PRICE $8.99 APRIL 30, 2018 EMBRACE OPENS APRIL 24 PHOTO BY BON DUKE © 2016 PHOTO nycballet.com APRIL 30, 2018 4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Amy Davidson Sorkin on Trump’s legal woes; records of a gay-rights icon; lawfully gleaned; picturing Black Power; apps for the tipsy. PROFILES Dana Goodyear 22 Life Sentences Rachel Kushner’s boundary-pushing fiction. SHOUTS & MURMURS Megan Amram 29 Captain’s Log ANNALS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT Ashley Powers 30 Lone Stars The sherifs laying claim to the Constitution. A REPORTER AT LARGE Patrick Radden Keefe 36 McMaster and Commander A general’s struggle for dignity under Trump. LETTER FROM TOKYO Elif Batuman 50 A Theory of Relativity Japan’s rent-a-family industry. FICTION Robert Coover 62 “Treatments” THE CRITICS A CRITIC AT LARGE Alex Ross 66 What Hitler learned from America. 73 Briefly Noted POP MUSIC Kelefa Sanneh 74 Jon Hopkins’s immersive electronica. THE THEATRE Hilton Als 76 The class conflict of “My Fair Lady.” THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 78 “This Is Our Land,” “Le Corbeau.” Great Minds POEMS Cecily Parks 44 “Girlhood” Alex Dimitrov 64 “June” Think. COVER Kadir Nelson “Stickball Alley” 6 issues for 6 Try the LRB today, visit: DRAWINGS Danny Shanahan, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Benjamin Schwartz, Mick Stevens, Victoria Roberts, Will McPhail, Pia Guerra, William Haefeli, www.lrb.me/nyer Roz Chast, Jeremy Nguyen, P. C. Vey, Zachary Kanin, Lars Kenseth, Kim Warp, Paul Noth, Carolita Johnson, Amy Hwang, Sam Marlow SPOTS Olga Capdevila THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 1 CONTRIBUTORS Elif Batuman (“A Theory of Relativity,” Patrick Radden Keefe (“McMaster and p. 50) is the author of, most recently, Commander,” p. 36) is a staf writer. His the novel “The Idiot.” new book, “Say Nothing,” about the leg- acy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Alex Dimitrov (Poem, p. 64) has pub- will be published in 2019. lished the poetry collections “Together and By Ourselves” and “Begging for Dana Goodyear (“Life Sentences,” p. 22), It.” He lives in New York City. a staf writer, is the author of “Honey and Junk,” “The Oracle of Hollywood Ashley Powers (“Lone Stars,” p. 30), a Boulevard,” and “Anything That Moves.” contributing writer for The California Sunday Magazine, lives in Brooklyn. Kadir Nelson (Cover), an artist, has re- Reporting for this piece was supported ceived Caldecott Honors, a Sibert by a grant from the Reporting Award Medal, and N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards. at N.Y.U.’s Arthur L. Carter Journal- Most recently, he illustrated “Blue Sky ism Institute. White Stars,” by Sarvinder Naberhaus. Robert Coover (Fiction, p. 62) most re- Megan Amram (Shouts & Murmurs, cently published the story collection p. 29), whose first book, “Science . “Going for a Beer.” for Her!,” was published in 2014, is a writer for NBC’s “The Good Place.” Amy Davidson Sorkin (Comment, p. 17), a staf writer, is a regular contributor Kelefa Sanneh (Pop Music, p. 74) is a to Comment. She also writes a column staf writer. for newyorker.com. Cecily Parks (Poem, p. 44) teaches at Julie Belcove (The Talk of the Town, p. 20) Texas State University. She is the au- has contributed art and culture pieces to thor of the poetry collections “Field the magazine since 2011. Folly Snow” and “O’Nights.” NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more. PHOTO BOOTH NEW YORKER RADIO HOUR Alice Gregory on the Amish James Comey talks with David Remnick and Mennonite vacationland about Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, of Pinecraft, Florida. and why he stands by his decisions. 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.) YORKER THE NEW FOR / REDUX DINA LITOVSKY BY PHOTOGRAPH LEFT: GOLDEN COSMOS RIGHT: THE MAIL SOCIAL ANIMALS TRAUMA AND THE MIND It was a pleasure to read Larissa Mac- Like John Seabrook, I once spun out, Farquhar’s article on Andy Clark’s the- on the narrow Northern State Parkway, ories about embodied intelligence and and I, too, have a vivid recollection of its relationship with A.I. and neurosci- the incidental details of those forty- ence (“Mind Expander,” April 2nd). five seconds (“Six Skittles,” April 9th). Iconic Style Clark’s theories underemphasize the Seabrook explains how stress-induced From classic cartoons importance of other people as the pri- hormonal responses “can produce ex- to signature covers, mary embodiment of external repre- traordinary feats of perception.” In the New Yorker sentation, rather than our own bodies, past thirty years, we have begun to un- the archive machines, or objects in the world. The derstand that our ability to turn percep- has memorable images story of Clark’s collaborations—with tion into memory is greatly heightened for your walls. his wife, Chalmers, Friston, and oth- by a highly emotional experience. Stud- ers—is a perfect example of the fact ies