PRICE $8.99 APRIL 5, 2021 APRIL 5, 2021 4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 11 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Jonathan Blitzer on Biden and the border; from war to the writers’ room; so far no sofas; still Trump country; cooking up hits. FEED HOPE. ANNALS OF ASTRONOMY Daniel Alarcón 16 The Collapse at Arecibo FEED LOVE. Puerto Rico loses its iconic telescope. SHOUTS & MURMURS Michael Ian Black 21 My Application Essay to Brown (Rejected) DEPT. OF SCIENCE Kathryn Schulz 22 Where the Wild Things Go The navigational feats of animals. PROFILES Rachel Aviv 28 Past Imperfect A psychologist’s theory of memory. COMIC STRIP Emily Flake 37 “Visions of the Post-Pandemic Future” OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS Ian Frazier 40 Guns Down How to keep weapons out of the hands of kids. FICTION Sterling HolyWhiteMountain 48 “Featherweight” THE CRITICS BOOKS Jerome Groopman 55 Assessing the threat of a new pandemic. 58 Briefly Noted Madeleine Schwartz 60 The peripatetic life of Sybille Bedford. PODCAST DEPT. Hua Hsu 63 The athletes taking over the studio. THE ART WORLD Peter Schjeldahl 66 Niki de Saint Phalle’s feminist force. ON TELEVISION Doreen St. Félix 68 “Waffles + Mochi,” “City of Ghosts.” POEMS Craig Morgan Teicher 35 “Peers” Kaveh Akbar 52 “My Empire” COVER R. Kikuo Johnson “Delayed” DRAWINGS Johnny DiNapoli, Tom Chitty, P. C. Vey, Mick Stevens, Zoe Si, Tom Toro, Adam Douglas Thompson, Suerynn Lee, Roz Chast, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Victoria Roberts, Will McPhail SPOTS André da Loba CONTRIBUTORS Caring for the earth. ©2020 KENDAL Rachel Aviv (“Past Imperfect,” p. 28) is a Ian Frazier (“Guns Down,” p. 40) most Discover a retirement community with staff writer. She received the 2020 Front recently published “Hogs Wild.” He is an emphasis on sustainability where Page Award for investigative reporting, at work on a book about the Bronx. the pure beauty of nature is nurtured. for her story about a covid-19 outbreak in an Arkansas prison. Kathryn Schulz (“Where the Wild Things Go,” p. 22), a staff writer, won the 2016 EQUAL HOUSING 1.800.548.9469 OPPORTUNITY Daniel Alarcón (“The Collapse at Are­ Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Her kao.kendal.org/environment cibo,” p. 16), a contributing writer, is the new book, “Lost & Found,” will be out executive producer of “Radio Ambu- in early 2022. lante,” a Spanish-language podcast. He ADVERTISEMENT teaches at Columbia’s Journalism School. Sterling HolyWhiteMountain (Fiction, p. 48) grew up on the Blackfeet Reserva- Emily Flake (Comic Strip, p. 37) is a tion, in Montana. A former Stegner Fel- New Yorker cartoonist. Her latest book low and a current Jones Lecturer at Stan- WHAT’S THE is “That Was Awkward.” ford University, he is at work on a novel. BIG IDEA? Craig Morgan Teicher (Poem, p. 35) will Madeleine Schwartz (Books, p. 60) is a Small space has big rewards. publish a new poetry collection, “Wel- regular contributor to The New York come to Sonnetville, New Jersey,” in April. Review of Books. TO FIND OUT MORE, CONTACT JILLIAN GENET 305.520.5159 Wyna Liu (Puzzles & Games Dept.) is Michael Ian Black (Shouts & Murmurs, [email protected] an associate puzzle editor at the Times p. 21), a comedian, an actor, and an and an assistant editor at the Ameri- author, has written the forthcoming can Values Club Crossword. children’s book “I’m Sorry.” R. Kikuo Johnson (Cover) teaches car- Kaveh Akbar (Poem, p. 52) is the author tooning at the Rhode Island School of of the poetry collections “Calling a Design. His graphic novel “No One Wolf a Wolf ” and “Pilgrim Bell,” which Else” will come out in November. is due out in August. THIS WEEK ON NEWYORKER.COM It’s Raining Cats and Dogs Featuring George Booth’s irascible cats and dogs, the collapsible New Yorker umbrella is the perfect CULTURAL COMMENT CULTURAL COMMENT companion for a rainy day. Mary Gaitskill on a strangely Jacob Sweet writes about a younger poignant tableau of pro-Trump generation who is using the Internet paraphernalia in a neighbor’s yard. to master classic Tetris. To order, please visit newyorkerstore.com Download the New Yorker app for the latest news, commentary, criticism, and humor, plus this week’s magazine and all issues back to 2008. NICK LITTLE RIGHT: MIN HEO; LEFT: 2 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 5, 2021 PROMOTION THE MAIL IMMOBILE HOMES a minimum lot size and only one fam- ily per lot, make it nearly impossible for Sheelah Kolhatkar describes how, when mobile-home owners to afford to buy investment firms acquire mobile-home land within commuting distance of a parks and suddenly raise rents on the land, major city. Such rules are usually justi- mobile-home owners become trapped fied as protecting farmland or deterring (“Trailer-Park Trades,” March 15th). One sprawl. But