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PRICE $8.99 MAY 18, 2020 THE INNOVATORS ISSUE MAY 18, 2020 4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 11 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Evan Osnos on the Trump-China pandemic fight; voyeurs onscreen; groceries fresh from the back yard; movie marquees; a nurse’s poems; where gloves go. CORONAVIRUS CHRONICLES James Somers 16 Breathing Room Racing to solve the ventilator crisis. SHOUTS & MURMURS Libby Gelman-Waxner 23 If You Ask Me: The Last Quarantine Think Piece ANNALS OF ACTIVISM Jia Tolentino 24 Can I Help You? How the mutual-aid movement promises relief. A REPORTER AT LARGE Ben Taub 30 Five Oceans, Five Deeps A quest to get to the bottom of the world. PROFILES Alex Ross 46 The Fearless Pianist Revolutionizing performance in lockdown. FICTION Jonathan Lethem 54 “The Afterlife” THE CRITICS BOOKS Thomas Meaney 58 The making of Henry Kissinger. 63 Briefly Noted Hua Hsu 65 What can fungi teach us? Dan Chiasson 68 Wanda Coleman’s many identities. THE THEATRE Alexandra Schwartz 70 When Zoom becomes a stage. THE ART WORLD Peter Schjeldahl 72 Dorothea Lange and Félix Fénéon. POEMS David Biespiel 29 “Men Waiting for a Train” Rae Armantrout 50 “Our Days” COVER Anita Kunz “Class of 2020” DRAWINGS David Sipress, Emily Bernstein, Oren Bernstein, Michael Maslin, Maddie Dai, Liana Finck, Frank Cotham, Avi Steinberg, Roz Chast, Kendra Allenby, Charlie Hankin, Mitra Farmand SPOTS Edward Steed PUZZLES & GAMES DEPT. CONTRIBUTORS Ben Taub (“Five Oceans, Five Deeps,” Jia Tolentino (“Can I Help You?,” p. 24) p. 50), a staff writer, is the recipient of is a staff writer. Her first book, the essay the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for feature collection “Trick Mirror,” came out writing. His 2018 reporting on Iraq won last year. a National Magazine Award and a George Polk Award. Alex Ross (“The Fearless Pianist,” p. 46), The New Yorker the magazine’s music critic since 1996, Crossword: Anita Kunz (Cover) has contributed will publish his third book, “Wagnerism,” covers to The New Yorker since 1995. in September. Introducing Her book “Redux: An Alternative His- tory of Art” is due out next spring. Rae Armantrout (Poem, p. 50) received Partner Mode the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for James Somers (“Breathing Room,” p. 16) her collection “Versed.” Her new book, is a writer and a programmer based in “Conjure,” will be out in October. New York. Thomas Meaney (Books, p. 58) is a fel- Alexandra Schwartz (The Theatre, p. 70), low at the Max Planck Society, in a theatre critic for the magazine, has Göttingen, and at the Quincy Institute been a staff writer since 2016. for Responsible Statecraft. Jonathan Lethem (Fiction, p. 54) teaches Libby Gelman-Waxner (Shouts & Mur- creative writing at Pomona College. murs, p. 25) is the alter ego of Paul Rud- He will publish a new novel, “The Ar- nick, whose play “Guilty Pleasure” will rest,” in November. be produced at the La Jolla Playhouse. David Biespiel (Poem, p. 29) is the au- Mark Rozzo (The Talk of the Town, thor of, most recently, the poetry col- p. 14), a former member of the maga- lection “Republic Café” and the forth- zine’s editorial staff, is a contributing You can now solve coming memoir “A Place of Exodus.” editor at Vanity Fair. our online crossword puzzles with a friend who’s across the room THIS WEEK ON NEWYORKER.COM or halfway around the world. Start playing at newyorker.com/crossword A REPORTER AT LARGE MEDICAL DISPATCH Animated submarine schematics, Eren Orbey on the medical students maps, and crew photos dive deeper who graduated from school early to into Ben Taub’s story from this issue. join the coronavirus fight. Download the New Yorker Today app for the latest news, commentary, criticism, and humor, plus this week’s magazine and all issues back to 2008. YORKER THE NEW FOR JOHNSON KAY TAYLOR RIGHT: BURTON; CARL LEFT: 2 THE NEW YORKER, MAY 18, 2020 PROMOTION THE MAIL COFFEEHOUSE CULTURES a conversation. (It was no wonder that King Charles II tried to outlaw coffee- Adam Gopnik fluidly leads us through houses in 1675, or that satirists, who the historical and economic underpin- may have had Royalist leanings, de- nings of coffee drinking to elucidate cried coffee drinkers as impotent and the global web of the bean (Books, overly talkative.) Coffee, which re- April 27th). He observes that the mains a vital social lubricant today, growth of coffee culture in the United undoubtedly propelled late-night ne- States can be measured by the large gotiations in early modern England numbers of epicurean cafés, coffee con- and empowered radical thinkers to noisseurs, and imported espresso beans imagine a world with greater politi- that have entered society since 1989. cal liberty. This notion of an American coffee Stephen B. Dobranski culture implies that the people par- Distinguished University