suggest that emotionally charged newyorkerstore.com that humans are fundamentally social content enhances not only attention and animals. This insures our survival: or- arousal but also our ability to form sta- ganisms working together can do so ble memories. Accidents can result in a much more than organisms working continuous mental replay of a traumatic apart or in parallel. The greatest chal- event, strengthening and extending in- lenge for A.I. is not the slow progress cidental associations with every replay. in top-down intelligence but the lack Physicians and scientists should look to of attention to teaming intelligence vivid stories like Seabrook’s to help study that would allow the pairing of humans’ how the mind’s ailments emerge from remarkable predictive powers with A.I.’s normal brain functions. superior bottom-up analysis of data. Alex Dranovsky, M.D. Alonso Vera New York State Psychiatric Institute NASA Ames Research Center 1New York City 1Mofett Field, Calif. FINDING REALITY TEXTURED HISTORY What stood out to me about Joshua As D. T. Max indicates in his article on Rothman’s article on virtual embodiment Prints, gifts, Chinese textile workers in Prato, Italy, was just how much of the virtual-reality mugs, and more. the city has seen a proliferation of Chi- experience can be inward-looking (“As nese clothing workshops (“Made in Italy,” Real as It Gets,” April 2nd). Most of us Enter TNY20 April 16th). Prato has a long history as are familiar with V.R. as being intended for 20% off. an important textile town, going back to for a wholly escapist experience, a plane the twelfth century; today’s Prato must in which to exercise both freedom and have seemed a logical place for a contem- control over oneself. But Rothman’s V.R. porary Chinese colony in Europe. A few experience, in which he acts both as Freud blocks away from the centro storico, on the and a patient, ofers an alternative. It also site of a former mill, is the Textile Mu- reveals the fragility of our self-percep- seum, which, in 2010, had an exhibit of tion and the limitations of attempts to Tuscan textiles exported to Russia over “see another perspective.” the centuries. The most magnificent were Sol Lee Orthodox Church ecclesiastical vest- Los Angeles, Calif. ments, onto which Russian artisans had sewn jewels, along with a letter from Tsar • Boris Godunov himself, saying, “You Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, Tuscans do splendid work and are wel- address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited come any time you want to come.” for length and clarity, and may be published in Nicholas Cliford any medium. We regret that owing to the volume Middlebury, Vt. of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 3 APRIL 25 – MAY 1, 2018 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN At thirty-one, the actress Condola Rashad has become a force on Broadway. In roles like Juliet (opposite Orlando Bloom’s Romeo) and the smiling yet iron-willed daughter in “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” she’s shown a mixture of poise and fortitude echoing that of her mother, Phylicia Rashad. This combination will surely come in handy for her latest character: the warrior, martyr, saint, and troublemaker Joan of Arc, in George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan,” opening this week at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC and stalks her ex-husband—suggests a quiet rev- olution in storytelling. Geraldine Chaplin, blade- like yet awkward, plays Emily, who shambles into MOVIES a downbeat Los Angeles apartment, ingratiates herself with the landlord (Moses Gunn), inds a 1 job at a store run by a benevolent geek (Jef Gold- arrogant jerk who alienates her best friends (Aidy blum), clashes with a co-worker (Alfre Woodard), NOW PLAYING Bryant and Busy Philipps) and is tempted to sleep and wreaks havoc on a construction worker (An- with one of the company’s heirs (Tom Hopper). As thony Perkins) and his new wife (Berry Berenson). Borg vs. McEnroe written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Sil- Rudolph builds scenes from pent-up feelings and The icy Swedish tennis champion Björn Borg verstein, Renee and her friends remain featureless searing memories, endowing his actors with a rich (played convincingly by Sverrir Gudnason) is the ciphers, mere puppets of a plot and vessels for hom- range of idiosyncratic actions and inlections and focus of the Danish director Janus Metz’s entertain- ilies. Nonetheless, Schumer delivers several mo- ilming them in languid panning shots. Chaplin’s ing sports ilm, a sharply edited drama centered on ments of antic inspiration (including a wild dance performance is a tour de force of frustrated ten- Borg’s historic 1980 Wimbledon match against the that, unfortunately, is ilmed clumsily); Lauren derness and impulsive violence; even just driving American bad boy John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf).