The New Yorker 10-17 July 2017 PDF

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99 JULY 10 & 17, 2017

JULY 10 & 17, 2017
5 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
23 THE TALK OF THE TOWN

David Remnick on Donald Trumps debasements;
a law against dance; Holly Hunter; a chorus of oms;
Sheelah Kolhatkar on the crisis at Uber.
THE SPORTING SCENE
Louisa Thomas 28 The Kyrgios Enigma
A reluctant tennis stars frustrations.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Yoni Brenner 33 Surprise Outcomes to the Mueller Probe
ANNALS OF CULTURE
Stephen Greenblatt 34 If You Prick Us
Life lessons from Shylock.
A REPORTER AT LARGE
Lawrence Wright 40 The Future Is Texas
The states politics is just like the countrys, only more so.
COMIC STRIP
Emily Flake 54 Things Im Afraid My Daughter Will Be Doing in 2026
FICTION
Hye-young Pyun 64 Caring for Plants
THE CRITICS
BOOKS
David Denby 72 Arturo Toscaninis legacy.
Jane Kramer 78 Philip Kerrs Third Reich noir.
James Wood 82 Emmanuel Carrre reimagines early Christianity.
84 Briey Noted
POP MUSIC
Amanda Petrusich 88 John Morelands Big Bad Luv.
THE THEATRE
Hilton Als 90 Marvins Room, 1984, Seeing You.
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Anthony Lane 92 A Ghost Story, Okja.
POEMS
Clive James 45 A Heritage of Trumpets
Andrea Cohen 69 Wrecking Ball
COVER
Mark Ulriksen O the Leash
DRAWINGS Maggie Larson, Tom Chitty, Sharon Levy, Eric Lewis, Alice Cheng, Liana Finck,
Michael Maslin, Will McPhail, Roz Chast, Harry Bliss, Edward Steed, William Haefeli, Amy Hwang, Jason Chateld,
Bruce Eric Kaplan, Sara Lautman SPOTS Philippe Petit-Roulet
CONTRIBUTORS
Lawrence Wright (The Future Is Texas, Louisa Thomas (The Kyrgios Enigma,
p. 40), a sta writer since 1992, is also a p. 28), a contributing writer for new-
screenwriter and playwright. His latest yorker.com, is the author of the biog-
book is The Terror Years: From Al- raphy Louisa: The Extraordinary Life
Qaeda to the Islamic State. of Mrs. Adams, about the wife of John
Quincy Adams.
Hye-young Pyun (Fiction, p. 64), a South
Korean novelist, is the author of Ashes Stephen Greenblatt (If You Prick Us,
and Red and The Hole, which will p. 34) is the John Cogan University Pro-
be published in English in August. fessor of the Humanities at Harvard.
David Denby (Books, p. 72) is a sta Emily Flake (Comic Strip, p. 54) has had
writer and a former lm critic for more than two hundred cartoons pub-
the magazine. His most recent book lished in the magazine. She is the au-
is Lit Up. thor of, most recently, Mama Tried:
Dispatches from the Seamy Underbelly
Emily Witt (The Talk of the Town, p. 24) of Modern Parenting.
is the author of Future Sex, which
came out last year. Clive James (Poem, p. 45) lives in Cam-
bridge, England. His latest poetry col-
Yoni Brenner (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 33) lection, Injury Time, was published
writes for lm and television, and has in May.
contributed humor pieces to the mag-
azine since 2007. He is currently devel- Jane Kramer (Books, p. 78) has been a
oping a TV series for HBO. sta writer since 1964.
James Wood (Books, p. 82) teaches at Mark Ulriksen (Cover), an artist and il-
Harvard. The Nearest Thing to Life lustrator, has contributed more than fty-
is his latest book. six covers to the magazine since 1994.
NEWYORKER.COM
Everything in the magazine, and more.
RIGHT: CAROLYN DRAKE/MAGNUM
PODCAST PHOTO BOOTH

Ryan Lizza and Dorothy Wickenden Jonathan Blitzer writes about Carolyn
discuss the Republicans latest Drakes haunted photographs
health-care bill. of Americas borderlands.
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2 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017
THE MAIL
AGE OF EMPIRES Japanese to play their part. Buck was
astonished. From 1910 to 1945, Japan
Ian Buruma, in his review of recent had imposed a brutal occupation of
books on China, considers the coun- the Korean Peninsula, and relations
trys military might but neglects its between the countries remained bit-
most daunting challenge to American ter. In two sentences, the President
global dominance: its growing eco- had revealed that he was making sen-
nomic inuence (Books, June 19th). sitive foreign-policy decisions about
In 2013, President Xi Jinping unveiled nations of which he knew little.
an initiative to build a vast trade net- Peter Conn
work of road, rail, and sea routes that Vartan Gregorian Professor of English
will span four continents. The follow- (Emeritus), University of Pennsylvania
ing year, he launched the Asian Infra- Philadelphia, Pa.
structure Investments Bank to chal- 1
lenge the power of the World Bank WATCHING THE WATCHMEN
and the I.M.F.; the A.I.I.B. is now
backed by more than fty sharehold- Jennifer Gonnermans piece about
ing members, including Germany, Brooklyns Little Pakistan explains that
France, the U.K., and Israel. The dol- in the year after 9/11, federal agencies
lar remains the worlds leading reserve arrested more than two hundred Paki-
currency, partially because oil and other stani immigrants living in New York
major commodities are still traded in City (Neighborhood Watched, June
dollars. But last year, the I.M.F. made 26th). The Justice Departments Oce
the Chinese yuan one of its ve o- of the Inspector General later released
cial currencies, and Iran and Russia a report on the so-called September 11
now conduct some oil exchanges in Detainees, showing that agents had
yuan. If more countries follow suit, it failed to distinguish between suspected
could spell the end of Americas eco- terrorists and people who had only over-
nomic preminence. Buruma is wise stayed their visas. This failure to distin-
to recommend a balance of conces- guish was no accident. In 2003, an F.B.I.
sions and cordination in order to special agent named Coleen Rowley
avoid war. wrote a letter to the director of the Bu-
Renate Bridenthal reau, Robert Mueller, pointing out that
Professor of History (Emerita) after 9/11, Headquarters encouraged
Brooklyn College more and more detentions for what
New York City seem to be essentially P.R. purposes.
Field oces were required to report
Buruma rightly assails Donald Trumps daily the number of detentions in order
ignorance of Asian history, but it is to supply grist for statements on our
not unprecedented. In April, 1962, progress in ghting terrorism. The abuse
Pearl S. Buck, a writer and East Asia of immigration law enforcement has
specialist, attended a dinner for Amer- obvious relevance today, as the Trump
ican Nobel laureates hosted by Pres- Administration attempts to ban Mus-
ident John F. Kennedy. The Korean lim refugees and to tear communities
War had been over for a decade, but apart through deportation.
American troops remained stationed Mark Dow
in South Korea to help police its bor- Brooklyn, N.Y.
der with the North. During the din-
ner, Kennedy turned to Buck and
asked, What shall we do about Letters should be sent with the writers name,
Korea? Before she could reply, he an- address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
swered his own question: I think well [email protected]. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
have to get out of there. Its too ex- any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
pensive, and well have to involve the of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 3

JULY 5 18, 2017
GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
After twenty distinguished years, the Caramoor festivals Bel Canto at Caramoor series, conceived by the
scholar and conductor Will Crutcheld, will come to a close this summer, ending a glorious run of trills,
roulades, and high-ying coloratura reworks. The Italian bel-canto style is nothing if not star-driven,
and to wrap up his series Crutcheld has chosen one of the Mets brightest young talents, Angela Meade
(above), to take the role of Imogene in a semi-staged performance of Bellinis orid Il Pirata, on July 8.
PHOTOGRAPH BY RUVEN AFANADOR
filtrate what could be a hostile environment, they
said in a statement. (Jones Beach Theatre, 1000 Ocean
NIGHT LIFE
1
Parkway, Wantagh, N.Y. vanswarpedtour.com. July 8.)
Waxahatchee
The best albums, like all great creative output, be-
cementing the prog-rock genre. The band has since come time stamps of an artists life at a particular
ROCK AND POP struggled to escape the confining hold of cult pop- moment. Katie Crutchfield, the Philadelphia-by-
ularity, but its current live configuration indicates way-of-Alabama artist who records under the name
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead that King Crimson is still committed to experi- Waxahatchee, is a wry songwriter with D.I.Y. punk
complicated lives; its advisable to check mentation: the founding member and guitarist roots, who pours her own experiences into her songs
in advance to confirm engagements. Robert Fripp has enlisted three drummers to tour in an unsparing, riveting way; she recently admit-
with the band, and frequently has them play in en- ted that her 2015 album, Ivy Tripp, was the result
(Sandy) Alex G tirely different time signatures simultaneously. For of a lot of beating around the bush in a toxic rela-
The songwriter-guitarist Alex Giannascoli has a two nights at the Count Basie Theatre, the eight- tionship. Her new record, Out in the Storm, picks
sharp ear for concise, shy phrasing and casual ar- piece group will perform a bevy of career-span- up where Ivy Tripp left off; on the evening after
rangements that find intimacy in mornings rid- ning cuts. (99 Monmouth St., Red Bank, N.J. 732- its release, she performs selections from the album
ing shotgun or late nights lounging on a pals Per- 224-8778. July 9-10.) at a show that promises to be intimate and revela-
sian rug. Even when the Domino signee hints at tory. She describes it as a very honest record about
1
the sinister, its with old, close friends. I was wait- Sleep a time in which I was not honest with myself. (War-
ing for a baggie / a powder bunny, he whispers on Nostalgists often pine for artists early work, but saw, 261 Driggs Ave., Brooklyn. 718-387-0505. July 15.)
Memory, the scratchy opener of his self-released this California doom-metal group is best known
album, Trick. I have a buddy I grew up with / for its final album, Dopesmoker, from 2003.
He hooked it up for me. Early endorsers may It led to a very public fallout with Sleeps label, JAZZ AND STANDARDS
smirk at his inclusion on Frank Oceans latest al- after the group insisted that the record contain
bums, but Giannascoli has sought little validation just one song, more than an hour long, with no Ron Carter
from the major music establishment; his D.I.Y. sect breaks. The conflict eventually led the band to Having recently turned eighty, the master bassist
places more value in its own gatekeepers, from break up. The guitarist, Matt Pike, went on to Carter is officially a jazz patriarch, though his nim-
low-frequency alt radio stations to scrappy cam- start the venerable metal outfit High on Fire, ble fingers and agile responsiveness regularly make
pus papers. He tours his latest full-length album, while the drummer, Chris Hakius, and the bass light of the calendar. Hes joined here by another
Rocket, stopping for two nights in New York. player, Al Cisneros, began crafting the medita- revered elder figure, the saxophonist Benny Golson,
(Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 N. 6th St., Brooklyn tive drone stylings of Om. Sleep reunited in 2009, and by the fine younger trumpeter Wallace Roney.
718-486-5400. July 6. Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey and has been touring sparingly since thenits (Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St. 212-475-8592. July 11-16.)
St. 212-260-4700. July 7.) rare performance at the Pioneer Works art space
should not be slept on. (159 Pioneer St., Brooklyn. The Django Reinhardt NY Festival All Stars
Arca 718-596-3001. July 14.) This annual celebration of the music and influ-
Alejandro Ghersi spent his young adulthood trav- ence of the unparalleled Belgian Gypsy guitar-
elling between his native Venezuela and New York, Sophie ist features such acolytes as the guitarist Samson
and he mines both locations for his metallic elec- On Madonnas 2015 comeback single, Bitch, Im Schmitt. Guest soloists include the saxophonist
tronic productions as Arca. On a pair of EPs, Madonna, the contribution of Diplo, the producer, Grace Kelly and the vocalists Veronica Swift and
Stretch 1 and Stretch 2, he cannily chopped is clear: a mashing line of saxophone-like dubstep Jazzmeia Horn. (Birdland, 315 W. 44th St. 212-581-
glistening synth textures into forward-thinking bass that carries through the chorus and sounds 3080. July 4-9.)
hip-hop cadences, catching the ear of Kanye West, like countless other spastic E.D.M. climaxes. But
who enlisted Arca to help shape his 2013 opus, the staccato flow of Madonnas lyrics and the soft Heath Brothers Band
Yeezus. The dual ends of Arcas personality synth arpeggios are trademark Sophie, the London With the death of the superb bassist Percy Heath,
he is both a press-shy introvert and, in his visual producer, born Samuel Long, who co-produced the in 2005, the fate of the Heath Brothers band looked
work, a bold exhibitionistcome through in the single with Diplo and is smoothing out club mu- precarious, but the surviving siblings soldiered
breadth of his compositions, which at once rattle sics hard edge, one shiny composition at a time. on: the saxophonist and flutist Jimmy (now ninety
low ends and scrape club ceilings. He tours his lat- His bubbly, tongue-in-cheek track Lemonade was years old) and the drummer Albert (now eighty-
est self-titled album, on which he voices homey, irritating electronic purists even before it ended two) are both exemplary modern-jazz figures. With
saccharine melodies in English and Spanish, along- up in a McDonalds commercial, and his shadowy the bassist David Wong and the pianist Jeb Patton
side his longtime creative partner Jesse Kanda and work with the label PC Music is regarded as some in tow, the quartet remains one of the staunchest of
the bristling electronic d.j. Total Freedom. (Brook- of the best and most bewildering pop around, all contemporary post-bop units. (Village Vanguard, 178
lyn Steel, 319 Frost St., East Williamsburg. July 6.) baby-pitched vocals and kawaii indulgence. Jacques Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037. July 11-16.)
Greene and Smerz join him at this installment of
Downtown Boys MOMA PS1s Warm Up series. (22-25 Jackson Ave., Conrad Herwigs Latin Side Of . . .
Since firing out of basements and loft parties in Long Island City. momaps1.org. July 15.) In the view of the trombonist Herwig, applying
Providence, Rhode Island, this bilingual punk band Latin rhythms and tonal coloring to any great jazz
has thrashed through brawny no-wave shows with Vans Warped Tour composition can only add lustre. In the course of
little concern for personal safety or noise-induced More than twenty years ago, when this coast-to- a compact engagement, Herwig and company will
hearing loss. Its brash vocalist, Victoria Ruiz, is coast, corporate-sponsored festival first crept under spice up the iconic work of Joe Henderson, Miles
committed to left-wing causes: shes worked for the skin of the punk-rock lite, it seemed like the Davis, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, Wayne
the public defenders office, she sings in both En- commodification of punk music had reached its Shorter, and John Coltrane. (Jazz Standard, 116
glish and Spanish (to speak to as many people as lowest pointbut it only got worse, as the pro- E. 27th St. 212-576-2232. July 13-18.)
possible), and she titled the bands dbut album gramming slid toward mallcore and tween power
Full Communism. This week, Downtown Boys pop. This year, however, the bill includes a hand- Dick Hyman and Ken Peplowski
appear alongside Royal Headache and Sheer Mag, ful of eighties-era acts who command the respect of When it comes to extraordinarily gifted musicians
as part of an annual summer concert series hosted drinking-age listeners, including the costumed hor- like the pianist Hyman and the clarinettist and sax-
by the House of Vans. (25 Franklin St., Brooklyn. ror rockers GWAR, the seminal So Cal hardcore act ophonist Peplowskimen who can tackle any id-
houseofvans.com. July 12.) the Adolescents, and the local legends Sick of It All. iomatic jazz you might throw at themthe term
(By the bar, you might see some tattooed moms and traditionalist seems a tad limiting. Yet both of
King Crimson dads taking advantage of the festivals free parent these virtuosos exhibit a remarkable fluency with
This ragtag band from England charmed the pub- ticket program.) But, for all its dysphoric swag- early jazz and swing styles. Though Hyman is Pep-
lic with an abrasive amalgamation of jazz, psyche- ger, the tour still sports the musk of a bro-heavy lowskis elder by a few decades, these musical soul
delia, and classical music on its Mellotron-laden big-tent affair, which makes the inclusion of the mates seem to have been born to duet with each
1969 dbut, In the Court of the Crimson King. coed feminist punks War on Women so commend- other. (Jazz at Kitano, 66 Park Ave., at 38th St. 212-
It shot up to No. 28 on the Billboard album charts, able. We feel like were in a unique position to in- 885-7119. July 14-15.)

CLASSICAL MUSIC
talist Tyshawn Sorey, a Newark native,
who turns thirty-seven this month, is
among the most formidable denizens
of the in-between zone. He is currently
in residence at the Stone ( July 4-9), the
Zorn-led venue that is in the process of
moving from a cramped East Village
space to roomier digs at the New
School. In August, Sorey will release a
trio album, called Verisimilitude, on
the Pi label. And in the fall he will begin
teaching at Wesleyan, taking Braxtons
place on the faculty. In the jazz world,
he is best known for his asymmetrical,
unpredictable, timbrally explosive drum-
ming, which has given anarchic mo-
mentum to a number of Iyers ensemble
pieces. Yet in the past couple of years he
has also made his mark with imposing
compositional statements: a song cycle
paying tribute to Josephine Baker, which
had its premire at the 2016 Ojai Music
Festival (and can be seen online), and a
two-hour suite entitled The Inner
Spectrum of Variables, a recording of
which was released by Pi last year.
Inner Spectrum, a piece in six
movements for violin, viola, cello, bass,
drums, and piano, is a creation that de-
feats all preconceptions. It traverses a
confounding array of styles, from lim-
pid, neo-Baroque episodes to fogbound,
static textures reminiscent of Morton
Feldman. At times, Sorey sets up a
dance-inected pulse, suggesting not
The prodigious drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey is currently in residence at the Stone. only jazz but also various non-Western
traditions, including what Pis notes
Inner Landscape Mingus and Ornette Coleman. Since the identify as Ethiopian modal jazz. Some
nineteen-seventies, John Zorn has been sections are improvisational, with Sorey
Jazz and classical music mix freely in
crisscrossing the divide in kinetic pat- following a technique that the late
the work of Tyshawn Sorey.
terns. The striking thing about twenty- Butch Morris described as conduc-
Something vital is happening at the rst-century explorations of this terrain tion, or conducted improvisation. How
boundary between classical music and is that they no longer require a name or the composer nds cohesion in such
jazz. The border has long been an active a justication; rather, a growing com- variegated materials is mysterious, but
and porous one, going back to the days munity of creative musiciansfrom it probably has to do both with the un-
ILLUSTRATION BY GAURAB THAKALI
when Duke Ellington adopted sym- elders like Anthony Braxton and Wa- derlying force of his ideas and with the
phonic forms and Maurice Ravel assim- dada Leo Smith to younger exponents commitment he elicits from his collab-
ilated the blues. In the nineteen-fties like Vijay Iyer and Sylvie Courvoisier orators, who include the violist Kyle
and sixties, what Gunther Schuller draw on classical and jazz elements as Armbrust and the versatile new-music
dubbed the Third Stream movement the occasion requires. They seek not so pianist Cory Smythe. Here is an ex-
encompassed modernist compositions much a seamless fusion as the freedom traordinary talent who can see across
with jazz features and large-scale to move around at will. the entire musical landscape.
conceptions by the likes of Charles The composer and multi-instrumen- Alex Ross
1 CONCERTS IN TOWN
CLASSICAL MUSIC
with Howard Shore. Coleman is the subject of ton, South Carolina. Gershwin, of course, had an
Ornette: Made in America, an idiosyncratic 1985 extensive Broadway background, but the piece was
National Sawdust documentary, directed by Shirley Clarke; and a re- conceived as grand opera, and Glimmerglasss ar-
Cutting-edge chamber opera is prominent at the union of Prime Time, the avant-garde jazz-funk tistic and general director, Francesca Zambello,
stylish Williamsburg music club for the next two band that Coleman led for roughly two decades, and its conductor, John DeMain, have restored
weeks. First comes a concert screening of all twelve brings together surviving members and notewor- the works original recitatives and orchestrations.
episodes of Lisa Bielawas Vireo: The Spiritual Bi- thy guests. Ensemble Signal returns to conclude Musa Ngqungwana and Talise Trevigne take the
ography of a Witchs Accuser, a made-for-TV opera the series with a program of Colemans seldom en- title roles. July 7 and July 13 at 7:30 and July 18 at
with performances by the San Francisco Girls countered classical chamber works. July 11 at 7:30, 1:30. Rodgers and Hammersteins Oklahoma!
Chorus as well as such stars as the soprano Deb- July 12 at 6, July 14 at 8, July 16 at 2. (For tickets and offers a complex but more idyllic slice of Ameri-
orah Voigt and the Kronos Quartet. Next up is an Lincoln Center locations, see lincolncenterfestival.org.) can life. The young opera singers Jarrett Ott and
ambitious and innovative multimedia version of Vanessa Becerra star as Curly and Laurey, respec-
Handels serenata Aci, Galatea, e Polifemo, fea- Lincoln Center Festival: tively, in a staging by Molly Smith, the artistic di-
turing the impressive countertenor Anthony Roth Cloud River Mountain rector of Washington, D.C.,s Arena Stage; James
Costanzo and the eminent director Christopher Gong Linna, a protean Chinese vocalist whose Lowe conducts. July 8 at 8 and July 14 at 7:30. John
Alden. July 7 at 7; July 12-13 and July 19-20 at 8. (80 work fuses folk idioms, art-song conventions, and Holiday, an up-and-coming countertenor with an
N. 6th St., Brooklyn. nationalsawdust.org.) contemporary pop, is accompanied by the Bang appealing, soprano-like timbre, sings the title role
on a Can All-Stars in new songs inspired by the of Handels Xerxes, giving audiences the chance
Bargemusic writings of Qu Yuan, a classical Chinese poet. The to hear his rendition of one of the most exquisite
Two busy weeks at the barge begin with a per- songs, with texts in Mandarin and English, were arias the composer ever wrote, Ombra mai fu.
formance by the impeccable young pianist David composed collaboratively by Lao Luo (Gongs Nicole Paiement conducts, and Tazewell Thomp-
Kaplan, who surrounds Ligetis Musica Ricer- husband, the German composer Robert Zollitsch) son directs. July 15 at 8 and July 17 at 1:30. With its
cata (bits of which you may have heard on the and the Bang on a Can founders, Michael Gordon, muted colors and sympathetic narrative, Donizettis
soundtrack to Stanley Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut) David Lang, and Julia Wolfe. July 14-15 at 8. (Ger- The Siege of Calais dramatizes the struggle of the
1
with masterworks by Beethoven and Brahms (the ald W. Lynch Theatre, John Jay College, 524 W. 59th St. French port city, under sustained attack by Edward
Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118). July 7 at 8. (Fulton Ferry lincolncenterfestival.org.) III during the Hundred Years War. The spectre of
Landing, Brooklyn. bargemusic.org.) the so-called Calais Junglethe migrant camps
that were dismantled by the French government
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: OUT OF TOWN in 2016lingers over Zambellos production, the
Summer Evenings works American premire. Joseph Colaneri con-
The society extends its season once more, with a Tanglewood ducts a cast that includes Aleks Romano, Leah Cro-
three-concert series featuring fine veterans play- The supreme music festival of the summer is in cetto, Adrian Timpau, and Chazmen Williams-Ali.
ing side by side with formidable younger talents. full swing. Among the highlights of the next two July 16 at 1:30. (Cooperstown, N.Y. glimmerglass.org.)
The first concert features the ebullient clarinettist weeks is an appearance by Apollos Fire, the lauded
David Shifrin, in Beethovens Trio in B-Flat Major, period-performance group from Cleveland, which Caramoor
Op. 11, and Webers Quintet in B-Flat Major, brings a joyous spontaneity to its performances. The elegant Westchester festivals diverse offer-
Op. 34, and the elegant pianist Gilles Vonsattel, Its concert is all Baroque, dominated by a clutch ings in mid-July include an appearance from the
in Schumanns Piano Quintet. The Societys direc- of concertos by Vivaldi (including The Four Sea- engaging crossover singer-songwriter Gabriel Ka-
tors, David Finckel and Wu Han, welcome the vi- sons). July 5 at 8. The festivals official open- hane, who joins the ever-adventurous young com-
olinist Arnaud Sussmann for a mix of spirited and ing-night concert is helmed by the Boston Sym- bine yMusic in a world premire by Kahane and
seminal works by Brahms, Dvok, and Mendels- phony Orchestras music director, Andris Nelsons, other post-classical diversions. July 7 at 8. Many
sohn. The finale offers Beethovens String Trio in who leads the ensemble in a single, grand offer- of Caramoors more intimate concerts are held in
D Major, Op. 9, No. 2, and Dvoks String Quin- ing, Mahlers Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection). the graceful confines of the Spanish Courtyard.
tet in E-Flat Major (American), bookending a Malin Christensson and Bernarda Fink, the vocal But not Daniil Trifonovs upcoming recital, which,
sonata for violin and piano by Prokofiev. A wine soloists, share the stage with the renowned Tan- given the young Russian pianists star power, will
reception with the artists follows each event. July glewood Festival Chorus. July 7 at 8. Nelsons and be presented in the grander space of the Venetian
9 at 5, July 12 at 7:30, and July 16 at 5. (Alice Tully the B.S.O. join one of the most virtuosic and com- Theatre. Music by Schumann, Shostakovich, and
Hall. 212-875-5788.) pelling young pianists working today, Daniil Tri- Stravinsky (Three Movements from Petrushka)
fonov, in Mozarts Concerto No. 21 in C Major, the is on the program. July 9 at 4. The Orchestra of
Naumburg Orchestral Concerts climax of a program that begins with music with St. Lukes returns the following weekend, with
The long-established series, held at the scruffy- a French accent: Ravels Tombeau de Couperin, the dazzling guitarist Jason Vieaux as its guest.
elegant Naumburg Bandshell, in Central Park, is a Thomas Adss Three Studies from Couperin, and Vieaux performs music by Vivaldi and Piazzolla
cherished part of every New York summer. Two dy- one of the finest of Haydns Paris Symphonies, (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), after which the
namic groups grace the stage next. First is the win- No. 83, La Poule (The Hen). July 14 at 8. Nel- orchestras strings make Vivaldis Four Seasons
ning Brooklyn chamber orchestra the Knights, con- sons has one more big bang, in mid-July, a concert their own. July 16 at 4. (Katonah, N.Y. For tickets and
ducted by Eric Jacobsen, offering a typically eclectic version of the only Ring opera thats of a porta- full schedule, visit caramoor.org.)
menu of music by Purcell, John Adams, Judd Green- ble size: Wagners one-act Das Rheingold, with
stein (the world premire of a work for flute and a cast headed by Thomas J. Mayer (Wotan), Sarah Maverick Concerts
orchestra), and Mozart (the Symphony No. 40 Connolly (Fricka), and Jochen Schmeckenbecher A special Saturday-night event at the Mavericks
in G Minor). Then comes the splendid Orpheus (Alberich). July 15 at 8. The B.S.O.s last concert beautiful woodland hall introduces an exciting group
Chamber Orchestra, performing several of Bachs of the fortnight is one of its lawn-ready Sunday- from Chicago, the Spektral Quartet, performing
Brandenburg Concertos (Nos. 2-3 and 5-6) and a afternoon jaunts, a populist program with Nelsons works by Gerard McBurney, Augusta Read Thomas,
Brandenburg-inspired contemporary work, Chris- that includes Tchaikovskys Violin Concerto (with Philip Glass, and Ravel. The following Sunday after-
topher Theofanidiss Muse. July 11 and July 18 at Anne-Sophie Mutter), Berliozs Symphonie Fan- noons have a special focus on two composers, with
7:30. (Mid-Park, enter at 72nd St. No tickets required.) tastique, and, to open, a world premire from the their music advanced by two outstanding young
exquisitely skilled film composer John Williams: a ensembles. First comes the Chiara String Quartet,
Lincoln Center Festival: Ornette Coleman: compact violin concerto, Markings. July 16 at 2:30. which will playfrom memoryBrahmss Quar-
Tomorrow Is the Question (Lenox, Mass. For tickets and full schedule, visit bso.org.) tet No. 1 in C Minor as well as the Quartet No. 1,
Two years after his death, Colemanan iconic Musica Celestis, by Aaron Jay Kernis, a richly ex-
American composer, improviser, and bandleader Glimmerglass Festival pressive contemporary master who is one of Amer-
is the subject of a four-part focus. The first event is This year the lineup at the most prestigious summer icas finest composers in the genre; music by Brit-
the most extraordinary: accompanying a screening opera festival on the East Coast mixes classic Amer- ten opens the concert. Then its on to the Parker
of David Cronenbergs 1991 adaptation of Naked icana and stories that echo todays headlines. The Quartet, which will prelude Kerniss Pulitzer Prize-
Lunch, the nightmarish William S. Burroughs flagship work is George Gershwins beloved Porgy winning String Quartet No. 2, Musica Instrumen-
novel, the saxophonists Henry Threadgill and Ravi and Bess, a jazz-and blues-inflected piece that de- talis, and Brahmss Quartet No. 3 in B-Flat Major
Coltrane join Ensemble Signal in a live rendition picts the lives of a fictionalized African-American with Stravinskys Concertino. July 8 at 8; July 9 and
of the claustrophobic score that Coleman created enclave bedevilled by drugs and poverty, in Charles- July 16 at 4. (Woodstock, N.Y. maverickconcerts.org.)

1 OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS
THE THEATRE Hamlet

Oscar Isaac stars in Sam Golds production of the
tragedy, featuring Keegan-Michael Key as Hora-
tio. (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. In pre-
views. Opens July 13.)
A Midsummer Nights Dream

Lear deBessonet directs the Public Theatres sec-
ond Shakespeare in the Park offering of the sum-
mer, featuring Annaleigh Ashford (Helena), Danny
Burstein (Bottom), Phylicia Rashad (Titania), and
Kristine Nielsen (Puck). (Delacorte, Central Park.
Enter at 81st St. at Central Park W. 212-967-7555. Pre-
views begin July 11.)
New York Musical Festival

The festivals fourteenth year features new shows
about everything from Liberace (Ben, Virginia and
Me: The Liberace Musical) to an all-girl math team
(Numbers Nerds). For the full lineup, visit nymf.
org. (Various locations. 212-352-3101. Opens July 10.)
Opening Skinners Box

At the Lincoln Center Festival, the British troupe
Improbable stages this piece exploring ten land-
mark psychological experiments from the twenti-
eth century, such as B. F. Skinners rat boxes and
Stephen Sondheim and John Weidmans 1990 musical is a dark vaudeville of Presidential predators. Harry Harlows monkey studies. (Gerald W. Lynch
Theatre, John Jay College, 524 W. 59th St. 212-721-
6500. July 10-12.)
American Carnage more dierent from one another. Gui-
A Parallelogram
teau murdered President Gareld after
Assassins returns for a concert run at Michael Greif directs a dark comedy by Bruce
he was passed over for the French am- Norris (Clybourne Park), about a woman (Celia
City Center.
bassadorship; Zangara, an Italian-born Keenan-Bolger) who can use a remote control to
A word of warning to anyone who pro- bricklayer, shot at F.D.R. in an eort travel to any moment in her life. (Second Stage, 305
W. 43rd St. 212-246-4422. Previews begin July 11.)
tested the Trumpied Julius Caesar to bring down capitalism. There were
in Central Park: multiple Presidents are crimes of passion: Hinckley was ob- Pipeline
shot and killed in Assassins, the mu- sessed with Jodie Foster when he tried In Dominique Morisseaus play, directed by Lile-
ana Blain-Cruz, a teacher at an inner-city public
sical by Stephen Sondheim and John to kill Ronald Reagan, while Lynette school sends her son to a private academy, where
Weidman. First staged O Broadway, (Squeaky) Fromme, one of two women an incident threatens to get him expelled. (Mitzi E.
in 1990, the show bends time and space who targeted Gerald Ford, was a Newhouse, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200. In previews.
Opens July 10.)
to bring together the motley band of Charles Manson acolyte. Together, they
outlaws who have slain (or attempted sing Unworthy of Your Love, one of PTP/NYC
to slay) a Commander-in-Chief, from Sondheims most beautiful duets. Potomac Theatre Project stages two plays in reper-
tory: Arcadia, Tom Stoppards 1993 masterwork,
John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley, Jr. Now seems as good a time as any to in which the past and present intertwine at an En-
From its opening numberset at a revisit this musical provocation, with glish country house, and Pity in History, based
shooting gallery, where a proprietor the country roiling and an attack on on Howard Barkers BBC film from 1985. (Atlan-
tic Stage 2, at 330 W. 16th St. 866-811-4111. Previews
merrily invites the likes of Charles Gui- ball-playing Republican Congressmen begin July 11. Opens July 18.)
teau and Giuseppe Zangara to cmere fresh in the headlines. The intrepid
and kill a Presidentthe musical is Encores! O-Center series stages the The Three Musketeers
The Classical Theatre of Harlem presents a free
an uneasy vaudeville of political blood- musical at City Center July 12-15, and open-air version of the Alexandre Dumas tale,
lust. What does it say about America, its assembled a crackerjack cast, in- adapted by Catherine Bush and directed by Jenny
Bennett. (Marcus Garvey Park, Madison Ave. be-
1
it asks, that these people belong to it? cluding Steven Boyer (Hinckley), Alex
tween 120th and 124th Sts. 212-360-2777. Previews
Naturally, the show is a lightning Brightman (Zangara), Erin Markey begin July 7. Opens July 9.)
rod no matter the times. The Round- (Fromme), and Steven Pasquale
about postponed a planned 2001 Broad- (Booth), under the direction of Anne
NOW PLAYING
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDRE DA LOBA
way production in the wake of 9/11. (It Kauman. Doubtless, Americas most
played at Studio 54 in 2004, with Neil recent populist disruptions will echo The Government Inspector
Patrick Harris as Lee Harvey Oswald.) through Another National Anthem, In this adaptation of Gogols 1836 play, set in a pro-
vincial Russian town where the corruption runs as
But, like Julius Caesar, the show in which the assassins join together and deep as the mud in the street, Jeffrey Hatcher re-
doesnt endorse political violence; it sing, They may not want to hear tains the original framework but gives the jokes a
interrogates it, drawing out whats scary it / But they listen / Once they think its zingy modern spin. Jesse Berger, who directs the
raucous Red Bull Theatre production, freely mixes
and silly about these armed malcon- gonna stop the game. in bits from the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges,
tents. In some ways, they couldnt be Michael Schulman and Woody Allen. Leading a cast of characters for

THE THEATRE
whom virtue is universally absent, Michael Urie dance, while, in the foreground, Sir Toby Belch turing Jessica Hecht and Jayne Atkinson (July 19-
is charming as hell as the lucky and manipulative (Kurt Rhoads, another topnotch comedian) strong- 29); and Geoff Morrow and Timothy Pragers new
object of mistaken identity (his drunk scene is a arms a cross-dressing Olivia (Krystel Lucas) into musical A Legendary Romance, about a nineteen-
comic masterpiece), while Arnie Burton does su- accepting the challenge. Twelfth Night runs in fifties movie producer and his leading lady (Aug.
perlative double duty as a cynical servant and a repertory with The Book of Will, Lauren Gun- 3-20). Nikos Stage offerings include Jason Kims
postmaster who reads all the mail. As the mayor, dersons new play, set three years after Shakespeares The Model American (through July 9), about a
Michael McGrath bluffs and blusters to the hilt, death, and Pride and Prejudice, a world premire young gay Latino making a life in New York; Har-
and Mary Testa, as his wife, earns big laughs just adapted by and starring Kate Hamill. On July 8th, rison David Riverss Where Storms Are Born,
by changing the pitch of her voice. (New World Pride will literally steal some thunder from West starring Myra Lucretia Taylor as a grieving mother
Stages, 340 W. 50th St. 212-239-6200.) Point, with an extended intermission to allow for (July 12-23); and Moscow Moscow Moscow Mos-
the viewing of the U.S. Military Academys fire- cow Moscow Moscow, Halley Feiffers spin on
Measure for Measure works display. (Boscobel House & Gardens, 1601 Rte. Chekhov, featuring Cristin Milioti, Thomas Sa-
A nasty play for our nasty moment, Shakespeares 9D, Garrison, N.Y. 845-265-9575. hvshakespeare.org.) doski, Jeanine Serralles, Tavi Gevinson, and Ryan
cynical romance abounds in hot-button topics: sex- Spahn (July 26-Aug. 6). (Williamstown, Mass. 413-
ual harassment, abuse of power, religious hypocrisy, Powerhouse Theatre 597-3400. wtfestival.org.)
false rape accusations, prejudicial application of the The summer season from Vassar and New York
death penalty. But Simon Godwins swift, sexed-up, Stage and Film includes Josh Radnors play Sacred 1
slightly empty revival, at Theatre for a New Au- Valley, about two old friends whose relationship is ALSO NOTABLE
dience, leaves spectators fingers unscorched. Po- tested during a magic-mushroom trip (through July
litical parallels interest the English director less 9), and Kevin Armentos Good Men Wanted, a Anastasia Broadhurst. Bandstand Jacobs. Come
than the louche Viennese setting (the audience dance-theatre piece about the women who disguised from Away Schoenfeld. Cost of Living City Cen-
is encouraged to enter through a brothel replete themselves as men during the Civil War (July 20- ter Stage I. Through July 16. A Dolls House, Part 2
with dildos, blow-up dolls, and light B.D.S.M.), 30). Musical workshops include The Secret Life Golden. Fulfillment Center City Center Stage II.
and the dynamic actors are given license to misbe- of Bees, an adaptation of the Sue Monk Kidd novel Through July 16. Ghost Light Claire Tow. Ground-
have. Thomas Jay Ryan is a mercurial Angelo, shift- by Lynn Nottage, Duncan Sheik, and Susan Birken- hog Day August Wilson. Hello, Dolly! Shubert. In
ing from officious to appealing to monstrous with head (July 27-29). (124 Raymond Ave., Poughkeepsie, & of Itself Daryl Roth. Indecent Cort. Marvins
each iamb, while Jonathan Cake inhabits the dis- N.Y. 845-437-5599. powerhouse.vassar.edu.) Room American Airlines Theatre. (Reviewed in
sembling Duke with verve and magnetism. If the this issue.) 1984 Hudson. (Reviewed in this
mellifluous Cara Ricketts wrings less merriment Williamstown Theatre Festival issue.) Oslo Vivian Beaumont. Through July
from Isabella, the virgin object of their plots and Mainstage productions at the Berkshires theatre 16. The Play That Goes Wrong Lyceum. Seeing
desires, blame the killjoy role, one of Shakespeares haven include Jen Silvermans comedy The Room- You 450 W. 14th St. (Reviewed in this issue.) Swee-
most thankless. (Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 mate, playing through July 16, about an empty- ney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Bar-
Ashland Pl., Brooklyn. 866-811-4111. Through July 16.) nester (S. Epatha Merkerson) who takes a house- row Street Theatre. The Traveling Lady Cherry
mate (Jane Kaczmarek); The Clean House, Sarah Lane. War Paint Nederlander. Woody Sez: The
Napoli, Brooklyn Ruhls 2004 play about cleaning and comedy, fea- Life & Music of Woody Guthrie Irish Repertory.
A florid family drama, sauced in heartache and
overstuffed with woe, Meghan Kennedys script
follows the Muscolinos, an Italian-American clan
squashed into a Park Slope apartment in 1960.
As the play begins, one daughter (Jordyn DiNa-
tale) dreams of escaping to Paris, another (Lilli
Kay) has been shunted into factory work, and the
third (Elise Kibler) has been sent away to a con-
vent, after a tussle with Nic (Michael Rispoli),
the abusive patriarch, left her with a broken nose,
a few cracked ribs, and an unconquerable need to
mouth off. Theres a self-conscious quality to much
of the writing, which crams the two-hour play with
enough incident for several shows. (That said, the
mid-play twist, thrillingly realized, is a genuine
shock.) Under Gordon Edelsteins direction, for
the Roundabout, the actors, including Alyssa Bres-
nahan as Nics aggrieved wife, perform the material
feelingly. (Laura Pels, 111 W. 46th St. 212-719-1300.)
1 OUT OF TOWN
Bard SummerScape
The Wooster Group stages the world premire of
A Pink Chair (In Place of a Fake Antique) (July
13-23), an homage to the Polish artist and theatre
director Tadeusz Kantor, directed by Elizabeth
LeCompte and featuring Kate Valk, Suzzy Roche,
and other company members. (Richard B. Fisher
Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, Annan-
dale-on-Hudson, N.Y. 845-758-7900.)
Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

In addition to providing a gorgeous natural back-
drop, the grassy hundred-yard expanse beyond the
performing tents archway is the site of some seri-
ously long-range upstaging for Sean McNall, play-
ing Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, di-
rected by Moritz von Stuelpnagel. Training for a
duel in a straw boater and pink shorts, the valor-
deficient knight performs a hilarious martial-arts

DANCE
Jimmy Slyde in a scene from About Tap, George Nierenbergs sequel to his 1979 documentary, No Maps on My Taps; both will play at the Quad.
Tap Masters More than that, he says, he wanted to In Bubbless routine, from the 1937
contextualize tap, to show how it was movie Varsity Show, he dances atop
A great tap documentary gets restored
the product not just of a shared tech- a gleaming piano being played by his
and rereleased.
nique but also of personality. And so we partner, Buck (Ford Lee Washington).
When the lmmaker George Nierenberg get three vivid portraits, like something At one point, Buck pauses, right on the
made his documentary No Maps on My out of the National Gallery. beat, to bu Bubbless proered shoe.
Taps, in the late seventies, a lot of people First comes the ebullient Bunny Ironically, No Maps on My Taps,
wondered whether tap was nished. The Briggs, with his childlike face and bug- whose participants regarded it as an
night clubs that had once showcased ging-out eyes and, often, a super-sized elegy, helped to start a tap revival in the
tappers had mostly closed down. Broad- Rheingold in hand. Next is Howard eighties. The lm was shown in festival
way, another important hatchery of tap (Sandman) Sims, more analytic, telling after festival. Its stars travelled with it
acts, had switched to dream ballets and us how his sand dance was done, show- and danced, live, after the screenings.
modern dance. Most important, jazz, the ing us the box, the mike, even the grains (Nierenberg says that Greens multiple
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION; PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY MILESTONE FILM
music that goes with tap, had been of sand. Finally, there is Chuck Green, layers of clothing were not popular with
shoved aside by rock and roll. who spent fteen years in a mental hos- airport-security personnel.) In time,
This situation helps to account for pital as a young man, and still seems to No Maps on My Taps fell out of active
the highly personal tone of No Maps live on another plane. He travelled with distribution, but nowtogether with
on My Taps. Nierenbergs mother had a collection of old newspapers and stale a sequel, About Tap, that Nierenberg
been a tapper. (She said that the high- crackers; he liked to wear several layers made in 1985it is being restored and
light of her career was dancing for the of clothing. When he dances, his bal- rereleased by Milestone Films, in New
inmates of Sing Sing, when she was ance seems unsteady at times, as if he Jersey. (They care, Martin Scorsese
ten.) It hurt Nierenberg to see the tap were on stilts, but his footwork is won- has said. And they love movies.) The
masters of the mid-century without derfully cleanno blur, no doubts. His cleaned-up prints will have their rst
work, without honor. So he picked three face seems to hail from Easter Island. outing at Manhattans Quad Cinema,
veterans who were as dierent from one The others revere him. July 7-13, to coincide with Tap City, the
another as possible and spent a long Spliced into the contemporary foot- American Tap Dance Foundations an-
time with them. He came to love them, age are clips of two giants from the old nual festival.
and he wanted us to love them, too. days, Bill Robinson and John Bubbles. Joan Acocella
DANCE
American Ballet Theatre Saburo Teshigawara / Sleeping Water neon-lit premire that hops on the dance-in-sneakers
The season ends with a salute to the composer Known for imagistic, meditative dance-theatre trend, while other samples of Langs visually stylish
whose music is most closely associated with the works that feel like moving art installations, the and adeptly made but rarely inspired works get live
art of ballet: Tchaikovsky. At the top of the list Japanese choreographer has an interest in exploring accompaniment by Tanglewood fellows and alumni.
is George Balanchines Mozartiana, based on liminal states of mind. To Lincoln Center Festival, What distinguishes Faye Driscolls Thank You for
Tchaikovskys reinterpretation of his musical idol. he brings Sleeping Water, an expansion of a 2014 Coming: Attendance (at the Doris Duke, July 5-9)
From Alexei Ratmansky, there is Souvenir dun piece that featured the French ballerina Aurlie from her other painstakingly constructed romps is
Lieu Cher, a quartet set to a piece for violin and Dupont (now the dance director of the Paris Opera its particularly heavy audience participation; view-
piano, exploring themes of love. The nineteenth Ballet). Teshigawara creates a dreamlike landscape, ers are serenaded by name and enlisted in a Maypole
century will be represented by the final act of Pe- dotted with floating objects, through which sev- dance. The Paul Taylor Dance Company (at the Ted
tipas Sleeping Beauty, a garland of pretty story- eral figures move with sinuous ease. Dupont re- Shawn, July 12-16), stays on the masters sunny side
book dances crowned by a majestic pas de deux in turns to perform the work. (Rose Theatre, 60th St. for this visit: the pretty breezes of Airs, the celes-
the grand old style. July 5 at 2 and 7:30, July 6-7 at Broadway. 212-721-6500. July 13-15.) tial eddying of Syzygy, the imperishable joy of Es-
at 7:30, and July 8 at 2 and 8: Tchaikovsky Spec- planade. From Israel, Roy Assaf Dance makes its
tacular. (Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Cen- Tap City, the New York City Tap Festival U.S. dbut (at the Doris Duke, July 12-16) with two
ter. 212-477-3030.) For its main event this year, the festival upgrades to companion pieces: Six Years Later, a duet of plain-
the glass-walled elegance of Jazz at Lincoln Centers spoken, gruffly physical intimacy, and The Hill,
Pilobolus Appel Room. A focus on the music of Duke Elling- a rough-and-tumble trio about male bonding thats
For this free show at BRIC Celebrate Brook- ton, who wrote songs for tap dancers and persistently set, with a mix of irony and sincerity, to military
lyn!, the physical illusionists offer the New York featured them in his floor shows and tours, should songs. (Becket, Mass. 413-243-0745. Through Aug. 27.)
premires of Branches, a nature piece created for also give more coherence than usual to the revue
the outdoor stage at Jacobs Pillow, and Echo in the format. The lineup, accompanied by a big band, is Fire Island Dance Festival
Valley, a collaboration with the banjoists Abigail promising, with Ayodele Casel, Sam Weber, Sarah For a combination of good cause, starry lineup, and
Washburn and Bla Fleck. The program also in- Reich, Caleb Teicher, and the festivals matriarch, scenic backdrop, this annual benefit for Dancers
cludes All Is Not Lost, in which the goofy music Brenda Bufalino, still an exemplar of tap artistry as Responding to AIDS is hard to beat. Hosted by the
video that Pilobolus made with the band OK Go she pushes eighty. (Jazz at Lincoln Center, Broadway actress Cady Huffman, this years shows feature,
is re-created live. (Prospect Park Bandshell, Prospect at 60th St. 212-721-6500. July 14.) among others, James Whiteside dancing to Prince,
Park W. at 9th St. 718-683-5600. July 6.) the Miami City Ballet principals Jeanette Delgado
1 and Kleber Rebello excerpting a Justin Peck piece,
Bryant Park Presents: Contemporary Dance OUT OF TOWN and the postmodern duo of Rashaun Mitchell and
Two Limn dancers, Savannah Spratt and Mark Silas Riener. Acosta Dance, the Havana-based com-
Willis, perform The Exiles, an extended duet de- Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival pany recently founded by the Cuban-born Royal
picting Adam and Eves distraught state after their Jessica Lang Dance dbuted at the Pillow in 2012, Ballet star Carlos Acosta, makes its U.S. dbut with
expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The Moving and has returned nearly every year since. This pro- a duet. (Fire Island Pines, Fire Island, N.Y. 212-840-
Architects, Black Boys Dance Too, and students gram (at the Ted Shawn, July 5-9) includes Glow, a 0770, ext. 229. July 14-16.)
from the Harlem School of the Arts will also per-
form. (Bryant Park, Sixth Ave. at 42nd St. July 7.)
Davalois Fearon Dance

As part of Theater of the Resist, an eight-week
series of politically edged performances, Davalois
Fearon, known for her bold dancing with Stephen
Petronios company, presents excerpts of her piece
Time to Talk. Its a multidisciplinary solo that
confronts racial bias in academia and in the dance
world, using autobiographical evidence. She shares
the program (on July 7) with the hip-hop poets
Mighty Third Rail and (on July 8) with the indie-
meets-India band Tongues in Trees. (Met Breuer,
945 Madison Ave., at 75th St. 212-731-1675. July 7-8.)
INSITU Site-Specific Dance Festival

In summer, New York dancers escape from studios
and theatres to interact with all sorts of outdoor
spaces. This new festival, free to the public, brings
the migration to the waterfront of western Queens,
along the East River. Twenty-four companies (in-
cluding those of Loni Landon, Bryan Strimpel, and
Jody Oberfelder) dance on and around the play-
grounds, picnic tables, and piers of parks situated
on either side of a line that divides gentrification
and public housing: the Queensboro Bridge. (Var-
ious locations. July 8-9.)
Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival

For many years and in several cities, the dancer
Michele Byrd-McPhee has organized festivals
for female hip-hop dancers, giving women a space
outside male-dominated hip-hop culture while
shining a light on their work within it. Most of
these classes, battles, and shows have been directed
toward participants, but now, for City Parks Foun-
dations SummerStage, Byrd-McPhee has put to-
gether a free showcase for the general public; one
highlight should be the Muslim American dancer
Amirah Sackett. (Queensbridge Park, Vernon Blvd.
at 41st Ave., Long Island City. 212-360-2777. July 12.)

tion in the glossy surface of a museum bench. The
floral pattern on a Limoges soup tureen vies with
ART
1
a Pollock drip painting on a wall above it. Johnss
White Flag harmonizes with a monogrammed
bedspread. An auction label next to a round gold
Warhol Marilyn estimates the works value, in
facts, many of them demonstrating a naturalistic 1988, at between three hundred thousand and four
MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES approach to anatomy and an untrammelled expres- hundred thousand dollars. Lovers of art dont often
sive whimsyboth of which were later eradicated reflect on the interests of wealth and power that
Metropolitan Museum by the heavy stylization during the Han dynasty. enable our adventures. But if that consciousness
Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin & Han Examples of the former include a recently discov- is forced on us we may be frozen mid-toggle be-
Dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D. 220) ered terra-cotta strongman with a potbelly; exam- tween looking and seeing. The effect is rather sadis-
Not least among the achievements of Ying Zheng, ples of the latter include a bronze lamp shaped like tic, but also perhaps masochistic. Lawler couldnt
the founding emperor of the short-lived Qin dy- a mythical bird tipping its head back to swallow mock aesthetic sensitivity if she didnt share it.
nasty (221-206 B.C.), was propaganda, some of its own smoke. But, if many of the shows pieces Having landed herself in a war zone between cre-
which still echoes bombastically on the walls of make Qin and Han culture look unexpectedly re- ating art and objectifying it, and between belong-
this show: you wont depart with any confusion latable, its highlights are those that were unmistak- ing to the art world and resenting it, Lawler ca-
about who first unified China. But the chance to ably made long ago and far away, particularly the pers in the crossfire. Her retrospective comes at a
see a platoon of his spectacular terra-cotta war- unforgettable jade burial suit of the Han princess moment when an onslaught of illiberal forces in
riors, half a dozen or so of the thousands that were Dou Wan. Discovered in a cliffside tomb in Hebei the big world dwarfs intellectual wrangles in the
buried with the emperor, who died in 210 B.C., Province, in 1968, the ritual object is made of more little one of art. Who, these days, can afford the
and excavated in the nineteen-seventies, is not than two thousand rectangular panels of jade, sewn patience for mixed feelings about the protocols
to be missed. Fitted together like action figures together with gold. Through July 16. of cultural institutions? Artists can. Some artists
from mass-produced body parts and originally must. Art often serves us by exposing conflicts
equipped with real bronze weapons, the life-size Museum of Modern Art among our values, not to propose solutions but to
sculptures have individually detailed faces of sur- Louise Lawler: Receptions tap energies of truth, however partial, and beauty,
prising charisma. One kneeling archer, with square- In her best-known photographs, Lawler has pic- however fugitive; and the service is greatest when
toed shoes and a mustache, is so striking he may tured works of art as they appear in museums, our worlds feel most in crisis. Charles Baudelaire,
trigger dj vu. Along with the soldiers comes a galleries, auction houses, storage spaces, and col- the Moses of modernity, wrote, I have cultivated
wide-ranging selection of contemporaneous arti- lectors homes. A Mir co-stars with its own reflec- my hysteria with terror and delight. Lawler does
that, too, with disciplined wit and hopeless integ-
rity. Through July 30.
Whitney Museum
Calder: Hypermobility
In the summer of 1922, Alexander Calder was
twenty-three and doing a stint as a merchant ma-
rine. One morning made a cosmic impression. As
he later described it, Over my coucha coil of
ropeI saw the beginning of a fiery red sunrise on
one side and the moon looking like a silver coin on
the other. The story has the elements of a great
Calder sculpture: curving lines, strong colors, or-
ganic shapes, harmonious balance, suspension in
space. Whats missing is a sense of motionas es-
sential to Calders work as metal or paint, as we
learn on the eighth floor of the museum. Among
other engines for joy made between 1930 and 1959
are eight rarely seen motorized pieces. Theyre
turned on, for brief intervals, three times a day
(and twice as often Friday through Sunday), by art
handlers who also activate many non-mechanized
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, HELEN ANRATHER GALLERY, AND DEREK ELLER GALLERY
sculptures, making them flutter and spin, as the
artist intended. Watching the quivering of the
five-foot-high 1941 stabile Aluminum Leaves,
Red Post, whose clawlike base recalls the gar-
gantuan Calders in public plazas from Seattle to
Grand Rapids, Michigan, is like seeing a new side
of an old friend youve been taking for granted.
Through Oct. 23.
Morgan Library and Museum

Noahs Beasts: Sculpted Animals from
Ancient Mesopotamia
This breathtaking show of nine ancient Meso-
potamian sculptures, made between 3300 and
2250 B.C., was inspired by a rare Akkadian flood-
narrative tablet, from 1646 B.C., acquired by Pier-
pont Morgan around the turn of the last century.
Its text begins, When gods were men, but a more
fitting synopsis of the exhibition might read When
animals were gods. A recumbent sheep, carved
from black stone, has the mesmerizing simplicity of
The bright young gallerist Helena Anrather has opened a space at 28 Elizabeth St. Her a piece by Isamu Noguchi; a silver lions head, less
current show, CarlJackieSteveMichelle, is a corrective to the prevailing myth that the art than five inches high, epitomizes dignity; a weath-
world has devolved into an industrial complex: it features works by two mid-career couples ered-sandstone ewes head suggests the mysterious
who are longtime friends. (Pictured, Steve DiBenedettos painting Pink Italy, 2017.) presence of the divine. A lapis-lazuli goat, which
ART
stands sixteen inches high against a crinkly gold Medrie MacPhee non-Latin script. Bodies come apart in inven-
bush, was nicknamed Ram Caught in a Thicket A stalwart midtown gallery joins the swelling tive ways: bones stick out, shoulders melt into
after Isaacs last-minute replacement for sacrifice ranks of the Lower East Side with an inaugu- shrubbery, and feet pop off at the ankles. If this
in the Book of Genesisby Leonard Woolley, the ral show of adroit canvases, in which irregular all sounds like a message from the unconscious,
American archeologist who excavated it, in Iraq, blocks of color cover surfaces from edge to edge. no wonder: Herters day job is as a Lacanian psy-
in 1928. (One of a pair, its mate is in the British MacPhee has been painting in New York since the choanalyst. (Koenig & Clinton, 1329 Willoughby
Museum.) A non-Biblical miracle to consider is late seventies, mining a familiar vein of architec- Ave., Bushwick. 212-334-9255.)
the fact that such a delicate figure, made circa tonic abstraction. But her new work has an inge-
1
2550-2400 B.C., has survived for forty-five hun- nious twist: the compositions combine oil paint Marguerite Humeau
dred years. Through Aug. 27. and salvaged scraps of clothing. Buttons, seams, To conjure the atmosphere of antiseptic horror
and the like remain intact, and the results have in her exhibition Riddles, the French-born,
an irresistible weirdness. A Dream of Peace is London-based artist draws on an unlikely trio
GALLERIESCHELSEA a fractured rainbow of yellows and browns that of references: Sphinxian mythology, archeolog-
sports twin white pockets on its left side. In an- ical finds from the first known mass grave (Site
Ceal Floyer other appealing piece, two teardrop-shaped em- 117, discovered in Sudan, in 1964, which is at least
In her readymade sculpture Domino Effect, from bellishments are placed end to end, forming a sar- eleven thousand years old), and contemporary se-
1
2015, the witty British conceptualist undermines torial infinity sign. Through July 28. (De Nagy, 15 curity technology. Harry I (Eyes), the first sculp-
the metaphorical reference of her title: she lines the Rivington St. 212-262-5050.) ture you encounter, is the shows most forbidding
game tiles up on the floor, with no space between workan imposing metal armature, fitted with
them, so they form a tiny, solid wall along one side glass lion eyes and motion detectors, which hangs
of the gallery. Saw, made the same year, is a joke GALLERIESBROOKLYN from the ceiling. It tracks your movements, as if
with a trompe-loeil twist. It appears that a cartoon ready to swoop. In the next room, a squadron of
burglar is sawing a hole through the gallerys con- Albert Herter bright-white gargoyle heads emit a nerve-wrack-
crete floor; in fact, there is no incision. Instead, a The gallery celebrates its move from Chelsea to ing rumble of white noise. The shows final scene
saw blade is held up by a small plastic mount, and Bushwick with an artist who works in the bor- is the most perplexingplatformlike plastic tanks
the thiefs circle is drawn in dark chalk. From the ough. Forty-five cartoonlike drawings, rendered of artificial blood, guarded by a fragmented Sphinx
artists mesmerizing new video, Plughole, in in nervous ink scribbles and colored with pencil, and spiny asteroids. The installation is provoca-
which a roaring stream of water from a faucet seeks pastel, and marker, depict humanoid figures in tive, but so slick that its critique of todays sur-
a perfect fit in a six-hole drain, to a grid of abstract trios or pairs. Whats consistent throughout is a veillance and remote-warfare technology is obfus-
drawings that trace the keypad path of phone num- sense of dissolving borders. Dense backgrounds cated by its camp. Through July 23. (Clearing, 396
bers in her contacts, Floyer spins everyday materi- involve bushes, clouds, and scraps of invented Johnson Ave., Bushwick. 718-456-0396.)
als into waking dreams. Through July 14. (303 Gal-
lery, 555 W. 21st St. 212-255-1121.)
Carsten Hller
The German artist, who divides his time between
MOVIES
1
Sweden and Ghana, was a scientist first, and his
flashy, high-concept sculptures have more than a
hint of a childrens science museum about them.
In one work in this show, which is titled Reason,
a circle of five mirrored revolving doors is a dizzi- cart in Harvard Square. She also photographed her-
ness-making machine. Dice (White Body, Black OPENING self, intimately, as well as her husband and their
Dots) is an eight-foot cube with black holes in son, and she published a book of photos of her
place of pipsadventurous youngsters and petite A Ghost Story Reviewed this week in The Current home life. Dorfman soon specialized in twenty-
adults are free to climb inside the symbol of random Cinema. Opening July 7. (In limited release.) Lady by-twenty-four-inch Polaroid portraits, which she
chance. Flying Mushrooms, a seventeen-foot-high Macbeth A drama, set in mid-nineteenth-century did mainly on commission in her studio. Her key
orrery with giant red-capped mushrooms in lieu of England, about a young woman enduring a forced theme is self-presentationher own and that of her
planets, has a handle, which visitors can grasp as marriage to an older man. Directed by William subjectsand the profundity of spontaneity and
they walk around its base, sending the toadstools Oldroyd; starring Florence Pugh. Opening July personal style. The depth of her art reflects a life
into orbit. Its a dramatic and surprisingly moving 14. (In limited release.) Spider-Man: Homecoming richly lived, as does the wisdom of her epigram-
reminder that all matter, whether celestial, human, Jon Watts directed this installment in the super- matic musings.Richard Brody (In limited release.)
1
or fungal, is essentially one and the same. Through hero franchise, starring Tom Holland as a high-
Aug. 11. (Gagosian, 555 W. 24th St. 212-741-1111.) school student who attempts to balance his stud- Baby Driver
ies with saving the world. Opening July 7. (In wide In Edgar Wrights propulsive new film, Ansel El-
release.) War for the Planet of the Apes In this gort plays Baby, a young getaway driver who works
GALLERIESDOWNTOWN action film, directed by Matt Reeves, a young girl for the implacable Doc (Kevin Spacey). There
(Amiah Miller) joins with apes to free Caesar are banks to be robbed and cops to be eluded at
1
Maja ule (Andy Serkis), their leader, from a military com- speed; Babys partners in crime include Buddy
A diagonal wall divides the gallery, so visitors pound. Opening July 14. (In wide release.) (Jon Hamm) and Bats (Jamie Foxx). The setting
have to stand in a dim corridorlike space to watch is Atlanta, worlds away from the peaceable En-
ules new video, A Feature Shared by All. The glish village that Wright patrolled in Hot Fuzz
Yugoslavian artist, who lives in New York, set her NOW PLAYING (2007), and although the chases are energetically
fragmentary narrative at an airport where, as news staged, you dont get much sense of the city, and
reports in the piece relay, an apocalyptic swarm The B-Side the diner where Baby falls for Debora (Lily James)
of mosquitoes threatens to feast on passengers. Errol Morriss documentary portrait of the pho- could scarcely be mistaken for a real place. Elgort
But the insects never appearthe videos true sub- tographer Elsa Dorfman is both a celebration of has plenty to do, including some dancelike moves,
ject is the isolation of its women characters, who her art and a study of photography itself. Dorfman, but he radiates less cool than the movie requires;
share information, confusion, and hand sanitizer whos eighty years old, welcomes Morris into her Spacey alone seems attuned to the knowing tone
in a series of absurd, stilted exchanges. In a suc- studio and tells the remarkable story of her acci- of the whole endeavor, with its multiple thefts
cession of shaky shots and in one thrilling, cam- dental career. An educated, idiosyncratic young from heist flicks of the past. The film is best ap-
era-on-a-conveyor-belt moment, ule deftly por- Boston woman who worked in publishing in New proached as a near-musical, with almost every ac-
trays air travel as surreal abjection. On the other York, she returned to her parents house and took tion, in or out of cars, being hustled along by the
side of the dividing wall, a maple leaf hangs from a job in an M.I.T. lab, where a colleague put a cam- kick of a song. Most of the tracks resound within
a string harness near a few unremarkable draw- era in her hands and offered words of encourage- Babys head; he is seldom parted from his iPod, and
ings, a ponderous coda to an immersive treatise ment. Soon she was selling her photos (including the movie begs to be screened on the wall of your
on disorientation. Through July 23. (Company, 88 portraits of such literary friends as Anne Sexton, nearest Apple store.Anthony Lane (Reviewed in
Eldridge St. 646-756-4547.) Audre Lorde, and Allen Ginsberg) from a shopping our issue of 7/3/17.) (In wide release.)

MOVIES
Beatriz at Dinner Its Only the End of the World A New Leaf
Salma Hayek plays the Beatriz of the title, a healer A stellar cast of French actors is mainly left to run Elaine Mays frenzied 1971 comedy, in which she
who lives in Altadena and works, much of the time, lines and hyperventilate in Xavier Dolans tur- co-stars with Walter Matthau, reveals the essence
at a cancer center. One evening, after giving a mas- gid yet occasionally affecting melodrama. Gas- of marital love more brutally than many confron-
sage to a wealthy client named Kathy (Connie Brit- pard Ulliel stars as Louis, a famous thirty-four- tational melodramas. The film opens with a loopy
ton), Beatriz is invited to stay on for a dinner party: year-old gay playwright in Paris, who returns to view of a rich mans caprices, notably the red Fer-
an awkward affair, the highlight of which is Beatrizs his familys modest home in small-town France rari of Henry Graham (Matthau), an effete and
clash of wills with Doug (John Lithgow), the guest for the first time in twelve years, in order to in- idle Manhattan heir. But hes stopped cold by the
of honor. As a real-estate developer with scorn for form his relativeshis mother, Martine (Nathalie newsdelivered in riotous euphemisms by his law-
radical attitudes of any kind, he represents every- Baye); his younger sister, Suzanne (La Seydoux); yer (William Redfield)that hes run out of money.
thing that the heroine holds in contempt, and she his older brother, Antoine (Vincent Cassel); and After a terrifying vision of buying ready-to-wear,
makes her feelings abundantly clear. More often his sister-in-law, Catherine (Marion Cotillard) he accepts a usurious loan from his contemptuous
than not, the film, which is written by Mike White that hes afflicted with a fatal disease. His presence uncle (James Coco) and has to marry rich, fast.
and directed by Miguel Arteta, opts for a scathing opens old emotional wounds and sets the clan at Henry impresses his chosen prey, Henrietta Low-
but easy lampoon of the rich; it grows more intense one anothers throats, stomping off and slamming ell (May), an awkward, desperately lonely heir-
and more ambivalent, however, as it tightens into a doors. The drama is adapted from a play by Jean- ess as well as a botanist, with his bravura displays
two-hander between Hayek and Lithgow. Hers is Luc Lagarce, but Dolan choreographs it unimag- of chivalry. In anticipation of the big day, he, too,
a finely poised performance, making the character inatively, adorning the action with flashbacks and takes up the study of botanyand, most unchiv-
both tranquil in her demeanor and angered by the lyrical interludes. The film mainly declares emo- alrously, the study of toxicology. Having started
statepolitical, ecological, and spiritualof the tional intentions rather than sparking emotional out with the hatred, dependency, and surrender it
world. Though the smiling Doug is lofty, in every effect, and delivers clichs of working-class char- takes most couples years to achieve, Henry and
sense, he is perturbed, despite himself, by the fer- acters. But theres nonetheless a touch of authen- Henrietta are no less suited than regular folks
vid certainty of Beatrizs beliefs. With Chlo Se- tic insight in the connection between Louiss re- for love until death do them partone way or an-
vigny.A.L. (6/19/17) (In wide release.) fined inspirations and the house of rough passions other.R.B. (Film Forum, July 12, and streaming.)
from which he emerged. In French.R.B. (Netflix.)
The Beguiled Transformers: The Last Knight
Sofia Coppolas latest film is set in Virginia, in The Little Hours Michael Bay exhibits an exquisite and oblivious
1864, during the Civil War. Nicole Kidman stars as This clever and gleefully anachronistic comedy visual imagination in this sprawling tale of me-
Miss Farnsworth, who, along with Edwina (Kirsten about young nuns who want to have fun is set in chanical and metaphysical heroism. Mark Wahl-
Dunst), runs a school for young ladies. In this the fourteenth century and loosely adapted by berg returns as Cade Yeager, the Texas inventor
time of conflict, only five students remain, and the writer and director, Jeff Baena, from Boccac- whose fortunes are linked to those of gigantic ro-
their fragile idyll is soon broken; the arrival of a cios Decameron. The torch-tongued, free-spirited bots that collapse into vehicular form. This time,
wounded Union soldier, Corporal John McBur- Sister Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza), the innocent and the futuristic adventure has a medieval founda-
ney (Colin Farrell), constitutes both a thrill and searching Sister Genevra (Kate Micucci), and the tion. When life on Earth is threatened by a plan-
a threat. He requires tender care, which most of privileged, romantic Sister Alessandra (Alison etoid flung by the vengeful sorceress Quintessa
the residents, especially Edwina and the more for- Brie) scare off the rural convents groundskeeper. (Gemma Chan), Cade joins forces with Vivian
ward Alicia (Elle Fanning), are only too happy to Their spiritual leader, Father Tommasso (John C. Wembley (Laura Haddock), an Oxford archeolo-
provide, although the erotically heightened mood Reilly), finds a replacement: Massetto (Dave gist, to seek the doodad that will save the world:
takes a sudden plunge into the farce of Petit Gui- Franco), a randy servant who has been chased out the staff of Merlin. Anthony Hopkins co-stars as
gnol. When Don Siegel filmed the same tale, with of a local castle for sleeping with the lady of the an English lord with mystical connections, who
Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page, in 1971, the house. When Tommasso brings him to the convent, dispatches Cade and Vivian on their mission. Bay
result was a sweaty fever dream, bordering on hys- the wolf becomes the prey. Further complications decorates the absurd plot with delirious images
teria, yet somehow it cohered; whereas Coppola, ensue when Fernandas uninhibited friend Marta an exhilarating car chase, closeups of robots that
politely shifting the war into the background, pre- (Jemima Kirke) arrives and sparks hard partying, teem with enticing details, and breathtaking tab-
fers to concentrate on the lookhaze-lit and oth- and the big boss, Bishop Bartolomeo (Fred Ar- leaux of cosmic conflictsthat, unfortunately,
erworldlyof this peculiar setup. The girls are re- misen), shows up unannounced. The good-natured breeze by in a flash. Yet the over-all idea is that
splendent in their angel-white finery, as if aided by comedy has only occasional outbursts of wildness; the fate of humanity depends on faith, family, the
invisible servants. The movie is impossible to be- the cheerfully playful ribaldry of the writing and U.S. Army, and the right brand of action figures.
lieve in, and all too easy to laugh at; the wise course, the performances cant quite overcome the mere ef- With Isabela Moner, as an intrepid orphan.R.B.
perhaps, is to lose yourself in its ridiculous beau- ficiency of the filmmaking. With Molly Shannon, (In wide release.)
ty.A.L. (6/26/17) (In wide release.) as a mother superior with a liberal outlook.R.B.
(In limited release.) The Young One
The Big Sick Luis Buuels only film set in the United States,
Michael Showalters new film, written by Emily V. My Journey Through French Cinema from 1960, was made in Mexico, and it takes a
Gordon and her husband, Kumail Nanjiani, and Bertrand Taverniers fine new documentary is an fierce look at the depravity of American racism.
co-produced by Judd Apatow, stars Nanjiani as act of homage, both to the movies that he grew up Bernie Hamilton stars as Traver, a black jazz mu-
Kumail, a standup comedian and Uber drivera with and to those that he continues to revere. As sician falsely accused of raping a white woman in a
matchless job description for our times. His on- we gather from his onscreen conversations, how- Southern town. Fleeing a lynch mob, Traver steals
stage routines are pretty funny, if you exclude the ever, he is far too readily amused, and too moved a motorboat and washes ashore at a private game
stuff about cricket; woven into his jokes is a sighing by moral skepticism, to be merely worshipful. The preserve, where he finds uneasy shelter with its
desire to school American audiences in the nice- flavor of private recollection could hardly be stron- white residentsMiller (Zachary Scott), a hate-
ties of Pakistani culture. His parents, living in a ger; Tavernier ushers us back to his wartime boy- filled beekeeper, and Evvie (Key Meersman), a
suburb of Chicago, expect him to marry one of the hood in Lyon, and to the works by Jacques Becker, friendly, barely pubescent orphan girl. Getting
young Muslim women who just happen to drop by Marcel Carn, and Jean Renoir that made such an hold of Millers guns, Traver threatens to kill him
whenever he goes home; Kumail has other ideas, impression on his youthful self. Time and again, he for using the N-word; then, a neighbor named
though, to which the film subscribes with alacrity. alerts us to vital detailsthe extra stories, for ex- Jackson (Crahan Denton) learns of the charges
(The notion that you might not discard everything ample, that were added to the building at the heart against Traver, who has to run for his life again.
for love is intolerable.) The biggest shock comes of Carns Le Jour Se Lve (1939), thus allowing Meanwhile, Miller, unbeknownst to Traver, repeat-
not from a punch line but from a darkening of the Jean Gabin, on the top floor, to tower over the edly rapes Evvie in her bed at night. Buuel bit-
plot, when his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Zoe Kazan), crowd. (Gabin is a hero of this film, as he is of so terly dramatizes the relentless threat of violence
goes to the hospital; while she lies in a coma, Ku- many others.) The documentary guides us through against black Americans, the virtual impunity of
mail, despite their breakup, befriends her parents Chabrol and Godard to Claude Sautet, bestowing their assailants, and the moral rot that white su-
played by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano, who generous handfuls of clips along the way; all but the premacy both depends on and fosters. With his
make a terrific teamand reconsiders the direc- most omniscient of viewers will be left hungering sly look at crude survivalists living among ani-
tion his life should take. The emotional terrain of to track down unfamiliar films or, under Taverni- mals and insects and his jaundiced view of law and
the story is strewn with risks, yet the movie stays ers benevolent aegis, to see the classics afresh. In nature alike, Buuel holds out only glimmers of
light on its feet.A.L. (6/26/17) (In wide release.) French.A.L. (7/3/17) (In limited release.) hope.R.B. (BAM Cinmatek; July 11.)

ABOVE & BEYOND
Bastille Day band 79.5 performs, followed by a live art experi-

French culture, cuisine, and entertainment will be ence with Vladimir Nazarov. (The Archway, Water
on display at this annual street fair, presented by St. between Adams St. and Anchorage St. July 6 at 6.)
the French Institute Alliance Franaise, in com-
memoration of the historic storming of the Bas- 1
tille prison in rebellion against King Louis XVI, READINGS AND TALKS
in 1789. This year, in the Skyroom of FIAF, guests
can sample champagne at tasting tables hosted by 92nd Street Y
Drappier, Pol Roger, Bollinger, and others, as well I am no bird, and no net ensnares me, Jane Eyre
as hors doeuvres from Maman Bakery. On the told Edward Rochester, forging a path of staunch
street, take in dance lessons, mime shows, car ex- independence of mind that inspired countless read-
hibitions (featuring classic Citron models from ers. Charlotte Bront, the author of the canonical
personal collections), and the iconic choreogra- novel, became one of the most celebrated voices of
phy of the cancan, performed by Karen Peled and the Victorian age. Charlotte and her two younger
her troupe. The evening closes out with a perfor- sisters, Emily and Ann, self-published, respectively,
mance from the renowned baritone David Serero. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes
(60th St. between Fifth Ave. and Lexington Ave. bas Grey under masculine pseudonyms, but they had
tilledayny.org. July 9 at noon.) already conjured writhing, fantastical worlds in
their collaborative fiction. In John Pfordreshers
Arab-American Cultural Street Festival new book, The Secret History of Jane Eyre, he
Great Jones Street comes alive with arts and food gathers the personal details that drove Bront to
rooted in Arab and North African cultures. The pen her signature work, to fiercely conceal her iden-
daylong event includes musical performances from tity, and, ultimately, to disavow her membership in
Arab musicians both local and international, and literary circles. He outlines the story at this talk,
authentic dishes from Lebanon, Morocco, and followed by a book signing. (1395 Lexington Ave.
Egypt. Since 2003, the festival has been a trove 92y.org. July 13 at noon.)
for collectors and the curious, providing an op-
portunity to browse handmade wares from across McNally Jackson
the globe, including original art works and tradi- In his new book, Shard Cinema, Evan Calder
tional clothing, jewelry, and furnishings. The henna Williams attempts to map the influence that the
booth, where guests can choose from ornate body- moving image has had on the past three decades.
art designs applied by a dye process that dates back The artist, writer, and translator argues that the vi-
centuries, remains one of the festivals most pop- sual medium has shaped perceptions, formats, and
ular attractions. (Great Jones St. between Broadway trends, and that composite images specificallythe
and Lafayette St. naaponline.org. July 8 at 10 A.M.) doctored photos and C.G.I.-enhanced movies that
have eroded the border between production and
Totally Public Karaoke post-production, filmed and animated, material and
For most people, the cathartic act of belting out digitalhave ushered in a new school of seeing.
kitschy standards in off-key tones is best undertaken Williams dissects contemporary and classic films,
in dark dive bars late at night, where audiences are video games, and more, in a collection of loosely
small, song selections are wide, and judgments grow connected essays, which he reads from at this event.
less harsh with each round of drinks. But at Totally (52 Prince St. mcnallyjackson.com. July 13 at 7.)
Public Karaoke, a monthly series hosted by Summer
on the Hudson, crowds gather in front of a tented Rizzoli Bookstore
stage, off the pier in Riverside Park, for what feels For a certain stock of downtown-New York enthu-
more like a proper talent show than a woozy exhi- siasts, there are never enough stories about the re-
bition. Bring your own cheering section and a loud volving cast of emerging adults and runaways who
voice for this outdoor amateur hour. Performance reshaped Manhattan culture in their own eccen-
slots are allotted by sign-up, and registration be- tric images. Fans of the scene now have a fresh
gins at 5:30; first come, first onstage. (Pier I, at Riv source for stories wrung out from below Four-
ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO AMARGO
erside Dr. at 70th St. riversideparknyc.org. July 7 at 6.) teenth Street: Night Class, by Victor P. Corona,
who studied sociology at Yale and Columbia be-
Live at the Archway fore diving into Manhattans art, performance, and
The Archway, in Dumbo, is a seven-thousand- club worlds. He reads from his new book, which
square-foot plaza that sits beneath the southern offers insights into figures like Lady Gaga, Su-
end of the Manhattan Bridge. It was used for stor- sanne Bartsch, and Michael Alig, the infamous
ing scrap metal before its conversion, in 2007, to club kid turned murderer who was recently re-
a public space for performances and events. This leased from prisonfor a summer, he employed
summer, the Archway hosts a weekly series of free Corona as his assistant. (1133 Broadway. rizzolibook
shows and exhibitions: on July 6, the psych-soul store.com. July 13 at 6.)

FD & DRINK
TABLES FOR TWO turmeric, saron, and prunesyou dip

1 BAR TAB
Chouchou your face into its steam and imagine
dining in the desert heat, at the feast of
215 E. 4th St. (646-869-1423)
a Bedouin sheikh. North African cook-
Chouchou, a new Mediterranean-Mo- ing tends to go light on salt, instead de-
roccan bistro on a quiet block in the East riving its depth of avor from an aro-
Village, takes its name from a 2003 matic balance of sweet and sour, with
French comedy about the travails of a spices ranging from cinnamon to cori-
North African transvestite in Paris. If ander. If you need an extra kick, ask for Cape House
you havent heard of Chouchou the a generous dollop of harissa, the Moroc- 2 Knickerbocker Ave., Brooklyn (718-821-2580)
movie, Mario Carta, the owner of can hot sauce made of chili, red pepper, This riff on a New England clam shack has a
Chouchou the restaurant, will be unsur- and garlic that is guaranteed to leave cheery coastal dcor and a vast range of warm-
prised and most likely pleased. My your lips plumped and tingling. Besides weather amenitiesa spacious patio lined with
wooden picnic tables, draft cocktails available
guests should arrive here fresh and un- the tagine, there is just one other main frozen by request, and littlenecks on the half shell,
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE
suspecting, Carta said. Can you imag- dish: couscous, accompanied by lamb at a clam a pop. We just wanted a place to hang
ine if I named this place Casablanca? chops, chicken, kefta (seasoned meat outside and smoke, really, the bartender Wes
Badrigian said, on a recent Sunday evening. Ba-
From the frosted hanging lanterns to patties), or merguez sausage. The cous- drigian, with his jovial Northeastern accent and
the slinky, willow-waisted sta, the cous is so remarkably photogenic handlebar mustache, set a laid-back, cozy tenor,
restaurant evokes a sultry night club topped with a sunlike spread of orchid as he poured terrific takes on the Paper Plane
(bourbon, Aperol, Montenegro, lemon) and the
where the mood is determinedly roman- petalsthat you could be forgiven for Ancient Mariner (rum, grapefruit liqueur, lime).
tic and the lights are dangerously dim. wondering if its beauty is compensatory He grew up in New England, and was pleased that
When, after ordering, a parade of tiny for culinary defects. the establishment reflected his upbringinghe
hails from a line of lobstermen. And it would, in
saucers appearsa cucumber salad mar- Its notthe couscous has a fragrant fact, be easy to believe that you had stumbled into
inated in cilantro, parsley, and lemon warmth and a satiny moisture that, one a favorite watering hole of some quiet fishing
juice; shaved fennel with raisins and night, turned a group of rst-timers into village, were it not for the patrons, who are more
or less the picture of millennial affect common on
cumin; a traditional charred-tomato- converts. I never thought I would like this industrial corner of Bushwick: artfully di-
and-pepper salad called matbuchathey this stu, one man said in disbelief, as shevelled hair, dirty white T-shirts, fading sleeves
are so pretty and unanticipated that rst- he scraped up the last spoonful. His wife, of tattoos. (Its nice to see that some things never
change.) Evenings at Cape House can be rau-
time patrons might wonder if an entre who had been occupied with Instagram- cousa room in the basement hosts bands and
is even necessary. ming each dish, nodded before looking d.j.s that once played Glasslands and Death by
When a magnicent vessel the size up and taking stock of the black-and- Audio, before those clubs were gutted to accom-
modate the offices of Vice Media. But it was an
of a human head lands on your table white mosaic tiles around the restaurant. unusually quiet evening, and Badrigian seemed
soon thereafter, you will be grateful that Do you guys remember the lm Casa- at peace. He pointed to the farthest point of the
you didnt forgo the entre. It is a tagine, blanca? she asked the table. I feel like patio, where two fences resolved at a point that
evoked the hull of a ship, and sighed, dreamily.
containing your choice of meat; lamb Im in its opening scene! (Dishes $28-$42.) From here, the sun literally sets right in front of
arrives in a transporting broth of cumin, Jiayang Fan your eyes.Wei Tchou

THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT post-civil-rights-era uplift than Doug- has been from lifting as we climb to
DIGNITY AND THE FOURTH lasss, was also an aront to reactionary raising the drawbridge and bolting the
pieties. Even as Obama tried to win votes, door. Trump may operate a twenty-
ore than three-quarters of a cen- he did not paper over the duality of the rst-century Twitter machine, but he
M tury after the delegates of the
Second Continental Congress voted
American condition: its idealism and its
injustices; its heroism in the ght against
is still a frontier-era drummer peddling
snake oil, juniper tar, and Dr. Tablers
to quit the Kingdom of Great Britain Fascism and its bloody misadventures Buckeye Pile Cure for prot from the
and declared that all men are created before and after. His idea of a patriotic back of a dusty wagon.
equal, Frederick Douglass stepped up song was America the Beautifulnot As a candidate, Trump told his fol-
to the lectern at Corinthian Hall, in in its sentimental ballpark versions but lowers that he would fulll every
Rochester, New York, and, in an Inde- the way that Ray Charles sang it, as a dream you ever dreamed for your coun-
pendence Day address to the Ladies blues, capturing the fullness of the Amer- try. But he is a plutocrat. His loyalty
of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing ican experience, the view from the bot- is to the interests of the plutocracy.
Society, made manifest the darkest iro- tom as well as the top. Trumps vows of solidarity with the
nies embedded in American history Donald Trump, who, in fairness, has struggling working class, with the vic-
and in the national self-regard. What, noted that Frederick Douglass is an tims of globalization and deindustri-
to the American slave, is your 4th of example of somebody whos done an alization, are a fraud. He made coal
July? Douglass asked: amazing job, represents an entirely miners a symbol of his campaign, but
I answer; a day that reveals to him, more dierent tradition. He has no interest he has always held them in contempt.
than all other days in the year, the gross injus- in the wholeness of reality. He descends To him, they are luckless schmoes who
tice and cruelty to which he is the constant from the lineage of the Know-Noth- fail to possess his ineable talents.
victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; ings, the doomsayers and the fabulists, The coal miner gets black-lung dis-
your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your the nativists and the hucksters. The ease, his son gets it, thenhisson,
national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds
of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your de- thematic shift from Obama to Trump Trump once told Playboy. IfIhad
nunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impu- been the son of a coal miner, I would
dence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hol- have left the damn mines. But most
low mockery; your prayers and hymns, your people dont have the imagination
sermons and thanksgivings, with all your reli- or whateverto leave their mine. They
gious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere
bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hy- dont have it.
pocrisya thin veil to cover up crimes which Trump is hardly the rst bad Pres-
would disgrace a nation of savages. There is ident in American historyhe has not
not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, had adequate time to eclipse, in deed,
more shocking and bloody, than are the peo- the very worstbut when has any pol-
ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL
ple of these United States, at this very hour.

itician done so much, so quickly, to de-
The dissection of American reality, mean his oce, his country, and even
in all its complexity, is essential to polit- the language in which he attempts to
ical progress, and yet it rarely goes un- speak? Every day, Trump wakes up and
punished. One reason that the Repub- erodes the dignity of the Presidency a
lican right and its attendant media little more. He tells a lie. He tells an-
loathed Barack Obama is that his pub- other. He trolls Arnold Schwarzenegger.
lic rhetoric, while far more buoyant with He trolls the press, bellowing enemy
of the people and fake news! He dictions. Melania Trump, whose cause which, as Hannah Arendt put it in
shoves aside a Balkan head of state. He is cyber-bullying, defends the poisoned her treatise on totalitarian states,
summons his Cabinet members to have tweet at Brzezinski. His righteously millions come to believe that every-
them swear fealty to his awesomeness. feminist daughter Ivanka stays mum. thing was possible and that nothing
He leers at an Irish journalist. Last After the recent special election in was true.
Thursday, he tweeted at Joe Scarbor- Georgia, Kellyanne Conway, the coun- Frederick Douglass ended his In-
ough and Mika Brzezinski, of MSNBC: sellor to the President, tweeted, Laugh- dependence Day jeremiad in Roches-
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe ing my #Osso. The wit! The valor! ter with steadfast optimism (I do not
speaks badly of me (dont watch Verily, the return of Camelot! despair of this country). Read his clos-
anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Trump began his national ascen- ing lines, and what despair you might
Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, dancy by hoisting the racist banner of feel when listening to a President who
came . . . to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a birtherism. Since then, as candidate abets ignorance, isolation, and cyni-
row around New Years Eve, and in- and as President, he has found count- cism is eased, at least somewhat. The
sisted on joining me. She was bleed- less ways to pollute the national at- mental darkness of earlier times is
ing badly from a face-lift. I said no! mosphere. If someone suggests a lie done, Douglass reminded his audience.
The Presidents misogyny and his in- that is useful to him, he will happily Intelligence is penetrating the dark-
decency are well established. When is pass it along or endorse it. This habit est corners of the globe. There is yet
it time to question his mental stability? is not without purpose or cumulative hope for the great principles of the
The atmosphere of debasement and eect. Even if Trump fails in his most Declaration of Independence and the
indignity in the White House, it ap- ambitious policy initiatives, whether genius of American Institutions. There
pears, is contagious. Trumps family and it is liberating the wealthy from their was reason for optimism then, as there
the aides who hastened to serve him tax obligations or liberating the poor is now. Donald Trump is not forever.
have learned to imitate his grossest from their health care, he has already Sometimes it just seems that way.
reexes, and to hell with the contra- begun to foster a public sphere in David Remnick
AT CITY HALL theyre the kind of night club (Output, restricted certain instruments. Just to
DANCE OUTLAWS Space Ibiza) where a Corona costs nine really drive home what that exactly meant:
dollars. Many neighborhoods that have saxophones werent allowed, but accor-
been the birthplace of global dance crazes, dions were, she said.
like Morris Heights (break dancing) and Those sections of the law were
East Harlem (salsa), do not have a single changed after a 1986 court challenge,
legal dancing venue. but the rule remained, and was enforced
Espinal, who introduced the latest at- with renewed vigor by Mayor Rudolph
he public is not allowed to applaud tempt to repeal the law, is youthful and Giuliani. Bill de Blasios administration
T in the chambers of the New York
City Council. Just as dancing is illegal,
bearded. His district encompasses parts
of Bushwick, Brownsville, Cypress Hills,
nominally supports repealin an e-mail,
the Mayors oce said that it is work-
its illegal to clap here, the city council- and East New York. Antonio Reynoso, ing on a multifaceted solution. But, in
man Rafael Espinal told a group of cit- who represents parts of Williamsburg the meantime, the law continues to be
izens. You have to do jazz hands. and Bushwick, is a co-sponsor. Were enforced: twenty-seven criminal-court
It was a recent Monday, and the cit- both young Dominicans who represent summonses for unlawful cabarets were
izens, many wearing T-shirts that read North Brooklyn, but were also hardened issued in the rst quarter of 2017.
DANCING IS NOT A CRIME, were only criminals, Reynoso said. Were dance Andrew Muchmore, the owner of
too happy to comply. They had gathered outlaws. Muchmores, a small music venue in Wil-
to argue for the repeal of New York Citys The hearing began at 1 p.m. For the liamsburg, wore a pin-striped suit and a
cabaret law, which dates to 1926 and pro- next ve hours, bar owners, party pro- tie to deliver his testimony. After receiv-
hibits dancing in venues that dont have moters, d.j.s, bachata enthusiasts, and ing a citation for dancing, in 2013,
a cabaret license. The law does not spec- Lindy Hoppers testied in defense of Muchmore, who is also an attorney, led
ify what, exactly, constitutes dancing, but their favorite pastime. The rst speaker a lawsuit against the city that is still mak-
it denes a public dance hall as any room, on a panel of experts was Frankie De- ing its way through the courts. What is
place or space in the city in which danc- caiza Hutchinson, a co-founder of the the dierence between dancing and sway-
ing is carried on and to which the pub- feminist d.j. collective Discwoman and ing, or toe tapping, or head nodding?
lic may gain admission. a prominent gure in New Yorks techno he asked.
Of more than twelve thousand ven- scene. She wore business-casual clothes Rachel Nelson, the tattooed owner of
ues in New York that are licensed to sell with her lavender-and-platinum-blond the Brooklyn bars Happyfun Hideaway
alcohol, fewer than a hundred can legally braids, and spoke about the racist ori- and Flowers for All Occasions and the
allow dancing. Many are strip clubs gins of the cabaret law, which ostensibly gallery-bar Secret Project Robot, spoke of
(Pumps, Private Eyes) or concert venues targeted speakeasies but was also a way the fear that is created by a patron who is
(Terminal 5, the Village Vanguard)or of regulating Harlems jazz clubs. Its text having too much fun and begins to dance.
Cabaret violations tend to be handed her brown-eyed, hawklike vigilance child, a young man named Walker, com-
out not by local police but by a task force gives her an outsized presence. People mitted suicide. On that set, she said, I
known by its acronym, MARCH (Multi- dont come to New York out of resigna- was very alone. Just . . . alone. I would love
Agency Response to Community Hot tion, she went on. They come here with to redit the lm, have at it with a Bush
Spots). I love my local police, Nelson a dream. Mine was to be an actress. Hoga Southern brand of lawnmower.
said. They keep me safe. They look cute In front of the Chatsworth, an ornate She pushed her barely nibbled eggs aside.
in their uniforms. I have a great relation- building overlooking the Hudson River, Now that Hunter is fty-nine, moth-
ship with all the precincts Ive ever been she said, I moved to the city in August ers are necessarily a stock-in-trade. Its
in. She said that MARCH seems to be of 1980, and someone I thought was a the sexism of movies, she said. Shielding
activated in two scenarios: when a venue friend had an apartment in this wedding her mouth to impersonate a misogynistic
is in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, cake of a building, so I slept on her couch producer, she whispered, Cast her as the
or when it gets on some kind of naughty for a few days. Then she came back from mom. But she rst played a mother in
listsometimes for good reasons, like est, where they hadnt let her go to the the Coen brothers Raising Arizona, in
violence and drugs, and sometimes when, bathroom, and she said, I need my space. 1987, some two decades before she be-
as in the case with art spaces, theres a So I spent the night on the ground in came one. If youve had intimacy in your
cultural misunderstanding. Riverside Park, with my backpack as a life, you can be intimate onscreen, she
Other speakers questioned why in- pillow. She looked over her shoulder. said. I mean, come onI didnt know
spectors need to show up surrounded And, wow, it was not as lush as it is now. how to hold a gun, but I could play a
by ocers in tactical gear. I thought it After couch-surng for three weeks, cop. The intimacy she drew on came
was a counterterrorism raid, like some Hunters luck changed: I got a horror from her elder sister.
Bourne Ultimatum tip, John Barclay lm, The Burning, and suddenly I was After Hunter bombed in a piano
said of the raid that resulted in a caba- making crazy money, like a thousand a recital in Atlanta, at the age of nine, her
ret-license violation for his bar, in Bush- week, so I moved into an apartment on
wick. It was like they found El Chapo Amsterdam with a guy who was also in
in my bar or something. The Burning, Jason Alexanderlater
As the afternoon wore on, a bigger of Seinfeld fame. Though shed found
picture emerged, in which dancing was a support groupall these kids in the
only one casualty of the homogeniza- movie who got slaughtered by some ma-
tion of city life. Greed and culture are niac with scissorsthe scrounging con-
incompatible, Nancy Anello, a self- tinued. She and Alexander lived by Nee-
described nineties club kid, said. She dle Park, and she was red from a waitress
recited a grim list of night-life casual- job for making out with my boyfriend
ties: the Palladium is now an N.Y.U. for behavior. Six years later, after star-
dorm, the Limelight is a gym, Electric ring in Broadcast News, she bought an
Circus is a Chipotle, and Paradise Ga- apartment in the building next to the
rage is now an actual garage. Chatsworth. So it can go, in New York.
Diego La Vargas, a house-music ad- Hunter now lives in Brooklyn and has
vocate, said that the issue is existential. eleven-year-old twins. At a West Side
New Yorkers need to let o steam. Oth- restaurant candidly named Westside
erwise wed be blowing each other up and Restaurant, she ordered fried eggs and dis-
1
throwing each other onto the train tracks. cussed her two summer lms, The Big Holly Hunter
Emily Witt Sick and Strange Weather. In each, she
plays a ercely protective mother, a role in parents didnt grasp how traumatic it was.
THE PICTURES her by now familiar wheelhouse, which I was playing The Flight of the Bum-
THE MOM SLOT she characterized as forthright, strong, blebee, and I totally forgot the ending,
blah blah blah. In The Big Sick, her so I performed the whole piece again
characters daughter spends most of the and I still couldnt remember it. Her face
lm in a coma. Hunter said that, on the was very still. So I played a single note
set, Kumail Nanjianiwho wrote the au- and stood up. And I never really played
tobiographical movie with his once coma- in public again. Could she play in pub-
tose wife, and who stars in itwas the lic now? No. Even having played on-
olly Hunters Georgia twang pierced actor whisperer. Just before Action!, I kept screen in The Piano? No. Should we
H the rumble of trac. When I
started here, thirty-seven years ago, the
draining Kumail of all the information he
had about what it was really like.
keep talking about No! she cried.
Then she laughed.
Upper West Side was grittier and more In Strange Weather, a low-budget Hunter observed that some actors
knockaround, she said. She was strid- indie lm on which, she said, if you shot arent intimate with anyone else on-
ing down West Seventy-second Street, next to a McDonalds, thats where you screen, only with the audience. Bette
wearing a sack sweater and jeans. Hunter ate, she plays a woman who road-trips Davis and Buster Keaton were withhold-
is petite, but her unblinking wariness to New Orleans to discover why her only ing, but they had incredible intimacy
with us. One of her early heroes evokes idea was to bring the voices of every East Side, so Im always coming across
that kind of charismatic solitude (as Hun one who came into the lab together, by town, past Trump Tower.
ter does). In the eighties, she recalled, rst recording them individually, and The oms threethousandyear his
there was a bar called Caf Central, not then merging them into this larger col tory, integral to the Hindu and Tibetan
far o, on Columbus Avenue, where, lective chant, the curator Risha Lee Buddhist traditions, would seem to tran
rumor had it, Robert Duvall hung out. said, the other day. Its the largest re scend the squabbles of our twoparty
So Id look through the window. I never corded chant of om that we know of. system. It has variously represented cos
saw him, never met him, never worked This thundering om snowball, ac mic balance, the root of all music, and
with him later. But it was encouraging cumulated during three months of the key to immortality. We have peo
to think, in this whole huge city, that I anxietyproducing headlines, has ab ple trying to enunciate very important
1
somehow had a proximity to him. sorbed just over ten thousand discrete political issues these days, and its equally
Tad Friend oms. The collective version was recently important to listen, Lee said, standing
unveiled as part of the museums show by the Om Lab, holding a marigold. I
VIBRATIONS DEPT. The World Is Sound, played through hope that all New Yorkers are able to try
SONIC HEALING a dozen speakers for visitors seated on to nd a way to listen to each other. No
benches. (The Rubins om, as far as the one is an independent actor in all of this.
curators know, does not include one (Not everyone was so moved. A security
from Ivanka Trump, who claims to med guard, observing a line of prospective
itate twice a day.) omers, shrugged when asked if hed par
On a recent Friday, Cheri Dannels ticipated. Not my thing, he said.)
left her job at 5:30 p.m. and headed The oms recorded at the Rubin were
Iingtpropot
took sidestepping a drum circle, a
rally, a dozen venders hawk
greens (garlic scapes: four dollars a
downtown. I had some trainsignal
problems, so I was late getting to the
Rubin, which was annoying, and I was
uploaded via Dropbox and sent to for
mer interns turned omcutters in Con
necticut and Ohio, who weeded out
bunch), and a psychic on her cell phone, not able to calm myself very well, she unusable chants. Some oms were just
near Union Square, to reach the extreme said. Dannels is a receptionist at a nan background noise, or people screaming
quiet of the Om Lab, a recording studio cial company, and although she once into the microphone, Lee said, from in
on the sixth oor of the Rubin Museum. kept a yoga journal, her practice has side the booth. You cant really rough
Once inside, with the foaminsulated fallen o. But after her rst om, she said, house in here. Though I have seen ve or
door rmly shut, a visitor could revel in I felt an almost vibrational peace, is the six people in here together, oming.
the blissful nonsound. Then, from an best way I can describe it. The passable oms were then sent to
iPad, a recorded trio of monks intoned Unbeknownst to Dannels, the om a sound mixer in lower Manhattan, for
the word om. she recorded was the museums ten editing. The museums Jamie Lawyer had
Two weeks after Donald Trumps In thousandth. (She found this out from just been down to preview the nished
auguration, the Rubin quietly began col the curators later, by email.) Trumps product. Theres this incredible sort of
lecting the oms of stressedout New election, she said, has created tension buzz or thread that really goes through,
Yorkers. Visitors were invited to take a in the street. You never know what youre she said. Its like this really beautiful
seat in a small booth, put on headphones, going to overhear on a street corner, or connective tissue.
and om along with the monks. The in a subway car or a bus. I work on the A visitor asked if there is a right way
to say om. You can start out by doing
auuuummm, Lee said. It goes from the
back of your throat to the top of your
mouth, and comes out nasal. She demon
strated: Nnnnnn. But everyones om is
dierent. Theres a practice of saying om
over and over again, like omomomom.
One saying is, Just as all leaves are held
together by a stem, so all speech is held
together by om.
The Om Lab was dismantled and
placed in storage shortly after a jazz vo
calist visiting from Atlanta chanted its
nal note. But the Rubin hopes to open
the project in a new iteration elsewhere.
The way the piece works, its not a xed
compositionits a piece of software,
Lee said. So, theoretically, you could
drag in an innite number of oms.
Anna Russell
THE FINANCIAL PAGE alleged sexual harassment at the high- as it expanded, Uber was losing enor-
UBER AND OUT est levels at Fox News, but what set Uber mous amounts of money. The burn
apart was the way the company was cel- rate was alarming, Rawley told me.
ebrated for its better-to-ask-forgive- Uber was shedding around three quar-
ness approach to business. Kalanick ters of a billion dollars every three
was praised even as he was dismissive months, following a business strategy
n February 23rd, two venture cap- of obstacles in his path, such as local- that Kalanick showed few signs of
O italists, both early investors in the
ride-sharing company Uber, circulated
government regulations and protests
from his companys drivers. As long as
changing. Amazon and other technol-
ogy giants had pursued this method,
an open letter in response to a female Uber was growing at a brisk pace, be- by which the generous ow of money
engineers published account of sexual havior that could be characterized as from investors was used to subsidize
harassment at the company. Silicon rule-breaking was framed as bold dis- losses and drive competitors out. Ubers
Valley prides itself on pattern recogni- ruption. When the only thing that seventy-billion-dollar valuation was
tion, Freada Kapor Klein and Mitch- matters in the nal analysis is how big predicated on the assumption that
ell Kapor wrote. Here are a couple of youre getting and how fast, which is they would be a monopolist in some
toxic patterns we have observed. De- whats shown to produce these multi- markets, Rawley said. But Lyft and
spite several scandals, they went on, billion-dollar returns, what you get is other smaller competitors maintained
Uber had failed to reform its culture, a culture of looking the other way, of a stubborn hold in many cities, and
and investors in high growth, nan- Ubers costly experiments with driver-
cially successful companies rarely, if less cars are a long way from working
ever, call out inexcusable behavior from out. The H.R. and cultural issues were
founders or C-suite executives. They (a) a real problem, but (b) a really con-
argued that both of these patterns venient excuse to push Travis aside,
needed to change. Rawley said. He added, I think there
Four months later, when Ubers were some real business and strategic
C.E.O., Travis Kalanick, stepped down issues with the way Travis was taking
after other inuential investors de- the company, and the V.C.s and inves-
manded his resignation, Klein and Ka- tors in Uber were starting to grow wor-
pors words appeared to have resonated. ried about it. If Uber had to begin
Kalanick, who helped found Uber, in raising more money, new investors could
2009, built the company into an indis- demand better terms that would have
pensable amenity in many urban areas reduced the value of earlier investors
and one of the most highly valued pri- holdings, a scenario the early investors
vate companies in history. This success were eager to avoid.
was achieved against a backdrop of es- Sunil Paul, an entrepreneur who
calating management concerns and legal started Sidecar, a onetime competitor
problems. In addition to facing allega- that didnt survive Ubers overwhelm-
tions of harassment, Uber is in a war refusing to deal with what ought to be ing force, told me that Ubers board
with its drivers over reducing their fares; an aront to people, Mitch Kapor told members were rattled by the Delete Uber
its ghting an intellectual-property law- me a few days after Kalanick resigned. campaign, during which around half a
suit charging that Uber is using self- He went on, If Uber . . . had fought million consumers were believed to have
driving-car technology stolen from to get complete permission to get where wiped the Uber app from their phones.
Waymo, a part of Alphabet; and the they are, they wouldnt exist today. I The concerns about the corporate cul-
Justice Department is reportedly inves- dont think anyone would dispute that. ture are genuine, and potentially destruc-
tigating whether the company used soft- So the question is: Is there a way to tive to the companys brand. But Paul
ware to evade regulators as it launched innovate in a way that has more mea- didnt think that the worry about ethics
its service in new cities. There was also sured disruption? And, absolutely, I or corporate behavior would ultimately
a leaked videotape of Kalanick scold- think it could be done. dissuade Uber and its investors from am-
ing an Uber driver, and reports of pri- Measured disruption sounds sensi- bitious expansion, with or without Tra-
vacy violations and even espionage. The ble, but it doesnt dazzle venture capi- vis Kalanick. Whatever shape the new
brand came to represent both conve- talists in the way that Kalanicks ruth- strategy takes, it likely wont be measured.
nience and sinister corporate overreach. less growth strategy evidently did. Still, Its not about replacing taxisits about
There are many examples of corpo- for all Ubers success, there was a more replacing cars and creating an entirely
rate behavior that violates rules but urgent problem that caught investors new industry, Paul said. Scandal or not,
GOLDEN COSMOS
bolsters prots, from emissions cheat- attention. Evan Rawley, a professor at thats just the sort of wild promise of riches
ing at Volkswagen to the creation of the University of Minnesota who stud- that investors are eager to get in on.
fake bank accounts at Wells Fargo and ies entrepreneurship, notes that, even Sheelah Kolhatkar

ping in a serve like a beginner, and
THE SPORTING SCENE starting to walk o the court before
it bounced. At some point in almost
THE KYRGIOS ENIGMA

every match, he tends to do something
brilliantor he snaps.
Twisting, eyes wide, he opened his
The most exciting new talent in mens tennis isnt sure if he likes the game. shoulders and tossed the ball. Then he
reared up and whipped his racquet to-
BY LOUISA THOMAS ward the toss. It is an ecient, brutally
eective motion. In a match in March,
Kyrgios aced Djokovic, the greatest
returner in the history of the game,
twenty-ve times in two sets. He hits
at serves more than a hundred and
forty miles per hour. He slices the ball
so that it skids the line. He can put on
so much spin that the ball arcs in at
eighty-four miles per hour and then
leaps up above the returners head, as
if the ground were a trampoline.
Across the net from Kyrgios was
Nicolas Kicker, a twenty-four-year-old
Argentine who is ranked ninety-fourth
in the world. Serving at 52, 4015,
Kyrgios already had ve aces. This serve,
down the T, made it six. His forward
momentum carried him toward his
chair, as if that were his destination
all along.
It was a lovely afternoonmid-May,
the golden hourbut something
seemed wrong. Kyrgios winced and
grabbed his hip. An old injury had ared
up in Madrid two weeks earlier; hed
been forced to withdraw from a tour-
nament in Rome. He started to shorten
points, to limit the strain on his hip.
He hit drop shots from well behind
the baseline which died on the net. He
went for aces, on both rst and second
ick Kyrgios, the twentieth-ranked Annacone, a former coach of Federer serves. Kyrgios, who has an unusually
N tennis player in the world, stepped
to the baseline. He briskly bounced the
and Pete Sampras, has said. Kyrgios is
also the most mercurial. Jon Wertheim,
aggressive game, often uses such tac-
tics to great eect. But as the match
ball and rocked forward to begin his the executive editor of Sports Illustrated, wore on he appeared to be exhibiting
serve, his arms swinging. He has a nar- once called him tennis id. not strategy but impatience. After one
row waist and strong shoulders, a grey- It was the second round of the Open error, he bounced his racquet in dis-
hounds look, and a greyhounds air of Parc Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes Lyon, a gust and caught it on the handle. The
languid indierence. Kyrgios, a twenty- small tournament in the run-up to the crowd murmured expectantly. They
two-year-old Australian, is the only French Open. There was a charge in were ready for a meltdown. Instead, he
active player ever to defeat Roger Fed- the air, as there always is when Kyr- bounced the racquet and caught it again,
erer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic gios plays. He is known for his spec- and again, as if to distract himself.
in their rst meetings; he has beaten tacular shots: he has the skill and the Kicker, serving for the set, hit a drop
Nadal and Djokovic twice, in fact, and imagination of Federer or John McEn- shot that hung in the air on the bounce.
came within a few points of a second roe. His matches have also featured Kyrgios has tremendous speed; ordinarily,
victory over Federer earlier this year. I epic displays of ranting, racquet-wreck- he could have covered the ground. In-
think Nick is the most talented player ing, and trash-talking. Kyrgios once stead, he took only one step into the
since Roger jumped on the scene, Paul agrantly tried to lose a match, bop- court, ceding the point. A few minutes
later, he served and rushed the net, let-
Nick Kyrgios prefers doubles or team events to the loneliness of singles. ting Kickers return y by him; the ball
28 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL ROGERS
landed well inside the lines. Point, Kicker. have an opinion of your character, and est player to win a Masters title since
Down set point, with a second serve, when youre twenty-two years old, the Djokovic himself, in 2007. I asked Kyr-
Kyrgios went for the ace. It clipped the answer can be complicated. gios whether Zverevs win motivated
top of the net. Double fault. Kyrgios him. Im incredibly happy for him, he
spent the changeover ipping a little eople tend to tell one of two stories said, and it was obvious that he meant
Evian water bottle.
Kicker started swinging more freely.
P about Kyrgios. Either he is a talented
kid who is wasting his gift with a bad
it. But I dont know if it motivates
me. I didnt feel, as soon as he won,
His serve got more pop. He hit several attitude and a terrible work ethic, or he Man, Im going to go train, or any-
successful drop shots, testing Kyrgioss is a talented kid who has struggled, something. He won a tournament. Its good,
sore hip. It started to look like the nal times severely, with his motivation, but but its more weeks on the road where
at Roland Garros on Kickers side of who is maturing. A column in the Syd- were going to play tennis matches, and
the net, and an exhibition match on ney Morning Herald was headlined Nick thats it.
Kyrgioss. Kyrgios ran around his fore- Kyrgios Is a National Embarrass- Many people assume that Kyrgios is
hand to hit a tweenera between-the- ment. Other people believe that he in denial about his ambition. I think
legs shotfrom the doubles alley, which could be the future of mens tennis. deep down, in his own way, hes becom-
Kicker easily blocked back into the I think he has the most talent of any- ing more professional, Paul McNamee,
open court. When Kicker broke his serve one twenty-ve and under, Brad Gil- a retired Australian player and a former
and took command of the set, Kyrgios bert, an ESPN commentator and Andre C.E.O. of the Australian Open, told me.
slammed his racquet into the dirt. His Agassis former coach, told me. If you But to admit that and to failhe would
hip seemed increasingly to bother him. put the total package around him not cope with that, maybe. Kyrgios re-
So, perhaps, did his spirit; his grandfa- coaches, trainers, focussed practice ses- sists that analysis. Some days, Im really
ther, who helped rear him, had died a sions, strenuous training blocksand good, he said. I like going out on the
few weeks before. In the end, Kicker he embraced that, I would be shocked if practice court and training with my mates.
easily took the second and third sets, he didnt win multiple slams and become But I dont know about fully engaging
beating a top-fty player for the rst top two in the world. and giving everything to it. Its just a
time. Kyrgios trudged to the net to shake People tell me I need to change, but game. Its just a sport. Its such a small
his hand. it has to come from me, Kyrgios told part of my life.
Half an hour after the match, I was me before playing Kicker in Lyon. We I asked Kyrgios why he doesnt quit.
waiting for the elevator in the lobby of were sitting in the hotel restaurant, with Id rather be doing that than working
my hotel, when I heard Kyrgios request his agent, John Morris, in the lull beat Chipotle or something, he said. For
a new room key. He was still in his kit: tween breakfast and lunch. Kyrgios wore me, its an easy way to make money.
black shorts, a magenta Nike top, shoes long blue shorts and a Vince Carter jer- Im just hitting a ball over a net. He
smeared with ochre clay. His beard was sey with a chain tucked into the neck. added, Of course, Ive grown up with
trimmed tight along his jawline, his dark He drank a tiny glass of orange juice. it. Its a part of me. Its all I really know
hair shaved on the sides of his head and I dont think I want it enough, Kyr- how to do.
sculpted on top like a ame. gios said. He shook his head and said it Kyrgios got up from his chair; he had
He stared at his phone as he shued again. Perhaps he was tired. His beloved a doubles match in a few hours. I was
to the elevator. As he stepped inside, he Celtics had had a playo game against left with Morris, a compact Englishman
looked up. We had met the previous Cleveland the night before, and he had with a thoughtful look. He doesnt do
day, and he sounded surprisingly cheer- been up at 3 A.M., to watch. The thing it for the money, Morris said. He doesnt
ful as he greeted me. Sorry about the about tennis life is that its the same thing know what he has in the bank. Hes a
match, I said. every day, Kyrgios said. You train. You competitor. Hes always competing.
He gave a quick, harsh laugh, and come back to the hotel. You get treat- So why does he sometimes stop try-
then his voice lightened. Its all right. ment. You eat. You sleep. You get up. It ing to win? I asked.
Its not a big deal, he said. is unglamorous and exhausting, a life I dont know. Hes a bit of an enigma.
He stepped out of the elevator, and spent half in airports and hotels, thou- I wish I knew. I think Nick probably
I watched the doors close behind his sands of miles from home. Almost every wishes he knew more about it, too.
slumped shoulders. There are message- trip is punctuated, often early, with a loss.
board threads dedicated to Kyrgioss Some players orient themselves by the yrgioss rst love was basketball. He
posture, with dozens of comments de-
bating whether the curvature of his
familiarity of their routines. Not Kyr-
gios: he gets homesick, injured, and bored.
K spent countless hours watching
Space Jam and playing the video game
upper back requires surgery, interferes He wants to be playing basketball; hed NBA Live. Eventually, he persuaded his
with his hormone circulation, or is a rather be shing; he misses his dogs, his parents to get a cable-TV package that
fakers lazy pose. girlfriend, his family, his friends. included N.B.A. games. Hed wake up
Kyrgios says that he doesnt want to Other young players, such as Dom- early to watch the Celtics and then go
be Federer. So what does he want? When inic Thiem and Alexander Zverev, may outside to shoot baskets, pretending that
youre a tennis player who claims not to be safer bets to win a slam soon. Zverev, he was Paul Pierce. When he was four-
like playing tennis, when half the world a twenty-year-old German, recently beat teen, he was selected for a regional team.
(including most of Australia) seems to Djokovic in Rome, becoming the young- I love the game. I love the sound of the
basketball court, he told me. I love the moving his feet. He did everything he diet improved, and, when he was fteen,
team environment. could to play a point on his terms. I had he had a growth spurt that left him lean,
He also played tennis, beginning group to work out way more to be more ag- even skinny. At seventeen, in 2013, Kyr-
lessons when he was seven. My mum gressive than the average player, Kyr- gios won the junior title at the Austra-
wanted us to participate, his sister, Hali- gios said. lian Open. The following year, he faced
mah, explained. Nicks father, George, a By the time Kyrgios was ten, he was Rafael Nadal, the No. 1 player in the
housepainter, came from Greece as a playing in Australias twelve-and-under world, at Wimbledon. On the rst point
child; his mother, Nill, a computer en- national championships. By his early of the match, Kyrgios hit an ace down
gineer, was born in Malaysia. They reared teens, he was travelling to Europe and the T; Nadal barely had time to inch.
three children, Christos, Halimah, and Asia to play tournaments. Tennis is one Kyrgios aced him thirty-seven times, hit-
Nicholas, in a split-level house in a sub- of the most expensive sports to play at ting seventy winners in all. At 33 in the
urb of Canberra. Georges parents and an lite leveltravel and coaching can second set, he icked his racquet behind
Nills mother lived nearby and looked easily cost tens of thousands of dollars his back and through his legs. The ball
after the kids during the day. Halimah per yearand Kyrgioss talent strained barely cleared the net, landing just in-
recalled that Nick, the youngest, was the familys nances. Halimah recalled, side the line. The tweener became his
just a cute little thingvery competi- My parents had to decide, Do we put signature shot. Kyrgios won the match
tive, but I think that comes from Chris- in the money, all the money we have, to in four sets. He dropped his racquet and
tos. When youre the youngest, youre al- trust that its going to get somewhere? held his head in his hand. Morris told
ways ghting to be better than the rest. When Kyrgios was fteen, Tennis Aus- me, You dont see that same joy, sheer
He was best at tennis. A local coach, tralia, the countrys governing body for joy, anymore.
Andrew Bulley, recognized Kyrgioss tal- the sport, and the Australian Institute of Kyrgios won ten matches in slams
ent and started giving him private les- Sport, a national training center, oered before he won two in regular events.
sons. He hated to practice. As soon as him help in funding his career and a spot O the main stage, he began to strug-
it became boring, hed lose interest, Bul- at the A.I.S. My dad kind of just came gle with the demands of the tour. At
ley recalled. He wanted scoring. Kyr- out and said, Whats easier to make it the moment when most top players
gios, who was overweight and asthmatic, in, in Australia, playing basketball or ten- build up an entourage of coaches, phys-
couldnt run well, which meant that he nis? Obviously, I knew the answer was iotherapists, and trainers, Kyrgios split
had to develop an original game. When tennis, Kyrgios said. with one coach and then another, and
he was out of position, he learned to hit At the A.I.S., he was miserable at struck out on his own. Every coach I
winners o his heels or the back foot, rst. He liked the camaraderie of the had tried to tame me, tried to make me
using his loose arm to generate speed. training center, but he missed basketball, play more disciplined, tried to make me
He scraped deep shots o the bounce or and he hated the repetition required on do drills, he told me. All through my
delicately half-volleyed them instead of the court. Still, his game got better, his career, there were people trying to tell
me to play a more normal style of ten-
nis. But, he went on, Ive just been
kind of playing on instinct. I feel like
its been successful, so I dont know why
theres a good reason to stop that.
Not having a coach meant that there
was less accountability in practice. In
Lyon, I watched him hit with another
Aussie, Matt Reid, two days before the
match against Kicker. Kyrgios did it his
way. Warming up, he entertained the lit-
tle crowd of kids gathered at the chain-
link fence by punctuating his grunts
with the names of other players (Dom-
inic UH Dominic UH Thiem EH-UH
Jo-Willy UH Jo-Wilfried UH). He
started hitting one-handed topspin
backhands, a shot Id never seen him
hit in a match. He and Reid began to
play out the points. Fucking move your
legs, you shit! Kyrgios yelled at him-
self. Another backhand miss: Make
it! A few shots later, he was smiling.
Those who know Kyrgios talk about
his easy nature and his sense of humor. Yet
he became prone to smashing racquets,
arguing with umpires, and berating ball
kids. He once prolonged a changeover
at Wimbledon by theatrically changing
his socks. At many tournaments, he
racked up thousands of dollars in nes
for unsportsmanlike conduct. Most ap-
palling, he told Stan Wawrinka during
a match that a friend had banged his
girlfriend.
Last fall, in Shanghai, Kyrgios had
his episode of openly trying to lose a
match. I was just done, he told me. I
was, like, Next week, I get to go home,
and the only thing thats holding me
back is this match. He was ned twenty-
ve thousand dollars and suspended for
three months, a penalty that was reduced
to eight weeks after he agreed to see a
psychologist. Tennis, for meits a com-
pletely dierent me, he said. The per-
son I am on the court is not who I am
o the court.
yrgios is hardly the rst to strug-

K gle with the warping pressure of
being on tour and alone on the court. We just gave him this box and he hasnt tweeted for days.
Suzanne Lenglen, the French player
who dominated the womens game be-
tween 1914 and 1926she was nick-

named La Divinedrank brandy and
cried during matches. Jimmy Connors men and managers. And, during a match, petitive instincts, or Agassi, though he
made lewd gestures at fans. John McEn- unlike boxers, tennis players cant talk to comes closest to sounding like him.
roe shouted at ocials. I shouldnt be or touch even their opponents, let alone When he was in it, Andre had amaz-
playing tennis now, he told the Times a coach. ing practice habits, Gilbert, his former
after a loss in 1986. Im letting things Andy Murray, the No. 1 mens player, coach, told me. He was a hard worker.
aect me and Im embarrassed. He can keep up a monologue on the court Those are things you hear that Nick
left the tour for six months. for hours. He has become a mentor to struggles with a little bit. Andre would
Racquet smashing is the most com- Kyrgios, and FaceTimes with him reg- have a patch where he wasnt as com-
mon means of catharsis. Goran Ivan- ularly. Ive experienced a lot of what he mitted, but when he was committed he
isevic had to default a 2000 match be- is going through, Murray wrote in an put in the timeunbelievableon the
cause he had broken all his racquets. e-mail. As athletes, were supposed to practice court.
In 2008, Mikhail Youzhny hit himself be mentally strong, and if you are seen In January, at the Australian Open,
in the forehead with his racquet so hard to be talking about feelings or anything Agassi gave a rare press conference, in
that it left a bloody gash. Marat San, like that, not believing in yourself or back- which he talked about Kyrgios. Three
a two-time slam winner, who was as ing yourself or struggling to cope with days earlier, Kyrgios had crashed in the
tormented as he was gifted, has esti- pressure, thats seen as a negative. He second round, after being up two sets to
mated that he smashed seven hundred went on, But there is also a lot of pres- love against the unassuming Andreas
racquets in his career. Hes said to have sure and its not always that easy to deal Seppi. Thousands of people, in his na-
played with shards of graphite embed- with everything. tive country, had booed Kyrgios o the
ded in his arm. Still, Kyrgios is not like Murray, who court. Agassi cautioned against vilifying
Almost every player smashes racquets, is one of the hardest workers on tour. Kyrgios. I do share your feelings that in
and all of them rant and mutter. Ten- Murray recently invited Kyrgios to join watching him it feels, at rst glance, very
nis is the sport in which you talk to your- him for a training period. That was a oensive to see so much talent, to see
self. No athletes talk to themselves like quick no for me, because I know hes somebody in the sport that means a great
tennis players, Agassi wrote in his auto- going to be training four, ve hours a deal to so many, sort of disregarded,
biography, Open. Why? Because ten- day, Kyrgios said. We were probably Agassi said. But, with that being said,
nis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can going to have to be doing these protein the journey I lived has taught me a lot
understand the loneliness of tennis play- shakes. Kyrgios is also not like McEn- about how deep ones struggles can be
ersand yet boxers have their corner roe, who could never turn o his com- and how much good can still exist at the
same time. I dont know his background. me. I dont know if I had a mind-set moves the pressure of being alone on
I know that I was always somebody that that this is what I want to be doing the court, he told me, and reminds him
cared more than I portrayed, because it right now. I didnt have a choice. But that tennis can be fun.
was my defense. It was my way of hid- I felt like I had one goal, and that was He arrived in London two weeks
ing myself from myself. to compete every day. He seemed to before the start of Wimbledon and
be settling into his talent. In May, he rented a house. His mother and Toml-
fter the Australian Open, Kyrgios announced that he had started work- janovi joined him, and his mom
A was in a dark place. He went to
Miami to be with his girlfriend, the Aus-
ing with a coach, Sbastien Grosjean,
a French former player who lives in
cooked; it felt a little like home. On
June 19th, he played his rst match of
tralian player Ajla Tomljanovi, whom Boca Raton, where Tomljanovi trains. the grass-court season, in the Aegon
hes been dating for two years. He thought Its a challenge, a big one, Grosjean International, at the Queens Club. Prac-
about taking a break from tennis; he didnt told me. He has been trying to per- ticing, he looked relaxed. He has liked
know for how long. But then he got a suade Kyrgios to get a tness coach, to grass since he rst played on it as a kid,
call from Lleyton Hewitt, a former cham- prevent injuries and to help him build at a tournament in Australia. It helps
pion who is now the captain of Austra- up his body for the marathons of the his big serve skid, and it suits his ag-
lias Davis Cup team, urging him to play slams. He can be a better athlete. But gressive style.
in the tournament. Top players rarely par- its new for him. It has to come from At Queens, Kyrgios faced the Amer-
ticipate. But for Kyrgios it was a lifeline. him. Grosjean sounded like Kyrgios. ican Donald Young in the rst round.
It was the best thing I could have done, He has to understand, he added. They were on serve halfway through
he said. After his wins this spring, Kyrgios the rst set when Kyrgioss right foot
The other players were apprehensive was on the short list of dark horses at slipped on the newly laid grass; his
about Kyrgioss state of mind, but when the French Open. But, when he talked left knee buckled unnaturally, and he
he arrived in Melbourne, he was fully about his recent success, he didnt rst went down, rolling over in pain. He had
committed. He led the practice sessions point to his results. He spoke about get- strained his hip again. Kyrgios limped
with intensity; he was the rst to start ting to spend a month with Tomljanovi, through the rest of the set, which he
picking up balls. He spent extra time hit- having a single goal each day, and being lost in a tiebreak, and then retired from
ting with the youngest player. He em- part of the Davis Cup team. the tournament.
braced being part of a team. In Febru- Still, he vowed to play Wimbledon.
ary, the Australians defeated the Czech he tour moved from hard courts He thinks he can win. And if he
Republic. Two months later, they beat a
strong American squad, with Kyrgios
T to clay, which blunts Kyrgioss
power and makes him run. After his
doesntnot now, not ever? Kyrgios
has said that he would like to emulate
defeating Sam Querrey, a lanky big server, grandfather died, in May, he skipped a the career of Gal Monls, a French-
to clinch the tie. Afterward, Kyrgios lifted tournament in Estoril, Portugal, and man known for his leaping shots and
up Hewitt and carried him down to the ew back to Australia for a week. He questionable strategies, and for being
court, before being engulfed by his team- picked up a racquet for only twenty one of the most talented players never
mates. I love being on the bench, sup- minutes; when the time came to head to win a major. When I mentioned
porting someone else, he said later. I to the next tournament, in Madrid, he Monlss unfullled promise, Kyrgios
just love that you win together, you take told his family that he didnt want to challenged me. Hes got to, I think,
a loss together. go. As soon as he arrived in Europe, eight in the world, he said. Hes won
That match capped a remarkable run homesickness set in. a lot of tournaments. Hes been to
for Kyrgios. Between the two Davis Cup His body wasnt ready. He reinjured seminals of grand slams. Hes made a
rounds, he beat Djokovic twice, and his hip and lost a desultory match to ton of money. Hes probably one of the
Zverev twice, and played Federer to Nadal. He pulled out of Rome, lost in happiest guys on tour. He added, Ul-
nearly a draw in the seminals of the Lyon, and then lost in the second round timately, hes just a guy who wants peo-
Miami Open. It was a three-set, three- of the French Open, to Kevin Ander- ple to enjoy watching tennis.
tiebreak aair in which the intensity son, a strong player but one Kyrgios Kyrgios sometimes elicits compar-
never dropped. Brad Gilbert, who was should have beaten. He wrecked two isons to Monls, if only because they
courtside, told me that he considered racquets during the match and asked both have a propensity for tweeners.
it the highest-quality match this year. someone in the crowd for a beer. Hon- But Kyrgios doesnt have the same care-
What really struck Gilbert, though, was est to God, get me one now, he begged. free demeanor on the court. I think
how hard the crowd rooted against Kyr- Youre kidding, the spectator he struggles with who he wants to be
gios. They hissed; they tried to rattle responded. and who he is, Rennae Stubbs, an Aus-
him; they called balls out in the middle I dont think so, Kyrgios said. tralian commentator and former player,
of points. For the most part, Kyrgios He was later criticized for having told me. The question in the tennis
kept his cool. Then, on the last point, played doubles the day before, when he world tends to be whether Kyrgios will
he pulverized his racquet. He was dev- and his countryman Jordan Thompson gure out how to win consistently. But
astated to lose. upset the No. 2 seeds, instead of saving for Kyrgios maybe theres a dierent
I felt like I was pretty much un- his energy for singles. But he intends project. I just would like to be happy,
beatable during that time, Kyrgios told to play more doubles, not less. It re- he said. Thats a tough one for me.
Department, Mueller is seized by a
SHOUTS & MURMURS dozen men in ski masks and thrown
into the back of a van. He awakens
two days later, oating in the Medi-
terranean, with no recollection of who
he is or how he got there. The only
clues to his identity are a tube of
Brylcreem and an expired gym mem-
bership to the Y.M.C.A. in Alexan-
dria, Virginia. Fortunately, thats all
he needs. In the course of the next
month, Mueller cuts a violent swath
through Europekilling no less than
six people with his bare handszig-
zagging from Marseilles to Vienna to
Moscow, as he pieces together his
identity. Mueller returns to the United
States a hero, and announces his in-
tention to resume his role as special
counselat which point President
Trump res him.
SURPRISE OUTCOMES TO
SCENARIO 5: Two hours after being
red by President Trump, Mueller re-
THE MUELLER PROBE

ceives a text message from James Comey
that reads U know what we have 2 do.
Three weeks later, a dynamic pro-
BY YONI BRENNER duction of Cabaret opens at a small
theatre in the East Village, starring
SCENARIO 1: Despite months of veiled ans in favor of a gaggle of sexy bikini Mueller as the gender-uid m.c. and
threats and outright obstruction, Rob- models from around the world. Oper- Comey as a leggy, deant Sally Bowles,
ert Mueller heroically completes the ations are relocated from the Justice both of them having decided that,
investigation in early December. The Department to an ersatz grotto on the when bureaucracies fail, it is left to Art
conclusions are shocking. Not only did grounds of Mar-a-Lago, complete with to speak truth to power. At the end of
Paul Manafort directly collude with Rus- live sea turtles, a taxpayer-funded d.j., the show, the cast receives a standing
sian intelligence to hack the D.N.C., and a full-time Daiquiri Consultant. ovation. Tragically, on the second night,
the evidence conrms, but Je Sessions But, three weeks into Stones tenure, Mueller strains his back during the
was in such frequent contact with Sergey reports emerge that President Trump kick-line routine in Act II. He is re-
Kislyak that they would often both fall has soured on the investigation, appar- placed for the rest of the run by Josh
asleep while FaceTiming.The Steele dos- ently xated on the fact that several of Groban.
sier is entirely conrmed, and new data the sea turtles look like Dems. Stone SCENARIO 6: After a rocky beginning,
analysis reveals that the hundred and is red, and Trump takes to Twitter to Mueller and his sta manage to con-
seven thousand decisive Trump votes in invite citizens to tune in on Monday vince the President of their integrity,
the Rust Belt were all cast by Russian night for the surprise announcement and the investigation proceeds apace,
prostitutes. of the new totally phenomenal spe- with the full coperation of the White
The President and the Vice-Presi- cial counseleven though everyone House. In August, Mueller convenes
dent are swiftly impeached, and indict- knows its Jared Kushner. a press conference, at which he an-
ments are issued at every level of the SCENARIO 3: Less than forty-eight nounces thatbesides a few minor
Trump Administration. Curiously, the hours before Mueller is scheduled to faux pasthe Trump campaign team
only gure to emerge unscathed is Mi- report his ndings, Rosenstein sus- acted legally and honorably during the
chael Flynn, whom Mueller pronounces pends the investigation after receiving 2016 election and the transition. He
totally innocent of everything and an anonymous tip from a man with a also praises Jared Kushners smart
also a good guy. Queens accent that the special coun- and totally legal dealmaking with a
SCENARIO 2: In mid-July, Rod Ro- sel is not Robert Muellerthe univer- Kremlin-controlled bank, describing
senstein nally caves to pressure from sally admired former head of the F.B.I. him as a real whiz kid and probably
the White House and res Mueller, but Bobert Mueller, his heretofore a genius. Mueller concludes the con-
LUCI GUTIRREZ
replacing him with the Presidents pre- unknown evil twin, thus rendering the ference by urging the media to oer a
ferred candidate, Roger Stone. Stone entire investigation invalid. full apology to Michael Flynn, whom
promptly pink-slips Muellers team of SCENARIO 4: In September, returning he pronounces totally innocent of
ace prosecutors and intelligence veter- home after a long day at the Justice everything and also a good guy.
girls in her family, was expected to begin
ANNALS OF CULTURE work as a secretary directly after high
school. Though my father practiced law,
IF YOU PRICK US
he had attended law school just after
serving in the First World War, when a
liberal-arts degree was not yet a pre-
What Shakespeare taught me about fear, loathing, and the literary imagination. requisite. A good thing, too, since my
grandfather, a ragpicker, would have had
BY STEPHEN GREENBLATT diculty mustering the will or the means
to pay even the modest tuition fees then
required. My grandparents were not in-
dierent to learning, but they were poor,
and for them any learning that was not
vocational was necessarily religious. The
highest status in their cultural world
came not from wealth or power but from
the possession of Talmudic knowledge.
Theirs was an insular community in
which sexual selectionfor Darwin, a
central motor of mammalian evolution
had for centuries favored slender, near-
sighted, stoop-shouldered young men
rocking back and forth as they pondered
the complex, heavily annotated, often es-
oteric tractates of Jewish law.
None of this was part of my upbring-
ing: most of it had been abandoned when
my grandparents ed tsarist Lithuania,
in the late eighteen-eighties, and settled
in Boston. But the heavy Talmudic vol-
umes left a residue, an inherited respect
for textual interpretation thatreshaped
into secularized formled people like
me to embrace the humanities, an arena
in which the English Department held
pride of place. When I began to take
classes at Yale, I could not understand,
let alone emulate, the amused indier-
ence of many of my classmates. I felt
Shakespeare imagined his way into the humanity even of his villains. within me what in 1904 Henry James,
observing immigrants in New York, re-
proved as the waiting spring of intelli-
Iteachattended university in a very dierent
world from the one in which I now
and live. For a start, Yale College,
uously Irish, Italian, or Polish names were
at a disadvantage. For Jews, there was a
numerus clausus, not even disguised by
gence, signalling the immensity of the
alien presence climbing higher and
which I entered in 1961, was all male. the convenient excuse of geographical higher. I did not feel alienI was born
Women were not matriculated until ve distribution. And the whole system was in this country, as my parents had been,
years after I had received my B.A. de- upheld by a signicant number of lega- and I donned my Yale sweatshirt with-
gree. Among the undergraduates, there cies, along with a pervasive air of privi- out a sense of imposturebut I seized
were only a handful of students from lege and clubbiness. To display too much upon the opportunity Id been granted
Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and interest in ones studies or a concern to learn with an energy that seemed
very few African-Americans, Asian- for grades was distinctly uncool. This slightly foreign.
Americans, or Hispanics, unless one was still the era of what was called the I had a particularly intense engage-
counted a couple of prep-school-educated gentlemans C. ment with my freshman English-
heirs to grand South American fortunes. I picked all this up within days of ar- literature course. Midway through the
The Yale that I attended was over- riving in New Haven, but Yale was for year, the professor asked me if I would
whelmingly North American and white, me an unfamiliar country whose cus- be interested in being his research assis-
as well as largely Protestant. It was di- toms I knew that I could never master. tant, helping him prepare the index for
cult for the admissions oce to identify Neither of my parents had gone to col- a book he had just completed. Ecstatic,
Catholics, but applicants with conspic- lege. My mother, along with the other I immediately agreed. In those days,
34 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY GREG CLARKE
research assistants were required to apply be homogeneous, Eliot told an audi- that confounds Shylocks murderous plan.
for their jobs through the nancial-aid ence at the University of Virginia in 1933, The Jew who had insisted upon the let-
oce, where I dutifully made an appoint- the year that Hitler came to power and ter of the law is undone by the letter of
ment. I was in for a surprise. the prospect arose of a mass outpouring the law; it is what is called poetic justice.
Greenblatt is a Jewish name, isnt it? of refugees seeking protection from the But, all the same, you feel uneasy.
the nancial-aid ocer said. I agreed growing menace. Where two or more What, exactly, are you applauding and
that it was. Frankly, he went on, we cultures exist in the same place they are smiling at? How are you supposed to
are sick and tired of the number of Jews likely either to be ercely self-conscious view the Jewish daughter who robs her
who come into this oce after theyre or both to become adulterate. Perhaps father and bestows the money on her
admitted and try to wheedle money out it occurred to him that it was already far fortune-hunting Christian suitor? Do
of Yale University. I stammered, How too late to prevent two or more cultures you join in the raucous laughter of the
can you make such a generalization? from existing in the United States. What Christians who mock and spit on the
Well, Mr. Greenblatt, he replied, is still more important is unity of reli- Jew? Or do you secretly condone Shy-
what do you think of Sicilians? I an- gious background, he added, and then locks vindictive, malignant rage? Where
swered that I didnt think I knew any Si- made his point more explicitly: Reasons are you, at the end of the harrowing scene
cilians. J. Edgar Hoover, he continued, of race and religion combine to make in the courtroom, when Portia asks the
citing the director of the F.B.I., has sta- any large number of free-thinking Jews man she has outmaneuvered and ruined
tistics that prove that Sicilians have crim- undesirable. whether he agrees to the terms she has
inal tendencies. So, too, he explained, Eliots powerful early poetry had al- dictated, terms that include the provi-
Yale had statistics that proved that a dis- ready made this undesirability clear. In sion that he immediately become a Chris-
proportionate number of Jewish students Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein tian? Art thou contented, Jew? she prods.
were trying to get money from the uni- with a Cigar, he conjured up the pri- What dost thou say? And what do you
versity by becoming research assistants. mal ooze from which he saw those crea- think the Jew actually feels when he an-
Then he added, We could people this tures emerging: swers, I am content?
whole school with graduates of the Bronx A lustreless protrusive eye
Back in my undergraduate days, when
High School of Science, but we choose Stares from the protozoic slime I began to ask these questions, I came
not to do so. Pointing out lamely that I At a perspective of Canaletto. to a decision. I wasnt going to allow my-
had gone to high school in Newton, Mas- The smoky candle end of time self to be crushed by the bigoted nancial-
sachusetts, I slunk away without a job. aid ocer, but I wasnt going to adopt
Declines. On the Rialto once.
The conversation left me shaken. De- The rats are underneath the piles.
my parents defensive posture, either. I
cades later, I recall it with a blend of out- The jew is underneath the lot. wouldnt attempt to hide my otherness
rage and wonder inected by my recog- and pass for what I was not. I wouldnt
nition of the fact that African-American On the Rialto once: Eliot did not nish turn away from works that caused me
students have had it much worse, and the thought, but I did. In the course of pain as well as pleasure. Instead, insofar
that other ethnic groups and religions that freshman year, I read Shakespeares as I could, I would pore over the whole
have now replaced Jews as the focus of The Merchant of Venice, with its echo- vast, messy enterprise of culture as if it
the anxiety that aicted my interlocu- ing question, What news on the Ri- were my birthright.
tor. What was particularly upsetting to alto? Encountering the play at the mo- I was determined to understand this
me at the time was that the experience ment I did, together with T. S. Eliot, birthright, including what was toxic in
appeared to conrm my parents worst seemed only to reinforce my parentsgrim- it, as completely as possible. Im now an
fearsfears that had struck me, when I mest account of the way things were. English professor at Harvard, and in
was growing up, as absurdly outdated recent years some of my students have
and provincial. For my parents, the world here is something very strange about seemed acutely anxious when they are
was rigidly divided between us and
them, and they lived their lives, it seemed
T experiencing The Merchant of Ven-
ice when you are somehow imagina-
asked to confront the crueller strains of
our cultural legacy. In my own life, that
to me, as if they were forever hemmed tively implicated in the character and reex would have meant closing many
into an ethnic ghetto. actions of its villain. You laugh when of the books I found most fascinating,
Shortly after my encounter with the Shylocks servant, the clown Gobbo, con- or succumbing to the general melancholy
nancial-aid ocer, T. S. Eliot, the great- templates running away from his penny- of my parents. They could not look out
est living poet in the English language pinching master. You smile when Shy- at a broad meadow from the windows
and a winner of the Nobel Prize, came locks daughter, Jessica, having escaped of our car without sighing and talking
to Yale. Catching the excitement of the from her fathers dark house into the about the number of European Jews who
impending visit, I began to read him with arms of her beloved, declares, I shall be could have been saved from annihilation
an avidity that has continued into the saved by my husband. He hath made me and settled in that very space. (For my
present. But that meant that I quickly a Christian. You shudder when the im- parents, meadows should have come with
encountered the strain of anti-Semitism placable Shylock sharpens his knife on what we now call trigger warnings.) I was
in Eliots early poetry and prose, a strain the sole of his boot. You applaud the res- eager to expand my horizons, not to re-
no less ugly for being typical of his con- olution of the dilemma, when clever Por- treat into a defensive crouch. Prowling the
servative milieu. The population should tia comes up with the legal technicality stacks of Yales vast library, I sometimes
felt giddy with excitement. I had a right which he recast in Armeno-Turkish (that I suspect is that Eremya was a gifted
to all of it, or, at least, to as much of it is, Turkish written in Armenian charac- poet who spent his life in an ethnically
as I could seize and chew upon. And the ters) and set in Istanbul. In his version, complex world and that he did what
same was true of everyone else. The Jewish Bride, the Jewish girl, gifted poets do.
I already had an inkling of what I now Mrkada, having fallen in love with Dimo,
more fully grasp. My experience of min- wishes to escape from the connes of ast year was the ve-hundredth an-
gled perplexity, pleasure, and discomfort
was only a versioninformed by the ac-
her Jewish world: The bed smells like
poison, my homeland is as a prison. The
L niversary of the creation of the Vene-
tian ghetto. The Venetians had some un-
cidents of a particular religion, family, resourceful Dimo arranges for a boat to certainty and disagreement about how to
identity, and eraof an experience shared transport them, and the girl, slipping mark this anniversary, and one could see
by every thinking person in the course away under the cover of darkness, dis- why. Starting in 1516, Jews, who had pre-
of a lifetime. What you inherit, what you guises herself as a man, with her curly viously lived in the city wherever they
receive from a world that you did not golden hair hidden beneath a sable cap. chose, were required by law to reside and
fashion but that will do its best to fash- Eluding the Jewish search parties, the to worship in a small, poor area, the site
ion you, is at once beautiful and repellent. lovers manage to reach the Christian of a former copper foundry. (The Vene-
You somehow have to come to terms with principality of Walachia, where, in a sol- tian word for such a foundry was geto.)
what is ugly as well as what is precious. emn procession, Mrkada enters the ca- There they were permitted to run pawn-
The task derives from the kind of thedral and formally converts: shops that lent money at interest. They
creatures that we are. We arrive in the could emerge during the day to engage in
They gave her the name Sophia the Pure.
world only partially formed; a culture that She renounced the Jewish abracadabra.
a limited number of occupationsinclud-
has been in the making for hundreds of ing buying and selling old clothes, labor-
thousands of years will form the rest. In this version, as in the Greek source, ing on Hebrew books in print workshops,
And that culture will inevitably contain the wailing Jewish mother is mocked by teaching music and dance, and practicing
much that is noxious as well as bene- a chorus of Christian girls who invite medicine. But at night they were obliged
cent. No one is exemptnot the Jew or her to imagine her little grandson: to scuttle back to the ghetto, where they
the Muslim, of course, but also not the were shut in behind locked gates, guarded
Your daughter has already become
Cockney or the earl or the person whose pregnant. by men whose salaries the Jews themselves
ancestors came to America on the She is already nourishing a grandson for were required to pay. Jewish physicians
Mayower or, for that matter, the per- you. were permitted to go out during the night
son whose ancestors were Algonquins . . . The little half-bred Albanian, to attend to their Christian patients; no
or Laplanders. Our species cultural birth- His face is rather on the Jewish side. one else could leave until morning.
Yet his eyes are ocean-blue.
right is a mixed blessing. It is what makes Croak, you jealous witch! This is hardly an arrangement to cel-
us fully human, but being fully human ebrate in the twenty-rst century, but it
is a dicult work in progress. Though But then something strange hap- was an early attempt in modern history
xenophobia is part of our complex in- pens. The focus shifts to the mothers at a form of modus vivendi that would
heritancequickened, no doubt, by the grief, which is given remarkably intense permit Venetians to live in proximity to
same instinct that causes chimpanzees expression: an intensely disliked but useful neigh-
to try to destroy members of groups not bor. The usefulness was not universally
They have torn away from my bosom my
their ownthis inheritance is not our only one,
acknowledged. At the time, in Italy and
ineluctable fate. Even in the brief span My only daughter, my blossomlike delicate elsewhere, itinerant preachers were stir-
of our recorded history, some ve thou- one, my soul. ring up mobs to demand the expulsion
sand years, we can watch societies and I have become a childless mother, I, this of the Jews, as had been done recently
individuals ceaselessly playing with, re- poor woman. in Spain and Portugal and, centuries ear-
. . . My life is destroyed, not only my home.
shuing, and on occasion tossing out The skies oppress me, heaven, the world
lier, in England. A scant generation later,
the cards that both nature and culture are a jail, and likewise my day. Martin Luther, in Germany, urged the
have dealt, and introducing new ones. To others my tears are an amusing sight. Protestant faithful to raze the Jews syn-
agogues, schools, and houses, to forbid
Ithenpoem
seventeenth-century Venice, a Greek
was published that celebrated
elopement of a Jewish heiress with
And it is with this threnody of despair
and the mothers deathconveying, with
full force, the profound misery of the
their rabbis on pain of death to teach,
and to burn all Jewish prayer books and
Talmudic writings. At the time that the
a handsome Greek Orthodox baker who person and the community sustaining ghetto was created, there were people
comes to her house to sell bread. The the lossthat the poem ends. still living who could remember when
poem ends, after the girls conversion It is dicult to know how Eremyas three Venetian Jews, accused of the rit-
and wedding, with a raucous anti-Semitic transformation of the story came about. ual killing of Christians for their blood,
chorus that mocks her distraught mother. Some scholars have suggested that he were convicted of this entirely fantasti-
The seventeenth-century poet Eremya released, in the concluding section of his cal crime and burned to death. In Ven-
Chelebi Kmrjian, an erudite Chris- poem, the grief that he and his fellow- ice, locking the Jews up at night may
tian who spent his career in the Otto- Christians knew they would feel if one have given them a small measure of pro-
man Empire, took up the same plot, of their own converted to Islam. What tection from the paranoid fears of those
with whom they dealt during the day.
The ghetto was a compromise forma-
tion, neither absorption nor expulsion.
It was a topographical expression of ex-
treme ambivalence.
Shakespeare could in principle have
heard about it, when he sat down to write
his comedy; the ghetto had been in ex-
istence for some eighty years and there
had been many English travellers to Ven-
ice. Indeed, there is evidence that the
playwright took pains to gather informa-
tion. For example, he did not have his
Jewish characters swear by Muhammad,
as fteenth-century English playwrights
did. He clearly grasped not only that Jew-
ish dietary laws prohibited the eating of
pork but also that observant Jews often
professed to nd the very smell of pork
disagreeable. He marvellously imagined Use your indoor gun.
the way that a Jewish moneylender might
use the Bible to construct a witty Mid-
rashic justication of his own prot mar-
gin. He had learned that the Rialto was
the site for news and for trade, and that By contrast, a Venetian observer in of plot, he pursued the idea of equality
Shylock would conduct business there. Renaissance London was struck by the before the law. Venice, as a commercial
But Shakespeare seems not to have un- xenophobia of the English. Foreigners entrept with wide-ranging trading part-
derstood, or perhaps simply not to have in London are little liked, not to say ners, depended upon the liberty of
been interested in, the fact that Venice had hated, so those who are wise take care strangers. In order to protect property
a ghetto. In whatever he read or heard to dress in the English style, Orazio rights and preserve condence, its legal
about the city, he appears to have been Busino wrote in his diary, and make system had to treat contracts as equally
struck far less by the separation of Jews themselves understood by signs when- binding upon Christians and others, cit-
and Christians than by the extent of their ever they can avoid speaking, and so they izens and aliens. The Jew, as we see in
mutual intercourse. Though Shylock says avoid mishaps. the dispute over the lapsed bond, has to
that he will not pray with the Christians For an Elizabethan, Venice signied be formally regarded as someone who
or eat their nonkosher food, he enumer- an astonishing, even bizarre cosmopoli- possesses full legal standing in the eyes
ates the many ways in which he routinely tanism. Hence Shakespeare could not of the court. When Portia, disguised as
interacts with them. I will buy with you, imagine Shylocks house set apart in a the learned judge, enters the courtroom
talk with you, walk with you, and so fol- locked ghetto; he emphasized, instead, to adjudicate the case between Antonio
lowing, he declares. To audiences in En- that it was on a public street. If the and Shylock, she begins by asking,Which
glanda country that had expelled its en- Jews daughter should fail to lock the is the merchant here? And which the
tire Jewish population in the year 1290 and doors and close the casements, she would Jew? Though the line often elicits laugh-
had allowed no Jews to returnthose ev- be able to watch the Christians parade ter, from a legal perspective it insists upon
eryday interactions were the true novelty. by in carnival masks and listen to the the courts impartiality.
In The History of Italy (1549), the drum / And the vile squealing of the wry- Shylock drives the point home. You
rst English book on the subject, Wil- necked fe. And, when the play depicts have among you many a purchased slave,
liam Thomas went out of his way to re- Shylock reluctantly going out at night he argues in the trial scene, which you
mark on what he called a liberty of to dine with the Christians, it probably treat like animals simply because you
strangers particular to Venice: did not occur to the playwright that in bought them. This sounds like the be-
No man there marketh anothers doings, real life the Jewish usurer would need a ginning of an abolitionist manifesto, and
or . . . meddleth with another mans living. If special permit to do so. Such permits for a brief moment it seems to teeter at
thou be a papist, there shalt thou want no kind were not part of the English imagina- the edge of one:
of superstition to feed upon. If thou be a gos- tion of Venice; they were part of the Ve-
peler, no man shall ask why thou comest not to Shall I say to you
[the Catholic] church. If thou be a Jew, a Turk, netians attempt to negotiate with their Let them be free, marry them to your
or believest in the devil (so thou spread not thine xenophobic inheritance. heirs.
opinions abroad), thou art free from all control- Although he may not have learned Why sweat they under burdens? Let their
ment. . . . And generally of all other things, so about the ghetto, Shakespeare, too, par- beds
thou oend no man privately, no man shall oend Be made as soft as yours.
thee, which undoubtedly is one principal cause ticipated in the attempt to negotiate with
that draweth so many strangers thither. a xenophobic inheritance. At the level Why, yes, modern audiences might
want to shoutlet it be so. But the point hope is that money, sexual desire, and in- ish usurer for the boundaries of native
here is not liberation from bondage: tense legal pressure, rather than outright and alien, us and them, to remain intact.
violence, will eventually suce to absorb Shakespeare managed to register Shy-
You will answer the strangers, or at least signicant num- locks mordant sense of humor, the pain
The slaves are ours. So do I answer you.
The pound of esh which I demand of him bers of them, into the surrounding Chris- that shadowed his malevolence, his pride
Is dearly bought. Tis mine, and I will have it. tian community. Only conversionin in his intelligence, his little household
the case of Shylocks daughter, her mar- economies, his loneliness. We come to
The legal principle upon which Shylock riage to a fortune-hunting Christian; in know these qualities for ourselves, not
insists has nothing to do with tolerance the case of Shylock himself, conversion as mere concepts but as elements of our
or human rights. It is strictly a defense under the threat of executioncan dis- own experience. Theres good reason that
of property ownership. sipate hatred and save the play from most people think the Venetian mer-
The narrowness is important. Out- bloodshed. The Merchant of Venice re- chant in the plays title is the Jew.
side this carefully demarcated sphere, there sists attempts to bring it into the En-
is no underlying trust, no assumption of lightenment, let alone to make it recog- t once aggressive and defensive, pu-
shared values, and no presumed equality.
As soon as the formal legal issue shifts
nize the full tragic weight of centuries of
racial and religious hatred. In its formal
A nitive and protective, the Venetian
ghetto proved to be a remarkably dura-
unexpectedly from a civil to a criminal design, it steadfastly remains a comedy. ble arrangementit was abolished, under
matterthat is, to a Jews attempt to take Yet that formal resolution has not Napoleon, only with the fall of the Sere-
the life of a Venetian ChristianShy- dened the plays actual impactnot nissima in 1797. Whats more, it served
lock is no longer regarded in the eyes of now, not when I rst read it as a college as a powerful model throughout Italy,
the court as Antonios equivalent. Instead, freshman, and probably not even in the rest of Europe, and the world, both
he is, as the plays dominant society has Shakespeares time. As I grasp more fully in bricks and mortar and, when these
always viewed him, irreducibly alien. after a lifetime of immersion in Shake- were formally pulled down, in the minds
The Merchant of Venice seems to speare, the uncomfortable experience I and hearts of those on either side of the
oer a pessimistic vision, then, of the had when I was seventeenthe trou- towering imaginary walls. My parents
prospect of mutual tolerance. On the city bled identication with the plays villain, lived much of their lives behind such
streets and in the rule-bound arena of even in the midst of my pleasurable ab- walls; I have to concede that they were
the criminal court, the two faiths are mor- sorption in its comic plotdid not nally never happier than when they were safely
tal enemies. Shylock tries to destroy his depend on my particular identity or his- ensconced there. But the same Shake-
Christian enemy legally by enforcing the tory. The cunning magic of the play speare who did not grasp that a ghetto
letter of the bond; Portia succeeds in de- was the disturbance it arouses in every- existed in Venice had no patience with
stroying her Jewish enemy by outwitting one. If Shylock had behaved himself walls, real or imaginary, and, even in a
him at his own hairsplitting game. True, and remained a mere comic foillike play consumed with religious and eth-
she doesnt stick a knife into him, and Don John the Bastard, in Much Ado nic animosity, he tore them down.
that is important, both for the imagined About Nothingthere would have He did so not by creating a lovable
world of the play and for the preserva- been no disturbance. But Shakespeare alienhis Jew is a villain who connives
tion of its theatrical genre. The comedys conferred too much energy on his Jew- at legal murderbut by giving Shylock
more theatrical vitality, quite simply more
urgent, compelling life, than anyone else
in his world has. The lines reverberate
across the centuries: You call me misbe-
liever, cutthroat dog, /And spit upon my
Jewish gabardine, /And all for use of that
which is mine own; This patch is kind
enough, but a huge feeder, / Snail-slow in
prot, and he sleeps by day / More than
the wildcat; Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath
not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
aections, passions?; If you prick us, do
we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not
laugh?; I would my daughter were dead
at my foot and the jewels in her ear!;
Why there, there, there, there! A dia-
mond gone cost me two thousand ducats
in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon
our nation till now; I never felt it till now;
Some men there are love not a gaping
pig, / Some that are mad if they behold
Kinky. a cat, / And others when the bagpipe
sings ithnose / Cannot contain their urine. controversial production of the play last versive comments, this is a playwright
The life that sweeps across the stage month, in Central Park, audiences chor who could depict on the public stage a
here includes, as well, sudden glimpses tled at a Trumplike despotbut were twisted sociopath lying his way to su
into parts of an existence that the plot then brought up short by the horror of preme authority. This is a playwright who
by itself did not demand. When Shy what befalls him, the carnage born of could have a character stand up and de
lock learns that his daughter exchanged selfsteeling righteousness. What leads to clare to the spectators that a dogs obeyed
a turquoise ring for a monkeya tur disaster is Brutuss ideological decision to in oce. This is a playwright who could
quoise ring that she stole from him, and think of Caesar not as a human being at approvingly depict a servant mortally
that had been a gift from his dead wife, all but, rather, as a serpents egg, and wounding the realms ruler in order to
Leah, his anguish is unmistakable. Thou therefore to kill him in the shell. stop him from torturing a prisoner in the
torturest me, he tells the friend who Even after a lifetime of studying name of national security. And, nally,
brought him the news. It was my tur Shakespeare, I cannot always tell you this is a playwright who almost certainly
quoise; I had it of Leah when I was a precisely how he achieved penned the critical lines we
bachelor. I would not have given it for this extraordinary lifemak nd preserved in the Brit
a wilderness of monkeys. Are such ing. I sometimes picture ish Librarys manuscript of
glimpses enough to do away with hatred him attaching his charac an Elizabethan play about
of the other? Not at all. But they begin ters like leeches to his arms Sir Thomas More. (The
an unsettling from within. Even now, and allowing them to suck play was probably banned
more than four centuries later, the un his lifeblood. In the case from performance by the
settling that the play provokes remains of Shylock, it is wildly un censor.) The lines speak
a beautiful and disturbing experience. likely that Shakespeare had movingly to one of our most
Shakespeare himself may have found ever encountered a Jewish pressing contemporary di
it disturbing. He set out, it seems, to write usurer, but he may have lemmas. Shakespeare de
a straightforward comedy, borrowed from been drawing on his fathers money picts Thomas More confronting an angry
Giovanni Fiorentinos novella Il Pec lending and, for that matter, on his own. mob that demands the expulsion of
orone (The Big Sheep), only to nd It is also possible that in his family there the strangersthe foreignersfrom
himself increasingly drawn into the soul had been a recent, painful, unresolved England. Grant them removed, More
of the despised other. Shylock came per experience of conversion, from Cathol tells the mob:
ilously close to wrecking the comic struc icism to Protestantism, an experience Imagine that you see the wretched
ture of the play, a structure that Shake that would have deepened his engage strangers,
speare only barely rescued by making the ment with his characters plight: Art Their babies at their backs and their poor
moneylender disappear for good at the thou contented, Jew? What dost thou luggage,
end of the fourth act. say? I am content. Plodding to the ports and coasts for
transportation,
It wasnt the only time in his work that And that you sit as kings in your desires. . .
this excess of life had occurred. The play he conferral of life is one of the es
wright is said to have remarked that in
Romeo and Juliet he had to kill Mer
T sential qualities of the human imag
ination. Since very few of us are endowed
What had you got? Ill tell you: you had
taught
How insolence and strong hand should
cutio before Mercutio killed the play, and with great genius, it is important to un prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this
he ran a similar risk with characters like derstand that the quality of which I am pattern
Jack Cade, Aaron the Moor, Malvolio, speaking is to some degree democrati Not one of you should live an aged man,
and Caliban. Indeed, the ability to enter cally shared. Ideologies of various kinds For other ruans, as their fancies wrought,
deeplytoo deeply, for the purposes of contrive to limit our ability to enter into With self same hand, self reasons, and self
the plotinto almost every character he the experience of another, and there are right,
Would shark on you, and men like
deployed was a signature. It accounts for works of art that are complicit in these ravenous shes
the startling vividness of Adriana, the ne ideologies. More generous works of art Would feed on one another.
glected wife in The Comedy of Errors; serve to arouse, organize, and enhance
Bottom the Weaver, in A Midsummer that ability. Shakespeares works are a Such language isnt a substitute for a
Nights Dream; Rosencrantz and Guil living model not because they oer prac coherent, secure, and humane interna
denstern, in Hamlet; Cornwalls brave tical solutions to the dilemmas they so tional refugee policy; for that, we need
servant, in King Lear; and many others. brilliantly explore but because they constitutional lawyers and adroit diplo
It helps explain the strange illusion that awaken our awareness of the human mats and wise, decent leaders. Yet these
certain of his characters have lives inde lives that are at stake. words do what they can to keep before
pendent of the play in which they appear. What Shakespeare bequeathed to us our eyes the sight of the wretched strang
And it contributes to the moral and aes oers the possibility of an escape from ers, / Their babies at their backs and their
thetic complexity that characterizes so the mental ghettos most of us inhabit. poor luggage, / Plodding to the ports and
many of his plays. Consider, for example, Even in his own world, his imagination coasts for transportation. For a long mo
the fact that for centuries critics have de seems to have led him in surprising di ment in dramatic time, the distance be
bated whether Brutus is the hero or the rections. At a time when alehouses and tween natives and strangers collapses;
villain of Julius Caesar. In Oskar Eustiss inns were full of spies trolling for sub walls wobble and fall; a ghetto is razed.
A REPORTER AT LARGE
THE FUTURE IS TEXAS

