Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
99
15
39
46
MARGARET Talbot
60
70
HARUKI Murakami
74
YESTERDAY
Karen Russell
92
RACHEL KUSHNER
JOSHUA FERRIS
COLM TIBN
MIRANDA JULY
TOBIAS WOLFF
59
69
72
78
84
THE ADOLESCENTS
GOOD LEGS
STORIES
TV
BEAUTIFUL GIRL
Alison Bechdel
CHRIS Ware
88
90
MY OLD FLAME
SKETCHBOOKS
GRADUAL IMPACT
POSSESSION
BOOKS
CHRISTINE Smallwood
102
107
EMILY Nussbaum
108
ANTHONY Lane
110
ON TELEVISION
Continued on page 8
4
THE CRITICS
POEM
JAMES RICHARDSON
joost swarte
52
Essay on Wood
COVER
Love Stories
DRAWINGS Danny Shanahan, Michael Maslin, David Sipress, Benjamin Schwartz, Charles
Barsotti, Harry Bliss, Emily Flake, Liam Francis Walsh, Shannon Wheeler, Edward Steed, Roz
Chast SPOTS Simone Massoni
CONTRIBUTORS
david gilbert (heres the story, p. 46)
Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories and the novel Old School.
alison bechdel (gradual impact, p. 88)
chris ware (possession, p. 90), the author of Building Stories, will be the
artist-in-residence at the East London Comics and Arts Festival on June 14th.
karen russell (the bad graft, p. 92), a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, published
a novella, Sleep Donation, in March. She is the author of two short-story collections and the novel Swamplandia!
T H E N E W YO R K E R D I G I TA L
W W W. N E W YO R K E R . C O M
D I G I TA L E D I T I O N
FICTION
COMMENT
MY OLD FLAME
FICTION
Ramona Ausubel,
David Gilbert, and
Karen Russell on
their stories.
Readings by
Joshua Ferris, Rachel
Kushner, Miranda July,
and Tobias Wolff.
PAGE-TURNER
PODCASTS
POETRY
On the Fiction
Podcast, Miranda
July reads a story
by Janet Frame.
James Richardson
reads his new
poem.
ARCHIVE
HUMOR
VIDEO
CARTOONS
Our complete
collection of issues,
back to 1925.
A Daily Cartoon
drawn by Mick
Stevens, and
Shouts & Murmurs.
Emily Nussbaum
on the Web
series High
Maintenance.
A gallery of bonus
humor from the
archive.
Access our digital edition for tablets and phones at the App Store, Amazon.com, Google Play, or Next Issue Media.
10
THE MAIL
MISTA
T KEN IDENTITY
1
FEAR AND REMEMBERING
Daniela Schillers research, demonstrating that traumatic memories can become less painful or even be extinguished, reinforces observations made
long ago by psychotherapists. But the
discussion about the treatment of traumatic memories should not be limited
to cognitive behavioral methods. Exposure therapy is but new wine in old
bottles. For decades, therapists have
been helping patients suffering from
traumatic experiences to talk about, or
uncover, their memories as a way to ease
the emotional power and meaning of
the past. The act of remembering requires the construction of new meaning
within the context of a relational experiencea fact well appreciated by psychoanalytic theory. Survivors of trauma
frequently put themselves in situations
that remind them of the trauma they
suffered, and this typically has the effect
of solidifying the pain associated with
these memories. As the psychoanalyst
Hans Loewald wrote in 1960, it is by remembering and internalizing new
w experiences with the therapist that patients
can turn ghosts into ancestors.
Cathy Siebold
Cambridge, Mass.
t
Letters should be sent with the writers name,
address, and daytime phone number via e-mail
to themail@newyorker.com. Letters and Web
comments may be edited for length and clarity,
and may be published in any medium. We regret
that owing to the volume of correspondence
we cannot reply to every letter or return letters.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
11
GOINGS ON
ABOUT TOWN
J U N E
2014
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No matter how popular Governors Island becomes, it always feels like a getaway. To arrive by ferry
from lower Manhattan or Brooklyn Bridge Parkis to retrace the watery journey of the Spanish, Italian,
and Dutch settlers who sailed New York Harbor centuries ago. This summer, the ferries run seven days a
week, which means more chances to swing in one of the islands fifty red hammocks, bike on its car-free
streets, or play on the mini-golf course created by local artists. There are plans to make Governors Island
accessible year-round, but for now it remains a seasonal pleasure, ending on Labor Day.
photog r a p h by Da n ie l A r n ol d
THE THEATRE
art | classical music
FOOD & DRINK | DANCE
movies | ABOVE & BEYOND
NIGHT LIFE
T TEATRE
Shakespeare in the Park begins its season with Much Ado About Nothing.
Marriage material
Lily Rabe once again finds love at the Delacorte.
Holler if Ya Hear Me
Todd Kreidler wrote this new musical, based
on the lyrics off Tupac Shakur, about life on the
streets. The cast includes Tonya Pinkins; Kenny
Leon directs. In previews. (Palace, Broadway at
47th St. 877-250-2929.)
Hot Season
Strange Sun Theatre presents a play by Evan
Mueller, in which a group off friends attempt
to escape a life-threatening epidemic by taking
shelter at a cabin in the woods. Kevin J. Kittle
directs. Previews begin June 13. Opens June 16.
(Black Box, 18 Bleecker St. 866-811-4111.)
The Lion
The composer and singer Benjamin Scheuer
wrote and performs this autobiographical musical,
about his coming off age. Sean Daniels directs,
for Manhattan Theatre Club. Previews begin
June 10. (City Center Stage II, 131 W. 55th St.
212-581-1212.)
Macbeth
Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branaghs staging of
the Shakespeare play stars Branagh as Macbeth
and Alex Kingston as Lady Macbeth, in their
New York stage dbuts. In previews. Opens June
5. (Park Avenue Armory, Park Ave. at 66th St.
212-933-5812.)
Much Ado About Nothing
Jack OBrien directs Lily Rabe, as Beatrice, and
Hamish Linklater, as Benedick, in the opening
play off the Publics free Shakespeare in the Park
season. In previews. Opens June 16. (Delacorte,
Central Park. Enter at 81st St. at Central Park
W. 212-967-7555.)
The Muscles in Our Toes
Labyrinth Theatre Company presents a dark
comedy by Stephen Belber, in which four friends
ILLUSTRATION BY SOPHIA FOSTER-DIMINO
Also Notable
Act One
Vivian Beaumont.
Through June 15.
After Midnight
Brooks Atkinson
Aladdin
New Amsterdam
All the Way
Neil Simon
American Hero
McGinn/Cazale.
Through June 15.
BeautifulThe Carole
King Musical
Stephen Sondheim
Bullets Over Broadway
St. James
Cabaret
Studio 54
Casa Valentina
Samuel J. Friedman
The City of Conversation
Mitzi E. Newhouse
The Cripple of Inishmaan
Cort
Early Shaker Spirituals
Performing Garage.
Through June 15.
A Gentlemans Guide to
Love and Murder
Walter Kerr
Heathers: The Musical
Belasco
Here Lies Love
Public
If/Then
Richard Rodgers
Just Jim Dale
Laura Pels
Lady Day at Emersons
Bar & Grill
Shubert
Les Misrables
Imperial
Mothers and Sons
Golden
Motown: the Musical
Lunt-Fontanne
Of Mice and Men
Longacre
Once
Jacobs
A Raisin in the Sun
Ethel Barrymore.
Through June 15.
The Realistic Joneses
Lyceum
Rocky
Winter Garden
Too Much Sun
Vineyard
Violet
Gershwin
18
3
Now Playing
The Anthem
Theres plenty of talent among
the thirteen cast members in this
unrelentingly high-camp adaptation
of the 1938 Ayn Rand novella. As
directed, choreographed, and designed by Rachel Klein, the musical
employs techno-rock singing, break
dancing, acrobatics, gymnastics, and
roller skating, among other theatrical disciplinessome of it pretty
impressivebut to what end? The
book, by Gary Morgenstein, which
is set, the program stipulates, many
ART
Cold-pressed Conceptualism: Josh Klines sculpture Skittles (2014) satirizes the juice-cleanse craze, life-style brands, and aspirational marketing.
Parklife
, damn traffic today,
reads the new white-on-pink mural by Ed Ruscha, above the
High Line at Twenty-second Street. On a recent afternoon, the
text doubled as a caption for a live-action cartoon, as a man on a
scooter wove his way through a gaggle of tourists. Nearby, teenagers held up handwritten signs advertising free hugs and yelled,
Its emotional Tuesday! Performance art? No, students from the
neighborhoods Fashion Industries high school, blowing off steam.
It can be hard to distinguish whats art and whats not on the
High Line. Archeo, a new exhibition of eight outdoor sculptures
by seven young artists, organized by the parks nimble curator,
Cecilia Alemani, plays to the idea of the High Line as a latter-day
Readymade. Marcel Duchamp turned his bicycle wheel, snow
shovel, and bottle rack into art with scant alteration. But the
former elevated railway, once overgrown and abandoned, is now
so groomed and urban-chic that its a ready-made backdrop for
Instagram.
