PRICE $7.99 APRIL 25, 2016

THE ENTERTAINMENT ISSUE APRIL 25, 2016

11 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 33 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Jelani Cobb on the return of the working class; Bernie Sanders’s high school; family-court ilm; Professor Pothole; William Hamilton’s cartoons; James Surowiecki on L.G.B.T. rights and big business. ANNALS OF TELEVISION Willa Paskin 38 The Brutal Romantic Sharon Horgan’s couples comedies. SHOUTS & MURMURS Paul Rudnick 44 A Special Seder A CRITIC AT LARGE Adam Gopnik 46 Long Play Paul McCartney’s good life. PROFILES Kelefa Sanneh 50 Godmother of Soul Erykah Badu’s new sound. LETTER FROM HOLLYWOOD Emily Nussbaum 58 In Living Color Kenya Barris’s family ties in “black-ish.” PORTFOLIO Matthew Trammell 70 Teenage Dream Photographs by Elizabeth Renstrom. FICTION Lara Vapnyar 80 “Waiting for the Miracle” THE CRITICS ART AND TECH Andrew Marantz 86 Making virtual-reality movies. BOOKS 95 Briefly Noted James Wood 96 Edna O’Brien’s “The Little Red Chairs.” MUSICAL EVENTS Alex Ross 100 The Big Ears Festival. THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 102 “The Jungle Book,” “Tale of Tales.” POEMS Analicia Sotelo 40 “Death Wish” Andrea Cohen 62 “Cloud Study” COVER R. Kikuo Johnson “Closing Set”

DRAWINGS William Hamilton, Jack Ziegler, Roz Chast, J. C. Dufy, Frank Cotham, Kim Warp, Paul Noth, Michael Shaw, Benjamin Schwartz, David Sipress, Barbara Smaller, Bob Eckstein, Tom Toro, Corey Pandolph, Liam Francis Walsh, Robert Leighton, Shannon Wheeler SPOTS Oliver Munday

CONTRIBUTORS

Jelani Cobb (Comment, p. 33), a staf Kelefa Sanneh (“Godmother of Soul,” writer, received the 2015 Hillman Prize p. 50) first wrote for the magazine in for Opinion and Analysis Journalism 2001 and became a staf writer in 2008. for his New Yorker columns on race, politics, and social justice. Emily Nussbaum (“In Living Color,” p. 58) is a staf writer and the winner Willa Paskin (“The Brutal Romantic,” of the 2014 National Magazine Award p. 38) is the television critic for Slate. for columns and commentary. She lives in Brooklyn. Matthew Trammell (“Teenage Dream,” Analicia Sotelo (Poem, p. 40) won the p. 70) covers night life for the Goings 2016 Disquiet Literary Prize for poetry On About Town section of The New for “Do You Speak Virgin? And Other Yorker. Poems.” Elizabeth Renstrom (Portfolio, p. 70) is Adam Gopnik (“Long Play,” p. 46), a a photographer and the photo editor longtime staf writer, has published of Vice. many books, including “The Table Comes First.” Lara Vapnyar (Fiction, p. 80) will pub- lish “Still Here,” her third novel, in Paul Rudnick (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 44) August. is the author of “Gorgeous” and “It’s All Your Fault,” which was published Andrew Marantz (The Talk of the Town, in January. p. 34; Art and Tech, p. 86) is a writer and an editor at the magazine. R. Kikuo Johnson (Cover), an illustrator and a cartoonist, teaches cartooning at James Wood (Books, p. 96) teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. Harvard. “The Nearest Thing to Life” This is his first cover for the magazine. is his latest book.

NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more.

PORTFOLIO VIDEO Songs by the artists featured in our Dance moves from the past decade— photo essay about the cool kids who dabbed, dougied, and shmonied by are redefining pop music. those who helped make them go viral.

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App Store, Amazon.com, or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.) ELIZABETH RENSTROM LEFT:

6 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

THE MAIL

REGISTERING SHAME sands of individuals to a lifetime of in- majority of the arts-and-culture sector. stability and danger and expect public Even state-owned museums survive, and I was dumbfounded by Sarah Still- safety to be improved by it. thrive, because of substantial private do- man’s article describing how children Sebastian Solomon nations. The millions that citizens such who engaged in sexual behavior with New York City as Rubenstein have provided to support other children when they were as young 1 our nation’s cultural treasures and accel- as nine can spend their entire lives as HOW WE TAX erate their transformation would not registered sex ofenders (“The List,” otherwise have come from the federal March 14th). If everyone who engaged Alec MacGillis, in his article on the bil- government. Because of the govern- in the conduct Stillman documents were lionaire philanthropist David Ruben- ment’s size, deficits, and demands, the reported and registered, I’m sure that stein, shows how the carried-interest cultural sector has always relied on civic- most people would be on the list. Chil- loophole in tax law has allowed Ruben- minded citizens to implement what An- dren don’t have the same moral or eth- stein and others to accumulate vast drew Carnegie called the “duty of the man ical boundaries that most adults have— amounts of wealth (“The Billionaires’ of Wealth,” which insures our shared how could they?—and their curiosity Loophole,” March 14th). This is only prosperity and our advancement as a will naturally lead them to experiment one example of how rate diferentials civilization. with all sorts of behaviors. Our soci- between capital gains and ordinary in- Leslie Greene Bowman ety has chosen not to judge children come allow highly compensated tax- Charlottesville, Va. as adults in most other aspects of the payers to reduce their rate of taxation. 1 law. Why treat them as adults where According to calculations based on I.R.S. SLOW HUMOR sexual behavior is concerned? data from 2013, preferentially taxed cap- Joris Stuyck ital gains comprise around twenty-four I enjoyed Anthony Lane’s review of New York City per cent of the income of the top one the Disney film “Zootopia,” particu- per cent of American earners; for the larly his reference to the vehicle- Stillman highlights many of the self-de- bottom eighty per cent of taxpayers, the registration bureau that is stafed by feating consequences of registering chil- percentage is approximately two per sloths—“Of course they are,” Lane dren as sex ofenders. Even a minor con- cent. These preferential rates apply not writes (“Beauty and Beasts,” March viction, like a misdemeanor for indecent only to the profit share of private-equity 14th). My seven-year-old grandson and exposure, received as a juvenile or as an partners like Rubenstein but also to sales I watched the movie together, and col- adult, can result in being placed on a of appreciated stock, houses, and prop- lapsed into laughter. It’s nice when sex-ofender registry for decades—or erty used in a trade or business—these comedy is able to breach a sixty-plus- for life. State and federal registry laws are assets that lower-income taxpayers year age diference. Readers, and mov- form a complex web of restrictions that are less likely to have. The preferential iegoers, may be interested to learn that make it nearly impossible for adult rate is said to spur investment, but there the entire scene was inspired by a skit ofenders to find stable housing and em- is no compelling evidence that this is by the comedic duo Bob and Ray, who ployment, both of which are crucial to true. What is clear is that the discrep- worked in radio and television during reducing recidivism. Restrictions on ancy between capital-gain rates and or- the second half of the twentieth cen- where ofenders can live within dense dinary income rates exacerbates wealth tury. In the original skit, Bob Elliott cities, like New York, make them almost inequality in America. (who died earlier this year) explains, entirely of limits to the majority of reg- Manoj Viswanathan with agonizing slowness, that he is in istrants, forcing people onto the streets, San Francisco, Calif. town for the Slow Talkers of America or into shelters and unlicensed “three- convention, while Ray Goulding, his quarter houses.” At the same time, fed- At the end of his piece, MacGillis quotes interviewer, grows nearly apoplectic eral law renders lifetime registrants an expert in tax law who suggests that with impatience. It was funny forty permanently ineligible for federally sub- Rubenstein’s so-called patriotic phi- years ago, and it is funny today. sidized housing. Classifying such a wide lanthropy—repairing the Washington Richard C. Baron swath of people (more than eight hun- Monument, purchasing a copy of the Philadelphia, Pa. dred thousand as of 2015) as likely to Magna Carta, or supporting the plan- re-ofend requires law enforcement to tation at Monticello, where I serve as • constantly monitor each person, drain- president of the Thomas Jeferson Foun- Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, ing police resources and making it vir- dation—might be less necessary if he address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited tually impossible to focus on those who were more heavily taxed. Unlike some for length and clarity, and may be published in pose the highest risk of harm to others. European countries, the United States any medium. We regret that owing to the volume We cannot relegate hundreds of thou- encourages private stewardship of the of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.

8 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

APRIL 20 – 26, 2016 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman started performing as the cabaret duo Kiki & Herb in San Fran- cisco in 1992, their tipsy, scorched-earth revelry providing a demented catharsis for the AIDS years. The act went all the way to Carnegie Hall and Broadway before disbanding, in 2007. News of a reunion show, “Seeking Asylum!” (April 21-May 22), caused such a commotion that the Joe’s Pub Web site crashed the day tickets went on sale. As the septuagenarian Kiki would say, “If I could love, I would love you all.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY IOULEX an’s great colleague Jean Sibelius. (David Gef- fen Hall. 212-875-5656. April 20-21 at 7:30 and CLASSICAL MUSIC April 22 at 11 A.M.) Seraphic Fire: “Ein Deutsches Requiem” 1 Brahms’s sacred masterwork, a grand yet intimate • OPERA (April 21 and April 25 at 7:30.) The late Patrice setting of German Bible verses, will be performed Chéreau—revered for his revolutionary staging of by Patrick Dupré Quigley’s admired Miami-based Wagner’s “Ring” at Bayreuth, in 1976—was a giant vocal ensemble at Trinity Church Wall Street, in Metropolitan Opera among opera directors and one of the form’s most the composer’s arrangement with piano-duet ac- Forty years into his tenure as the company’s music daring pioneers. His 2013 production of “Elektra,” companiment; Tamara Wilson and Dashon Burton director, James Levine still favors the works of a Richard Strauss’s Expressionist take on Greek my- are the vocal soloists. (Broadway at Wall St. April 20 core trio of composers—Verdi, Wagner, and Mo- thology’s most dysfunctional family, inally comes at 7:30. To reserve free tickets, visit seraphicre.org.) zart. For his last show of the season, he conducts Mo- to the Met, after stops in Aix and Milan. The com- zart’s “Die Entführung aus dem Serail,” an “escape” pany has assembled a world-class team for the occa- “Revolutionaries” Festival at Trinity Church opera that inds lots of humor and a little pathos in sion, with the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen leading No, not Bernie Sanders, but a series devoted sub- the story of four Europeans trying to lee a Turkish Waltraud Meier, Adrianne Pieczonka, Eric Owens, stantially to the music of Ginastera, the para- harem. The talented ensemble cast includes Albina and, in the title role, the prëeminent dramatic so- mount composer of twentieth-century Argen- Shagimuratova, Kathleen Kim, Paul Appleby, and prano Nina Stemme. (April 23 and April 26 at 8.) tina. Only at Trinity Church could Julian Wachner Hans-Peter König. (April 22 at 7:30.) • Also playing: (Metropolitan Opera House. 212-362-6000.) (with his Trinity Choir and NOVUS NY) bring of There’s hardly a trace of Venetian imagery in Bart- a concert that pairs Ginastera’s unabashedly sec- lett Sher’s abstract, pseudo-nineteenth-century pro- 1 ular “Cantata Bomarzo” (a study for his opera of duction of Verdi’s “Otello,” which opened the season ORCHESTRAS AND CHORUSES the same name) with Fauré’s Requiem, one of the in September; neither is there any of the traditional most serene expressions of Christian continuity. blackface makeup that the leading man wore at the New York Philharmonic With the baritone Christopher Herbert. (Broad- Met until Sher and Peter Gelb understandably ban- Are the Mahler symphonies competing with way at Wall St. April 21 at 1. No tickets required.) ished it. The singing of Aleksandrs Antonenko, in the Bach Passions as musical monuments for the punishing title role, is blunt but convincing, and a secular springtime? It’s tempting to think 1 Željko Lučić is a subtly menacing Iago; new for the so in New York, one of the titanic composer- RECITALS spring are the soprano Hibla Gerzmava and the con- conductor’s home cities. The month’s second of- ductor Adam Fischer. (April 20 at 7:30 and April 23 fering of “Das Lied von der Erde” comes cour- Matthias Goerne at 1.) • Puccini’s “La Bohème,” perhaps the world’s tesy of Alan Gilbert, who has shown a gift for An intellectual singer with a large, responsive most popular opera, never disappears from the Met Mahler’s music in the past; the soloists are the voice, Goerne has assembled a recital program very schedule for long. Now it’s back, with a promising baritone Thomas Hampson and the tenor Ste- much attuned to his artistic proile, with works by young cast that features Maria Agresta and Bryan fan Vinke (in his Philharmonic début). As a Schumann as well as by Wolf and Eisler (includ- Hymel, and Ailyn Pérez and Levente Molnár, as substantial prelude, Gilbert conducts the glo- ing selections from the “Hollywood Songbook”), the two leading couples; Dan Ettinger conducts. riously compact Symphony No. 7 by the Austri- two composers who eschewed sentimentality and helped German art song evolve beyond its Ro- mantic roots. Alexander Schmalcz is at the piano. (Alice Tully Hall. 212-721-6500. April 20 at 7:30.)

St. Lawrence String Quartet Perhaps no other North American quartet plays the music of Haydn with more intelligence, expressiv- ity, and force than this Canadian ensemble. At the 92nd Street Y, it performs the String Quartet in D Major, Op. 71, No. 2, and the Salomon arrange- ment (with the lutist Tara Helen O’Connor and the pianist Pedja Muzijevic) of the Symphony No. 102 in B-Flat Major. Also featured are works by Janáček (the Quartet No. 1, “The Kreutzer Sonata”) and Jonathan Berger (a world première). (Lexing- ton Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415-5500. April 20 at 7:30.)

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: “The Romantic Viola” The elegant and unlappable soloist Paul Neubauer ofers a rich program with many ine collaborators (including the pianist Alessio Bax and the violin- ist Ida Kavaian, among others), performing the world première of Joan Tower’s “Purple Rush” as well as music by Schumann, Gordon Jacob, Brahms (the rhapsodic Two Songs, Op. 91, with the mezzo- soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano), and Turina. (Alice Tully Hall. 212-875-5788. April 24 at 5.)

New York Festival of Song: “Compositora” For the inal mainstage concert of the season, the soprano María Valdés and the baritone Efraín Solís celebrate the enduring tradition of female composers in Latin America—in the classical realm and beyond—with a program of boleros, waltzes, and popular tunes. The festival’s found- ers, the pianists Steven Blier and Michael Bar- Miller Theatre’s “Composer Portrait” series continues its focus on women composers with an rett, along with a quartet of guitarists and percus- evening devoted to music by Francesca Verunelli (April 21), a young star of the Parisian sionists, provide accompaniment. (Merkin Concert

modernist scene. David Fulmer conducts the superb International Contemporary Ensemble. Hall, 129 W. 67th St. 212-501-3330. April 26 at 8.) FISKER RUNE BY ILLUSTRATION

12 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

1 ROCK AND POP

Musicians and night-club proprietors lead NIGHT LIFE complicated lives; it’s advisable to check in advance to conrm engagements.

Cam’ron A veteran of Harlem who caught the tail end of New York’s rap dominance (under the guidance of Jay Z’s label), and who retained a singular style throughout, Cam’ron leads a boisterous cult of fans in his native city and beyond. His sound has evolved across albums, peaking with the Seussian quips that he rat- tled of throughout his 2004 release, “Purple Haze,” still critically celebrated as a bench- mark record. He’s recently announced a se- quel, and claims that the album will be his last; he kicks of what fans hope won’t be a inal summer tour with this Manhattan performance. (B. B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 W. 42nd St. 212-997-4144. April 20.)

Father Just to the left of the raucous, battering rap that Atlanta exports in droves sits a bubbling sound that’s leaner, nimbler, and a shade more Wonderful and Strange darkly sexual, but also kind of cute.” surreal. Central to this ofshoot style is Father, This month, Stewart and the the dreadlocked rapper, producer, and direc- Xiu Xiu reinterprets Angelo Badalamenti’s group released “Xiu Xiu Plays the tor, who kicked in the door in 2014 with a rag- classic score for “Twin Peaks.” tag group of friends under the Awful Records Music of Twin Peaks” (Polyvinyl umbrella. They quickly gained attention from With the complEte two-season run Records), and they are currently on Odd Future and Drake for whip-smart con- of “Twin Peaks” now streaming on tour playing Angelo Badalamenti’s cepts and scrappy, minimalist beats that recall archaic drum machines tapping out Miami bass Netflix, and a series reboot slated for award-winning score as a trio, with lines—it would play well at a strip club in the 2017, legions of young people are a stop at the Kitchen on April 30. seedy part of Hell. Father’s latest self-released binge-watching David Lynch’s clas- For the album, Xiu Xiu radically album, “I’m a Piece of Shit,” stays true to form- lessness, with a leering lead single, “Why Don’t sic psychosexual murder soap for reinterpreted the dreamy, low- impact U,” that’ll get kids on their feet at this early stop the first time. When the thirty-eight- original recordings, incorporating on a nationwide tour. (Highline Ballroom, 431 year-old singer Jamie Stewart, the overdriven guitars, piano, synthesizer, W. 16th St. 212-414-5994. April 24.) prime mover behind the longstanding vibraphone, and auxiliary percussion. Kenny Glasgow experimental rock group Xiu Xiu, first “When we started to do the arrange- The new Chelsea mega-club Flash Factory has watched “Twin Peaks” in college, on ments, we quickly came to understand taken on the noble cause of digging dance music out from Bushwick’s dives. Opened in January VHS tape, he became unhealthily that we’d go against the spirit of the by the night-life mavens Michael Satsky and obsessed. “When I reached the last show if we played it straight,” Stew- Brian Gefter, the venue has staked out a spot episode, I was so sad and excited,” art said. “We took the harmonic in the crowded market with big-name, diverse programming. The house producer and d.j. he recalled recently, seated beneath structures, melodies, and words, and Glasgow got his start as a promoter in Toronto, a domed ceiling in his sunny duplex, added elements that the show origi- and was soon juggling hard-edged club sounds in Los Angeles. “But, when I put nally inspired us to do and made them and euphoric dance music in warehouse parties across the city. With Johnny White, he formed the final tape in the player, it ate it darker, more intense, more distorted, the group Art Department, releasing a vast run before I could watch.” In a panic, he and louder.” of singles and EPs over six years, on which the ripped the top of his VCR, tore out An obvious highlight of the live duo tried out diferent styles and spun mara- thon sets of deep house. Last year, Glasgow the tape, glued it back together, and performance is the show’s main announced that he was lying solo once again; ran out to buy a new player. “When theme, “Falling.” For many fans, the he takes on the Factory’s stained-glass caverns I finally watched it, I was deeply song’s opening chords provoke a in this rare live set. (229 W. 28th St. 212-929- 9070. April 22.) moved and satisfied,” he said. “I stomach-churning emotional re- have no regrets for destroying my sponse, even when played on tinny Ryan Leslie VCR.” computer speakers. Stewart capital- Leslie earned a degree from Harvard when he was nineteen, but after graduating the pop That was in the early aughts, just izes on this efect, distorting his elec- songwriter and producer realized that his tal- before Stewart formed Xiu Xiu, and tric guitar as the song crescendos, and ents were better suited for the stage. His ad- the group’s foundational period was belting out the vocal line with dis- venturous ear for melodies and sounds that were largely foreign to the pop landscape irst acutely informed by the show’s sen- arming histrionics. As he said, “It came to prominence through his collaborations sibility. “We wanted our band to be sounds great coming out of the TV, with the R. & B. singer Cassie, and soon he like ‘Twin Peaks,’ ” he said. “It’s very but when it’s unbelievably loud it’s was ielding calls for work from Beyoncé and enjoying mentorship from the legendary ex- romantic, but also terrifying. It’s in- just stunning.” ecutive Tommy Mottola. His self-titled début is a cult favorite among R. & B. fans, and he’s credibly funny, but metaphysical. It’s —Benjamin Shapiro BENDIK KALTENBORN BY ILLUSTRATION

14 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

NIGHT LIFE continued to innovate in and out of the stu- outit formed as a trio after the musicians met dio: his latest venture, SuperPhone, allows in the bustling live-music scene of their home artists to engage with their fans via text mes- town. In 2008, they released their début album, sage. (Highline Ballroom, 431 W. 16th St. 212- “Explosion,” and the entrancing balance be- ART 414-5994. April 22.) tween loose and tight that they displayed on such songs as “Shake Shake Shake” suggested 1 Poliça maturity for an unsigned group that’d only been MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES The brainchild of the Minnesota producer Ryan together for two years. Since then, they’ve con- Olson, Poliça is distinguished from dozens of sistently been one of the best bands playing, contemporaries by the sore, emotive vocals tackling a range of styles with the same lax grip: Met Breuer of Channy Leaneagh. The band was early to the loopy psychedelia of 2011’s “Drug” and the “Uninished: Thoughts Left Visible” the party; on their 2012 début, “Give You the big-city funk of their latest cut, “Ha Ha Ha Ha Most critical responses to this inaugural show Ghost,” they leaned heavily on the rhythms and (Yeah),” couldn’t sound further apart, which at the Metropolitan Museum’s annex for mod- vocal textures of R. & B. in art-rock experi- is probably just how they like it. The multi- ern and contemporary art (in the former home ments. They’re emblematic of the boundless instrumentalist groover Sam Cohen will open. of the Whitney) have quibbled with its theme, music that comes from the Midwest, at once (Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. 212-260-4700. which tracks changing notions of “inished” insulated from and insatiable for the more pro- April 25-26.) through almost seven centuries of Western nounced aesthetics of the East and West Coasts: art, from Jan van Eyck to Elizabeth Peyton. as if to proudly boast their lack of regard for 1 Its critics ind it a gauzy sort of curatorial idea, boundaries, the video for “Wedding” weaves to- JAZZ AND STANDARDS which it is, but with one overriding, tremen- gether dash-cam footage and scenes of Henson- dous virtue: it calls attention to visual facts. esque puppets warning children about police Andy Bey This is a great show. Mining the Met’s own brutality, its score a haunting, twitchy anthem Taking his time and then some, the celebrated matchless collection and applying its mus- for insurrection that Leaneagh performs with vocalist and pianist Bey bathes a room in an air cle to extract major loans, the show convenes grace. (Warsaw, 261 Driggs Ave., Brooklyn. war- of hard-won romanticism. A solo performance works of genius and items of charm and sur- sawconcerts.com. April 23.) from this veteran rhapsodist is an exercise in prise. Aside from pieces obviously abandoned acute intimacy. (Mezzrow, 163 W. 10th St. mezz- by artists while still in progress, the exhibits Prince Rama row.com. April 22-23.) pique interest with variant senses of what con- This two-piece “now age” art band was stitutes a stopping point. But you could also founded by the sisters Taraka and Nimai Lar- Jeremy Pelt ignore the theme and just look. The show is son, who were raised in a Hare Krishna com- A hard-swinging adherent of neo-hard bop, the a non-stop sequence of arousals and exhilara- mune in Florida, and who play music that trumpeter Pelt couldn’t ask for a more authentic tions. (No need for examples. Almost every- makes their origin story seem tame. Follow- rhythm section than this triumvirate of vigor- thing on view is exemplary.) The blowsy mis- ing the high concepts of their previous releases ous icons: the pianist George Cables, the bassist cellany of the works in “Uninished” is exactly (imaginary Top 10 pop compilations, whimsi- Buster Williams, and the drummer Louis Hayes. the right tenor for the Met Breuer. Let the big cal musical theatre), “Xtreme Now” is touted (Smoke, 2751 Broadway, between 105th and 106th house on Fifth Avenue mount, as it does with by Prince Rama and Carpark Records as the Sts. 212-864-6662. April 22-24.) wonderful consistency, rigorous historical and world’s irst extreme-sports genre album. The monographic shows. This one fulills a yen to sisters imagine a carbonated future where Chita Rivera experience, one at a time, works whose cyno- daredevil stunts are championed as the peak Experiencing the charisma, stagecraft, and un- sure is their uniqueness, with no big rationale of human performance and valued like time- deniable glamour of a theatrical legend in a cozy for hanging together beyond being individu- less works of art. The tunes are just as col- night spot like this is not soon to be forgotten. ally very, very good. Through Sept. 4. orfully lofty: “Bahia” is high-fructose kitsch Rivera, a venerable Broadway potentate, will un- pop that could’ve been the score for your fa- doubtedly take full possession of this hallowed Museum of Modern Art vorite Saturday-morning cartoon. (Rough cabaret. (Café Carlyle, Carlyle Hotel, Madison Ave. “Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty” Trade, 64 N. 9th St., Brooklyn. roughtradenyc. at 76th St. 212-744-1600. April 19-30.) This wonderful but oddly inicky show—the com. April 20.) museum’s irst devoted to Degas—makes a Ned Rothenberg big deal of an uncommon printmaking me- The Residents A long admired saxophonist and clarinettist of dium: monotype. The unfamiliarity of most of This legendary San Francisco band is an originality and daring, Rothenberg is joined the works—some hundred and twenty mono- enigma—for years, its members’ identities by similarly adventurous friends at this well- types, from museums and collections world- have been shrouded in mystery, their heads deserved residency, among them the guitarists wide, augmented with more conventional pic- covered by giant eyeball masks adorned with Nels Cline, David Tronzo, and Marc Ribot, and tures—makes the show special, in both the good top hats. The veil has been lifted somewhat the pianists Uri Caine and Sylvie Courvoisier. and the pejorative senses. Magnifying glasses with the release of a documentary, “The The- (The Stone, Avenue C at 2nd St. thestonenyc.com. are provided to let us feel like hot-shot connois- ory of Obscurity,” which features extensive in- April 19-24.) seurs, bending in to delectate in the nuances. terviews with representatives from the Cryptic The occasion might rankle without its payof Corporation, the group’s public persona, who SFJAZZ Collective of a inal room of irst-rate paintings, pastels, some suspect are the actual Residents. They There’s so much star power in this ambitious and drawings: Degas hitting on all cylinders. detail the vast terrain—the history of Ameri- octet, including the saxophonists Miguel Zenon On its own limited terms, the show yields use- can music, Eskimo culture, the Bible—that the and David Sanchez, that it could supply tin- ful insight into the artist’s modernizing tran- group has explored in performance-art-tinged gle to practically any given repertoire. Still, sition from careful to spontaneous style, start- shows since moving to California from Shreve- a spotlight on the work of Michael Jackson is ing in the eighteen-seventies. It underlines the port, Louisiana, in the early nineteen-seven- especially intriguing; songs from the King of truth that his genius was essentially graphic, on ties. The group’s latest ofering is the inal Pop will be ofset by shrewd group originals. a historical arc of linear sorcery from Ingres to part of a trilogy called “Randy, Chuck & Bob,” (Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St. 212-576-2232. Picasso. Through July 24. which traces the human life cycle in reverse. April 19-21.) This installment, a powerful, haunting collec- Museum of Arts and Design tion called “Shadowland,” focusses on birth, re- Paul Shapiro’s Ribs & Brisket Revue “Studio Job: Mad House” birth, and reincarnation. (Gramercy Theatre, 127 The boundary between classic rhythm and blues Kitsch reaches new heights in the work of this E. 23rd St. 212-614-6932. April 26.) and jazz was once porous territory, and this joy- Belgian-Dutch design oice with a weakness for ful ensemble, led by the exuberant saxophon- twenty-four-karat gold leaf. An upside-down White Denim ist Shapiro, is always willing to do the time model of the Taj Mahal supplies the base for This gooball band from Austin bangs out warp to revive that openhearted embrace of a gilded cofee table; a twelve-foot model of sweaty, protean rock; the lead singer, James genres, even mixing in Jewish musical themes Dubai’s Burj Khalifa (the world’s tallest build- Petralli, sounds a bit disarmingly like Stevie as well. (Iridium, 1650 Broadway, at 51st St. 212- ing, whose tenants know a thing or two about Wonder covering the Allman Brothers. The 582-2121. April 21.) conspicuous consumption) is under attack by a

16 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

ART

Swarovski-crystal-studded King Kong. Is this plane seeking a runway. He is famous, sure, piece “Hiatus,” from 1999, Beckman presents a critique—are the objects pawns in a high- for the layed, undulating igure of existen- the early World Wide Web as a gendered ield end game of épater la bourgeoisie? A lamp whose tial panic in “The Scream” (1893) and for a of capitalist competition: a cyber-heroine base is a golden banana peel suggests a know- few other images, touching on love and death, battles shock-haired scarecrows and buzzing ing wink. But the argument weakens in the from the irst, rock-star-like decade of his ca- electrical towers, only to be foiled by a Texas presence of “Big Ben Aftermath,” in which reer. But the subsequent, proliic glories of oilman with skin the color of Vishnu. Beck- a model of the British landmark is held aloft the Norwegian painter, who lived until 1944, man’s proto-digital feminism has a retro ap- on a pillar of ruins and topped by an explod- are little recognized. This exciting show set- peal, but the bitter irony of her art is how lit- ing double-decker bus—a tasteless joke that tles his one textbook claim to historical con- tle the political climate has changed. Through seems based on the London terror attacks of sequence: he is the father of Expressionism, April 23. (Boone, 745 Fifth Ave., at 57th St. 212- 2005. Through Aug. 21. the most important modern movement in 752-2929.) German and, to some extent, Austrian art. Frick Collection Powerful Expressionist works in the show, David Hammons “Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture” such as Ludwig Kirchner’s sensational touch- This concise retrospective—a sampler, really—is This outstanding but unfussy showcase is the stone, “Street, Dresden” (1908), perform like a big deal, as Hammons shows generally are. Now irst proper American outing in twenty years for an honor guard for forty-seven Munchs, in- seventy-two, the artist has, by choice, exhibited the smoothest operator of the Flemish and En- cluding the artist’s 1895 pastel copy of “The rarely during the ive decades of his now-you- glish Baroque. In his teens, Van Dyck was already Scream.” (This picture was briely the cost- see-him, mostly-you-don’t career. Comedy and emulating the grand style—and the diplomacy— liest art work ever sold at auction, when it spleen seesaw in his art. “In the Hood” (1993) of his hero, Peter Paul Rubens. By 1623, when fetched nearly a hundred and twenty mil- is in fact the hood of a black hoodie, hanging he was twenty-four, his full-length portrait of a lion dollars, in 2012.) The Expressionist agape, high up on a white wall of the gallery. It’s Roman cardinal, a crimson paroxysm interrupted whom Munch liked most was Emil Nolde, an- rivetingly clever, but may strike some as men- by a white apron of lowery lace, cemented his other thornily independent spirit, who is rep- acing. “Traveling” (2002), a beautifully atmo- reputation as the go-to portraitist for Europe’s resented in the show by a large lithograph, spheric grisaille, nearly ten feet tall, was made élite. This hundred-work exhibition, which in- “Young Danish Woman” (1913), and three hand- by repeatedly bouncing a basketball soiled with cludes a number of major loans, is concerned colored repetitions of it: works of fantastic in- “Harlem earth” onto paper. The themes of other with both artistic method (the subjects of draw- tensity, with distorted features and dissonant works stray from race to class. Purple paint is ings reappear in small grisaille paintings, made colors, that dare unusual ugliness to take un- slathered across the back of a gorgeous fox-fur to assist engravers) and the mechanics of fame, usual beauty by surprise. But even Nolde— coat, while two apparently lovely abstractions accrued via etchings of blue bloods, statesmen, who, incidentally, fell prey to Nazi sympathies, painted by Hammons are largely concealed by and fellow-artists, which were available across as Munch did not—tends toward generality in tattered plastic fabrics, reminiscent of home- Europe. (Printmaking was a newish medium.) what he expresses. Munch speciies. His exam- less encampments. The show has an exquisite In one extraordinary double portrait of Charles ple to other artists is simple, really: be a highly soundtrack of traditional Japanese court music, I and his demure queen, the king’s striped-silk gifted but, especially, a particular person, and played on koto and bamboo lute. (Hammons is doublet gleams despite the half-light, then recurs go for broke. Through June 13. enamored of Japan and travels there often.) In in a snappy etching. Van Dyck wanted more than 2002, he fashioned a faux Zen garden on a latbed prestige: he craved clout, and he got it, with a 1 truck and drove it around Yamaguchi. “A Mov- knighthood to boot. Compare an early self-portrait GALLERIES—UPTOWN able Object / A Japanese Garden” (2012) rings here (previously attributed to Rubens) of a ner- a change on that idea with ragged chunks of as- vous, teen-age Van Dyck, with ruddy cheeks and Ericka Beckman phalt heaped on a swatch of lovely blue fabric, his hat slung low, with the lavish one made sev- The American artist’s videos of high-stakes and mounted on a wheeled platform. Beautifying eral years later: swaddled in velvet, twirling his virtual-reality games of skill and chance— asphalt would seem to be no cinch, but the naked ingers, born to rule. Through June 5. imagine “Tron” crossed with “The $25,000 quiddity of the stuf, after a third or fourth look, Pyramid”—were underappreciated when they turns cherishable. It’s typical of works by Ham- Neue Galerie irst appeared, in the late seventies and eight- mons to repel at irst glance and weave a spell on “Munch and Expressionism” ies. Now they’re getting their due. (In recent successive viewings. Through May 27. (Mnuchin, For more than a century, Munch’s reputation years, Beckman’s work has been on view at the 45 E. 78th St. 212-861-0020.) has circled the canon of modern art like a big Met and the Whitney.) In her two-channel Hedda Sterne In 1951, Life magazine famously photographed if- teen Ab-Ex painters and dubbed them “The Iras- cibles.” Only one was a woman, the Romanian- born Sterne. (The artist, who died in 2011 in her centennial year, later said, “In terms of career, it’s probably the worst thing that ever happened to me.”) Among the works here, all of which predate the photograph, are scumbled monotypes of com- plex industrial contrivances, which recall the in- luence of Sterne’s teacher, Fernand Léger, and of her fellow-Romanian Victor Brauner. Better still are the paintings: segmented arrangements of gears and grinders amid soft beige and peri- winkle, which marry the free-for-all of Ameri- can abstraction to a more European surreal ma- chinery. Through May 7. (Van Doren Waxter, 23 E.1 73rd St. 212-445-0444.) GALLERIES—CHELSEA Thomas Ruff The German artist’s latest very big pictures are based on found black-and-white press images about light and space exploration. Ruf represents the photographs as he found them, with signs of An exhibition of photographs by Jean Pigozzi, taken at his Villa Dorane, at Cap d’Antibes, includes damage and use. He also includes whatever marks

“Mick Jagger, Dennis Hopper, and Julian Schnabel” (1990), at the Gagosian gallery through May 28. the backs of the original photographs—captions, GALLERY GAGOSIAN © JEAN PIGOZZI/COURTESY

18 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

ART stamps, signatures—accrued through the edito- a portrait of childhood with a critique of the sitely rendered image of a neoclassical nude rial process. These two layers of information are complications of parenting and a relection on appears to have been broken and repaired with combined, so that the images are both transpar- his own youth. He uses corroded ilm stock, and upraised veins of gold. You may think of the ent and veiled by information; outer space is re- his images can seem salvaged from the trash Japanese art of kintsugi, or of Hippocrates: ars vealed to be as much a media construct as it is a heap of memory. The identity of the boy, who longa, vita brevis. Through April 24. (Lewis, 88 natural spectacle. Through April 30. (Zwirner, 533 is often seen swimming, is almost always ob- Eldridge St. 212-966-7990.) W. 19th St. 212-727-2070.) scured—his face covered by stars, dots, graiti, and scratches. In one image, the child’s mouth “Fade In: Int. Art Gallery—Day” Malick Sidibe is covered by an “X” of white tape. Through- The nearly two dozen artists in this frequently This compact survey reveals the great Malian out, Cracknell’s gaze is loving, yet frustrated. hilarious show are not interested in cinema as photographer’s range as both a portraitist and Through April 30. (Sous les Etoiles, 560 Broadway, an artistic medium; they’re interested in art as a documentarian, in pictures dating back to the at Prince St. 212-966-0796.) a cinematic prop, and in how the long-dead idea nineteen-sixties. Many of the images were shot of artistic genius endures on Hollywood sound- in a studio, where the wall-to-wall stripes and Greg Parma Smith stages. Bertrand Lavier, an unlikely fan of “The checkerboard décor throws sitters into high re- What’s the opposite of zombie formalism? One Princess Diaries,” created a splatter painting lief. Posed portraits alternate with scenes of a answer might be the soulful, if overwrought, re- in the manner of one of the characters. Cindy crowded classroom and of young apprentices alism of Greg Parma Smith. No one could ac- Sherman procured the actual painting that huddled around a mechanic, slices of life that cuse the young New York artist of phoning it appeared in the 1945 ilm adaptation of “The are engaging but surpassed by Sidibe’s photo- in: the centerpiece of his new show is a deeply Picture of Dorian Gray,” which hangs here graphs of lithe teen-agers dancing, studies in élan researched, painstakingly detailed twenty-ive- alongside a veiled doppelgänger. The hum- and casual chic. Through April 23. (Shainman, 513 foot-long opus, which he has described as noth- dinger, unsurprisingly, is Christian Marclay’s W. 20th St. 212-645-1701.) ing less than “an allegory of being.” It’s a scene, super-cut of movie scenes featuring art being in six parts, of the calm before the storm at the destroyed (look for Clive Owen in a shootout 1 end of the world (a quartet of pelicans plays at the Guggenheim). Don’t leave without de- GALLERIES—DOWNTOWN the role of the four horsemen of the apoca- scending into the basement, where Amie Sie- lypse, for reasons that remain obscure). The gel is screening “9½ Weeks,” starring Kim Robin Cracknell painting style shifts from academic iguration Basinger as an adventurous SoHo gallerina. Taking his young son as a muse, the London- to wild-style graiti; references ricochet be- Through May 19. (Swiss Institute, 18 Wooster St. based photographer and single father combines tween East and West. In one panel, an exqui- 212-925-2035.)

DANCE

New York City Ballet trust, especially as audience members are roped Jen Rosenblit The spring season opens with Balanchine’s into the action. (Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand In Rosenblit’s work, people often seem to come “Jewels,” a three-part work that explores the St. 212-352-3101. April 20-23.) together while remaining apart. The various odd sound worlds of Gabriel Fauré (dreamy and activities they get up to maintain a similar re- mysterious), Igor Stravinsky (jazzy and high- Ballet Preljocaj / lationship, digressive in sequence yet somehow spirited), and Tchaikovsky (emotive and “Empty Moves (Parts I, II, & III)” linked. “Clap Hands” features the intent chore- grand). It is the ultimate proof that you don’t Angelin Preljocaj’s triptych has been a decade ographer, the dancer Eie Bowen, the musician need a narrative to create stories in dance. in the making—the irst section came to the Admanda Kobilka, and a stack of fuchsia-colored (Look for Tiler Peck in “Emeralds,” Teresa Joyce in 2006 and the second travelled to BAM felt. (Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen St., Brook- Reichlen in “Rubies,” and Sara Mearns in “Dia- in 2010. Preljocaj, a mainstay of the European lyn. 347-560-3641. April 20-24. Through April 28.) monds.”) The week also includes Justin Peck’s contemporary-dance scene, used as his base a re- sprawling “Everywhere We Go,” with impres- cording of a 1977 performance by John Cage, in Ben Munisteri sive cutout designs by Karl Jensen, and the which the happy provocateur so thoroughly de- A skilled pattern-maker, Munisteri has been less eccentric story ballet he created last season, constructed texts by Thoreau that the words dis- than proliic in recent years. His new “Antimony “The Most Incredible Thing.” Alexei Ratman- solved into an incomprehensible drawl. The ex- (51)” takes its title from a silvery chemical ele- sky’s marvellous “Pictures at an Exhibition,” asperated crowd protested vehemently, and the ment whose Latin meaning, “against aloneness,” set to the original piano version of Mussorg- sound of the near-riot is the musical accompa- is apt: this choreographer excels with groups. Set sky’s eponymous suite, returns as part of a niment for the dance. Independent of the aural to recordings by the cellist and vocalist Jody Red- twenty-irst-century bill. • April 19 at 7:30 and mayhem, Preljocaj’s four dancers move with med- hage, the dance rifs on ideas of coupling, chem- April 23 at 8: “Jewels.” • April 20 at 7:30 and itative calm, as if solving a never-ending series of istry, and craft. (BAM Fisher, 321 Ashland Pl., April 24 at 3: “Estancia,” “Pictures at an Exhi- physical puzzles. (Joyce Theatre, 175 Eighth Ave., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. April 21-23.) bition,” and “Everywhere We Go.” • April 21 at at 19th St. 212-242-0800. April 20-24.) 7:30: “Barber Violin Concerto,” “N.Y. Export: “Dancing the Gods” Opus Jazz,” and “The Most Incredible Thing.” • Monica Bill Barnes / “Happy Hour” Each performance at this festival of Indian dance April 22 at 8, April 23 at 2, and April 26 at The happy-go-lucky dancer-choreographer is preceded by an informative talk by the lively 7:30: “Bournonville Divertissements,” “Moves,” Monica Bill Barnes and her partner in crime, dancer Rajika Puri. This year, the festival opens “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” and “Symphony in Anna Bass, are latter-day vaudevillians. (They with a traditional bharata-natyam solo evening Three Movements.” (David H. Koch, Lincoln have also been touring with Ira Glass, comple- by Mythili Prakash, on April 23, followed by a Center. 212-496-0600. Through May 29.) menting his stories with energetic routines.) more interdisciplinary one-woman show by San- They dance, they joke around, they mug and jukta Wagh, on April 24. Wagh, trained in kathak Daniel Kok and Luke George do pratfalls. For the next six weeks on Wednes- dance and Hindustani musical performance, is In bondage lingo, a “bunny” is a person who days, they will host a mock after-work shin- interested in melding dance and theatre, a rela- gets tied up. It’s also the title of this two-hour dig. In a setting straight out of “The Oice,” tively new concept. Her “Rage and Beyond” is a performance, during which Kok, silent, and Barnes and Bass transform themselves into reinterpretation of the Mahabharata, speciically George, afably vocal, tie each other and various guys with ties, working the crowd with char- the story of Gandhari, an incarnation of the god- objects into complicated knots. There’s some acteristic exuberance. Robbie Saenz de Viteri dess of intelligence who wears a blindfold out of vogueing, but the main dance is a metaphori- plays host. (280 Broadway. 646-837-6809. April devotion to her blind husband. (Symphony Space, cal one that addresses desire and questions of 20. Through May 25.) Broadway at 95th St. 212-864-5400. April 23-24.)

