reader. Even as bosoms heave, drunken man bought her a bowl of soup tle at Compiègne, where she and Napo- you are aware of an icy intelligence mak- and then took her to his bed. There was leon III spent the fall. We are told of the ing them do so. a circus in town, and she joined it, as an diamond-soled boots that the famed cour- The best parts of the novel are where equestrienne, with the result that she tesan Cora Pearl wore for her perfor- Chee’s love of kitsch comes into con- wound up in Paris, as part of the 1867 mances as Cupid in Ofenbach’s “Orphée tact, if not with realism, then with real- Exposition Universelle. She soon broke aux Enfers,” and of the hundred black ity at its most unsettling—for example, with the troupe and became a prostitute, bows nestled in the folds of another in his account of the Franco-Prussian eventually signing on at a high-class lady’s skirt. Here is Lilliet’s description War, with its culminating siege, in which whorehouse, where she handled the cli- of the gown she wears for her perfor- thousands of Parisians starved to death. ents with horsey fantasies. One of her mances as Mozart’s Queen of the Night: Lilliet and her favorite lover—Aristafeo, patrons, the one she later kills, bought Worth had created a costume for me that a composer—hide out in an apartment her from the madam and kept her locked made me look to be covered in a shower of stars built for him by Empress Eugénie, pre- in his house. She escaped, and got em- and comets. The embroidery was hand stitched viously his lover. Scavenging for food, ployment at the imperial palace, as one in a technique original to him that shaped the they go to the Bois de Boulogne, shake of the girls in charge of the Empress’s fabric as it was sewn, and the silhouette of the the chestnuts from the trees, and take wardrobe. In time, she fled that job, too, bodice was sculpted as a result. One comet out- lined my left breast and wound down to circle them home to make a stew. When the and began her career as a singer. my waist, meeting others, all beaded in crystal chestnut crop is exhausted, they strip This should be a stirring tale, and and leaving long white silk satin crystal-beaded the bark from the trees and make a soup at times it is, but Chee doesn’t let us trails that ran across an indigo velvet train. More of that. Lilliet’s malnourished body grad- stay stirred for long. He is constantly comets created a gorgeous bustle and the edges ually loses its color, and starts to look throwing flashbacks and flash-forwards of their trails scalloped the skirt down to the oor—the comets looked like wings. On the front like bark itself. “Only my mouth, the au- at us, so that we lose the thread of the panel of the gown’s skirt, more comets streaked reoles of my breasts, my notch—only plot. The story, anyway, is too packed across a night sky of indigo silk satin, and clouds these had the faintest pink.” One day, with sensational events for us to keep hid a crescent moon as rays of white and gold she climbs up to the roof and sees the them straight. Above all, Chee blocks light spread from it, embroidered in silver thread. streets of Paris emptied of people but our engagement by keeping Lilliet dis- The moon was beaded in pearls. massed with flowers, which have re- tant from us. For all her claims of ex- And that’s not to mention the headdress. turned with the spring: a surrealist vi- periencing intense emotion, we never sion. Soon, though, there is fighting in feel that we know much about her inner hee, who is in his forties, had a big the city, with people “exploding into life. (We don’t even know her name. Csuccès d’estime with his first novel, storms of blood and bone.” Lilliet and She adopted “Lilliet Berne” after see- “Edinburgh” (2001), about a boy, Fee— Aristafeo capture an abandoned horse ing it on the gravestone of a little girl around twelve years old at the start of and ride it through the streets, their shoes in a cemetery in New York.) Lilliet the narrative—who is molested by his black with blood. The Seine is full of says that during sex she could “pull