The state is increasingly diverse, but right-wing zealots are taking over.
BY LAWRENCE WRIGHT
hen Frederick Law Olm- NPR. It is progressive, blue, reason-
W sted passed through Texas,

in 1853, he became besotted
with the majesty of the Texas legisla-
able, secular, and smugalmost like
California. AM Texas speaks to the
suburbs and the rural areas: Trump-
ture. I have seen several similar bod- land. Its endless bluster and endless
ies at the North; the Federal Congress; ads. Paranoia and piety are the main
and the Parliament of Great Britain, in items on the menu.
both its branches, on occasions of great Texas has been growing at a stupe-
moment; but none of them commanded fying rate for decades. The only state
my involuntary respect for their sim- with more residents is California, and
ple manly dignity and trustworthiness the number of Texans is projected to
for the duties that engaged them, more double by 2050, to 54.4 million, almost
than the General Assembly of Texas, as many people as in California and
he wrote. This passage is possibly unique New York combined. Three Texas cit-
in the political chronicles of the state. iesHouston, Dallas, and San Anto-
Fairly considered, the Texas legislature nioare already among the top ten
is more functional than the United most populous in the country. The
States Congress, and more genteel than eleventh largest is Austin, the capital,
the House of Commons. But a recur- where I live. For the past ve years, it
rent crop of crackpots and ideologues has been one of the fastest-growing
has fed the states reputation for ag- large cities in America; it now has
gressive know-nothingism and proudly nearly a million people, dwarng the
retrograde politics. college town I fell in love with almost
Ive lived in Texas for most of my forty years ago. Because Texas rep-
life, and Ive come to appreciate what resents so much of modern America
the state symbolizes, both to people the South, the West, the plains, the
who live here and to those who view border, the Latino community, the di-
it from afar. Texans see themselves as vide between rural areas and cities
a distillation of the best qualities of what happens here tends to dispro-
America: friendly, condent, hard- portionately aect the rest of the
working, patriotic, neurosis-free. Out- nation. Illinois and New Jersey may
siders see us as the nations id, a place be more corrupt, and Kansas and Lou-
where rambunctious and disavowed isiana more out of whack, but they
impulses run wild. Texans, it is thought, dont bear the responsibility of being
mindlessly celebrate individualism, and the future.
view government as a kind of kryp- Ive always had a fascination with
tonite that weakens the entrepreneur- Texass outsized politics. In 2000, I
ial muscles. Were reputed to be brag- wrote a play that was set in the states
garts; careless with money and our House of Representatives. The pro-
personal lives; a little gullible, but dan- tagonist, Sonny Lamb, was a rancher
gerous if crossed; insecure, but ob- from West Texas who represented
sessed with power and prestige. House District 74, which, in real life,
Texans, however, are hardly mono- stretches across thirty-seven thousand
lithic. The state is as politically di- square miles. (Thats larger than In-
vided as the rest of the nation. One diana.) While I was doing research
can drive across it and be in two dier- for the play, I met in Austin with Pete
ent states at the same time: FM Texas Laney, a Democrat and a cotton farmer
and AM Texas. FM Texas is the silky from Hale County, who, at the time,
voice of city dwellers, the kingdom of was the speaker of the House. Laney Texas is as politically divided as the rest of
the U.S., but a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed its reputation for proud know-nothingism and retrograde thinking.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY BARRY BLITT
was known as a scrupulously fair and whole state! Laney said. Feral pigs are tect himself. So then you just take your
honest leader who inspired a bipar- a remnant of the Spanish coloniza- pistol and pop him in the eye.
tisan spirit among the members. The tion, and now weve got as many as And these were progressive Dem-
grateful representatives called him three million of them, tearing up fences ocrats. More or less.
Dicknose. and pastureland and mowing down
We sat down in the Speakers oce, crops, even eating the seed corn out or more than a century, Texas was
at the capitol. I explained that I was hav-
ing a plot problem: my hero had intro-
of the ground before it sprouts. They
can run twenty-ve miles per hour.
F under Democratic rule. The state
was always culturally conservative, reli-
duced an ethics-reform bill, which trig- You ever seen one? Laney went on. gious, and militaristic, but a strain of
gered a war with the biggest lobbyist in Huge. They got these tusks out to pragmatism kept it from being fully swept
the state. How could the lobbyist retal- here. up in racism and right-wing ideology.
iate? Laney rubbed his hands together. How do you hunt them? Economic populism, especially in the
Well, you could put a toxic-waste dump Well, I dont hunt em myself, rural areas, oered a counterweight to
in Sonnys district, he observed. That but I got a friend who does. He the capitalists in the cities.
would mess him up, right and left. punched an intercom button on his But in the nineteen-seventies the
Laneys suggestion was inspired by phone. Honey, get Sharp on the line, state began shifting rightward. Bill
an actual law that the Texas House of he said. Miller, a lobbyist in Austin and a long-
Representatives had passed in 1991. It In a moment, John Sharp was on the time student of Texas politics, dates the
allowed sewage sludge from New York loudspeaker. The former state comp- change to May, 1976, when Ronald Rea-
City to be shipped, by train, to a lit- troller of public accounts, he is now gan beat Gerald Ford in the Texas Re-
tle desert town in District 74, Sierra the chancellor of the Texas A. & M. publican primary. Reagan won every
Blanca, which is eighty miles south- system. Sharp, Laney said, I got a Texas delegate and the popular vote
east of El Paso.The train became known young man here wants to know how two to one, Miller told me. He smoked
as the Poo-Poo Choo-Choo. you hunt pigs. an incumbent Republican President
Another thing, I said. Id like my Oh! Sharp cried. Well, we do it and his mainstream followers with a
lobbyist to take some legislators on a at night, with pistols. Everybody wear- heretofore unknown coalition of con-
hunting trip. What would they likely ing cutos and tennis shoes. Well set servatives. That day lit the conservative
be hunting? the dogs loose, and when they start fuse. Suddenly, they knew they had the
Pigs, Laney said. baying we come running. Now, the numbers to win. Ford went on to gain
Pigs? dogs will go after the pigs nuts, so the the nomination, but he lost the Presi-
Wild pigstheyre taking over the pig will back up against a tree to pro- dency to Jimmy Carterthe last Dem-
ocratic nominee to carry Texas.
In 1978, Bill Clements became the
rst Republican governor of Texas since
Reconstruction. To help him reach con-
stituents, Clements hired a young direct-
mail wizard named Karl Rove, who
became a central gure in Texass trans-
formation from blue to red. Rove at-
tributes the change to the growth of
the suburbs and the gradual movement
of the rural areas into the Republican
column: They went from being eco-
nomic populists, who thought the sys-
tem was rigged against them by Wall
Street, to being social and conservative
populists, who thought that govern-
ment was the problem.
Moderate and conservative Demo-
cratic politicians followed the voters to
the Republican Party. Rick Perry, for
one, served three terms in the Texas
House as a Democrat, and even cam-
paigned for Al Gore in his 1988 Presi-
dential run, before changing parties, in
1989. In 1994, Texas elected its last state-
wide Democrat. It was a complete rout
of a political party, Miller said.
Youre stealing the blanket. While George W. Bush was governor,
between 1995 and 2000, a cordial dtente speaker since 1873. With his election to eect. Today, the Texas delegation to the
between the political parties prevailed. the post, the coup was complete. But U.S. House of Representatives includes
The lieutenant governor, Bob Bullock, it wasnt just about winning elections, twenty-ve Republicans and eleven
and Speaker Laney were both Demo- he told me. We had a redistricting plan. Democratsa far more conservative
crats, and, when Bush ran for Presi- prole than the political demography of
dent, they became exhibits in his argu- n the 2002 elections, fty-six per cent the state. The Austin metropolitan area,
ment that he would be a bipartisan
leader. Like Lyndon Johnson, Bullock
Iresentative
of Texans who voted for a U.S. rep-
chose a Republican, but
the heart of the Texas left, was divvied
up into six congressional districts, with
had a huge, battered face and an un- Democrats nevertheless held more seats city residents a minority in each. All but
bridled love of Texas, which allowed in the U.S. Houseseventeen seats to one of these districts are now held by
him to see past the barriers of party the Republicans fteen. Republicans. Im currently
loyalties. (His legend was only enhanced Craddick worked with represented by Roger Wil-
by his ruinous personal life: alcohol- Congressman Tom DeLay, liams, a conservative auto-
ism, cancer, chronic depression, ve who was then the Majority mobile dealer from Weath-
marriages.) At Bushs ftieth-birthday Whip, to put into motion erford, two hundred miles
party, at the governors mansion, in a sweeping plan to create a north of Austin. Another
July, 1996, Bullock oered a toast to the permanent Republican ma- Republican congressman,
Governor as the next President of the jority in the U.S. House. Lamar Smith, lives in San
United States. As far as I know, that Under Craddicks lead- Antonio, but his district in-
was the rst time such a statement had ership, the Texas legislature cludesand neutralizes
been made about Bush in public, and began carving historical the liberal area surrounding
it was by the highest Democratic o- congressional districts into the University of Texas at
cial in the state. new efdoms. Taking care not to vio- Austin. Smith, a member of the Tea
In January, 2003, the Republicans late Supreme Court guidelines on mi- Party Caucus, in Washington, denies
nally took over the Texas legislature, nority representation, lawmakers jig- that human activity aects global warm-
and Laney lost the speakership to Tom sawed Texas into shapes that would ing. He heads the House Committee on
Craddick, an ultraconservative Repub- decisively capture the state for the right. Science, Space, and Technology, which
lican from Midland, the oil capital. More In May, 2003, the redistricting plan oversees nasa, the Department of En-
than anyone, Craddick was responsible came up for a vote in the Texas House. ergy, and the Environmental Protection
for securing a Republican majority in Fifty-three Democrats, sensing a lethal Agency. Lloyd Doggett is the only Dem-
the House, through clever fund-raising threat to their party, ed to Oklahoma, ocrat representing the Austin area, and
and indefatigable campaigning. There denying Craddick a quorum. He locked his district runs along I-35, from East
were eight other Republicans in the the capitol chamber, to prevent any more Austin to East San Antonio, scooping
House when I got elected, in 1969, and defections, and called out state troopers up as many Democrats as possible in
two in the Senate, Craddick told me to hunt down the missing members, who one basket.
recently. The rst time I tried to intro- became known as the Killer Ds. Texass redistricting process has since
duce a bill, they told me I couldnt, be- In the midst of this hubbub, Pete been replicated in statehouses around
cause I was a Republican. Laney, the former speaker, ew his Piper the country, creating congressional dis-
When he entered the House, he was turboprop from the Panhandle to Ard- tricts that are practically immune to chal-
twenty-vethe youngest member. more, Oklahoma, where he joined his lenge and giving Republicans an im-
Back then, most of the other members Democratic colleagues at the local Hol- pregnable edge in Washington. Texas
were retired, and they ran for oce as a iday Inn. Someone from DeLays oce became a model for how to get control,
civic duty, he said. Now, at seventy- obtained Laneys ight plan from the Craddick told me.
three, he is the longest-serving legisla- Department of Homeland Security by In 2005, DeLay was prosecuted for
tor in Texas history. implying that Laneys plane was over- money laundering and conspiracy, in
Craddick is slight and white-haired, due to land and might have crashed or connection with the illegal use of cor-
wry and friendly, with a slur in his speech been seized by terrorists. Texas troopers porate funds. Craddick was also ques-
and a shue in his step. Hes easy to and national reporters swarmed into tioned, but he was never indicted. De-
miss in the crowd of vigorous young leg- Ardmore. The Democratic faction re- Lays conviction was overturned on
islators, few of whom were in oce when mained in Oklahoma for four days, until appeal, in 2013, but by then he had re-
Craddick turned the House into a Re- the deadline for considering new legis- signed from Congress and made an
publican domain. His crusade started in lation had passed. The governor, Rick unexpected appearance on Dancing
the late eighties, he recalled. Initially, the Perryby then a stalwart Republican with the Stars. The show has become
Party had barely any infrastructure, and called a special session for late June, a pathway to redemption for disgraced
so he helped to organize candidates cam- whereupon eleven Democratic state sen- Texas politicos. In 2014, Rick Perry
paigns, requiring them to report how ators decamped to New Mexico. It took was indicted for abusing gubernato-
many doors they had knocked on and two more special sessions to ram the rial power, after he threatened to de-
how many mailers they had sent out. vote through. fund an anti-corruption agency. He was
Craddick was the rst Republican The redistricting had a revolutionary later cleared, and he, too, celebrated
his comeback on Dancing with the Clintons. In 2011, Morrow took out a Trumps campaign event, claimed that
Stars. Now he heads the Depart- full-page ad in a local newspaper: he had the police escort his co-author
ment of Energy. I wonder if Ted Cruz away from the rally. To add to the in-
HAVE YOU EVER HAD SEX WITH
can dance. RICK PERRY?
sult, Stone tweeted that Morrow was
a Clinton quisling.
exas has always had a burlesque Are you a stripper, an escort, or just a young
T side to its politics. The columnist
Molly Ivins made a national reputa-
hottie impressed by an arrogant, entitled gov-
ernor of Texas?
T he Texas capitol, constructed of
red granite, was completed in 1888.
tion as a humor writer by lampooning Nothing came of the ad, which, Mor- The state was destitute then, and paid
the people we elect to oce. One of row said, was designed to expose Perry for the building with three million acres
my favorites in this category was Mike as a Christian-buzzwords-spouting, of public land in the Panhandleabout
Martin, a state representative from family values hypocrite and fraud. the size of Connecticut. At the time,
Longview. In 1981, someone shotgunned Morrow, a fty-three-year-old the capitol was said to be the seventh-
the trailer he lived in during his months Princeton graduate with an M.B.A. largest building in the world, and, as
in Austin. Martin was inside, and was from the University of Texas, describes one would expect, it is somewhat taller
slightly injured. He declared that the himself as an independent investor. In than its uncle in Washington, D.C.
shooting was in reprisal for an inves- 2015, he wrote a book with Roger Stone, During the summer in Austin, night-
tigation he was pursuing involving a the political operative and occasional hawks swirl around the crowning statue
satanic cult. Later, his cousin admitted adviser to Donald Trump, called The on the dome: the Goddess of Liberty,
that he had red the weapon at Mar- Clintons War on Women. The Aus- holding aloft a golden star.
tins behest, ostensibly to gain Martin tin American-Statesman noted that it The legislature meets every other
sympathy votes. (Martin was running appeared to be serving as a playbook year for a hundred and forty days,
for relection.) Martin ed Austin, but, for Trump in his attacks on Hillary reecting the states native aversion to
as Ivins noted, the police tracked him Clinton. (Upon its publication, Trump government. The sessions begin on the
to earth at his mommas house, where tweeted, The latest book on Hillary second Tuesday in January and end
he was found hiding in the stereo cab- Wow, a really tough one!) Mainstream around Memorial Day. The legislatures
inet. She added, He always did want Party ocials were mortied when only mandated task is to produce a
to be the Speaker. Morrow won the Travis County elec- two-year balanced budget. In the 2015
Ivins, who died in 2007, would have tion, with fty-six per cent of the vote. session, the state budget worked out to
loved writing about Mary Lou Bruner, They promised to explore every sin- about a hundred billion dollars per year.
a seventy-year-old retired schoolteacher gle option that exists to remove him This year, a drop in the price of oil and
from Mineola, who last year ran as a from oce. Morrow responded, They a rise in population augured substan-
Republican for an open seat on the can go fuck themselves. In June, he tial cutbacks and a struggle to meet the
Texas State Board of Educationa tweeted, Top priority for Travis GOP: health and safety needs of citizens.
frequent battleground of the culture beautiful Big Titty women!! When I visited the capitol in Jan-
wars. Because ten per cent of Ameri- Texas Republicans were having an uary, a group of high-school girls stood
can public-school students live in Texas, unhappy time of it in 2016. Rick Perry, on a terrazzo mosaic in the middle of
the state exerts a great inuence on the who retired from the governorship the the rotunda. In the center was the seal
textbook-publishing industry. During previous year, was K.O.d early in the of the Republic of Texas, a lone star
her campaign, Bruner posted on Face- Presidential primaries, and Senator Ted wreathed in branches of olive and live
book that Barack Obama had worked Cruz, probably the most unpopular oak. Its two hundred and eighteen
as a male prostitute in his twenties. politician in Washington, was eventu- feet from this star to the one above, a
That is how he paid for his drugs, she ally overmatched by Trump. Com- guide told them, gesturing to its mate,
reasoned. Bruner went on to assert that pounding the embarrassment, Morrow on the ceiling of the dome. You could
climate change is a ridiculous hoax, announced that he was running for t the Statue of Liberty in here.
and that dinosaurs are extinct because President himself. This turned out to On the walls of the rotunda hang
the ones on Noahs Ark were too young be against the rules for the Travis portraits of our former governors. When
to reproduce. Somehow, she made it to County chairman. At a meeting held the current governor, the staunchly con-
a runo, which she then lost. in August, the Party deposed him. Mor- servative Greg Abbott, leaves oce, his
In March, 2016, a man named Rob- row, who was present at the meeting, portrait will go where Rick Perrys is
ert Morrow was elected the Republi- wearing a oppy motley-fool hat, did now, and those of all the previous forty-
can Party chairman of Travis County, not object. seven governors will take one step to
which contains Austin. Like many re- That month, Trump campaigned in the left. When a portrait arrives at the
porters in Texas, I received wild e-mails Austin, and Morrow, who had not en- end of the circle on the ground oor,
from Morrow for several years. He once dorsed a candidate besides himself, pro- it moves to the wall of the oor above,
claimed that George H. W. Bush was tested his partys nominee by carrying and then higher and higher and fur-
a seriously addicted homosexual pe- a giant red sign that said trump is a ther into obscurity.
dophile who was also involved in a child rapist. The next portrait that will ascend
C.I.A. drug-smuggling ring with the Roger Stone, who was present at from the lobby is that of W. Lee (Pappy)
Next to him is ODaniels calmer suc-
cessor, Coke Stevenson, and the bon vi-
A HERITAGE OF TRUMPETS vant Beauford Jester, who, according to
legend, died in the arms of his mistress,
The clear, clean line was always the ideal. on the midnight sleeper to Houston.
Though there was subtlety in how Miles muttered, Of all the governors on the rotunda
One always ached to hear a song line uttered walls, Ann Richards, who served from
With denition, lyrical and real: 1991 to 1995, was the most memorable,
A well-timed silence puncturing the swing at least in my lifetime. She had stark-
Only to add propulsion. Play that thing! white hair that was swept and sprayed
into a blinding pompadourMolly
Bunk Johnson used to do that, way back when, Ivins called it hard hairand a
Inheriting the clean articulation switchblade sense of humor that was
Of Buddy Bolden.The controlled sensation honed on the primitive male chauvin-
Of vaulting gold that drove a funeral then ism she had grown up with. She be-
Linked death to dancing people, grief to joy: came a national gure when, as the
The rich, sweet notes rang like the real McCoy. state treasurer, she gave the keynote
address at the 1988 Democratic Na-
The open horn was king. There was no mute, tional Convention. Poor George,
Not even Cooties, that could set the measure she said of the Republican nominee,
Of condently opened casks of treasure George H. W. Bush. He cant help it.
Lighting the cave, and turning the blue suit He was born with a silver foot in his
Of tactful mourning to a pirate kit: mouth. She wasnt nice, but she had
The lawlessness, the skipping lilt of it. a wonderful smile, and batted her icy-
blue eyes as she stuck the knife in.
Pure gold in Paris after WWII, Her rise to governor, as a recovered
Bill Colemans open horn proved mainstream muscle alcoholic and a divorced mother of four,
Could still outstrip the nervous, shuing hustle was a near-miracle. Her wealthy Repub-
Of New York bebop. Louis Armstrong blew lican opponentthe West Texas rancher
Coherent lines until the very end. and oilman Clayton Williams, Jr.had
The same requirement applies, my friend, a double-digit lead in the polls when
the general election began. He blew that
To you, and all the more so as the day lead with a series of character-revealing
Arrives when silence reigns, and Bix in glory gaes. He told reporters that inclement
With just one passing phrase sums up your story: weather was like rape: If its inevitable,
The dying voice of silence. Blaze away just relax and enjoy it. He had to ght
Into the dark, bugler. Be sure the night o persistent rumors that he had invited
Reects your song with every point of light. his ranch hands and clients to join in
honey hunts, which involved scatter-
Clive James ing prostitutes on his property like Eas-
ter eggs. Then, at a forum in Dallas, he
met Richards, who stuck out her hand
ODaniel. In some respects, ODaniel, race, he defeated eleven contenders, and said, Hello, Claytie. He declined
a Democrat, was a precursor of Don- without a runo. the gesture, violating the cowboy code
ald Trump. When he successfully ran As governor, he reneged on prom- that is deeply ingrained in every Texan.
for governor, in 1938, he was a politi- ises he had made to abolish the death In that instant, he lost the election.
cal naf who had never cast a ballot, penalty, block the sales tax, and raise Richards wore designer suits but
and he wasnt even eligible to vote in pensions. He was a scaremonger, rail- picked her teeth, and she cleaned her
that election, because he hadnt paid ing against Communistic labor-leader ngernails with a Swiss Army knife.
his poll tax. He passed himself o as a racketeers and politically controlled She always seemed a little surprised to
rube, but he was a savvy operator. He newspapers. He was terribly ineec- nd herself in the seat of power, but she
had become famous as the host of a tual but such a compelling showman cherished the comedy of the play she
radio show in which he performed with that, in 1941, voters sent him to the U.S. was cast in. Ivins once told me that, after
his band, the Light Crust Doughboys. Senate over a young man named Lyn- the A.C.L.U. led suit against a man-
Radio was his Twitter. His only real don Johnsonthe only election John- ger scene in the capitol, she called Gov-
platform was to stir things up. When son ever lost. The portrait of ODan- ernor Richards and asked, Annie, is it
his opponents staged a rally, hundreds iel in the rotunda shows a handsome, really necessary to remove the crche?
would attend, but ODaniels speeches full-faced man with slicked-back hair Im afraid so, Richards replied.
attracted tens of thousands. In his rst and a Who, me? look in his eye. And its a shame, because its about
the only time we ever had three wise having lunch with her parents. My fa- the oor of the legislature. But some
men in the capitol. ther and I got down on the oor and lobbyists and reporters have also ob-
Richards had the most amazing put the table up in front of us, she later tained gun licenses, just to skirt the
drawldevastatingly comic, but with testied before Congress. She reached lines. I recently got one myself.
a cut-the-crap edge to it. She was a for her purse, where she kept her re- One winter day at the capitol, early
irt, and she loved dirty jokes and ris- volver, then realized that she had left in the 2017 session, I was bypassing the
qu stories. Once, we both took part her gun in her car, fearing that she might metal detectors when Governor Ab-
in a fund-raiser at the Four Seasons in lose her chiropractors license if she were bott rushed by in his wheelchair. At
Austin, and the writer Kinky Fried- caught carrying a concealed weapon. fty-nine, he is an energetic man; his
manwho is also the lead singer of Her father confronted the shooter, aides were racing across the rotunda
Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew- but he was shot. Hupp told her mother to keep up with him. Abbott was a
boysseized the opportunity to tell a that they needed to make a break for track star in high schoolhe is said
story about going to the beach with a it, then climbed out a rear window. to have never lost a racebut in 1984
family friend, who wore a swimsuit When she looked back, she realized that a tree fell on him while he was jog-
that was so tight it squeezed one of his her mother had gone to comfort her ging through the wealthy enclave of
balls into view. Its not that funny when dying husband. Hennard put a bullet River Oaks, in Houston, leaving him
I tell it, but Governor Richards laughed in her mothers head. He shot fty peo- paralyzed from the waist down. He
so hard that she could barely stay in ple, killing twenty-three of them before had just graduated from law school
her chair. killing himself. Its the fourth-deadli- and had no health insurance. Fortu-
Texas has a reputation for being est mass shooting in U.S. history. nately, he won a nine-million-dollar
super-religious, but there has always Im not really mad at the guy who judgment against the homeowner
been a tolerance for the sexual misde- did this, Hupp told lawmakers in whose tree had fallen and the com-
meanors of elected ocials. Charlie Washington. Thats like being mad pany that had inspected the tree and
Wilson, the U.S. representative from at a rabid dog. She continued, Im failed to recommend its removal. Later,
the Second District, in East Texas, one mad at my legislators for legislating Abbott, as a member of the Texas Su-
of the most conservative parts of the me out of the right to protect myself preme Court, and then as attorney gen-
state, was a drunk, a drug user, and the and my family. In 1996, Hupp was eral, supported measures that capped
most energetic playboy on Capitol Hill, elected to the Texas House of Repre- pain-and-suering damages in medical-
who enjoyed lounging in hot tubs with sentatives, and she subsequently passed malpractice cases at two hundred and
showgirls and cocaine. He was elected a law that allowed concealed weapons fty thousand dollars.
to twelve terms. to be carried. Abbotts overarching issue is fend-
Texans tolerance for sexual liberty Since then, its also become legal to ing o the malevolent inuence of Cal-
didnt extend to Richards, however. She carry guns openly. Ive yet to see any- ifornia, which is widely seen as Tex-
surrounded herself with a coterie of very one in public strapping a sidearm, but ass political antithesis: it is more
powerful women, which led to countless the law is tremendously popular. Espe- regulated and highly taxed, whereas
innuendos about her sexual orientation. cially among Texas politicians, theres Texas is relatively unfettered, with one
She complained to a lobbyist I know, a locker-room lust for weaponry that of the lowest tax burdens in the coun-
I could be fucking Charlie Wilson on belies noble-sounding proclamations try. Every statewide oceholder in Cal-
Sam Houstons bed, and theyd still call about self-protection and Second Amend- ifornia is a Democrat; in Texas, none
me a lesbian. After one term, Rich- ment rights. In 2010, Governor Perry are. Nevertheless, in 2015, Abbott de-
ards was defeated by George W. Bush, boasted of killing with a single shot a clared, Texas is being California-ized,
marking the end of the Democratic coyote that was menacing his daugh- and you may not even be noticing it.
Party as a force of any consequence in ters Labrador. Perry was jogging at the He went on, This is being done at
the state. time, but naturally he was packing heat: the city level, with bag bans, fracking
a .380 Ruger. The guns manufacturer bans, tree-cutting bans. Were form-
exans are notorious for loving guns, promptly issued a Coyote Special edi- ing a patchwork quilt of bans and rules
T but when I was young it was ille-
gal for residents to carry weapons out-
tion of the gun, which comes in a box
labelled for sale to texans only.
and regulations that is eroding the
Texas model. He warned that the
side their home or vehicle. In 1991, An eccentric feature of Texass new Texas miracle could become a Cal-
George Hennard, a thirty-ve-year-old gun laws is that people entering the ifornia nightmare.
unemployed man, drove his Ford pickup state capitol can skip the long lines of The obsession with California puz-
through the plate-glass window of the tourists waiting to pass through metal zles me. I play the keyboards in a blues
Lubys cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, where detectors if they show guards a license- band, and our drummer has a sticker
some eighty people were having lunch. to-carry permit. In other words, the on his kit saying Stop Californication
At rst, everyone thought that it was a people most likely to bring weapons of Texas Music. The mayor of Aus-
freakish accident. Then Hennard shot into the building arent scanned at all. tin, Steve Adler, is a Democrat, but he
a customer. Is it worth it, Texas? he Many of the people who breeze through recently warned that, if our city stays
cried. This is payback day. are lawmakers and staers who tote on its current path, well end up like
Suzanna Hupp, a chiropractor, was concealed weapons into oces or onto San Francisco, with out-of-control
housing costs. The newspapers often sity, you have to make signicant con- same-sex marriage and undocumented
feature gloating stories about the num- tributionsto Abbotts campaign immigrants. He was rst elected to the
ber of Californians eeing to Texas fund. Thats not in the Governors bill. Senate in 2006, running as an outsider.
(eight per day to Austin alone), as an (Abbotts press secretary, John Witt- It was as if Rush Limbaugh were run-
indication of the vast superiority of the man, said, Governor Abbott selects ning, Bill Miller, the lobbyist, told me.
Texas way of life. and appoints individuals he believes Patrick crushed three well-known can-
Although Abbott has a lower na- are the most qualied and capable of didates in the Republican primary, and
tional prole than his predecessors Rick bringing excellence to the organiza- won the general election with nearly
Perry and George W. Bush, he clearly tions in which they serve. Any sugges- seventy per cent of the vote.
has similar ambitions. In January, when tion to the contrary is absurd.) Little Since Patrick became lieutenant gov-
the legislative session began, ernor, one of his signature
he latched on to a proposal, accomplishments has been
already adopted by ten other the passage of the open-
states, to call a constitu- carry gun law; he also
tional convention aimed at successfully pushed to le-
reining in the power of the galize the carrying of con-
federal government. Abbott cealed weapons on public-
rebranded it as the Texas college campuses. During
Plan. It would require the the 2016 Presidential race,
federal government to bal- he deftly pivoted from sup-
ance its budget, as Texas porting Ted Cruz to be-
does, and would prohibit coming Donald Trumps
federal agenciessuch as campaign chair in Texas.
the E.P.A. and the Depart- Evan S mith, the co-
ment of Laborfrom is- founder of the Texas Tri-
suing regulations that over- bune, an online journal
ride state laws. As Texass dedicated to state politics,
attorney general, from 2002 told me, Dan Patrick is
to 2015, Abbott was on the the most conservative per-
losing end of many lawsuits son ever elected to state-
that he led on behalf of wide oce in the history
the state against the U.S. of Texas. (Patrick himself
governmenthe objected declined to speak to The
to the Aordable Care Act, New Yorker.)
and to many federal envi- Patrick has driven his
ronmental controls. Under chamber in a far more rad-
the Texas Plan, the U.S. Supreme Court came of Abbotts ethics-reform attempt. ical direction. Even Democratic senators
would need a supermajority of seven For all of Abbotts initiatives, the are loath to cross him. In this years ses-
Justices to strike down a state law. Ab- legislatures agenda is dominated by sion, Patrick worked on lowering prop-
bott designated the Texas Plan an emer- Dan Patrick, an evangelical Christian erty taxes and addressing some obscure
gency item, and it quickly passed the and a former radio talk-show host from matters, such as hailstorm-lawsuit re-
legislature and was signed into law, wor- Houston, who has been the lieutenant form. But the heart of his agenda was
rying mainstream Republican lawmak- governor since 2014. In Texas, the lieu- legislation that spoke to the religious
ers in Washington, who fear that, in the tenant governor is also the president right, such as a bill that would provide
current political climate, such eorts of the Senate, and, because the Senate vouchers for homeschooling and pri-
could lead to a runaway assault on fed- currently has a Republican majority, vate-school tuition, and a sermon safe-
eral authority. Patrick has total control over it. He ap- guard bill, which would prevent state
Another emergency item on the points bills to specic committees, and and local ocials from issuing subpoe-
Governors list for the 2017 session was no legislation comes onto the oor nas to members of the clergy or com-
ethics reform, but many legislators saw without his say-so. He is unquestion- pelling them to testify. He also worked
the move as hypocritical. Lyle Larson, ably the most important political gure to toughen the states voter-I.D. law. Pat-
a centrist Republican state representa- in the state. ricks legislative agenda, if passed in its
tive from San Antonio, told me, Some During his radio days, Patrick devel- entirety, would bend Texas farther in the
of the most egregious violations are in oped a knack for self-promotion; he once direction of the auent and, above all,
the governors oce. Its well known got a vasectomy on the air. (He now would fortify the political strength of
that pay-for-play has been going on in owns a radio station in Houston.) Clever white evangelicals who feel threatened
that oce for years. For you to be on and relentless, Patrick brought with him by the increasing number of minorities
the Parks and Wildlife board, for in- to Austin the AM Texas platform of an- and by changing social mores.
stance, or to be a regent at the univer- ti-abortion absolutism and hostility to Patricks extremism is often countered
by Joe Straus, the speaker of the House, highway, swerving all over the road. women from getting scans for breast can-
a centrist, business-oriented conserva- Kuchler, who was following the truck, cer and ovarian cancer.
tive from San Antonio. Whereas the told the cops, Hes going to hit some- In May, 2011, Governor Perry, who
lieutenant governor is elected by the body head on or hes going to kill his was gearing up for his rst Presiden-
voters of the state, the speaker is cho- own damn self. He then watched help- tial race, signed a bill requiring all
sen by the members. That makes a cru- lessly as the truck rammed into a bus women seeking an abortion to have a
cial dierence in the way that Patrick carrying members of the First Baptist sonogram at least twenty-four hours
and Straus govern. Dan Patrick rules Church of New Braunfels. Thirteen before the procedure. Carol Alvarado,
by fear, Representative Gene Wu, a people were killed. The driver of the a Democratic state representative from
Houston Democrat, told me. Joe Straus truck was twenty-year-old Jack Dillon Houston, pointed out on the House
rules by consensus. Young, who was largely unhurt. He oor that, for a woman who is eight to
The 2017 session in Austin proved said, Im sorry, Im sorry. I was text- ten weeks pregnant, such a law would
to be a bruising example of raw politics ing, Kuchler told reporters. I said, necessitate a transvaginal sonogram.
waged by two talented people, Straus Son, do you know what you just did? She then displayed the required instru-
and Patrick, who fervently believe in (Young also had Ambien and other ment to the discomted lawmakers: a
their causes. The story in Texas both medications in his system.) The acci- white plastic wand resembling an elon-
reects and inuences the national scene. dent was one of many that might have gated pistol, which would be inserted
At a time when Democratic voices have been prevented had Governor Perry into the womans vagina. Government
been sidelinedWere lost in the wil- signed the 2011 texting bill into law. intrusion at its best, she observed.
derness, Wu told methe key strug- That year, the Republican state leg- Nonetheless, the bill passed in the
gle is within the increasingly conserva- islature turned its attention instead to House, 10742. When the Senate ap-
tive Republican Party, between those defunding womens-health programs. proved the bill, Dan Patrick, then a
who primarily align with business in- This is a war on birth control and state senator, declared, This is a great
terests and those who are preoccupied abortions, Representative Wayne day for Texas. This is a great day for
with abortion, gay marriage, immigra- Christian, a Tea Party stalwart from womens health.
tion, religion, and gun rights. East Texas, admitted. Thats what fam- Between 2010 and 2014, the propor-
ily planning is supposed to be about. tion of women who died in childbirth
oliticians seldom pay a price for The long-term goal of cultural con- in Texas doubled, from 18.6 per hun-
P the damage that their legislation
may do in the name of popular causes,
servatives is to cut o access to abor-
tion in Texas, to end state subsidies for
dred thousand live births to 35.8the
worst in the nation and higher than
such as declaring war or slashing taxes birth control, and to gut state funding the rate in many developing countries.
at the expense of vital social programs. for Planned Parenthoodwhich, in These gures represent six hundred
In 2011, Governor Perry vetoed a bill 2011, served sixty per cent of the health dead women.
that would have banned texting while needs of low-income women in the Researchers say that its not entirely
driving, saying that it was a govern- state. The legislators slashed the family- understood what accounts for the rise
ment eort to micromanage the be- planning budget from $111.5 million in maternal mortality in Texas, because
havior of adults. Texas is always above to $37.9 million. Eighty-two family- the rate was already rising before the
the national average in the number of 2011 laws went into eect. Obesity, heart
highway fatalities. According to the disease, drug overdoses, and a lack of
Texas Department of Transportation, health insuranceall serious problems
more than four hundred Texans are in the stateplay a role. Nevertheless,
killed every year in crashes related to a report in the September, 2016, issue
distracted driving, often because they of Obstetrics & Gynecology noted, In
are texting. the absence of war, natural disaster, or
To my surprise, the sponsor of the bill severe economic upheaval, the doubling
that Perry vetoed was Tom Craddick, of a mortality rate within a two year
the ultraconservative former speaker.This period in a state with almost 400,000
year, he put the measure forward again, planning clinics subsequently shut down. annual births seems unlikely.
for the fourth time. He compares it to Texas has the highest rate of unin- The mystery might be cleared up if
Texass seat-belt law, which, he notes, is sured people in the nation, and, accord- Governor Abbott released records about
very unpopular in his district. But they ing to the Center for Public Policy Pri- how these women died. In 2011, when
say that ninety-ve per cent of the peo- orities, about seventeen per cent of Texan he was attorney general, he issued an
ple obey the law. women and girls live in poverty. After opinion stating that information about
On March 29, 2017, in the middle the family-planning budget was cut, there the deceased would be withheld, sup-
of the legislative session, a welder was a disproportionate rise in births cov- posedly to prevent fraud.
named Jody Kuchler called the sheri s ered by Medicaid, because so many Dan Patrick, Rick Perry, and other
oces in Uvalde County and Real women no longer had access to birth Texas lawmakers who have called their
County to say that a white truck was control. By defunding Planned Parent- bills a victory for womens health have
driving recklessly down a two-lane hood, the legislature also blocked many shown no compassion for the women
who have suered, and perhaps died,
because of them. Their legislation has
been equally heartless toward children.
A fth of the uninsured children in
the U.S. are in Texas. In 2004, the Texas
Education Agency lowered the per-
centage of children who can be en-
rolled in special-education classes from
thirteen per cent (about the national
average) to eight and a half per cent
(the lowest in the country). According
to the Houston Chronicle, tens of thou-
sands of children have been denied the
education they need because of this ar-
bitrary limit.
In 2015, a federal judge, Janis Gra-
ham Jack, ruled that, in Texas, foster
children almost uniformly leave State
custody more damaged than when
they entered. The state, she said, was
violating the childrens constitutional
rights by exposing them to an unrea-
sonable risk of harm. Judge Jack de-
clared that state oversight agencies had
adopted an attitude of deliberate in- of caseworkers have quit, complaining or created outside of a health or medical facil-
dierence toward the plight of the that they were overworked, demoral- ity, will be charged a $100 civil penalty for
children in their care, even in the face ized, poorly paid, and often placed in each emission, and will be considered an act
against an unborn child, and failing to preserve
of repeated abuse and, sometimes, ho- dangerous situations. Union leaders the sanctity of life.
micide. Rape, abuse, psychotropic have said that higher pay would help
medication, and instability are the attract more applicants to the job, which The bill never made it to the House
norm, she added. oers a starting salary of thirty-seven oor.
Governor Abbott promised to over- thousand dollars, but state ocials
haul the child-welfare system, but countered with a plan to lower the obbyists got their name because
things have only worsened. In the 2016
scal year, at least two hundred chil-
educational requirements for case-
workers. During the 2017 legislative
L they stand in the lobby. When I
returned to the capitol on February 7th,
dren in Texas died of maltreatment, session, while bills addressing the about fty of them, almost all dark-
compared with a hundred and seventy- child-welfare crisis were being consid- suited men, stood outside the Senate
three the previous year, and those ered, a teen-age girl who was being chamber, forming a mosh pit for any
gures dont include more than a hun- housed in a state oce building ed legislator who might appear. Although
dred other deaths that are still being in the middle of the night. She was hit they seem like supplicants, lobbyists
investigated. Child Protective Services, by a van and killed. actually write much of the legislation
the state unit charged with investigat- Fed up with the callous treatment and corral the votes.
ing cases of abuse, is in chaos. Never- of women and children, Jessica Farrar, Bill Miller has been working in the
theless, Ken Paxton, the Texas attor- a liberal state representative from Hous- lobby for three decades. When he rst
ney general, appealed Judge Jacks ton, led House Bill 4260, the Mans arrived, he noticed that all the politi-
decision to appoint a special master to Right to Know Act. It satirically em- cal leaders had animal heads mounted
oversee the states foster-care system, ployed the kind of patronizing, were on their walls. Miller had a papier-
claiming that it would amount to a doing this for your own good language mch sea-lion head made up for his
federal takeover. that characterizes the many bills di- oce.Wow, you killed a sea lion?an im-
Nearly a year after the judges rul- rected at abortion and womens health pressed legislator asked. Yeah, Miller
ing, Child Protective Services acknowl- for instance, requiring a sonogram and said. With a surfboard.
edged that caseworkers had not even a rectal exam before prescribing Viagra. Inside the chamber, a crucial debate
visited more than forty-seven hundred Then, there was this: was under way about Senate Bill 4,
children at high risk of abuse or severe known as the sanctuary-cities bill.
neglect. Hundreds of children have Sec. 173.010. FINES RELATED TO One of Governor Abbotts priorities,
been sleeping in hotels or emergency MASTURBATORY EMISSIONS. Mastur- it essentially required Texas ocials
batory emissions created in health or medical
shelters, or on air mattresses in gov- facilities will be stored for the purposes of con- to join the Trump Administrations
ernment oces, because the state has ception for a current or future wife. crackdown on undocumented immi-
nowhere else to put them. Hundreds (a) Emissions outside of a womans vagina, grants. There are about a million such
immigrants in Dallas and Houston see in California, Abbott responded. committed no crimes. I was deported
alone. S.B. 4 was loaded up with punitive when I was ve, he said. He and his
A few days earlier, four hundred amendments, all of which were en- father were American citizens, but his
and fty people had lined up to testify dorsed by the entirely white Republi- mother was undocumented. She was
before the State Aairs Committee can majority. (Of the thirty-one mem- picking tomatoes in Hidalgo County,
in protest of S.B. 4, which they saw as bers of the Texas Senate, only eleven which abuts Mexico, when the Border
a discriminatory measure. The line are Democrats; seven are Latino.) Under Patrol arrived. They put us in a paddy
snaked around the rotunda oor and one amendment, Sheri Hernandez wagon, and we didnt even have time
up to the second level. The hearing whom Abbott began calling Sanctuary to notify my father, he later told me.
lasted more than sixteen hours, and Sallycould be jailed for up to a year We lived in Mexico for a year while my
broke up well after midnight. The po- if she refused to grant a detainer. father was looking for us.
lice chiefs of Austin and San Anto- On the Senate oor, Brian Birdwell, Hinojosa tried to nd a middle
nio testied that S.B. 4 would harm a Republican from Granbury, south- ground during the debate. Our big-
their ability to work with gest problem, when we
immigrant communities. talk about border secu-
A young woman spoke rity, it is politicized right
about attempting suicide away, he said. He called
after her father was de- Sheri Hernandez nave
ported. In the end, the bill and inexperienced. She
passed out of committee, talked about honoring de-
72, on partisan lines. tainers only in cases of vi-
In 2016, Sally Hernan- olent crime, but suppose
dez, a political novice of youve got somebody who
Anglo descent, was elected smuggled in a hundred
sheri of Travis County, kilos of cocaine? If you
having promoted Austin got caught committing a
as a sanctuary city. Fed- burglaryhell, yeah, you
eral immigration author- ought to be detained.
ities often ask local law- Hernandez defended
enforcement ocials to herself in an op-ed: Task-
put a detainer on people ing our community police
in their custodythat is, forces with the job of fed-
to hold o on releasing eral immigration agents
them until their citizen- creates a strain, which is
ship status can be veried why the detainer policy
but Hernandez declared on nonviolent criminals
that she would honor such is optional.
requests only in cases in Meanwhile, Immigra-
which individuals were charged with west of Fort Worth, rose to speak in tion and Customs Enforcement (ice)
a violent crime. Otherwise, people who favor of the bill. Birdwell is a retired began a national dragnet that osten-
posted bond would be released. Army colonel who was badly burned sibly targeted undocumented crimi-