Professor taking in it have become “cultured.” Department of English Yet there are more quotidian coffee Georgia State University cultures in American history worth 1Atlanta, Ga. mentioning. I think back to the do- mestic routines developed in mid- HOW TO FIGHT COVID-19 century America: of the percolator perched on our kitchen counter, of I read with appreciation Amy David- Mrs. Olson saving marriages with son Sorkin’s piece about global efforts Mountain Grown Folger’s, of the ubiq- to contain the coronavirus (Comment, uitous packets of Sanka, of the rotgut April 27th). She points to the talk coffee at truck stops, and of taking about how countries led by women your coffee “white” (with cream). All seem to be faring relatively well in this, from what seems like a lifetime the fight against COVID-19, and rightly ago, was just as much a culture of coffee, notes that these nations are “dispro- and just as integral to the changing portionately small, wealthy, Scandi- history of the brew. navian, and, not incidentally, provid- Maureen Barbara Jackson ers of universal health care.” It occurred Seattle, Wash. to me that there may be other con- tributing social factors as well. These As I was reading Gopnik’s piece on lauded countries with women lead- the link between coffee and capital- ers—including, but not limited to, ism, I was put in mind of the bean’s New Zealand, Taiwan, Germany, Den- arrival in England—an event with mark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland— impressive political and social reper- also tend to accept the legitimacy of cussions. An early English coffee cul- science, and to take a rational ap- ture arose by the mid-seventeenth proach to balancing public health with century, prompting writers to extoll personal freedoms. It is therefore not (and exaggerate) the drink’s alleged surprising that their citizens are more health benefits. (One advertisement, likely to express an open mind at the from 1652, claimed that coffee could polls, about both party leaders and cure gout, aid digestion, and prevent party policies. miscarriages.) Coffee, more than claret Scott K. Ralph or ale, was well suited to democratic Oakville, Ont. discourse. The new drink was espe- cially favored by Parliamentarians after • the English Civil War: coffeehouses Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, eventually became known as “penny address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited universities”—places where men of for length and clarity, and may be published in different classes, opinions, and trades any medium. We regret that owing to the volume could sit around a table and strike up of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. THE NEW YORKER, MAY 18, In an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, New York City museums, galleries, theatres, music venues, and cinemas have closed. Here’s a selection of culture to be found online and streaming. M AY 13 – 19, 2020 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN Charli XCX has been making futuristic electro-pop since her 2013 début, “True Romance,” but with her new album, “How I’m Feeling Now,” produced in quarantine at her home in L.A. (where she is pictured), the English singer-songwriter creates music for the present. The singles “Forever” and “Claws” crackle, smolder, and otherwise short-circuit, as though Charli’s electronic devices cannot withstand the intensity of her desire for human connection. “I’ll love you forever,” she sings, “even when we’re not together.” PHOTOGRAPH BY HUCK KWONG 1 notably in the continuing series “First Look: grayed-out windows parked on the street in A RT New Art Online.” Curious how pixels stack front of the SculptureCenter might have been up to paint? Scroll through the eight-person mistaken for a prop from a sci-fi film shoot. show “Brushes,” which ranges in tone from When the city was ordered to stay home and Kerstin Brätsch airy and calligraphic (Laura Brothers’s “Deux spin its wheels, the ghostly untitled piece by How should a painting be? Given that this dar- Blue”) to memelike and manic (Jacob Ciocci’s Devin Kenny and Andrea Solstad seemed eerily ing German artist, who calls New York home, animated GIFs). Binge-watchers can catch a prescient. The eclectic exhibition (whose illus- received the inaugural Helen Frankenthaler three-part musical episode of Shana Moulton’s trated catalogue is online while the nonprofit Award, in 2019, one simple answer is: abstract surreal pseudo soap opera, “Whispering Pines,” remains temporarily closed) was thoughtfully and colorful, like Brätsch’s extravagantly beau- whose housebound heroine indulges in self-care curated by Kyle Dancewicz, but the title he tiful, if deliriously weird, new series, “Fossil routines that—spoiler alert—turn her into a chose for the show is misleading—its mood, far Psychics for Christa.” But there is nothing goddess.—A.K.S.