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 75 “Nope, no monsters under here.” •• back from the surface of my skin as You do grieve here, and at other points, someone might leave a room.” It’s not too, but always, pretty soon, something surprising that a woman who has been arrives to break the mood, something a prostitute might have such a skill, appalling or at least bizarre. At one point, but Lilliet seems absent from many Lilliet goes to Russia and has an audi- other of her experiences as well. I think ence with an empress wearing a crown that, in this, Chee is drawing on a the- that has “a sapphire the size of an in- ory of multiple-personality disorder fant’s face.” Even when the image is not (now called dissociative-identity dis- horrifying, it often has a silvered sort of order) that was popular in the nine- creepiness, as if a snail had crawled across teen-seventies and eighties: that the the page. condition often stemmed from the per- Most of the time, though, what we’re son’s having been molested in child- looking at isn’t horror but just hidden- hood. Unable to process what was ness. “I built a secret second heart in- happening, the child, usually a girl, dis- side my heart,” Lilliet says, in the midst sociated, or split her consciousness of of her troubles. In “Edinburgh,” simi- from her experience, and observed her- larly, Fee discovers an abandoned cel- self from a distance. If this happened lar dug into a hill and decides to en- repeatedly, it could give rise to a sec- large it, building a network of tunnels ond personality, then a third, and so radiating from it. This becomes his hide- on. “How many women are you?” Aris- out. “The secret of the king of the hill,” tafeo asks Lilliet. “A legion,” she an- he says, “is that he rules it from under- swers. (Likewise, in “Edinburgh,” Fee neath. In the dark, I smoke. I sing, some- seems to split into two characters.) times, pretending it is the Plague years, Lilliet says that when she lost her and that I have been left here to die in virginity, as a child, to the man who the buried city, to sing songs for the bought her the bowl of soup, she did dead.” Outwardly, “The Queen of the not feel particularly bad. Rather, “it was Night” could not be more diferent from as if I were someone new. Or, perhaps, “Edinburgh.” But, like the earlier book, more: There was someone I had be- it ofers a rare, intriguing psychology: come. . . . And so this felt like a tri- the heart as a buried place, where some- umph over death, as if I had been dealt one is hiding, singing—words you can’t a murderous blow and lived.” quite hear.  BRIEFLY NOTED

Wreck and Order, by Hannah Tennant-Moore (Hogarth). This astute, restless début novel follows Elsie, a “pretty, damaged woman” in her twenties, who is confronting “the question of what to do” in life. The novel glows with the malaise of the Bush years: Elsie gets obsessed with Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, and heads to Sri Lanka—“a tropical paradise that was also a recent war zone.” In her wearied pursuit of meaning, she toys with the idea of becoming a translator or a Buddhist nun, an English teacher in a foreign country, a “trophy wife.” Although Elsie makes rash decisions, her thoughts about intimacy and desire are searching and considered, and Tennant-Moore de- picts even her most startling fantasies with analytical froideur.

The Blizzard, by Vladimir Sorokin, translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). This slender novel begins in an old-fashioned manner: a country doctor and his driver embark on a journey to a remote village during an “impenetrable vortex of snow.” But in the hands of So- rokin, a controversial surrealist firebrand, nothing is as it seems. The doctor, plucked straight out of the nineteenth century, is on a mission to save villagers from a “black plague” that is causing them to turn into zombies. His journey is stranger yet, filled with monstrous giants and hallucinogens. The reader senses early that this duo isn’t likely to get far. Yet with Sorokin’s Gogolian flights of fancy, even a dead- end road is worth taking.

Lingo, by Gaston Dorren, translated from the Dutch by Alison Edwards (Atlantic). In this playful survey of sixty languages spoken in Europe, each chapter takes a diferent approach: parody, folktale, personal essay. A lesson on the Cyrillic al- phabet follows an extended metaphor in which window shades illustrate the range and influence of the three languages— Galician, Catalan, Castilian—at the top of the Iberian Pen- insula. A venture into Scots Gaelic, which has only thirteen consonants to spell thirty consonant sounds, gives way to chapters on diacritics; diminutives and augmentatives in Ital- ian; and the gender-neutral Swedish pronoun hen.The Brit- ish Isles alone have nine languages (counting Channel Island Norman). Dorren gives voice to an important linguistic truth: “Today’s errors tend to become tomorrow’s correct usage.”

Augustine, by Robin Lane Fox (Basic). This biography of the Church Father displays an eclectic, discursive approach. New delights, such as an exploration of Cicero’s lost Hortensius, beloved by Augustine and pieced together by scholars through scattered mentions in the ancient record, add surprising shad- ings to Augustine’s personality. Lane Fox sees his subject in intimate yet global terms: Augustine’s disenchantment with politics, the dubious powers of rhetoric, and his own skill at navigating the system draws comparisons with Tolstoy, Byron, and Joyce. Most engaging is the portrait of Augustine’s com- plex relationship with his lively, wine-drinking, social-striv- ing mother, Monnica, from whom he “imbibed the name of Christ,” and learned to “retain it deeply within.”

a few satisfyingly silly set pieces, includ- ON TELEVISION ing a concert so ridiculously intense that the walls crumble. But it’s so bom- bastic on the topic of mind-blowing WAITING ON THE MAN art that won’t sell out, man, that it grinds you down, as if you were standing way Big shots on “Vinyl” and “Billions.” too close to some guy in a club who keeps screaming about how high he is. BY EMILY NUSSBAUM Bobby Cannavale, a hairy life force of an actor who improves even mis- begotten shows, plays Richie Fines- tra, who runs the symbolically named American Century, a once vital record label now teetering on the brink of ir- relevance and insolvency. As he con- templates signing the company over to Polygram—whose executives are por- trayed as venal krauts straight out of “Hogan’s Heroes”—Richie gets inspired by a punk act, the Nasty Bits. Soon, he’s back in business, browbeating his underlings to bring him the future of rock and roll: “Think back to the first time you heard a song that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Made you want to dance. Or fuck. Or go out and kick somebody’s ass!” Nat- urally, Richie is piggish and moody; he’s a cokehead who keeps relapsing. But, in the tired algorithm of cable drama, his failings are tragic, because he’s more sensitive than the goons and weasels who surround him. He’s a suit with the soul of a fan, a white guy capable of hearing an unknown African-American bluesman, Lester Grimes, and sensing raw brilliance that no one else gets. This is TV’s own version of rock- ism, the presumption that any drama about a genius-thug with a sad wife and a drug habit must be a deep statement about America. The pilot is full of hack- n 2004, in the Times, my colleague disposable while his was made to last. neyed motifs, including an introductory I Kelefa Sanneh wrote a tart takedown As Sanneh noted, the problem with voice-over that makes you more nos- of “rockism,” the fetishization of real- rockism isn’t loving Bruce Springsteen. talgic for “Goodfellas” than for the ness that haunts music criticism. “Rock- The problem is that it makes rock it- seventies: “I had a golden ear, a silver ism means idolizing the authentic old self (and jazz and punk and indie rock) tongue, and a pair of brass balls. But the legend (or underground hero) while seem cranky and pompous, not to problem became my nose and every- mocking the latest pop star,” he wrote. mention defensive. That’s part of the thing I put up it!” On cue, there’s an “Lionizing punk while barely tolerat- trouble with HBO’s disappointing new ugly murder scored to an ironic pop hit. ing disco; loving the live show and drama “Vinyl,” a ballad of rockism For all this baggage, “Vinyl” should hating the music video; extolling the cranked to eleven, created by Martin still ofer dirty kicks, based solely on growling performer while hating the Scorsese, Mick Jagger, Rich Cohen, its subject matter. Instead, it’s a preachy lip-syncher.” It’s the bias, in other words, and Terence Winter, the showrunner mess, cock-blocking any sign of fun. that lets people sneer at Lady Gaga of “Boardwalk Empire.” Set in a Dio- In one flashback, from the late sixties, doing an homage to David Bowie, nysian seventies Manhattan, among Richie marvels, about the Velvet Un- as if her alien act were self-evidently suits, punks, and junkies, the series has derground, “They’re pure. Real. Not the least bit concerned with develop- “Vinyl” embraces a long-lost New York, but it has an air of leaden nostalgia. ing a mainstream following.” In another,

78 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY KRISTIAN HAMMERSTAD from the fifties, Lester Grimes records Square, porn, James Franco playing Shkreli, but the show won’t let you vocals for “The Cha-Cha Twist.” As twins). Fingers crossed that a Lydia hate him: he is a strategic genius, from he croons, a teen-ager—the daughter Lunch bio-pic starring Kristen Stew- a working-class Queens background. of Richie’s mobster boss—wriggles her art is on the way. It’ll be a relief to see When he’s tempted to cheat on his hips in shy joy. But, from the show’s shows use diferent lenses, in less corny wife (the excellent Malin Akerman), perspective, her enthusiasm is actually genres, to capture those fading mem- he says no with sensitivity and gener- a bad omen. Racist thugs will literally ories. After all, as Hanson once put it, osity. Inevitably, he’s the devil we root bludgeon Lester for refusing to make “In an mmmbop, they’re gone.” for. The characterization should feel songs like that one: pop crap for girls, terribly manipulative, a turn-of. It’s the not blues for men. illions” is another big, dirty opposite. The show improves slightly after “B melodrama about a moneyed In part, this is because the show the jankily paced pilot, but it never Manhattan antihero, in this case the never takes itself all that seriously. In sheds its air of leaden nostalgia. Here hedge-fund billionaire Bobby (Axe) part, it’s because Damian Lewis is a and there, we get glimpses of seamy Axelrod, played by Damian Lewis. handsome man with an angry smile, subcultures and a few lively perfor- Like “Vinyl,” the show can be coarse. who keeps wandering onscreen in ex- mances, especially from the pan- It’s got plentiful Showtime-brand kink pensive boxer briefs. But, mostly, it’s ther-like Olivia Wilde, as Richie’s (Dominatrix wife? Secretly filmed les- because Axe is the most existentially wife, Devon, a former Warhol muse, bian sex? Anal revenge fantasies? Check, free person in the show’s well-drawn and the amazing Juno Temple, as the check, check!), plus maybe one too universe of ambitious hypocrites. When aspiring A. & R. chick, Jamie, a many scenes in which people threaten one of his old employees “flips” and drug-dealing Peggy Olson with her to ream one another. But, while I found talks to the feds, his admiring descrip- own golden ear and brass balls. A few “Vinyl” to be a slog, I can’t stop watch- tion makes it clear that Axe is less a episodes in, Daniel J. Watts makes an ing “Billions,” which, under its lurid person than an Ayn Randian Über- impression as Hannibal, a seductive surface, is smartly paced and frank— mensch. “What does Axe do?” Rhoades funk singer. There are the requisite even thoughtful—about the discon- asks. The employee replies, “The real Scorsesian pyrotechnics, sometimes lit- certing fantasies it provokes. answer is: anything he wants. When erally: a room catches fire and a man The central drama is a cat-and-mouse you’re at his level, you’re more like a screams “Fuuuuck!” as the camera ca- game between Paul Giamatti’s fuming nation-state than a person.” The de- reens toward Janis Joplin howling “Cry U.S. Attorney, Chuck Rhoades, who is scription reminded me, unnervingly, of Baby.” A housewife smashes a window dying to become governor, and the slip- the recent documentary “The Act of with a frying pan. More often, though, pery Axe, a financial titan who has re- Killing,” in which Indonesian tortur- the show takes bio-pic shortcuts. When invented himself, post-9/11, as a New ers brag about their sick acts, which famous faces appear, their intros are York philanthropic luminary, with his they justify with semantics: the word straight out of “Midnight in Paris”: shady market manipulations always just “gangster,” they explain, comes from “Alice Cooper, what are you doing out of view. In a totally ridiculous but the word for “free man.” The world here?” efective twist, Rhoades’s wife, Wendy needs gangsters to act out our fanta- “Vinyl,” in other words, is the Hard (Maggie Sif), works for Axe as the sies, they insist. For these guys, violent Rock Café: chaos for tourists. Still, if hedge fund’s house shrink, a job more movies aren’t a cathartic hoot. They’re you squint, you can see what the cre- ethically dicey than that of any bond a blueprint for life. ative team was going for—a deep dive trader. In essence, she’s a life coach whose Axe isn’t torturing anyone; he doesn’t into the muck of a long-lost Manhat- mandate is to keep the sharks biting. need to. But he’s more of a challenge tan, all bets of, no safe places, no trig- An expert on power exchange (she hap- to the audience’s morality than any sa- ger warnings. For those who long for pens to be that dominatrix), she’s got distic thug. “Billions” evokes a deeply a pricklier age, the seventies have be- secrets of her own, including the fact American longing, for a sort of wealth come something like an escapist fan- that she appears to be more drawn to that doubles as the ultimate masculin- tasyland, and, honestly, I can see the her winner boss than to the twitchy ity, a power reverie that is hyper-visi- appeal. When I watched “Argo,” I got Javert with whom she’s built a family. ble this miserable election year. Axe obsessed with how fun it looked to be Giamatti is usually an entertaining is a walking all-access pass: he gets a nineteen-seventies white guy. Tight actor, but he revs Chuck’s sputtering the Hamptons mansion, the Pilaticized avocado pants! Before AIDS, after the fury a little too high: in a few scenes, wife, the private jet to the personal Me- sexual revolution. Women in charge he verges on Foghorn Leghorn terri- tallica concert. He gets the chance to of the hors d’oeuvres, smoking in the tory. The members of the larger en- stamp his name on a concert hall just oice, and a strong mustache game. It semble are stronger, particularly David to settle a grudge. The sex in “Billions” makes sense that TV-makers have Costabile as the creepy consigliere isn’t extra, it’s the whole point: corrup- begun to explore this material, with Wags. But the bottom-line appeal of tion is erotic. If becoming Axe requires the excellent second season of “Fargo” “Billions” is Axe, whose gleeful greed a little insider trading, maybe you’re a and new projects due from Baz Luhr- Lewis keeps just below room tem- prig to object. “Billions” doesn’t care mann (South Bronx, disco, black and perature. In less controlled hands, Axe about your politics, or abstractions about Latino) and David Simon (Times might come of as smug as Martin justice. It knows what you want. 

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 79 are in circulation, and in the first three MUSICAL EVENTS months of this year it will have appeared on programs in half a dozen diferent cities, from San Diego to Sydney. Much STARS AND SNOW of this activity is courtesy of the St. Louis Symphony, which recently presented Messiaen’s “Canyons,” and Abrahamsen’s “let me tell you.” “Canyons” in its home town and then took the work to the West Coast. I heard BY ALEX ROSS it at Disney Hall, in Los Angeles, which was nearly packed for the occasion. adicalism is relative. By the nine- though, he swerved back to the eccentric, Not every listener is prepared to em- R teen-fifties, the dissonances that had vivid tonality that marked the music of brace ninety minutes of geological, or- seared the ears of concertgoers before his youth. Explosions of E major cap his nithological, and astronomical tone-paint- the First World War had become the gigantic choral-orchestral piece “The ing. The St. Louis ofered, as a guide to lingua franca of international modern- Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ” the uninitiated, a visual essay by the Berke- ism. As music moved toward maximum (1965-69). And “Zion Park and the Ce- ley photographer Deborah O’Grady, com- complexity, composers in various coun- lestial City,” the final movement of “From bining stills and video that she had shot tries rebelled against the rebellion, re- the Canyons to the Stars …” (1971-74), in Utah and Death Valley. As towers of claiming elemental harmonies. The most dwells for a short eternity on a hyper- rock loomed on a screen behind the or- famous gesture of simplification came luminous chord of A major. What makes chestra, O’Grady created the mirage of a in 1964, in the form of Terry Riley’s “In it unlike any A-major chord in history is performance in the canyons themselves. C,” a founding work of minimalism. In the noise that wells up within it: clang- The images did more than illustrate;

Messiaen’s “From the Canyons to the Stars …” takes inspiration from the rock formations, birdsong, and night sky of Utah. the same period, Henryk Górecki, in Po- ing bells, bellowing gongs, an upward- they paid heed to the religious ramifica- land, and Arvo Pärt, in Estonia, began glissandoing horn, the sandy rattle of a tions of Messiaen’s design. The third to deploy ancient-sounding tonality in geophone (a drum filled with lead pel- movement, “What Is Written in the a sacred context. And in Denmark com- lets). This supreme consonance seems less Stars . . . ,” alludes to the writing on the posers who had assembled under the to banish dissonance than to subsume it. wall in the Book of Daniel. (“Thou art banner “New Simplicity” treated major “Canyons,” which takes inspiration weighed in the balances, and art found and minor triads as found objects—beau- from the rock formations, birdsong, and wanting.”) O’Grady here interposed tiful debris amid the sonic ruins. night sky of Utah, has become a cult glimpses of humanity’s invasion of the No composer reclaimed triads more work of twentieth-century music. Its pe- landscape: ribbons of highway, power brazenly than Olivier Messiaen, the de- culiar instrumentation has discouraged lines, graiti-covered structures. Mes- voutly Catholic French master. After the frequent performances: to program it, siaen’s severe gestures came across as a Second World War, Messiaen formed you need a virtuoso pianist, a first-rate divine reprimand. links to the European vanguard, and taught French-horn player, tireless wind and More often, though, we were pulled three of its chief practitioners—Boulez, brass, and a vast battery of percussion. into a pristine natural world. In one se- Stockhausen, and Xenakis. In the sixties, Nonetheless, five recordings of the piece quence, a full moon rose slowly over an

80 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT G. FRESSON outcrop as Roger Kaza, St. Louis’s prin- been played by ten other ensembles, in- cipal horn player, performed the sixth cluding the Cleveland Orchestra, which movement, “Interstellar Call,” which is a brought it to Carnegie Hall in January. horn solo. Kaza knows this music well: The audience responded with one of the in 1982, he brought his horn on a raft- longest, warmest ovations for a new work ing trip on the Colorado River and played I’ve ever witnessed. Doubtless this recep- “Interstellar Call” in a branch of the Grand tion was due in part to the glowing voice Canyon. He sent a tape to Messiaen, who and aura of the soprano Barbara Han- was touched by the gesture but said that nigan, who has sung all performances to the tempo was too fast. Kaza’s rendition date (and has made a recording of the at Disney, slow and lyrically pulsing, would work, for the Winter & Winter label). surely have made the composer happy. Ultimately, though, it is Abrahamsen’s David Robertson, the St. Louis’s mu- score that causes thousands of people to sic director, shaped “Canyons” with a sure stop breathing for a long moment. hand. He quelled any suspicion that The cycle is a setting of texts by the the work is indulgent or rambling; at critic and novelist Paul Griiths. They the same time, he respected Messiaen’s are drawn from Griiths’s novel “let me meditativeness, his silences. The orches- tell you,” which constructs a portrait of tra responded with playing of focus and Shakespeare’s Ophelia from the four- fire. Peter Henderson was an incisive hundred-and-eighty-three-word vocab- piano soloist. ulary that the character is given in “Ham- More Messiaen will be heard in com- let.” In the Abrahamsen, the sequence ing months. In early March, Esa-Pekka begins, “Let me tell you how it was. I Salonen presides over a Messiaen Week know I can do this.” Like the text, the at the New York Philharmonic, with music exudes a shadowy simplicity: it the riotous “Turangalîla Symphony” as begins in the area of B-flat minor, but the centerpiece. In the fall, Gustavo this is a fragile, unstable tonality, under- Dudamel will lead the Simón Bolívar cut by extraneous notes (a D-natural Symphony in “Turangalîla” at Carnegie here, an E-natural there) and bracketed Hall, and this spring Dudamel will take by eerie instrumentation (piercing pic- O’Grady’s “Canyons” project to London, colos above, rumbling trombones below). with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This Dynamics are generally subdued, and Messiaen wave, unmotivated by any an- the singer keeps stretching syllables over niversary, suggests that the composer is repeated notes, to quavery efect. destined to be the next Mahler—a cult Abrahamsen is drawn to winter im- figure who becomes a repertory staple. agery: one of his major works is the hour- long instrumental cycle “Schnee,” or he Danish composers of the New “Snow.” Suitably, “let me tell you” ends T Simplicity movement—Pelle Gud- in a blizzard: “The snow flowers are all mundsen-Holmgreen, Henning Chris- like each other / and I cannot keep my tiansen, and Ib Nørholm—have received eyes on one.” As the voice hovers ethe- less attention than many of their tonal- really, the orchestra lapses into late-Ro- leaning counterparts, perhaps because mantic harmony, with suspended chords their music is too restless to induce the reminiscent of the finale of Mahler’s collective trance associated with mini- Ninth. But they are blurred by discrep- malism. In Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s ancies of tuning: standard temperament unnerving orchestral piece “Symphony, is set against natural harmonics, so that Antiphony” (1977), familiar sounds— each chord bleeds around the edges. This D-major arpeggios, Mahlerian string “broken tonality,” to quote the score, only laments, bits of ragtime piano—are pre- compounds the frigid beauty of the scene. sented in jumbled fashion, like snapshots At the end, the music seems on the and clippings in a Rauschenberg combine. verge of resolving to G major, but an ap- Following in the wake of that van- parent transitional chord proves to be guard is Hans Abrahamsen, who, at the the last, its notes dropping out one by age of sixty-three, has won the interna- one. Underneath is the noise of paper tional renown that largely eluded his older being scraped on a bass drum—“like Danish colleagues. His song cycle “let walking in the snow,” the composer says. me tell you” had its première at the Ber- At Carnegie, there was a profound si- lin Philharmonic, in 2013, and has since lence, and then the ovation began. 

THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 81 bell.) At this point, the story line goes THE CURRENT CINEMA wild, but the wildness, sadly, is not of the Preston Sturges kind, with men and women dispatched in the direction where FASHION VICTIMS they most fear to tread. Instead, there is frantic flailing, with a scene in the Gar- “Zoolander 2,” “Deadpool,” and “A War.” den of Eden, an orgy attended by a hippo, genuflections toward “The Da Vinci BY ANTHONY LANE Code,” and, to cap it all, Sting dressed as a monk. ifteen years have passed since bumping into the plot. Derek and Han- A technical puzzle: how many celeb- F “Zoolander”—fifteen summers, with sel have to start knowing things, and rity cameos can a film contain before it the length of fifteen long winters! How even to learn about themselves, and passes from the droll into the tiresome? we have ached to see once more those where’s the fun in that? Their ignorance The thought of watching Willie Nel- noble features. And here they are, in was our bliss. son, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Katy Perry, “Zoolander 2,” bearded, sadder, and yet The news is that pop stars, including and Susan Boyle in the same movie is, somehow no wiser than before. Derek Madonna and Justin Bieber, are being believe me, far more diverting than the Zoolander (Ben Stiller), who embodied mercilessly slain. Interpol, in the person actuality, and the awkwardness deepens everything that we look for in a male of Valentina Valencia (Penélope Cruz), in “Zoolander 2,” which harbors some model, managed to lose his vague desire to make sport of career, his wife, the custody the fashion industry. The first of his son, and his inefable film scored a few palpable hits, mojo. Since then, he has dwelt but the new one barely makes alone, “as a hermit crab,” in a the efort, and the poise of a hut among snowy mountains. work like “Funny Face,” which Thence he is summoned to both mocked and fêted a de- rejoin the fray, on the orders votion to couture, seems an of Alexanya Atoz (Kristen impossible dream. Instead, Wiig), the most lordly we sufer the shame of a designer of the moment. Al- grand finale, at which various though a blizzard is howling, bigwigs—Valentino, Tommy he sets of, unbowed, like a Hilfiger, Kate Moss, and so polar explorer, and trudges all forth—flaunt their well-cut of ten feet before reaching the sense of humor, deliver their haven of an Uber car. lines poorly, and reinforce “Zoolander 2” is the sixth their fame. I admired the rag- feature that Stiller has di- ing sneer with which Mugatu rected. The first was “Reality (Will Ferrell), Derek’s nem- Bites” (1994), and, ever since, esis of old, turns to Marc Ja- while his movies have grown cobs and addresses him as more unreal, bittiness has re- “Marc, by Marc Jacobs,” but, mained his method of choice. in all honesty, how much of Characters flit in and out, a creative risk is it to show scorning development, and, that you can take a joke, when when in doubt, he tosses gen- the joke is no more wound- erous handfuls of gags at the ing than a back rub? screen. The new film, like its predecessor, is rich in mala- he new Marvel pic- propism (“A total laughing Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson reunite in Stiller’s new film. Tture, “Deadpool,” stars stick”), and Stiller even con- Ryan Reynolds as Wade jures a touch of sweet regret when Derek, steps in to halt the massacre. So far, the Wilson, a Special Forces veteran who, landing in Rome, encounters his former only clue is that every star, pre-death, is to the dismay of his fiancée, Vanessa rival, Hansel (Owen Wilson), and finds striking a final pose. In fact, it’s one of (Morena Baccarin), develops terminal the good grace to admit, “I miss not Derek’s poses: not “Blue Steel,” not “Le cancer. He is approached by someone knowing things with you.” This Masonic Tigre,” not the inimitable “Magnum,” who promises not merely to cure him ideal—that human beings, wherever they but an old one that was used to sell “Aqua but to arm him with extravagant pow- come from, and whatever their difer- Vitae.” (We get to see the commercial ers. Both promises are kept, but at a ences, can be bound in a brotherhood of in question. It features half of Stiller, cost, for Wade is disfigured by the treat- cretins—is an endearing one, but it keeps most of a cow, and all of Naomi Camp- ment. Ashamed, he stays away from

82 THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY BEN KIRCHNER Vanessa, stitches a suit of red leather makes a new movie of “Hamlet,” under Novotny ofers a wonderful portrait and a matching mask, and assumes the the title “A Dane.” In the case of “A of someone who is only just—by a name Deadpool. He also embarks on War,” which is set partly in Afghani- tremulous inch—keeping everything a plan to destroy the man who altered stan, and which has earned an Oscar together. his looks. If that were common prac- nomination for Best Foreign Language You could argue that domestic alarms tice, Beverly Hills would have the high- Film, the indefinite article matters a are no big deal, when placed beside the est murder rate in the land. lot. We are left with the impression that conditions in which the soldiers toil. Rumor has insisted, for years, on the the fight against the Taliban is just one What Lindholm wants to establish, game-changing audacity of “Deadpool.” war among many, and that the stress though, is a continuum of anxiety. His Here was the film that would drag the of combat, whether in action or in its mission is to snap at our nerves and to superhero genre into risky realms, shear- aftermath, afects more than the mili- touch of small, ironic echoes all over ing away the moral fretfulness that has tary alone. the map. Jakob refusing to get out of turned Spider-Man, for instance, into a The dialogue, at the start, consists the car, stubborn as ever, reminds us of flying wuss. The ambition is laudable, largely of numbers and commands: his father’s platoon hustling Afghans but Tim Miller’s movie, far from seem- “6-0, 2-5 here. Stand by for partial from their vehicle, at gunpoint. Half- ing reckless and loose-limbed, comes 9-liner.” Danish soldiers are on patrol, way through, against expectation, these across as pathologically calculated, mea- advancing in single file, for safety’s sake. two streams of narrative converge. A suring out its nastiness to the last drop. But nothing is safe; explosive devices diicult decision made by Pedersen, That is equally true of the visual excess— are planted below the scrub, awaiting amid the welter of battle, brings him three heads bursting bloodily open, in the pressure of a foot. When the worst home before his tour of duty is done, slow motion, one after the next, as a bul- occurs, the company commander, Claus and the bulk of the remaining tale un- let travels through them—and of the di- Michael Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk), back folds in a courtroom. The pressure of alogue, which rubs its hands with glee at base, handles the situation with his preparing for the verdict is as fraught and tries so very, very hard to sound bar- customary calm. He also decides to set as anything we witnessed on patrol, and baric. Deadpool’s appearance, according an example, by leading patrols himself Asbæk—who will soon be joining to a friend of his, looks as if “Freddy from now on. His courage will come “Game of Thrones” for its new sea- Krueger face-fucked a topographical map back to haunt him. son—winds the mood yet tighter by of Utah.” Watching the film is like sit- Every so often, we quit the heat giving away so little. His eyes, plus the ting at dinner with a teen-ager who be- and dust of the conflict and return to stillness of his posture, do most of the lieves that, if he swears long and loudly Denmark. There, under cloudier skies, work. In contrast to this emotional rigor, enough, he will shock the grownups into Pedersen’s wife, Maria (Tuva Novotny), the informality of the legal process accepting him as one of their own. To raises their three children and reassures verges on the comic; the defendant and be fair, however, the opening credits are him, in long-distance calls, that all’s his attorney wear open shirts and sweat- a blast: “Produced by Asshats,” “Directed well on the home front—not easy, when ers, in the same way that Pedersen, in by an Overpaid Tool.” You said it, guys, the middle kid, Jakob (Terkel Sand), Afghanistan, is woken without a salute not me. confused and angered by his father’s by one of his subordinates, who then absence, harms a fellow-student at enjoys a cup of cofee and a good cry. he latest film from the Danish school. Then comes an awful evening The movie is memorable and draining, T director Tobias Lindholm is “A War.” when the youngest of the Pedersens but “Full Metal Jacket” it is not.  His previous film was “A Hijacking” ends up on a stomach pump in the E.R. (2012). We can but hope that, before During the procedure, our gaze is con- NEWYORKER.COM long, he hauls a crew to Elsinore and centrated on the mother’s face, and Richard Brody blogs about movies.

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THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 22, 2016 83 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this week’s cartoon, by David Borchart, must be received by Sunday, February 21st. The finalists in the February 1st contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the March 7th issue. The winner receives a signed print of the cartoon. Any resident of the United States, Canada (except Quebec), Australia, the United Kingdom, or the Republic of Ireland age eighteen or over can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

“ ” ......

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

“Do you remember what you had for lunch last Thursday?” Steven Genther, Miami, Fla.

“Can we make this quick? I gotta keep moving.” Tom Lamoree, Ashland, Ore. “I’m just the anesthesiologist.” Jeffrey Sobel, Woodstock, N.Y. “It was in international waters.” Dave Ridarelli, Palatine, Ill.