20 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

THE THEATRE

Long Journey gland, in the current revival of Eugene tragic, in a way. This family has the O’Neill’s poignant “Long Day’s Jour- possibility of being great, and it’s just Jessica Lange talks about her favorite ney Into Night.” The last time she eroded under the recriminations, the role, in Eugene O’Neill’s masterpiece. played the role was in London, in forgiveness, and the blame—and the In 1962, Lillian and Helen Ross pub- 2000. (The Roundabout’s revival is in self-blame, and the guilt…. I think lished “The Player,” a wonderful collec- previews at the American Airlines Mary and James are still in love with tion of interviews with actors, ranging Theatre, and opens on April 27.) each other. I said to the director, ‘Let’s from Maureen Stapleton to Sidney She said, “This director’s wonder- make this a love story, you know?’ It Poitier, many of which originated in this ful, Jonathan Kent. He really keeps is. It’s many other things, too, but it magazine. As the performers discuss life moving it and moving it. So the work can’t not be that.” on and of the stage, it becomes clear that has been exhausting. But it’s also Talking about acting specifically, their monologues are attempts to reveal thrilling. It’s my favorite part. There’s Lange said, “I always remind myself what cannot be disclosed, not really: that no character that I can think of that when I start: Stay inside the words. which makes a human being want to has this kind of range. There is that That’s your map. And the rest of the become someone else while still in his or part of her that’s very plaintive, like stuf comes with it, in a way, the phys- her own body. any addict. I mean, how much oxygen ical, the emotional. Like yesterday, out “The Player” crossed my mind re- they suck up, everything is calibrated. of the blue, when I say ‘I wished I cently as I talked to a great one— And ‘Mother of God, why do I feel would have a daughter. And when she Jessica Lange. What I noticed, while so lonely?’ She lashes out, too, and got married she could never have sitting in lower Manhattan with the she’s absolutely vicious sometimes.” bought a lovelier gown’—when I said lauded sixty-six-year-old actress, her Lange talked about the relationship the word ‘daughter,’ I felt this emotion brown hair falling loosely around her between Mary and James, played here come up in me. It’s always there, these shoulders, was how carefully she lis- by Gabriel Byrne. When Mary met kind of trigger points that you never tened. Lange shared her thoughts James, he was a matinée idol, and know for sure how and when it’s going about acting and about playing Mary Lange describes the relationship as to hit you. But also, at this point in my Tyrone, a lapsed morphine addict mar- “explosive … sensual, sexual … I life, there’s so much more loss that I ried to a devoted ham actor with two wanted really very much to feel that just knew that, if I came back to Mary, sons battling their own addictions in still, to make that palpable.” She went there would be much more resonance.”

early-twentieth-century New En- on, “That makes their addictions more —Hilton Als HANUKA TOMER BY ILLUSTRATION

22 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

1 THE THEATRE OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS Tuck Everlasting seems clever at irst, but becomes excessively ag- Casey Nicholaw directs a musical adaptation of gressive by the end.) These tricks can’t compensate American Psycho Natalie Babbitt’s 1975 children’s novel, about a for the latness of much of the script or the unmem- Benjamin Walker plays the murderous inan- family that accesses eternal life from a magi- orable performances by those other than Langella. cier Patrick Bateman, in Duncan Sheik and Ro- cal spring. The cast includes Carolee Carmello, Still, seeing him, the walking deinition of magis- berto Aguirre-Sacasa’s musical adaptation of the Andrew Keenan-Bolger, and Terrence Mann. terial, reduced to a state of childish terror is the Bret Easton Ellis novel. Rupert Goold directs. (Broadhurst, 235 W. 44th St. 212-239-6200. In pre- play’s one efect that is devastating and indelible. (Schoenfeld, 236 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200. In pre- views. Opens April 26.) (Samuel J. Friedman, 261 W. 47th St. 212-239-6200.) views. Opens April 21.) Waitress I Will Look Forward to this Later Cirque du Soleil—Paramour Jessie Mueller stars in a new musical based on Nothing is older or more familiar—and therefore, The Canadian circus company mounts its new- the 2007 ilm, about a small-town waitress who in some ways, harder to pull of—than a ghost est acrobatic spectacle, which tells the story of enters a baking contest, with music and lyrics by story. In Kate Benson and Emily Louise Perkins’s a starlet choosing between love and art during Sara Bareilles. Diane Paulus directs. (Brooks At- play, staged by the collaborative company the As- Hollywood’s golden age. (Lyric, 213 W. 42nd St. kinson, 256 W. 47th St. 877-250-2929. In previews. sembly and directed by Jess Chayes, a great Ameri- 877-250-2929. In previews.) Opens April 24.) can novelist has died, and his family, biological and romantic, labors under his all-too-present shadow. Daphne’s Dive 1 The play often trades the shifting, sometimes quiet Thomas Kail directs a play by Quiara Alegría NOW PLAYING particularities of real grief for archetypical dross, Hudes, featuring Vanessa Aspillaga and Daphne and so, of course, the writer was a bastard, his sons Rubin-Vega, about the owner of a cheap bar in The Crucible are chased into inadvisable post-funereal behav- North Philly and her adopted daughter. (Persh- In his second Arthur Miller reinvention this sea- iors, his widow gropes at post-marital meaning, ing Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212- son, the Flemish director Ivo van Hove (“A View and a not-so-secret lover loats helplessly in the 244-7529. Previews begin April 26.) from the Bridge”) strips the 1953 drama of its bon- wreck. Via a lyric physicality borrowed from Ka- nets and buckle shoes: the set, by Jan Versweyveld, buki, the departed himself makes several startling Dear Evan Hansen is a cavernous classroom, with a vast chalkboard on appearances. The result is a production—while Michael Greif directs a new musical by Benj which drawings of trees become animated. Here, often charmingly comic—too impressed with its Pasek, Justin Paul, and Steven Levenson, in the young women of Salem, dressed like Catho- mode of presentation to have developed charac- which a lonely teen-ager (Ben Platt) becomes the lic schoolgirls, cause havoc when they envelop the ters, or a story, worth remembering. (New Ohio, accidental subject of viral Internet fame. (Second town in accusations of witchcraft. (Music by Philip 154 Christopher St. 866-811-4111. Through April 23.) Stage, 305 W. 43rd St. 212-246-4422. In previews.) Glass sets the aguish mood.) Van Hove, immune to Miller’s moralizing, stages a slow-building hor- Nathan the Wise Fully Committed ror story, as ohand infractions lead to seismic The forthright, thoughtful, and immensely clever Jesse Tyler Ferguson plays nearly forty charac- cruelties. At the center of the strong ensemble F. Murray Abraham plays the title character in ters at a trendy New York restaurant, in this one- cast—including Saoirse Ronan, Tavi Gevinson, this play from 1779, by the German critic and man comedy by Becky Mode, directed by Jason and Ciarán Hinds—are Ben Whishaw and Sophie philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a lead- Moore. (Lyceum, 149 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200. Okonedo, giving powerful performances as John ing light of the European Enlightenment. In In previews. Opens April 25.) and Elizabeth Proctor, decent folks who fall prey Jerusalem in the eleven-nineties, just after the to a dangerous truth: the prerequisite to injustice Third Crusade, Nathan, a respected, success- A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing is fear. (Walter Kerr, 219 W. 48th St. 212-239-6200.) ful merchant, is called on to answer a fraught Aoife Duin performs this staging of Eimear riddle about the “true faith,” posed by the Sul- McBride’s 2013 novel, adapted and directed by Exit Strategy tan Saladin (Austin Durant, in a robust, sym- Annie Ryan, about an Irish girl’s struggle to At Tumbldn, a high school in an unsavory Chicago pathetic performance that provides a pleasing overcome her traumatic childhood. (Baryshnikov neighborhood, there are mice, gangs, holes, leaks, counterpoint to Abraham’s). The riddle’s unrav- Arts Center, 450 W. 37th St. 866-811-4111. Opens and shortages of nearly everything. The graduation elling, in the more successful second act, is ac- April 20.) rate is less than ifty per cent. “Even the paint’s companied by a lurry of revelations that amus- trying to run away from this place,” Pam (Deir- ingly link Nathan, his daughter, the Sultan, a The School for Scandal dre Madigan), a jaded veteran teacher, says. When heroic but troubled Knight Templar, and a num- Red Bull Theatre stages Richard Brinsley Sher- city oicials announce that the school will close, it ber of other characters. Brian Kulick’s produc- idan’s gossip-minded comedy of manners from hardly comes as a surprise. Yet, in Ike Holter’s top- tion is a little bit Shakespeare, a little bit Sche- 1777, directed by Marc Vietor and featuring Dana ical play, produced by Primary Stages and Philadel- herazade, and a little bit modern allegory, not Ivey and Mark Linn-Baker. (Lucille Lortel, 121 phia Theatre Company, a multicultural, multigen- laid on too thick. (Classic Stage Company, 136 Christopher St. 212-352-3101. In previews. Opens erational group of students and teachers unite to E. 13th St. 866-811-4111.) April 24.) save its crumbling ediice, with walkouts, hashtags, and Indiegogo campaigns. Under Kip Fagan’s di- 1 Shuffle Along rection, the syllabus progresses predictably (a ALSO NOTABLE Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and shocking opener excepted), and much of the dia- Billy Porter star in a musical about the making of logue is indulgently talky. But the themes are tren- Antlia Pneumatica Playwrights Horizons. a popular African-American stage show from the chant, and Holter has created ine, lively, carica- Through April 24. • Blackbird Belasco. • Bright nineteen-twenties. Directed by George C. Wolfe ture-skirting roles for the actors (Michael Cullen, Star Cort. • The Color Purple Jacobs. • Disaster! and choreographed by Savion Glover. (Music Christina Nieves, and Ryan Spahn among them), Nederlander. • Dry Powder Public. • Eclipsed Box, 239 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200. In previews.) who ace nearly every scene. (Cherry Lane, 38 Com- Golden. • The Effect Barrow Street The- merce St. 866-811-4111.) atre. • Fiddler on the Roof Broadway The- A Streetcar Named Desire atre. • Fun Home Circle in the Square. • Hamilton Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster play the tem- The Father Richard Rodgers. • Head of Passes Public. • The pestuous pair Blanche DuBois and Stanley Ko- Written by Florian Zeller and translated, from the Humans Helen Hayes. • Ironbound Rattlestick. walski, in Benedict Andrews’s production of French, by Christopher Hampton, Manhattan The- Through April 24. • King and Country: Shake- the Tennessee Williams drama. (St. Ann’s Ware- atre Club’s production, directed by Doug Hughes, speare’s Great Cycle of Kings BAM’s Harvey house, 45 Water St., Brooklyn. 718-254-8779. Pre- uses low-i tricks to put us in the mind of a man Theatre. • Long Day’s Journey Into Night Amer- views begin April 23.) named Andre—played by the congenitally com- ican Airlines Theatre. • Mike Birbiglia: Thank manding Frank Langella—sufering from demen- God for Jokes Lynn Redgrave. • Revolt. She Toast tia. Scenes recur, with slight changes; a few parts Said. Revolt Again. SoHo Rep. • The Robber As part of the “Brits Of Broadway” festival, are played by multiple actors; and the props that Bridegroom Laura Pels. • Romeo & Juliet Pub- Matthew Kelly stars in a comedy by Richard decorate Scott Pask’s set, a handsome Paris apart- lic. • The Royale Mitzi E. Newhouse. • School Bean (“One Man, Two Guvnors”), in which cri- ment, gradually disappear. White proscenium lights of Rock Winter Garden. • She Loves Me Stu- sis comes to a bread factory. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th lash brightly between scenes, uniting the audience dio 54. • Straight Acorn. • Stupid Fucking Bird St. 212-279-4200. In previews.) with Andre in his increasing disorientation. (This Pearl. • Wolf in the River Flea.

24 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

York club where his ego was delated by a lacerat- ing word from Miles Davis (Kedar Brown); after recovering from the grave injury to his mouth, MOVIES he attempts his comeback at the same venue. Despite Hawke’s intensely committed perfor- 1 mance, Budreau gets more from the story’s side- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice OPENING men, such as a record producer (Callum Keith It had to happen. Anything Marvel can do, DC Rennie), a probation oicer (Tony Nappo), and Comics can do better, or, at any rate, no worse. Baker’s father (Stephen McHattie). The movie Elvis & Nixon A dramatization of the meeting, That is the supposition behind the new Zack Sny- ofers a more insightful view of the music busi- in 1969, of the King (Michael Shannon) and the der ilm, which is every bit as tranquil and as un- ness than of Baker’s art.—R.B. (In limited release.) President (Kevin Spacey) in the Oval Oice. derstated as earlier Snyder ilms. (Think “300” Directed by Liza Johnson. Opening April 22. (In and “Sucker Punch.”) Whereas Iron Man and his The Boss limited release.) • A Hologram for the King Tom fellow-Avengers are gathered in amity, however, Early in this boisterous and sentimental comedy, Hanks stars in this drama, based on a novel the tone here is one of violent discord: Superman Michelle Darnell (Melissa McCarthy), a high- by Dave Eggers, as an American businessman (Henry Cavill), forever striving to locate his lost powered motivational speaker, thrills a packed arena who travels to Saudi Arabia to pursue a deal. personality, comes to blows with Batman (Ben Af- with her hectic and reckless exhortations to inancial Directed by Tom Tykwer; co-starring Sarita leck), who bufs and pumps himself for the occa- success. Ofstage, Michelle is solipsistically indifer- Choudhury and Ben Whishaw. Opening April sion. The cause of their tif is never entirely clear, ent to the needs of others; she’s feared but hated, and 22. (In limited release.) • The Meddler A drama, but it is heightened by Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisen- no one laments her downfall in an insider- trading starring Susan Sarandon as a New Jersey widow berg), whose hobbies include kryptonite theft and scandal. Upon her release from prison, with no- who moves to Los Angeles, where her daugh- building a homemade monster. The movie is two where else to go, she crashes on the couch of Claire ter (Rose Byrne) lives. Directed by Lorene Sca- and a half hours long, yet feels closer to ive. The (Kristen Bell), her former assistant. Babysitting for faria; co-starring J. K. Simmons. Opening April dialogue ights to be heard above the crunching Claire’s tween-age daughter, Rachel (Ella Ander- 22. (In limited release.) soundtrack and, more often than not, loses; let son), Michelle decides to turn Girl Scout-like cookie us be thankful for small mercies. The one bright sales into big business, and then helps Claire boost 1 spot is the arrival of Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), homemade brownies into a rapidly rising startup— NOW PLAYING who, having been shut out of the action until the though not without a heaping of self-interest. Mean- inal reel, seems in no mood to be messed with. On while, Michelle gets tangled in an unresolved re- Bamako paper, the supporting cast must have looked unbeat- lationship with a competitor and ex-lover, Ronald A courtroom drama with a diference. The tribu- able: Amy Adams, Holly Hunter, Diane Lane, Lau- a.k.a. Renault (Peter Dinklage), and the action veers nal in question, in a family courtyard in a poor rence Fishburne, and Jeremy Irons.—Anthony Lane of needlessly into action-caper territory. The movie neighborhood in the capital of Mali, has no legal (Reviewed in our issue of 4/4/16.) (In wide release.) is all too neat a package for McCarthy’s exuberantly power but plenty of moral authority: its unoicial inventive comic artistry. As directed by Ben Fal- judges are trying the World Bank and the I.M.F. Born to Be Blue cone (her husband), the actors are ilmed without for their role in Africa’s economic and social cri- This bio-pic about the jazz trumpeter and singer much attention to comic timing or framing; Mc- ses. Like all trials, this one opens the loodgates Chet Baker (Ethan Hawke) focusses on two piv- Carthy’s mighty talent needs sharper provocation. to rhetorical posturing, but the director, Abder- otal episodes in the musician’s career, both from With Kathy Bates, who delivers wild undertones rahmane Sissako, quickly gets past the bluster the mid-sixties. One, Baker’s performance as him- in grand understatements.—R.B. (In wide release.) with careful, canny framings and poignant vi- self in a dramatic movie about his own life, is ic- gnettes of daily life in and around the courtyard. tional; the other, a brutal beating that cost Baker Demolition With a light touch, a dry wit, and vast sympa- his front teeth and forced him to rebuild his tech- A merry tale of mourning. The opening minutes thy, he sketches the local ways of birth, death, nique from scratch, actually happened. As told by of Jean-Marc Vallée’s new ilm show the widow- health, work, art, law, and love—and suggests the writer and director Robert Budreau, Baker and ing of a smooth and steady banker named Davis their painfully frustrating dependence on bu- his co-star on the ilm shoot, an actress named Jane Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal). His wife, Julia (Heather reaucratic levers pulled half a world away. In (Carmen Ejogo), begin a relationship that helps Lind), is killed in a car crash; Davis, sitting beside French and Bambara.—Richard Brody (Anthol- Baker kick his longtime heroin habit. Meanwhile, her, is unharmed. Far from crumpling in his be- ogy Film Archives; April 20.) Baker is haunted by a 1954 performance at a New reavement, he becomes an aggressor—venting his dolor not against his fellow-men but against hard and wreckable objects, including his computer, his fridge, and the walls of his house. Gyllenhaal brings his usual hot-eyed intensity to the project, and you long for the movie to follow his lead, and to ind out what depths of destruction await. But Vallée and his screenwriter, Bryan Sipe, pull back from the brink, and what we get instead is a soft-edged saga of re- newal, leavened with comic rifs and closing with implausible good cheer. Still, there are points of in- terest along the way; a peculiar subplot, for exam- ple, brings Davis into contact with Karen (Naomi Watts), who works for a vending-machine company. What binds them is not love, and still less desire, but a conspiratorial friendship between two wounded souls—or three, to be precise, since Karen’s teen- age son (the lively Judah Lewis) is equally in need of emotional rescue. With Chris Cooper, as Julia’s grieving father.—A.L. (4/18/16) (In wide release.)

Down There In this cinematic irst-person essay, from 2006, about her visit to Israel, the Brussels-born and Paris-based director Chantal Akerman uses a lightweight video camera the way an artist uses a sketchpad to cap- ture visual thoughts on the wing. The results are Max Ophüls’s last work, “Lola Montès,” from 1955, was, at the time, the most expensive lm made exquisite and darkly philosophical. She starts out in Europe. A commercial and critical disaster, it was reëdited against his will. The 2008 restoration, recording her own literal standpoint—the view out

which includes most of the footage from the director’s original cut, screens on April 24 at Metrograph. the window of the apartment she’s sublet in Tel RESOURCE KOBAL/ART

26 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 MOVIES

Aviv, through the scrim of a bamboo shade, toward turned-cyborg (who’s also mute and has had his the neighbors in apartments across the way and in memory wiped clean), is about as blank as its pro- the street below. The metaphorical force of her ob- tagonist. His battles with dozens of of-the-rack scured vistas becomes clear as Akerman’s life imi- Russian henchmen are so heatedly delivered that tates her art: she sleeps through a suicide bombing there’s scarcely room for suspense, and because the committed at a beachfront café a short walk from movie lacks juicily sinister plotting it ofers lit- her lat. When she goes to that beach, the stun- tle, in the long run, to engage interest. It’s merely a ningly pictorial seascapes she composes, reminis- great show reel—for stuntmen. Co- starring Sharlto cent of paintings by Seurat and Courbet, suggest Copley.—Bruce Diones (In wide release.) the agonized state of permanent exile that she al- ludes to in her voice-over monologue: the troubled Hello, My Name Is Doris connection of Jewish identity to modern European Michael Showalter’s amiable new comedy features culture and their intertwined, seemingly perpetual a taut setup that packs howls of anguish in its con- crises.—R.B. (Anthology Film Archives; April 20-21.) trived simplicity. Doris Miller (Sally Field), a sev- entyish bookkeeper, is a ish out of water in her cubi- Everybody Wants Some!! cle at a hip young media company in Chelsea. She’s The new ilm from Richard Linklater is his irst unmarried and has no children, having lived her en- since “Boyhood,” in 2014, and one of his sprightli- tire life in a house in Staten Island with her mother, est. It is set at a Texas college on the threshold of who, at the start of the ilm, has just died. Doris— a new school year, with freshmen like Jake (Blake whimsical, hypersensitive, socially awkward—is Jenner) arriving, in mild trepidation, to begin the burdened by her sudden solitude when, in an ele- next installment of their lives. Classes start in a vator at work, she bumps into John Fremont (Max matter of days, and, until then, pleasure is un- Greenield), the handsome and charming twenty- leashed. Jake, who is on the baseball team, dwells in something new art director in her oice. She’s in- a house infested with his teammates: partygoers like stantly smitten, and takes unusual measures—aided Roper (Ryan Guzman), Dale (J. Quinton Johnson), by Vivian (Isabella Acres), the teen-age granddaugh- and the silver-tongued Finn (Glen Powell). Some ter of her best friend, Roz (Tyne Daly)—to insinu- are still callow boys, while others, like the hyper- ate herself into John’s life. Showalter, who co-wrote competitive McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin), already the ilm with Laura Terruso, keeps the tone senti- bristle like grown men. The year is 1980, and songs mentally comedic, blending touches of wit (Doris’s from the period litter the soundtrack, but Linkla- fantasies), whimsy (Doris’s excursion to a rock club ter’s happiest gift is to transform the action—you in Williamsburg), and drama (Doris’s relationship can barely call it a plot—into a dance to the music of with her brother). But within the perky antics is time. He makes room for each character to breathe, bewildered rage at the prospect of aging, solitude, so that no one should feel left out; and, just when and irrelevance; the best thing about the ilm is the movie seems in danger of slackening into a that it has no answers.—R.B. (In limited release.) free-for-all, he introduces Beverly (Zoey Deutch), a performing-arts major, who beguiles Jake and be- Imperial Dreams stows a measure of calm. The inale, like that of Malik Vitthal’s irst feature gives rich dramatic Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused,” partakes of an life to a piercingly analytical view of the Amer- exhausted bliss. With Wyatt Russell, as the in-house ican way of incarceration. John Boyega stars as hippie.—A.L. (4/11/16) (In wide release.) Bambi, a twenty-ish man from Watts who is re- leased from prison and returns home to a living Green Room nightmare. His young son, Daytone (played by Things go wrong for the Ain’t Rights as soon as the Ethan and Justin Coach), is in the care of Bambi’s Virginia-based indie-punk quartet reaches the Pa- Uncle Shrimp (Glenn Plummer), a minor drug- ciic Northwest town where they’ve been booked lord who demands that Bambi run drugs across for a concert. The student organizer has messed state lines for him and bear arms to back him up. up, but compensates by getting them a gig at a re- Meanwhile, Bambi—a ledgling writer who has been mote white-supremacist compound: What could go published in McSweeney’s, and who wants no part of wrong? The writer and director, Jeremy Saulnier, crime—seeks refuge with his half-brother, Wayne answers this question with an hour or so of bloody (Rotimi), who lives in a public-housing project that horror. Stumbling upon a murder scene, the band bans convicted felons. Bambi needs a job to stay members are held hostage by the brutal security out on probation; to get a job, he needs a driver’s forces of a neo-Nazi cult headed by the coolly char- license, which he’s banned from obtaining because ismatic Darcy (Patrick Stewart), who plans to pin of outstanding child-support payments that accrued the crime on the musicians. When they resist, his while he was in prison. In sequences of deadly vi- idea is to kill them, and the movie devolves into a olence and lyrical contemplation, Vitthal unfolds tale of the raw will, strategic calculation, and ma- the Kakaesque constraints that make a life of pov- cabre happenstance of a primal struggle to survive. erty a bureaucratic horror, complete with intrusive A viewer may well share the feeling of captivity, surveillance and a virtual revolving door between whether arising from an interest in the amiable band crime and prison.—R.B. (BAM Cinématek; April 22.) members’ fate or from the narrow limits of the plot. One screenplay rif, on the taking of good advice, is Johnny Guitar piquantly memorable, but Saulnier’s clever meth- Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden give two of ods are insubstantial and the movie’s stakes, though the strongest performances ever ilmed, as ex- mortal, seem slight. With Alia Shawkat, Imogen lovers reunited after a ive-year gap, in Nicho- Poots, and Callum Turner.—R.B. (In limited release.) las Ray’s shudderingly vulnerable 1954 Western. Hayden plays the title role of a musician and feared Hardcore Henry gunslinger who strolls his talents into a saloon This irst-person-shooter extravaganza has little pur- owned by Vienna (Crawford), a self-made business- pose besides showing what happens when a GoPro woman whose dusty strip of land is soon to become is strapped to a series of stuntmen as they run through a major railroad hub. But a ruthless local baron, their repertoire of extraordinary action moves. Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), covets The director, Ilya Naishuller, works this gimmick the land—and also covets the Dancing Kid (Scott hard, and his ilm does have some stunning, verti- Brady), a gunman who loves Vienna and is raring to go-inducing moments. But the story, about a man- blast Johnny away. The towering Hayden, with his

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 27 MOVIES

laconically insinuating, behind-the-beat baritone and poised between lashback and dream. Other and despair-illed eyes, has the coolest delivery in pieces of plot—too many, perhaps—are added to classic Hollywood, and it clashes gloriously with the pile. Isabelle, we learn, had an afair with a col- the overwhelming heat of Crawford’s ferocious league (David Strathairn); Gene goes to bed with stillness and blowtorch stare. The acidulous pal- his son’s English teacher (Amy Ryan); Jacob, a new ette of the costumes and the décor conjure Ray’s father, sleeps with an old lame (Rachel Brosna- insolent, isolated fury; though the action is set in han). Such lings are far more desperate than ro- the nineteenth century, the actors break out of the mantic, and the mood throughout is one of a wan- story to foreshadow the stylishly electric revolu- dering distress; these people have been struck by tions to come.—R.B. (Metrograph; April 22.) grief and somehow bent out of shape. If the drama holds together, it is largely because of Byrne and his Lola Montès regretful smile.—A.L. (4/18/16) (In limited release.) This exacting and sumptuous restoration of Max Ophüls’s last ilm, from 1955, recovers not just the Luna movie’s look but also its meaning. The roman- Channelling a Viscontian elegance, Bernardo Ber- tic costume drama presents a great nineteenth- tolucci probes the allure of bourgeois excess to its century femme fatale, a faux-Spanish danseuse and core of perverse desire—and ultimately suggests gold-digger whose lovers included Franz Liszt and that it’s made of frustrated dreams of normalcy. He King Ludwig of Bavaria. Yet Ophüls turns her story gives Jill Clayburgh what may be her most extrav- into something stunningly personal. He starts the agant role, as Caterina, a suddenly widowed New movie where Lola (played by the thirty-ive-year- York opera singer who, in frenetic mourning, lees old French sex symbol and scandal magnet Mar- to Rome with her adolescent son, Joe (Matthew tine Carol) ends up: in an American circus, reën- Barry). There, the singer’s self-absorption and over- acting her adventures. Her passions burned out, bearing expressiveness lock the boy into the shell her money gone, her earlier days of wildness recur- of his own despair, which he slakes with a heroin ring to her in lashbacks, she has become a celebrity, habit that she discovers on his ifteenth birthday. a precursor to a movie star. The ilm is a colossal The destructively passionate bonds of mother and spectacle about colossal spectacles, and the extrav- son leave no ravage—including their famous scenes agant palette, the cavernous sets, and the wide- of incest—a surprise. Yet Bertolucci, leading them screen images in which Ophüls entombs Lola (and through Italy in a voluptuous if anguish-strewn trav- Carol) contrast cruelly with the real-life pathos of elogue, heals them with the rediscovery of long- the femmes fatales, which the director’s own magnif- abandoned family ties and unites them in a grand icent artistry both exploits and exalts. Co-starring tableau of artistic splendor and fulillment. It’s as Peter Ustinov, as the circus master who takes if he himself, having seen the edge of the abyss, stock of her talent.—R.B. (Metrograph; April 24.) were retreating to a redemptive humanism that comforts more than it challenges—and dramatiz- The Long Goodbye ing his own good reasons for doing so. Released Raymond Chandler’s sentimental foolishness is the in 1979.—R.B. (Anthology Film Archives; April 25.) taking-of place for Robert Altman’s heady, whirl- ing sideshow of a movie, set in the early-seventies The Measure of a Man L.A. of the stoned sensibility. Philip Marlowe (El- This sociological drama, starring Vincent Lindon liott Gould) is a wryly forlorn knight, just slogging as Thierry, an unemployed machinist in a French along; still driving a 1948 Lincoln Continental and suburb, is remarkably divided; it’s two movies in trying to behave like Bogart, he’s the gallant fool in one. The irst story—about Thierry’s frustrations a corrupt world—the innocent eye. Even the police with a government employment center, his con- know more about the case he’s involved in than he licts with former colleagues who are suing the com- does. Yet he’s the only one who cares. Alt man tells pany that laid them of, and his exertions to help a detective story all right, but he does it through his bright and disabled teen-age son—feels like a a spree—a highlying rap on Chandler and L.A. well-meaning but trite composite. But when Thierry and the movies. Altman gracefully kisses of the gets hired as a security guard in a hypermarket, the private-eye form in soft, mellow color and volatile movie becomes a masterly quasi-documentary po- images; the cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond is lice procedural, illed with hypnotically lurid tech- responsible for the ohand visual pyrotechnics (the nical and intimate details of the detection and pun- imagery has great vitality). Gould gives a loose ishment of crime, however petty. (Scenes of video and woolly, strikingly original performance. Nina surveillance ofer guilty thrills.) Noting the major Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, and impact of minor charges on the lives of the accused, Jim Bouton co-star; the script is credited to Leigh Thierry confronts his complicity in a system that, he Brackett, but when you hear the Altman-style knows, also helps his bosses to shed unwanted em- improvisatory dialogue you know you can’t take ployees. This moral crisis is the director Stéphane that too literally. Released in 1973.—Pauline Kael Brizé’s point, but by focussing on it too closely he (Museum of the Moving Image; April 23.) misses his movie’s strange, ambiguous resonances. Most of Lindon’s fellow-actors are nonprofession- Louder Than Bombs als who do their real-life jobs onscreen, and the in- The Norwegian director Joachim Trier, whose ear- trinsic fascination of their performances—and of lier ilms—like the arresting “Oslo, August 31st” the world of work itself—opens exotic speculative (2011)—were in his native tongue, makes his vistas. In French.—R.B. (Metrograph.) English-language début. The story feels small yet tangled and torn, littered with scraps of what has Michael already occurred. Gene Reed (Gabriel Byrne), who The Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1924 used to be an actor of some note, has lost his wife, venture into the German ilm industry produced Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert), a celebrated war pho- an engrossing hybrid of romantic decadence and tographer, in a car crash. It may have been suicide, spiritual austerity. The great and venerable artist as Gene and his elder son, Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg), Claude Zoret (Benjamin Christensen) lives in hot- are aware, but the younger son, Conrad (Devin house palatial splendor with his model, disciple, Druid), still thinks that the death was accidental. and adopted son, Michael (Walter Slezak). The That does not soothe his sufering; we watch his fair-haired young sybarite, however, betrays his imaginings of the smash, ilmed in slow motion master for the exotic yet destitute Countess Za-

28 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 MOVIES mikow (Nora Gregor), running up debts to fund dan (Jack Reynor), a reclusive stoner, gives the their pleasures and selling Zoret’s work behind his diident guitar-strummer stern lessons in musi- back. Michael’s irrepressible and quasi-vampiric cal taste. Connor falls for Raphina (Lucy Boyn- rise to happiness at Zoret’s expense is brought to ton), a much worldlier sixteen-year-old girl, and life in Dreyer’s spontaneously expressive array of starts a band (the movie’s title is the group’s images. Closeups of burning intensity and opulent name) solely to include her in its music videos tableaux of frozen horror suggest the great direc- (which are shot on VHS). Confronting a bully tor’s transcendent theme, of divine grace granted in the courtyard and a brutal headmaster in the and withheld. Silent.—R.B. (Film Society of Lin- corridors, and facing his parents’ impending di- coln Center; April 23 and April 26.) vorce, Connor seeks refuge in his music and inds friendships, a social identity, self- conidence, and Midnight Special even the spirit of revolt. It’s all too sweet and The director Jef Nichols has a Spielbergian easy, and the band’s music—composed by John knack for working with children, and his lat- Carney, the movie’s writer and director, and est fable is centered on an eight-year-old boy Gary Clark—is bland and overproduced. The named Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher). Alton songs sound like the work of prematurely old is blessed—or burdened—with extraordinary teen-agers.—R.B. (In limited release.) powers. He can track the path of satellites in his head and mimic a radio station, word for word, Zootopia without turning the radio on. At times, a ray of Disney’s new animated ilm is about a rabbit cop, blue light blazes from his eyes, conveying inef- eager and optimistic: Thumper with a badge. fable visions to anyone on the receiving end. For Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin), years, he has been in the hands of a religious cult, raised on a peaceful farm, comes to the city to but, as the date of his apparent destiny nears, he ight crime, undismayed by being the smallest is borne away by his father (Michael Shannon). mammal on the force. As in “The Lion King,” Together with a loyal sidekick (Joel Edgerton), the world presented by the movie is entirely they drive to a rendezvous with Alton’s mother human-free, although, in this case, no friction (Kirsten Dunst), who hasn’t seen her son in a exists between predators and the lesser beasts. long while. On their trail are desperate mem- In Zootopia, everybody lives pretty much in bers of the cult, plus the F.B.I. and a thought- harmony—a mushy conceit, yet the directors, ful fellow from the N.S.A. (Adam Driver), who Byron Howard and Rich Moore, take care to starts out skeptical but winds up pleading to suggest how vulnerable such peace can be. Only come along. The climax, though spectacular, is by a whisker is it preserved, thanks to Judy and something of a letdown—unavoidably so, given her sidekick, a hustling fox (Jason Bateman), the grave tension that has prevailed thus far. Yet who have two days to crack a diicult case; their the movie, Nichols’s fourth, is a worthy addition comradeship, unlikely as it sounds, is a furry se- to his studies in anxiety and dread, personiied quel to that of Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy, in by Shannon’s troubled face.—A.L. (3/28/16) (In “48 Hrs.” There are no songs, apart from those limited release.) performed by a superstar gazelle (Shakira), but the beat of the movie barely dips, sustained by a Miles Ahead steady profusion of gags. With the voice of Idris Don Cheadle as Miles Davis: it’s an excellent Elba.—A.L. (3/14/16) (In wide release.) it—the most mercurial of actors playing the lord of ceaseless invention. Cheadle, who also 1 directed the ilm and wrote the screenplay with REVIVALS AND FESTIVALS Steven Baigelman, rightly judges that no movie could contain the epic sprawl of his hero’s life. Titles with a dagger are reviewed. (Davis’s 1989 autobiography makes the efort and leaves the reader utterly wiped out.) The focus is Anthology Film Archives “Entangled Forms.” narrowed, therefore, to a lurid patch of the late April 20 at 6:30: “Madame L’Eau” (1993, Jean nineteen-seventies, during which Davis has gone Rouch). • April 20 at 9: “Bamako.” F • “Chantal ominously quiet and become a near- recluse. He is Akerman x 2.” April 20 at 6:45 and April 21 at 8:45: doorstepped by a scuzzy reporter (Ewan McGre- “No Home Movie” (2015). • April 20 at 9:15 and gor), and high jinks ensue, including a shootout April 21 at 7: “Down There.” F • In revival. April and a car chase. The episode is breezy enough, 25 at 7: “Luna.” F BAM Cinématek “New Voices but it’s contrived for the sake of the movie, and in Black Cinema.” April 21 at 9:30: “Somewhere you feel bound to ask: When a personal history in the Middle” (2015, Lanre Olabisi). • April 22 is packed with real incident and crazed with cre- at 7: “Imperial Dreams.” F • April 23 at 7: “How ative adventure, as Davis’s was, why bother to To Tell You’re a Douchebag” (2016, Tahir Jet- dream up something new? Much of the zip of ter). • April 23 at 9:30: “Free in Deed” (2015, Jake the drama comes from lashbacks to earlier and Mahafy). Film Society of Lincoln Center “Queer less stricken times, when he met and married Cinema Before Stonewall.” April 22 at 5 and April Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi). Even 26 at 4:30: “Michael.” F • April 24 at 1: “The there, however, the music tends to pepper the Wild Party” (1929, Dorothy Arzner). • April 24 at story in its and fragments. For a more sustained 4:45 and April 25 at 2: “Rope” (1948, Alfred Hitch- and lowing demonstration of Davis’s genius, cock). • April 26 at 6:45: “A Florida Enchant- try his heartbreaking score for Louis Malle’s ment” (1914, Sidney Drew). Metrograph “Fass- “Elevator to the Gallows,” from 1958.—A.L. binder’s Top Ten.” April 22 at 1:45, 4:15, and 9:30: (4/11/16) (In limited release.) “Johnny Guitar.” F • April 22 at 6:30: “The Red Snowball” (1974, Vasily Shukshin). • April 24 at Sing Street 3 and 7:45: “Dishonored” (1931, Josef von Stern- This insipid comic drama, about the ifteen-year- berg). • April 24 at 5: “Lola Montès.” F • Spe- old Connor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), a student in a cial screening. April 24 at 1: “Touki Bouki” (1973, tough boys’ school in Dublin in 1985 who starts Djibril Diop Mambéty). Museum of the Mov- a band and improves his life, feels like a forced ing Image “See It Big! Vilmos Zsigmond.” April march to good cheer. Connor’s parents ight bit- 23 at 3: “The Long Goodbye.” F • April 24 at terly and loudly while his older brother, Bren- 2:30: “Heaven’s Gate” (1980, Michael Cimino).

ABOVE & BEYOND

TechDay val gentleman passionately kissing a young woman but by the accusation of it. Fox will defend his Picture your local middle-school science fair, in a shimmering blue dress. (20 Rockefeller Plaza, claims with Christian Lorentzen, the Vulture book and swap out electriied potatoes and model cars at 49th St. 212-636-2000.) • A well-stocked print critic and an editor-at-large of the London Review for one-button pizza delivery and geo-targeted sale at Sotheby’s occupies two days (April 20-21) of Books. (52 Prince St. 212-274-1160. April 21 at 7.) cab services. TechDay, now in its ifth year, is and features a bevy of works by Picasso (includ- the largest startup event in the United States, ing the linocuts “Buste de Femme, after Cranach Japan Society and invites hundreds of innovators and bud- le Jeune” and “Jacqueline”) and a trio of portraits Like many elements of traditional Japanese cul- ding companies to show of their wares to the by Roy Lichtenstein (“Reverie,” “Shipboard Girl,” ture, gardening places as much emphasis on the press, investors, job seekers, and early adopt- and “Nude with Blue Hair”). (York Ave. at 72nd St. sanctity of process as it does on the size of the ers. As the conference has grown, its organizers 212-606-7000.) • Prints and multiples go under yield. Shiro Nakane builds and restores gar- have added new elements: this year, the stars the gavel at Phillips in two sessions on April 25, dens all over the world, from temple grounds of the ABC reality show “Shark Tank” will be led by a Warhol screenprint (“Moonwalk, 1987”) in Kyoto, where he’s based, to the stone oasis casting hopeful entrepreneurs, who will début and two sculptures, by Keith Haring (the play- at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, originally their products for live audiences on two new ful “Self-Portrait”) and Yves Klein (“Victoire de designed by his father, the professor and garden demo stages. (Pier 94, 711 Twelfth Ave. 212-380- Samothrace,” in his signature electric blue). (450 master Kinsaku Nakane. Picking up where his 8730. April 21.) Park Ave. 212-940-1200.) father left of, Nakane began studying minimal- ist gardening techniques at a young age; New 1 1 York’s Japan Society invites Nakane to discuss AUCTIONS AND ANTIQUES READINGS AND TALKS his forward-thinking landscape-design work with Stephen Morrell, the director of the John P. The Jubilee Ruby, an uncommonly large circular McNally Jackson Humes Japanese Stroll Garden. (333 E. 47th St. stone of Burmese origin, is the star of Christie’s As the co-editor of the European contemporary 212-832-1155. April 21 at 6:30.) auction of jewels (April 20), which is followed by a art and culture magazine Frieze, Dan Fox knows a sale of silver (April 21) illed with countless cande- bit about pretentiousness. In “Pretentiousness: N.Y.U. Bookstore labras and table settings. Later in the week (April Why It Matters,” a new book based on an essay We presume that the Garden of Eden was well 25), the house ofers a suite of nineteenth-century he penned for the Guardian, Fox argues that soci- tended to, that Buddhist monks are insepara- paintings which includes one of several versions ety needs pretension to help maintain standards ble from the lush landscapes they inhabit, and of the Venetian painter Francesco Hayez’s famous of social, aesthetic, and critical engagement, and that fasting during Ramadan must help con- “Il Bacio,” which depicts a red-stockinged medie- that harm is caused not by pretentiousness itself serve some resources. The author and profes- sor Jay Wexler disassociates the tangentially conlated schools of religion and environmen- talism in “When God Isn’t Green,” a noniction book that examines a widespread array of reli- gious practices that happen to cause more harm to the environment than good. It’s a counterin- tuitive but fascinating prospect—Wexler visits Singapore, Guatemala, India, Alaska, and other locales, imagining how diferent societies might practice their faith with a closer consideration for the planet on which they worship. (726 Broad- way. 212-998-4678. April 21 at 6.)

Strand Bookstore “I must tell you that I am not really an old lady, just cleverly disguised as one,” the seventy-ive- year-old cook-turned-artist Sue Kreitzman tells Ari Seth Cohen in his new book, “Advanced Style: Older and Wiser.” The bundles of vibrant pat- terns and fabrics that she sports certainly sug- gest a young eye and a joyful soul, her snowy hair notwithstanding. Cohen has just compiled his second volume of photographs and inter- views, based on his beloved blog, highlighting the sprightly, inventive clothes he observes on the city’s elderly, all largely ignored by the fash- ion élite. The Strand invites Cohen and Simon Doonan, the creative ambassador-at-large for Mohammed Qutaish, a fourteen-year-old resident of the war-ravaged city of Aleppo, Syria, used everyday Barneys, to discuss the best in senior style and materials like paper, glue, and crayons to create “Future Aleppo,” an intricate, glorious model of his city the seen-it-all sartorialists who give the outits

rebuilt. It is on view at the minuscule Mmuseumm 2, opening April 22, at 4 Cortlandt Alley, in Tribeca. life. (828 Broadway. 212-473-1452. April 26 at 7.) AMARGO PABLO BY ILLUSTRATION TOP: JULIA ROTHMAN; BY ILLUSTRATION BOTTOM:

30 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 FßD & DRINK

1 TABLES FOR TWO (“We got everything,” a waitress recently BAR TAB Sofrito explained). Mojitos, which come in Mason jars, are a little too sweet. Their 679 Riverside Dr. (212-754-5999) saccharine aftertaste is best countered When the artist Milo Mottola was with alcapurrias, taro roots stufed with commissioned to design the Totally Kid beef picadillo, accompanied by a mayon- Carousel for Harlem’s Riverbank State naise-and-ketchup dip that, according to Park, in the mid-nineties, he collected a a Midwestern patron, “tastes like a really Ocean’s 8 set of drawings of animals made by old establishment deli smells.” 308 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn (718-857-5555) elementary- school students and repli- For a lighter touch, try the cod tostones “Do you want to go play games?” a waitress asked, cated them in brightly colored fibreglass. montaditos, slices of fish with a garlicky a few nights ago, at Ocean’s 8, a subterranean spot The result is gaudy, outlandish, and zing which rest atop fried plantains. This on the Park Slope side of Flatbush Avenue. A trio utterly fun, a little like Sofrito, the Puerto starchy theme continues into the main of customers nodded with enthusiasm, and stepped across the bar’s eight-ball-embedded loor to a Rican restaurant that sits next to it. A course, with a superb mofongo al pilón. vantage point at the top of a small set of stairs. recent transplant from Midtown East, The green plantain mash can be topped From there, you can sip a Six Point Sweet Action where it drew the likes of Jennifer Lopez with chicken, beef, shrimp, lobster, or (six dollars) and take in a vista that encompasses thirty pool tables, six Ping-Pong tables, three air- and Jamie Foxx, Sofrito remains a car- pork stew, and is more than enough for hockey tables, two mini bowling alleys, and a smat- nival of purple light and salsa music. two. While mofongo is classic Puerto tering of arcade games, for good measure. In the “Tips are like hugs without all the Rican fare, sushi is not. Surprisingly, cavernous hall, pool aicionados assembled cues that had been brought lovingly from home in touching,” a sign reads at the entrance, then, from the Latin Asian Corner of leather cases, and a couple shared kisses and onion where afable hostesses beckon you in, the menu comes the Sofrito Roll, a de- rings. At one table, a player conident from an past floor-to-ceiling windows through licious combination of rice, tempura uncharacteristic six-shot streak advised his oppo- nent to close one eye when aiming—“like a pirate!” which twinkle the lights of the George shrimp, and—you guessed it—plantains. someone added. But the advisee lacked sea legs; Washington Bridge. Even if the décor Though dessert at Sofrito is not a the closed eye resulted in dizziness rather than reminds you of all the clubs that didn’t focal point (no plantains, you see), a re- improved accuracy. The room is so large that, de- spite the sports-bar aesthetic, it feels practically let you in as a teen, everything about cent vanilla flan came delightfully topped luxurious: “It’s the only bar in New York where Sofrito is studiously friendly—starting with lip-shaped sprinkles. The best bet you’re necessarily six feet away from anyone else,” with a text message reminding you of after you’ve finished eating is to head someone who gets anxious without adequate per- sonal space said. The pool tables themselves are your reservation. By the time you sit straight to the bar, where patrons in a spacious, too—they’re tournament-sized “nine- down, you’ve completely forgotten that dizzying array of shiny and stretchy fab- footers,” though it looks amateurish to lie down on you are dining atop a sewage plant. rics dance to salsa, merengue, and En- one and measure your height. After a few rounds, the gamers traded their cues for a pair of mallets All this pizzazz might bode badly for rique Iglesias. There, you’ll learn that one and an air-hockey puck. A long, clack-illed back the food, but dense, buttery bread, which of the bartenders spends only half of the and forth ended in a lucky goal, to the frustration arrives in time for you to peruse the menu, year in New York. The other half she of the conceder. Fortunately, one of the “billiard etiquette” rules posted on pillars throughout the is a sign of good things to come. The spends in Ibiza. (Entrées $17-$39.) hall was observed: “I will control my temper and

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTAAN FELBER FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE SWARTE JOOST BY ILLUSTRATION THE NEW YORKER; FELBER FOR CHRISTAAN BY PHOTOGRAPH cocktail list is implied rather than codified —Nicolas Niarchos language when things do not go right.”—Colin Stokes

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 31

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT WORKING-CLASS HEROES

uring the 2008 Vice-Presidential debate between union. Some ninety per cent of Americans, including most D Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, in St. Louis, Biden ofered millionaires, routinely identify as middle class. For many a memorable brief on behalf of struggling communities years, this glossing over of the distinctions between the like the one in Pennsylvania where he spent his child- classes served a broad set of interests, particularly during hood. Biden, whose common-man bona fides were seen the Cold War, when any reference to class carried a whif as an antidote to Barack Obama’s Ivy League credentials of socialist sympathies. Americans considered themselves and relative aloofness, spoke evocatively of the pain felt part of a larger whole, and social animosities were mostly by a portion of America that is more usually described in siphoned of in the direction of racial resentment. But, this the gauzy, romantic tones of American greatness. “Look, year, Americans are once again debating class. the people in my neighborhood, they get it,” Biden said. We are clearly out of practice. The current language “They know they’ve been getting the short end of the of “income inequality” is a low-carb version of the Old stick. So walk with me in my neighborhood, go back to Left’s “class exploitation.” The new phrase lacks rhetorical my old neighborhood, in Claymont, an old steel town, or zing; it’s hard to envision workers on a picket line sing- go up to Scranton with me. These people know the mid- ing rousing anthems about “income inequality.” The term dle class has gotten the short end. The wealthy have done lacks a verb, too, so it’s possible to think of the condition very well. Corporate America has been rewarded. It’s time under discussion as a random social outcome, rather than we change it.” as the product of deliberate actions taken by specific peo- In hindsight, what’s notable about Biden’s statement is ple. Bernie Sanders has tended to frame his position as not how it presaged the populist concerns of this year’s a defense of an imperilled middle class, but he has also Presidential election but the fact that he referred to his called out the “greedy billionaires” and “Wall Street”—a neighbors—steelworkers, denizens of synecdoche for exploitation in general. factory towns—as middle class, not Donald Trump’s populist appeals as working class. In fact, the phrase are all the more remarkable given that “working class” came up twice during the modern Republican Party has been the debate—but it was Palin who said the largest beneficiary of this collaps- it, not Biden. Things didn’t change ing of class interests. Ever since Ron- much rhetorically in the 2012 elec- ald Reagan’s Presidency, progressives tion. Obama and Mitt Romney, in have pondered why working-class and the course of three Presidential de- poor whites vote Republican, against bates, invoked the “middle class” their own interests. The fact that the forty-three times but never mentioned charge is being led on the right by a the proletariat. billionaire real-estate developer, how- For decades, both American cul- ever, suggests that the new recogni- ture and American politics have elided tion of class is not without its contra- the diferences between salaried work- dictions. It’s also worth noting that ers and those who are paid hourly, be- Romney, the man leading the attempt tween college-educated professionals to quell this populist uprising, on be- and those whose purchasing power half of the Party’s alarmed establish-

ILLUSTRATION BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATION is connected to membership in a labor ment, is a multimillionaire who lost

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 33 the previous election, in part, because he dismissed forty- inations of social displacement, in which addiction is seen seven per cent of Americans as “freeloaders.” as a public-health concern symptomatic of the changing Strikingly, the emerging dialogue on class is informed by economy, as opposed to a sign of moral failure. But, last the ways in which we have typically talked about race. In month, in National Review, Kevin Williamson wrote: 1976, the majority of welfare recipients in the United States The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that were not black. But when, during the Presidential campaign they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, that year, Reagan made his famous comments about the they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Spring- “welfare queen,” they were widely taken to mean that the steen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory problem wasn’t poor people in general but, rather, certain towns. . . . The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Don- blacks in inner cities, who were purportedly cheating the ald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. system (and whose votes the Republican Party had already jettisoned). Today, in the battle over, say, public-sector unions, These are the communities that Biden spoke of in 2008. it’s hard not to hear an echo of those complaints about so- Yet, according to Williamson, the apt metaphor isn’t get- cial parasitism, though when Governor Scott Walker, of ting the short end of the stick but dropping the ball. In Wisconsin, campaigned to strip most public-sector unions 2010, Charles Murray published “Coming Apart,” a lam- of their collective-bargaining rights he did so in the lan- entation on the decline among poor whites of religiosity, guage of Madison progressivism: “We can no longer live in of the work ethic, and of family values. It received just a a society where the public employees are the haves and tax- fraction of the attention paid to his 1994 book, “The Bell payers who foot the bills are the have-nots.” Curve,” which argued that a supposed intellectual inferi- There are other hints that the old stereotypes about inner- ority factored into the plight of poor blacks. But in 2016 city blacks are beginning to be deployed against working-class there is a new market for the ideas in “Coming Apart.” The whites. Heightened mortality rates among middle-aged fact that we are examining class may be novel, but it is almost working-class whites and the concomitant spike in opioid certain that what we’ll hear said about poverty won’t be. addiction have, on the whole, generated sympathetic exam- —Jelani Cobb

UP LIFE’S LADDER tion, health care, and Super PACs. “I’ll said, “According to CNN, Hillary’s Super ROOM FOR DEBATE give you a few minutes to research your PAC collected more than 9.5 million dol- main arguments,” May said. lars in January, and Sanders still has no The students reached for their smart- oicial Super PAC. He’s just, like, ‘They’re phones. Olowu Googled “Hillary edu- corrupt.’ ” Barrett wrote a bullet point: cation.” Hardy had dropped her phone “Corruption.” two days before, breaking the screen. “It’s “Time for the debate,” May said. The a sore subject,” she said. She borrowed members of Team Bernie turned their hen Bernie Sanders was a May’s laptop. desks to face Team Hillary, and May W senior at James Madison High Hardy and Olowu are on the track flipped a coin. “Senator Sanders, you’re up School, in South Brooklyn, he ran for team, as Sanders was when he attended first,” she said. “Are you confident that you student-body president on a noble but Madison. Swiping through an article on will win the New York primary on Tues- unusual platform: a pledge to raise money usnews.com, Olowu said, “This says Hil- day? You certainly need the delegates.” for Korean War orphans. He lost. Fifty lary wants to make college debt-free.” “We got this,” Dillon Phong said. “Are years later, he made the school’s alumni “Bernie wants to make it free, period,” you kidding? I’m from Brooklyn. She’s Wall of Distinction, as a U.S. senator. A Hardy said. Because they’d been assigned a carpetbagger.” plaque bearing his name hangs in the to Team Hillary, they tried to come up “Yeah, but you left and went to Ver- school’s front hallway, alongside plaques with downsides to free education. “I feel mont,” Hardy, as Hillary, said. “This for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Judge Judy, like if college is totally free more people might be a weird comparison, but I think and Carole King. will compete to get in,” Hardy said. “I it’s like deadbeat dads. You’re not around Last week, a few days before San- don’t like competition.” for all these years, and you still think you ders returned to Brooklyn to debate Hil- Olowu wrinkled her nose. deserve the same respect?” lary Clinton, five students—members of Hardy tried again: “How’s he going Barrett, as Bernie: “My opponent gets the James Madison High School De- to pay for it? Will taxes go up? Then the billions of dollars from Super PACs. And bate Club—met in a classroom over- middle class is basically paying for a bil- Super PACs are corrupt, I would say.” looking Bedford Avenue. Petria May, lionaire’s kid to go to college.” Olowu “Wow, Secretary Clinton, he just the teacher who advises the club, divided jotted “Taxes” on a piece of paper. called you corrupt,” May, the teacher, the students into two groups. She turned Across the room, Saira Amar skimmed said. “What do you say to that?” to Saira Amar, Nyesha Barrett, and Dil- FeelTheBern.org. She wore an anime “You seem to be paranoid about cer- lon Phong, and said, “You’ll be Bernie.” T-shirt and a bright-red hijab. “We should tain facts,” Hardy said. “Joseph Stalin Then, to Folake Olowu and Valkyrie definitely bring up Hillary’s connection was also paranoid, and we all know how Hardy, “You’re Hillary.” The students’ to special interests,” she said. that turned out.” task was to debate, in character, educa- Nyesha Barrett, who wore glasses, “Besides, doesn’t power corrupt?”

34 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 Olowu added. “So why do you want to gled over what to do with children who, “The thing the movie captured well is be President, Bernie, if you’re so worried it was suspected, were victims of abuse. the caution on the part of the judge,” he about becoming corrupt?” “I tell you, it’s the best show in town,” observed. “It’s never clear that this is May asked, “Senator Sanders, are you Lapine said, ruefully. going to be a fatality. If you knew that worried about being the equivalent of Based on that experience, Lapine was going to be the case, you wouldn’t Ralph Nader in this election?” wrote and directed a movie, “Custody,” let that child return home.” Family-court “I think I’ve heard that name be- starring Viola Davis, as Judge Martha judges, he pointed out, can’t pass the fore,” Amar said. She Googled furtively, Schulman, a family-court judge with buck. “You have to decide that day then changed the subject: “I’ve been on family problems of her own, and Cata- whether children go home or not— ‘S.N.L.’ ” lina Sandino Moreno, as Sara Diaz, a whether they go into foster care, whether “Everyone’s been on ‘S.N.L.,’ ” Hardy, single mother of two whose children are their parents are going to see them, and as Hillary, said. “I’ve been on ‘Broad taken from her precipitately, after an ac- under what circumstances,” he said. One City.’ ” cident in her home leads to the author- thread of Lapine’s story concerns a five- Amar: “I have more Facebook likes.” ities’ being notified of possible violence. year-old girl who has been found starved Hardy: “I have more votes!” In an efort to reclaim her kids, Diaz lies to death in her family’s apartment, Amar: “You’re only winning by so to her lawyer and to the court, which months after the Administration for much because of superdelegates.” results in escalating prohibitions on the Children’s Services deemed her mother Hardy: “You might be popular right children’s return. The film premièred last fit to raise her—a deliberate echo of the now, but the popular kids always peak week, at the Tribeca Film Festival. Nixzmary Brown case, from 2006, in early.” One recent evening, Lapine took over which a seven-year-old in Brooklyn was “Closing statements?” May said. the screening room at the Creative Art- killed by her mother and stepfather, even “People love firsts,” Hardy, as Hillary, ists Agency, in the Chrysler Building, to after reports of abuse had been made. said. “Do you really want to vote against preview it for a dozen or so judges, court The film ends with Judge Schulman the first woman President?” As herself, oicials, and other legal workers whose granting Diaz the chance to speak in she joked, “Isn’t that part of why people courts and chambers had served as in- court about the toll the proceedings love Obama? I’m black—I can say it.” spiration and as film locations. “I hope have taken on her family—a privilege Out of character, the students engaged I have done you justice, and, if I haven’t, that is never granted in a real court- in some post-debate analysis. They noted don’t tell me,” he said. Passing out bags room. Joseph Radice, the deputy clerk that only one of the candidates, San- of popcorn, he added, cheerfully, “We’re of the court, remarked that he appreci- ders, is a child of immigrants. all going to break the law—you’re not ated the way Lapine had given Diaz “My parents are from Malaysia,” supposed to eat in here.” due sympathy. “Yes, they might lie,” he Phong said. The real-life family-court folk watched said of the families who come before “Mine are from France and Haiti,” their fictional counterparts in silence. the court. “People don’t trust the court. Hardy said. There was a moment or two of laugh- If they lie, it’s because they are trying “Jamaica and Nigeria,” Folake said. ter—the Christmas-party scene, in which to make it right. Sometimes they feel “Both Jamaica,” Barrett said. several of them appeared as extras, like they have no choice.” “Canada and Pakistan,” Amar said. prompted some excited whispering—but —Rebecca Mead “You’re Canadian?” Olowu said. “No a far greater sense of sober recognition, 1 wonder you’re so nice.” at the film’s representation of the bureau- ANNALS OF ASPHALT —Andrew Marantz cratic logic that results in the separation PROFESSOR POTHOLE 1 of families. “You really got it—the wait- THE BENCH ing forever, and the taking out of the cal- COUNTERPARTS endars,” Judge Adams, who has retired from family court, and is a special judi- ciary adviser, said, with a sigh. J. Machelle Sweeting, who was elected a judge in 2014, concurred. “The many layers were n like a lion, out like a—wham! It’s handled extremely well,” she said. I pothole season, or really, now that the “I felt there was a real sense of com- magnolias, and the Mets, have wilted, bout a decade ago, James La- munity down there,” Lapine remarked. the season for filling potholes and then A pine, the playwright and director, Leni Silvestre, a court assistant, gently boasting about it. Municipal crews are asked his friend Jody Adams, then a fam- corrected him. “It actually feels like cast- out counting and plugging craters. This ily-court judge, if he could spend time aways on an island—you have no choice spring hasn’t been as bad as the previous in her courtroom. “Something I like to but to work together to get through the two, partly because the winter was mild, do is watch someone else do their thing,” day, and these are the people you have but also because in the past couple of Lapine explained the other day. Adams to work with,” she said. years the city has apparently done a bet- agreed, and so Lapine started going to Judge Douglas Hofman, the super- ter job of resurfacing the streets. the courthouse downtown to observe the vising judge for New York City Family This latter variable is the fixation of proceedings as parents and oicials wran- Court, was among those in attendance. Professor Pothole, a.k.a. Lucius Riccio,

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 35 a Columbia University lecturer and for- nine hundred and thirty potholes. Ric- twelve hundred lane miles, as part of an mer city transportation commissioner, cio’s pothole equation, “the F=ma of pot- eighteen-month push to do more than who is the originator and chief propo- holes,” as he calls it, can be expressed as twice that. “You can see the improve- nent of pothole analytics. His perennial P=s+g. That is, you can estimate the num- ment,” Riccio said. “You can’t change the predictions, based on a formula of his ber of potholes by adding s (total snow- weather. Only thing we can control is own devising, make him a paver’s Bill fall, in inches, times nine hundred and how much resurfacing we do.” James, or a Nate Silver of the steamroller, thirty) and g (the resurfacing gap, in lane Riccio, an engineer by training, came except that his work points not to who miles, times eighty). to New York to work, first, in the Lind- will win but, rather, whom to blame. By the early nineties, the city was re- say administration, in criminal justice, The filling of potholes is a common, paving fifteen hundred lane miles a year; and later, under Koch, in sanitation. He if trivial, yardstick of a mayor’s success. the pothole count bottomed out at around claims to have initiated the citywide re- But Riccio believes it to be irrelevant. eighty thousand. Then, under Rudy Giu- cycling of asphalt, and to have coined the “The city was proud of the fact that they liani, the repaving rate tailed of, to as usage of “hummocks” to describe the as- filled three hundred thousand potholes,” low as seven hundred lane miles a year, phalt ridges created by steam leaking he said in a tedx talk, in the spring of and, under Michael Bloomberg, stayed from underground pipes. (“The Hima- 2014, after displaying a slide of Mayor low, at least for a while. The reasons are layas of the hummocks,” as he called them, de Blasio, in neon orange, tamping down complex, perhaps having as much to do arose along Sixth Avenue, where the steam fresh asphalt. “Isn’t this like if we’d come with the economics of asphalt as with lines were close to the surface; as a re- across three hundred thousand dead any ideology of civic governance. But it’s sult, and thanks to Riccio, the surface of cows and we did a great job burying hard to resist wondering if the attention Sixth Avenue is now concrete, rather than them and we were proud of that, with- to so-called “broken windows” distracted asphalt—noisier, more expensive, but out ever asking the question ‘Why were from broken streets. Anyway, the resur- more durable, like a copper roof.) there three hundred thousand dead cows facing gap gradually increased, and the Riccio intends for his pothole prog- in the first place?’ ” potholes began to proliferate. As of last nostics to stand as a metaphor for, and When Riccio ran the department of year, the city had accumulated a resur- a criticism of, the nation’s neglect of its transportation, during the Dinkins ad- facing deficit of around twenty-five hun- infrastructure. The decay of highways, ministration, he determined that to main- dred lane miles and so was essentially bridges, waterworks, electric grids, rail- tain the current condition (good or bad) starting this year with a likelihood of hav- ways, and communication networks, amid of the roads, or what he called “orbital ing at least two hundred thousand pot- budgetary constraints and misaligned in- velocity,” the city would have to repave holes, before the first snowflake even fell. centives, may be of much greater conse- a thousand lane miles every year, or about Last month, Mayor de Blasio held a quence than a rash of flat tires and bro- five per cent of the city’s streets. Each press conference to hail the successful ken axle shafts on Francis Lewis Boule - lane mile short of a thousand, he found, filling of his administration’s millionth vard, but the same principle pertains: an seems to be worth eighty potholes. Every pothole. Still, he has been proactive about ounce of prevention is worth a pound inch of snow, meanwhile, correlates to pavement. This year, the city is repaving of cure. 1—Nick Paumgarten POSTSCRIPT WILLIAM HAMILTON

illiam Hamilton had a lot to W say about the nation’s country- club class and how it viewed itself. His cartoons were peopled by ladies and gen- tlemen of the Park Avenue variety, speak- ing confidently about their place in the upper crust, even as that crust was crum- bling. Hamilton first found a place at this magazine in 1965, when he was only twenty-six. At the time of his death, last week, at seventy-six, he had published more than nine hundred and fifty draw- ings that lampooned sophisticates and pseudo-sophisticates with dry, incisive jabs. He was that rare artist whose style suits his humor perfectly; a Hamilton joke is unimaginable rendered any other way. A final one, alas, appears at left. “What in the hell are you trying to do?” —Robert Mankof THE FINANCIAL PAGE Civil Rights Act. Those eforts, though, were driven by local UNLIKELY ALLIANCES businesses and were a response to protests. Today’s fight is driven by national companies, and they’re in the vanguard: there is no federal law protecting L.G.B.T. people from dis- crimination, but three-quarters of Fortune 500 firms have pol- icies forbidding it. The emergence of companies as social activists is compli- hen you think about the role that big corporations cating traditional attitudes on both the left and the right. Pro- W play in American life, fighting for social justice is prob- gressives have long complained of corporate influence over ably not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet many corpo- government policy. They’ve pilloried companies that threaten rations are doing precisely that in the ongoing struggle over to move operations in order to extract favors from state leg- the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. islatures; they’ve attacked the Koch-funded American Legis- This year, legislators in at least twenty-five states have pro- lative Exchange Council for its role in drafting a slew of posed more than a hundred bills limiting L.G.B.T. rights, pro-business state laws; they’ve called for overturning Citi- often under the guise of protecting religious freedom; North zens United. Now, though, progressives are confronted with Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi have passed laws that, in a situation where meddling with the legislative process and various ways, make anti-L.G.B.T. discrimination legal. In an overriding popular opinion seems desirable. efort to roll back these laws, and prevent new ones from being The implications for modern conservatism are even more enacted, some of America’s biggest com- consequential. Social conservatives were panies are pushing a progressive agenda an essential part of the Republican coa- in the conservative heartland. lition that Ronald Reagan assembled— Last month, executives at more than composed of pro-business conservatives, eighty companies—including Apple, national-security hawks, and the Chris- Pfizer, Microsoft, and Marriott—signed tian right. The coalition always entailed a public letter to the governor of North fudging policy diferences: not all social Carolina urging him to repeal the state’s conservatives were true believers in big new law. Lionsgate Studio is moving tax cuts and deregulation; business élites production of a new sitcom out of the often didn’t feel strongly about abortion state, Deutsche Bank cancelled plans to and prayer in schools. But, as Daniel create new jobs there, and PayPal has Williams, a historian at the University cancelled plans for a global operations of West Georgia and the author of a his- center. In Mississippi, G.E., Pepsi, Dow, tory of the Christian right, told me, “Even and others attacked the law there as though the relationship between the two “bad for our employees and bad for busi- sides was always complicated, they were ness.” Disney said that it would stop willing to make a bargain, because each making movies in Georgia, which has side needed the other.” become a major venue for film produc- The L.G.B.T. fight shows how far tion, if the governor signed the bill. Something similar hap- that bargain has eroded. To many conservative business lead- pened last year in Indiana, after the state passed a religious-free- ers, today’s social-conservative agenda looks anachronistic and dom law allowing businesses to discriminate against L.G.B.T. is harmful to the bottom line; it makes it hard to hire and customers and employees. At least a dozen business conven- keep talented employees who won’t tolerate discrimination. tions relocated. Social conservatives, meanwhile, think that Republican lead- A little corporate muscle flexing can work wonders, it turns ers are sacrificing Christian principles in order to keep big out. Last month, Georgia’s governor vetoed its religious-free- business happy. “There’s more than a fair amount of anger and dom bill, implicitly acknowledging that the state could not a great deal of disappointment,” Williams said. Evangelicals aford to lose Disney’s business, and South Dakota’s gover- have called companies like Apple and Disney “corporate bul- nor, after opposition from Citigroup and Wells Fargo, vetoed lies,” to whom Mammon matters more than morals. a law that would have required people to use the bathroom Needless to say, the forces of Mammon are winning. In that corresponded to their biological sex at birth. Last year, a comprehensive 2014 study of two decades of public-opin- Indiana and Arkansas amended their religious-freedom bills ion data, the political scientists Martin Gilens and Benja- after a corporate backlash (led, in Arkansas, by Walmart). min Page showed that the views of business leaders and This isn’t entirely unprecedented. During the civil-rights the economic élite matter far more to politicians than what era, when local administrators across the South resisted de- ordinary voters want. Social conservatives have been the segregation and suppressed protests, business élites in Dallas most loyal Republican voters for thirty years. But now they and Charlotte pushed for moderation; Dallas had desegre- are waking up to the fact that their voice counts for less gated its downtown businesses by 1961, and Charlotte began than Disney’s. desegregating public accommodations the year before the 1964 —James Surowiecki CHRISTOPH NIEMANN CHRISTOPH

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 37 flesh, blood, and sinew together so that you heal as a single mutilated being. ANNALS OF TELEVISION When Horgan and Delaney decided to collaborate on a pilot, they knew that they wanted to capture this tone. “I loved THE BRUTAL ROMANTIC the brutality of it,” Horgan says. “At the same time, it was kind of romantic.” Sharon Horgan’s comedy “Catastrophe” ofers an unblinking look at coupledom. On “Catastrophe,” whose second sea- son just began streaming on Amazon, love BY WILLA PASKIN is never declared; it is silently expressed when, say, one partner cuts the other’s “claw- like” toenails. Greeting each other at the airport, Rob tells Sharon, “I was angry how much I missed you.” A tearful Sharon tells Rob, “I missed you, too—just the last two days.” Sharon and Rob are beset by cir- cumstances beyond their control, includ- ing the pregnancy, a diagnosis of cervical “pre-cancer,” alarming in-utero test results, a premature infant, and, not least, their sex- ual chemistry. But the series has a cheer- ful matter-of-factness to it. Raunchy rep- artee turns to edgy teasing turns to caustic bickering turns to tension-relieving ban- ter or sex (or bantering sex). There is sweet- ness in the implication that being over- taken by one mess after another might be necessary for a decent life. Rob’s plan to propose to Sharon is foiled when he drops an engagement ring into a puddle of urine. Sharon puts the ring on anyway. “It’s just a bit of piss,” she says. “I love it.” Horgan is tall and pretty, with sloe eyes, pronounced cheekbones, and a strong jaw. She once read an online com- ment observing that she has a “short forehead,” and it’s true, though she so frequently musses her impressively thick, straight hair that it’s hard to notice. She has an easy stylishness that inspires envy in her female colleagues, and a barking laugh that she unleashes generously—a n July, 2013, Sharon Horgan rode cidentally conceive a child, and then try disarming quality in someone with such I her bike across London and visited to make a life together. “A terrible thing an acerbic sense of humor. Jokes come the oices of Channel 4, the British has happened,” Rob tells Sharon in the quickly to Horgan: she is prolific to an broadcaster, to pitch a comedy called “Ca- first episode. “Let’s make the best of it.” almost manic degree. She co-founded tastrophe.” Its title was taken from a line Horgan, who is forty-five, and Dela- a production company, and in the past in “Zorba the Greek”: “I’m a man, so I ney , who is thirty-nine, are happily mar- decade she has written or co-written married. Wife, children, house, every- ried to other people, and both have chil- four series for U.K. television, and acted thing. The full catastrophe.” Co-created dren. “One of the very first things that in many more. She starred in, and co-cre- with Rob Delaney, an American come- I joked with Rob about was how, if it ated, the celebrated “Pulling,” a pitch- dian who made his name with a riotously wasn’t so hard to get a divorce, I would black comedy about three disastrously filthy Twitter account, “Catastrophe” is be divorced,” Horgan says. In his standup behaved women. And this fall HBO about an Irishwoman named Sharon, routine, Delaney sometimes equates mar- will air “Divorce,” a series that Horgan played by Horgan, and an American man riage to rubbing yourself with a cheese created for Sarah Jessica Parker, in her named Rob, played by Delaney, who have grater, rubbing your wife with a cheese first lead television role since “Sex and a torrid six-night stand in London, ac- grater, and then smashing the exposed the City.” Parker and Thomas Haden Church co-star as Frances and Robert, Horgan’s upcoming series for HBO, “Divorce,” stars Sarah Jessica Parker. a married couple with kids, careers, and

38 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 PHOTOGRAPH BY GARETH MCCONNELL a house in Westchester County who as he commanded his students to “notice part, acrimoniously. How do you go from the hyperrealism of the pubic mons.” The years of a loving marriage, Frances asks scene had been filmed in both a wide Robert in the first episode, “to wanting shot and a closeup, and for an hour and to blow someone’s head of?” “Catastro- a half they tried diferent ways of inte- phe” was written against the idea that grating the footage. At one point, Hor- long-term relationships are boring, and gan said, “What we’re trying to do is fill Horgan is boldly extending the argu- that silence and keep our pubes.” ment with “Divorce.” If “Catastrophe” A consulting producer and writer ofers an unblinking look at a couple’s named Adam Resnick joined Horgan in formation, “Divorce” ofers a forensic the editing room. Resnick, an alumnus of account of a couple’s end. By the time “Late Night with David Letterman” and the two series have finished, Horgan “Saturday Night Live,” has an amiably will have created a singular chronicle of neurotic manner. In ninety minutes, he the life cycle of romance. made two jokes about “Schindler’s List,” Horgan never procrastinates. “I don’t and then mocked himself for making two really have a chance to worry about things jokes about “Schindler’s List.” When he if I know I’m putting the work in,” she stepped out for a moment, Horgan turned says. She and Delaney met on Twitter, to me and said, “Isn’t he the funniest guy? which means that she is capable of bend- They don’t make them like that in the ing even that time-chomping tool to pro- U.K.” Resnick returned, and Horgan told ductive ends. Horgan says that, as exact- him, “You’re a very exotic commodity to ing as she is in her work life, her personal me. You’re a cynical person, but in a nice life is as disorganized as her writing desk. way. With a cynical person in the U.K., “There are two things I’m good at—work there’s just a darkness.” and making my kids like me,” she told The doors of surrounding oices were me. “All of my other skills have fallen decorated with the show’s temporary logo, away. I’m really capable of doing the thing in which the “o” in “Divorce” was replaced I’m employed to do, but I’ve become in- by an image of a broken heart. The heart’s capable of anything else. It’s like a cock- cartoonish quality—one suspected that roach, post-nuclear war: What’s useful cherubs were hiding behind it—spoke to to me, what do I need to survive?” the diiculty of making a truthful comedy about divorce. In the nineteen-seventies, n early March, as the four-month Mary Richards, in “The Mary Tyler Moore I shoot for “Divorce” was entering its Show,” was meant to be a divorcée, but final days, Horgan was sitting on a couch CBS deemed such a past too risqué, and in a windowless editing room in Green- supplied the character with a broken point. She wore an of-white T-shirt engagement instead. Later, such sitcoms tucked into well-fitting jeans, and white as “One Day at a Time” and “Who’s the booties. She had broken her foot on Boss?” had divorced mothers as protago- Christmas Day, jumping on a trampo- nists, but the breakups were barely ad- line with her children, and she was still dressed: the focus was on the women mov- not cleared to wear heels. On the couch’s ing on with their lives. More recently, arm, she had placed her phone and a such shows as “The New Adventures of copy of “Brooklyn,” the novel by her Old Christine” and “Girlfriends’ Guide compatriot Colm Tóibín. The editor, to Divorce” have treated divorce as a fresh a bespectacled Frenchwoman named start or a traumatic adventure—the spir- Agnès Challes-Grandits, stood in front itual equivalent of a rough cleanse. of four desktop monitors on the other “Divorce” stays mired in the angry side of the room, clicking away. On the muck. Horgan told me, “We don’t wring screens, Thomas Haden Church was too much misery out of custody issues slouched in an auditorium seat, listening in this first season.” In other words, bat- to his nemesis, Julian (Jemaine Clement, tles over children will be something for of “Flight of the Conchords”), deliver audiences to look forward to in Season an art-history lecture. Two. The playwright and actor Tracy Horgan and Challes-Grandits were Letts, who appears in “Divorce,” says struggling to keep a small visual joke: that, when he first read the script, he Julian highlighting the pubic hair on a said to himself, “This could read like Thomas Eakins sketch with a laser pointer mean-spirited satire.” It avoided that

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 39 trap, he added, because “you can’t help but feel for the characters.” Horgan, he said, is “good at making real people.” DEATH WISH Sarah Jessica Parker’s production com- pany has a first-look deal with HBO, and Finally Theseus said it. for years she had been looking to develop a series about a troubled relationship, at It was after he punched the door one point thinking that it might be a and crowned his fist with bruises, after drama. In 2014, HBO set Parker up on a work date with Horgan, and that night he showered for the first time in days, Horgan had an idea for a comedy about gingerly like a raccoon, a “long-term divorce.” She wrote a treat- ment pitching a series that would focus his dollar shaver suddenly jumping ship, not only on a couple but also on the di- delicate from his shaving cream’s sea-foam touch, vorce industry: all the lawyers, accoun- tants, and therapists. She included a link Kanye’s “Heartless” playing on loop, to the trailer for “The War of the Roses,” the 1989 Michael Douglas and Kathleen door open, steam on every surface; Turner film about a couple whose di- after his mother called via FaceTime vorce gets so vicious that one pretends to have turned the family dog into pâté. and his therapist via Skype, and he was hopeful, Parker told me that she was drawn and I was hopeful, and we were late to every party to Horgan because of her “afection for the dark, sad, and ridiculous that reveals because he was bleeding, bleeding from itself in painful circumstances.” Amer- his head to his hands, icans use the adjective “dark” to describe a certain kind of comedy, where Brits prefer the word “grim.” Horgan believes Horgan says. “How do you stay in love?” daughters: twelve-year-old Sadhbh (pro- that “funny and grim” describes all her But Channel 4 executives smartly sug- nounced “Sive”) and seven-year-old Amer. work. She told me that she was capti- gested that she and Delaney slow it down, Rainbird, like Rob on “Catastrophe,” was vated by the idea that, during a divorce, allowing the audience to become as in- in advertising for two decades, until, like “two people could feel passionately about vested in the relationship as the couple Robert on “Divorce,” he quit to get into someone they hadn’t felt anything for is. It is the second season that turns to real estate, which, also like Robert, turned in years.” She was inspired, in part, by marriage, beginning with a scene that was his wife into the breadwinner. He arrived the divorce of a friend who left her hus- in the original pilot: Rob and a pregnant just in time to see Sharon editing a mo- band for a man with whom she was Sharon, in bed, her finger hovering around ment that was based on their marriage. having an afair; upon learning of the an orifice as their toddler walks into the “Divorce” is full of these moments: in one separation, the lover broke up with her. room. In the new season, Sharon has such scene, Frances admits to Robert that “We laughed about her backup plan postpartum depression. Rob has an oice she wanted to injure him savagely after failing—after she scraped herself of the flirtation. They are exhausted. Children he threw her laptop out the window. Hor- ground,” Horgan says. “There was some- have complicated their sex life—though gan says that “Divorce” contains “huge thing comedically tragic about her sit- there is still enough sex that Horgan, parallels to our relationship, taken down uation. It wasn’t just tragic. It was a hor- upon watching the completed episodes, diferent routes.” Rainbird is accustomed rible situation that I felt I could use.” worried that she was “showing it rosy.” A to seeing parts of his marital life appear She recently apologized to her friend romantic getaway to Paris is almost foiled onscreen, but when Horgan showed him for transforming her story into a show. by a forgotten breast pump. One morn- the first episode it shook him. “There is ing, they awake at a leisurely 7:15 a.m., so much in it that is recognizable—apart n writing “Catastrophe,” Hor- and Rob congratulates Sharon on their from the divorce bit,” she told me. “It I gan was struck by an interview with third anniversary. “I’m more proud of us drained the color from his face.” Gwyneth Paltrow in which she quoted than I am of the kids,” he says. “What’s Horgan has always been her own muse her father’s explanation for his long mar- to be proud of there? Who doesn’t want (though she considers the word “muse” riage: “We never wanted to get divorced to take care of their kids?” But, he adds, to be “wanky”). From a young age, she at the same time.” The original pilot “maintaining this”—he points at the two dreamed of being an actress, and invented script for “Catastrophe” began with Sha- of them—“this is the slog.” Sharon laughs little plays, but instead of concocting plot- ron and Rob’s first encounter and ended and says, “Thanks, lover.” heavy tales, like many imaginative chil- three years later, in the thick of a mar- Horgan hasn’t contended with tod- dren, she focussed on her feelings. “A big riage with children. “The interesting dlers for a while. One day during the memory for me is delivering ridiculous thing was putting the characters, slap “Divorce” shoot, her husband, Jeremy speeches—overwrought nonsense—just bang, in the middle of a relationship,” Rainbird, visited the oice with their telling someone how I felt,” she recalls.

