The New Yorker the Magazine’S Theatre Critic, Is an As- About Jihadism in Europe
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PRICE $7.99 APRIL 18, 2016 4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Jill Lepore on women and power; desperate bankers; disrupting eulogies; Hugh Dancy; James Surowiecki on infrastructure crises. ANNALS OF SCIENCE Elizabeth Kolbert 22 Unnatural Selection Breeding better coral in Hawaii. SHOUTS & MURMURS Emma Rathbone 29 What “XOXO” Really Means LIFE AND LETTERS Hilton Als 30 Immediate Family The unclassifiable writer Maggie Nelson. A REPORTER AT LARGE Ben Taub 36 The Assad Files Building a case against the Syrian regime. LETTER FROM ITALY Ariel Levy 50 Beautiful Monsters Art, aristocracy, and obsession in Tuscany. SKETCHBOOK Barry Blitt 57 “Hillary/Bernie New York Primary Diary” FICTION Colin Barrett 62 “Anhedonia, Here I Come” THE CRITICS A CRITIC AT LARGE Clive James 70 Binge-watching “Game of Thrones.” BOOKS Caleb Crain 76 American ighters in the Spanish Civil War. 81 Briefly Noted Dan Chiasson 82 Rosmarie Waldrop’s “Gap Gardening.” POP MUSIC Hua Hsu 84 J Dilla’s “The Diary.” THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 86 “Demolition,” “Louder Than Bombs.” POEMS Charles Simic 53 “In Wonder” Carl Dennis 66 “Two Lives” COVER Peter de Sève “Luxury Coops” DRAWINGS Seth Fleishman, Paul Noth, P. C. Vey, David Borchart, Jack Ziegler, Pat Byrnes, Roz Chast, Tom Chitty, Liam Francis Walsh, Will McPhail, Trevor Spaulding, Mick Stevens, Michael Crawford, Michael Maslin, William Haefeli, Charlie Hankin, Joe Dator, Robert Leighton, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Liana Finck, Drew Dernavich, Bob Eckstein, Tom Toro SPOTS Luci Gutiérrez CONTRIBUTORS Ben Taub (“The Assad Files,” p. 36) has Hilton Als (“Immediate Family,” p. 30), previously written for The New Yorker the magazine’s theatre critic, is an as- about jihadism in Europe. Reporting sociate professor of writing at Colum- for this piece was facilitated by a grant bia University’s School of the Arts. from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Ariel Levy (“Beautiful Monsters,” p. 50) is working on a book based on her New Jill Lepore (Comment, p. 17), a profes- Yorker article “Thanksgiving in Mon- sor of history at Harvard, is the author golia,” which won a 2014 National Mag- of nine books, including “Book of Ages: azine Award for essays and criticism. The Life and Opinions of Jane Frank- lin” and “Joe Gould’s Teeth,” which will Peter Granser (Photographs, pp. 50, 58), be out in May. an Austrian photographer, has won many prizes for his work, including the Elizabeth Kolbert (“Unnatural Selection,” Arles Discovery Award, in 2002. “J’ai p. 22) is a staf writer. Her book “The Perdu Ma Tête” is his latest book. Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural His- tory” won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Colin Barrett (Fiction, p. 62) won the nonfiction. 2014 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award for his collection Emma Rathbone (Shouts & Murmurs, “Young Skins.” p. 29) will publish her second novel, “Losing It,” in July. Caleb Crain (Books, p. 76), the author of the novel “Necessary Errors,” has Peter de Sève (Cover) is an illustrator contributed to the magazine since 2005. and a character designer for animated films. His work can be seen in the up- Hua Hsu (Pop Music, p. 84) is the au- coming animated feature “Ice Age: Col- thor of “A Floating Chinaman: Fan- lision Course,” which will be released tasy and Failure Across the Pacific,” his this summer. first book, which comes out in June. NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more. THE NEW YORKER TODAY THE SCREENING ROOM Our new app, available April 12th, “Boogaloo and Graham” tells the ofers up-to-the-minute news, as well story of two boys and their pet as cultural coverage and commentary. chickens in nineteen-seventies Belfast. SUBSCRIBERS: Get access to our magazine app for tablets and smartphones at the App Store, Amazon.com, or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.) THE MAIL SHADOW PUPPETS other businesses to sustain it (“The Bid- ding War,” March 7th). Aikins writes that George Packer, in his review of Michael Afghan trucking contractors hired by the Hayden’s memoir, “Playing to the Edge,” military paid of the Taliban to secure safe describes the shortcomings of the former passage through dangerous territories. Yet C.I.A. director (“Can You Keep a Secret?” the problem of money being used in un- March 7th). During the Vietnam War, anticipated ways in the course of a war is Hayden was an intelligence oicer, guiding not unique to foreign contractors. The pilots of B-52 bombers; I had a similar military has famously relied on Ameri- position when I worked with the Army, can private contractors in other engage- using electronic sensors to guide artillery. ments, such as Halliburton, in Iraq, and Although the capability to minimize col- in the process has