The sites history surfaces in one of the shows strongest works:
Marianne Vitales Common Crossings, five salvaged railroad
switches (they allow trains to change tracks), installed vertically.
Below Twenty-fifth Street, the steel totems stand sentry, strange
hybrids of Richard Serra and Easter Island. A few blocks south, in
another twist on the Readymade, Yngve Holen sets down a pair of
gleaming industrial washing-machine drums in a glib piece, titled
Sensitive 4 Detergent, that does little more than turn a patch of
the High Line into a hillbilly front yard.
Plop art is a derogatory term for public sculpture, coined in
20
Ai Weiwei: According to
What? Through Aug. 10.
American Museum of
Natural History
Katrn Sigurdardttir.
Through July 27.
Studio Museum in Harlem
Lynda Barry
Baumgold
Through July 11.
Dawoud Bey
Boone
Through June 28.
Chelsea
Darren Bader
Kreps
Through June 21.
Mika Rottenberg
Rosen
Through June 14.
Downtown
Polly Apfelbaum
Clifton Benevento
Through Aug. 8.
Sarah Charlesworth
Maccarone
Through June 21.
22
3
GalleriesUptown
Anna Maria Maiolino
After emigrating to Brazil during
the years of military dictatorship,
the Italian-born sculptor and draftswoman found her voice in intricate,
almost obsessive geometric abstractions. Now a woman whom the
dictatorship tortured is President,
and Maiolino, at seventy-two, is
doing the most visceral work of
3
GalleriesChelsea
Mark Cohen
Working on the streets of his
coal-blackened home town, WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania, Cohen makes
rude, alarming, and often hilarious
photographs that could almost be
mistaken for drunken snapshots.
The pictures are radically cropped,
lopping off heads and feet and
zeroing in on grimy knees, gesturing hands, and a bare midriff. The
hectic mood of this terrific show of
color and black-and-white images
is broken only by a few back-alley
landscapes and still-lifes of debris on
the ground, including a gum wrapper
that has the uncanny presence of
a tiny Claes Oldenburg sculpture.
Through June 20. (Danziger, 527
W. 23rd St. 212-629-6778.)
Rebecca Horn
The veteran German artist is best
known for performances and wearable
objects that she called body extensions, but lately Horn has turned
to lyrical, subtly kinetic sculptures
that mix natural and mechanical
materials. They incorporate branches
and volcanic stone and only slowly
reveal their motorized elements,
such as a pair of little gold sticks
that move up and down like a
praying mantis. Marcel Duchamps
Montgolfire, one of the best works
here, replicates one of the masters
spinning squiggles with two rotating
mirrors. As they turn, the light they
reflect onto the white gallery walls
transmutes from a circle to an oval
and then, thrillingly, to a glowing
hot-air balloon. Through June 21.
(Sean Kelly, 475 Tenth Ave., at 36th
St. 212-239-1181.)
Jorinde Voigt
The swooping lines in this Berlinbased artists intricate, large-scale
drawings seem at first to have
some scientific significance. On
closer inspection, however, the
drawings resolve into a hermetic,
highly personal disquisition on the
history of love in Western Europe,
with annotations borrowed from
the writings of the prolific German sociologist Niklas Luhmann.
Peculiar, sometimes breathtaking
forms, from a gold-and-red double
helix to floating clouds and virus-like
spiky balls, are ringed by obsessive
3
GalleriesDowntown
Liz Deschenes
Conceptually elegant and rigorously
minimal, Descheness new installation frames the gallerys empty
space with what appear to be two
pairs of V-shaped steel bars, facing
each other across the room. But
what looks like smudged, striated
metal is actually the glossy surface
of a seven-foot-high silver-toned
photogram, which was exposed
to moonlight in the course of a
night. There are no images here,
only phenomenafugitive traces of
atmosphere brushing up against a
sensitive surface. Balancing subtleties
of process and perception, Deschenes
continues to pare her work down
to an alluring but elusive essence.
Through June 25. (Abreu, 36 Orchard
St. 212-995-1774.)
Bill Jenkins
This young Brooklyn-based artist
has stuffed the gallerys bay windows with reflective foil, shaped
the material in one corner into
a funnel, and attached the stem
to a snaking duct that, so he tells
us, is mirrored on the inside. The
duct lets out in a basin inside a
dark room, and indeed a faint
reflection of daylight illuminates
the floor, but only just. Jenkins
wittily recycles emblems of sixties
art history (the foil is a Warhol
motif, the duct borrowed from the
minimalist Charlotte Posenenske)
for his act of institutional critique.
But the point seems to be that his
jerry-rigged apparatus is unreliable,
as if to acknowledge that art can
redirect the worlds energy only so
much. Through June 22. (Gitlen,
122 Norfolk St. 212-274-0761.)
Jason Loebs
This young artist, already a standout in group shows at the Swiss
Institute and Artists Space, seduces
with three monochrome canvases
covered with thermal grease in
lieu of paint: the surfaces are a
sunlight-gobbling black. There
are also three readymades of
heat-emitting carbon film, curved
into sculptures, and half a dozen
chunks of mineral orequartz
from Pakistan, azurite from China,
siderite from Arkansasto which
Loebs has applied the iridescent
ink used in banknotes to prevent
forgery. Hes the rare artist whose
use of unorthodox materials feels
necessary rather than tentative.
Through June 29. (Essex Street,
114 Eldridge St. 917-263-1001.)
cLASSical MUSIC
culture desk
Opera
Opera Orchestra of New York:
Roberto Devereux
The indomitable Eve Queler returns to Carnegie Hall to lead a
concert performance of Donizettis
bel-canto scorcher, loosely based on
the supposed, ill-starred love affair
between Queen Elizabeth I and her
favorite courtier, the Earl of Essex.
Stephen Costello, a prominent young
American tenor, takes the title role,
with Mariella Devia as Elizabeth.
(212-247-7800. June 5 at 7:30.)
Opera Cabal: ATTHIS
New Yorks always impressive American Contemporary Music Ensemble
joins the Chicago-based group in a
visit to an iconic Gotham venue,
the Kitchen; the main subject is
the music of Georg Friedrich Haas,
the admired Austrian modernist
composer, whose first season as a
Columbia professor is capped by a
performance of this work, a monodrama based on texts by Sappho.
Three short pieces by Marcos Balter,
who joins the faculty at Montclair
State University this fall, complete
the program. (512 W. 19th St. 212255-5793. June 12-13 at 8.)
Chelsea Opera:
The Tender Land
Coplands affecting opera of life
on the American prairie during the
Depression was always a little too
intimate for the full opera-house
treatment; it reached perfection,
however, in the widely performed
of note
Chelsea Music Festival
3
Orchestras and Choruses
Riverside Symphony
To close its thirty-third season,
George Rothmans intrepid orchestra
offers a program infused with the
spirit of elegant classicismmusic
by Nielsen, Prokofiev (the lyrical
and urbane Violin Concerto No. 2
in G Minor, with the young soloist
Haik Kazazyan), and Bizet (the
Symphony in C Major). The wild
card is the tone poem Turner, an
homage to the artist by the composer
Marius Constant. (Alice Tully Hall.
riversidesymphony.org. June 4 at 8.)
NY Phil Biennial
The last few days of Alan Gilberts
inaugural festival are packed with
high-profile events. Gilbert himself
conducts the first of two programs
with the orchestra, which welcomes
the violinist Midori as its guest;
shell be out front in the New York
premire of DoReMi, a concerto
by the distinguished Hungarian
composer-conductor Peter Etvs.
The concerts conclude with the
world-premire performances of the
Symphony No. 4 by the orchestras
current composer-in-residence,
Christopher Rouse; they open with a
piece by a yet-to-be-determined young
American composer, whose music
will be selected in a private reading
of six works by the Philharmonic
on June 3. (June 5 at 7:30 and June
7 at 8.)The Philharmonics final
concert begins with another piece
selected through the orchestras June
3 readings, and continues with two
eminent New York premires. The
first is Instances, one of the last
works by the late Elliott Carter; the
second is Reflections on Narcissus,
a cello concerto (with the magnetic
Alisa Weilerstein) by the German
composer Matthias Pintscher, who
conducts. (June 6 at 8.) (Avery
Fisher Hall. 212-875-5656. For tickets
and a full schedule of events, see
nyphil.org.)
The Beethoven Piano
Concertos: A Philharmonic
Festival
Alan Gilbert and the Philharmonic
are wrapping up their season in
3
Recitals
Transvocality: Music by
Mario Davidovsky
The music of this enduring Argentinean-American composer, ferociously
modernist but slyly expressive, is the
focus of the latest concert by the
excellent group Counter)Induction;
its musicians (including the violinist Miranda Cuckson) celebrate
the composers eightieth-birthday
year by performing such works as
Festino, the Duo Capriccioso, and
the Quartetto No. 4. (SubCulture,
45 Bleecker St. subculturenewyork.
com. June 7 at 8.)
Prism Quartet:
Heritage/Evolution
Prism, one of Americas finest saxophone quartets for three decades,
has been collaborating lately with
several renowned guest players in
a series of concerts in New York
and Philadelphia. In the final program, the group is joined by the
jazz saxophonists Dave Liebman
and Greg Osby in world-premire
performances of their own music.
(Symphony Space, Broadway at
95th St. symphonyspace.org. June
12 at 7:30.)
Early Music Festival: NYC
With the citys historical-performance
community now up to an international
level, its time to celebrate. This
new festival, co-directed by Donald
Meineke and Jolle Greenleaf, offers a
week of performances (most of which
are free) by ensembles both small
and large, each making a jubilant
sound. One of the first concerts is
given by the acclaimed vocal quartet
New York Polyphony, who will sing
Palestrinas seminal Missa Papae
Marcelli (along with music by
Andrew Smith) at the Church of
St. Jean Baptiste. (Lexington Ave.
at 76th St. emfnyc.org. June 13 at
7:30. Through June 19.)
FOOD &
DRINK
BAR TAB bohemian hall & beer
garden
26
PHOTOGRAPH BY TRUJILLOPAUMIER
DANCE
GOINGS ON, ONLINE
FRONT ROW
For the second year in a row, the beloved troupe offers a short
spring season at Lincoln Center, where it projects marvellously
from the big stage. The premire is The Pleasure of the
Lesson, by Robert Moses, a San Francisco choreographer
whose ambitious ideas can escape his structural control. The
repertory pieces on three of the four programs (the fourth is
a dud) exhibit an impressive historical and stylistic range, from
the balletic futurism of Wayne McGregors Chroma to Awassa
Astrige, a 1932 curio for a man in ostrich feathers. A selection of
Ailey dances to Duke Ellington comes right in the middle. (David
H. Koch, Lincoln Center. 212-496-0600. June 11 at 7, June 12 and
June 17 at 7:30, June 13 at 8, June 14 at 2 and 8, and June 15 at 3
and 7:30. Through June 22.)
28
MOVIES
smart alec
Alec Guinnesss centenary, celebrated at
Film Forum.
of Alec Guinnesss
birth fell, without fanfare, on April 2nd.
He would not have lamented the lack of
trumpets. His life had begun with a blank,
the space for his fathers name left unfilled
on his birth certificate, and, to judge by the
titles of his memoir and journals (Blessings
in Disguise, My Name Escapes Me),
he never lost his taste for a vanishing act.
Alone among the great performers, he
resolved a paradox: how to be a star without
being the center of attentionor, at least,
while giving no sign that you crave such a
prominent spot. When Laurence Olivier
played King Lear onstage, in 1946, it was
Guinness, pattering around him as the
Fool, with a mime-white face, and with his
lines shorn to a bald minimum, who stuck
in the minds eye. They also shine who only
stand and serve.
Nonetheless, as though by accident,
Guinness grew into a heroor, rather,
into one of lifes supporting players who
had heroism thrust upon him, whether
he liked it or not. He oozed or scampered
through one Ealing comedy after another,
making The Lavender Hill Mob and
The Man in the White Suit in a single
year, 1951, and British moviegoers,
canvassed for their favorites, kept putting
Guinness on the list. Cool at times,
even remote, he gave them something
to warm to. Shifting shape, he remained
unmistakable; who knew that chameleons
possessed so robust a soul? Where Peter
Sellerswho worshipped Guinness, and
scrutinized him avidly when they worked
on The Ladykillers (1955)would
spend himself in a fury of impersonation,
Guinness gave no hint of a hollow core.
He found a still point in the turning world.
30
On Sale Tuesday
New from the New York Times
bestselling author of the Child 44 trilogy
A page-turner....
A remarkable achievement.
Jeffery Deaver, author of The Skin Collector
Soon to be a
major motion picture
TomRobSmith.com
Available in hardcover, audio,
large print, and ebook formats
Now Playing
Belle
This rousing historical fantasia,
which is loosely based on a true
story, uses Jane Austens novels as
a template. In the late eighteenth
century, two beautiful half cousins,
Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon)
and Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu
Mbatha-Raw), live together as loving friends under the protection of
their uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom
Wilkinson), the Chief Justice of
England. Dido, who is the daughter
of a British sea captain and his
African slave mistress, becomes an
heiress. In different circumstances,
this elegant young woman might
have been someone elses property,
but shes now capable of conferring
property of her own on cash-poor
aristocratic suitors. Not much is
known about the historical Dido,
and the British filmmakersthe
director, Amma Asante, and the
screenwriter, Misan Sagayconcoct
a liberationist fiction in which Dido
becomes conscious of herself as a
black woman after listening to the
fiery anti-slavery rhetoric of a parsons
son (Sam Reid), who falls in love
with her. Dido goes on to influence
the British abolitionist movement.
Factually, the movie is probably a
fraud, but its crisply entertaining,
and Mbatha-Raw, born in Oxford
and acting since she was a child,
delivers her increasingly confident
lines with tremulous emotion and,
finally, radiant authority.David
Denby (Reviewed in our issue of
5/19/14.) (In limited release.)
Blended
Two suburban single parents (Adam
Sandler and Drew Barrymore) meet
on a disastrous blind date and vow not
to meet again, but their paths cross
at a resort, where their childrenhis
three girls, her two boysbring them
together. The corn of the setup is
sweetened by the stars easygoing
chemistry. Sandler, a live-action Fred
Flintstone with a wry garlic drawl,
lends heart and humor to the secular
Jewish Everyman, and Barrymore
earnest, febrile, breathlesshints at
real pain beneath a perky veneer. But
the details are an embarrassment: the
resort is in South Africa, referred to
almost always only as Africa, and
its black staff members engage in
the sort of obsequious glad-handing,
often involving song and dance, that
harks back to grotesquely racist stereotypes, which pass unquestioned
and seemingly unnoticed. (The many
nonwhite patrons of the resort are
just part of the dcor.) For that matter, the plot, with Sandler playing
sports dad to an athletically frustrated
boy and Barrymore restyling one
of the motherless girls, rests on
equally retrograde gender models.
These blundering dogmas come
off, doubtless unintentionally, as an
incisive critique of the heart-catching
sentiment of family life. Directed
Opening
Burning Bush
A miniseries, directed by
Agnieszka Holland, about
the aftermath of the
Soviet Unions invasion of
Czechoslovakia, in 1968. In
Czech. Opening June 11.
(Film Forum.)
Edge of Tomorrow
31
A post-apocalyptic thriller,
about a combat veteran who
hunts a car thief across the
Australian outback. Directed by
David Michd; starring Robert
Pattinson, Guy Pearce, and
Scoot McNairy. Opening June
13. (In limited release.)
22 Jump Street
There just arent enough films about teen-age girl punk bands
made by left-wing feminist Swedish Christian males. All the
more reason, therefore, to welcome this new contribution from
Lukas Moodysson. Adapted from the graphic novel by his wife,
Coco Moodysson, and set in Stockholm, in 1982, the film tells
the tale of Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and her friend Klara (Mira
Grosin), who feel cut adrift from their contemporaries and their
elders alike. With nothing better to do, they start a two-woman
band, which soon swells to three with the arrival of Hedvig
(Liv LeMoyne)devout and square, but the only one of them
who can actually play an instrument. Moodysson returns to
the zone that he plotted so acutely in Show Me Love (1998)
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ability to chart the pressures and pleasures of young lives as
they approach the limits of childhood is as fresh as ever. His
rebels may not have much of a cause, let alone talent, but their
haircuts speak louder than words. In Swedish.Anthony Lane
(In limited release.)
32
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Film Forum
ABOVE
BEYOND
Northside Festival
With new high-rise condominiums,
music venues, and chain stores seeming
to turn up daily, North Brooklyn has
become a highly desirable place to
live. As the area has developed, so has
this annual South by Southwest-type
festival, which was started in 2009 by
the folks who produce The L Magazine
and Brooklyn Magazine. The musical
acts include the singer-songwriter
Sharon Van Etten and bands like Fuck
Buttons, War on Drugs, the Dead
Milkmen, and Beirut. More than fifty
films will be screened, in categories
that include a D.I.Y. competition and
New York and Brooklyn premires.
The Innovation Conference presents
speakers from Internet game-changers
such as BuzzFeed, Etsy, and Vimeo,
as well as a jobs fair, which might
come in handy for Millennials who
are liable to be swiftly priced out of
the neighborhood. (northsidefestival.
com. June 12-19.)
35
NIGHT LFE
Rock and Pop
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead complicated
lives; its advisable to check in advance to confrm
engagements.
Damon Albarn
After making a huge splash in the mid-nineties
as the front man off Blur, a standard-bearer for
golden-age Britpop, Albarn went on to create,
among many other projects, the innovative virtual
band Gorillaz, which worked with such real-life
collaborators as Lou Reed and Bobby Womack.
(In 2012, he co-produced Womacks first record
in nearly twenty years, The Bravest Man in the
Universe.) On his own, Albarn has matured into
a fascinating songwriter who embeds personal
lyrics in an ever-expanding musical palette. His
dbut solo album, Everyday Robots, has strings,
Eastern harmonies, and African accents, and
includes songs about Albarns ongoing journey,
whether musicological, biographical, or spiritual.
(Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Pl. 212-777-6800. June 8.)
Dig Deeper
The monthly soul-music series celebrates its sixth
anniversary with Sugar Pie DeSanto, backed by
the Brooklyn Rhythm Band, which will perform
an opening set. DeSanto, a Brooklyn native who
The Governors Ball Music Festival brings OutKast and dozens of other acts to Randalls Island.
36
37
39
what he referred to as a manifesto, more than a hundred thousand words long, which outlined an intention to commit atrocities far beyond those he actually accomplished.
Rodgers free-floating loathing was not limited to women
racist hatred also runs through the manifestoand his utterances make it clear that he had lost all grip on reality. Nonetheless, it quickly emerged that many women recognized his
words as only more extreme versions of everyday violations. On
Twitter, the hashtag #YesAllWomen was embraced as a vehicle for drawing attention to the pervasiveness of sexualized
violence against women, through rape, harassment, or other
forms of misogyny. Why do I have to alter the way I dress,
when you can alter the way you behave? one wrote. Another
added, Because what men fear most about going to prison is
what women fear most about walking down the sidewalk. A
third offered, Because my little sister is no longer allowed to
wear tank tops to school. Its hot outside. Stop sexualizing 11
year old girls. Within days of the killings, there were more
than a million such contributions.
If U.C.S.B. found itself, a few weeks ago, cast in the popular consciousness as a center of dubious cultural progress
a convenient representative of the latest frontier in sociopolitical activism, just as Antioch College, with its sexualconsent code, was twenty years agothe university, in the
MINYA POSTCARD
ELECTION DAY
40
onment, but little evidence was put forward, and most of the accused were not
even present at the trials.
Minya is often described as a Brotherhood town. In truth, many residents
seem to have shifted their loyalties to Sisi,
in the hope of stability. Even the Islamists, while united in opposition to the
new regime, are not entirely supportive of
the Brothers. At the shop, the older of the
bearded men said that he had been reluctant to vote for Morsi in 2012, when his
opponent had been Ahmed Shafiq, a former head of the air force.
A plague or a cancer, which do you
want? he said. As a group, the Muslim
Brotherhood has a tendency to be arrogant and exclude others.
He was a former member of the
Gamaa al-Islamiyya, an Islamist organization that engaged in terrorism until
1997; a few years later, it renounced violence. The group is influential in Minya,
where its not uncommon for locals to
point out, with a sort of twisted civic
pride, that the gunman who assassinated
President Anwar Sadat, in 1981, was a
Minya native. The man at the shop said
hed spent a total of seventeen years in
prison. You know how they treated people in prison, he said. Look at this
He lifted the hem of his galabiya.
In Egypt, most physical markers are
intended for display, but there was something intimate about the man tugging at
his gown. Each ankle was encircled by a
rubbery band of scar tissue. This was
from being hung upside down, he said.
After twenty years, you can still see the
marks. He pointed to his companion:
Hes the same. In silence, the other man
lifted his galabiya: more white rings
around the ankles.
The older man was asked how he had
felt when Sadat was shot.
I was young and enthusiastic, so I was
happy, he said. But I felt different later.
When we saw the repercussions, we realized that the target wasnt achieved. He
explained that Sadats successor, Hosni
Mubarak, had been just as repressive.
With Sisi coming into office, he believed
that the only solution was patience. People are committed to peacefulness, he
said. Look, there were twelve hundred
death sentences here, and theres been no
reaction. Have you seen any violence?
Given the repressive climate of the
past nine months, there has been surprisingly little violence in Egypt, where
communities have settled into a kind
of dtente. In Minya, the police rarely
patrol Abu Hilal, a neighborhood that
is home to many Islamists. The government didnt open polling stations there,
notifying residents that they could vote
elsewhere in the city. The theory seemed
to be that since many people were boycotting the election, there was no reason
to create a target by opening a local poll.
The man at the shop was asked if he
had ever done anything violent during his
years with the Gamaa al-Islamiyya. In
terms of actually participating in violence,
no, he said. But maybe I helped arrange
1
THE ARTISTIC LIFE
FATHERS AND SONS
Robert De Niro
father did. And? He made a temporizing face. What are they going to do,
jump up and down? But it registers.
Asked if he watched over his father as
a father might, tears sprang to his eyes.
Sure, he said. I had to take care of him.
Hed say, Artists are often not recognized
in their lifetime, so he would expect me
to do this. But it wont affect his reputation, which is about timing, luck, the peculiar taste of the art world. And then you
must also have talent. De Niro checked
the nearest canvas, a canary-yellow farmhouse lit by the sun, and seemed reassured. In any case, this is all here, and its
great, and its not going anywhere.
Tad Friend
1
THE BOARDS
HUMPTY DUMPTY
43
CHRISTOPH NIEMANN
FICTION
46
SMART MEDICINE
PART 3: INTEGRATIVE CANCER CARE
By Jessica Wapner
MIND-BODY THERAPY
PAIN MANAGEMENT
MENTAL
NUTRITIONAL THERAPY
MEDITATION
CHEMOTHERAPY
SPIRITUAL SUPPORT
RADIATION THERAPY
ACUPUNCTURE
PET THERAPY
HOMEOPATHIC
NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE
PHYSIOLOGICAL
ADVANCED GENOMIC
TESTING
SURGERY
DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING
SMART MEDICINE
NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE
Naturopathic medicine incorporates natural therapies designed
to complement cancer treatmentfrom the supportive use
of herbal extracts and teas, to dietary supplements, exercise,
physical therapy, acupuncture, and other noninvasive interventions. Importantly, addressing one symptom through
naturopathic care may, in turn, alleviate another, as side
effects such as pain, nausea, insomnia, and depression often
occur as clusters.
PAIN MANAGEMENT
Within the context of integrative cancer care, pain is addressed
as a condition requiring careful diagnosis and treatment.
Working closely with a skilled provider can help patients
ease or eliminate acute discomfort through medication and
other therapies. Relaxation techniques that patients can
practice on their own, and hands-on methods such as massage
therapy, can also soothe sore muscles and ease pains that
are associated with their particular diagnosis.
ONCOLOGY REHABILITATION
Cancer and its treatment can be physically debilitating. Muscle
atrophy from weakness and fatigue can make even routine
activities like showering and dressing arduous. Some treatments
impact speech and swallowing; others affect cognition. Swelling
may occur as a result of fluid collecting in tissue, leading to
pain and reduced mobility. Many chemotherapy drugs can
cause numbness or tingling in the hands and feet, a side effect
known as peripheral neuropathy.
Oncology rehabilitation is a comprehensive approach to
addressing these conditions and can encompass a broad
spectrum of options. An individualized exercise program
PATIENT-CENTERED CARE
At CTCA, every patient works with a Patient-Empowered Care (PEC)
team. Clinicians from various therapeutic disciplines work together to
create a care plan and provide recommendations. We take a wholeperson approach that delivers evidence-based multidisciplinary treatment, says Anderson. All of our recommendations are tailored to
meet each patients individual needs.
The PEC team includes oncologists focused on medicine, surgery,
and radiation; a dietitian; a naturopathic oncology provider; and other
integrative therapy clinicians. Acupuncture, massage, mind-body therapy,
physical therapy, chiropractic care, spiritual support, and other services
are provided as part of each patients treatment. Caregivers are also
encouraged to seek out the support they may need.
The goal of the PEC team is to facilitate implementation of the treatment plan, reduce the risk of treatment delays, and improve overall
quality of life, says Doran. Everything we do is, and always will be,
centered around the patient.
Reducing Pain
Studies have found that acupuncture
can diminish cancer-related pain along
with other treatment-related side effects
such as nausea and insomnia.
Promoting Appetite
High-fiber foods and smaller, more
frequent meals can stimulate the
appetite and diminish gastrointestinal
issues. Ginger is also recommended
for its digestive benefits.
Numbness
Neuropathynumbness or tingling in the
extremitiesis a common side effect of
cancer treatment, which acupuncture and
supplements of L-glutamine can help relieve.
Lifestyle Changes
Dietitians and naturopathic providers
often assist patients with smoking
cessation, sleep therapy, blood
pressure and weight management, and
healthy eating following treatment.
My breast
cancer
diagnosis
was the
heaviest
weight Ive
ever had
to bear.
Karyn Marshall, DC
Breast Cancer Patient
Doctor of Chiropractic
World Champion Weightlifter
As a world-record-setting weight lifter, I was determined to bring the tenacity that had served me
so well in the gym to my fight against breast cancer.
And as a chiropractor, I was especially impressed with the approach at Cancer Treatment Centers
of America (CTCA). It is called Patient Empowered Care, and it means I had a dedicated team
of cancer experts who collaborated on my treatment and worked with me to develop a detailed
plan based on my specific needs. My team combined advanced cancer treatments with supportive
therapies like acupuncture, nutritional counseling, and chiropractic care to help ease the side
effects of my treatment. I know it made me a much better fighter.
Today, Im busy training for fitness competitions again.
And Im more certain than ever that CTCA was the right
choice for me.
If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with advancedstage or complex cancer, call 855-587-5528 or visit us
at cancercenter.com. Appointments available now.
No case is typical. You should not expect to experience these results.
ESSAY ON WOOD
risella was pitching for the Mets, Foster for the Dodgers, and after six innings New York was winning, 10, with
Moock scoring in the second on Boschs
base hit to left. L.A. had managed only
five scattered singles and was looking listless in the fieldthe diamond might as
well have been a classroom clock on the
last day of school. Ted maintained an orderly box score, something his father
had taught him to do when they went to
see the old Hollywood Stars at Gilmore
Field, back when the Pacific Coast
League was the only game in town. He
enjoyed transcribing the action into the
shorthand of LOBs and IBBs, the forward or backward K, the almost algebraic
equations of SAC 8 and F 9 and DP
1-6-3. Here, human position was expressed in pencil, fate as a form of filling
in the blanks. FC 4-6.
What are you doing? Renshaw Jr.
asked.
The boy had recovered the ball, his
sweaty palms rendering Drysdales signature a blur.
Keeping score, Ted said.
Thats more than just the score.
This is whats behind the score, Ted
explained. Like with the last inning,
heres Davis and his fly ball to right, and
Ferraras single to center, and Roseboro,
remember he had a pop fly to third, and
then Fairly grounded to firstits all right
here.
Seems like homework, Renshaw Jr.
said.
Not really. It just keeps you involved, Ted said. I like knowing what
happened when Swoboda was last
uphe grounded out, but before that
he had a single, and maybe Foster
will pitch him differently this inning,
maybe not, but I have that information
right here, the whole story. Its like Im
a necessary witness.
Renshaw snorted before finishing his
fourth beer.
What? Ted asked.
Cant we just watch the lousy game?
Your boy was curious.
No, he was just asking a stupid
question.
Well, I was giving him an answer.
That wasnt an answer,
that wasI dont know
what the hell that was.
Ted heard a hint of his
wife in the tone, an impatience that bordered on outright scorn, as though his
brand of parenting interfered
with the actual business of
raising children, Carol constantly hovering nearby, an
impresario reminding him to wrap things
up, like at bedtimeespecially at bedtime, and his habit of tucking in the girls
and reciting from memory The Childrens Hour, by Longfellow:
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
n Elysian Park, a growing line of people held hands and weaved through
the crowd as fast as they could, the leader
the needle guiding the thread. Bobby was
somewhere in the middle. It had been too
tempting for him to let pass without joining, and he had handed his mother the
three balloons and jumped onto the end,
holding this position briefly until others
grabbed on and the line grew
longer, its stitching more intricate. Emma watched from
a distance. Every now and
then, Bobby swung into view
and she smiled and waved,
feeling glad to be here, the
strangest of Sunday picnics.
A group nearby smoked
marijuana from a peace pipe,
just as she imagined they
would, and she wondered about LSD,
having seen that recent Dragnet episode with the sugar cubes and the acid
freaks, the crazed blue boy. Detective
Sergeant Joe Friday gave her husband yet
another reason for his strict parenting.
These stories are true, Emma. These are
simply the facts. Mike could relate to
Joe. After all, every father carries a kind of
sharpened, the sudden focus almost pulling Ted forward. Oh, thats right, she
said, smiling with tactile consequences.
Her front teeth were somewhat bucked,
which only added to her over-all abundance. You have girls, she said.
And you have boys.
Almost the same age.
Almost the same age.
They practically sang this like a lyric.
And heres my youngest, she said.
Bobby, say hi.
Hi, Mister.
Martin, Ted said. Ted Martin.
Emma Brady.
The thought of shaking hands passed
between them, their indecision almost
blush-worthy, until too much time
had elapsed and the introductions fell to
their feet.
Quite a circus? Ted said.
Bobby and I were just Emma was
explaining when Bobby interrupted.
There are, like, four guys on stilts,
he said, and a monkey, too.
Yeah, I was at the Dodger game
Really? from Bobby.
Uh-huh.
They win?
Still going on but losing when I
They stink.
They sure do, Ted said, wishing he
had a son who might settle him, might
confirm his role as a father instead of as
punch line for the girls and youll-neverunderstand and let-me-handle-this from
Carol, his non-member status essential for
fter that day in the park, Ted Martin and Emma Brady each resumed their regularly scheduled existence as father and mother, husband
and wife, though there were moments
that still interrupted, all very innocent,
like that easy toss and the game of catch,
the dog that stole the avocado and the
ensuing chase, a total of thirty minutes
spent together before the clock turned
toward the deeper meaning of an hour
56
and they both came to the same conclusion, that they should go, it was getting
late, so goodbye and maybe see you
around school. Once back at home and
restablished in their routine, they
found their moods tightening, their ears
sick of the everyday complaints, their
mouths barely able to answer the everyday questions, neither fully understanding the repercussions of this chance
meeting, those glimpses from Elysian
Park which seemed to confirm their
fate: they were trapped.
It was one of those small things that
could breed a tremendous amount of
discontent, but soon the groove sank
into the larger rut of days, and weeks,
and months, the memory losing its attraction, its melodramatic possibility,
and shifting instead to the silly fantasy
of a school-yard crush on a fellowparent, my goodness, as absurd as those
hippies on stilts. By the time the Cardinals beat the Red Sox in the World Series, Ted Martin and Emma Brady had
mostly forgotten one another and what
endured was resignation: this is my life
and it is a perfectly fine life.
T.
57
nyr.kr/thisweekinfiction
David Gilbert on Heres the Story.
CH A R LES JA MES
Beyond Fashion
Through August 10
Outstanding . . .
a tour de force of masterworks
New York Times
one MET.
many worlds.
Charles James Ball Gowns, 1948. Photograph (detail) by Cecil Beaton,
Beaton / Vogue / Cond Nast Archive. Copyright Cond Nast.
metmuseum.org
GATSBY
TO
GARP
MODERN MASTERPIECES
FROM THE CARTER
BURDEN COLLECTION
Manon
This Week Only!
June 2 7
NOW THROUGH
SEPT 7
Cinderella
ABT PREMIERE
June 9 14
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
PROFILES
Green wanted to write an unsentimental cancer novel that offered some basis for hope.
60
63
65
really huge personalities who was always talking, but also as the person she
could count on to go to church with me
and discuss the sermon. She added, We
were both into this whole layer of Christian thinkers who were very openminded, scholarly types.
Green continued to pursue writing,
particularly in an evening seminar that
he took with the novelist P. F. Kluge,
who was, Green recalled, encouraging
of my work but also very, very critical of
itI once titled a story Things Remembered, Things Forgotten, and he
said, Green, you dont get to title your
stories anymore. When Green was not
accepted into the advanced creativewriting course at Kenyon, it was crushing, he recalled. Kluge took me to his
house and poured me a drink and said,
I think you should have gotten into the
class. But your writing isnt that great. I
think he called it a solid B-plus. But, he
said, the stories that you tell during the
smoke breakif you could write the
way you told those stories, then you
would write well.
Kluge told me that what he remembered most about Green was not his
writing but his spoken energy. He was
so rapid-fire, he said. Also decent, selfdeprecating, and funny.
In class one evening, Green read
aloud a story with a sex scene in it. When
he was done, the other students offered
polite critiques. Kluge then said, Green,
youve never had sex before, have you?
Green said no. In subsequent classes, he
provided updates on the status of his virginity, which for a long time was nothing new to report.
Upon graduating, he moved to Chicago, where he eventually ended up at
Booklist. He was hired to do data entry,
but he found mentors in the editor-inchief, Bill Ott, and Ilene Cooper, a staff
editor who also wrote childrens and
young-adult books. Cooper said of
Green, He was a horrible slob, and he
didnt do his job all that well, recalling
that he failed to send out checks to freelancers. He was smoking but trying to
quit, so he was chewing tobacco, which
was kind of gross. But he was so engaging, and he would want to talk about
things like our place in the universe.
Greens older colleagues chided him for
what Ott called some of his outrageous
young-person pronouncements, such as
67
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
FICTION
ing suggestive Popsicles, their fists covered in red melt. Girls in wheelchairs, girls
who work professionally at the Renaissance Faire.
You could choose other men: men
who like to think about feet, men who
have thick back hair, men whose greatest pride is the time they flew to a nearby
nation and tried to deplete its stores of
alcohol and slept on the beach one
nightwasnt that so fun?and when
they woke up everything had been stolen
or lost and they had to walk back to the
pastel-yellow hotel naked in the early
heat of another day in paradise. Everyone has had good times. Everyone has a
picture of himself in front of a pinkening
sunset with a glass of white wine. Choose
them, if you want to. Choose me if you
want someone to hold you above his
head in the moonlight, bite your wrist
until the first rust comes out.
Tell the ladies a little more about yourself !
Whats your own unique story?
working. Every day and every night somewhere in one of the worlds oceans my father is striking the surface of the abyss
with swords of fire.
Do you smoke? Do you drink? How
often do you exercise? Do you support charities that help animals? With an unexpected
bonus would you (a) donate to a cause you
really believe in? (b) save half and spend the
rest? (c) celebrate with your friends and
margaritas?
If you want me to set a trap, Ill set a
trap. A first date picking blueberries in
the whitest, cleanest sunlight, tin pails.
Ill bring sandwiches and chilled Chardonnay and tell you that we are already
the good people we wanted to become.
Maybe youll be generous and keep up
the conversation all afternoon. Prettykaren98 was generous. Prettykaren98
looked into my eye when we chatted online and laughed at my jokes. But she
never answered my messages after our
date even though her status was still
marked Single.
Dont mention your previous relationship history! Leave your emotional baggage
packed and in the closet. You are on the
market because you are awesome!
Sorry. Lets try that again. My actual
perfect day? Descending belowground
early, full of milk and blood and meat, to
forge iron. There is no such thing as day
or night in the volcano, and any sense of
time comes from watching the metal
change shape. From ore to spear. From
ore to trident. From ore to thunderbolt. If
I am strong that day, the mountains will
shake with the strike of my hammer, the
heat of my flame.
I cant ski. I should be better at basketball than I am. I dont eat vegetables.
But my eye is blue, and its pale and its
beautiful.
My vision is good, though not great,
but understand this: I will never again visit
an ophthalmologist or an optometrist or
anyone else who claims to be an expert of
my organ. I do not fit in the chair, and I
wish I could forget lying on my back on
the floor of that darkened room while a
small man climbed onto my chest with
that sharp point of light. Im not sorry for
what I did to him. Now he can see for
himself what its like to have one eye.
You have almost finished creating a magnetic online-dating profile that will attract
more women than you ever thought possible!
What else do you want the ladies to know?
Remember: be yourself !
I do remember the old feeling sometimes. A maiden washes up on my island,
tailed or otherwise. The cave is sweating
and there are mineral stalks growing from
the ceiling. I have no idea what time it is,
ever. All my wrist and ankle shackles are
homemade, struck from iron I myself dug
from the earth. The maidens were not as
beautiful as the stories tell youtheir hair
was salt-stringy and their faces were
pruned. Too long in seawater can unmake
any loveliness. Yet I meant to love them.
I meant to tend to their wounds. When I
pounded the shackles with my hammer,
the person I imagined chaining was my
father. I imagined slipping the disks
around his watery arms. Not to hurt him,
but to keep him. But my father never
offered himself up on my rocky beach. Id
see his big hand out there sometimes,
swilling the surface of the sea, but he
never came close. Maybe he was the one
who threw the maidens to me, his dear
son, his wifeless boy, wanting an heir.
I will not shackle your slender wrists to
the cold walls or gnaw your nails down to
the quick with my remaining teeth. I will
not leave you hungry while I eat a roast
goat at your feet. Ive dealt with those issues. Imagine the inverse: I have the softest mattress in the world, made of the
combed fur of fawns; choose me and youll
be choosing warm oil on your hands and
cold water in your glass, meat on your
plate from a lamb that suckled on my pinkie when it was first born.
If I came to your house tonight, where
would I find you? The living room? The
kitchen? Waiting at the door? Ill call you
Aphrodite and smell the sea in your hair
and shuck oysters for you from the depths.
Ill tell you that Ive never seen a real goddess until now. Come with me and be
adored, deep below the earth. While you
sleep, I will strike a huge sheet of metal
until the shape of your body comes into
relief. You never have to take me to meet
your friends; you never have to take me
anywhere. You never even have to see me
in the light.
Your grandmother will tell you that all
the good men are gone, but then here I
am, and Im ready for you.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
71
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
FICTION
74
75
Theres a life lesson here, kid. Not all bad guys look like
bad guys, and not all good guys look like good guys.
t
smoke (though what kind of smoke it
would emit I had no idea). Anyway, I
wanted to get rid of it all and start a
new life in Tokyo as a brand-new person. Jettisoning Kansai dialect was a
practical (as well as symbolic) method
of accomplishing this. Because, in the
final analysis, the language we speak
constitutes who we are as people. At
least thats the way it seemed to me at
eighteen.
Embarrassing? What was so embarrassing? Kitaru asked me.
You name it.
Didnt get along with your folks?
We get along O.K., I said. But it
was still embarrassing. Just being with
them made me feel embarrassed.
Youre weird, yknow that? Kitaru
said. Whats so embarrassing about
being with your folks? I have a good
time with mine.
I couldnt really explain it. Whats so
bad about having a cream-colored Corolla? I couldnt say. My parents werent
interested in spending money for the
sake of appearances, thats all.
My parents are on my case all the
time cause I dont study enough. I hate
it, but whaddaya gonna do? Thats their
job. You gotta look past that, yknow?
Youre pretty easygoing, arent
you? I said.
You got a girl? Kitaru asked.
Not right now.
But you had one before?
Until a little while ago.
76
t
You guys broke up?
Thats right, I said.
Whyd you break up?
Its a long story. I dont want to get
into it.
She let you go all the way?
I shook my head. No, not all the
way.
Thats why you broke up?
I thought about it. Thats part of it.
But she let you get to third base?
Rounding third base.
How fard you go, exactly?
I dont want to talk about it, I said.
Is that one of those embarrassing
things you mentioned?
Yeah, I said.
Man, complicated life you got there,
Kitaru said.
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
and now she was abandoning me, before I even knew how to walk or care
for myself.
Meanwhile, Carla and I were having trouble paying our rent. As far as
we could see, the only solution was
for one of us to go downtown immediately, strip, and come back with
some cash.
It cant be me, because I wear
glasses, Carla said, pointing to her
face. It was true, I had never seen a
stripper with glasses. Or a stripper,
for that matter. Taking my clothes off
for money didnt really solve anything, but it gave me some external
obstacles that passed the time. I
moved into a tiny studio and Carla
moved next door, into a much bigger
and more wonderful corner apartment. I was jealous of my friend, but
the worst was yet to come.
I want to fuck Heather was how
she put it. Not TV, but my true loves
real name. (Ive changed the names
here.)
Do you love her? I asked, trembling.
Not yet.
But love was coming. Before long,
TV moved in with Carla, and we
shared a wall. My eye condition had
worsened; I couldnt go outside in daylight now. So I lay in bed, high on stolen Vicodin, Portishead throbbing in
my Walkman. It was never loud
enough to block out their inconceivably
loud sex. It sounded as though they
were hitting each other with a stick.
And in fact, when they finally moved
out and I stumbled into the beautiful,
vacant corner apartment, there were
just three objects left behind: two wineglasses and a bamboo cane. I threw
them in a dumpster. It was my apartment now. I traced the entire perimeter of my new home with one finger
while chanting the lyrics to what would
become my first album. It was a spell of
self-protection; this space was just for
me and the furious, jaw-dropping,
vengeful art I planned to make in it.
Now I was ready to begin.
79
POSTSCRIPT
memoirist, calypso singer, actress, civil-rights activist, and teacher, photographed at the Algonquin Hotel, in 1987.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIGITTE LACOMBE
82
problem I often had to deal with: people Id just met wanting my advice
about something important. And I was
pretty sure that what Erika wanted my
advice about wasnt very pleasant.
Im confused, she began.
Her eyes shifted back and forth, like
those of a cat in search of something.
Im sure you know this already, but
though Aki-kuns in his second year of
cramming for the entrance exams, he
barely studies. He skips exam-prep
school a lot, too. So Im sure hell fail
again next year. If he aimed for a
lower-tier school, he could get in somewhere, but he has his heart set on
Waseda. He doesnt listen to me, or to
his parents. Its become like an obsession for him. . . . But if he really feels that
way he should study hard so that he can
pass the Waseda exam, and he doesnt.
Why doesnt he study more?
He truly believes that hell pass the
entrance exam if luck is on his side,
Erika said. That studying is a waste of
time. She sighed and went on, In elementary school he was always at the top
of his class academically. But once he
got to junior high his grades started to
slide. He was a bit of a child prodigy
his personality just isnt suited to the
daily grind of studying. Hed rather go
off and do crazy things on his own. Im
the exact opposite. Im not all that
bright, but I always buckle down and
get the job done.
I hadnt studied very hard myself and
had got into college on the first try.
Maybe luck had been on my side.
Im very fond of Aki-kun, she continued. Hes got a lot of wonderful
qualities. But sometimes its hard for
me to go along with his extreme way of
thinking. Take this thing with Kansai
dialect. Why does somebody who was
born and raised in Tokyo go to the
trouble of learning Kansai dialect and
speak it all the time? I dont get it, I really dont. At first I thought it was a
joke, but it isnt. Hes dead serious.
I think he wants to have a different
personality, to be somebody different
from who hes been up till now, I said.
Thats why he only speaks Kansai
dialect?
I agree with you that its a radical
way of dealing with it.
Erika picked up a slice of pizza and
bit off a piece the size of a large postage
t
sides Aki-kun, she said. A boy in my
tennis club whos a year ahead of me.
It was my turn to remain silent.
I truly love Aki-kun, and I dont
think I could ever feel the same way
about anybody else. Whenever Im
away from him I get this terrible ache in
my chest, always in the same spot. Its
true. Theres a place in my heart reserved just for him. But at the same
time I have this strong urge inside me to
try something else, to come into contact
with all kinds of people. Call it curiosity, a thirst to know more. Its a natural
emotion and I cant suppress it, no
matter how much I try.
I pictured a healthy plant outgrowing the pot it had been planted in.
When I say Im confused, thats
what I mean, Erika said.
Then you should tell Kitaru exactly
how you feel, I said. If you hide it from
him that youre seeing someone else,
and he happens to find out anyway, itll
hurt him. You dont want that.
But can he accept that? The fact
t
that Im going out with someone else?
I imagine hell understand how you
feel, I said.
You think so?
I do, I said.
I figured that Kitaru would understand her confusion, because he was
feeling the same thing. In that sense,
they really were on the same wavelength. Still, I wasnt entirely confident
that he would calmly accept what she
was actually doing (or might be doing).
He didnt seem that strong a person to
me. But it would be even harder for him
if she kept a secret from him or lied to
him.
Erika stared at the candle flame flickering in the breeze from the A.C. I often
have the same dream, she said. Aki-kun
and I are on a ship. A long journey on a
large ship. Were together in a small
cabin, its late at night, and through the
porthole we can see the full moon. But
that moon is made of pure, transparent
ice. And the bottom half of it is sunk
in the sea. That looks like the moon,
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
83
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
85
He looks so natural.
87
88
89
90
91
FICTION
92
I. GERMINATION
about the couple who had died of dehydration six miles from where they were
standing. They congratulated themselves on being unusually responsible
and believed themselves to be at the
start of a long journey, weightless spores
blowing west.
The trip was a kind of honeymoon.
The boy and girl were eloping. They
werent married, however, and had already agreed that they never would be
they werent that kind of couple. The
boy, Andy, was a reader; he said that
they were seafarers, wanderers. Ever
unfixed, a line from Melville, was
scraped in red ink across the veins of his
arm. The girl, Angie, was three years
sober and still struggling to find her
mooring on dry land. On their first date
they had decided to run away together.
Andy bought a stupidly huge knife;
Angie had a tiny magenta flashlight suspended on a gold chain, which she wore
around her throat. He was twenty-two,
she had just turned twenty-six. Kids
were for later, maybe. They could still
see the children they had been: their
own Popsicle-red smiles haunting them.
Still, theyd wanted to celebrate a beginning. And the Mojave was a good place
to launch into exile together; already
they felt their past lives in Pennsylvania
dissolving into rumor, sucked up by the
hot sun of California and the perfectly
blue solvent of the sky.
Theyd been driving for three days;
almost nobody knew yet that they were
gone. Theyd cashed old checks. Theyd
quit their jobs. Nothing was planned.
The rental Dodge Charger had been
a real steal, because the boys cousin
Sewell was a manager at the Zero to
Sixty franchise, and because it smelled
like decades of cigarettes. Between them
they had nine hundred and fifty dollars
left now. Less, less, less. At each rest
stop, Angie uncapped the ballpoint, did
some nauseating accounting. Everything was going pretty fast. By the time
they reached Nevada, they had spent
more than eight hundred dollars on
gasoline.
side a cloud of meat smells. The experience still has the sizzle of a recent hell in
Angies memory. Will they do this every
night? She wants to believe her boyfriend when he tells her they are gypsies,
two moths drunk on light, darting from
the flower of one red sunset to the next;
but several times shes dozed off in the
passenger seat and awakened from traitorous dreams of her old bedroom, soft
pillows.
After dinner, Andy drives drowsily,
weaving slightly. Sand, sand, sandall
that pulverized time. Aeons ago, the
worlds burst hourglass spilled its contents here; now the years pile and spin,
waiting with inhuman patience to be
swept into some future ocean. Sand
washes right up to the paved road,
washes over to the other side in a solid
orange current, illuminated by their
headlights.
Who lives way out like that? Angie
says, pointing through the window at
a line of trailer homes. Why is the implied question. Thirteen-foot saguaro
cacti look like enormous roadside hitchhikers, comical and menacing. Andy is
drifting off, his hand on Angies bare
thigh, when a streak of color crosses
the road.
Jesus! What was that?
A parade of horned beasts. Just
sheep, Angie notes with relief.
Andy watches each animal go from
sheep to cloud in the side mirror, reduced immediately into memory. The
radio blares songs about other humans
doomed or lost loves, or their bombastic lusts in progress. Andy watches his
girlfriends red lips move, mouthing the
lyrics to a song Andy didnt realize he
knew. My wifes lips, he thinks, and feels
frightened by the onslaught of an unexpected happiness. Were they serious,
coming out here? Were they kidding
around? Are they getting more serious?
Less? Perhaps theyll sort it all out at the
next rest stop.
That night, they stay in a fifty-dollar
motel. By dawn, they are back on the
highway. They dont try to account for
their urgency to be gone. Both feel it;
neither can resist it.
At 10 A.M., Angie lifts her arm to
point at the western sky. There is a pale
rainbow arcing over the desert. It looks
as if God had made a bad laundry error,
mixed his colors with his whites. How
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
93
gies mind. Programmed with the urgent need to plug itself into some earth,
the plants spirit goes searching for terra
firma.
Andy unzips his backpack, produces
Fiji water and a Snoopy Band-Aid.
Your nose got burned, he says, and
smiles at her.
And, at this juncture, she can smile
back.
He kisses the nose.
Cmon, lets get out of here.
Then something explodes behind
her eyelids into a radial green fan, dazzling her with pain. Her neck aches, her
abdomen. The pain moves lower. It
feels as if an umbrella were opening
below her navel. Menstrual cramps, she
thinks. Seconds later, as with a soldering iron, an acute and narrowly focussed
heat climbs her spine.
At first, the Joshua tree is elated
to discover that its alive: I survived
my Leap. I was not annihilated. Whatever
I was.
Grafted to the girls consciousness,
95
t
times she feels a lump in her throat that
she cant swallow, and its easy to pretend that this is a vestige of who she
used to be, her Pennsylvania history,
now compacted into a hard ball she cannot access or dissolve; for Andys sake,
she wishes she could be that girl again.
Dimly she is aware that she used to
crave travel, adventure. She can remember the pressure of Andys legs tangled
around her, but not what she held in her
mind. The world has grown unwieldy,
and there are days now when the only
thing that appeals to her is pulling up
her T-shirt and going belly flat on the
burning pink sand beyond the motel
walkway.
One night, Angie turns to face the
wall. Golf-ball-size orange-and-yellow
flowers pattern their wallpaper. Plus
water stains from ancient leaks. She has
never noticed this before. Under the
influence of the Joshua, she sees these
water stains as beautiful. That Rorschach is more interesting than TV.
What do you see? she asks the boy.
Im not in the mood, he says, having at last been granted the opportunity
to have a mood, after days and hours
spent trying to rekindle her appetite for
pleasure, for danger. He realizes that he
has cut all ties for her, that he has nothing he wants to return to in Pennsylva-
t
nia. Its a liberating, terrifying feeling.
If she leaves himif he leaves her
what then?
97
her up. He refused to go with her. Sundays are his day off. Delicious Godbread? Lots of songs?
It was nice. What are you so jealous
about?
Angie, you never said.
Mmm?
I didnt know you were religious.
Her head bobs on the long stem of
her neck, as if they were agreeing on a
fascinating point.
Yes. Theres plenty we dont know
about each other.
I can still get out of this, he thinks.
Without understanding exactly how
the trap got sprung, he can feel its teeth
in him.
You should come in next time, she
offers. Youd like the windows.
I can see the windows right now.
Youd like being on our side of
them.
Seed hull, the girl thinks, for no
reason.
ow old such stories must be, legends of the bad romance between
wandering humans and plants! How
often these bad grafts must occur, and
few people ever the wiser!
In 1852, the Mormon settlers who
gave the Joshua tree its name reported
every variety of disturbance among their
party after hikes through the sparse and
fragrant forests of Death Valley. One
elder sat on a rock at the forests edge
and refused to move.
1873, in the lawless town of Panamint City. Darwin in 1874; Modoc in
1875. During the silver boom dozens of
miners went missing. Many leapt to
their deaths down the shafts. The silver
rush coincided with a pulse event: the
trees blossomed unstoppably, wept pollen, and Leapt, eclipsing the minds of
these poor humans, who stood no
chance against the vegetables ancient
spirit. Dying is one symptom of a bad
graft. The invasive species coiled green
around the silver miners brains.
1879: All towns abandoned. Sorted
ore sat in wheelbarrows aboveground,
winking emptily at the nearby Joshuas.
99
ing plant, which seeks only to anchor itself in the past. Why move forward?
Why move at all?
nyr.kr/thisweekinfiction
Karen Russell on The Bad Graft.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
101
BOOKS
THE CRITICS
In a climate of embattled bibliophilia, authors have been undertaking reading stunts to prove that readinganythingmatters.
CONSTRUCTION BY STEPHEN DOYLE
103
t
Upper East Side. Founded in 1754, it
is the oldest library in the city, a place
where a grandfather clock keeps time
and the dcor runs to marble, murals,
and mahogany. (Its patrons have included George Washington, Herman
Melville, and Willa Cather, and though
the reference room is open to the public, to borrow books you must pay a
yearly membership fee of two hundred
and twenty-five dollars.) Rose has gone
to the library to get the book Hurricane, by Charles Nordhoff and James
Norman Hall (of Mutiny on the
Bounty fame), recommended by friends
who were on their own mission to become Nordhoff and Hall completists.
But when she finds the book she realizes
that she does not want to read it after all.
Looking around idly, she sees dozens of
Nordhoff and Hall titles, and she has
never heard of any of them. What were
the other books like? she wonders.
Who were all these scribblers whose
work filled the shelves? Did they find
their lives as writers rewarding? Who
reads their work now? Are we missing
out? It is a decidedly contemporary
feeling, this FOMO, this fear of missing
out. She will conquer it.
Her shelf, she decides, must have a
combination of new and older works by
several authors, both men and women,
and one book has to be a classic that she
has always wanted to read. The shelf cannot contain any work by a person she
knows. She surveys some two hundred
shelves, and eventually settles on LEQLES. It holds twenty-three books by
eleven authors, including A Hero of Our
104
t
Time, by Mikhail Lermontov; Gaston
Lerouxs The Phantom of the Opera;
novels by Rhoda Lerman, Margaret
Leroy, and Lisa Lerner; and Alain-Ren
Lesages Gil Blas. (There are only three
female authors in her sample, a fact that
she analyzes at length, though she does
not comment on its racial monotony.)
She has never before read any of these titles, and she will read them in whatever
order fancy suggests. The Shelf reviews
facts about each authors life and summarizes the plots of the novels, but, always,
the real focus is on Rose herself: what she
likes and dislikes, how she feels while
reading, whether it is easy or difficult to
escape into the story. Shes on the lookout for spontaneity, inclusiveness, and
uniquenessthree things that she prizes
in fiction, and three of the elements driving her project, too.
105
Great Expectations.) Sometimes surface readers dont read at all; they might
study how books were recycled for
paper, or examine them for food stains,
or sniff the pages for signs of certain
chemicals. (The book historian Leah
Price calls this forensic reading.) Rose
herself glides along the surfacemuch
of her analysis is plot summarythough
that may be because shes keeping an eye
on the clock. I hope I can inspire someone to explore these standardshow do
we make aesthetic judgments?but I
have to move along with the reading
of my shelf, she writes. Roses style of
reading, however, is neither close nor
distant nor on the surface. It turns out
that she has her own school.
she can find, a used Modern Library paperback. Its cover designa stock image
of a young man in sunglassesproves
more arresting than the text, perhaps because the daft notes left behind by the
previous reader become as distracting as
Nabokovs footnotes. Back to the e-version she goes. Thats when her son, his
wife, and their new baby come to visit.
Something clicks. Suddenly I understood Pechorin as an embodiment of
masculine ego at a certain stage of life,
she writes. This Pechorin is a young
man ready to be a father.
Roses fear of missing out functions
like a sixth sense. She knows that there is
something in A Hero of Our Time, and
she keeps reading it until she finds it. Like
dredging up the unread, rereading is a
way of recovering what is lost, and of
making what is hidden come to light.
FOMO has special urgency in a digital age
ruled by anxiety that something, anything, will disappear. We now have the
tools to archive every photograph, document every event, and record every chat.
There is a brisk trade in artifacts of
all kindslost singer-songwriters and
B-sides, cult films, paperback reissues
from small presses, even Web sites that
collect old Web sites. Rose, at least, is
aware that the project to recover everything is always doomed to fail:We like to
think that merit is eventually recognized,
that a great book will make its way, but
we know only the success stories. . . .
How many works from past centuries
never got published or, published, were
never read? If you take that seriously, you
must conclude that Roses stunt is uselessand wonderfully so. There is something freeing in that uselessness, particularly at this moment, when so many act as
though reading were a civic duty, good
only for its power to teach empathy or
improve job performance.
And what about the books right in
front of you that were published, even
purchased, but, for all you know, might
as well never have existed? My own
bookshelves are filled with books I
havent read, and books I read so long ago
that they look at me like strangers. Can
you have FOMO about your own life?
Palace Walk, Love in a Fallen City,
The Idiot, The Waves. The alphabet
is great, but there is nothing quite as arbitrary as ones own past choices. Reading more books begins at home.
BRIEFLY NOTED
ALL THE BIRDS, SINGING, by Evie Wyld (Pantheon). Violence
takes many forms in this suspenseful and melancholy novel.
Sheep die mysteriously on a farm on a lonely British island; in
Australia, a school bullys nails leave scars. The protagonist,
Jake Whyte, lives alone, tending to the animals on her farm
and spurning all human companionship. A stranger arrives at
her door, and the mystery of his appearance leads Jake to examine a traumatic past and to confront whoever or whatever
is attacking her sheep. In alternating chapters, the story moves
forward and backward in timea narrative architecture that
might seem gimmicky were it not for Wylds masterful control. There are also surprising moments of lightnessthe protagonists dark humor, the authors unsentimental reverence
for the natural world.
THE ANATOMY LESSON, by Nina Siegal (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). Painted in 1632, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes
Tulp was Rembrandts first masterpiece. This novel in turn
anatomizes the paintings creation. Characters include Aris the
Kid, an executed thief whose body is sold to science; Tulp, who
performs the dissection; Ren Descartes, who is skeptical of
Tulps work; Flora, a heartbroken woman pregnant with Ariss
baby; Rembrandt himself, who turns it all into art; and a modern conservator whose examination of the canvas provides the
hard facts on which the novel is based. Although the writing
can seem heavy-handed at times, Siegal succeeds in the task she
has set herselfto transmute her material into a work of art.
In this
grimly funny account of playing in the World Series of Poker,
Whitehead writes, I have a good poker face because I am
half dead inside. Preparing for the tournament, he finds a
coach, works on his sitting muscles with a personal trainer,
and makes midweek bus pilgrimages to Atlantic City, looking for games. Whitehead is modest about his poker ambitions but not about his unhappiness: The part of the brain
these guys used for cards, I used to keep meticulous account
of my regrets. Yet gambling and despair make for a surprisingly buoyant narrative, and Whitehead is a companionable
if misanthropic guide to the Vegas strip, where there are so
many more disappointments to savor before dawn.
THE NOBLE HUSTLE, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday).
107
ON TELEVISION
TASTERS CHOICE
High Maintenance and My Mad Fat Diary.
BY EMILY NUSSBAUM
were mostly funded by the shows creators, the actor Ben Sinclair and his
wife, the casting director Katja Blichfeld, Vimeo has just announced that
the Web site will provide financial
backing for upcoming ones, as part of a
move into a Netflix-style production
model. Yet despite its D.I.Y. origins
High Maintenance doesnt feel like
a self-indulgent pet projectinstead,
its more like a shoebox that opens
into Narnia. Freed of the constraints of
thirty-minute or one-hour formulas,
the episodes are luxurious and twisty
and humane, radiating new ideas about
storytelling.
In each episode, Sinclair, a shaggy
guy who tends to get cast in crazy homeless-dude roles on Law & Order, plays
The online series High Maintenance features Ben Sinclair as a shaggy pot dealer.
108
the nameless dealer. (Most of his customers call him the guy, as in Should
I call the guy?) Sometimes he smokes
with the customers; other times, he
makes a brief drop-off, then leaves.
Thats it, as far as a formula goes. A few
episodes are coarsely funnysuch as
one dirty farce involving a Passover
Seder and a double hand jobbut most
are meditative, dreamy invasions into
the lives of creative-class New Yorkers,
with smart dialogue, seams of compassion, and an O. Henry air of surprise.
In Jonathan, Hannibal Buress
plays a touring comedian negotiating
an on-and-off relationship with his
chucklefucker girlfriend. At first, it
seems like a character portrait of a guy
on the road, but then suddenly theres
an act of violenceand the episode
turns into something else, about the
difficulty of recovering from trauma. In
Rachel, Dan Stevens is a procrastinating screenwriter and a stay-at-home
dad. He wanders around his fancy
apartmenttheres an Emmy, a set of
mallard-head bookends, a huge portrait
of Queen Elizabethin a writersblock funk. Gradually, we realize hes
putting on womens clothing and exploring cross-dressing sites online. In
the eerie, propulsive Qasim, an isolated life hacker performs a set of rituals that only slowly develop a pattern. In
Trixie, two Airbnb hosts smoke up to
relieve the stress of their awful Eurotrash guests. These stories have a peephole intensity, a willingness to take
detours and then stay still when the
moment counts, using economically
edited montages to build characters in
a flash. Theres a patient respect for ordinary behavior that suggests Frances
Ha or movies by the Duplass brothersand call me Netflix, but, if you like
those, youll like these.
My favorite installment, Brad Pitts,
starts out as a sedate character portrait
of a bird-watcher in her forties, played
by Birgit Huppuch. Pretty but worn
down, she has something on her mind,
but its not clear what it is. She picks up
a dowdy flowered bag and joins fellow
bird-watchers in Central Park, a crowd
that includes an older man smoking a
joint. (Theres no fuzz out this early,
he says, when someone complains.) At
her office, she handles administrative
tasks, waters plants, then spoons her
ILLUSTRATION BY MR. BINGO
109
TALES RETOLD
Maleficent and A Million Ways to Die in the West.
BY ANTHONY LANE
Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning in the latest version of the Sleeping Beauty story.
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ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. THOSE
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Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three finalists,
and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this weeks cartoon, by P. C. Vey, must be received by Sunday,
June 15th. The finalists in the May 26th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this weeks
contest, in the June 30th 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 newyorker.com/captioncontest.
THE WINNING CAPTION
THE FINALISTS