40 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 psychotic ex-boyfriend,” Horgan recalls. “I was sitting slap-bang in the middle of a sitcom.” Donna, an oice worker played by Horgan, breaks up with her like Christ without clear cause. loser fiancé. Another character, Karen, is an alcoholic kindergarten teacher with O that his arms could shine a wild, on-and-of-again boyfriend. like shields at some local Subway, Many of Karen’s antics were based on Horgan and Kelly’s own adventures in slamming tubs of antibiotic meat “hefty drinking.” Like Karen, Horgan before the middle class who hope to be happy. Surely once ate takeout food that had been left inside a phone booth. A moment when he would miss the cashmere call of the Banana Republic, Karen looks down and says, “Whose fucking knickers are these?” was taken and the pills hopping like culinks in his hand from a long night that Horgan spent at and the women who are desirable an after-party for the boy band Take That. Kelly, summarizing this stage in because they’re both sweet their lives, said, “If you went to a party and mean. Like him, when he said, and there was one person in that room you must not sleep with, you ended up I want to die, with that person the next day.” Horgan deepened this autobiograph- from a position of great advantage. ical approach when she began writing “Catastrophe” with Delaney, in March, —Analicia Sotelo 2013. They set a rule: make nothing up. “We didn’t want to get into a scenario where we were relying on sitcom tropes— Horgan was born in the London Kelly was working at a gallery that sold you know, something funny happens at borough of Hackney in 1970, decades pictures of elves and pixies, and Hor- the beginning, there’s a misunderstand- before the gentrification that has made gan was working at a head shop. She ing, it pays of in the end,” she says. “We it one of the city’s hippest areas. (She now asked to read his script, liked it, and felt like if we could find a narrative for lives there with her family.) Horgan’s helped him cobble together the money the bad stuf that had happened to us, mother is Irish, and her father a New to stage it. They began collaborating that would be something you hadn’t seen Zealander, and they ran a local pub. But, on sketches, and eventually they sold before.” They rifled through their lives: around the time a man asked Horgan’s some to BBC Three’s “Monkey Dust,” Horgan and Rainbird had been together father to supply him with an alibi for a twisted, satirical animated show that for only six months when she found out a murder charge, they decided that Hack- provocatively covered everything from she was pregnant. Like Rob, Rainbird al- ney was no place to raise children. The immigration to bestiality. One of its cre- most bought an engagement ring that family moved to Ireland when Horgan ators, the late Harry Thompson, liked was twenty thousand pounds more than was four, eventually taking over a turkey their point of view and suggested to he meant to spend. In the second season, farm in County Meath, outside Dublin. them an idea for a sitcom that was sim- Rob and Sharon’s new baby is given the (She is a capable plucker.) ply a title, “Pulling”—British slang for Irish name Muireann (Mwir-rin), which After finishing secondary school, and picking someone up. Around this time, Rob cannot pronounce. Horgan wanted completing a year of college in Dublin, Horgan had her first child. “It was the to name her older daughter Muireann, Horgan applied to various drama pro- making of me,” she said. “It gave me a but Rainbird began to cry. Horgan says grams and was rejected. She went to diferent work ethic. It’s such an obvi- that she puts just enough distance be- London and struggled to find acting ous thing to say, but, if you have to have tween herself and her fictions that she can roles. She worked at an employment-ser- time away from the baby, you want to “pretend it’s got nothing to do with me.” vices center for six years, but at the age be using that time in the best and most of twenty-seven, soon after being asked productive way.” nlike creative people whose to clean up a pile of excrement outside “Pulling” began airing when Horgan U confessional work is an extension the oice, she quit and returned to col- was thirty-six. It was a deliciously sour of their confessional personalities, lege, having concluded that her acting poem to the period in her twenties when Horgan’s confessional work reflects dreams were not going to come true. she and two female roommates shared a powerful instinct to tamp down her One evening in the mid-nineties, a Camden flat with missing floorboards feelings. Her manner is genial but watch- Horgan went to a bar in Camden, in and a bathtub surrounded by trash. “I ful. Sitting in her “Divorce” oice, wear- north London, and ran into a man she lived with a nurse who ended up in the ing denim overalls that she wore twice knew named Dennis Kelly. He told her Hare Krishnas and a teacher who was on “Catastrophe,” she said, “I generally that he had written a play. At the time, the biggest party girl of all time, with a don’t tell people how I’m feeling, because

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 41 attempt to write separately, and has used it with all her subsequent collaborators. Horgan says that when she works with Kelly he always holds the keyboard, which he denies. Horgan says that with Delaney she always holds the keyboard, which he corroborates. “Most of our energy is ex- pended talking,” Delaney says. “We imag- ine these conversations, we say them out loud, then she writes them down, and then we read them aloud together.” (Not so bad for a bad talker.) By reading the material aloud, Hor- gan and her writing partners are trying to make the lines sound as much like spoken English as possible; “Catastro- phe” scripts are littered with syntactical detritus like “you know.” The writers are also trying hard to make each other laugh. Horgan is currently working with Kelly on a show for Channel 4 called “The Circuit,” about a couple who at- tend a diferent dinner party each epi- sode. (The pilot started filming about •• a week after “Divorce” wrapped.) During one writing session, in London, some- I don’t want to put myself in a weak po- tastrophe” and something occurs onscreen one knocked on their oice door, won- sition. It is a constant source of frustra- that is taken from their lives, and that they dering where the shouting Hungarian tion to my family and my friends that have not previously discussed. “We’ll both woman was. It was just Horgan and they’ll find out about something years be watching it, looking straight ahead,” Kelly, testing out a rif. or months after it’s happened, on TV.” she said. “And I can feel him, in my pe- U.K. productions generally have low Yet Horgan doesn’t like to think that riphery, looking at me, and I’ll pretend budgets and small stafs, and Horgan is her work has made her personal life in that he’s not. And then, at the end of the used to being involved with every aspect any way transparent. When I asked her night, something might get discussed.” of her shows, from writing to costume why the character Sharon doesn’t have Writing, she told me, is “a way of getting design, from casting to location. “It’s in- many friends, she darted her eyes at me, round the not-talking thing, and still spew- credibly scary to leave any of that to some- as if alarmed that I had intuited some- ing it all out of your psyche.” one else,” she says. “You turn up wherever thing about her from a show that she’d As her work suggests, Horgan be- you’re supposed to be shooting and you based on herself. “We didn’t want to get lieves that marriage is diicult. With have a heart attack, thinking, This isn’t bogged down in a massive entourage of “Divorce,” she will have made a trio of what was in my brain!” On “Pulling,” Hor- characters,” she replied. When I asked thematically connected shows: one about gan and Kelly would remind actors about her if she’d given me a look, she admit- someone not sure about getting married, certain commas. But that level of control ted, “I’m not great at staying on top of one about someone not sure about being was impossible on “Divorce.” Horgan friendships. I should ring a few people married, and one about someone not sure wrote the pilot by herself, but after the after I finish with you.” about staying married. “I really don’t know show was picked up a writers’ room was Horgan says that in her marriage— a single couple who I don’t look at and assembled. Paul Simms, the creator of which she would rather not talk about go, ‘Well, you’ve obviously got issues,’ ” “NewsRadio” and a former writer and much in public—she is a “really bad talker. she says. But, as gruelling as marriage producer on “Girls,” was brought on as It just doesn’t come naturally.” (Rainbird, can be, she is sure that it is better than a showrunner. Horgan, who is an execu- fortunately, “talks enough for both of us.”) the alternative. “The much scarier thing, tive producer, became one voice among She told me that she has a “head in the no matter how bad your relationship gets, many, including Simms, Sarah Jessica sand” approach to problems, and that is the other option,” Horgan said. “It’s a Parker, and HBO executives. “Splitting Rainbird does not. He once hired some- thin line, but I’d rather be in the shit.” the workload and splitting the responsi- one to help her clean up her desk. “It upset bility is something that I’ve had to get me so much,” she says. “Because every organ shares a keyboard with my head around,” Horgan said. question this person asked me, to try and H her writing partners. She calls this Compounding the strain, she had to make my life better, I wanted to avoid.” style “sitting down with a person and hav- leave her family in London and spend I asked Horgan what happens when ing a gorgeous little club.” She developed five months in Brooklyn. She took to she and Rainbird are, say, watching “Ca- the approach with Kelly, after a disastrous wearing jewelry pieces with her children’s

42 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 names on them. When her family vis- commission similarly sophisticated nar- When “Divorce” begins airing on ited, she made her daughters leave some rative sitcoms. To Clarke, “Catastrophe” HBO, it will be joining a network that toys behind. They FaceTimed five times is a kind of hybrid, “aping what you did has made a success of “Veep,” the fab- a day, and she read them a bedtime story in the States” in terms of mixing drama, ulously abrasive comedy by Armando every night. In Horgan’s oice, childish comedy, and season-long story lines, Iannucci, the Scottish writer who co- handwriting remained scrawled on a “but also plundering some British com- created Alan Partridge. “Divorce” is as whiteboard: “I am so glad that Sharon edy traditions, mostly of hatred, self- unconcerned with likability as a bridge Horgan is my mummy.” loathing, and repression.” jumper is with a parachute. Whereas in Horgan’s career reflects the increas- “Sex and the City” Sarah Jessica Park- s the volume of television pro- ingly porous nature of these national er’s Carrie seduced viewers with flirty A gramming has ballooned and the styles. “Pulling” is the epitome of the charm and a witty, confiding voice-over, audience for individual shows has shriv- grim British comedy. Two attempts to Frances is tightly controlled and emo- elled, the creators of comedies have been adapt it for American television failed. tionally exhausted, all icy reserve to Car- freed from the obligation to appeal to “Catastrophe” is a series about two lik- rie’s warm exuberance. This is by design. most of the country. It has become com- able characters who do not quite seem Over the course of the season, viewers’ monplace to present audiences with so on paper. Based only on a script, it is sympathies will flip-flop between Fran- intentionally challenging characters. possible to imagine an interpretation of ces and Robert, as more of their past The protagonists of “Girls,” “Curb Your “Catastrophe” that veers dangerously and present behavior is revealed, but at Enthusiasm,” and “Transparent” were close to “Who’s Afraid of Virginia the beginning of the series Frances is a clearly engineered with watchability, not Woolf?” In the final episode of the new deeply unaspirational rebuke to anyone likability, in mind. season, Sharon enthusiastically lectures looking for a reprise of Carrie Bradshaw. There’s another way to understand Rob, “Not everyone has to like you. You’re “We always felt, from the start, Frances what has happened to American com- not a puppy. You’re an adult man with a is no Carrie,” Horgan says. In the first edy in recent years: it has become more wife. Honest people who tell people how episode of “Divorce,” a character learns British. The hallmark of the British sit- they feel when they feel it have people that her husband will likely survive a com is a quasi-unbearable protagonist not like them. O.K.? That’s what I do. I medical crisis. Her response: “But if he who is an Everyman, only insofar as have earned the right to have people dis- wakes up he’s going to be so mad at me.” every man can laugh at him. The unre- like me. I am very happy to have people It’s a line that accomplishes all that mat- pentant snob Basil Fawlty, the beastly not like me!” (“No shit,” Rob replies.) ters—it’s funny. glamour-pusses Edina and Patsy, the When Joe Lewis, the head of half- In mid-March, a week after Hor- fatuous narcissist Alan Partridge, and hour series for Amazon, saw the first gan returned home to London, I asked the thirsty bufoon David Brent: these episode of “Catastrophe,” the riskiness her over the phone what themes con- classic British characters are all flawed of it was both self-evident and alluring. nect her work. She paused and said, in the unapologetic manner of contem- “On the surface, these two characters “Just me. If I was to track my life, and porary edgy American comedies. seem like they might be incredibly un- someone was to track the programs I U.K. sitcoms tend to be darker than likable,” he says. “We’re coming out of made alongside it, I think there is a American ones, encouraged by a pow- a world where networks would give a massive overlap. I had nothing, and erful public broadcasting system whose note like ‘How could a mom not be now I have something, and I managed aim is to serve the varying tastes of tax- thinking about her baby every second?’ ” to cobble together a family and a rela- payers, not the upbeat preferences of In the first episode of tionship along the way, advertisers, and by a national psyche fix- “Catastrophe,” a pregnant but at the heart of it I’m ated on the immutability of the class sys- Sharon sips some wine and still a mess, and there’s still tem, not on a dream of self-improvement. has a few pufs of a ciga- just a mess at the heart Americans believe that things will get rette. The first season of of all my work.” I noted better. Brits laugh at how things stay “Catastrophe” has the arc that this self-assessment the same. To become a hit in the United of a romantic comedy: two seemed at odds with her States, “The Oice” not only had to adults meet cute, fall in industriousness and her transform the tragic, grating boss into love under crazy circum- competent manner. “I do a less tragic, less grating, more well- stances, and then get married. But in- think I’m a mess,” she said. “That’s not meaning boss; it had to cast of the mes- stead of leaving of with “I do” (and a necessarily a bad thing. It’s fuelled sage, central to the British original, that baby), “Catastrophe” twists the formula all my work, and I’m hoping it will work is where you go to waste your life. and concludes with a vicious, unresolved, continue to. There is a nervous energy Still, trade moves in both directions wedding-night fight. Up to this point, in me that makes me work very hard across the Atlantic. American series fre- British and American audiences had re- but that also makes me way overthink quently air in the U.K. Four years ago, sponded to the show similarly. But U.K. things.” Phil Clarke, the head of Channel 4’s audiences took the grim turn in stride, The next day, I received a more up- comedy department, felt inspired by the whereas parts of the American audi- beat e-mail: “I feel less messy today. dramatic elements of American series ence—acculturated to expect a happy Back to feeling like a badass. Who knows like “Louie” and “Girls,” and set out to ending—vocally disliked it. what tomorrow will bring.” 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 43 have to confess, for a moment, I pic- SHOUTS & MURMURS tured the White House parlor, perhaps with more books and some Native Amer- ican wall hangings, and a weekly brunch A SPECIAL SEDER where I’d sway the Supreme Court with bagels, cold cuts, and a few pointed wit- BY PAUL RUDNICK ticisms, like, “Do we really need Texas? Isn’t it just Florida with goyim?” “When it came to personal interactions with ful, gifted, entrancing but still modest, The President followed along in a Jews or issues that had an impact on Jews, Lin- and entirely available eighteen-year- Haggadah, as we named all the plagues, coln did the right thing, on every occasion,” Har- old daughter, Miriam.” including locusts, frogs, and, as Aunt old Holzer, a prominent Lincoln scholar . . . said in an interview. . . . “I myself have a regard “I thought she was twenty-seven,” Tessie said, “whalebone corsets and my for the Jews,” Lincoln reportedly said. . . . Aunt Tessie commented. husband Walt’s obstructed bowel.” We My chiropodist is a Jew, and he has so many “Thank God for gaslight,” Nana explained the meaning of the glass of times ‘put me on my feet’ that I would have no Estelle said. wine left out for the Prophet Elijah. objection to giving his countrymen ‘a leg up.’ ” “Miriam may look a few weeks older,” “Or, as we call him,” Milt said, “Miri- —The Times. my father told the President, “from all am’s boyfriend, because he never shows her reading and sewing and concern up.” This caused Nana Estelle to swat for our nation. She was impressed with Milt with the afikomen. your fine words at Gettysburg.” “Matzo is really very tasty,” the Pres- “Is Gettysburg a Jewish fellow?” ident remarked. Aunt Tessie asked. “We should have “It’s like bread that died,” Aunt Tessie him over for Purim.” said. “Let’s cut right to the four questions.” “Thank you all for inviting me into “Which are usually asked by the your home,” the President said. youngest child,” my father said. “Pish, pish,” my mother said. “It’s “But I’ll do it,” Aunt Tessie said. our pleasure. Now, you’re the President “Question No. 1: Isn’t Miriam a lovely but you’re also a lawyer, am I right?” girl, with a tiny waistline and a beau- “Yes, I am,” the President said. “Al- tiful singing voice?” though I am largely self-educated.” “Just nod,” Milt advised the Presi- his is so embarrassing, but here “It’s not Harvard,” Milt muttered. dent, “so you can’t be impeached.” T in my diary I feel that I must re- “A lawyer is a lawyer,” Aunt Tessie said. “Question No. 2,” Aunt Tessie said. count the day, in 1864, when my par- “Unless he’s the kind of lawyer who “Are Jewish girls smarter and prettier than ents, Max and Rose Fleischman, in- advertises in the back pages of the ga- shiksas? My answer: Who can say? But vited President Lincoln to our home, zette,” Uncle Ezra said. “With those most of those First Ladies, it’s always with in Virginia, for Passover Seder. My fa- ads that say, ‘Were you hit by a run- the bonnets and the baptizing—who needs ther was the President’s chiropractor, away horse and buggy? Come see Crazy that? Question No. 3: Are you single?” and he’d promised “good company, a Abe—he’s crazy about justice!’ ” Everyone leaned toward the President. taste of horseradish, and a pillow for “Actually, people call me Honest “As I’m sure you all know, I’m mar- your back.” When the President ar- Abe,” the President said. ried to Mary Todd,” the President said. rived, my family was already seated “I thought you were a lawyer,” Aunt “Question No. 4,” Aunt Tessie said. around our dining-room table. “Good Tessie said. “Is she going to live forever?” evening, everyone,” the President said. “Mr. President, have you ever been The President laughed, and Aunt “He’s such a handsome man,” my to a Seder before?” my father asked. Tessie said, “I’m serious, I’ve seen this aunt Tessie murmured. “I’m loving the “It’s when we tell the story of how the Mary Todd, what a gloomy Gus. You beard. Is he Orthodox?” Jews were slaves in Egypt, but Moses could get a divorce, you could marry “What’s with the hat?” my brother stood up to the Pharaoh and there were Miriam, everybody wins!” Milt asked. “Does he do a magic act?” plagues, and then everyone wandered “Stop this right now!” I said. “You’re “You’re too skinny!” my mother de- in the desert for forty years.” embarrassing the President!” clared. “Sit! Eat! And remember—we’re “But it’s very upbeat,” my mother “Thank you, Miriam,” the President all voters! Well, except for the women added quickly. said. “But I don’t wish myself on any and Uncle Walt.” “In a way, Mr. President,” I said, woman. I’m far too doom-ridden. I “I’ll vote when I’m ready,” Uncle “you’re a modern Moses, because you don’t deserve a wonderful girl like you.” Walt said, and then left for the out- fought evil and freed the slaves.” “I’m writing this down,” Milt said. house, with his newspaper, for the re- “Such a bright girl,” my father said. “I can use it with Helen Baumholder.” mainder of the meal. “But not too bright,” Aunt Tessie “But I did bring a dessert,” the Pres- “Come, meet the Fleischmans,” my said. “Miriam, say something stupid.” ident said. father said, introducing everyone and “Miriam is a lovely young woman,” “I told you!” Aunt Tessie shouted.

saving me for last. “This is my beauti- the President said, smiling at me, and I “He’s our first Jewish President!”  CHI BIRMINGHAM

44 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

very big news, since the premonition only adds to the accepted meaning of A CRITIC AT LARGE the meeting: scary, hyper- mature, and aggressive John meets sweet (though sexually precocious) Paul, and some- LONG PLAY thing happens. The absence of news isn’t really an The charmed lives of Paul McCartney. indictment of Norman’s energy or pur- posefulness as a biographer. After Lew- BY ADAM GOPNIK isohn; after Barry Miles’s strange “Many Years from Now,” a semi-oicial biog- raphy; after Albert Goldman’s “The Lives of John Lennon” and the Beatles Anthology series, there just isn’t much left to say. Even if there were some- thing left to say about McCartney’s life in the forty-six-year period since the Beatles’ breakup, the crucial seven years that make the rest matter are by now almost too well documented. Lewisohn’s “The Beatles: Day by Day,” back in 1990, supplied a nearly hourly account of what happened to the four boys when they were famous and together. And yet, even though we’re drown- ing in Beatle fact, something mysteri- ous remains, and that mysterious thing, as always in the lives of artists, is how they did what they did. There is some- thing fated about the Beatles. The first photograph of them in their final four- ness, with Ringo on drums, was taken on August 22, 1962; the last was taken exactly seven years later, on August 22, 1969. The space between was filled with music. The notorious 1962 Decca try- out tape, where they failed the audition, and deserved to, seems almost impos- sible to reconcile with the final, elegiac side of “Abbey Road,” or with the music of the last rooftop concert, in London in January, 1969—all that passionate, McCartney in 1964. At the time, his musical primacy was taken for granted. smoky, supple playing and singing. The seven years are still almost unbelievable very historical inquiry has a its pages. The closest thing is the dis- in the growth they evidence. The Beat- Esaturation point, past which new covery, already hinted at in the first les were an O.K. provincial rhythm- inquiry becomes simply old inquiry re- volume of Mark Lewisohn’s multivol- and-blues group, then they were mas- packaged, and, on that principle, it ume Beatles life, “Tune In,” that the ters, and they departed having made seems that we may at last have reached day John met Paul—July 6, 1957, for only masterpieces. How and why it hap- peak Beatles. (As we long ago reached those outside the faith—was not actu- pened—and why, having come so far so peak Churchill-in-the-war and peak ally the first time Paul met John. Paul quickly, they broke apart so soon—re- van Gogh-in-Arles.) What’s to know had, it seems, observed him several mains the biographer’s puzzle. is known. Certainly this is the case with times before, as an intimidating “teddy The mystery won’t be solved in Nor- Philip Norman’s new life of Paul Mc- boy” (a kind of dandyish hoodlum) on man’s pages, but we’ll be reminded of Cartney, called, simply, “Paul McCart- the local bus. Within the narrow world it. And this biography serves another ney: The Life.” A reader familiar with of Beatles iconomania, where that day purpose: it is, essentially, biography as the past twenty years of Beatles biog- has been realized on film at least twice, apology. Norman admits that in his raphy will have a pretty hard time find- and has even been the subject of a earlier books, including a biography of

ing a single new fact or revelation within lengthy book, this is news, though not the Beatles called “Shout!” (a weird MUSIC & ARTS RA/LEBRECHT

46 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 title, given that the Beatles never re- choly, as in “The Fool on the Hill”; do with the politics and practices of corded and only rarely played that song, sometimes it’s in the middle of a phrase, music publishing. All biographies of pop and given that shouting is what they as in “Penny Lane,” to capture a mood artists, to a first approximation, seem to end didn’t do), he accepted the cheap ste- of mixed sun and showers. These are up being studies in the music- publishing reotype of Paul as a self-centered triv- things that trained composers do by business. The story is always the same, and ialist. Now he sees that Paul was not rote; McCartney did them by feel— as unvarying as the tale of the stepson in only a man of genius but also some- like Irving Berlin writing for Fred As- a Brothers Grimm fable. A young pop one who has, past seventy, handled the taire, he was a rare thing, a naturally star eager for fame and money makes madness of mega-fame about as well sophisticated intuitive. Lennon’s tragic a deal for a few promising beans with a as anyone ever has. Elvis Presley and martyrdom, and McCartney’s fall from grizzled music manager-publisher he Michael Jackson died of something critical favor, made it seem as though meets on the road to town; the young- very much like suicide; John Lennon one had been regarded as a more con- ster climbs the beanstalk that grows up, was murdered—hardly his fault—but sequential figure than the other. In and fights the giant at the top, only to after a long period of withdrawal. Paul truth, throughout the nineteen-sixties find, on his descent, that the grizzled is a grandfather and a father, by all ac- Paul’s musical primacy was largely taken vet has made of with most of the for- counts a good one, who made a bad for granted. In 1966, the critic Ken- tune that fell from the clouds. rebound marriage after losing a much neth Tynan, a hard man to please, pro- Klein, Goodman shows, was a vir- loved wife, but who has otherwise spent posed doing a profile of Paul, in prefer- tuoso of this kind of swindle, not just the past twenty-five or so years doing ence to John, because he was “by far the selling the beans but keeping them mov- the good work of entertaining count- most interesting of the Beatles and cer- ing, in a perpetual shell game. Which less people and accepting innumerable tainly the musical genius of the group.” is not to say that he was simply a vil- awards. It’s a nice life to look at. He lain. He worked by the rules of Brill still strolls the streets of New York, f all the Beatles’ biographical Building business: he consistently helped smiling and dismayingly normal. So, if Oconundrums, the most baling is his clients—chiefly, by forcing audits there are no new facts, there is a new their breakup. One minute they were on unwilling record companies, which attitude: all is forgiven. represented, in “Yellow Submarine,” as almost invariably turned out to be hid- As Norman shows, McCartney has four Edwardian children inhabiting a ing a few beans themselves—while help- worked so hard at seeming an ordinary magical shared space; the next they were ing himself, too. The problem is not bloke that it is easy to miss the least or- in the midst of squabbles so bitter that that he was a thief but that he worked dinary and least bloke-ish thing about they had hardly healed when, ten years in a business where thieving, of one kind him: the magnitude of his melodic gift. later, John was murdered. “Musical or another, was the business. He saw A genius for melody is a strange, sur- diferences, business diferences, per- his job as getting as much money as prisingly isolated talent, and doesn’t have sonal diferences” was McCartney’s own possible for his clients and as much much to do with a broader musical gift laconic formula, ofered when he re- money as possible for himself, without for composition; Mozart certainly had leased the first post- Beatles album, in stopping to reflect on whose was whose. it, Beethoven not so much. Irving Ber- April of 1970. The business diferences Klein pioneered several diferent ways lin could barely play the piano and when may have been the biggest of all, and of doing this; most of them involved ma- he did it was only in a single key (F-sharp they are nicely illuminated by another nipulating the copyrights of music-pub- major: all the black keys), and yet he good recent Beatle book, Fred Good- lishing businesses that—no longer de- wrote hundreds of haunting tunes; man’s “Allen Klein: The Man Who pendent on the sale of sheet music, as André Previn, who could do anything Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the had been the case when there was a piano musically as a pianist and a conductor, Stones, and Transformed Rock & Roll.” in every parlor—now made their money wrote scarcely a single memorable mel- Klein emerges as a marginally more on royalties from record sales and radio ody, although he did write several shows sympathetic figure than earlier Beat- play and covers. Klein found ways to and many songs. McCartney, as Nor- les biographies would suggest. The story semi-swindle his clients out of all these man reminds us, had the gift in absurd told in the past is that Klein, a Brill royalties; Goodman’s book is a kind of abundance. Before he was twenty, he Building shark who had previously hair-raising, greatest-hits catalogue of had written three standard songs—“I’ll managed Bobby Vinton and Sam how to screw a pop musician. “Don’t take Follow the Sun,” “When I’m Sixty- Cooke, came to London in search of twenty percent of an artist’s income— Four,” and what became “Michelle.” By new prey. Having landed the Rolling give them eighty percent of yours” was the time he was thirty, he had written Stones as a sort of trial munch, he went the formula that Klein urged on younger so many that he now seems to lose track after the Beatles. John Lennon hired managers, and there was something sometimes, reviving old tunes in con- him, wanting, as Klein put it, to have fiendish in the seemingly equitable equa- cert that he has half forgotten. “a real shark—someone to keep the tion. Control the entire flow of money, Someone could get a Ph.D. thesis other sharks away.” (Dolphins tell them- in other words, and, even if you give the out of studying the major-minor shifts selves things like this all the time, with artist the biggest chunk, you can still in his Beatles songs: sometimes the predictable results.) make sure that the true and permanent change is from verse to chorus, to mark The subsequent machinations, as owner of the musical beans is you. a change from airmation to melan- Goodman relates them, have mostly to In the case of Sam Cooke, Klein,

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 47 having formed a publishing company feeding all the hostile stereotypes that working within the confines of the old for Cooke, ostensibly as a tax dodge, Norman is now trying, decades later, partnership, allowing her to claim roy- saw to it that, when Cooke was mur- to remedy. What wasn’t clear at the alties that he would otherwise have dered (in an unspeakably stupid motel time was how long a shot that lawsuit had to split with the businessmen (not misunderstanding), he controlled the was. As Goodman shows, the law and Klein; this was another gang of bottom- company to which the rights to the the facts were very strongly with Klein: feeders) who had bought the Lennon- masters would revert. With the Rolling a contractual four-way partnership can’t McCartney music-publishing business. Stones, the maneuver was more com- normally be sundered by one partner’s For a long time, he refused to sing plicated: he bought the Stones’ man- discontent. Shrewdly, the Eastmans Beatle songs—in part, no doubt, for agement contract from their original understood the judge’s prejudices; artistic reasons but also, surely, because discoverer, Andrew Loog Oldham, giv- they raised, somewhat unfairly, an un- he didn’t want to go on putting money ing himself twenty per cent of the Stones’ related tax suit that Klein was involved in the pockets of those who had sto- royalties, paid out of Oldham’s share in in in America, and in general painted len the songs. There was no shortage everything the Stones recorded through such an unpleasant picture of him that of melodies, but the albums seemed 1970. Klein also negotiated a deal to the court ruled in favor of placing the flaccid and cluttered. He formed a band, manufacture the music itself—to make Beatles in receivership. called Wings, but it was a band only the actual vinyl LPs and wholesale them In fairness to Klein, it should be said in name: he wrote all the songs and to the record company. In this way, he that few people imagined that the pop sang all the songs and picked all the could double-dip, making money from music of the period would be remem- musicians, changing them as he wanted the music and from the manufacturing bered eighteen months afterward, much and paying them as sidemen, not as and whatever else was left lying around. less that it would still be hugely valu- partners, while remaining deeply in- “When Klein met a prospective cli- able half a century later. No one antic- vested in the notion that this was a ent,” Goodman writes, “it was his habit ipated that pop-song publishing deals new band, making its way to the top. to simply ask, ‘What do you want?’ In- signed in 1961 would have significant That the people who turned out had variably the answer was money. . . . financial consequences in 2016; it would turned out to hear not Wings but him— Klein knew he could get that, and he be like supposing that a YouTube cat that they were prepared to put up with would tell all the young artists so. What video today will be generating revenue the band in order to hear him—still he would not tell them was that they in 2070. Managers of Klein’s genera- seems, if Norman is to be credited, gen- were asking for the wrong thing.” The tion simply assumed that a hit was a uinely surprising to him. right thing to ask for was not money six-week event and a career a matter of It’s true that the sound of the band but ownership. Klein took that. three years, and that you grabbed what was very un-Beatles-like—pop where With the Beatles, he increased their you could while you could. Everybody they had been rock, slack where they royalties while trying, at least, to insin- took a piece. Peter Watkins’s 1967 movie had been tight. This was deliberate. uate himself into the ownership of their “Privilege,” a satirical account of the rise McCartney didn’t want to sound like songs. McCartney, dubious, consulted of a Beatlesque pop star, ends with the the Beatles. (In concert these days, he his prospective in-laws Lee and John notion that after his brief fame noth- plays two and a half hours of mostly Eastman, the father and brother of his ing remains but a single, silent film clip. Beatles music, having revived even odd- girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, Linda. To read about these fights today is ities like “Another Girl” and “Hello, New York lawyers and artist managers to feel the glow of the irretrievable past. Goodbye.” But for a long time he of, among others, Willem de Koon- Few hope to make huge sums from wouldn’t.) His gift remained intact. In ing, they warned him of popular music now; the the mid-eighties, he wrote twelve songs Klein. Far more sophis- business has traversed an with Elvis Costello—the compiled ticated (and mindful of improbable arc where ca- acoustic demo duets may be the best their fiduciary obliga- reers were once assumed of all Paul’s post-Beatle work—but, as tions), the Eastmans con- to be short-lived and far as one can tell, he more or less bailed sidered the value of the records to be minimally out on the project before it was com- Beatles something to be profitable, through the plete. Something seems to have in- cultivated and constructed Golconda era of almost truded itself between him and ambi- in the long term. The unbelievable wealth, to tious new work. He did some nice Beatles, they saw, were more like de the new era where careers are once orchestral pieces but seemed reluctant Kooning than like Bobby Vinton. The again assumed to be precarious and re- to fulfill their promise. (His “Liver- Eastmans won out, at least with Mc- cordings minimally profitable. pool Oratorio,” composed in collab- Cartney, and eventually made him an oration with Carl Davis, is full of beau- unequalled fortune. ven a staunch fan has to acknowl- tiful melody—though I may be in a In 1970, McCartney and the East- Eedge the musical fall that came after stubborn minority in this view—as is mans launched a lawsuit to break up McCartney wrestled himself free from his later orchestral requiem for his wife, the Beatles partnership. That became his partners. What happened? One of Linda, “Ecce Cor Meum.”) Oddly pas- the trigger for John Lennon’s toxic on- the first things he did was begin to sive, artistically, for such a notoriously slaughts against his former partner, write with his wife, Linda, while still self-possessed composer, he has taken

48 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 on the shape of whomever he’s closest to at any moment: witty and dreamy when paired with John; classical-minded and highbrow when living with Jane Asher; hippie-high with Linda East- man, and so on. Or perhaps the simpler truth is that each of us has only so many heartbeats. All artists have fat years and leaner ones afterward. They just hope that the lean years don’t turn into a famine, and that there’s enough seed corn left over for sweet if stressed fruit. To have had a rich harvest more or less guarantees a comedown later. The issue is the grace with which you fall. If one thing seems clarified by Paul’s later career, it is how false it is to find a breaking point in music around that date in 1957, or in Elvis’s golden year of 1956, or at any other time. In the mythologies of the form, rock brought the blues back to a musical world dom- inated by fake glossy pop or Broadway. There was a kind of Protestant fervor to this belief; anything that sounded like an actual pop song was bad. (“How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” is trotted out as though representative of fifties songwriting.) It was always a foolish tenet—Chuck Berry claimed Nat King Cole as his idol—but in ret- rospect it looks mildly insane. McCart- ney understood this, seeing himself in equal measure a cabaret and a rock writer. (There’s a lovely swinging song called “All of You,” played briefly on an unreleased tape, which cries out to have the Basie band backing it.) McCartney’s songwriting drew as •• much on Frank Loesser as on Little Richard, and now, in his golden years, of McCartney covers ever recorded. him onstage and held her ears against he is making the point gently and re- Seen from the twenty-first century, the screaming, and, like every woman peatedly. His two best records of the the great rupture of rock looks more of her generation, has idolized him past decade have been recordings of ideological than musical, more a mat- since. “I know you,” he said cheerily, standards—not in the somewhat cyn- ter of costume and attitude and audi- and then, stepping forward, realized ical, sigh-and-turn-the-page manner ence than of emotion. (Musically, at he didn’t. “I’m so sorry,” he said, at once. of Rod Stewart but with real, eccen- least: the post-Rimbaud imagistic lyr- “I’m really sorry to intrude.” It must tric feeling. It took genius to do “The ics of a “Strawberry Fields”—or any have been the first time in fifty years Inchworm,” Loesser’s chantlike tune number of Dylan songs—were out- that McCartney had had to apologize from “Hans Christian Andersen.” But side the range of the great American for bugging someone on the street, then he owns it. (All things do come songwriters, as their dramatic event- rather than the other way around. That down to publishing.) More recently, fulness was outside the range of the he still knew how to do it is a sign of Mc Cart ney urged the wonderful second- rock writers.) his grace.  generation swing guitarist and vocal- Still, he walks these streets. Not long 1 ist John Pizzarelli to do a recording ago, on one of the Upper East Side Constabulary Notes from All Over of his newer, second-generation stan- avenues he haunts, Paul McCartney From the Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald- Record. dards, and that record, “Midnight Mc- bumped into a woman (my wife, as it PROSECUTION OF STOLEN DUCKS Cartney,” may be the best collection happens) who as a small child had seen SAID TO BE 'PUNITIVE'

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 49 PROFILES GODMOTHER OF SOUL Erykah Badu’s expanding musical universe.

BY KELEFA SANNEH

hen Erykah Badu told example. (As a teen-age d.j. called terlude, purportedly the outgoing mes- Zach Witness, an unher- White Chocolate, he entertained black sage on Badu’s cell phone: alded producer from East and Latino crowds at the local skating W If you’re calling to beg for some shit, but Dallas, that she might like to come rink.) Last year, he paid tribute to Badu this is that pre-call before the actual begging, to his home studio and work on some with a faintly psychedelic remix of one press ive. music, he didn’t dare believe her. Badu, of her best-loved songs, “Bag Lady,” If you’ve already made that pre-call, and who is forty-five, has lived in Dallas which he posted online, along with a this is the actual call to beg, press six. all her life. But she spends a consid- note in which he confessed that he If you’re calling to ask for some free tick- ets in a city near you, and know she don’t re- erable part of every year on the road, viewed her as “a second mother.” ally fuck with you like that, press seven. as has been her custom since 1997, The remix was just one small sign of when she released her début album, Badu’s enduring appeal and influence. The joke, if it was a joke, quickly “Baduizm,” which sold millions of Although she sometimes calls herself grew more ambitious. Badu thought copies, earned her a pair of Grammys, Analog Girl, she is adept at social of other songs about phones: “Mr. and made her one of the most cele- media, and when she heard Witness’s Telephone Man,” by New Edition; “U brated soul singers of the modern era. remix she responded, on Twitter, with Don’t Have to Call,” by Usher. She The word people used back then was a four-letter word of praise: “Oooh.” and Witness recorded eleven tracks “neo-soul,” but nowadays it seems ap- Badu and Witness traded messages, in about as many days, culminating in propriate to omit the “neo”—not be- and she told him that she had been an inspired reimagining of the Isley cause her music has grown more old- thinking about recording a version of Brothers’ “Hello It’s Me,” for which fashioned but because it has grown “Hotline Bling,” the viral hit by Drake, Badu enlisted a special guest: André harder to categorize, and maybe even built around a passive-aggressive re- Benjamin, known as André 3000, from easier to enjoy. minder to an old flame: “You used to OutKast, who is the father of her old- Witness is twenty-three, and he had call me on my cell phone.” This ex- est child. (Witness remembers trying been a fan of Badu ever since he was change scarcely prepared Witness for not to act starstruck when he showed five years old, when he saw her surreal the shock of seeing Badu, a few days up: “It was literally André fucking 3000 appearance on “All That,” a comedy later, at the front door of his house— on my porch, like, ‘What’s up, man?’ ”) show on the kids’ channel Nickelodeon. the same house where he had once Badu and Benjamin’s playful duet “This woman came on with incense, watched her on television. She took helped to turn her quirky phone proj- a head wrap, and tea,” he remembers. him out for vegan food, and then they ect into a major musical event. She She was impossibly elegant, intoning got to work. called the collection “But You Caint lyrics that sounded like a dreamy dis- The first session took about twenty Use My Phone,” borrowing a line from tant cousin of the blues: minutes; Badu sang the words a few “Tyrone,” one of her biggest hits. It times, and before she finished warm- was not quite an album, but when it Oh, my, my, my, I’m feeling high ing up Witness had captured what be- arrived on iTunes it leaped to No. 2 My money’s gone, I’m all alone Too much to see came the final version. With a few lyr- on the album chart, behind Adele’s The world keeps turning ical edits, she made the song seem “25.” On music Web sites, Badu was Oh, what a day, what a day, what a day teasing and afectionate, as if she were suddenly ubiquitous again. both taking part in a dating ritual and Some fans were surprised by Badu’s No doubt many Nickelodeon view- observing it fondly from afar. While new sound: a singer once known for ers were confused, but Witness was Drake moaned that his ex was “wear- incense and head wraps had tackled— converted, especially once he discov- ing less and going out more,” Badu and possibly improved—an electro- ered that the singer was also a local. seemed happy to report that hers pop hit by Drake. Most were simply Badu had come of age in the late was “getting dressed and going out happy to have something fresh to listen nineteen- eighties, in Dallas’s embry- more.” Eventually, she and Witness to, because Badu hadn’t released an onic hip-hop scene; two decades later, created a musical diptych, with two album since 2010. “I’m a touring artist, as Witness nursed his own obsession versions of “Hotline Bling,” a semi- not a recording artist,” she says, and with hip-hop, he tried to live up to her tone apart, separated by a spoken in- she remains a big draw throughout the

50 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 Badu calls herself “super mutable,” and, as a musician, she sometimes seems to be aging in reverse.

PHOTOGRAPH BY AMANDA DEMME THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 51 world. Her concerts and other appear- O.G.,” she says now. “Godmother. Aun- college in Chicago and learning music ances, combined with her garrulous tie. They keep aging and getting old— production. He sent her beats to rap presence on social media, have helped and I just stay the same.” over, but one of them inspired her to to solidify her position as one of the sing, instead, and the resulting song country’s most revered singers: a nine- adu was a rapper before she was became a blueprint for their music. ties star whose early hits have aged well B a singer, and a dancer before she Working as a duo, they put together a and whose later work is both warmer was either, starting when she was a demo under the name Erykah Free. and bolder than the songs that made stubborn, quirky four-year-old, grow- In New York, explorers like Groove her famous. She has also become a ing up in a working-class neighbor- Theory and Guru were combining hip- touchstone for a generation of younger hood in South Dallas. She was born hop beats with R. & B. and jazz, and musicians—the cool big sister they al- Erica Wright, and she didn’t see much Erykah Free seemed like part of this ways wanted, as well as a self- empowered of her father, who struggled with drugs new movement. Within a few months, sex symbol. (“My ass and legs have got- and spent time in prison. She was they got an ofer, with a catch: a young ten thick,” she once sang. “Yeah, it’s all brought up by her mother, Kolleen executive named Kedar Massenburg, me.”) Drake is one of many younger Wright, along with her godmother and who managed a rising singer named peers who count Badu as a friend and her two grandmothers—four mothers D’Angelo, was interested, but he didn’t a mentor, a fact that he publicized with altogether. Or five, Badu says, “if you want a duo. Badu signed a solo deal. one of the most decorous boasts in hip- count Mother Nature.” One of her “It took a while to get over it,” Brad- hop history: “Remember one night, I cousins, Robert (Free) Bradford, de- ford says now. Yet he remains close to went to Erykah Badu house—she made scribed the women around Badu as Badu, and still admires her music. tea for me / We talked about love and firm but not uptight. “They were cool— “ ‘Baduizm’ is one of the greatest proj- what life could really be for me.” like, soul sisters with a hippie vibe,” he ects ever,” he says. “So it happened the On a recent weekend, she had a late- says. Badu bonded with her mother way it was supposed to.” Badu never night d.j. gig in Brooklyn, where most over Chaka Khan records and clashed doubted that she would find an audi- of the attendees looked scarcely older with her over clothes: she was incor- ence. “I thought I was ahead of my than “Baduizm” itself. They were all rigibly rumpled, nappy, sockless. Badu time,” she says. “There was nothing initiates, none more obviously than the was a sensitive girl in a city that could like what I was doing—and they agreed, young woman in a head wrap and be- be tough; for her protection, her mother the music business.” jewelled sunglasses who planted her- enrolled her in a Catholic school, where By signing with Massenburg, Badu self onstage, in front of the turntables, Badu learned to think of herself as acquired not just a major label, Univer- and sat cross-legged throughout the “weird.” She found a tribe of fellow- sal, but a cohort: Massenburg arranged set, acting as a combination cheerleader weirdos at Booker T. Washington, a for her to record a duet with D’Angelo, and spiritual guardian. When security performing-arts school that has pro- and he put her in touch with one of her tried to remove her, Badu intervened, duced Edie Brickell, Norah Jones, and favorite acts, the Roots, which created saying, quietly, “Let her go—she all Roy Hargrove, the trumpeter, who be- hip-hop with a live band. To help mar- right.” The woman bowed to Badu in came an occasional collaborator. ket his charges, Massenburg coined the appreciation. When the show was over, Badu’s high-school years, in the late genre name “neo-soul,” which has stuck Badu bowed back. eighties, coincided with the ascendance to both D’Angelo and Badu ever since. Over the years, Badu’s onstage per- of hip-hop, which captivated her and The term gestured back to the sound sona has come to more closely mirror her friends while also making them of nineteen-seventies soul, while deliv- her ofstage personality. feel slightly self-conscious ering an implicit critique of contempo- “She’s regal—but she’s about their home town. rary music. Massenburg wanted listen- ghetto at the same time,” As some other Southern ers to understand: “You’re getting a as one friend puts it. Her cities, including Houston certain level of consciousness that’s not early appearances earned and New Orleans, were in- your typical R. & B.” Badu sometimes her a reputation for high- venting their own distinc- made this critique explicit. “Music is mindedness which she is tive forms, Dallas was kind of sick,” she said, incense in hand, now happy to shed, and, slower to develop. Badu during a BET special that served as her among those who know and her friends envied— coming-out party. “It’s going through her best, she is equally noted for her and sometimes adopted—the sounds a rebirthing process, and I found my- knowledge of herbal medicine and for and slang of New York hip-hop, which self being one of the midwives.” her tendency to respond to seemingly seemed like the epitome of toughness In retrospect, it’s not clear that the benign comments with a profoundly and sophistication. At school, she stud- era’s music was in such critical condi- corny punch line: “That’s what she said!” ied dance and theatre; outside it, she tion. (Look at Billboard ’s list of the top As a musician, Badu sometimes seems, called herself Apples, half of a hip-hop R. & B. songs of, say, 1996 and you see gratifyingly, to be aging in reverse, em- duo, the Def Ones. During college, at one classic after another: Mary J. Blige, bracing a youthful spirit that didn’t Grambling State, in Louisiana, she kept “Not Gon’ Cry”; Bone Thugs-N-Har- hold as much interest for her when in touch with the Dallas scene, and with mony, “Tha Crossroads”; Aaliyah, “If she was young and dignified. “I’m the her cousin Bradford, who was away at Your Girl Only Knew”; BLACKstreet,

52 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 “No Diggity.”) And though the term “neo-soul” was aixed to a number of performers—including Bilal, Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, Maxwell, and Jill Scott—not many of them embraced it. Still, the success of Badu and the oth- ers convinced some listeners that a mu- sical reformation was under way. R. & B. had grown more boisterous, under the influence of hip-hop, and Badu’s so- phisticated songs provided a pleasant change of pace. Neo-soul spoke to and for an increasingly confident black bo- hemian culture—politically aware, spir- itually minded, middle class. Its expo- nents took pains to show that mainstream hip-hop videos ofered only a partial representation of black life. Of course, “Baduizm” had its own un- derstated hip-hop swagger. Badu’s wil- lowy voice, softened by vibrato, inspired “One no-trump. Oh, please, God, no Trump.” comparisons to Billie Holiday, but she had a rapper’s sense of rhythm and re- straint: she knew how to stack syllables •• and deploy slang, and she knew when not to smother the beat with extraneous ad- Thompson, from the Roots; around the and a few weeks ago she dropped by libs. The song that transfixed Zach Wit- same time, they were also working on Witness’s house to add her part to a song ness, “On & On,” became the first neo- “Voodoo,” by D’Angelo, another of that D.R.A.M. had sent her, possibly for soul single to reach the top of Billboard ’s the great neo-soul albums. But, after release on his upcoming mixtape. “I love R. & B. chart. Though it was almost “Voodoo,” D’Angelo retreated into his this,” she said, laughing, as Witness hit smooth enough to be a slow jam, its lyr- own world, while Badu’s world kept play. “This kid has my heart.” The mi- ics more closely resembled a hip-hop free- expanding. Unlike some of her con- crophone was set up a few feet from the style. “On and on, and on and on / My temporaries, she has never been content computer—Badu avoids vocal booths, cipher keeps moving like a rolling stone,” merely to resurrect an earlier musical because she finds the isolation inhibit- Badu sang, and in this context “cipher” era, which may explain why she has ing. She laid down her verse in two takes might refer to a group of rappers stand- turned out a more engrossing body of and then moved on to the chorus, nim- ing in a circle, trading rhymes. work than any of the other acts asso- bly matching D.R.A.M.’s delivery. “We Her second studio album, “Mama’s ciated with neo-soul. In the years since on the clock / All the time / All the Gun,” was even craftier than her début “Mama’s Gun,” Badu has grown less in- time / We on the clock,” she murmured. and, in Badu’s view, even better. It was terested in establishing her indepen- “Even when we make no moves / Father anchored by a weighty hip-hop thump, dence—which no one, in any case, could Time don’t never stop.” and by lyrics that hinted at militance. doubt—and more interested in finding “You’ve been practicing,” Witness (Massenburg says that some Universal ways to connect. She calls herself “super said. “Before, you were having trouble executives were initially nervous about mutable,” and part of the intrigue in keeping up with the rhythm.” releasing an album with “gun” in the following her career has been watching “I’ve been listening to it every day,” title.) Coming from a diferent singer, her form unlikely alliances. She was one Badu said, satisfied. “Can I ride to that?” its lead single, “Bag Lady,” a cautionary of the most vocal supporters of Tyler, She wanted Witness to give her a copy tale for women too preoccupied to find the Creator, when he was at his most of the song, and a few minutes later love, might have sounded mean- spirited. antisocial, and she made an unexpected she was gone, disappearing down a “When they see you coming / Niggas appearance on a Rick Ross album, sing- quiet East Dallas street in her everyday take of running,” she sang. But Badu ing the hook to a particularly sleek ode car, a black Porsche Panamera with dispensed her hard truths gently, de- to conspicuous consumption. “Money sky-blue rims and a license plate that livering two words of advice—“Pack and clothes, they gon’ come and go,” she reads “SHE ILL.” light”—while encouraging listeners to sighed, while Ross and his collaborators hear her as someone who needed help explained the particulars of this process. he first major purchase that at least as much as they did. These days, one of Badu’s favorite T Badu made when she got famous “Mama’s Gun” was recorded with a young rappers is D.R.A.M., an inven- was a house for her mother. The sec- crew of musicians known as the Soul- tive Virginian with a tuneful flow. He ond was a house for herself, on White quarians, led by Ahmir (Questlove) and Badu have been exchanging ideas, Rock Lake, in North Dallas, where she

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 53 has lived ever since. The house was after “Baduizm” was released. “Me and births since then; on Twitter, she calls small, but as she toured she saved Erykah actually had to sit down and herself Erykah Badoula. enough money to build new bedrooms figure if we were going to keep this From the beginning, Badu’s fans have and guest rooms, and found enough child,” Benjamin says. The couple toured looked for connections between her objects to fill them all. From the street, through the pregnancy. “She would hit lyrics and her evolving family life. Her it looks like a tidy gingerbread house, the stage, I would hit the stage, then defining song might be “Tyrone,” in glowing with multicolored lights; from we would go back to the hotel and I which she tells a deadbeat boyfriend within, it resembles a vintage shop with would be putting shea butter on her to ask his friend for a ride home: “You no room to grow, packed with statues stomach,” he says. Badu threw herself better call Tyrone.” But she denied that and crystals and beads and candles and into research, learning enough about it was about Benjamin, although Ben- incense. The house is the nucleus of Reiki to become an instructor and earn- jamin admits that “Ms. Jackson”—an Badu’s extended nuclear family, and ing certification as a holistic-health OutKast track apologizing to a girl- the décor provides an exhaustive rec- practitioner. friend’s mother, released after the cou- ord of her interests and accomplish- Seven Benjamin was born at Ba- ple had publicly split—was inspired by ments. The walls are full of paintings du’s house in 1997, on the same day Badu. Unlike most R. & B. singers, Badu of Badu, donated by fans, and photo- her record company released “Live,” isn’t particularly drawn to lyrics about graphs of her friends and peers; on a a CD meant to satisfy the demand of romantic love. But then there is “Green table, an MTV Video Music Award fans who loved “Baduizm” and wanted Eyes,” the ten-minute song that ends sits snugly between a sewing machine more. The back cover was dominated “Mama’s Gun,” which is an extraordi- and a golden pig statue wearing pearls. by an image of Badu’s swollen belly, narily plainspoken evocation of the frus- On a cloudy recent afternoon, Badu and motherhood became a central tration and humiliation of a slow-mo- was dressed down, in loose jeans and part of her public persona. “I breast- tion breakup: a baggy denim shirt, made baggier by fed onstage, in the limo, backstage at a tear that ran from the hem nearly up the Soul Train awards,” she says. A Just make love to me Just one more time, and then you’ll see to one armpit. This modification may few years later, her friend Afya Ibomu I can’t believe I made a desperate plea have been accidental, but on her it (the wife of STIC, from the hip-hop What’s with me, me, me? looked like evidence of a trend that the duo Dead Prez) was due to give birth, rest of the world hadn’t yet caught up and Badu flew to New York to help. A few years later, on an autobi- with. She was reminiscing about 1997, “Her labor was fifty-two hours—all ographical track, Benjamin put the the year of her triumphant début. “You natural, no anesthesia,” she says. “We matter more succinctly: “We’re young, know how you get to pick groupies out walked it out, we bounced it out, we in love—in short, we had fun / No re- of the audience, and stuf like that?” talked, we sang, we danced, we drank grets, no abortion, had a son.” she said. “I didn’t get to do any of that.” oil, we threw up, we took a bath. All In the years after Seven was born, She had met André Benjamin at a club kind of things.” Inspired by the expe- Badu reconnected with an old friend: in New York, and their son, Seven, rience, Badu got some formal train- Tracy Curry, also known as the D.O.C., was conceived in the chaotic weeks ing, and she has assisted in dozens of or Doc, the most renowned rapper Dallas has ever produced. He moved to Los Angeles in the late nineteen- eighties, and became a ghostwriter for N.W.A.; his celebrated début album, “No One Can Do It Better,” came out in 1989. A few months after that, Curry was in a gruesome car accident that re- duced his booming voice to a whisper. (The film “Straight Outta Compton” depicts Dr. Dre rushing to his hospi- tal bed and asking, “Is he paralyzed?”) Struggling to accept that his hip-hop career was efectively over, Curry spent more than a decade drunk and high and rootless, before coming home to Dallas. He began spending time with Badu and gradually became her boy- friend, a position that enabled him to put his newfound humility into prac- tice. “I needed to be able to forget about me for a minute and enjoy her—enjoy what I missed, through her success,” “He used to think he was Napoleon—now he thinks he’s Trump.” he says now, in his famous rasp. “If she needed her bag carried, or her foot SPONSIBLE AND SO ARE ALL OF MY the melody by transcribing her own rubbed, or whatever the hell that she PARTNERS mumbles, using a method that she can’t may have needed, I couldn’t wait to I CHOSE THEM WISELY AND quite explain. James Poyser, a producer SOBERLY. do it.” They had a daughter, Puma, in ALL GOOD BROTHERS. and a keyboardist who is one of Ba- 2004, and stayed close even after they du’s closest collaborators, describes her split up, a few years later. Curry is now To make sure that no one misunder- as a canny and sometimes mysterious engaged, and his fiancée is pregnant; stood, she included a blunt valediction: editor. As they record, she might dis- they are planning a water birth, with if i lose you as a fan because i want to con- card a promising session without ex- Badu as their doula. tinue to have children then planation, or suddenly get excited about “I have an interesting life,” Badu FUCK OFF . . . WHO NEEDS YOU . . . an old musical sketch that Poyser says. “I couldn’t have planned it this CERTAINLY NOT ME . . . KICK ROCKS doesn’t even remember. He has learned way—who would?” In 2009, she gave . . . CALL TYRONE . . . PACK LIGHT . . . that her judgments tend to be correct. BITE ME birth to a third child, a precocious girl During the sessions for “Worldwide,” named Mars, whose father, like the More often, though, Badu’s love life Badu often recorded him when he was other two, is a prominent rapper: Jay has inspired curiosity, along with jokes just fooling around. When he hears his Electronica, a cult favorite from New about her supposedly mystical power parts of the album now, he wants to fix Orleans. “I’m nowhere near a single over men. During an interview on BET, them. “Part of me cringes,” he says. mom,” she says. “I mean, I am, but the she acknowledged the chatter: “There’s “But it’s just raw, and it works.” fathers are always here.” All three fa- an urban legend that says, If you get Her evolving recordings doubtless thers live much of the year in Dallas, involved with Erykah Badu, you’ll reflect her evolving live show, which and they have formed a tight com- change gods, wear crocheted pants, and has grown markedly less solemn in the munity, which has Badu’s lakefront all this other stuf.” (“Crocheted pants” years since she first brought her in- house—built, like her family, through was a reference to the rapper Com- cense sticks to Nickelodeon. On her accretion—as its hub. All three chil- mon, whose music and outfits grew no- 1997 live album, she paused to explain dren were homeschooled through sec- tably more outré when he dated Badu, one of her oversized rings to the crowd. ond grade, with Badu holding forth in in the early aughts. He has admitted “This is an ankh—an ankh is an an- her converted rec room or, when nec- that she did buy him a pair of knitted cient Kemetic symbol,” she said. “The essary, on her tour bus. Now they are trousers, but insists that the ill-fated word ‘Kemet’ is the original name for enrolled in local schools; Seven is decision to wear them for a photo shoot Egypt.” Nowadays, she wears her eso- headed to college in the fall. was his alone.) Badu once wrote a song teric knowledge more lightly, and often One afternoon, Badu was talking called “Fall in Love (Your Funeral),” she prefers teasing to teaching. She about Curry as she pulled into her in which she uses the rumors to create might interrupt her own songs with driveway with Mars, who had some- a negative-psychology pickup line. “See, electronic noises, or stop and start her thing on her mind. you don’t wanna fall in love with me,” musicians over and over, mimicking an “How did Doc lose his voice?” she said. she coos, while sending precisely the old-school bandleader. (“One time!”) “He had a car accident,” Badu said opposite message: of course you do. Years ago, during a show at the Apollo quietly. “He didn’t have a seat belt on, Theatre, she tarried so long at a there- and he got threw into a tree. They op- adu is that rare veteran musician min that the crowd grew puzzled, then erated on him, and when he woke up B who claims to harbor no ill feel- amused, then annoyed, and then finally he didn’t have a voice.” ings toward the music industry. But resigned—willing to wait for as long Mars seemed skeptical. “He told you?” she concedes that she has sometimes as it took for Badu to do whatever she “Yeah,” Badu said. “He told me. And been disappointed by the reaction to was doing. In 2014, she opened for the it was on the news. Everyone knows. her later albums, none of which have comedian Dave Chappelle at Radio He was a big star—one of the great- had as big an impact as her début. “I City Music Hall—or, rather, closed for est of all time.” thought ‘Mama’s Gun’ was my apex,” him, since her performance didn’t start Mars considered this. “Not greater she said. “Nobody else thought so.” In until half an hour after his gig was than my daddy,” she said. fact, critics loved it, but it sold about finished. Just about everyone stayed, Badu erupted in laughter. “Ho-o-o- half as many copies as “Baduizm.” With including Chappelle, who watched from o-o! ” she shouted. “That’s what Seven “Worldwide Underground,” her funky the wings for an hour as she and her says, too.” and digressive 2003 album, sales band stitched together earthy funk and Neither Badu’s blended family nor dropped by half again. otherworldly pop. her string of relationships with prom- In musical terms, though, “World- It is important for a singer—espe- inent musicians has gone unnoticed by wide Underground” was a new begin- cially one with a beloved back cata- fans. Years ago, on Okayplayer, a Web ning: Badu, once known for her me- logue, an unhurried record-release site co-founded by Questlove, Badu ticulous recordings, was adopting a schedule, and a family to support—to defended herself against criticism: looser, more spontaneous approach. keep touring without turning her con- I LOVE CHILDREN AND I WILL HAVE Her songs typically start as grooves, certs into jukebox revues. At big festi- AS MANY AS GOD WILL GIVE ME. which inspire her to hum along, and vals, Badu happily plays the hits, but at I AM VERY HEALTHY AND RE- then mumble along; she fits words to her own concerts she has more room

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 55 who is socially aware, or purports to be. “They probably don’t even know where they got it from,” Badu says, sounding more proud than ofended.

ne evening, Badu was in her O kitchen, making dinner for the family. In one pan, she boiled collard greens with nutritional yeast and Bragg Liquid Aminos; in another, she fried some faux chicken. Badu distinguishes between the vegan life style, which strikes her as of-puttingly “hardcore” (with its proscriptions, for instance, against leather clothing), and a vegan diet, which she views as a matter of common sense. “It’s pretty healthy for “Joe, what about you? Would you like to make a face at Mr. Trump?” certain blood types and bodies,” she says. “Mine happens to be one of them.” After dinner, Badu had to help her •• daughter Puma and a friend get ready for a school talent show: they were to maneuver. When she emerged, in Monáe, a younger R. & B. singer who planning to sing and dance their way 1997, she was embraced by all the ven- is both a friend and a fan of Badu, stood through “Beautiful Liar,” a duet by Be- erable African-American publications and sang along. yoncé and Shakira. Curry was nearby, ( Jet, Ebony, Essence), which encouraged The song came from “New Amerykah but Puma insisted that he stay out of readers to claim her as one of their Part One: 4th World War,” released in sight while she rehearsed, ostensibly own—an eccentric niece, perhaps, long 2008. The recording sessions for the because she wanted the routine to be before she was an eccentric auntie. At album had been open-ended, leaving a surprise to him, though possibly also her concerts now, young hipsters might Badu with twice as much material as because he is known to have strong sit side by side with loyal R. & B. fans she needed, so she divided the songs opinions that he doesn’t mind sharing. who grew up listening to the same by theme and set half of them aside. “You see how they do me?” he said, Chaka Khan records that she did. The ones she selected—peopled by smiling and shaking his head as he During a recent edition of “Black crooked cops and wicked scientists, padded down the hall in his socks. Girls Rock,” an awards ceremony broad- healers and teachers—evoke a mood Badu turned up the track. “You know, cast on BET, she delivered a perfor- of political protest. Although Badu de- I’ve never listened to the lyrics before,” mance fierce enough to convert any scribes herself as “not very political,” she said. “These are two beautiful girls unsuspecting five-year-olds who may her skepticism of politics owes some- who have realized—” have caught it. Badu’s fashion sense, thing to a tradition of black national- “They just got pla-a-ayed! ” Puma like her music, has grown less predict- ism that urges African-Americans to shouted. She and her friend were hav- able over the years, and on this night be self-reliant—wary of a political sys- ing fun: messing up, laughing, taking she was wearing a painted knee-length tem that is untrustworthy by design. breaks to field phone calls. But Badu’s robe over denim overalls and about a One of the teachers she hailed on “4th relaxed manner can be deceptive. To cubic foot of beads hanging from her World War” was Louis Farrakhan, the her, there is nothing casual about put- neck; in place of the head wraps of two leader of the Nation of Islam. But even ting on a show. decades ago, she wore a tall black hat her most overt calls to arms tend to “Whenever you get near the stage, with a rounded crown and a flat brim, turn inward: “As sure as all and all is that means you are focussed on your precisely cocked. She was singing “Sol- one, we all shall grow before it’s done / So performance,” she told them. “You’re dier,” a call-and-response protest song, I salute you, Farrakhan, yes, cuz you not fidgeting, you’re making eye con- which sounded especially militant in are me.” tact, you’re serious—got it? If you got the polite context of an awards show: Another song, “Master Teacher,” re- it, say, ‘Got it!’ ” turned again and again to a vague but “Got it!” the girls said, and Badu We gon’ keep marching on Until you hear that freedom song resolute pledge to keep struggling: “I took up a position a few feet away, so And if you think about turning back stay woke.” In 2014, as the Black Lives she could see for herself. I got the shotgun on ya back Matter movement gained momentum, Badu thinks a lot about presenta- Badu’s pledge was revived on Twitter, tion, which contributes to her judi- Michelle Obama was in the audi- where the refrain became “#staywoke,” ciousness in releasing new music. Two ence, and cameras caught her closing a prescriptive hashtag, or sometimes years after “4th World War,” she deliv- her eyes and nodding to the beat. Janelle just “woke,” a description of anyone ered the sequel, “New Amerykah Part

56 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 Two: Return of the Ankh,” which she record. “I have to actually steal time to Comedy Central this fall. She had a describes as “creative, artistic, flowing, write albums,” she says. “I have to shoot personal reason to take the job: one of watery, feminine.” In other words, it hooky. My team has to be looking for the consulting producers of the show is was a counterpart to her protest album, me. ‘Where are you?’ ‘I’m writing a Carl Jones, a former producer of “The and possibly also a remedy for it. The album!’ ‘What you doing that for?’ ” Boondocks,” whom Badu is currently strange, wry compositions were love In the meantime, she is responding dating. “I had to interview alongside songs, as conceived by a singer fully to the complicated incentive structure all these other composers,” she says. aware of the absurdity of falling in love of the modern music industry, in which “Talked all kinds of shit. ‘Deadlines? and falling out again. It is her subtlest, the most reliable paychecks often come No problem!’ ” But the network had most playful album, and possibly her from miscellaneous engagements, and every reason to hire her. Instead of pay- best. Its lead single, “Window Seat,” is in which veteran acts must find ways ing exorbitant fees to license old record- remembered for its video, in which to remind fans that they exist. She ings, it could simply hire a Grammy- Badu walked through Dallas, slowly has recently moved to resume a long- winning, chart-topping singer to make disrobing and finally lying down, naked, dormant acting career. In 1999, she some new ones. in Dealey Plaza, where John F. Ken- played Rose Rose, the abused daughter So it was that Badu showed up, one nedy was assassinated. News outlets in “The Cider House Rules”; earlier afternoon, at a low-slung house in Dal- dutifully covered—which is to say, this year, she turned up at Sundance las belonging to her friend Richard created—the ensuing controversy. But to promote her role in an independent Escobedo, a producer also known as attentive listeners noticed an under- film called “The Land,” about families Picnictyme. She had invited a local current of self-incrimination. As she in a tough Cleveland neighborhood. keyboard player to come along; to- walked, Badu pondered the joys and And last week she sparked a worldwide gether, they were scheduled to record sorrows of solitude, in a plaint that Twitter conflagration by suggesting that half a dozen snippets of music, each could have been addressed to a part- a New Zealand high school was right meant to evoke a specific mood—or, ner or to an audience: “I need your at- to ban short skirts, “so male teachers are in some cases, a specific record that the tention, yes / I need you next to me / I not distracted.” producers didn’t want to pay for. The need someone to clap for me.” She has also nurtured a side career session was loose and laid-back, and Badu remembers the subsequent in fashion; in 2014, Riccardo Tisci se- Badu couldn’t help getting inspired to tour as an abbreviated version of the lected her to be the new face of make each snippet better than it needed rock-star life she had missed the first Givenchy. During the spring Fashion to be. As a rough cut of the cartoon time around. “My midlife crisis was, Week in New York, she served as a styl- played on the computer monitor for like, a party period,” she says. For the ist for her friend Kerby Jean-Raymond, reference, Badu grew more interested first—and, so far, last—time in her life, the founder of an upstart label called in the beat, an old-fashioned hip-hop she became a drinker, draining bottles Pyer Moss. The collection’s theme boom-bap, padded with a slouchy bass of plum wine and tequila with the vir- was “double bind,” a theory of mental line. It reminded her of “My Block,” tuoso bassist known as Thundercat, conflict that Jean-Raymond linked to a classic track by the Houston rapper who was playing in her band. “I had a depression. To illustrate the concept, Scarface, so she FaceTimed him. He great time,” she says. “But there’s only Badu wrapped the models’ ankles looked delighted to hear from her. “Get so long a mind like mine can do some- in masking tape, while yo’ soup-can ass of my thing like that.” So she got back to adorning their hats with phone,” he exclaimed. work, even if what she produced was bright buttons advertising “Get yo’ gator-mouth not always what fans expected. various drugs: “XANAX,” ass of my phone,” she In interviews, Badu sometimes re- “MOLLY,” “BOOZE,” “PRO- replied. fers to tantalizing projects that fail to ZAC.” When the models After a few minutes, appear, like a concept album about the had walked and Jean- they got back to work, al- Harlem Renaissance, or a rhythm- Raymond had taken his though she had a hard driven collection inspired by drum bow, Badu headed back- time sticking to her as- sounds she has gathered from Africa, stage, where the rapper Wale was wait- signment. The beat was starting to South America, and Australia. “This ing patiently to greet her. A male model, sound like the beginning of a song, was going to be my new album—it was shirtless, asked her, “How do you feel, and now Badu thought she might want going to start with drums,” she says. Ms. Badu?” to keep it for herself, perhaps for the But then she got distracted by “But She beamed. “I feel awesome,” she album that she can never quite refrain You Caint Use My Phone,” and now said. from working on. “I like it,” she said. she isn’t sure when she will return to If Badu is bothered by the motley “I don’t think we should give it to the drum recordings. She is in no rush nature of the projects currently occu- them.” to release another album, and for some- pying her time, she doesn’t show it. She She put on headphones, took of one like her, who is both a mid-career has spent much of the past few months her sneakers, and inched closer to artist and a perfectionist, an album working on the music for “Legends of the computer, nodding at Escobedo. might not bring in enough money Chamberlain Heights,” an animated “Open up the mike,” she said. “Let’s to justify the years it would take to series scheduled to make its début on see what happens.” 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 57 LETTER FROM HOLLYWOOD IN LIVING COLOR With “black-ish,” Kenya Barris rethinks the family sitcom.

BY EMILY NUSSBAUM

enya Barris, the creator of the script satirized Martin Luther King ABC family sitcom “black-ish,” Day. (Dre, Jr., admits that he’s never K slumped on a sofa in his airy read King’s speech, explaining, “I al- home, in Encino, California, his eye- ways kind of zone out when people lids drooping with fatigue. In the nearby start to tell me about their dreams.”) media room, his two young sons, Beau Some viewers, especially black ones, and Kass, played Minecraft on an Xbox. have been put of by the show’s title, In the kitchen, his wife, Rainbow, who with its cheeky implication that some was pregnant with their sixth child, people are less black than others. But made popcorn. Out in the hall, their Barris told me that he was glad he’d three daughters—aged ten, fourteen, resisted ABC’s suggestions to sanitize and sixteen—yakked and giggled. The it, titling it “The Johnsons”—or, ab- family was getting ready to watch the surdly, “Urban Family.” Michelle West Coast airing of “Hope,” an epi- Obama has called “black-ish” her fa- sode about police racism which, at vary- vorite television show. ing times, Barris had described to me Until “Hope,” however, the show as both “the one that ruins me” and hadn’t tangled with real-world politics. “maybe my most important episode.” During Season One, in 2014, Barris Once, with a resigned shrug, he had pitched a story based on the arrest of said, “Well, the toothpaste is out of the African-American professor Henry the tube.” Louis Gates, Jr., for breaking into his Like most breakthrough sitcoms, own home. At the time, the Ferguson “black-ish” is built on autobiography. riots were streaming live on the Inter- It’s narrated by Andre (Dre) Johnson, net; ABC asked him not to do any a black ad executive, played by Anthony jokes about cops. By 2015, the national Anderson, who has jumped, as Barris outcry about police brutality had be- did, from inner-city poverty to bour- come too loud to ignore—and “black- geois wealth, only to find himself flum- ish” was getting raves as part of a newly moxed by his brood of privileged, diverse TV landscape. Over the De- Obama-era kids. Tracee Ellis Ross plays cember holidays, Barris holed up in the his wife, who, like the real Rainbow, is studio attached to his home, bingeing a biracial anesthesiologist nicknamed on Red Bull and “probably some Ad- Bow. With a joke velocity approach- derall,” and hammered out “Hope.” ing that of “30 Rock,” the show, brassy The episode opened with Marvin and shrewd, stands out for its rare di- Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Make Me rectness about race and class. As Bar- Wanna Holler)” and a scene borrowed ris likes to put it, whereas “The Cosby from Barris’s life: Beau, watching the Show” was about a family that hap- Ferguson riots on television, had asked pened to be black, “black-ish” is about his parents, “Why are these people so a black family. mad?” What followed was a classic TV In its first two seasons, the show “bottle episode,” set in one location: scored laughs from such subjects as in their living room, the family de- whether black parents spank more bated the acquittal of a cop who’d re- and how diferent generations use the peatedly Tasered an unarmed black man. N-word; there was a plot about the Their arguments were punctuated by knowing nod of recognition black men jokes about Dre’s father having been a give one another. One hilariously nervy member of something called the Black With a joke velocity approaching that of “30

58 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 Rock,” Barris’s sitcom, brassy and shrewd, stands out for its rare directness about race and class.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL SCHMELLING Bobcats. (“We were Panther-adjacent.”) being tormented by a fish. “That’s mean, one was gonna snatch that hope away The episode felt haunted—and was now,” Barris said. “That’s sadistic.” from us, like they always do,” Dre said. made more vital and angrier—by the “Why are they mean?” Beau asked. Silent footage was spliced into the killing of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice, “Guys do that sometimes. It’s a bad scene: the Obamas, smiling, youthful, in Cleveland. While Barris was strug- way to be.” a model American family. gling with the script, the Ohio prose- “It’s gonna escape. Look!” Beau said. The table read for “Hope” had been cutor announced that a grand jury “It didn’t escape,” Barris said, gen- cathartic; afterward, Laurence Fish- would not indict the cops who shot tly. But Beau kept seeing something burne and Jenifer Lewis, who played the Rice. Barris still gets distressed talking diferent. Johnson grandparents, made speeches about the case. “You know, twelve is “Yes,” he insisted. “It did.” thanking Barris for writing it. But Bar- young,” he said, his voice cracking. The exchange felt peculiarly con- ris knew that the episode was odd— “That’s somebody’s baby still.” gruent with the episode we were about not especially funny and possibly pe- Eight-year-old Beau, who was wear- to watch: a meditation on just how dantic. “I played it for friends, and no ing pajamas printed with pine trees, much black parents should protect their one’s going to say they don’t like it to hopped onto his father’s lap. While an- children’s innocence about the Amer- your face,” Barris told me. “But the re- other ABC sitcom, “Modern Family,” ican justice system. Barris, who had actions have been mixed.” He worried played on the TV, interspersed with been thrown against cars by cops and that it might be perceived as agitprop, promos for “Hope,” Beau held his fa- seen friends choked during arrests, had a Black Lives Matter episode; although ther’s iPhone, watching a nature video devoured Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book “Be- he supported the movement, he wasn’t about predators. tween the World and Me,” an anguished a fan of the idiom. “It’s alienating,” he “It escaped!” Beau called out, look- manifesto addressed to Coates’s son; told me. “No civil-rights movement has ing up at his dad excitedly. “Mouse can the book was both quoted and dis- gotten anywhere without the help of swim?” played in the episode. (Barris asked white liberals.” “What?” Barris said, confused. Forty- Coates to do a cameo, but Coates de- These worries were intensified by one years old, he has amused, hooded clined.) The show’s climax came when some Westeros-style drama at Disney, eyes and pockmarked cheeks. Blue- Dre begged Bow to remember how which owns ABC. A week earlier, Bar- green tattoos peek out from his collar. thrilling it had felt to watch the Obamas ris’s strongest ally—the network’s pres- “Mouse can swim?” walk into the White House for the first ident, Paul Lee, the British executive “No, mice can’t swim—they can, time—and how terrified they were that who had bought “black-ish”—had been like, paddle,” Barris said, laughing. the First Couple would be assassinated. ousted. Ben Sherwood, the president In the video, a mouse was in a river, “Tell me you weren’t worried that some- of Disney-ABC Television Group, re- placed Lee, who is white, with Lee’s deputy, Channing Dungey. She became the first black network president in his- tory, a benchmark that got gushing press. But Barris didn’t know Dungey; he had no idea what to expect. It wasn’t a great moment for an episode to misfire with the show’s audience, which is three-quarters nonblack. On Monday, Barris said, he had called ABC to make sure that its promos prepped viewers for, “as much as I don’t want to say this, a ‘very special episode.’ ” He added, “They did a good job.” Now that the East Coast airing was over, it was clear that “Hope” was a phenomenon: it was trending on Twit- ter and being gif’d and quoted and hallelujah’d for its embrace of the Nor- man Lear tradition of political theatre. “So many people I went to school with, that I hadn’t talked to since elemen- tary school,” Barris marvelled, reading his e-mail. He looked for negative re- sponses, too: “On Facebook, I got “...and will to the best of my ability, which is terrific ability, scared, because I saw people saying, ‘I’ll by the way. Everyone agrees, I have fantastic ability. So there’s never watch the show again.’ That’s no problem with my ability, believe me.…” the last thing I need right now.” Barris’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Kaleigh, came in, holding her phone up, and said, “I read so many comments about people crying—people saying it was one of the most inspirational shows they ever watched.” Her younger sis- ter Leyah furrowed her brow: “But they haven’t seen it yet!” Barris cracked up. “On the East Coast!” he said. “Leave it to Leyah to shoot it down. This house is a hornets’ nest.” As “Hope” began, Kass curled against his mom on a sofa, the girls reclined in black leather armchairs, and Beau sat cross-legged near his father, eating popcorn. The show opened with a newsreel-like montage—the Iran- hostage crisis, J.F.K.’s motorcade— which culminated with the sweet, smil- ing face of Trayvon Martin. They watched the episode, which “The best part is that we got hell to pay for it.” ended with Ruby, Dre’s mother, spray-painting “black owned” on the family’s garage. As the credits rolled, •• there was a silence. “Kaleigh, what’s the matter?” Barris asked. “I just feel Angeles. Rainbow accidentally got preg- black-centered programming, includ- sad,” she said, looking at her feet. “Did nant by Barris when she was twenty- ing the celebrated sketch show “In Liv- it bum you out?” “Yeah.” His daugh- two and a medical-school student in ing Color.” In 1994, though, the show ters began unspooling their responses, Boston, after she flew out to visit him was cancelled, along with “The Sinbad with Kaleigh describing how self- in Los Angeles. In between, they broke Show,” “Roc,” and “South Central,” as conscious she felt when they were the up, and dated mutual friends, while FOX rebranded for mainstream— only black family in nice restaurants— attending Clark Atlanta University. meaning white—audiences. In the late how people stared at them. She hated Both had been inspired to apply to the nineties, black comedies were repeat- the fact that her younger brothers would school by two intoxicating portrayals edly subjected to this form of TV gen- need to learn defensive tactics to deal of historically black colleges: the 1987 trification: they were launched on up- with cops. “I feel like I have to tell my “Cosby” spinof “A Diferent World” start cable networks, like UPN and the brothers that, regardless of how they’re and the 1988 Spike Lee movie, “School WB, then cancelled, or shunted to BET, treating you, regardless if you’re doing Daze.” Lee’s film jolted Barris: he’d when the networks whitened up their anything wrong, with the police you never seen anything like its dance- programming. In 1999, the N.A.A.C.P. comply, because he’s an authority—he of between “jigaboos” and “wannabes,” lamented a “virtual whiteout” on tele- has this gun on him, he could kill you.” its brazen display of intra-black ten- vision. As Kristal Brent Zook writes in Turning to Beau, Barris said, “What sion. Lee impressed him as a new kind her 1999 book, “Color by Fox,” network jokes did you like?” His son picked a of black artist, an impolite innovator executives were uneasy not just with scene in which the Johnsons bickered with a voice supple enough to “talk black casts and writers but with “black about takeout menus: “I liked it when about things that felt very personal to complexity”: they bumped black cre- we”—for Beau, there was no distinc- me but make everyone else interested ators for white producers, pushing for tion between the Johnsons and the Bar- in them.” the most risk-free, formulaic comedy. rises—“were all talking over each other.” Barris studied film, dreaming of be- In 1998, Barris, working with sev- The family laughed at how well the coming “the new Spike Lee.” But he eral other aspiring TV writers, shot show nailed their raucous style. Six- was also drawn to black sitcoms, which footage for a documentary about this year-old Kass was fast asleep, and Bar- proliferated after the success of “Cosby.” problem, calling it “Film Noir.” Among ris carried him up to bed. For a while, the boom seemed like a the people Barris interviewed were Fe- lasting phenomenon: Will Smith beat- licia D. Henderson, who wrote for the arris and Rainbow first dated boxed as “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” sitcom “Moesha,” and a co- creator of B when he was sixteen and she was on NBC; on “A Diferent World,” ac- “Moesha,” Ralph Farquhar—Rainbow’s fourteen, a basketball player and a tivists, premeds, and Jack-and-Jill prin- uncle. Barris and his partners ditched cheerleader attending sister-and- cesses sparred and flirted. In 1990, the the project, fearful of alienating employ- brother Catholic high schools in Los FOX network launched a slate of ers. “We didn’t want to fuck ourselves

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 61 before we began,” he said. But Hen- derson became his mentor. She helped Barris get a slot in the Paramount Writ- CLOUD STUDY ers Program, a diversity initiative, and hired him to write for “Soul Food,” a How do clouds series that she created for Showtime. learn to be clouds? During the years it aired, from 2000 to 2004, it was the only black-family They study what drama on television. Constable––seeing them–– To Barris’s mother, Tina, TV writ- ing seemed like a crazy gamble for a saw: awe for sure, college-educated black man. In fact, but also a falling right after he graduated from Clark Atlanta, she’d hooked him up with a away from any sense job as the press secretary for an L.A. of earthly surface. Zero councilman, Nate Holden. “I was wear- ing these Men’s Wearhouse suits, hat- horizon. “Skying,” he called ing my life,” Barris told me, laughing. his hundred sketches. Think She was furious when he quit to try standup comedy and writing. Barris of the Great Wallendas stretching has always been devoted to Tina, who netless above gorges: a cloud raised him and his three siblings, mostly on her own, in Inglewood, in poverty- learns not to look down. ridden South Central L.A. Tina di- vorced Barris’s father, who was physi- —Andrea Cohen cally abusive, when Barris was five; six years later, his father won a settlement after losing a lung in an industrial ac- as a “beneficiary-slash-victim” of such Simpsons.” It was a slow poisoning; cident. Half the money went toward initiatives. In some writers’ rooms, such Barris knew that the room didn’t like supporting the children, enabling Tina as the one for a short-lived WB sit- him. When they wrote a story about and the kids to move to middle-class, com called “Like Family,” he made life- the mother of Warner’s character—an integrated Hancock Park and allow- long friends. But wherever he worked educated football player from New ing Barris to attend private school. he was a cultural outsider—the one York—the white writers pitched the Though he hung out at the Com- writer who didn’t know who Neil Young mother’s lines as those of a fat black edy Store, Barris says that he wasn’t was. “Any mistake that you make is woman with a Southern accent. Bar- much of a standup performer: “There’s amplified,” Barris recalls of the expe- ris recalls, “I was like, ‘Wait, where is a certain don’t-give-a-fuckness that you rience. Barris quotes W. E. B. Du Bois she from? How much does she weigh?’ have to have as a comic. I don’t have when talking about the “double- It wasn’t even done maliciously—it was that. At my core, I’m shy.” But he was consciousness” that a black person de- just, ‘This is how a black woman an empathetic observer, a strong joke velops in a white world, but he also de- sounds.’ It was such a wake-up call.” writer, and, as Rainbow puts it, a nat- scribes acquiring chops specific to One day, Barris argued with Mar- ural “hustler,” able to sell ideas and to comedy writers: he learned how to use tin over the seventies Norman Lear se- crack closed systems. After working on jokes to build bridges and defang put- ries “Good Times,” which is about the “Soul Food,” he helped broker a reality- downs. “I beat ’em with funny,” he says. Evanses, a poor black family living in TV deal for his best friend since child- When a colleague kept comparing the the Cabrini-Green housing project, in hood, the model Tyra Banks. The show, colleges they had attended, Barris re- Chicago. Martin said that he wished “America’s Next Top Model,” became calls, “I was like, ‘It doesn’t really mat- he’d been born into the Evans family, a hit, with Barris as its co-creator and ter where you went to school, because because it was “rich in love.” Barris blew producer. (He still gets a cut of the right now I’m looking at you across the up: “Dude, you would not have liked profits.) table. So kudos to Harvard! Because to be in the fucking family on ‘Good After a year, he returned to scripted we make the same money.’ ” Times.’ You’re saying that from such TV. He initially wrote for shows aimed His grimmest experience was on an entitled place! You missed the whole at an African-American audience, such “Listen Up,” a 2004 CBS sitcom star- point of the show.” Barris’s contract as “The Game,” about the wives of ring Jason Alexander as a sports jour- wasn’t picked up—the Hollywood football stars. But when he jumped to nalist, with Malcolm-Jamal Warner equivalent of being fired. (Martin said sitcoms on the WB and NBC, with in a supporting role. The showrunner that his comments were likely ironic, predominantly white writing stafs, he was Jef Martin, a former writer for adding that he’s happy for Barris’s suc- hit a wall. Barris was often the “diver- David Letterman’s show and a Harvard cess. “His sensibility didn’t fit my show,” sity hire,” and dryly describes himself Lampoon alum who wrote for “The he said. “But saying someone didn’t

62 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 capture the voice of ‘Listen Up’ isn’t “Everybody Hates Chris.” The show’s nity. “People knew I was the voice much of an insult.”) psychic engine is Dre’s sense that the behind this,” Barris said. “That’s how Barris wrote pilot after pilot, trying past isn’t past, for him and for all you make yourself invaluable.” to crack the formula that would put African- Americans. In an episode about him in charge. “Black-ish” was his nine- Dre’s yen for high-end sneakers, he ex- writers’ room procrastinates teenth attempt. Three got produced plains, “Think about it. If you didn’t A as much as an actual writer. On a but didn’t make it to air. By this time, get a paycheck for four hundred years, recent Monday afternoon, in Burbank, he and Rainbow had married. She’d when you did finally get one, you might “black-ish” stafers stared at a monitor moved back to L.A., re-started med want to spend it.” At the same time, on the wall, giggling at a YouTube video school—she couldn’t transfer credits— “black-ish” pokes fun at Dre’s tendency of a cheetah eviscerating an ostrich. and had two more daughters. The mar- to see antiblackness everywhere. He They spent ten minutes talking about riage was sometimes strained, and many fumes that it is racist to ask if he can the diference between Iceland and of Barris’s pilots mined tensions at swim—but he can’t swim. Greenland. But this aimlessness was a home. One was about a married man Barris worked on the pilot with the pose, as the table kept looping back, torn between his wife and his party- African-American comic Larry Wil- struggling to “punch up” bad dialogue ing friends; another came out of a mar- more, whom ABC proposed as a in the season ender. riage-therapy session in which the co-showrunner. Wilmore, who wrote A high-concept finale was becom- counsellor told Barris and Rainbow for “In Living Color” and created “The ing a tradition for “black-ish”: Season that they needed to reboot their rela- Bernie Mac Show,” knew plenty about One’s featured a flashback to the Cot- tionship, as if they’d never met, to suit what he calls the “ethnic cleansing” of ton Club of the nineteen-twenties. their adult, not adolescent, selves. nineties TV. But by 2014 TV execu- This year’s installment, “Good-ish Barris calls “black-ish” his best and tives were biting again. Shonda Rhimes’s Times,” included a meticulous parody most honest iteration of these pilots. ShondaLand empire was a ratings ma- of the seventies sitcom that Barris had Dre and Bow, former high-school chine, led by “Scandal,” the first net- argued about with his old boss. When sweethearts, have four kids: the Insta- work drama since 1974 to star a black the show starts, Dre is anxious about gram-addled Zoey, the proud nerd woman. Racial critiques of “Girls”— corporate layofs, especially because Dre, Jr., and the mismatched twins Jack and the simultaneous rise of Black Twit- Bow is expecting their fifth child. He and Diane (who are named for the ter—had scared executives into at least falls asleep watching a rerun of “Good John Cougar Mellencamp song—one paying lip service to diversity. On cable, Times” and dreams that he’s Keith, the of Barris’s favorites). Dre’s parents are shows like “Orange Is the New Black,” football-playing boyfriend of Thelma, divorced; his mom, Ruby, is fiery and with an ensemble that was black and the show’s teen daughter, and that he smothering, and his dad, Pops, judges brown (and, just as shocking, butch, is terrified to tell her parents (played him for not “whupping” his kids. De- fat, and trans), were thriving; creators by Pops and Ruby) that he’s got their spite his success, Dre feels ill at ease like Mindy Kaling were becoming pop- daughter pregnant. Dre, Jr., plays J.J., living in an upper-middle-class, largely ular brands. A Nielsen report found the pencil-necked geek famous for white suburb—and at sea as a father. that black viewers watched thirty-seven shouting “Dy-no-mite!” “Black-ish” is Dre, Jr., is obsessed with Dungeons & per cent more TV than other demo- filmed in the modern single-cam style, Dragons and wants a “bro mitzvah”; graphics. It seemed like the right mo- but the dream sequence would be Zoey is a queen bee whose white friends ment for an idea-driven sitcom about multi-cam shot, before a live audience. use the N-word. Bow is an Ivy League race that, as Wilmore saw it, felt dar- The conceit played of Dre’s terror of graduate with a white hippie dad. If ing and distinct, with falling back into poverty blackness is so easily detached from “brilliant colors, flashy and his nostalgia for both Dre’s prized codes of urban authentic- character choices, bold his childhood and the sit- ity, what does that make him? strokes.” com that reflected it. Not In the show’s original conception, There was a bidding coincidentally, the plot Dre was the diversity hire on a net- war for “black-ish.” Bar- mirrored Barris’s adult work sitcom, which Barris based on ris, who’d imagined plac- life, which was book- “Listen Up.” ABC asked him to change ing the show in the cable- ended by two unplanned the workplace to an advertising agency, prestige jewel box of FX, pregnancies—the one in part, Barris acknowledges, to facil- went for the money and the mass au- that led him to marry early, and the itate product integration. (He says of dience—and the pressure to produce one that had come after nearly two an episode in which Dre buys Zoey a twenty-four episodes—of ABC. When decades of marriage. Buick, “It was a commercial, dude.”) Comedy Central ofered Wilmore a The table read had been a dud, pos- Tyra Banks calls Barris one of the most talk show, Barris asked to partner with sibly because the writers felt uneasy nostalgic people she knows, and, though the white writer Jonathan Grof, an ex- constructing multi-cam jokes, with “black-ish” isn’t set in the past, it’s stud- ecutive producer on “Happy Endings,” their hard, vaudeville beats. There were ded with flashbacks to Dre’s Jheri- a cult sitcom that featured an interra- false starts; there were worries that some curled childhood—brief scenes with cial couple. For Barris, Wilmore’s de- gags were mere “high-jinksing.” Some- the stinging clarity of Chris Rock’s parture was scary but also an opportu- one pitched a diabetes joke: maybe

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 63 Florida, the “Good Times” matriarch, vard alumnus and former Lampoon Barris blankly, but he kept adding could say, about a dog that bit her, “I editor. Like Barris, Sonoiki had grown dialogue: “What? Sugar water?” The would have lost my big toe, had the up in a violent neighborhood, in Hous- premise didn’t entirely make sense sugar not already taken it.” Another ton, and transferred to a private school. (wouldn’t poor kids know what des- writer wondered if nonblack viewers He had just submitted his first script, sert is?) and there were nervous gig- would get it. “Is that too deep a cut?” which showed promise, but he wasn’t gles. Suddenly, Barris laughed at his Barris said, polling the room. It was entirely at home in the room. As the bellyflop—and skillfully reversed the fine, he decided: “30 Rock” made jokes work dragged into the night, Sonoiki, dynamic. “So. Much. Confused!” he about the same subject. who had a jacket on, tugged its hood shouted, planting his hands on the table, A writers’ room, in Barris’s experi- over his head and pulled its collar up, then sending the room into hysterics ence, is the “cool kids’ table,” an aggres- until only his eyes peeked out. At one with an instant replay: “I was looking sive display of social prowess, disguised point, he suggested capping some ban- at you, Lindsey, thinking you would in jokes. He and Grof were joined by ter with a sour punch line: “Unlike you, save me, you would get this, you were such veterans as Gail Lerner, who bitch.” When the other writers brushed on my side. But there was nothing.” Yet worked on “Will & Grace,” and Yvette it of, Barris turned his head to Sonoiki. even as he mocked himself Barris kept Lee Bowser, who created “Living Sin- “You just had a win,” he chided him, pitching the bit, selling the surreal no- gle.” It was far more diverse, in gender sotto voce, referring to the script. “Feel tion of a family so poor that they’d and in race, than most sitcom rooms; the room. Don’t say something like that.” never had dessert. “The little meal that down the street, the “black-ish” set had A few minutes later, Barris himself white people eat after dinner?” Magi- a crew dominated by people of color. made a pitch that fell flat. He suggested cally, another writer ofered a punch Still, Barris had his own diversity that Florida should ofer the family line—“Breakfast!”—and the table burst hire, whose salary was drawn, in part, dessert by saying, “I want to make you into applause. “Folks, we have one joke,” from a Disney corporate fund: Dami- something that I learned from the white Grof announced. lare Sonoiki, nicknamed Dam, a twenty- people I work for—a kind of meal after The table scrambled to craft it into four-year-old African-American Har- dinner.” The other writers stared at a multipart “run”: “Breakfast?” “No, it’s sweet.” “Sugar eggs?” “Sweet night breakfast?” Barris said. Maybe the table was so tired that the writers had become slaphappy, but “sweet night breakfast?” won a big, goofy laugh—it was the sort of curveball con- struction that suited “black-ish.” There were still doubters in the room. But the next day, when the scene was shot, “sweet night breakfast?” killed. Two days later, the writers had a flare-up over “relatability,” that network bugaboo. Barris was in and out of the room, and while he was gone the writ- ers discussed the character of Vivian—a black nanny, played by Regina Hall, who gives Dre a case of “black white guilt.” She’d been introduced in an al- ready filmed episode, but Peter Saji, a younger black writer, objected to her presence in future scripts: it might make the Johnsons seem too privileged. The idea began to harden in Barris’s absence. When he returned, one of the writ- ers presented it as a structural issue: wouldn’t it be more eicient to give Vivian’s jokes to Grandma Ruby? Bar- ris argued that Ruby—a zany charac- ter who makes remarks like “Not now, hybrid!” to her biracial daughter-in- law—had begun dominating the show, even though she doesn’t live in Dre’s house. “On set this week, it was un-fuck- “I’ve got my own commandments, Little Yahweh.” ing-comfortable,” Barris said. “Nothing but Ruby! We have to be careful—she’s not the mom, she’s the grandma. Tra- cee has gotten us this far.” Eventually, Saji explained his un- derlying objection. His own family, he said, would find a nanny an alienating concept. Didn’t viewers prefer to think that the parents “do it all”? Barris frowned. “She’s having a baby,” he said flatly. “She has four kids. She’s a full-time doctor. He works full time. How are these kids getting to soccer practice?” He was bugged enough that he returned to the subject later: “That ‘accessibility’ thing, it bumps me—it bothers me.” The families on “Modern Family” live in multimillion- dollar houses and have nannies, he pointed out. “With us, it’s like, ‘How can they “Last chance—take back what you said about my wife.” aford something?’ ” Barris said. “It’s the honest version of what this family would have.” If he had to present the •• “most palatable” version of the family, in order to be less threatening, he said, way, hocking insurance for Golden be able to find. One night, Barris, who “I don’t even want to tell that story.” State Mutual—while studying for the was afraid of the dark, heard noises. real-estate broker’s exam. She saved up He wanted to get in bed with his mom, hen Barris speaks with the loose change in a jar, then spent it all but she’d been training him to stay put; W most passion, it’s about his to surprise him with a new bike. Even- she said that he’d get a spanking if he mother. In a single year, he told me, Tina tually, she invested in low-income real didn’t go to sleep. Barris sneaked out “left an abusive marriage, got divorced, estate, collecting the rent herself, with anyway, scared. When his mom real- lost her house in a fire, and my little a snub-nosed pistol in her pocket. ized that there was an intruder, she brother died—of cancer, of leukemia, in The death of Barris’s younger brother, yelled at Barris to go into her room her bed, you know?” He went on, “And David, nearly wrecked her. She hov- and shut the door. He peeked out: his she still had four kids to raise. She said, ered over Barris, who had asthma, keep- dad had broken through his bedroom ‘If I didn’t have you guys, I would have ing him home whenever the pollen window, and his mom, holding a gun, just packed my bags and run away.’ ” index rose. (As an adult, he is a huge was backing up, as his father moved The character of Ruby, who is so hypochondriac: he once called Rain- toward her. Then Tina took a deep close to Dre that she threatens his re- bow in a panic, convinced that he had breath, closed her eyes, turned her head lationship with Bow, was obviously in- sars.) At seven, Barris got warehoused away, and shot at his father five times. spired by Barris’s mom. But Barris told in a special-ed class with the Orwel- “Pow pow pow pow pow,” Barris recalls. me that Tina also inspired the Lau- lian name the Opportunity Room. “She kept clicking. And he, like, bar- rence Fishburne character, who is im- When the school psychiatrist suggested relled past her—and damn near broke possible to please. While I was on the that his mother put Barris on Ritalin, the door of the hinges. I hear ‘Rrrrr- set, Barris talked to her at least once a she refused, and instead got him into rowrrr’ as he tears of.” His mother sat day on the phone—asking after her a progressive black private school, the down and sobbed. “And she’s like, ‘Go health, letting her know that he was International Children’s School, which get the phone, go get the phone!’ It was appearing on “Nightline” to discuss was sponsored by Bill Cosby. The pres- one of those long cords and she said, “Hope.” “She was, like, ‘You weren’t on sure Barris felt to succeed increased ‘Push zero.’ ” When the police arrived, much,’ ” he joked. “I said, ‘Oh, really? when his beloved older brother, Pat- Barris remembers feeling not afraid Thanks, Mom. When have you been rick—who had won academic and ath- but embarrassed. “The police oicer on “Nightline”?’ ” And yet he clearly letic scholarships to U.S.C.—began was so nice to me. He was saying, ‘Show adores her, admires her, and is intimi- using cocaine and received a diagno- me your room.’ ” As many run-ins as dated by her—he worries about pleas- sis of schizophrenia; Patrick dropped Barris has had with the cops, he says, ing her with every decision he makes. out, and now lives at one of his moth- they sometimes are there for you “at She never accepted welfare, he told me: er’s properties. the worst moments of your life.” they took subsidies like government When Barris was six, Tina moved At the hospital, his father, who’d cheese, but she worked three jobs— her kids into a new house—one that been hit once in the stomach, was bartender, selling Mary Kay and Am- his violent father wasn’t supposed to headed into surgery, handcufed to a

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 65 gurney. Too fearful of him to press plans. The twins are going to Hunger Like Anderson, many members of charges, his mother fled, with her kids, Games Camp, and need expensive bows the production share Barris’s class-jump- to New York for a year. She took Bar- and arrows. Dre loses his temper, telling ing biography. “I was born and raised ris to counselling, but he felt that the his kids that summer is supposed to be on the border of Ferguson, and it’s god- incident hadn’t actually damaged him. for miserable jobs—like the ones he had. dam personal,” Jenifer Lewis, who plays “I don’t know if I was just, young, what- To goose the scene, Barris retreated Ruby, said of the police-brutality ever, but part of me felt like, He lived. with Anderson, and when they started themes of “Hope.” She didn’t watch You know what I’m saying? He got rolling again the actor improvised zing- “Good Times” growing up, because it what he deserved. It’s almost like, ‘Good ers. “You never had to ask a white lady felt painfully close to her own life. The for my mom!’ Because he never messed if you could pump her gas!” Anderson writer Yvette Lee Bowser has a simi- with her again . . . and she sputtered at the kids. And lar background, and Fishburne describes kind of claimed her power then: “You never had to Barris as a younger-brother figure. back. I’m glad that I was take care of a pigeon coop Tracee Ellis Ross is the outlier: the there with her. It made us for food stamps!” As An- child of Diana Ross, she was educated very, very close. She al- derson reeled of increas- in Switzerland and on the Upper East ways was, like, I’m so sorry. ingly baroque variations, Side. When the show started, her char- And she was worried that the crew cracked up: “You acter veered dangerously close to cli- she was gonna raise, like, never had to take care of ché: the sighing mom-wife with the a psychopath! But it was— a pit-bull puppy! . . . sell baby-man husband who gets all the that was a story I would tell the room. baking soda to the dope house! . . . sell laughs. After a few episodes, however, And every writer would be, like, ‘What curl activator door-to-door in the Mex- Barris and his writers tapped into Ross’s the fuck did he just say?’ ” Being hon- ican neighborhood!” comic charisma—her goofy grin, her est about the unsanded edges of his During prep for the next take, Bar- Lucille Ball-ish gift for being at once life, Barris says, lets others be honest, ris told me that these rifs—none of glamorous and ridiculous. Barris told too. It’s key to good comedy. “I think which made the final cut—were based me that Ross didn’t always agree on the it’s that aggregate of situations that on stories that he and Anderson had direction of her character. They’d ar- make you who you are. This is a real- shared. Barris used to approach white gued about her dialogue in “Hope,” in ity, and this is what happened.” women at gas stations and ask them if which Bow kept making the case, to He says of the shooting, “You don’t he could pump their gas. (“It was a lit- an almost blinkered degree, for letting pull a trigger that many times unless tle threatening,” he told me, sheepishly. “the justice system do its job.” But Ross you’re trying to—you know. I think “Three black nine-year-old boys on told me that Bow was a rewarding role, she’d sufered through so much, and Hufy bikes.”) Anderson, whose mother precisely because the show emphasized she was so scared that she was like, ‘If grew up in the Chicago project where Dre’s perspective on the world. Her I’m gonna do this, I have to do it.’ ” “Good Times” is set, sold curl activa- performance had to be emotionally rich tor. Barris frequently embeds his scripts enough to give Bow “wholeness.” ood evening, I’m James Earl with veiled biography: in another ep- Barris bridled at online criticism he’d “GJones,” Laurence Fishburne in- isode, Dre warns Pops not to give his seen directed at Dre. He said, “It was toned, in a familiar oceanic boom. “Wel- drink to Ruby, because “she shot you as if they were trying to say that a black come to ‘Black Omnibus.’ ” Fishburne, the last time she had gin.” man couldn’t be both blustery and lov- wearing an Afro wig and a broad- Later, over lunch, Anderson and I able”—that Dre couldn’t be loved as lapelled blazer, stood in front of a cer- talked about his character. Andre, he people had loved Ralph Kramden. He emonial African mask. Barris and an said, is “a hundred-per-cent Kenya, a saw the criticism as similar to early net- assistant director, Langston Craig, were hundred-per-cent Anthony.” He and work notes suggesting that he make nearly gasping with excitement. It was Barris had “instant kinship”: both were the Johnson house smaller. Wisely, these a tiny cutaway joke in the “Good-ish born in South Central, were “first- tensions had been written into the Times” episode, an absurdist reference generation successful,” and had kids scripts. In one episode, “The Gift of to a PBS show that aired for twelve in private school. “Not only is my son Hunger,” Dre worries that his kids have episodes in 1973—the deepest of deep the only chocolate drop in his class, been spoiled by cushy lives. Then he cuts, a hat-tip to a beautiful bit of lost he was the only chocolate drop in his realizes that the children, by having a black TV history. grade for three and a half years,” An- flamboyant, easily angered father like “Man, I don’t even care if nobody derson said. A notch pricklier than him, have been dealt a diferent kind gets this,” Barris said. “I swear to God, Barris, Anderson has a pugnacious charm of obstacle. In voice-over, Dre says, “I’m it’s the entire reason to do this show.” and a low tolerance for nonsense: after a lot. And if they could get past me, He was less pleased at how things “Hope” aired, he sparred with critics they could get past anything.” were going during another scene—the who called the show racist. As a boy, Barris himself is old-school in cer- family fight that triggers Dre to dream he’d loved “Good Times,” particularly tain ways. He opened every door as we that he’s in “Good Times.” Around the John Amos’s portrayal of the dignified passed through the set. He insisted that kitchen table, the Johnson kids cheer- and hardworking James Evans, who I text him after I drove back to my fully describe their big-ticket summer reminded him of his own father. hotel, to confirm that I had arrived

66 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 safely. He wants to make more money bow kept giggling about “hashtag Act Barris clearly wants commercial suc- than his wife; it was important to him Better!” Barris told me, “I’ve got to be cess himself: he’d love to oversee a slate that she take his name. He’s prone to honest—I don’t know if this was the of TV shows, as Norman Lear did, and theories about how men and women right year for a protest of the Oscars.” he has been working on multiple film are “wired.” The biggest fight the writ- He argued that it was counterproduc- projects. He co-wrote the script for the ers’ room ever had was about Barris’s tive to have a “black slot”: “It just di- new movie “Barbershop: The Next desire to own a gun, which led to an lutes it.” Like any film-studies major, Cut.” He’s developing a “Good Times” episode in which Dre wants to buy he had finicky opinions about the year’s film and a comic version of “Shaft.” one to protect his family. At one point, movies. He enjoyed “Straight Outta He’s got a deal to make a new ABC during the debate over the black-nanny Compton.” But was it Best Picture ma- pilot—a sort of buddy-comedy version character, he told his staf, “Honestly, terial? He noted, “The Ryan Coogler of one of his favorite shows, “Veep,” I regret not having spanked my kids.” movie that truly deserved a nomina- with characters based on Donald Trump (He won’t change his policy for the tion wasn’t ‘Creed.’ It was ‘Fruitvale and Al Sharpton. The next three years, new baby, though: “He’s not going to Station.’ ” On the flip side, Idris Elba, he said, were crucial—his shot to es- be the Spanked One!”) the star of “Beasts of No Nation,” had tablish a legacy that couldn’t be wiped Grof said that he’s asked Barris if been robbed. The problem was far big- out if the industry mood shifted. Dre wants to be a modern man but falls ger than the Oscars: when African- Unlike the movies, television now short. No, Barris said: Dre is who he Americans were starved of opportu- featured enough shows by and for and says he is. “I still believe a little bit that nity, they were forced to celebrate art about people of color that it had be- changing gender roles have hurt rela- merely because it existed, to be cheer- come possible to draw comparisons. tionships,” Barris said. Many of his men- leaders instead of individuals with dis- Barris is both excited by and competi- tors have been women; he regularly tinct, even iconoclastic, tastes. tive with NBC’s “The Carmichael hires women as collaborators—and half Barris was particularly frustrated Show,” another Lear-inflected black- the “black-ish” writers are female, a rar- with prominent black figures who, to family sitcom, which was co-created by ity for a sitcom. But Tyra Banks told his mind, supported schlock. “I be- his friend Jerrod Carmichael. He ad- me that she spent years talking to Bar- lieved in Oprah for so long!” he moaned, mits that he’s biased against FOX’s “Em- ris about the tensions between men and as Rainbow smiled in recognition of pire”—a camp rap melodrama that’s women, in a rolling debate about gen- the rant to come. “You know, Oprah been creaming “black-ish” in the rat- der and power. It’s possible, Barris said, is probably three weeks away from ings—but he also doesn’t think it’s good. that his nostalgia for old-fashioned having a British accent. She was the “Just because someone’s handicapped, breadwinner masculinity stems from purveyor of style and class.” But, when doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole,” he the fact that his mother was “so far Winfrey’s cable channel, OWN, be- said. “I can’t call this dude a dick be- away” from identifying with the femi- gan failing in the ratings, she’d part- cause he’s in a wheelchair? Same thing— nist movement. “My mom was a man nered with Tyler Perry—the purveyor just because someone is black and they and a woman—she had to be,” Barris of gooey church-lady theatricals. “I do something, doesn’t mean it’s dope.” said. “And I so wanted to have my mom know that Oprah has taste! She can- At the A.B.F.F. awards, a presenter have someone open a door for her, pull not think that those shows are good.” joked that ABC stood for Another a chair out, take the trash out for her.”

ne night in March, Barris and O Rainbow—he in a tuxedo, she with her hair in two slim braids—attended an awards ceremony for the American Black Film Festival, to be aired on BET. “Black-ish” won for best TV comedy, “Straight Outta Compton” for best film. The presentation was dominated by proud speeches about the power of black Hollywood. But our table erupted in laughter at the evening’s rudest joke— one that was cut from the telecast. Jamie Foxx claimed that he had no clue why people were protesting the lack of Oscar nominations for African-Americans. Foxx, an Oscar winner, said, “I called Denzel and said, ‘What’s this all about? I mean, hashtag What’s the Big Deal? I mean, hashtag Act Better!’ ” On the drive home, Barris and Rain- “I thought we agreed that the bedroom is a Trump-free zone.” Black Channel—a hoary joke that left scribed Barris as “very kind,” “very shirt—an outfit I’d seen him wear on Barris stone-faced. But he does express quick-witted,” and “kind of shy.” When the red carpet. His sneakers were al- pride in the network’s deep bench of Rhimes, who can be shy herself, first ways impeccable: growing up, he’d saved creators of color. According to Barris, met Barris and Larry Wilmore, they his money for fancy ones, which he John Ridley, the creator of the drama disarmed her with what Wilmore de- cleaned with a toothbrush. He now “American Crime,” encouraged him to scribes as an imitation of a racist Mickey had a closet devoted to his collection. secure a long-term deal with ABC and Mouse, squeaking in horror at the idea Running down his forearms were two Shonda Rhimes advised him on social- of a Disney show called “black-ish.” tattoos: the word “Choices” on the right, media strategies, including getting his She told them to keep in touch, and, “Decisions” on the left. His mother had cast on Twitter. Television is the van- unlike many creators she’d ofered to told him that black people made too guard medium now, Barris believes— help, they followed up. many decisions—selecting from so- he’s a binge viewer who is ofended “on Solidarity, she said, was the only cially constrained options—and not a primal level” by TV writers who don’t way to cope with the fragility of being enough choices. watch TV. But, regardless of the me- a Hollywood pioneer. “There’s no way Riddle told me that he and Sala- dium, he is most attracted to art that to achieve any kind of voice if you’re huddin had met Barris once before: is “proprietary,” a word that Barris uses the only,” Rhimes said. “That’s how “He gave us some advice, but we didn’t to describe not only early Spike Lee women become the bitch and how peo- take it.” He wouldn’t clarify, so Bar- but also ambitious TV, from Jill Solo- ple of color become ‘weird.’ Inclusion ris filled me in: he told them that they way’s “Transparent” to Damon Linde- means more than ‘eight white guys and should seek out an amenable “white lof ’s “The Leftovers,” from “Broad City” a person of color.’ ” guy” to work with. It would build a to “Mr. Robot.” What rankles him is bridge to top executives, who were talent wasted: the funniest, meanest n my last night in L.A., I joined almost universally white. “That guy joke in “Hope” is Ruby’s claim that O Barris at the Soho House in West can be an ally,” Barris explained. “A the guy Tasered by the cops deserved Hollywood. He was having a dinner translator.” it, because he’d been selling copies of meeting with Bashir Salahuddin and Salahuddin and Riddle were feel- Lee’s “Chi-Raq.” Diallo Riddle, the comedy team that ing burned: they’d spent four years de- Rhimes watches “black-ish” with created “Slow Jam the News” for Jimmy veloping a show called “Brothers in her tween daughter. She ticked of her Fallon. Like Barris’s diversity hire, Dam Atlanta” for HBO, which ultimately favorite bits: the N-word episode; the Sonoiki, whom they knew, they had rejected it. They were looking for a “white Greek chorus” of Dre’s oice; gone to Harvard. African-American “rabbi,” they said, someone who knew the grandparents who are “not these men on the verge of forty, they looked about network TV. What you wanted, saintly black parents—they’re divorced handsome in thick-cable sweaters. Bar- they all agreed, was a crew, a squad— and hate each other’s guts.” She de- ris slouched in ripped jeans and a sweat- like-minded friends who could jump in to “punch up the funny.” Barris spoke longingly about the comedic collective that Judd Apatow had built, and said that he want to create something like it—“a contemporary, racially eclectic, gender-eclectic, experience-eclectic salon.” He listed people with whom he’d like to collaborate, including Lena Waithe, who plays the laconic black lesbian on “Master of None.” Isolation, Barris suggested, might have been the problem for the comedian Dave Chap- pelle: when his Comedy Central show fell apart, he had no community to gather around him. We ate pomegranate ice cream, and the conversation, as it often does in L.A., veered into black-ops financial territory, such as the advantages and disadvan- tages of a several-year network pickup. Salahuddin was newly engaged, and they talked about marriage. Barris told them about a turning point in his life, when he was in his late twenties, clubbing. “If Trump becomes President, I don’t care how high One evening, he came home drunk from he builds that wall—I’m going over it.” Xenii, a members-only club, and found Rainbow asleep at the kitchen table. She was pregnant with their second daughter, nursing their first baby, sleep- ing while sitting up, her medical text- book open in front of her. He realized that he couldn’t be “that guy” anymore. It wasn’t easy for him to have a family so young, he told Salahuddin and Riddle, but it saved him: it made him ambitious. After dinner, Barris and I headed to the bar. Before ordering drinks, he said, he wanted to do a sweep of the room—if any black people were around, he half-joked, he’d know them. In fact, when we sat down Barris was ap- proached by Jay Ellis, an actor on “In- secure,” an upcoming HBO comedy created by Issa Rae. Barris also greeted Steve Levitan, the white showrunner of “Modern Family,” who congratu- lated him on “Hope.” The bar had a spectacular view: the Pacific twinkled “My team of advisers is so fantastic it’s unbelievable.” in the distance. Barris told me that he had spent a lot of time here during •• the first season of “black-ish.” Just as his show was becoming a hit, he and Rainbow separated for six months, liv- to be the Cosbys; everyone knows what tween two equally extreme reactions ing apart and dating others. Larry happened there. “It’s just one show,” to racism and poverty. One minute, Wilmore and Anthony Anderson also Pops says of “Cosby.” “That’s just it, they’re fatalistic to the point of self- broke up with their wives during the Pops—we get so few chances!” Dre sabotage; the next, they’re spouting show’s first season; only Barris and says, in voice-over, as the screen cuts airmations of empty hope—“Tomor- Rainbow reunited. They both felt a to the “Cosby” opening credits, except row’s gonna be a better day!” They strong need to live up to the radiant that it’s the Johnsons turning those might in fact be “rich in love.” But their image of their best selves, as portrayed iconic dance moves. “And when we do lives are all decisions, no choices. on the show. “I think it’s part of why something and we do it well it’s spe- In April, Barris’s family went on a we wanted to have another kid,” Bar- cial! And when we mess it up we mess vacation that could be taken only by ris told me. “To relaunch into what’s it up for everyone coming behind us. people at the pinnacle of success. important.” It’s like we’re carrying everybody’s During a visit to New York, they saw Rubbing his close-cropped hair, he dreams on our back.” “Hamilton” not once but twice. They said, “I’ve fucked up so much, gotten The longing to see a positive por- also flew to Washington for the White so many second chances.” As a teen- trayal of black life feels particularly House Easter Egg Roll, and were part ager, he had a frightening flirtation fraught as Obama leaves oice, and as of a V.I.P. group who met the Presi- with gang life. In his twenties, when Trump’s openly racist rhetoric attracts dent and the First Lady. “That’s our his daughters were little, he said, he followers. Although Barris’s early life family,” President Obama told Barris, wasn’t around enough. “I sold weed,” was punctuated by police violence, his about “black-ish.” he said. “I got caught cheating.” Ear- ugliest memory, Barris said, was some- Not everything went smoothly. After lier, he told me that he wanted the show thing a cop told him when he was six- four hours at the White House, Bar- to represent the life of an imperfect teen: “You know, no one will care if ris, tired, insisted that they leave. Once couple, not idealized figures. But there’s you die.” A network sitcom could never they were outside, Kaleigh got a text a built-in tension to “black-ish”: the address anything quite so raw, he knew. from Anthony Anderson’s son: they’d burden placed on black stories, and on Even the most topical sitcom isn’t an just missed Beyoncé and Jay Z. Bar- the artists who tell them, to be not op-ed; it’s more like Silly Putty that’s ris’s daughters were furious at their dad; merely good but inspirational. In one been pressed against Page 1. But, al- tears formed in Leyah’s eyes. When he of this season’s best episodes, “The though “Good-ish Times” had many saw those tears, Barris lost it: “You just Johnsons,” other parents keep calling more jokes than “Hope,” it shared met the President! ” They apologized. Dre and Bow and the kids “such a beau- a stark central insight. It found dark Barris stayed mad. But he was also in- tiful family”—praise that floods Dre laughs in the dialectic of striver psy- spired. “I texted Grof and said, ‘We with fear. He and Bow grew up trying chology, as the Evans family flips be- have to use this next season.’ ” 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 69 PORTFOLIO TEENAGE DREAM Adolescent ingenuity is shaping the future of pop.

BY MATTHEW TRAMMELL PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELIZABETH RENSTROM

n 1988, David Sprague, an edi- innovation. There’s something spe- mentum. With this hook, Octave tor at Creem, travelled to a pri- cial about capturing them in this joins other young rappers who have I vate school in Norwalk, Califor- moment of early maturation, because rejected an old-school emphasis on nia, in search of a student named nature will surely reshape them as lyrical variety, individualism, and per- Tifany Darwish. But he couldn’t quickly as they have reshaped their sonal catharsis. (Remember how he find her on campus: she was in Mu- respective musical realms. They won’t feels about school?) These are the nich, touring in support of her début look this way forever, and they cer- devices that helped turn Kanye West LP, which had just become the first tainly won’t sound this way forever. and Eminem into stars; Octave and album by a teen-age girl to reach Alessia Cara, a nineteen-year-old peers like Silentó and Desiigner have No. 1 on the Billboard chart. The pre- singer-songwriter from Ontario, has been castigated by some music fans vious year, Tifany had released a a breakout single, “Here,” in which for falling short of the genre’s tradi- tinny cover of Tommy James’s “I she finds herself tucked in the corner tional marks. But these artists seem Think We’re Alone Now” and an of a house party and looking askance steadfastly uninterested in their el- ambling ballad, “Could’ve Been,” both at her peers, who are clutching cups ders’ idea of rap. Even within hip- of which had been conceptualized and dancing to music they may or hop, one of the most defiant musi- and produced entirely by her man- may not like. The song made a slow cal movements of our time, teens are ager. Sprague found the sixteen-year- crawl to No. 1 earlier this year, reso- finding rules to break. old’s success infuriating, and he pub- nating with listeners on two levels: Of course, expressing rebellion is lished a thunderous indictment of both as a dig at the social pressure to a Day 1 move for a teen-ager. What teen pop. Noting that Tifany had party and as a meta-commentary on most sharply distinguishes artists like sung along to pre-recorded tracks pop music itself, which, in an era of Octave from previous generations is while performing in American malls, synthetic E.D.M. beats, has made a the digitally networked environment he wrote, “The #1 album in the coun- banal fetish of the epic night out. As in which they create music. The In- try and she has yet to perform with a member of the target audience for ternet rewards boldness and individ- a band.” mainstream pop, Cara is both fluent uality in a way that radio and record Sprague’s anger now seems quaint. in its tropes and immune to its come- labels and concert promoters rarely In the three decades since Tifany’s ons: she’s having fun cruising the mall have. If Miles Davis were a teen-ager rise, many animatronic teen-agers but has little intention to buy. today, he might not have had to leave have come and gone, but several per- Eighteen-year-old Dieuson Oc- Alton, Illinois, for New York at eigh- formers who got their start very early, tave, who raps as Kodak Black, ex- teen, trumpet in hand, for the world from Adele to Earl Sweatshirt and presses teen skepticism even more to recognize his talent. In the fall Justin Timberlake, have become major bluntly. On his song “Skrt,” he raps, of 2014, footage of Joey Alexander, forces in popular music. Teen-agers, “Fuck my school and fuck my teacher, a then eleven-year-old Indonesian with their serial rebellions, romantic too.” Certainly rock stars and rap- piano prodigy, playing John Coltrane’s infatuations, and unabashed experi- pers have said this before, but Oc- “Giant Steps” tore across the Web. mentalism, have proved to be adept tave’s manifestly youthful voice makes Audiences struggled to separate the at reworking pop’s core provocations. it especially efective. “Skrt” lurches masterly, inventive playing from the Technology, meanwhile, has made it along to a minimalist, bottom-heavy fact that Alexander, who is self-taught, easy for teens to inject their aesthet- beat, and Octave is sparse and repet- had barely started middle school. ics into the mainstream, with or with- itive with his phrasing. He spends A début album and festival perfor- out the guiding hand of managers the bulk of an eight-count chorus mances soon followed—impressive and record labels. chanting the word “skrt”—a fash- feats that Alexander handled with The eight young acts presented ionable rap ad-lib that mimics the amiable self-efacement. For Alexan- in this Portfolio strike a balance be- sound made by a screeching tire. It’s der and other precocious children, tween technical achievement and wily a primal declaration of forward mo- a virtual audience is always present,

70 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 Novelist Age 19 Genre Grime A rapper and producer from Lewisham, in South London, he has refreshed the insular and competitive grime scene.

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 71 Joey Alexander Age 12 Genre Jazz piano This Indonesian prodigy learned piano by ear, and could identify Thelonious Monk’s music by the age of six.

72 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 Låpsley Age 19 Genre Electronic Låpsley is adding a gloomy streak to the landscape of ambient pop. She writes elegiac confessionals and sings with muted control.

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 73 74 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 like air, and artistic creation feels as innate as breathing. Much has been said about digital natives— people born with access to a compu- ter—but teens today might be thought of as native creators. They are com- ing of age in a youth culture that thinks of public creativity, from an inventive Snapchat montage to a You- Tube clip of a bedroom musical per- formance, as a primary expression of identity. Online tools for cultivating an audience have not only reinvigorated classic genres like jazz; they have allowed young outsiders to penetrate insidery scenes like alt country and experimental rock. In the U.K., the blend of electronic and dance-hall music known as grime had an initial burst of popularity in the early aughts, then shrank inside its tight stylistic borders, threatening to become too serious to be fun. In 2014, the jour- nalist Aimee Clif, writing for Noisey, the Vice music portal, declared, “What grime needs . . . is m.c.s under twenty.” She extolled a then seventeen-year- old artist called Novelist for being unafraid to use the language of grime to create songs that appeal to girls. Novelist, a Londoner whose name is Kojo Kankam, grew up on the pi- rate radio stations and underground parties where grime once thrived; but he was able to stream his tracks online, and they soon caught the at- tention of the taste-breaking Lon- don label XL Recordings, a long- time champion of fringe sounds. The company released Novelist’s first Babymetal EP, “1 Sec,” a blitz of chain-saw bass Yui Mizuno, 16 lines, last year. Suzuka Nakamoto, 18 Not all teen performers are au- Moa Kikuchi, 16 Genre teurs. At first glance, the Japanese J-pop metal girl group Babymetal seems to con- Babymetal has form to the Tifany mold—it’s a created a bizarrely product of the J-pop industry, where pleasurable sonic Tokyo labels maintain tight creative mashup. It may be control over singers. But Babymetal, rock’s most cunning which just released its second album, new band. “Metal Resistance,” does perform with a band. Onstage, backup musi- cians wear masks and thrash through screeching guitar and palpitating drums while Suzuka Nakamoto, eigh- teen, Moa Kikuchi, sixteen, and Yui Mizuno, sixteen, sing in Japanese, trading towering soprano hooks about

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 75 Alessia Cara Age 19 Genre R. & B., pop This Ontario pop force wears her youth cozily, with exultant ballads that speak to millions— and lyrics that pithily quote advice from her mom and dad.

76 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 Sammy Brue Age 15 Genre Folk, Americana Brue, who is based in Utah, tackles such dark subjects as skipping a funeral and unresolved arguments: “The last time that we were ighting / I was thinking about the day that you’d be gone.”

Let’s Eat Grandma Jenny Hollingworth, 17 Rosa Walton, 16 Genre Experimental pop Hollingworth and Walton, a duo from Norwich, U.K., have created a closed-of musical world with their songs. They craft duets with spooky, childlike timbres.

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 77 bullying, body positivity, and choco- late. In classic girl-group fashion, they wear coördinated outfits and perform synchronized dances. None of them had heard metal before the band’s in- ception, and much of Babymetal’s early material was written by the prominent metal front man Nobuki Narasaki. The girls are inauthentic by the standards of Creem (which is now defunct), but they are a strik- ingly original presence. Though the songs are addictive, Babymetal’s sharp- est asset is its singular combination of J-pop’s theatrical pageantry and metal’s primal sprint. Adherents of each genre are becoming fans: Baby- metal has enjoyed huge success in Japan, and its fame is growing in the United States and in London, where it recently became the first Japanese act to headline the Wembley Arena. Babymetal’s act, like much of the best pop, is at once recognizable and pro- foundly new. Every week, there seems to be a fresh story about an emerging teen musician, from the British singer Låpsley’s bedroom pop finding its way onto the BBC airwaves to Sammy Brue’s achy folk seeping out from his home base of Utah. At any age, you need a tremendous amount of confi- dence to share your music with the world, and these young artists must dip their toes into crowded waters. Think of when you were a teen-ager, Kodak Black and how diicult it was to decide Age 18 what records to play at a party; now Genre Rap imagine how you might look back on A street rapper from what you chose to play. Teen-agers Pompano Beach, today have to move past embarrass- Florida, he has a ment quickly, and, because there’s lit- mutinous sound. His tle time for pretense in the digital young fans hear their arena, many are producing music with own triumphs and unusual honesty. We romanticize ad- missteps in his spare olescence because it’s so malleable: a narratives. burst of change, physical and mental, that feels abysmal as it happens and irreplaceable once it’s over. The mu- sicians in this Portfolio are chroni- cling that universal experience with distinct voices. As Alessia Cara sings on her new single, “Wild Things”: “We will find our way, or we’ll make a way.” 

NEWYORKER.COM Listen to the artists from our Portfolio.

78 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 79 FICTION

80 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY ÉDITH CARRON adik arrived in New York on Vadik looked out the window again. drowned out Cohen’s baritone, was plain- a snowy Saturday morning in the It felt as though the plane were sus- tive and childlike: V middle of winter. He woke up as pended in the clouds. He closed his eyes the plane started its descent into J.F.K. and willed it to land at J.F.K. He imag- Baby, I’ve been waiting, I’ve been waiting night and day. and quickly raised his window shade, ined the hard body of the plane push- I didn’t see the time, hoping to catch a glimpse of that famous ing downward through the thick mass I waited half my life away. Manhattan skyline, but all he saw was a of clouds, emerging in a clean empty murky white mess. It was still thrilling. space between sky and ground, and then He sounded pathetic! Vadik couldn’t help Although he couldn’t see the contours sliding down in one bold, determined feeling a squeamish kind of pity for him. of the buildings, he could sense them movement until its wheels touched the He felt anger, too, mostly because “Wait- right there, under the plane, hidden by runway. The cabin erupted in applause, ing for the Miracle” was his favorite song the clouds. He felt a familiar surge of and for a second Vadik thought that it and Sergey’s singing was ruining it for excitement, the excitement that had was meant for him. him. buoyed him for months, ever since he “Can you take me to the city?” Vadik He hadn’t been looking forward to was granted the coveted H-1B visa that asked Sergey as soon as they finished being at Sergey’s place, but now he would allow him to work in the U.S. for hugging. couldn’t wait to arrive. Apparently, Vica three years. He had spent the past two “To the city? Now?” Sergey asked with couldn’t wait for their arrival, either. She years in Istanbul and had grown sick of a degree of puzzlement that suggested rushed out of the house as soon as she the place. He had celebrated his thirti- that either the city was very far away or heard the car, and ran down the drive- eth birthday there, but the new decade there was some existential impossibility way barefoot, leaving footprints on the would begin in a new country for him. of getting there. thin layer of fresh snow. Her hug was Every now and then, he would open his “Now. Yeah,” Vadik said. sticky and tight and somewhat embar- passport and stroke the thin paper visa “But Vica is waiting with all the food. rassing. Vadik struggled to free himself. as if it were alive. She’ll be disappointed.” She looked great, though. In snug jeans He was starting work on Monday, as The horror in Sergey’s eyes showed and a snugger sweater, with her short a computer programmer at the head- just how much trouble Vica’s disappoint- curly hair cut in some new fancy way. quarters of Earthly Foods, in Avenel, ment would bring him. “Vica, you look amazing,” Vadik said. New Jersey. He would live in Avenel, So they went to Staten Island—drove “It’s my teeth,” she said, scowling at too, in an apartment provided by cor- down the J.F.K. Expressway, then the him. “See, I finally fixed my teeth!” Vadik porate housing. His old friend Sergey long stretch of the Belt Parkway, past had no idea what she was talking about. was meeting him at J.F.K. He had agreed the gray jellied mass of the ocean, across “I used to have crooked teeth. Don’t you to take Vadik to his house on Staten Is- the foggy Verrazano Bridge, and, finally, remember?” And then he remembered. land and then drive him to Avenel on down endless Hylan Boulevard, with its She used to smile with her mouth closed, Sunday. But Vadik was planning to ask depressing storefronts. All the while and cover it with her hand when she Sergey to take him straight to the city, Sergey sang along to his favorite Leon- laughed. When Vadik had first met her, so that he could spend all of Saturday ard Cohen CD. at a college party, he thought that she exploring. He knew exactly what he Back in university, Sergey had been was covering her mouth because she was wanted to do. He wanted to walk the a star—the smartest and most talented shy. He’d found this habit intensely en- streets without direction, following his of them all. Professors had quoted him dearing even after he discovered that intuition wherever it might lead him. in classes. Everyone had said that his Vica wasn’t shy at all. He wanted to walk like that for hours, sharp, taut features made him look Vica led him on a tour of the house. then find a bohemian-looking bar, where like a French actor. He’d played gui- All Vadik noticed was that the furni- he could spend the rest of the day with tar and sung—badly, but still. And ture was brown and the walls were a glass of wine and a book, wearing a he’d had any girl he wanted. Hell, he’d painted yellow. “We’re giving you this tweed jacket, like a true New York in- snatched Vica from right under Va- exercise bike,” Vica said, pointing to a tellectual. Vadik had put the jacket on dik’s nose. bulky apparatus in the corner of the before boarding the plane, because he Sergey was still handsome. It was guest room. “It’s like new. I gave it to didn’t want to pack it in a suitcase, where just the singing that made him look Sergey for his birthday, but he seems it might get wrinkled. He had spent a ugly—the way he scrunched up his to hate it.” Then Vica took him to meet lot of time trying to choose a book to nose whenever he had to draw out a Eric, a small, sulky, chubby six-year- read in that bar. Something French? Sar- line and furrowed his brows whenever old version of Sergey. He was sitting tre’s “Nausea”? Gilles Deleuze’s “Cin- he had trouble pronouncing the words, on the floor of his tiny bedroom with ema 1”? And, no, this wasn’t sickeningly his pained expression in the especially a Game Boy in his hands. His fingers pretentious. Vadik wasn’t doing this to emotional moments. And the singing it- pressed the buttons with such inten- make an impression on other people. self ? It wasn’t just that Sergey sang out sity it was as if his life depended on it. He did want to be seen as a charismatic of tune or that he sang with a gooey Rus- “Hi,” Vadik said. It hadn’t occurred to tweedy intellectual, but it was most im- sian accent, although those things both- him to bring Eric a gift—a toy or some- portant to him to be seen as such through ered Vadik, too. The main problem was thing—and now he felt awkward. He his own eyes. that Sergey’s voice, which completely had no idea how to talk to a child. “So,

