PRICE $7.99 FEB. 22, 2016 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. NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more. PHOTO BOOTH THE NEW YORKER PRESENTS Carolyn Kormann on trash, art, and Lawrence Wright discusses what Paul Bulteel’s pictures of European the C.I.A. knew about the 9/11 recycling plants. hijackers—before 9/11. SUBSCRIBERS: Get access to our magazine app for tablets and smartphones at the App Store, Amazon.com, or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.) BULTEEL PAUL LEFT: 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.