made these companies lateral damage was praised at the time, extremely wealthy and given them access the technology was highly inaccurate. The to the channels of policymaking. Once language that Hayden has used to sup- we begin paying for war, we have little port drone warfare echoes what we heard control over where our money goes and during Vietnam, but similar problems with who benefits from it. precision persist. Automated warfare has Avi Frey allowed Hayden and others to stay above Brooklyn, N.Y. the din of combat: soldiers kill people in the 1 Middle East from their desktops in Ne- THE PRO-BUSINESS BIAS vada. As with Vietnam, we had the tech- nical advantage in Iraq and Afghanistan, James Surowiecki, in his assessment of but we did not win these wars. When we Antonin Scalia’s judicial legacy, high- act from afar and from the shadows, we lights the Supreme Court rulings in busi- do much more harm than good. ness cases, which are often overlooked but Captain Bruce W. Rider have sweeping efects on our lives (“Court- U.S.A.F.R. (Ret.) ing Business,” March 7th). Although he de- Grapevine, Texas scribes the Roberts Court as “pro- business,” it has benefitted transnational corpo- Packer’s review ends by noting the par- rations at the expense of the smaller adoxical relationship between the public companies that make up the majority of and the intelligence community: we ex- American businesses. Surowiecki notes pect the agencies “to keep us safe, we resent that shortly after Scalia’s death the Dow them for their intrusions and their fail- Chemical Company, rather than go be- ures, and we need to believe that they fore the Court with one less corporate ally know better than we do in spite of all the on the bench, settled a major class-action evidence to the contrary.” Transparency suit. The plaintifs were not individuals; is impossible as long as these institutions most were small manufacturers that had continue to operate outside constitutional paid artificially inflated prices for mate- and international law, a situation that makes rials. America’s independent businesses— us less safe, not more. We turn friends into especially those serving local residents— enemies and enemies into terrorists by have more in common with average condoning torture and murder, fraud and ci t i zens than with the giant corpora- abuse. As a nation, we should acknowledge tions that hold so much sway over our the real cost of what we call safety. courts and legislative bodies. Catherine Lynn Zudak Jef Milchen 1Ann Arbor, Mich. Bozeman, Mont. WARRING INTERESTS • Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, Matthieu Aikins, in his article on the U.S. address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited military’s inadvertent funding of insur- for length and clarity, and may be published in gents in Afghanistan, touches on a broader any medium. We regret that owing to the volume issue: war is a business that requires many of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. APRIL 13 – 19, 2016 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN “In the cherry blossom’s shade there’s no such thing as a stranger,” the great Japanese poet Issa wrote. If so, there’s no better place to meet new friends this spring than the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. For the next month, more than two hundred lowering trees are in leeting bloom, representing around thirty species (bonsai count, too). Enjoy the view, but think twice before bringing a picnic. As another haiku master, Basho, observed: “From all these trees—in salads, soups, everywhere—cherry blossoms fall.” PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC THE THEATRE DANCE 1 1 New York City Ballet OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS NOW PLAYING The enticing spring season includes performances of both the evening-length “Jewels”—composed American Psycho Antlia Pneumatica of three ballets, each sufused with the palette Benjamin Walker plays the murderous inancier On the ranch in West Texas where they used to of a diferent gemstone—and, toward the end of Patrick Bateman, in Duncan Sheik and Roberto hang out in their youth, some almost-forty-year- the season, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” one Aguirre-Sacasa’s musical adaptation of the Bret olds are making preparations for the funeral of of George Balanchine’s most appealing narrative Easton Ellis novel. Rupert Goold directs. (Schoen- one of their own. Around a large kitchen island, works. There will be a new Christopher Wheel- feld, 236 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200. In previews.) too much food is being made, memories are don ballet, with music by George Gershwin, a being rehearsed, and old relationships are being composer with whom, if “An American in Paris” Cirque du Soleil—Paramour reëstablished. The playwright Anne Washburn is any indication, Wheeldon has a particular ain- The Canadian circus company mounts its new- (“Mr.