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 81 Eric,” he said, “what do you like to do?” tion would be upsetting to Sergey. “He The MetroCards were upstairs, and “I like to kill,” Eric said, and went misses our old life too much,” she had Sergey didn’t want to chance it with back to pressing buttons. confided to Vadik during the tour of the Vica, so he took a jar full of quarters The rest of the morning and the en- house. She changed the subject to Va- from the windowsill and counted out tire afternoon were spent in the roomy dik’s long-term plans, but that filled him the exact change (forty quarters) for the kitchen, which had a distant view of a with panic. He didn’t know if he wanted ride to Manhattan and back. Vadik loved playground and a cemetery. “They told to go to graduate school. He didn’t know the weight of the coins in his pockets. us that this house overlooked the park,” if he wanted to get married. He didn’t It made him feel as if he were doing Sergey explained. “It was summer. We know if he wanted to stay in the U.S. something illicit. Running of with sto- couldn’t see the graves behind all those for good. He had no idea. He just wanted len gold. leafy trees.” to lead the life of an American for a They were almost out the door when Vica interrupted him. “But we can let while, whatever that meant. He failed Vadik remembered his book. “Cinema 1” Eric play across the street by himself, be- to explain his view to Vica. Even Sergey was in his suitcase upstairs. “Can I bor- cause, you know, you can see him from didn’t seem to get it. row a book?” he asked. the window.” They drank vodka and ate cold cuts, “All my good books are upstairs,” Vadik pictured sad little Eric in a de- pickles, and salads that Sergey had bought Sergey said. “Here we keep garage-sale serted playground, swinging above the at the only Russian grocery store on books.” graves. Then he remembered to admire Staten Island. Beet salad, carrot salad, Vadik went to the shelves anyway. the house. eggplant salad, mushroom salad, cheese There were DVDs of “Bambi” and “The “Yep, this was the right choice,” Sergey salad, herring salad, and a cabbage salad Lion King,” and used copies of “A Com- said without conviction. with the lovely name Isolda. There was plete Idiot’s Guide to Home Repair,” “A Vica told him that Sergey’s grand- some bickering about the Isolda. It Complete Idiot’s Guide to Mortgages,” mother had died, and that Sergey’s fa- seemed that Vica had specifically asked “Eat Healthy!,” and “Hell Is Other Peo- ther had sold her apartment and sent Sergey to check the expiration date be- ple: An Anthology of Twentieth-Cen- the money to Sergey for the down pay- fore buying it, and he hadn’t. “Look! All tury French Philosophy.” He grabbed ment. Now they were struggling to pay the other salads expire on the nineteenth, “Hell Is Other People” and hurried to a huge mortgage every month, but it and this one on the sixteenth. Which the door. had still been the right move to buy a was yesterday!” she said. Vadik volun- They got to the bus stop a second house. Because that was how it worked teered to eat the Isolda, because he had after the bus pulled away. They had to here, Sergey added. You rented in the an iron stomach. race to intercept it at the next stop. And cheaper parts of Brooklyn for a while, At some point, Eric emerged from then Vadik was in, dropping his coins then you bought a house in the suburbs his room and demanded to be fed, too. into the slot one by one as the bus pulled or on Staten Island, then you sold that “What do you want, chummy-chums?” of. Heading to the city. house and bought a bigger, better house, Sergey asked. Eric declined the salads then when you grew old you left that but took a few pieces of salami and he jetlag and the vodka put him house to your kids and moved into a re- squeezed them in his hand. Vica took T to sleep, and by the time he woke tirement community. Sergey’s tone was the salami away from him, placed it on up the bus was approaching its last stop: a dark mixture of hatred and resigna- a slice of bread, took a cucumber and a Central Park South and Sixth Avenue. tion, which made Vadik uneasy and even lettuce leaf out of the fridge, put all that It was dark now, and snowing lightly, frightened him a little. He tried to imag- on a plate, gave the plate to Eric, and but none of that mattered to Vadik. He ine a happier Eric, all grown up, driving sent him into the living room to watch had made it. The skyscrapers hovered his parents to the retirement commu- TV. Now the conversation was punctu- above his head, as if suspended in a yel- nity so that he could take possession of ated by the screams and squeaks of car- low fog. The Park looked deserted, so the house. Vadik made a few attempts toon animals and the happy voices of he decided to head down Sixth Avenue. to steer the conversation away from real children praising certain brands of ce- He walked along the wet sidewalk, cross- estate. In his e-mails, Sergey always asked real or juice. After a while, Eric came ing whenever the light turned green, about their university friends, so Vadik back, complaining of a stomach ache. turning right or left whenever he felt now tried to tell him that Marik was Vica took him upstairs, promising to be like it, stepping through puddles of slush. still working on his genealogy disserta- right back. Soon he had no idea which direction tion, but Alina had quit hers and was Vadik grabbed Sergey by the sleeve he was going in. He didn’t care. He was busy making this animated Nabokov and pleaded. “Serega, please, take me to taking everything in—the buildings, the game, and Kuzmin—remember that the subway or something. I’m dying here. storefronts, the limos and yellow cabs, shithead?—was involved in some busi- I need to get to the city!” the people. There were so many people. ness with Abramovich. Abramovich, you Sergey studied his watch, then lis- Alive, energetic, determined, all in a rush know, the man who owns half of Eu- tened to Vica’s and Eric’s muled voices to get somewhere. Women. Beautiful rope, including Chelsea Football Club? upstairs. women. Some looked at him. Some even But then Vica kicked him under the “There is no subway here. The ferry smiled. He felt very tall. He felt gigan- table and shook her head. Apparently, is far away. I’ll take you to the express tic. He felt as if his head were on the she thought that this line of conversa- bus. It goes straight into midtown.” same level as those breathtaking Times

82 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 Square billboards. Everything seemed happy confidence and could do what- “No,” Vadik insisted, “please tell me.” within reach. Hell, he felt as if he could ever he wanted. “I actually hate this song,” Rachel said. just snap the enormous steaming Cup “What is in your cup?” he asked after “Hate this song? Why?” Vadik asked. Noodles of the side of that building. he had settled into her booth. “The guy is ofering himself to a girl. He felt as if he were consuming the city, “Cider with rum,” she said. He’s pouring his heart out.” eating it up. It was his city. He had finally Vadik asked the waiter to bring an- “Oh, he’s pouring his heart out, is that found it. other cider with rum for him. He liked right?” Rachel said. “Look, this is typi- Vadik walked for hours. He stopped it very much. cal pre-coital manipulation. He’s ofer- only when he noticed that his shoes The girl’s name was Rachel. She said ing her the world, but only until she gives were soaked through to his socks. He that she was from Michigan but had herself to him. Do you understand?” spotted a brightly lit diner and went in. moved to the city for graduate school a “I understand what you mean, but I The diner was nothing like the elegant couple of months ago. He told her that disagree. The guy is expressing what Greenwich Village bar he’d imagined, he’d just arrived that morning. he feels in the moment. He may not but he decided that he liked it better. She smiled and said, “Welcome.” feel the same way afterward, but that Plus, he didn’t feel like drinking wine Days, weeks, months, even years later, doesn’t mean he’s not sincere in that pre- or beer. He ordered a cup of tea with whenever Vadik thought of their conver- cise moment.” lemon and a slice of cheesecake, because sation (and he thought of it a lot) he Rachel shook her head with such force he remembered Sergey mentioning would marvel at how easy it had been. that one of her braids came undone and cheesecake as the ultimate American His English was pretty good, but his con- fine wisps of brown hair flew up and food. The diner was nice, homey, with versations were never that efortless: he’d down. quiet American pop songs playing in struggle to find the right word; he’d con- “Leonard Cohen is a misogynist.” the background. There were almost no fuse tenses and articles; he’d pronounce “Miso . . . gynist?” Vadik said. The customers there, just an elderly couple the words wrong. But, in that diner with word sounded vaguely familiar, but he at the counter eating soup, an unkempt, Rachel, he talked as if inspired. Not once wasn’t sure what it meant. possibly homeless guy fiddling with a did she ask him to repeat something be- “Anti-feminist,” Rachel explained. jukebox in the corner, and a girl in a cause she didn’t understand. “I don’t understand,” Vadik said. bulky checkered coat sitting across the Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” “Cohen? Anti-feminist? Doesn’t he idol- aisle from Vadik. The girl had a runny started playing, and Vadik laughed. ize women?” nose. She kept wiping it with a napkin, Cohen seemed to be following him “Yes!” Rachel said. “That’s precisely making sniling sounds like a rabbit. through the day. “I love this song!” he my point. He idolizes women, but he Her nose was swollen and red, and he said. doesn’t view them as equals. They’re these could hardly see her eyes behind her “Really?” Rachel said. She seemed sacred sexual objects for him. Something dark bangs, but he liked the way her suddenly tense. to idolize and discard—or, better yet, dis- hair was pulled into two short braids. “What?” Vadik said. card first and idolize later.” She had a clear mug filled with cloudy “Oh, it’s nothing.” Rachel took another sip of her cider brown liquid in front of her. Vadik won- dered what it was. She raised her eyes for a second, and he saw that they were amber and very pretty. Vadik wanted to smile at her, but she lowered her gaze before he had a chance. She was read- ing a book. Vadik decided that it was time to pull out his. He opened it in the middle, took a long sip of his tea, and plunged into reading. He couldn’t understand a single word. Or, rather, all he understood was single words. He tried to concentrate, but his mind was still busy thinking about the runny-nosed girl. Vadik took a bite of his cheesecake and found it disgustingly sweet. He leafed through the rest of the book and discovered that about fifty pages were missing. When he finally raised his eyes, he saw that the girl was looking at him. He smiled and asked if he could join her. Normally, he would have been too shy to do that, but right then he felt as if he were fuelled by some strange, “I know we strictly bust ghosts, but I feel this is a shot we need to take.” to let him stay at her place. Vadik squeezed her hand even tighter. It’s New York, he thought. It’s New York that makes everything so easy.

hey walked down a wide avenue, T then turned onto a narrow street. Vadik loved this street. The dark trees. The cheerful details on the stone façades. The piles of hardened snow gleaming under the streetlamps. Rachel led him into one of the brownstones and up creaky stairs to her fifth-floor one-bedroom. The stairs were carpeted. The railings were carved. Vadik’s heart was beating like crazy. Once they were inside the apartment, the easy feeling dissipated. Rachel took of her boots and her coat, but kept her scarf on. She moved nervously around the apartment, as if she were the one who was there for the first time. Vadik felt that he should do or say something to make her relax, but he had no idea what. “Do you want some tea?” Rachel asked, •• and seemed grateful when he agreed. She disappeared into the kitchen, still wearing her scarf. The apartment was and asked, “Do you know the song ‘Wait- given him a perfect opportunity to veer small and dark, with art posters on the ing for the Miracle’?” the conversation away from Leonard walls. Vadik recognized only one of them: “Of course,” Vadik said. “It’s my Cohen and toward something that would Memling’s “Portrait of a Young Woman.” favorite!” allow him to shine. He said that he knew He’d never liked it that much. Since this “Well, let’s think about the lyrics. the entire “Rime of the Ancient Mari- was the first real American home Vadik ‘I know it must have hurt you, / It must ner” by heart. In Russian. Rachel smiled had seen, he couldn’t tell how much of have hurt your pride / To have to stand and asked him to recite it. He did. Ra- the décor was typical and how much re- beneath my window / With your bugle chel loved it. She said that it sounded vealed Rachel’s personality. and your drum.’ ” Rachel paused, try- amazing in Russian, even though she He sat down on her couch and took ing to think of the next line, and Vadik couldn’t help laughing a couple of times. of his shoes. His socks were soaking wet. continued, “ ‘And me I’m up there The waiter came over to them just as These were the socks that he had put on waiting / Waiting for the miracle to Vadik belted out the last line. He asked yesterday morning in Moscow. He stared come.’ ” if they wanted anything else. Vadik real- at his feet for a while, stunned by this Rachel nodded and looked at Vadik ized that this was the fourth or fifth time realization, then he removed the socks intently. “See what’s going on here? We he’d asked them that. It was time to leave. and stufed them in the pocket of his have a man up there, having these exis- “I’ll walk you home,” Vadik said, and jacket. He heard the clatter of dishes in tential thoughts, talking to God, expect- Rachel nodded and smiled. the kitchen, and occasional traic sounds ing to experience divine grace, and the The color of the sky had changed to outside, but other than that it was woman is down below. Literally beneath a gloomy indigo, and it was really cold. stiflingly silent in the apartment. There him! Waiting stupidly. And for what? The slush on the sidewalks was now was a small CD rack by the couch, but For him to marry her?” cakey ice. Vadik ofered Rachel his hand, Vadik didn’t recognize any of the albums. Vadik shook his head. and they walked like that: holding hands, It occurred to him that Sergey and Vica Rachel was about to say something but at a distance. Vadik noticed that he would worry if he didn’t come home. He else, but she stopped herself. She looked was much taller than Rachel. Her head asked Rachel if he could make a call. “Of embarrassed. was on a level with his shoulders. course!” she said from the kitchen. Vadik “So what are you studying in your She asked him where he was staying, dialled the number, praying that Sergey graduate school?” Vadik asked. “North and the answer seemed to horrify her. would answer. He did. Vadik said in Rus- American Misogynists?” “Staten Island?” she said. “But it’s so late! sian that he was spending the night in “No, actually. English Romantics.” How are you going to get there?” And the city. With a girl. An American girl. What luck! Vadik thought. She had then she cleared her throat and ofered He listened to Sergey’s stunned silence

84 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 for what seemed an eternity. “O.K. See post another Missed Connection notice address. [email protected] (with that you tomorrow,” Sergey finally said. about Rachel. extra “g” between “big” and “guy”). Ra- Rachel emerged from the kitchen, “I think you simply invented your chel would hate how misogynistic that carrying a tray with two mugs and a lit- great love for Rachel to justify your fail- sounded. She hated Leonard Cohen! tle plate of strange-looking, grayish cook- ures with other women,” Sergey said. How could anybody hate Leonard ies. She sat across from Vadik on a foot- “Forget about Rachel!” Vica insisted. Cohen? Anyway, she would ask when stool and put a tea bag in a mug. “There is a good chance that she would they could see each other again. He would She glanced at Vadik’s bare feet and have turned out to be anorexic, or bipo- have to promise to see her when? Next they seemed to embarrass her. lar, or just plain boring!” Friday? And then what? They would have Vadik took her hand in his. Her fingers They were probably right. And yet to see each other every weekend? Vadik were thin and startlingly warm. “More Vadik couldn’t stop longing for Rachel. found the idea oppressive. This was his English poetry in Russian?” he asked. He could barely remember what she looked first morning in the Land of the Free, She smiled and nodded. like anymore, but in the compact reality and already he was bound to some weekly Vadik recited a strange medley of of his memories Rachel remained perfect. routine. His new life was about to begin. Shakespeare, Keats, and Pound, finish- There were times when Vadik tried to He needed to be unbound. ing with “The King’s Breakfast,” by banish those memories, because they were He walked back into the living room A. A. Milne. Rachel was especially de- painful. And there were times when he and surveyed the scene. There was a note- lighted with Milne. felt numb, and would desperately try to book and a pen on the mantel. He tore He asked her to recite some of her fa- conjure up thoughts of Rachel, because out a page and pondered what to write. vorites. She said that there were two things pain was better than numbness. Once, in A line of English poetry would have been she simply couldn’t do in someone else’s Avenel, as he sat perched on his exercise great, but he didn’t know any poetry in presence: recite poetry and dance. Her bike, in his empty white room, pushing English. And a Leonard Cohen lyric was confession touched Vadik so much that and pushing on those dusty pedals, he said clearly a bad idea. “You’re beautiful,” he he wanted to hug her. He reached over Rachel’s name out loud and felt nothing. finally wrote, and left the piece of paper and pulled on her braid instead. Or, rather, he felt a palpable nothing, both in the middle of the table. He picked up She was shy in bed, shy and a little weightless and glutinous. He felt as if he his jacket and sat on the sofa to put on awkward. She squirmed when he at- were about to simultaneously float away his socks. They were still wet. He squirmed tempted to go down on her. “It might and drown. He had never felt worse. at the feel of the damp wool against his take a while,” she warned him. “I’m dii- skin. Then he put on his shoes. cult that way.” hat morning, in Rachel’s apart- It was so cold outside that his wet But Rachel wasn’t diicult. She was T ment, Vadik woke at dawn. Rachel feet seemed to be turning into ice. Vadik the opposite of diicult. This was the was asleep, lying on her front, her face knew (Sergey had explained this to him) simplest, purest, and happiest sexual en- buried in the pillow, her mouth half open. that the X1 bus to Staten Island stopped counter he had ever had. And most likely Vadik felt rested—he was still on Mos- every few blocks on Broadway. He had would ever have. cow time. He got up, pulled on his un- no idea how to get to Broadway, though, Memories of that night haunted him derpants, his sweater and jeans, and went and he had no idea where he was. He for months, for years, afterward. At first, to the bathroom. Everything in the apart- waved down a taxi, and asked the driver they were purely sexual—he’d remem- ment (including the bathroom) seemed to drop him of at the closest point on ber Rachel’s smell and feel a jolt of de- smaller and shabbier in the morning light. Broadway. It took five minutes or so. He sire that made him lightheaded. She So much clutter. So many unnecessary got out of the cab, bought himself a cup smelled like something fresh and green, things. Two hair dryers. Six diferent of cofee in a deli, and walked down a slice of cucumber or good lettuce. But, shampoo bottles. Pots and pans peeking Broadway until he saw an X1 stop. He as the weeks passed, his memories turned out of the tops of kitchen cabinets. Three wasn’t sure if the buses even ran that more and more nostalgic. He would think ceramic cats. A ceramic dog. A ceramic early. But a bus came ten minutes later. of a certain thing that Rachel had said, chicken! Vadik looked out the narrow Vadik was two quarters short of the exact her facial expressions, her tone of voice. kitchen window, but the view was blocked fare, but the driver let him ride anyway. The sight of her braids flying up and by the stained brown wall of an apart- The bus was well heated and empty, and down as she delivered her ridiculous cri- ment building across the street. He con- for a while Vadik just sat slumped in his tique of “I’m Your Man.” sidered putting the kettle on and mak- seat, enjoying the warmth. It was only He tried to find her. He went to the ing some tea. He thought he would just on some overpass in Brooklyn that he city and tried to retrace his steps from sit there with his tea and read one of Ra- remembered that he had left “Hell Is Central Park to the diner. He searched chel’s books until she woke up. But he Other People” at the diner. He had no online forums for scholars of English suddenly found himself dreading that idea where that diner was. He would Romantic poetry. He browsed through moment. Eventually, he would have to never be able to find it again. He felt dating profiles. When he discovered leave. He would explain that he was going a surge of panic and regret that was so Missed Connections, on Craigslist, he to live in Avenel. She would want to ex- extreme it made his heart ache. ♦ started posting notices, looking for Ra- change numbers. He didn’t have a phone chel. In fact, it became a habit of his. yet. Would he have to give her his e-mail NEWYORKER.COM Every time he met a new woman, he’d address? He had such a stupid e-mail Lara Vapnyar on “Waiting for the Miracle.”

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 85 THE CRITICS

ART AND TECH STUDIO 360 The pioneers who are making the irst virtual-reality narratives.

BY ANDREW MARANTZ

anicza Bravo makes short films you money in this business?’ So I changed as V.R. unless they’re totally rewritten.” J about loneliness. In one, Michael my mind.” She thought about what kind For Bravo, the bear hug was rela- Cera plays an abrasive paraplegic who of story might be told most efectively tively painless. “Hard World for Small can’t get lucky. In another, Gaby Hof- in the new medium. “The two words I Things” would be a live-action short, mann plays a phone stalker for whom kept hearing about V.R. were ‘empathy’ with two scenes filmed on location. The the description “comes on too strong” and ‘immersion,’ and I wasn’t sure that first scene—five minutes of unhurried, is not strong enough. Bravo’s shorts em- being immersed in one of my dark com- semi-improvised dialogue—would place ploy the visual grammar of art-house edies would be all that useful.” the viewer in a car as it wound through cinema: over-the-shoulder shots repre- Instead, she wrote a naturalistic drama South Central L.A., then idled outside senting a character’s point of view, hand- about a group of friends who encounter a bodega. The second, much shorter held tracking shots depicting urgent two police oicers. Bravo, who is black, scene would take place inside the store. movement, lingering closeups to tends to write roles for white actors, but Bravo would use four wide-angle lenses, heighten intimacy or unease, carefully for this project she assembled a mostly pointing in all directions from a single composed establishing shots with an black cast. In 1999, Bravo’s cousin, who source, positioned so that the viewer actor in the center of the frame. lived in Brooklyn, had a brief confronta- felt like one of the friends. Then, in In March, 2015, Bravo went to Ven- tion with the N.Y.P.D. that resulted in postproduction, Wevr would “stitch” the ice, on the western edge of Los Ange- his death. According to the police, he footage together to make a single spher- les, to meet with a production company choked on a bag of drugs. Bravo read a ical image. A three-hundred-and-sixty- called Wevr. The name is pronounced short article about it in the Post. “Name, degree camera rig picks up everything “weaver,” but it can also be thought of cause of death—that was it,” she said. “I within view, including boom mikes, ex- as a sentence, with “We” as the subject wanted to bring you inside the world that ternal lighting, and lingering crew mem- and “V.R.” as the verb. As anyone who was left out of that paragraph.” She called bers. It’s possible to remove such visual has read a tech blog within the past five her script “Hard World for Small Things,” detritus in postproduction, but this adds years, or a sci-fi novel within the past after a line from the 1955 film “The Night time and expense. The standard prac- five decades, knows, “V.R.” stands for of the Hunter.” tice is to call “Action!” and then run and virtual reality—a loosely defined phrase Anthony Batt, one of Wevr’s three hide. (The camera rig itself is edited that is now being applied to several re- founders and its head of content, is a out later.) On traditional film sets, the lated forms of visual media. You put forty-eight-year-old with artfully tou- director and the crew are present for al- your smartphone into a portable device sled hair and a bushy, graying beard. most every scene; on this shoot the car like a Google Cardboard or a Samsung Some of Wevr’s projects are computer- would hold only the camera rig and the Gear—or you use a more powerful animated, some are live action, and actors, who would be wearing wire- computer-based setup, such as the Oc- some combine both elements. “We start less microphones. Bravo told her cast ulus Rift or the HTC Vive—and the by identifying people with interesting to think of the project not as a film but device engulfs your field of vision and minds, and then we wrap them in a as an intimate play with an invisible tracks your head movement. The filmic creative bear hug,” Batt said. This can audience. world is no longer flat. Wherever you entail weeks of meetings, phone calls, Luis Blackaller, a producer at Wevr, look, there’s something to see. and test shoots designed to help direc- said, “We all liked the concept. We had The producers at Wevr invited Bravo tors unlearn much of what they know only a few choices to make.” Like most to write and direct a V.R. project. “I said about two-dimensional films—or “flat- V.R. crews, Bravo and her team would no,” she told me. “It sounded like a tech- ties,” as V.R. triumphalists sometimes shoot with GoPros—cheap, shatter- nical thing, and I’m not into technical. call them. Neville Spiteri, Wevr’s C.E.O. proof cameras that are marketed to ex- But then I talked to my husband, and and another of its founders, said, “We’ve treme athletes, not filmmakers. Matthew

he said, ‘How often do people just hand had traditional scripts that can’t work Niederhauser, a cinematographer, noted SCARABOTTOLO GUIDO ABOVE:

86 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY ANNA PARINI THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 87 that most V.R. experiences are viewed ing a black void where my head was turning until you see two plainclothes on phones, and said, “You can shoot supposed to be. cops lurking half a block away. If you’ve with big, expensive lenses, but what’s Bravo decided to forgo the dummy. seen “Hard World” before, you will fix the point?” The crew filmed for a day, spent three your eye on those cops and track them An engineer at Wevr built a camera and a half weeks in postproduction, and as they approach Dell’s car and start trou- rig out of aluminum and sandbags, to then submitted the short to the Sun- ble. As the hostility intensifies, you might minimize jostling, and the crew did a dance Film Festival. It was accepted by feel frustrated by your incorporeality— test shoot with the rig in the passenger New Frontier, the festival’s showcase for your inability to prevent the conflict from seat. “Watching it, you had to turn new media. In “Hard World for Small reaching its inevitable conclusion. around the whole time to make sure Things,” you’re sitting next to Sev in the Jump cut—you’re inside the store. you weren’t missing anything in the back back of a vintage Cadillac convertible. So are the cops, and Sev, carrying a box of the car, which felt annoying,” Black- Sev is talking to Dell, who’s driving, of cereal, accidentally bumps into one aller said. So they decided to film from about something that sounds interest- of them. The oicer draws his gun and the back right seat instead. Bravo ing—a James Baldwin book, maybe?— shoots, and Sev crashes to the floor, face tweaked her screenplay to remove minor but, before you can be sure, Renee, who’s up. You watch the film again, and again, cinematic vestiges—insert shots, subtle in the front seat, says, “No one ever gives and every time Sev falls you feel numb. blocking details—that would be either me any books,” and they let the matter You were just getting to know him, and irrelevant or impossible in V.R. drop. It’s a languid, sunny day. A teen- now he’s gone. You could look anywhere, “Then we had another big conver- ager on the side of the road throws a but your eyes linger on his still body. sation,” Blackaller said. “Do we film a football, and it arcs over the top of the Bravo recently released a short film dummy?” In some V.R. experiences, the car, above your head, and into a yard starring Alison Pill, and she is working viewer feels invisible; in others, one can across the street. Dell parks outside the on a TV show and a feature—all flatties. look down to see one’s body represented bodega, where locals are gathered on the “Even while making the V.R. thing, I felt onscreen. In a clumsily animated V.R. sidewalk. Depending on where you’re ambivalent about it as a medium,” she segment produced by another company, looking, you might notice one of the said. “But now I think I would do it again. I experienced a nightmarish version of women on the curb directing a side-eye I have some ideas about directional sound the latter: I flew through the air, my glance at Renee, or you might miss it. that I want to play around with.” legs dangling below me, scrawny and Crosscurrents of conversation over- Anthony Batt told me, “A lot of tech immovable. My arms were those of a lap around you. Sev walks into the store. people are talking a big game about V.R. white man in his thirties, which hap- Dell gets out of the car to help an old right now. A lot of scholars, people way pened to match my anatomy but might lady cross the street. You and Renee stay smarter than I am, are coming up with have been distracting, if not alarming, in the car, and Renee takes a phone call. theories about it. And then a few peo- to most humans. And when I craned You can turn your head slightly to listen ple, including us, are just diving in and my actual neck downward I saw a sharp to her, or you can turn farther to watch fucking doing it.” Wevr has overseen line where my virtual neck ended, leav- Dell and the old lady, or you can keep more than twenty V.R. projects, and six more are in production. “Does that mean our stuf is always perfect?” Batt said. “Fuck no! It means we start with no idea of how we’re gonna make a proj- ect work, and we make it work. Or we don’t, and the whole thing turns to jello, and we learn.”

R. “experiences,” as they’re often V. called, can be fictional or journal- istic, narrative or open-ended. They can look like small-budget movies, big-bud- get video games, or experimental art pieces with no obvious precedent. Some are called “cinematic V.R.,” or “V.R. storytelling,” to distinguish them from pieces made for more practical ends, such as architectural modelling or P.T.S.D. therapy. Robert Stromberg won an Academy Award in 2010 for his art direction on “Avatar,” which was full of lush computer “Stop—that Trump cartoon you came up animation displayed in IMAX 3-D. “After with this morning just happened.” that, I just wanted to keep pushing,” he told me. “How much more mind-blow- sung Gear have been on sale since last ing can it get?” He now works primar- year. More sophisticated V.R. headsets ily in V.R. “One of the main challenges have been available to developers for for storytellers is learning to think in about two years, in prototype form, and terms of spheres instead of rectangles,” are now reaching the market. The Oc- he said. ulus Rift, which produces precise local- Cinematic grammar no longer ap- ized audio, sells for six hundred dollars. plies. There is no frame in which to The HTC Vive, a “room-scale” system compose a shot. An actor who directly that uses laser emitters to track a user’s addresses the camera isn’t breaking the movement within a fifteen-by- fifteen- fourth wall, because the viewer is al- foot space, costs eight hundred. (High- ready in the middle of the action. The powered computers, sold separately, are viewer can look anywhere, so the direc- required for both.) Omer Shapira, an tor often adds subtle visual or auditory artist and a software engineer, told me, cues to indicate where to look, or to sig- “The tech is advancing astoundingly nal that the viewer’s gaze can wander quickly, but the storytellers are still catch- without missing anything important. ing up. Humans are good at picking up Tracking shots must be steady and language, including visual language, but slow, because too much camera move- first it has to be invented.” He men- ment can cause discomfort—viewers tioned the Kuleshov efect, which was have reported headaches, vertigo, and established in the early days of cinema nausea. For the same reason, most V.R. by the Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov. experiences last only a few minutes; When footage of a man with a neutral more sustained stories tend to be di- expression was intercut with an image vided into episodes. With the current of a child in a coin, the audience thought headsets, “virtual-reality sickness” can that the man looked sorrowful; when kick in after about twenty minutes. It the same footage was intercut with a seems to afect old people more strongly shot of a bowl of soup, the man looked than young people and women more hungry. “Over time, that sort of thing strongly than men. While researching becomes intuitive to an audience,” Sha- this piece, I sometimes had trouble sleep- pira said. ing, which is unusual for me. I avoid Television broadcasting began in the looking at computers before bed, be- nineteen-twenties, but it took decades cause they have been linked with dis- for TV to become a medium. In the turbed sleep. I eventually realized that thirties, actors were filmed standing in I had been spending much of my eve- front of microphones as they read scripts ning leisure time with a magnified AMO- of radio plays. In 1953, WCAU, a sta- LED screen two inches from my face. tion in Philadelphia, launched “Action In “passive” V.R. experiences, you in the Afternoon,” a half-hour Western simply enjoy the ride; in “interactive” that aired live every weekday. It was ones, the environment responds to your an ambitious production, but it wasn’t choices. Some interactions are simple, uniquely suited to TV—it was like the- relying on nothing more than the ori- atre, only with more technical glitches. entation of the viewer’s head. In an el- In “The Box,” an oral history of televi- egant game called Land’s End, you look sion, James Hirschfeld, who worked on around a serene, vividly colored land- “Action,” said, “Sound was the biggest scape until you see a white orb floating problem. The mikes had to be hidden at eye level. If you stare at the orb long in the hitching posts along the street. enough, it pulls you inside it. Then you You had to walk over to a hitching post look for the next orb, which pulls you to do a scene.” forward, and so on; without instruction, Movies also began as filmed theatre, you intuit how to navigate your way but directors learned to use the cam- through a V.R. environment. Other era to heighten emotions. To represent interactive experiences use more com- James Stewart’s fear of heights in “Ver- plex hardware, including hand control- tigo,” Alfred Hitchcock introduced the lers and body-tracking sensors, to sim- “dolly zoom,” in which the cinema- ulate such activities as painting and tographer moves the camera backward mini-golf. while zooming in, or vice versa. The The Google Cardboard and the Sam- dolly zoom came to signify a moment

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 89 of great revelation or terror, and it was “skateboarding and getting into fights.” ing a single-lane swimming pool and used at pivotal points in “Raging Bull,” He added, “Back then, you didn’t come an Astroturf lawn that was being used “Pulp Fiction,” and “Poltergeist.” It’s not down here unless you wanted to get as a bocce court, and found Batt and clear whether zoom lenses can be used your ass whupped.” Now Venice and its Blackaller seated at four white tables in V.R.; as far as I know, no one has tried environs are nicknamed Silicon Beach. that had been pushed together. Next to yet. Nor do V.R. directors use montages, Google and Snapchat own stretches of them was Gautam Chopra, a filmmaker dissolves, or split screens—though these extravagantly priced real estate, and it’s and an entrepreneur who calls himself are all technically feasible, they might a seller’s market for cold-pressed juice. Gotham. (“I grew up on comic books,” seem abrupt or confusing to the audi- The startup culture is at pains to dis- he explained.) He put his BMW keys ence, which is learning to watch V.R. tinguish itself from that of the movie on the table, set his iPhone to speaker while its makers are learning to make it. studios half a dozen miles to the east. mode, and called his father, the holis- “There’s minimal editing, because If a meeting in Culver City begins with tic healer Deepak Chopra. The Chopras we’re still figuring out how to do it,” James an executive ofering you a bottle of are working with Wevr on a V.R. med- Kaelan, a director who has worked in water and a nondisclosure agreement, itation experience that will be animated

“Hard World for Small Things” was ilmed with four wide-angle lenses, and the footage was stitched into a spherical image. both film and V.R., told me. “Every tran- you start a meeting in Venice by grab- in Unity, the video-game development sition is still ‘Fade to black,’ ‘Fade up from bing a LaCroix seltzer from the com- software. “You put on the headset, and black,’ like a Jean Renoir film.” Kaelan is munal fridge and pulling up a chair. the first thing you hear is Deepak’s voice, exaggerating—“Hard World” and other On a Friday morning in March, I guiding you into it,” Batt said. “You float experiences have used jump cuts, some walked from Wevr’s oice on Rose Av- up into the clouds, you see a lotus bud, of which feel more jarring than others. enue, a modern cinder-block structure, and a bass sound comes in, very faint.” Other V.R. directors are experimenting to its oice on Indiana Avenue, a stark “The lotus bud turns into a tree, and with what might be called a leap cut, in trapezoid of corrugated steel set of from you’re surrounded by a kind of green which the viewer is transported, some- the street by two huge succulents and light,” Blackaller said. times with an audible whoosh, from one a white picket fence. It was Dennis Hop- “At some point, I would like to guide part of the scene to another. As Julia Ka- per’s house until he died, in 2010; his the person into complete darkness, to ganskiy, who runs an art-and- technology glass tub is still in the upstairs bath- experience nothing but the self,” Deepak incubator at the New Museum, put it, room. Wevr has about fifty employees, said, on the phone. “The deeper pur- “We’re watching the semiotics come to- and in the past year it has raised more pose of this program is realizing that gether in front of our eyes.” than twenty-five million dollars from normal reality is virtual reality.” investors. “That’s what we’ve announced “Around here, we like to call normal evr’s offices in Venice occupy publicly, but we’re always raising more,” reality ‘current reality,’ ” Batt said. W two former houses a ten-minute Batt said. (In December, the Times com- “Current reality is the matrix of all walk from each other. Anthony Batt, pared the “virtual-reality investment possibilities,” Deepak said. the head of content, told me that he craze” to a gold rush.) “Dope,” Batt said.

grew up nearby, in Pacific Palisades, I entered through a side door, pass- Blackaller suggested that, eventually, WEVR COURTESY

90 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 V.R. software could be calibrated to the if taken literally. An Oculus headset pink jellyfish; then I was deep in an user’s body: “There might be ways to provides no taste and no touch, and it ocean trench, using my hand control- keep track of pulse, or galvanic skin re- registers only head and hand movement. ler as a flashlight while I crouched to sponse, and deliver diferent experiences You never fully lose yourself in the sim- look for sea turtles. Because I was breath- in reaction to that.” ulation, if only because you’re worried ing normally, I could almost imagine “Nerding out is cool, but let’s get a that it’s impossible to look respectable that my headset was functioning as a little grounded,” Batt said. “Could we while wearing a plastic face mask. scuba mask. build a crude version of this in Unity Primitive head-mounted displays I spent a few minutes waiting for by, like, next Friday? Because certain were invented more than half a century something to happen. Then I realized things either will or won’t make sense, ago. The Headsight, built by Philco, in that this—the sunlight penetrating the and we won’t know until we throw it in 1961, used magnetic head tracking and water, the exquisitely rendered fluid dy- a headset and look around.” They agreed separate video projections for each eye. namics—was the experience. It was far to convene again in a week. There was a wave of V.R. hype in the more enticing than a screen saver, but Batt and Blackaller walked to a taco eighties, and another one in the nine- without a narrative it was hard to know shop a few blocks away. A Samsung ties, but only in this decade has the tech- whether, or why, I should keep going. Gear headset was hiked up on Black- nology become sophisticated enough Rowell stood a few feet away, gauging aller’s forehead, like ski goggles after a for the wave to crest. my reaction. It was as if I had been blind- completed run. Neville Spiteri, Wevr’s C.E.O., has folded and led to a park bench, only to “I forgot I had this on,” Blackaller a background in video-game produc- be judged on how strongly I was react- said, sheepishly. tion. “Around 2010, I started creating a ing to the birdsong. “theBlu” felt more “Even I kind of wanna punch you, first-person underwater experience,” he like a demonstration of current tech- dude,” Batt said. told me. “I knew I wanted to make it nology than like a harbinger of the me- Returning to the oice, Batt said, as immersive as possible, but I didn’t dium’s future: such tranquil experiences “Will we look back at these headsets know what that meant in practice. Like, will soon have to compete against V.R. and laugh at how clunky they were, like would it be a screen saver?” Spiteri and sports, V.R. concerts, V.R. shooting cell phones from the eighties? Proba- Batt had worked together years earlier, games, and V.R. porn. bly. Will it eventually be a full-room at a data-analytics startup. Batt, who Oculus now has its own building on thing, like the Holodeck, or will it be had also been a digital publisher at Time the Facebook campus, in Silicon Val- contact lenses that project images onto Inc., recalls, “He showed me some im- ley, and its ambitions have grown well your eyes? I have no fucking idea. All I ages he was playing around with, and I beyond video games. Every new em- know is we’re addicted to technology went, ‘Cool, keep going,’ even though I ployee is given a copy of “Ready Player as a society, and once we move forward didn’t really get it.” One.” Along with computer-vision en- we don’t tend to go back.” In 2012, a nineteen-year-old named gineers and difractive-optics experts, I asked whether V.R. would be as Palmer Luckey started a campaign on the company employs about thirty peo- transformative as the Internet, and Batt Kickstarter, asking for help to fund hard- ple in a storytelling division called Oc- didn’t hesitate. “Let me put it this way,” ware that he was building in his parents’ ulus Story Studio. Saschka Unseld, the he said. “It’s not a new way to watch garage: “Oculus Rift, the first truly im- studio’s creative director, worked at Pixar movies, or a new gaming platform. It’s mersive virtual-reality headset for video for nearly six years; at Oculus, he makes a new medium. How often do new me- games.” Anyone who pledged at least short Pixaresque V.R. animations. The diums come along?” three hundred dollars would be sent a first of these, “Henry,” is about a por- There was a clanging sound over- “developer kit”—a prototype with in- cupine who wants to make friends. “The head: water drumming on the steel roof. structions on how to code for it. Spiteri goal was to do something funny and “I think it’s raining,” Batt said. “In received a kit in early 2013. “It took a physical, almost like the old silent films,” current reality.” few weeks to port the underwater thing Unseld told me. “But it turns out that into it,” he said. “As soon as I put it on, what’s funny on a movie screen is not now Crash,” a 1992 novel by Neal I went, ‘O.K., this is what I do now.’ ” necessarily funny in an immersive en- “S Stephenson, is about people who Wevr was born, and Spiteri’s underwa- vironment. If Charlie Chaplin falls on spend much of their lives inside a dig- ter animation became a V.R. experience his face, you can laugh at him. If you’re ital world called the Metaverse. Ernest called “theBlu.” The following year, in the space and someone falls on their Cline’s 2011 novel, “Ready Player One,” Facebook bought Oculus for two bil- face right next to you, you feel concern.” features a virtual society called the OASIS. lion dollars. “That was the moment when Unseld has decided that he prefers V.R. In these and other sci-fi versions of V.R., everyone, including us, went, ‘Holy shit, experiences in which the characters all five senses are simulated, and the this V.R. thing is not a drill,’ ” Batt said. somehow acknowledge the viewer. “If efect is so potent that people have trou- At one point in Venice, Jake Row- you aren’t ever acknowledged, it actu- ble keeping track of where virtuality ell, an art director, helped me into an ally feels more artificial, like the char- ends and reality begins. HTC Vive and invited me to try out acters are respecting a fourth wall that Outside of fiction, “virtual reality,” “theBlu.” It felt like a walk-in aquar- isn’t there,” he said. “We’re always learn- like “angel food” or “infinity pool,” is an ium. For a few minutes, I stood on an ing things like this, and we’re always evocative phrase that is disappointing underwater reef, poking at a school of having conceptual discussions about

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 91 springs to life. The images are crude, but their crudeness is part of the point. Another promising experiment is “Giant,” a six-minute experience by Milica Zec and Winslow Porter. Zec is Serbian, and she was sixteen years old in 1999, when NATO bombed Bel- grade. “Parents would omit the truth, trying to create a normal situation in the home,” she told me. “I wanted to translate that emotion into fiction.” Zec called Porter, who had worked on V.R. projects, and they decided to film actors in front of a green screen and then place them in a computer- rendered 3-D environment—a com- bination that had not been attempted before. “What we needed wasn’t ac- “With great ignorance comes great conidence.” tually available when we started,” Porter said. “The technology came •• into existence during the few months that we were in production.” To view “Giant,” you wear an Oculus or Vive what they mean, but ultimately we make world full of interrelated entities, a world headset and sit on a “rumble chair”— decisions by trying things and seeing we can enter, manipulate, and observe an IKEA stool with a built-in subwoofer. how they feel.” in process.” Just as a novel can include You’re in a basement, presumably in poetry, dialogue, and essayistic argu- the United States, along with a mother, n March, I attended a conference ment, a V.R. narrative could be capa- a father, and a six-year-old girl. The I about V.R. at the New Museum, on cious enough to incorporate animation, parents tell the girl that the booming the Bowery. One of the organizers, video games, documentary, and other sounds she hears are a friendly giant’s Jamin Warren, the founder of the video- visual media. footsteps—“He just wants to play”— game magazine Kill Screen, asked if “So far, most of the V.R. stuf I’ve but the truth is more dire. As the blasts current V.R. technology would disap- seen is annoying,” Murray told me. “It’s move nearer, you hear them in your point users whose appetites have been too long, or it has no reason to exist in headphones, see them in the flicker- whetted by science fiction. Andrew that form other than novelty, or you’re ing light bulbs above you, and feel them Schoen, a tech investor, said, “There’s given the expectation that you can in- in the stool vibrating below you. The going to be a classic hype cycle. Six teract with the space when, actually, you sense of claustrophobia becomes acute— months, a year from now, people might can’t. But every once in a while you see you can look behind you or above you, be saying, ‘V.R. totally didn’t live up to a glimmer of something that makes you but you’ll find only close walls and low our expectations. V.R. is dead.’ Then, go, ‘I want more of that! ’ You get to ceilings. in five years, people will be able to pro- throw something across a room, or some- Both “Notes on Blindness” and duce the technology, and the content, one whispers in your ear. And that’s “Giant” premièred at New Frontier, the to meet what are now overinflated how a medium develops. You find the V.R. showcase at Sundance, along with expectations.” small things that work, given the con- “Hard World” and some twenty other Also at the conference was Janet straints, and you build on those.” experiences. Shari Frilot, who curates Murray, a professor of digital media at One experience that succeeds within New Frontier and has seen nearly every Georgia Tech who has a nimbus of gray V.R.’s current constraints is “Notes on piece of cinematic V.R. ever made, told hair. She is the author of a cult classic Blindness,” which was inspired by the me, “I think we’re moving toward some- among V.R. nerds, “Hamlet on the Ho- theologian John Hull, who lost his sight thing amazing. I’ve seen a lot of things lodeck” (1997), in which she speculates in 1983. For years afterward, he recorded I really like, but I haven’t seen anything about the rich cybernarratives that tech- a diary on audiocassette. The V.R. ex- yet that I’d consider a classic.” nology will eventually enable. “Every perience animates excerpts of the diary, The conference’s after-party was held age seeks out the appropriate medium using only tiny points of light. You begin in the meatpacking district, at Samsung in which to confront the unanswerable in darkness, and sounds cause shapes to 837, a retail showroom built around a questions of human existence,” she coalesce fleetingly around you: a tree is two-story tower of Samsung flat screens. writes. “The format that most fully ex- marked by the wind blowing through The V.R. field’s most notable direc- ploits the properties of digital environ- its leaves; a person on a nearby park tors, coders, and theorists gathered in ments is not the hypertext or the fight- bench is imperceptible and then sud- the glow of the screens, drinking vodka ing game but the simulation: the virtual denly, with the rumpling of a newspaper, cocktails. They all seemed to know one