the truth is that landowners solution, as Kolhatkar discusses, is for fear that someone might park a mobile the law to treat mobile-home parks home nearby. more like rental housing, and to ex- Those who build McMansions in tend tenants’-rights laws to cover them. the exurbs and use zoning to deny home- This may help in the short term, but ownership opportunities for adjacent it does not change the fundamentally properties have effectively established a feudal relationship between homeowner monopoly. In a free housing market, and landlord. people should have the right to buy a A better answer is for residents to or- small plot of land and develop it in ac- ganize themselves in coöperative mutual- cordance with their means—even if aid associations and together buy the doing so offends a neighbor. trailer-park land. Successful examples Richard Cowden of this approach exist. I worked with 1Takoma Park, Md. residents near Cumberland, Wisconsin, who, when faced with the sale of their HIDDEN LIFE ON mobile-home park and possible evic- SIXTY-THIRD STREET tion, formed the Country View Coop- erative and purchased the property. Each Casey Cep’s review of Paulina Bren’s new mobile-home owner has one share in book about the history of the women’s- the co-op, and the accompanying right only Barbizon Hotel, in Manhattan, is to lease his or her lot; lots are owned insightful and, for me, evocative (Books, collectively by the residents through the March 8th). I lived in the Barbizon for co-op. For mobile-home owners, the five weeks in the mid-nineteen-sixties, threat of withholding rent payments while working as a guest editor for Ma- can be a source of power. And, by form- demoiselle. In retrospect, I feel as though ing a co-op with the intention of keep- I inhabited a metaphor. I will never for- ing monthly holding costs low, residents get the contrast between the elegant can ward off absentee investment groups, reception area, which was on display which will be discouraged by unstable for outsiders, and our airless, confin- revenue streams. ing, basic bedrooms. The Barbizon’s Stephen Parliament façade projected desirability, and masked Department of Teacher Education the constraints we encountered behind University of Wisconsin–River Falls the scenes, in our careers and love lives. River Falls, Wis. We may have appeared to be sophisti- cated and carefree, but even those of us Kolhatkar’s article highlights the terrible who went on to achieve luminous suc- situations that low-income people face cesses faced daunting obstacles during when they rent space from politically our time there. powerful interests. This story is part Joyce Wood and parcel of a larger issue: the monop- Rottingdean, England olization of land itself. Mobile homes are relegated to rented space in the first • place partially because zoning laws for Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, the perimeters of urbanizing areas tend address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited to prevent entry-level housing from en- for length and clarity, and may be published in croaching on tony exurban develop- any medium. We regret that owing to the volume ments. The laws, which tend to require of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. In an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, many New York City venues are closed. Here’s a selection of culture to be found around town, as well as online and streaming. MARCH 31 – APRIL 6, 2021 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN When moma first showed the work of Alexander Calder, in 1930, the museum had been open for little more than a year. The artist’s first retrospective there, in 1943, proved so popular that it was extended by seven weeks. “Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start” (through Aug. 7) explores this nine-decade-long relationship with some seventy works, mostly from moma’s collection, including the 1945 standing mobile “Man-Eater with Pennants” (a detail is pictured). Conceived for the sculpture garden, it hasn’t been seen there since 1970. PHOTOGRAPH BY SASHA ARUTYUNOVA 1 who followed in the wake of Jimmy Smith, a of control and oppression—a subject also MUSIC man who basically put the Hammond organ explored on the band’s 2018 album, “I Can on the musical map. A respectable career Feel You Creep Into My Private Life.” Such followed Lonnie Smith’s emergence, in the themes make “sketchy” a challenging listen: American Modern mid-sixties, and by the millennium he’d been the singer and musician Merrill Garbus howls taken up by a new generation hungry for his and chants over tangles of vibrating synths Opera Company authentically soulful keyboard work. On and jarring transitions, unafraid to grate and OPERA The enterprising artists of American “Breathe,” Smith shares space with support- shock the nerves.