92 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 another. I found Winslow Porter in the ner of a large room. The rig was at a so you get a slight vertigo efect,” Kaelan crowd. “If you’ve been a sculptor for reasonable distance for an establishing said. “Most of the time, you’ll be watch- three months, people are not inviting shot, but, without the option of inter- ing the actors, but when you’re not you you to speak on panels,” he said. “In this cutting closeups, it was too far away for can look down and freak yourself out a art form, you’re an expert.” People lined viewers to read the actors’ expressions. little. And the main camera, the one on up near four swivel chairs, each attended “This time, the actors will be much her, we want at just about eye level, with by a Samsung employee holding a Gear closer to the camera,” Yen said. “Or cam- him looming above.” headset. “I haven’t done this one yet, but eras, I guess.” “A slight change in height makes a I hear it’s fucking amazing,” my atten- “So break it down for me,” Batt said. big diference,” Batt said. “You put it a dant told me when I sat down. “I think “What do we need to figure out?” couple inches above eye level, she’s tiny. it’s about Africa.” Kaelan passed out a script. It was A little below her face, she’s a giant.” He played “Waves of Grace,” a nine- one scene of what they hoped would “The other big thing is blocking,” minute documentary about an Ebola eventually be a feature-length V.R. ex- Cohen said. “We don’t want actors hang- survivor in Liberia, directed by Chris perience. “We had this idea several years ing out right on a stitch line.” V.R. post- Milk and Gabo Arora. The narrative ago, about a dystopian tech behemoth production is a bit like printing out a was tenderhearted but surprisingly staid: called Parable,” Kaelan explained. “Back world map, chopping it into segments, it was, as Hollywood executives say, a then, it was an idea for a traditional fea- and then pasting the segments onto a story of hope. Compared with “Giant,” ture. Then the V.R. thing started tak- globe. It’s never flawless, but some- the V.R. element felt unnecessary—like ing of, and we decided that Parable times the seams are inconspicuous—a one of those 3-D blockbusters you’d be would be a V.R. company, and it be- small blurry patch in the middle of the content to watch in 2-D. Last year, Milk came this meta-V.R. cautionary tale. Pacific—whereas other times you cut gave a TED talk about V.R. in which he We figured, what better way to ask these out New Zealand. Accordingly, actors proclaimed, “Through this machine, we questions than by putting people in are usually placed close to one of the become more compassionate, we be- the headset and making them think it cameras’ “sweet spots,” where there’s less come more empathetic, and we become through? Here’s this incredibly power- risk of erasure or distortion. more connected.” Janet Murray told me, ful technology—is it going to contrib- Steve Galle, an engineer at Wevr, “I’m all for empathy—I’m just not sure ute to the end of the species?” brought over an of-white piece of plas- people will stay engaged for very long “I hope not, financially speaking,” tic and put it on the table. It was about the unless it’s narratively compelling.” Batt said. size of a cofee mug; it had four rect- The shoot was scheduled for the next angular faces, and each face had a circu- ne afternoon, at the Wevr oice morning, at a sixteen-hundred-seat lar hole with a GoPro protruding from O on Indiana Avenue, three young neo-Gothic auditorium in downtown it. “Fresh out of the 3-D printer,” he said. filmmakers—Blessing Yen, James Los Angeles. The entire space would be “Looks sick, dude,” Batt said. Kaelan, and Eve M. Cohen—arrived captured by four GoPro cameras, each “What do we need in order to clip for a preproduction meeting about a about two inches in diameter. “Our it to the railing?” Yen said. V.R. experience they were making, called main character is in the balcony, pre- “I think a high hat would work,” Galle “Memory Slave.” Wevr was providing paring for a speech she’s supposed to said. “And some Magic Clamps.” equipment, staf, and technical support give onstage,” Kaelan said. “Her boss “And a bunch of gaing tape,” Batt in exchange for the exclusive right to finds her up there, and they have this tense said. show the experience on its platform, conversation. They’re the only people Later that night, Kaelan and Yen Transport, which was released earlier in this empty balcony. met with the actors, Cait- this month. One of Wevr’s long-term She’s seated the whole lin FitzGerald and Bren- goals is to be a V.R. equivalent of Netflix time, and he’s pacing a few nan Kelleher, to rehearse. or Hulu—both a producer of original rows behind her—” Both had appeared in V.R. experiences and a destination for “Or maybe just one plays and flatties—Fitz- watching such content. row, depending on how Gerald plays Libby Mas- Yen and Kaelan, who are dating, the test footage looks,” ters on the Showtime se- have collaborated on many projects, and Yen said. ries “Masters of Sex.” Cohen often serves as their cinematog- Cohen littered the table Neither had acted in V.R. rapher. “It’s a very diferent job in V.R.,” with schematic drawings. “We’ve bro- “What about blocking?” FitzGer- Cohen told me. “You position the cam- ken the space into four quadrants, each ald said. “Normally—I mean, tradition- era, you do light direction, and then you corresponding to one camera,” she said. ally—I’d think you’d want a lot of tight disappear.” The three had worked to- “A lot will depend on exactly how we coverage.” gether on a V.R. short called “The Vis- position the camera rig, and then we’ll “Right, and that’s impossible,” itor,” an existentialist piece in which do blocking and lighting around that.” Kaelan said. “So you stay in your seat, two characters discuss the subconscious. “GoPros are terrible in low light, so facing forward, and he comes in be- Hoping to limit viewers’ options and you’ll want to flood the actors’ faces,” hind you, and you hear him but you orient them toward the action, Cohen Batt said. never look at him. Imagine Bergman had placed the camera rig in the cor- “We want the rig close to the ledge, shooting this scene. He might do a

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 93 super-tight profile of you, with Bren- about it, but I guess I’m always per- nan behind you, of to the side, and forming for an audience, or a crew, or your faces are kind of next to each someone.” other but both facing forward. That’s Batt said, “We’ll do a quick, dirty our best option, I think, because if you stitch, so you can get an idea of what it face away we see the back of your looks like.” Cohen removed a memory head.” card from each GoPro—delicate work “This is fucking cool,” FitzGerald involving tweezers—and a Wevr engi- said. neer uploaded the footage to a Sam- Kaelan told me, “Last year, the sung Gear. Yen, standing in the balcony, dogma was ‘You’re not allowed to move put on a headset. “Whoa, this theatre the camera at all.’ Well, people have looks amazing!” she said. “In this thing, stories that necessitate moving the I mean.” camera, so they’re figuring out how to “Can I?” FitzGerald said. “I don’t do it. We’re basically at the Lumière- usually watch myself, but—” She put brothers stage—little experiments, like on the headset and gasped. pointing the camera at a moving train “Everyone does that the first time,” and seeing what happens.” Kaelan is a Batt said. film-theory buf, and he made several “Oh, guys, is this the future?” Fitz- references to “Sculpting in Time,” a Gerald said. book by the filmmaker Andrei Tar- “It’s certainly a future,” Batt said. kovsky. “He was writing in the late “Let’s go again,” Kaelan said. Ev- eighties, almost a century after the ad- eryone cleared out, and he lay down vent of cinema, and he was still trying on the floor. This time, I stayed, lying to figure out what made it a distinct foot to foot with him. I looked up at medium. His conclusion was that its the ornate cupola on the ceiling, qui- unique contribution was ‘expressing eted my breathing, and listened. “Ac- the course of time within the frame.’ tion!” Kaelan said. It’s early days, but I think the unique Kelleher entered from the rear of the contribution of V.R. is going to be balcony, walking slowly toward Fitz- that it’s time plus space—cinema plus Gerald. He began speaking about the architecture.” V.R. technology that the fictional com- pany was planning to unleash on the he next morning, Cohen and world. “It’s going to be beautiful, it’s T Galle set up the camera rig in the going to be hideous,” Kelleher said. “It’s theatre’s balcony while Kaelan and Yen going to bring joy and sorrow and lust worked on blocking. and pain and wonder and pleasure. And “Wait,” Yen said. “If Caitlin sits it’s a fucking miracle!” here—actually, never mind.” The theatre’s house lights went down, “What?” Kaelan said. and a spotlight was trained on Fitz- “I was, like, ‘She’ll be of center.’ Gerald’s face as her character practiced But, duh, the viewer can just move their her impending speech. “For all of head.” human history, art, music, storytelling, Kaelan laughed. FitzGerald sat on religion—those have been our modes a plush red seat in the front row of the for communicating the incommunica- balcony, and Cohen readied the cam- ble,” she said. “But what if there were eras for a test shoot. “Everyone clear a way to know not an abstract version the set, please,” Kaelan said. Then he of my experience but what I’m actu- ducked down between seat rows. “I ally feeling?” She looked directly into want to hear their performance, and the camera. “Under your seats is a head- this is the only way without being in set that will change the very nature the shot,” he explained. Lying on his of what it means to be human. Under back, he yelled, “Action!” your seats is the end of your individu- They did a take. Afterward, Fitz- ality. Put it on and you’ll never want Gerald said, “It feels weird, performing to take it of. Good luck.” for just this robot thing. It’s less intru- Kaelan waited a few seconds. “Cut!” sive, in a way, but it’s the only time I’ve he shouted. He stood up. “That one ever acted without being able to see any felt good,” he said. “Let’s go again, just other human beings. I never thought for fun.” 

94 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 BRIEFLY NOTED

One Child, by Mei Fong (Houghton Miin Harcourt). China’s one-child policy was designed by a team of rocket scientists who may have been inspired, oddly, by a Dutch mathemati- cian. This richly textured account argues that modernization would have led China’s birth rate to fall in any case, with all the attendant economic benefits. Nearly forty years later, the policy has had devastating social consequences. Fong’s report- ing takes her all over the country—from the site of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake (which claimed the only ofspring of thou- sands of families) to a sex-doll factory (one solution to Chi- na’s immense gender gap). During her travels, Fong has a mis- carriage, and she writes movingly about the intersection of this tragedy with those of the people she encounters.

Apostle, by Tom Bissell (Pantheon). By turns edifying and en- tertaining, this investigation into the lives of the Twelve Apos- tles mixes irreverent travelogue and earnest textual analysis. Bissell, a lapsed Catholic, proves an able guide through Bib- lical scholarship and legend. He is at his best when describ- ing pilgrimages he took to apostolic tombs in Europe and Asia: an injured pigeon near the shrine of St. Andrew, in Pa- tras, Greece, is “an awkwardly hopping rotundity”; tourists vis- iting the Basilica of St. John amid the ruins of Ephesus wear “welding-mask-like Burberry sun visors that covered their whole faces, giving them the efect of extraterrestrials here to take a surface sample before heading back to the mother ship.”

Blackass, by A. Igoni Barrett (Graywolf ). This début by a Nigerian novelist is modelled on Kafka’s “The Metamor- phosis.” Furo Wariboko—a lover of sleep, television, and casual sex—wakes up with new features and white skin, ex- cept for his buttocks, which remain black. He begins a new existence, as Frank Whyte, and, in a meta-narrative turn, encounters a writer named Igoni who takes a voyeuristic interest in his predicament. The triumph of the book is its passionate and scrupulously detailed picture of Lagos—the roadside bukas that serve hot stew on steel plates, the ar- duous choreography of the traic, and the glittering shop- ping malls to which Furo/Frank gravitates, because all races mix there in a neutral atmosphere of globalized wealth.

War, So Much War, by Mercè Rodoreda, translated from the Cat- alan by Maruxa Relaño and Martha Tennent (Open Letter). Set during the Spanish Civil War, this newly translated novel, by an important Catalan writer who died in 1983, follows a young Barcelonan through the countryside as he flees com- bat but continually stumbles across its aftermath. The min- gling of disparate voices, sensual descriptions of nature, and a web of literary and Biblical allusion establish a feeling of timelessness that is set in contrast to the gruesome realities of war. “The peace of the earth breathed all around me,” the wanderer says after coming upon a mass grave outside a de- stroyed village. “Everything—mountains, houses, path, water, trough—merged together and with me.” The cumulative efect is disorienting yet intoxicating.

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 95 “The Little Red Chairs,” though thick with life, does indeed exhibit the kind BOOKS of cussed freedom that one associates with longevity, and with long confidence in artistic practice. It mixes and rein- STRANGER IN OUR MIDST vents inherited forms, blithely shifts from third-person to first-person nar- A war criminal rusticates in Edna O’Brien’s “The Little Red Chairs.” ration, reproduces dreams and dramatic monologues. It’s a realist novel—almost BY JAMES WOOD a historical novel—about a Bosnian Serb war criminal, modelled on Radovan Karadžić, who has escaped international detection and has arrived in Cloonoila, an obscure little Irish town. (The nov- el’s title comes from a commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the Ser- bian siege, when thousands of red chairs, representing the victims, were arrayed in Sarajevo’s main street, including many hundreds of small ones for the chil- dren.) In Cloonoila, he begins a new life of subterfuge, as Dr. Vladimir Dra- gan, “Healer and Sex Therapist.” In this broadly realist mode, O’Brien pays sym- pathetic attention to many diferent lives, from ordinary Irish villagers (the priest, the nun, the draper’s wife) to ref- ugees, migrants, and displaced workers in London. But her novel is also a piece of myth- making, which begins like a tale from Irish folklore: one winter evening, a stranger arrives in town, “bearded and in a long dark coat and white gloves.” People later report “strange occurrences on that same winter evening; dogs bark- ing crazily, as if there was thunder, and the sound of the nightingale.” O’Brien can sound like the László Kraszna- horkai of “The Melancholy of Resis- tance,” a lawless and fantastical novel eople talk about “late style” in late work, there is a slightly thinned at- about the arrival, in a small Hungarian P classical music, but what might “late mosphere, the prose a little less rich and town, of a semi-criminal band of cir- style” in contemporary fiction look like? hospitable than previously, the charac- cus hands. In this mythical or magical In late work by Muriel Spark, Philip ters less full or persuasive, a general sense mode, she is not ashamed to serve up Roth, Saul Bellow, William Golding, of dimmed surplus—but not in Edna a measure of novelistic Irish cliché (the and now Edna O’Brien, you can detect O’Brien’s astonishing new novel, “The priest, the nun, the draper’s wife), mix- a certain impatience with formal or ge- Little Red Chairs” (Little, Brown), her ing it with bitter contemporary reality: neric proprieties; a wild, dark humor; a seventeenth. O’Brien is eighty-five years the young Polish, Czech, Slovakian, and fearlessness in assertion and argument; old, and praising this novel for its am- Bosnian exiles who work as service staf a tonic haste in storytelling, so that the bition, its daring vitality, its curiosity at the Castle, the town’s posh hotel. usual ground-clearing and pacing and about the present age and about the As fairy tale, O’Brien’s novel is both evidentiary process gets accelerated or lives of those displaced by its turbulence harrowing and absurdly funny: what discarded altogether, as if it were (as it shouldn’t be mistaken for the back- will this provincial community make so often can be) mere narrative palaver handed compliment that all this is re- of the glamorous impostor who says that is stopping us from talking about markable given the author’s advanced he is from Montenegro? How will Fa- what really matters. In much of that age. It’s simply a remarkable novel. ther Damien, the local priest, deal with the pastoral oferings of the Serbian O’Brien’s astonishing new novel starts as pastoral comedy and steadily darkens. Orthodox New Age sex therapist? The

96 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY TINA BERNING story hovers between recorded history stream of consciousness. Here is Sis- and green fancy, and ends as theatri- ter Bonaventure, who travels around cally as it began, with a description of the area doing good works: an amateur production of “A Midsum- She and three other nuns now lived in one mer Night’s Dream.” Reading this wing of the old convent, the major part hav- book, marbled with its diferent ge- ing been sold of for a school, and as she put neric veins, is not always a straightfor- it, quoting from scripture, The sparrow hath her ward or stable journey; some parts are house and so they settled in. Faithfully each more convincing or afecting than oth- day, unless she happened to be gallivanting, she was able to get her school lunch for three ers. But it is always a vital and engross- euros, the same price as the children paid; meat ing experience. or ish with a vegetable, potatoes, boiled or It has been fifty-six years since the mashed and what more did anybody want. She notorious publication of O’Brien’s first never drank. She had seen the harm and the novel, “The Country Girls,” and it’s woes that drink wreaked, families torn apart and farms auctioned of for half of nothing. So easy, when a writer has become part of as to set a good example, she wore her total the fabric of one’s life, to stop noticing abstinence pioneer badge on her lapel. . . . She how that fabric, once scandalously wore a navy skirt, navy jumper, black stock- abrasive, still rubs against the skin. “I ings and good strong black shoes for the jour- thought that ours indeed was a land of neys she made to isolated places, up by roads and bog roads, where she wouldn’t dare risk shame, a land of murder, a land of her little Mini, her chariot o freedom. strange, throttled, sacrificial women,” she writes, in her story “A Scandalous O’Brien tumbles into her characters’ Woman.” Her novels of the nine- voices; the prose has a life-filled, un- teen-sixties, once censored by fearful stopping locomotion: “her little Mini, Irish authorities for their frank depic- her chariot of freedom.” tions of sex and female desire, no lon- As the book opens and develops, we ger scandalize, but they have retained encounter several people from Cloo- their deeper, authentic radicalism: they noila, and see how each falls for the commit themselves to exploring the charms of Dr. Dragan. Dara, the young lives of women as gambles on freedom man who runs the local pub, is intim- and acts of rebellion—against the pro- idated and dazzled; Fifi is won over, hibitions of religion, the judgment of and agrees to rent out her spare room petty societies, the close disapproval of to the mysterious visitor; Father mothers, the expectations of marriage Damien, at first professionally skepti- and parenthood, and the carelessness cal, is quickly seduced; Sister Bonaven- or indiference, or worse, of men. ture visits Dr. Dragan’s oice as a pa- It is a large, bold, and very various tient, and receives the holistic massage collection of novels and stories; the of her life (a charmingly hilarious new novel is surely as good as anything scene); and Fidelma, the beautiful, frus- O’Brien has written. I had forgotten trated younger wife of the local draper, what a funny, colloquial writer she can takes the advertisement literally, and be, and how quickly and tartly she can begins an afair with the sex therapist. animate a minor character or the frag- Fidelma is not really in love with Dr. ment of a life. She has a brilliant ear Dragan. At forty, and after two mis- for ofhand description, the kind that carriages, she is desperate to have a immediately situates us in a location, child, and reckons that its source will or in a consciousness. One of the towns- not be her husband, Jack, who is in his people of Cloonoila is glancingly in- sixties, and who “did the crosswords troduced as “Fifi, who was a bit of a and then sat staring out, the pink of card from her time in Australia,” a his scalp so scaly under the thinning phrase that might seem like nothing white hair and his eyes had a kind of much but that instantly summarizes a rebuke in them.” With compact lyri- community’s world view, precisely be- cism—a strange mixture of the straight- cause the imputation is never explained: forward and the poetic—O’Brien gives Australia just equals oddity. us a swift picture of Fidelma’s anguish: A good deal of O’Brien’s prose nat- Twice in her married life she was pregnant urally falls into a loose and chatty free and Jack bought her pieces of jewellery, but indirect discourse, edging comically (in she lost it both times, and believing the fail- good Irish literary fashion) toward ure to be hers, she grieved alone. One summer

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 97 Jack booked a holiday in Italy and everywhere identity over the whole book, as plenty tastrophes. The fear that governed their they went, she kept seeing paintings of the Na- of novelists might have done, O’Brien whole lives was now compressed into tivity, mother and child depicted in such sump- turns away from Dragan to Fidelma. this urgency to catch a bus or a train tuous colours, their expressions so serene, ad- hering to one another, and she found, when In doing so, she also turns away from to allow a husband or a mother or a they came out into the hot street, with awnings the specificities of the Bosnian war cousin to go to work.” Fidelma is lonely over shops shut for lunch, that there were tears (though she later returns to them). in London, where the Thames has a in her eyes and down her cheeks. The book shifts from perpetrators strange “tofee colour, not like the sil- Gradually, the novel becomes Fidel- to victims. In London, Fidelma finds very rivers of home.” Her fellow- ma’s. Though not without her suspicions herself living and working among workers, like her, long for home; like about Dragan’s murky past, she gets people whose journeys resemble Dra- her, they cannot return. But they carry pregnant by him. And when Dragan is gan’s—flight, exile, reinvention— memories, “and the essence of their finally captured, and the townspeople except that their displacement has first place, known only to them.” (A are forced to reckon with come at the hands of beautiful phrase!) For Fidelma, Ire- their foolish beguilement, men like Dragan. In a land is now becoming a memory, “such her secret emerges. Some- gesture of penitence, a small memory, young grass with the one was already on to her, Fidelma spends time at morning sun on it and the night’s dew, anyway: Fidelma finds an advice center for mi- so that light and water interplayed as “Where Wolves Fuck” grants and refugees run by in a prism and the top leaves of an ash daubed on the sidewalk in Varya, who lived through tree had a halo of diamond from the front of Dragan’s clinic. the siege of Sarajevo. rain, the surrounding green so safe, so What is extraordinary Fidelma finds work as ample, so all-encompassing.” and unsettling about O’Brien’s novel is a cleaner, in a bank, working be- Fidelma gradually becomes less of the way that it begins in an atmosphere tween eight at night and six in the a stranger in London. But the cost of of something approaching pastoral com- morning. She joins those defenseless that familiarity may be her growing edy, and steadily darkens as we become armies we glimpse at night, distanced estrangement from home, from her acquainted with the buried but unre- from us by thick plate glass, inaudi- “first place”—a familiar enough Irish pressed war crimes of the town’s resi- ble and unknowable in their tedious tale. Yet if “The Little Red Chairs” is dent trickster. It is like watching a blush labor. obviously about displacement and im- turn into the red of murderous fury: it But the novelist notices such peo- migration, obviously about the toll of seems impossible that the same mild ple, and can try, however imperfectly, war and its murderers and victims, it medium could be so brutally weapon- to render them less unknowable. There is also about how the tentacles of glo- ized. But O’Brien has long been inter- are magnificent passages in this sec- balization reach everywhere, even into ested in how women are punished for tion of the book, as O’Brien patiently the corners of provincial Ireland. Tra- their sins, or sufer for their innocence— brings to life the stories and histories, ditional Cloonoila, secure in its his- the divergent readings often dependent the terrors and hopes of London’s pop- trionic embeddedness, is a tale that on who is doing the judging. ulation of exiles, immigrants, and in- can be told again and again, ofering Some of her female characters can dentured visitors. Maria, for instance, up its comic traditions for the Irish be seen, to adapt the title of one of her who cleans alongside Fidelma, and who storyteller. But, alongside the priest novels, as casualties of peace; Fidelma lives for the tango: and the postmistress, the nun and the becomes a casualty of war and peace. draper’s wife, there are the young Eu- After Dragan has been outed and cap- Maria, who went about her tasks with ropeans who work at the Castle. They great zeal, because everything mattered, even tured, Fidelma is seized by three men, the most menial thing. That was her philos- have little, if anything, to do with the former allies of Dragan’s but now bit- ophy, that and the rapture of the tango. Maria traditional cast of Irish characters. As ter foes. They brutally violate Fidelma believed that one night and enigmatically, a Fidelma has to make her uncertain and her unborn child, viewing her and tall man, a big boss in the bank, would ap- way in London, they have had to make her baby as the spoils of war. (The scene pear and with a kindred intention, they would their uncertain way in Ireland. Among glide down the corridor and break into tango. is almost unbearably visceral.) Fidelma It was not a dream as she said, it was a fairy their number is an almost mute worker slowly recovers, but it is clear that, as tale and in their predicament, fairy tales were named Mujo, who seems to have been the suddenly infamous lover of “the crucial. wounded into silence by some terri- beast of Bosnia,” she cannot remain in ble tribulation. Mujo, we learn, is short Cloonoila. Rejected by her husband and O’Brien sees banal details and lin- for Muhammad. And it is Mujo who her community, she travels to London, gers over them, viewing them in the fatefully recognizes Dragan, when, homeless, broken, and almost penniless. shadow of warfare and forced emigra- one evening, he chances to go to the tion, so that they are no longer banal. hotel for dinner; it is Mujo who knows hus “The Little Red Chairs” nat- She tells us how quickly the workers Dragan from a previous life, knows Turally falls into two halves—Ire- leave the building when they are re- him to be a “beast.” Before the cele- land and London—and develops in leased: “In the mornings, after they brated fugitive from justice arrived unexpected ways. Instead of suspend- had clocked out, they ran, recklessly, in Cloonoila came the poor fugitive ing the question of Vladimir Dragan’s they ran as if they were fleeing ca- from injustice. 

98 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016

Knoxville, Tennessee, and might be the most open-minded music gathering in MUSICAL EVENTS the country. Housed in an array of vin- tage theatres and industrial spaces, the festival unites elements of classical com- EMBRACE EVERYTHING position, jazz, rock, folk, and electron- ica. Over three days, I saw all, some, The Big Ears Festival, in Knoxville. or a smidgen of twenty-eight perfor- mances. One day began at 11 a.m., with BY ALEX ROSS the ethereal abstractions of Feldman’s 1983 work “Crippled Symmetry,” and ended, thirteen hours later, with an ex- uberant jazz set by Kamasi Washing- ton and his band. The segues were sometimes abrupt, as when I exited a brain-erasing presentation by the drone-metal band Sunn O)))—volume levels approached a hundred and fifteen decibels, causing light bulbs to shiver in their sockets—and took refuge with the Burgundy Stain Sessions, a cohort of singer-songwriters with a folkie vibe. When I walked in, Bruce Greene and Loy McWhirter were giving an a-cappella rendition of the old murder ballad “Omie Wise.” It was like step- ping of an airport runway and onto a Scottish moor. No Bieberian pop stars deoxy- genated the atmosphere: Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson were probably the most recognizable faces in atten- dance. An unexpected furor of excite- ment formed around Anthony Brax- ton, the professorial avant-gardist who has long labored in the space between jazz and modernist composition. Be- fore one of his shows, an enormous line stretched down one long block and around a corner. At Big Ears, the sounds are the stars, free of the tyr- en Ratliff, who writes about streaming services (“Best Morning anny of categories. B jazz, rock, pop, and hard-to-clas- Ever”), Ratlif organizes his chapters sify music for the Times, has a remark- around themes that cut across the ig Ears is the creation of Ashley able new book called “Every Song entire musical continuum: speed, B Capps, a Knoxville-born concert Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an slowness, stillness, loudness, density, promoter who co-founded the Bon- Age of Musical Plenty.” It begins with virtuosity. He then goes leaping from naroo Festival, one of the monster op- the familiar problem of digital satu- Beethoven to Big Black, from Mor- erations of pop. Capps’s father worked ration: the instantaneous availability ton Feldman to Curtis Mayfield, iden- for a company that had an oice in of almost every imaginable recorded tifying continuities while delighting New York, and when Capps was a teen- sound. Instead of debating whether in contrasts. The goal is to cultivate a ager, in the nineteen-seventies, he often this is good or bad, Ratlif takes it as “strategy of openness . . . a spirit in visited the city and wandered down- a given, and fashions a guide for lis- which to hear things that may have town. He soaked up rock and jazz and tening amid a chaos of abundance. been kept away from you.” also embraced contemporary classical Distrustful of the idea of genre, which Reading “Every Song Ever” was music, especially the minimalism of flattens diferences among artists, good preparation for the Big Ears Fes- Glass, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich. In and of the cloying playlists devised by tival, which unfolds each spring in 2009, he launched a festival that gath- ered outlying artists from various genres, Anthony Braxton’s trio hovers between jazz and modernist composition. in the hope that their audiences would

100 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY SOPHIA FOSTER-DIMINO find common ground. The festival has Pisaro traversing one of his landscapes space in which two solitary paths in- had its struggles—it went on hiatus of restless stillness. The non-classical tersect. At one extraordinary moment, from 2011 to 2013—but it has stabi- music often spoke a tougher harmonic Smith began climbing up the steps lized with support from local founda- language—a reversal of the usual of the major scale, as if he had found tions. This year, more than eight thou- stereotype of classical rigor and pop a stairway to the light; but then he sand people showed up. pleasure. let his tone crack, reverted to halting Many attendees had the happily dis- chromatic steps, and fell silent. oriented look of people who are accus- passed over several other classi- In sharp contrast, Kamasi Washing- tomed to being considered freaks and I cal events, figuring that, in the spirit ton, the young star of Los Angeles jazz, suddenly find themselves part of the of Big Ears, I should venture into less cultivated a bright, buoyant atmosphere, gang. None were more blissed-out than familiar neighborhoods. A few savants his Coltrane-like saxophone soaring the contemporary-composition types, in the audience may have been equally over sweet harmonies and funky beats. who endure scornful dismissal within versed in early minimalism, progres- The high point of the set was “Leroy the classical field and outside it. At Big sive jazz, noise bands (Wolf Eyes), Bra- and Lanisha,” in which the bass player Ears, composers serve as a center of zilian neo-psychedelia (Boogarins), Miles Mosley electrified the crowd gravity, a point of reference. Riley, Reich, and the avant-harp (Zeena Parkins), with a solo that moved from courtly and Glass have visited in past years, as but the rest of us were, at some point pizzicato to yowling, electric-guitar- have Pauline Oliveros and members of or another, out of our depth, and all like bowed tones and, eventually, to a Bang on a Can. This year, the composer- the happier for it. I found myself drawn fingers-of-the-fingerboard squeal that in-residence was John Luther Adams; toward the jazz oferings, retracing flirted with the avant-garde. I heard the Knoxville Symphony, under the di- steps that I took in college, when one or two people wondering what rection of Steven Schick, kicked of friends observed that if I liked Xenakis Washington was doing at Big Ears— the festival with the ominous surge of and Ligeti I might like Braxton and he doesn’t have a reputation as a radi- Adams’s “Become Ocean.” Such pop- Cecil Taylor. cal innovator—but the expansiveness classical agglomerations have happened Braxton, wielding an array of reeds, of his vision, evident on his recent tri- before, not least in late-sixties and sev- appeared twice, first with an eleven- ple album, “The Epic,” matched the enties New York, when everything piece ensemble and then with a trio festival’s embrace-everything spirit. merged in a haze of droning tones. But (Taylor Ho Bynum, on cornet, and the total map of music has seldom been Kyoko Kitamura, vocals). Both groups ig Ears was haunted by an ab- unrolled on the scale that Big Ears has produced dense, fractured masses of B sence. Tony Conrad, an eccentric achieved. sound that could be mistaken for pas- titan of experimental music, art, and Most of the classical fare fell into sages in nineteen-fifties compositions film in New York, was to have appeared the steady hands of the local new- by Stockhausen or Nono. Yet Braxton alongside the German band Faust in music group nief-norf. (The name is periodically introduced an abbreviated, a live re-creation of their 1973 collab- a synonym for “bleep-blop” and other smokily lyrical bit of melody. Follow- oration “Outside the Dream Syndi- pejorative descriptors of experimental ing the rule book that he has devised cate,” which long ago acquired cult music.) The repertory ranged from such over the decades, he communicated to status among the not inconsiderable modernist classics as Varèse’s “Density his colleagues with coded gestures— number of people who cherish music 21.5,” forcefully delivered by the flutist play a particular piece, turn to a par- that builds slowly over mesmerizing Lisa Cella, to Reich’s minimalist mon- ticular page—and others gave direc- drones. Conrad was a member of La ument “Four Organs,” and on to re- tion as well. In the ensemble, the music Monte Young’s Dream Syndicate en- cent works by Adams, Judd Greenstein, had the feel of a freewheeling game; semble, which pointed the way toward Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Julia Wolfe. in the trio, it unfolded as a rapt late- both Glass-era minimalism and the The latter’s “my lips from speaking,” a night conversation, a collective mus- Velvet Underground. Conrad had his virtuosic and sometimes pummellingly ing aloud. own wild, keening sound, both as a vi- dissonant elaboration of a piano rif No less riveting was a duo perfor- olinist and as a composer. He had to from Aretha Franklin’s “Think,” re- mance by the brilliant young pia- withdraw, on account of a bout of pneu- ceived a riotous rendition from the nist-composer Vijay Iyer and the vet- monia. Laurie Anderson appeared in New York-based pianist Andrea Lodge. eran trumpeter-composer Wadada his place—or, more precisely, was heard “Hell, yeah!” the man next to me ex- Leo Smith. They recently recorded in his place, since she played her elec- claimed. “That’s why we come.” “A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke,” tric violin while standing behind a stack Although Big Ears’ focus on mini- an album for the ECM label, and of amplifiers. It was as though she malism is understandable, given Capps’s their collaboration is sparse, pensive, wanted Conrad’s face, not her own, to predilections, I’d be curious to see and daringly static. Smith presents a appear in the audience’s minds. He how crowds might react to something fragment of chiselled melody, like a died on April 9th, at the age of seventy- more deeply informed by latter-day pillar of a building that has otherwise six. When I heard the news, I thought modernism; say, ICE playing music by fallen to ruin. Iyer answers with a misty back to that shimmering juggernaut of the polyglot Australian composer Liza dissonance or a ghostly filigree pat- sound—a lamentation and celebration Lim, or the composer-guitarist Michael tern. They create an illusion of vast before the fact. 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 101 please any “Apocalypse Now” fans lurk- ing in the stalls: Louie scratches his THE CURRENT CINEMA scalp as a maundering Brando did, in the near-dark. Not that Kurtzian mad- ness poses any threat to Favreau’s film, WILD THINGS which is largely as upbeat as its hero, lacking nothing in scamper and pounce. “The Jungle Book” and “Tale of Tales.” Stick around, for three reasons, as the end credits roll. We get an amiable pan- BY ANTHONY LANE golin, snuling at the lens. We hear Jo- hansson singing—or, to be exact, melo- diously breathing—“Trust in Me,” which is not a commandment to be disobeyed. Third and last comes the bewildering line “Filmed in downtown Los Angeles.” So much for the sights and scents of India. There is nothing wrong, or un- precedented, in such a sleight of hand; Josef von Sternberg and his muse, Mar- lene Dietrich, conjured up “Morocco” and “Shanghai Express,” in the early nineteen- thirties, without leaving the premises of Paramount. But Dietrich was real, a dream made flesh, whereas Bagheera’s equally glossy exterior is no more than a virtual hide. The gods of computer generation have made every lupine hair, every bufalo hoof, and every scar on the ugly mug of Shere Khan, who was once burned by Jon Favreau directs a remake of the 1967 Disney animated movie. man’s “red flower,” otherwise known as fire. To call the film an example of “live or the first few moments, Dis- spised and hounded by Shere Khan (Idris action,” therefore, is misleading; rather, F ney’s new version of “The Jungle Elba), all but seduced into the jaws of Kaa it is an imitation of life, gazing at the Book” looks and sounds like the old (Scarlett Johansson), and bullied by King world and crying out, “I wanna be like version, from 1967. We move through Louie (Christopher Walken). Bill Mur- you.” The efect of this is first to astound a tropical forest, darkly drawn, to the ray, obviously, plays the bonhomous Baloo, us and then to leave us feeling curiously accompaniment of plaintive music and whose rendition of “The Bare Necessi- flat and unsatisfied. When no hint of then of a gentle voice, which declares, ties,” as he moseys downriver, feels at once risk or chance remains, even in the leap “Many strange tales are told of this jun- ragged and relaxed. of a single flame, where does the drama— gle.” Soon, however, the cartoon dis- So, what’s diferent? Well, I miss let alone the peril—reside? If the jungle solves to make way for what seems like George Sanders, who played Shere becomes a laboratory, how strong is the a real landscape. Hurtling through it is Khan in 1967, but then I always miss call of the wild? Mowgli (Neel Sethi), who scoots along George Sanders. Also, without wish- There is a residual sadness, too, in Fa- tree branches, in a jesting race with a ing to be cruel, I would not shed co- vreau’s movie, because of an opportunity wolf pack below. The camera is as giddy pious tears if the latest Mowgli wound missed. Whether he chose not to revisit as the boy, and if you are watching in up as a protein snack for a passing car- Kipling, or was discouraged from doing 3-D, or if you happen to be a wolf, the nivore. As for Louie, what’s extraordi- so, the original book (which is actually creepers keep getting in your snout. nary is that, even as public attitudes two books, published in 1894 and 1895) The director is Jon Favreau, a conge- have changed, he hasn’t. He still croons has yet again been ignored. It is one of nial figure who stopped the first two “Iron “I Wan’na Be Like You,” despite the those works, I suspect, that people feel Man” films from rusting up. His main task deep racial unease that the song (and they know without having read a word, in “The Jungle Book” is to show loyalty the whole scene) provoked; did exec- but its unforgettable tone—lyrically crisp, to the earlier movie: a sacred spot, to be utives really decide that its worth as a sense-heightening, and sheared of sur- furnished and burnished anew. The story heritage item, within the Disney brand, plus emotion—is like an antidote to Dis- stands much as it was, with most of the exceeded all other demands? At any ney. The boy’s return to the human vil- familiar characters firmly in place. Mow- rate, as if in compensation, Louie has lage, on which both films so naggingly gli, the defenseless infant, is adopted by a now expanded from your basic orang- insist, is dealt with by Kipling in a short motherly wolf (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), utan into a sort of tangerine Kong, and closing chapter, with Mowgli, now al- overseen by Bagheera (Ben Kingsley), de- a tiny sight gag has been tacked on, to most seventeen, passing “hot hollows

102 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY GUILLAUME PLANTEVIN surrounded by wet rocks where he could fables that was published in the six- olling voice—enough, as he says, to hardly breathe for the heavy scents of teen-thirties, a century and a half be- “warm your cold king.” It belongs to one the night flowers and the bloom along fore the Brothers Grimm were born. A of two ugly sisters, who, reluctant to re- the creeper buds; dark avenues where the Neapolitan courtier and poet named veal their haggard selves, pique his de- moonlight lay in belts as regular as check- Giambattista Basile gathered the tales, sire by profering a single finger, poked ered marbles in a church aisle.” in a Neapolitan dialect, under the mem- through a hole in a door, to be caressed Whether that dense and serious orable title of “Lo Cunto de li Cunti.” and sucked. Basile called his book an beauty will ever be captured on film, I (The philosopher Benedetto Croce pro- “Entertainment for Little Ones,” but in have no idea, but it’s a far cry from the duced a complete Italian translation in this case they should probably stay away. airy adventures that Disney has meted 1925.) Basile’s harvest springs from de- Two things lend lustre to the movie, out in Kipling’s name. Of the two at- motic soil; though he wrote for a liter- allowing it to honor the rough magic tempts, I still prefer the one from my ate élite, the dirt of an oral tradition that was mustered on the page. The first childhood. The last animated feature that clings to his telling, rich in legend and is a matter of texture, as the sumptuous Walt Disney himself produced, it was slang. There are nearly fifty tales in all, is played of against the earthen—in par- also a last hurrah for old-school meth- of which a mere three are picked out allel, you might say, with the cast list of ods, designed by hand, and, to my inno- and woven through the film. Some view- princes and paupers. Thus, a pearl- cent eyes, verdant with charm and finesse. ers will find the weave too loose, and it’s encrusted ruf is paired with a mop of By contrast, Favreau’s “Jungle Book,” true that, when the various protagonists bedraggled hair. A torch flames gor- while it feeds on the carrion of the ear- assemble for a funeral march or, at the geously in a larder, among the swaying lier film, is a model of current studio climax, for a coronation, you’re not quite carcasses of poultry and swine. One of practice: clean, cleverly judged, and hyper- sure how they are acquainted; do they the hags, robed in royal bedclothes, is controlled. It represents, in short, the dwell in adjacent kingdoms? Yet the tossed from a high window, crashing state of the art. Without disputing that, brisk flourish of Garrone’s style is a force into trees beneath, and the camera lin- I would simply ask, What art? for unity. The singer binds the songs. gers to survey the pictorial shock: swags At the start, the unsmiling queen and of crimson drapery, worthy of Titian, t is hard to imagine Walt Disney her husband ( John C. Reilly), yearning hang in the green and moss-furred dank- I enduring “Tale of Tales.” He might for a child, are told to kill a sea monster, ness of a wood. Garrone’s second ploy perhaps have weathered the solemn and to have its heart cooked by a virgin. is to insure that no one is surprised by queen (Salma Hayek), in black bro- Two babies are subsequently born—one these surprises. Where the eyes of a Dis- cade, who gnaws on a giant heart, her to the maiden, one to the queen. They ney princess grow wide as her pumpkin cheeks agleam with gore. He would grow into identical boys with milk-white becomes a coach, the folk in “Tale of have laughed at the hapless king (Toby hair, who enjoy the mischief of exchang- Tales” accept that miracles happen, being Jones), who tries to catch a hopping ing roles. As for the flea, it is tenderly not an irruption into life but part of its flea. But the other monarch (Vincent nurtured, swelling to the size of a pig; natural flow. That is why the pale boys, Cassel)—the one who wakes amid the after it dies, its skin is hung up, and suit- sired by a sea beast, walk side by side jetsam of an orgy, staggering through ors for the hand of the king’s daughter underwater, grinning as they go, and half-naked slumberers and seeking his (Bebe Cave) are invited to guess from what why the final image is that of a tight- next debauch—would have tipped poor animal it came. The winner is an ogre, rope on fire. Wonders are like dangers: Uncle Walt into a swoon. I doubt he who bears the princess of to his moun- face them, and you will pass the test.  would have stayed for the flaying. tain lair. And so to the jaded orgiast, The film is directed by Matteo Gar- who comes at last upon something that NEWYORKER.COM rone and adapted from a volume of does not jade him: the sound of a car- Richard Brody blogs about movies.

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THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 25, 2016 103 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three inalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this week’s cartoon, by Tom Toro, must be received by Sunday, April 24th. The inalists in the April 11th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the inalists in this week’s contest, in the May 9th 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

“Your priors are going to be a problem.” Simon Routh, Toronto, Ont.

“Who’d have thought they’d get you for tax evasion.” “One more after this and we’ll be able to meet our deductible.” Nick Kanellis, Brooklyn, N.Y. Mark Freed, Fair†eld, Conn.

“I’m afraid they’ll give you life.” Dan Crowe, Chicago, Ill.