It was as if Hernandez had opened in the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. He nals and violent oenders. Undocu-
the door to a ravenous mob of esh- has undergone thirty-nine operations mented bystanders were also picked
eating zombies. Perhaps she didnt fully and numerous skin grafts. He said that up. Fifty-one people were seized in
appreciate how suspiciously Travis he was worried about a culture of in- Austin, fewer than half of whom were
County is viewed by the Republican subordination emerging in Texas, add- criminalsa lower proportion than
establishmentwhich, increasingly, is ing that the next step would be out- in any other city in the countrylead-
the Tea Party establishment. Governor right insurrection. What you tolerate ing residents to believe that the city
Abbott abruptly cut o $1.5 million in today youll endorse tomorrow, and had been singled out.
state grants to the county. He went on subsidize the day after. In an open letter, Mayor Adler said,
Bill OReillys show and said of S.B. 4, Juan (Chuy) Hinojosa, a Demo- These raids are sowing distrust, not
Today, we introduced legislation that cratic senator from the fertile South just with ice but even with local law
will put the hammer down on Travis Texas region known as the Valley, spoke enforcement, and that makes our com-
County as well as any sanctuary-city against the bill. I agree one hundred munity less safe.
policy in the state of Texas. per cent that we as a nation have the Many Mexican-Americans in Texas
OReilly said of Sheri Hernandez, right to dene our borders, he said. support stricter enforcement of immi-
I dont understand her motivation. But the bill, he warned, could become gration laws. As long as there is no
She is doing it to pander to the an excuse for the wholesale expulsion proling of Hispanics, we understand
ideology of the left, just like what you of undocumented immigrants who had the process, Hinojosa told me. Since
9/11, the whole culture has changed. mother of four with a seventh-grade pation, Coleman observed. In Texas
Under current practice, however, un- education. She had lived in the U.S. politics, he says, everything is about
documented migrants crossing from since she was an infant, and was a legal raceits veiled as public policy, but it
Mexico often simply surrender to the resident, entitled to serve in the mili- encourages people to believe that their
Border Patrol; they are then given a tary and required to pay taxes. She as- tax dollars are going to support lazy
court date, a year or two in the future. sumed that she could also vote, and black and brown people. Political views
Hinojosa said that it makes no sense had done so previously, in 2012 and have become more entrenched because
to allow undocumented people into the 2014. The local prosecutor decided to of redistricting, and yet the demo-
country, let them go wherever they want, make an example of her, and she was graphic majority in Texas is far more
and then conduct raids to root them sentenced to eight years in prison. progressive than its representatives.
out. Its a real broken system, he said. When she gets out, she may be de- Coleman predicts a showdown: This
ported to Mexico. I suppose its an irony is a battle about the future of the coun-
Irulesnislature
session after session, the Texas leg-
has sought to impose strict
on voter identication, with the
that she is a Republican, and voted for
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney gen-
eral, who has made voter fraud a sig-
try, based on a new majority, and we
have to have this out.
putative goal of preventing election nature issue. he most contentious item on Dan
fraud. A 2011 law required voters to pre-
sent a U.S. passport, a military identi-
In April, Judge Ramos issued her
opinion: the Texas voter-I.D. law was
T Patricks list of priorities for the
2017 session was the bathroom bill,
cation card, a state drivers license, a intentionally designed to discriminate S.B. 6, which would bar transgender
concealed-weapon permit, or a Texas against minorities. Almost simultane- people in public schools and govern-
election identication certicate. The ously, a panel of federal judges in San ment buildings from using rest-room
same law excluded federal and state gov- Antonio ruled that three of the states or locker-room facilities that did not
ernment I.D.s, as well as student I.D.s, thirty-six U.S. congressional districts correspond to the sex listed on their
from being used at polling stations. In were illegally drawn in order to disem- birth certicates. It would also over-
2014, a federal judge, Nelva Gonzales power minorities. turn any local antidiscrimination ordi-
Ramos, in the Southern District of Texas, Evan Smith, of the Texas Tribune, nances that permit transgender citi-
struck down the law, calling it an un- has closely followed thirteen legislative zens to choose which bathroom to use.
constitutional poll tax. Texas appealed, sessions. He noted that, even as Dan In 2016, a similar bill was signed into
but the appeal was rejected, in part be- Patrick and his Republican allies slashed law in North Carolina. In response, mu-
cause there was no actual evidence of government services, they allocated eight sicians such as Bruce Springsteen and
voter fraud. (The Supreme Court re- hundred million dollars for border se- Pearl Jam cancelled concerts in the state,
fused to hear the case.) The appeals curity. White people are scared of and sporting associations, including the
court sent the case back to Judge Ramos, change, believing that what they have N.B.A. and the N.C.A.A., dropped plans
asking her to determine if the law was is being taken away from them by peo- to hold events there. Governor Pat Mc-
intentionally discriminatory. If Ramos ple they consider unworthy, he told me. Crory, who supported the law, lost his
said yes, it could trigger federal moni- But all theyre doing is poking a bear bid for relection, in part because of the
toring of the states election laws under with a stick. In 2004, the Anglo popu- national outcry. Dan Patrick contends
the Voting Rights Act. lation in Texas became a minority. The that his bill will have no economic eect
The question of voter fraud became last majority-Anglo high-school class on the state of Texas, and that the only
a national issue after the 2016 Presiden- in Texas graduated in 2014. There will people opposed to it are journalists and
tial election. Gregg Phillips, a former never be another. The reality is, its all the secular left. At a prayer rally on
ocial of the Texas Health and Human over for the Anglos. the capitol steps, in February, he de-
Services Commission, gave Trump the Texas leads the nation in Latino clared, They dont want prayer in pub-
false idea that he would have won the population growth. Latinos account lic schools, theyre not pro-life, they see
popular vote if illegal votes were dis- for more than half the 2.7 million new nothing wrong with boys and girls show-
counted. Phillips, the founder of a group Texans since 2010. Every Democrat in ering together in the tenth grade, or a
called VoteStand, tweeted that three Texas believes that, if Latinos voted at man being in a womens bathroom. At-
million unqualied voters had cast bal- the same rate in Texas as they do in torney General Paxton, who was also
lots in the election. He refused to pro- California, the state would already be present, added, This is a spiritual war.
vide proof, though he told CNN that blue. The dierence between Texas The bathroom bill was drafted after
he had developed algorithms that could and California is the labor movement, the superintendent of schools in Fort
determine citizenship status. Trump Garnet Coleman, a Houston member Worth announced, in April, 2016, that
soon demanded a widespread investi- of the Texas House, told me. In the transgender students could henceforth
gation into voter fraud. nineteen-sixties, Cesar Chavez began use the rest room or the locker room
In February, 2017, while Judge Ramos organizing the California farmwork- that corresponded to their gender iden-
was still considering the Texas voter-I.D. ers into a union; that kind of move- tity. This was in accordance with fed-
law, a resident of a Fort Worth suburb ment didnt happen in Texas, a right- eral guidelines. The superintendent
was found to have voted illegally: Rosa to-work state. Labor unions create a additionally instructed teachers and
Maria Ortega, a thirty-seven-year-old culture of voting and political partici- administrators to refer to students as
scholars, rather than as boys and girls. tions. Even in the Texas Senate, there its meaningin Texas, at leastas
At the rally, Patrick called for his res- were doubts about the need for such a nearly every Republican in the legis-
ignation, suggesting that this sort of bill. How are they going to enforce lature claimed to be unimpeachably
policy would represent the end of pub- it? Chuy Hinojosa asked me. Would conservative. What distinguished this
lic education and ignite a mass revolt a woman have to raise her dress? group was that the members were all
by parents. I believe it is the biggest As S.B. 6 made its way through the vociferously anti-Straus. The declared
issue facing families and schools in legislature, I noticed a new sign out- mission of the group is to amplify the
America since prayer was taken out of side a bathroom in the Austin airport. voice of liberty-minded grassroots Tex-
public school, he concluded. It said all genders. ans who want bold action to protect
The business community in Texas life, strengthen families, defend the Bill
ercely opposed S.B. 6, and produced n March 2nd, I returned to the of Rights, restrain government, and re-
a report suggesting that its passage
could cost the state up to eight and a
O capitol to have lunch with the
speaker of the House, Joe Straus. It
vitalize personal and economic free-
doms in Texas.
half billion dollars. (PolitiFact deter- was the hundred-and-eighty-rst an- As he watched the conference, Straus
mined that this gure was hyperbolic.) niversary of the day that Texas became shot me a weary look.
A month after the Texas legislature independent of Mexico, and the be- We moved to the dining room,
began the 2017 session, the Super Bowl ginning of the high holy days among which had Audubon bird prints on the
was held in Houston, and the National Texas historians. The climax comes on wall. The thing that concerns me is
Football League intimated that, were March 6th, the anniversary of the fall the near-total loss of inuence of the
S.B. 6 to pass, the championship might of the Alamo, where, in 1836, some two business community, which allows re-
not be held in Texas again. Governor hundred and fty Texians gathered ally bad ideas like the bathroom bill
Abbott, who had been keeping his to block the advance of the Mexican to ll the void, Straus said, as we sat
head down as the legislature debated forces. down to plates of delicious crab cakes.
the issue, told the N.F.L. to mind its The capitol rotunda was lled with C.E.O.s have stopped coming to the
own business. schoolchildren wearing frontier bon- capitol to engage directly, he contin-
Bathrooms have been an issue in nets and Davy Crockett coonskin hats, ued. They now work only through
Texas before. At my rst Willie Nel- getting ready to perform Marty Rob- lobbyists.
son concert, in Austin, in the nineteen- binss song Ballad of the Alamo. Kids Straus comes from a longtime Re-
eighties, I was in the mens room when from the Texas School for the Deaf publican family in San Antonio. One of
a dozen women barged in and laid siege would sign as the other children sang. his ancestors founded the L. Frank Sad-
to the stalls. It was actually a rather jolly Four retirees representing Bualo Sol- dlery Company, which made saddles,
moment. There were similar episodes diersthe black cavalrymen who made harnesses, and whips. Teddy Roosevelt
at other Texas events, and, in 1993, Gov- their mark in the Indian Warshad and the Rough Riders stopped in San
ernor Ann Richards signed a potty come to present the state colors. A tall Antonio in 1898 to equip themselves
parity bill, which mandated that, in man wearing a top hat paced about, with L. Frank gear on their way to ght
new sports and entertainment facili- preparing to recite the letter that Wil- in the Spanish-American War. The com-
ties, there be two toilets in womens rest liam Barret Travis, the lawyer who led panys slogan was The horsenext
rooms for every one in the mens. the Texian forces at the Alamo, wrote to woman, Gods greatest gift to man.
The debate over S.B. 6 was a much during the battle. (I shall never sur- When Joe Straus is not in Austin,
grimmer matter. Although a dozen other render or retreat, he declared, in one he is an executive in the insurance and
states have similar bills pending, Pat- of the most famous passages in Texas investment business. He entered that
ricks legislation embodied the mean- history. Victory or death.) industry after a spell in Washington,
ness and the intolerance that many On the House oor, resolutions were where his wife, Julie Brink, worked
Americans associate with Texas. In oered to honor the sacrice of the in the Reagan White House and on
Austin, the bill was being sold as a way heroes of the Alamo and to commend George H. W. Bushs 1988 Presidential
to protect women against sexual pred- notable citizens. A member proposed campaign. During that period, Straus
ators who might pose as transgendera that the breakfast taco become the o- served in the Commerce Department.
problem that scarcely exists. Laws al- cial state breakfast item. He is trim and dapper, like an ac-
ready on the books protect women from I met Straus in his oce. He switched count executive on Mad Men, and is
being accosted or spied on. The spon- on a closed-circuit TV to watch a press the most prominent Jewish politician
sors of the bill claimed that S.B. 6 was conference by a new group of a dozen in Texas history. In campaigns, his op-
not meant to discriminate against trans- cultural conservatives, the Texas Free- ponents have mentioned his religion,
gender Texans, although the law would dom Caucus, which is led by Matt to little eect. This is his fth term as
do just that. The only remedy for trans Schaefer, a state representative from speaker, which ties the record. Its a
people would be to change their birth Tyler, in East Texas. The group, which surprise to many observers that the la-
certicates, a costly and time-consuming models itself on the similarly named conic and even-tempered Straus has
process. The bill proposed ning schools body of far-right House Republicans persevered. Evan Smith told me, All
and state agencies up to ten thousand in Washington, had formed, in part, the things they said about himHed
ve hundred dollars per day for viola- because the term Tea Party had lost show up at a gunght with a butter
knife, He cant make a stthey were Meanwhile, he was pressing his own that requires wrestling opponents to
all wrong. Joe Straus is so much tougher legislative agenda, which included se- have the same sex listed on their birth
than he appears. curing additional funds for public certicates.
His speakership has focussed on schools, improving Child Protective In February, the Trump Adminis-
providing the workforce and the infra- Services, and devoting more resources tration withdrew the protections that
structure that Texas businesses need, to mental healtheven though the President Obama had instituted for
by protecting public education, build- state budget had been hit because of transgender students in public schools.
ing roads, establishing more top-tier the fall in oil and gas revenues. On March 6th, the U.S. Supreme Court
universities, and expanding job train- Before the session began, Straus refused to hear the case of a trans-
ing. Perhaps his biggest victory was in spoke out against the bathroom bill. gender student from Virginia, Gavin
2013: in the middle of a devastating Ive become more blunt than ever, he Grimm, who had sued to be allowed
drought, he ushered through a two- told me. He frequently urges business to use the boys bathroom at school.
billion-dollar revolving loan fund for leaders to remain rm in their oppo- That left the issue up to individual
state water projects. sition to such legislation. I try to be states, at least for now.
With each session, Straus has watched diplomatic but clearthat if you give Dan Patrick said that the Texas bill
the Republican Party drift farther away in on the bathroom bill to preserve a would be a model for the rest of the
from the compassionate conservatism tax break, theres another equally awful nation. On March 7th, the bill had its
of the Governor Bush era and become idea right behind it. rst public hearing before the State
increasingly dominated by Christian Aairs Committee. Transgender Tex-
ideologues, such as Patrick, for whom s the bathroom bill was moving ans, along with their families, came to
economic issues are secondary. Al-
though Democrats and non-Tea Party
A through the Texas legislature, Mack
Beggs, a seventeen-year-old transgen-
the capitol to speak, as did preachers,
business leaders, and moral crusaders
Republicans alike see Straus as a brake der high-school student from Euless, of all types. More than four hundred
on the controversial cultural agenda Texas, won the girls state wrestling people signed up to testify at the hear-
being pushed by Abbott and Patrick, championship, in the hundred-and- ing. The bills author, Senator Lois
he worries that his supporters have ten-pound weight class. He had been Kolkhorst, a Republican from Bren-
unreasonable expectations. I can only taking testosterone supplements as he ham, said that it was designed to nd
do so much to keep the focus on scal transitioned to male, and he had won the balance of privacy, decency, respect,
issues and away from the divisive stu, fty-six matches in a row. Although and dignity, to protect women, chil-
he told me. A few loud and fanatical he wants to wrestle boysbecause dren, and all people.
people occasionally unsettle the ma- Im a guy, he told ESPNthe Uni- Dana Hodges, the state director of
jority of Republicans, who are really versity Interscholastic League, which a right-wing Christian organization
mainstream. oversees the athletic programs in Texas called Concerned Women for America,
Unlike Patrick, who decides which public schools, recently adopted a rule was the rst to testify in favor of the
bills come to the oor in the Senate,
Straus has to exercise inuence by art-
fully appointing committee members,
who can dull the fangs of fearsome bills
(or let them languish until theres no
time to consider them). Sometimes
he thinks that his moderation, along
with the relative centrism of the Texas
House, is being used as a foil for the
Senate radicals. The condence that
people seem to have in the House to
serve as a stopper only enables the Sen-
ate to run hotter than it ever has be-
fore, he said.
Straus believed that most Republi-
cans in the House didnt want to vote
for the bathroom bill, but, like their
conservative colleagues in Washing-
ton, they worried about being chal-
lenged from the right in primaries. If
it gets to the oor, it could be a close
vote, Straus observed. I cant imag-
ine anyone really wanting to follow
North Carolinas example, but I cant
guarantee thats not going to happen. It ruins the effect if I say who it is. Can you just come down?
COMIC STRIP BY EMILY FLAKE
bill. She cast the issue as a matter of argued, were misplaced: I used the ways many bills must pass through in
womens safety. I myself was the vic- womens rest room for twenty-three order to reach the oor. Unlike a lot of
tim of being videotaped by a hidden years, and I used the mens rest room other state legislatures, the Texas leg-
camera placed in a womens bathroom for ten years. I have not once seen any islature still follows a tradition of award-
stall by a man, she said, her voice trem- genitalia. ing important posts to members of the
bling. She held up a plastic coat hook A woman in a short-sleeved black minority party. This is true even in Dan
that, she said, was embedded with dress identied herself as Jess Herbst, Patricks Senate.
the kind of miniature camera that had the mayor of New Hope, a tiny town Thompson once told me that, when
been used to spy on her. Under ques- north of Dallas, in a rmly Republi- she was a girl, African-Americans were
tioning, she acknowledged that a non- can section of the state. A few weeks not welcome in the capitol. Now she is
transgender man had hidden the cam- earlier, Mayor Herbst had written to the longest-serving woman and black
era inside her stall, and that he had her constituents to tell them that she person in Texas legislative history.
been punished under existing laws. was taking hormone-replacement ther- Among her many accomplishments is
Kolkhorst also conceded that she knew apy and transitioning to female. She a hate-crimes act, passed in 2001, that
of no crimes committed in Texas bath- had received overwhelming support, includes protections for homosexuals.
rooms which had been attributed to she told the committee. I just want to She has also fought against racial
transgender people. But her intent, she be able to use the womens room and proling and passed measures to help
said, was to prevent nefarious people not have someone ask me at the door low-income Texans pay their utility bills.
from taking advantage of inclusive bath- for my papers, she said. Armando Martinez, a forty-one-
room policies. (Crimes against trans- The testimony continued until year-old Democratic member from the
gender people, meanwhile, are routine; nearly ve in the morning. The com- Valley, is a reghter and a paramedic.
according to Texas Monthly, a quarter mittee voted to support the bill, 81. He showed up on the rst day of the
of all transgender Texans have been session with a bandage on his head; on
physically assaulted.) n the evening of April 6th, I went New Years Eve, hed been hit by a stray
Dan Forest, the lieutenant gover-
nor of North Carolina and a strong
O to the capitol to watch the legis-
lature struggle to fulll its mandatory
celebratory bullet. Martinez led a bill
to prohibit the reckless discharge of
advocate of that states bathroom bill, duty to pass a budget. House mem- a rearm.
came to Austin to testify that no busi- bers had been at it all day, and, yet Dr. John Zerwas, a Republican an-
nesses had actually left his state be- again, the discussion would go on until esthesiologist from Richmond, Texas,
cause of the bill, and that its economy the early morning. The air-condition- is the chair of the Appropriations Com-
had been hurt by less than one tenth ing was merciless; one of the mem- mittee. A business conservative in the
of one per cent of North Carolinas an- bers showed me the long johns pok- Straus mold, he is deeply respected in
nual G.D.P. (The Associated Press, ing out from under his shirt cus. I the legislature, and Straus selected him
after examining public records and in- saw 5-Hour Energy shots arrayed on to craft the House version of the bud-
terviewing business leaders who said some desks. get. The main dierence between the
that they had cancelled projects be- Desperation suuses the chamber Houses budget and the Senates was
cause of the bill, estimated that North on Budget Nightthe last stand for that Zerwas proposed dipping into the
Carolina would lose nearly four bil- bills that have not been funded. The Rainy Day Fund. The fund, which is
lion dollars over a dozen years.) On trick is that, in order to get the money amassed largely from oil and gas taxes,
March 30th, the North Carolina leg- for your legislation, you have to take it is designated for emergencies. It is pro-
islators, assailed on many fronts, par- from somewhere else. The members jected to grow to twelve billion dollars
tially repealed their bill. were on guard, lest their own bills be by 2019, which is more than the annual
In Austin, the vast majority of wit- raided. More than four hundred amend- budget of a dozen other states. Patrick
nesses spoke against the bathroom bill. ments to the budget were awaiting their maintains that the fund should not be
One of them was Colt Keo-Meier, a turn. One baing amendmentoered used for ongoing expenses, but Zer-
transgender psychologist, who is cur- by Valoree Swanson, a freshman Free- was wanted to take two and a half bil-
rently enrolled in medical school at the dom Caucus member from a suburb lion dollars out of the pot, in part to
University of Texas at Galveston. He of Houstonwould prevent state funds nance health care and public schools
wore a white lab coat, and a stetho- from being used to renovate bathrooms Joe Straus priorities.
scope around his neck. He said, If you in order to allow or enable a man to An incident in the afternoon had
pass this bill, my gender identity will enter a womens restroom facility. suggested how the budget ght would
be further invalidated, as I will not There are some extraordinary peo- play out. A freshman member, Briscoe
be able to continue attending medical ple in the House. Senfronia Thomp- Cain, presented an amendment to shut
school in the state of Texas. I would son is a seventy-eight-year-old former down an advisory panel on palliative
not be able to enter the mens rooms teacher from Houston. Known as Ms. T., care. Normally, freshmen keep quiet,
legally. Keo-Meier, who has a full beard, she is in her twentieth term, and is one but Cain is an assertive member of the
added, Look at meI would not be of the few Democrats with real power: insurgent Freedom Caucus. Thirty-two
able to enter the womens rest rooms she chairs the Local and Consent Cal- years old, he is proudly bratty, like Mat-
safely. Concerns about voyeurism, he endars Committee, one of the gate- thew Broderick in Ferris Buellers Day
O. This amendment seeks to get ment or gender transitioning opera- sponsibility Index, a powerful weapon
rid of what Ive kind of nicknamed the tionsomething that has never actually against less than ultra-radical Repub-
advisory death panel, Cain said, using happened. Cains battle cry: Dont Cal- licans. It is produced by Empower Tex-
a term for end-of-life counselling that ifornia my Texas! ans, a group led by Michael Quinn Sul-
is popular among the far right. livan, who is known by his initials,
Soon afterward, Zerwas came to the caught the eye of Pat Fallon, a Re- M.Q.S. Some members pronounce it
microphone and stood there, giving
Cain what Jonathan Tilove, in his blog
IDallas-Fort
publican member from Frisco, in the
Worth area. He lives in a
Mucus.
Sullivan is tall and friendly. He likes
for the Austin American-Statesman, wealthy, intensely conservative bed- to talk about the Boy Scouts (he was
jokingly called the morem pellis hispi- room community that was all cow pas- an Eagle Scout), the Aggies (he was
dus distentione nervorum: the hairy ture when I was growing up nearby. in the A. & M. Corps of Cadets), and
eyeball. Many young legislators, like Fallon, are his three children. A right-wing zealot,
Its fascinating to watch the chore- not originally from Texas. I asked him he is sometimes described as the most
ography of the members when deep how he came to live in the state. He powerful non-elected political gure
political chords are struck. The Free- said that, after playing football for Notre in Texas. Several years ago, Sullivan
dom Caucus members gathered with Dame, he joined the Air Force, and and I had lunch, and he told me, Im
Cain at a microphone in the front of was stationed in Texas. They asked not there to get a seat at the table.
the chamber; the traditional Repub- me my state of residence, and I said, Im there to get rid of the table. In
licans, along with some Democrats, Massachusetts. The payroll ocer in- other words, he wants to destroy the
stood beside Zerwas at a microphone formed me that Massachusetts has a government.
in the rear. It was the Texas version of 5.6-per-cent income tax, but theres no Empower Texans is funded largely
the Montagues versus the Capulets. income tax in Texas. So I said, Im a by a reclusive Midland oilman named
Would you please describe for me Texan! Tim Dunn, an evangelical Christian
what a death panel is? the mighty This term was his third. So far, hes who hopes to create in Texas an ex-
chairman of appropriations demanded. best known for co-authoring a bill, in ample of small government that could
A death panel is whereby a group 2013, that reasserted the right of stu- be replicated by other states and
of individuals unrelated to the person dents and employees at public schools countries. Even people who hate
in the hospital decide whether or not to say Merry Christmas rather than Dunns politics consider him the most
that person should live or die, Cain Happy Holidays. eective moneyman in the state. He
replied. Have you got an amendment? I has steadily pushed Republican law-
Have you ever understood, really, asked Fallon. makers farther right, eliminating
what palliative care is? Zerwas asked. Yeah, its No. 152, in which we de- the kind of middle-ground gures
Mr. Zerwas, being in your profes- fund the portion of the Travis County who support Joe Straus. Dunn has
sion, I am sure you could inform this Public Integrity Units investigation made it a mission to bring down the
body better than I could, of insurance fraud and mo- Speaker.
Cain replied. tor-vehicle tax fraud. The While Fallon and I were talking,
The old warhorses in unit has been under attack Jonathan Stickland approached the
the House knew, if Cain for years, because it also ad- front microphone. Stickland, a mem-
did not, that Zerwas had dresses crimes committed ber of the Freedom Caucus, is gener-
lost his rst wife to brain by state ocials. Of course, ously supported by Empower Texans.
cancer. He wore a ring on anything attacking Aus- He is a former pest-control technician
his right hand in her mem- tina spore of the Califor- from Bedford, near Arlington, who
ory. Zerwas said, You nia fungus that is destroy- now calls himself an oil and gas con-
could probably ask fty, ing Americais popular. sultant. Stickland is plump, with an
sixty, seventy, a hundred Who would do the in- imposing beard, narrow-set brown eyes,
members in this House vestigating, then? I asked. and an occasional broad smile reveal-
who have had somebody with a seri- The attorney general, Fallon ing beautiful teeth. He made news in
ous illness who has dealt with this responded. the 2015 session by posting a sign out-
particular issue. Ken Paxton, I reminded Fallon, side his oce:
Zerwas forced Cain, several times, was under indictment for securities
Representative
to admit having made false or unin- fraud. (He has pleaded not guilty.) Jonathan Stickland
formed statements. You know about I would prefer it not be that way, FORMER FETUS
this, and I dont, Cain nally said. Fallon said. But he hasnt been District 92
My apologies. The amendment was convicted.
withdrawn. Fallon ranks high on the conserva- Sticklands amendment was to de-
Cain later saved face when he oered tive report cards, compiled by watch- fund the states feral-hog-abatement
an amendment that would block the dog groups, by which modern right- program, which kills thousands of the
Texas Department of Criminal Jus- wing legislators live and die. One rampaging beasts each year. Stickland
tice from paying for a sex reassign- of the most feared is the Fiscal Re- called the program ridiculous and a
waste of money. It has not worked,
and it never will work! he declared,
infuriating rural lawmakers, who con-
sider wild pigs a nearly existential
menace. They converged on Stickland
from all sides. Everything came to a
dead stop.
A brass rail circumscribes the cham-
ber; only members, pages, and clerks
can go inside. I was hovering around
the rail, and Speaker Straus came over
to say hello. He seemed totally at
ease: smiling, hands in his pockets.
He said, I guess all the hogs are going
to move to Arlingtonwhich is partly
in Sticklands district. Straus was in
no hurry to impose order. He looked
at the scrum of lawmakers around
Stickland. Just think, he said. These
are the people responsible for spend-
ing two hundred and eighteen billion
dollars.
At the rear microphone stood Drew
Springer, a Republican from North
Texas, whose districttwice the size
of Marylandis copiously supplied
with wild pigs. He proposed attaching
an amendment to Sticklands amend-
ment. It would cut nine hundred thou-
sand dollars in funds for roads and Protective Services and therapy for like Rome surrounded by the Goths.
highwaysthe same amount as the disabled children. Paxton, the attor- Republican politicians bridle at the
hog-abatement programbut only in ney general, would lose more than disdain. Its great to be out of the
Sticklands home town. The measure twenty million dollars from his bud- Peoples Republic of Austin, Gover-
passed, with undisguised enthusiasm. get for lawsuits; that money would be nor Abbott declared recently, at a Re-
Stickland pulled his amendment down, redirected to foster-care programs. publican dinner in Bell County. Once
but then charged toward Springer. They None of these changes had become you cross the Travis County line, it
met in the middle of the chamber, nose law yetthey had to be ratied by the starts smelling dierent. And you know
to nose. Stickland is known to carry a Senate rst. what that fragrance is? Freedom. Its
concealed weapon, so I was a little wor- The exhausted Democrats and Re- the smell of freedom that does not
ried. But other members separated the publicans made a deal: the Democrats exist in Austin, Texas.
men, and Straus reluctantly gavelled agreed to provide only nominal oppo- This tirade was apparently triggered
the House to order. sition to the defunding of Planned Par- by a local ordinance that requires a
I left before the budget was passed, enthood, which was going to happen permit to cut down a heritage tree
long after my bedtime. By dawn, it in any case; in return, the bathroom one whose trunk diameter exceeds
was clear that Dan Patrick and the amendment was pulled from consid- nineteen inches. When Abbott was
Tea Party had suered one defeat eration. Other controversial amend- attorney general and living in Austin,
after another in Joe Strauss House. ments were placed in Article 11 of the he was infuriated when he had to com-
Earlier in the session, Patrick had de- budget, a kind of wish list of things to pensate the city before cutting down
manded an up-or-down vote on sub- be debated in the future. Legislators a pecan tree that stood in the way of
sidizing tuition for private schools, call Article 11 the graveyard. But in his future swimming pool.
and it was crushed, 10344. A pro- the Texas legislature the dead have been Many residents of Austin dont
posal to zero out money for the known to walk. mind its image as a lonely liberal out-
Texas Commission on the Arts was post. Im part of a group that puts up
brushed aside. he relationship between the cap- statues in Austin, and our most recent
Governor Abbott s enterprise
fund, which he used to lure businesses
T itol and the city of Austin is an-
tagonistic.The city has long been known
work was a bronze replica of Willie
Nelson. At Nelsons request, it was un-
to the state, would be emptied, and its as a blue dot in a red state. It sees it- veiled, in 2012, on April 20thNa-
budget of forty-three million dollars self as standing apart from the vulgar tional Marijuana Day. He stood in
would be dispersed between Child political culture of the rest of Texas, front of his giant likeness and sang
Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When My wife, Roberta, has a close friend, oted, racist mentality that has emerged
I Die. a writer, who is married to a professor. in Texas, which he calls the epicenter
On the Sunday after Trump was They are Jewish, and they have a black of the Tea Party. Trump is simply the
elected President, about a hundred and lives matter sign in their yard. As most visible manifestation of that men-
fty people gathered on the capitol the sanctuary-cities bill, S.B. 4, was tality, he told me. Its been percolat-
steps and marched down Congress Av- being debated in the capitol, an un- ing up in the Republican Party for the
enue. A small group of Trump sup- signed letter was left at their front door. past decade.
porters was staging a counter-protest. It threatened the lives of their children, Another Democratic lawmaker, Ana
According to news reports, one man by name. Is this Austin? Roberta cried. Hernandez, of Houston, recalled com-
was especially conspicuous: Joseph ing to this country as a child: I re-
Weidknecht, a laid-o sheet-metal
worker, who is six feet six and weighs
three hundred and fty pounds. He
IvotenHouse.
April, S.B. 4 progressed to the
Among Republicans who
in Texas primaries, the hottest
member the constant fear my family
lived with each day, the fear my par-
ents experienced each day, as their two
was wearing a make america great issue is immigration. Many state leg- little girls went to school, not know-
again cap and carried a sign that said islators who otherwise might not sup- ing if there would be an immigration
proud to be deplorablea ref- port the bill seemed intimidated by the raid that day.
erence to Hillary Clintons derogatory political environment, and it was ap- Behind the scenes, the Republican
remark about Trump supporters. A parent that Straus and his team had and Democratic caucuses met for
number of the anti-Trump marchers, no battle plan. Meanwhile, Patricks hours, trying to nd a way to dodge
some wearing Guy Fawkes masks, counterparts, frustrated by their losses Schaefers amendment. The Repub-
ripped the sign out of his hands, in the budget battles, began adding licans came to us and said, Some of us
grabbed his hat, and tried to set his amendments to make S.B. 4 even are going to have a hard time voting
shirt on re. I can handle myself in a tougher. Matt Schaefer, of the Free- against it, Wu told me. Knowing that
brawl, Weidknecht later told the Aus- dom Caucus, amended the bill to allow the law would inevitably be challenged
tin American-Statesman. But when police ocers to question a suspects in court, Republicans oered to shelve
they brought out the lighters I was gen- immigration statusa show me your the amendment if the Democrats
uinely scared for my life. papers provision. Law-enforcement made some minor concessions. But
A small woman wearing a hijab authorities in Texass major cities had the Democrats took too long to agree
forced herself between Weidknecht and loudly opposed such an idea, saying on terms, and the Republicans with-
the people assaulting him. She was that it would make immigrants less drew the oer.
Amina Amdeen, a nineteen-year-old likely to report crimes. Art Acevedo, After sixteen hours of emotional de-
student at the university, who had im- Houstons police chief, said that the bate, the House passed S.B. 4 with the
migrated to the U.S. from Iraq when number of Hispanics reporting rape in show me your papers amendment. A
she was ten. She stood there like a his city was already down forty-three week later, Governor Abbott signed it
mountain, trying to stop the violence, per centapparently a result of Trumps into law, on Facebook Live. Citizens ex-
Weidknecht said. The police arrested crackdown on undocumented immi- pect law-enforcement ocers to enforce
six of the protesters. grants. Schaefers amendment was sim- the law, he said. Citizens deserve law-
I do not stand for what he stands ilar to a 2010 Arizona law that had breakers to face legal consequences.
for, Amdeen remarked. But I know been partly struck down by the U.S. As usual, the Texas legislature passed
his fears and concerns are valid. I love Supreme Court. anti-abortion bills. One bans the safest
this country so much, and I dont like This is something that Texans in and most common procedure for second-
what I see coming. our district have been asking for, trimester abortions: dilation and evacu-
In February, two weeks after the Schaefer said. This is good policy. ation. Supporters of the legislation call
Trump Administration began its at- Gene Wu, the Democratic House this a dismemberment abortion. The
tempts to block Muslims from enter- member from Houston, who was born law also requires health-care facilities to
ing the U.S., anti-immigrant posters in China, spoke against the bill, tear- bury or cremate aborted fetuses.
started appearing outside buildings fully comparing it to the 1882 Chinese In addition, the legislature passed sev-
at the University of Texas at Austin. Exclusion Act, the countrys rst major eral bills to reform the agencies oversee-
imagine a muslim-free amer- anti-immigration law. This topic is ing abused and endangered children
ica, one said. Around this time, a painful for me, because Im an immi- one of Governor Abbotts priorities. In
mosque was rebombed in Victoria, grant, he said. My parents are immi- the rst seven months of the states scal
two hours southeast of Austin. Sid grants. I represent a district lled with year, the number of foster children spend-
Miller, the states agricultural commis- immigrants. As he spoke, supportive ing two or more consecutive nights in
sioner, told the BBC that he worried Democrats surrounded him. Some are hotels or government oce buildings
about America becoming a Muslim here as refugees. Some are here as cit- had risen to three hundred and fourteen.
country. (Muslims account for about izens. Some are here without papers. The new legislation gave raises to the
one per cent of the U.S. population.) But they are all my people. underpaid caseworkers, but in some ways
He previously advocated dropping For Wu, the sanctuary-cities bill was it was yet another anti-government mea-
nuclear bombs on the Muslim world. the natural culmination of the big- sure. The bill partially stripped the state
of responsibility for its wards, handing the House, H.B. 2899, was a thought- the mid-nineties, he made a fortune
them o to contractors. Abbott said that ful proposal. Although it would not from alternative hormone-replacement
Janis Graham Jack, the federal judge who mandate bathroom use based on biolog- therapies and the sale of controversial
had ruled that Texass foster-care system ical sex, H.B. 2899 would impede the en- supplements, such as colloidal silver,
violated childrens rights, should dismiss forcement of local nondiscrimination or- which he recommends for treating
the case before her, because the new leg- dinances, and it would not stop businesses colds and the u, and for promoting
islation completely transforms the sys- or lawmakers from imposing bathroom pet health. Colloidal silver can cause
tem in ways that will make it better. bans in the future. argyria, in which a patients skin per-
Child-welfare advocates have criticized On May 21st, the House began de- manently turns the color of a blue jay.
the new legislation, saying that private bating the measure. Once again, hours In 1986, Hotze signed the man-
groups may not have the ifesto of an evangelical
expertise to take over case- Christian group called the
management duties, partic- Coalition on Revival,
ularly when dealing with which endorses the idea
troubled children. I expect that the ultimate cause
the Texas Child Protective of all disease, deformity,
Services and the Texas De- disability, and death is the
partment of Family and sin of Adam and Eve. As
Protective Services to strive for government: We
for, achieve, and to accom- deny that any nal au-
plish No. 1 ranking status thority outside the Bible
in the United States of (e.g., reason, experience,
America, Abbott said, as majority opinion, elite
he signed the legislation. opinion, nature, etc.) ought
On April 6th, the hog- to be accepted as the stan-
abatement funds were ap- dard of government for
proved, despite Jonathan any individual, group, or
Sticklands attempts at sab- jurisdiction.
otage. And a new law al- In the aughts, Hotze
lowed the hunting of wild hosted a show on the
pigs from hot-air balloons. talk- radio station that
Weve got a problem here, Patrick now owns in
and we are willing to x it, Houston. He recently re-
Mark Keough, a Republi- leased a couple of songs
can from the Woodlands, perhaps they should be
told the Texas Observer. called lamentations
We have that Western, swashbuckling, of anguished testimony ensued. Half a such as God Fearing Texans Stop
cowboying type of way to deal with dozen female members wandered into Obamacare:
things. Texans already could legally the mens bathroom just o the House
shoot pigs from helicopterseven with oor. Were feeling like making trouble What would Sam Houston do?
What would Davy Crockett do?
machine gunsbut who knew that it today, one of the women, Gina Hino- I know what Im going to do.
was ever against the law to shoot pigs josa, a Democrat from Austin, told re- Im going to ght Obamacare,
from balloons? porters. Its that kind of mood. Im going to defeat Obamacare.
Speaker Straus continued to sideline Shortly before dawn, the House com-
the bathroom bill. He remained certain mittee members retired without a vote, Hotzes main cause is attacking ho-
that most Republicans in the House eectively killing the measure. At the mosexuals, or homofascists, as he calls
didnt really favor the measure, though last minute, several lawmakers had as- them. The homosexual political move-
they also didnt want to be seen as op- serted their conservative bona des by ment will force churches, schools, busi-
posing it. He asked Governor Abbott to signing on as co-sponsors of the doomed nesses, and individuals to accept, to
stand with him against the measure. Ab- legislation. It was the most desirable out- arm, and even celebrate those who
bott is better known as a business con- come imaginable. participate in anal sex, he has said.
servative, like Straus, than as a cultural There were still eight days left in the Sodomy, he went on, will be man-
conservative, like Patrick, but he showed session. dated to be taught to the children in
little interest in choosing a side, because the schools at an early age, starting in
he was bound to create enemies in ei- ne of the major forces behind the kindergarten. It goes without saying
ther case. Finally, Abbott blandly stated
that he favored a bill to protect privacy
O bathroom bill, and a big supporter
of Dan Patrick, was Steve Hotze, a
that homosexuals want to make Texas
a clone of California.
in bathrooms. He signalled that a bill Houston physician and a longtime ul- In 2014, Dan Patrick ran for lieu-
then headed for a committee hearing in traconservative kingmaker. Starting in tenant governor, and Hotze became
one of his chief fund-raisers. In a video Trump garnered fty-two per cent of In an e-mail, Patricks oce de-
endorsement, he stood next to Patrick the vote in Texas, compared with sixty- scribed Hotze as a longtime supporter,
and said, Dan Patricks leadership will ve per cent in neighboring Oklahoma. but added, The Lieutenant Governor
keep Texas the most conservative state Texas is more purple than many Amer- does not agree with everything that
in the country. Patrick added, The icans realize, and thats what keeps con- any of his supporters say or do. Straus
Democrats understand that, if they can servatives in the state on edge. told me, Steve Hotze exists on the
take Texas, we will never have a Repub- Hotze runs a political-action com- fringes. Mainstream Republicans dont
lican in the White House again. They mittee called Conservative Republi- take him seriously. Hotze, meanwhile,
will control the country. Theres not an- cans of Texas. He also maintains the has been campaigning to have Straus
other Texas to move to, folks. This is it. groups Web site, and on May 16th he removed as speaker.
Patrick was referring to the fact that, wrote of the bathroom bill, There are On May 20th, Tom Mechler, the
as Texass liberal cities have burgeoned, Texas legislators . . . who would allow chairman of the state Republican Party,
the state has grown markedly less red. perverted men and boys, who sexually resigned, citing personal reasons. He
All of its major urban areas except Fort fantasize that they are women, to enter issued a letter pleading for party unity.
Worth are Democratic and have been womens and girls bathrooms, showers A party that is fractured by anger and
for decades. Dallas went for Obama in and locker rooms. He implored his backbiting is a party that will not suc-
both elections. In Houston, Americas readers to pray with him: ceed, he said. He also warned that
most diverse city, the countrys rst In the Name of Jesus, I prophesy and de- the Republican Party had failed to at-
openly lesbian big-city mayor was suc- clare: May all the individuals serving in the tract voters outside the white demo-
ceeded by the citys second black mayor. state legislature, and their sta, who support, graphic, and was therefore destined
promote and practice sodomy and other per-
(Harris County, however, which en- verted, sexually deviant lifestyles, who support for electoral oblivion. If we do not
compasses Houston, has Republican the killing of unborn babies, and who hate Gods continue to make eorts to engage in
judges in the courthouse.) San Anto- Law and Gods Word, receive just retribution the diverse communities across Texas,
nio has always been a progressive strong- from God for their evil actions. . . . May they our state will turn blue, he warned.
be consumed, collapse, rot and be blown away
hold, though it often votes Republican as dust from their current positions because of He urged the next chairman to re-
in statewide races. In the 2016 election, their wicked works, thoughts and deeds. shape the Party in the image of mod-
ern Texas.
Soon after Mechlers resignation,
Rob Morrowthe former Travis County
Republican Party chairman with the
motley-fool hatannounced his can-
didacy for the statewide position. His
priorities had not changed since he had
been drummed out of oce. In a state-
ment for the press, he declared, I like
big titties. I am a proponent of booby-
liciousness. In the past several years I
have shared on social media the pics of
over 500 extremely hot, busty women.
He concluded by saying, I am for hav-
ing bikini contests at the Alamo every
4th of July. Case closed.
he twelve members of the Texas

T Freedom Caucus were furious at
Straus and his allies for impeding their
legislation, which included yet more
bills targeting abortion, and measures
that would further loosen gun laws and
roll back property taxes. They decided
to get revenge, with what became known
as the Mothers Day Massacre.
Bills that are not considered con-
troversial are often placed before the
House for a pro-forma vote. In May,
a hundred and twenty-one such pro-
posals, known as consent bills, were
awaiting approval. However, if ve or
more members object to a consent bill,
it must go through the normal legis- for review was the state medical board. sities, was already the largest item in
lative process, and be scheduled for If the medical board expired, there the budgetabout fty-two per cent
discussion on the House oor. This would be no agency to license doctors of all state dollars. He added, It is
year, the clock for such discussions ran in Texas. It wasnt clear if Freedom disingenuous to suggest that we are,
out at midnight on May 11ththe Caucus members had realized the somehow, holding back funding that
Thursday before Mothers Day week- far-reaching consequences of killing we could spend on schools. (Educa-
end. Hours before midnight, the Free- H.B. 3302. tion spending, as a percentage of the
dom Caucus objected to the entire Dan Patrick, however, recognized Texas budget, is lower than it has been
slate of consent bills, making it impos- that an important lever had been in at least twenty years.)
sible for them to be heard this session. handed to him. The only way to avoid By now, the ill will between the two
The doomed consent bills included men had spilled over into the cham-
two that addressed the sharp rise in bers they led. Lyle Larson, the San
maternal mortality in Texas. Shawn Antonio Republican, who is close to
Thierry, a Democrat from Houston, Straus, accused the Senate of taking
begged Freedom Caucus members to hostages when it promised to pass
spare her bill, which would have com- certain House bills only if the House
missioned a study that focussed on voted for Patricks priorities. Ive got
low-income black mothers. She argued six, Larson cried. How many other
that the bill was pro-life, because moth- bills were held hostage by the Texas
ers who died in childbirth had car- Senate?
ried their babies to term. Although the consequences of H.B. 3302s fail- A roar went up in the House, which
the Freedom Caucus members agreed ing to pass was for a similar bill to be only grew when Harold Dutton, a
with her on this point, they refused passed in the Senatewhich had a Houston Democrat, took to the front
her request, adding that it wasnt per- later deadlineand then sent back to microphone. When the Senate wont
sonal. It was like a drive-by shooting, the House. On the Monday after respect us, they need to expect us,
Thierry later said. Mothers Day, Speaker Straus wrote he said. I dont know if they can see
Next the Freedom Caucus chewed a letter to Patrick, urging the Senate us. But would you have them open
up time in leisurely debate, proposing to pass such a billalong with the the door so they can hear us? The
amendments and making objections budgetso that the legislature could House doors were ung open, as the
to bills already under consideration. avoid a special session. In response, frustrated representatives bayed like
The House was brought to a stand- Patrick privately sent him specic terms wolves at the Senate chamber, across
still. An hour passed as they debated for a deal. The House had to pass the the capitol.
inconsequential amendments to a bill bathroom bill and another item on Governor Abbott had warned Speaker
on industrial-workforce training. (The Patricks agendaa bill that capped Straus that he would demand action
minority Democrats had perfected local property taxes. In return, the Sen- on the bathroom billeven if he had
such tactics in the past.) ate would agree to pass its own ver- to call a special session. With Strauss
Time was running out to consider sion of the sunset safety-net bill, as blessing, a compromise was crafted by
any of the other scheduled legislation. well as the budget and several other Chris Paddie, a Republican represen-
Drew Springer, the representative from items, including one championed by tative from Marshall, in northeast
North Texas who killed Sticklands Straus, which dealt with school-nance Texas. It was styled as an amendment
anti-hog-abatement amendment, reform. Public schools in Texas are to a bill on school safety, and would
pleaded for H.B. 810, which would nanced through property taxes, along aect grade schools and high schools
fund experimental stem-cell treat- with federal and state funds. Over the but not universities or government
ments. He spoke on behalf of his wife, years, the states contribution per stu- buildings. It armed the right of all
who is in a wheelchair. Such treat- dent has diminished, with property students to use the bathroom with
ments might give somebody like my taxes making up the dierence. To re- privacy, dignity, and safetylan-
wife a chance to walk, he said, be- store the balance, Straus wanted to al- guage that strongly echoed Patricks
tween sobs. Id trade every one of my locate one and a half billion state dol- scaremongering about potential trans-
bills Ive passed, every single one, to lars to the public schools. gender predators. But it did not ex-
get the chance to hear H.B. 810. The The Senate had added an amend- plicitly bar students from using par-
Freedom Caucus gave in on this one, ment to the school-nance-reform ticular bathrooms.
and it passed. bill, however, which amounted to what Across Texas, school districts and
Also among the slain consent bills Straus called a poison pill: a provi- chambers of commerce seemed resigned
was H.B. 3302, a sunset safety-net bill. sion for vouchers for private schools. to accept the amendment. In Strauss
It had been crafted to preserve impor- The House had already rejected this opinion, it codied a reasonable practice
tant state agencies that would other- idea, but Patrick felt that Texas schools that many schools had already adopted.
wise be phased out under an automatic had enough money. In an op-ed pub- Still, there was erce opposition in the
review policy, which takes place every lished in early June, he noted that total House from Democrats who saw it as
twelve years. One of the agencies up education spending, including univer- appeasement. Representative Rafael
Anchia, of Dallas, reminded the other the state, they asserted, adding, Dis- partment would help defend S.B. 4.
members that, since they had begun crimination is wrong and it has no President Trump has made a com-
debating the bathroom issue, in Janu- place in Texas. mitment to keep America safe, he
ary, ten transgender people had been Around this time, reporters caught said. Texas has admirably followed his
violently killed in the U.S. He read up with Abbott at a gun range, where lead by mandating statewide coper-
their names aloud. he signed a law lowering the cost of ation with federal immigration laws
The amendment passed the House, gun licenses. He then shot a few rounds that require the removal of illegal
but Patrick wasnt satised. He said that at a target sheet, which he proudly aliens who have committed crimes.
it didnt appear to do much. Time was displayed to the reporters. (The Texas One of the bills that Governor Ab-
running out. Straus declared that Pat- press has generally been very kind to bott signed into law allows faith-based
rick could take Paddies amendment or him.) This was the day after Montana adoption groups to reject applicants
leave it. For many of usand especially elected a U.S. representative, in a spe- whose sexual orientation is counter to
for methis was a compromise, Straus cial election, who had body-slammed their beliefs. In response to the law,
told reporters. As far as Im concerned, a reporter, sending him to the hospi- Californias attorney general, Xavier
it was enough. We will go no further. tal. This was the same season in which Becerra, banned state employees from
This is the right thing to do in order to Trump had declared the press the travelling to Texas at taxpayers expense.
protect our economy from billions of enemy. Abbott held up his bullet-rid- Dan Patrick jumped at the chance to
dollars in losses and more importantly dled target and said, Im gonna carry taunt California. Of course, Califor-
to protect the safety of some very vul- this around in case I see any reporters. nia does have a reason to be angry at
nerable young Texans. It was absurd, On the Friday before the end of Texas, he said. Thousands of folks
he said, that passing a bathroom bill had the session, Straus told me, Patrick ed Californias high taxes and liberal
taken on more urgency than xing the sent two emissaries from the Senate attitudes to come to Texas in 2015.
school-nance system. to visit him at his oce. (Patricks The session concluded this year on
Patrick did not relent. He said of spokeswoman says that this is not ac- Memorial Day, and so fallen soldiers
Straus, Instead of siding with the peo- curate.) One of the senators carried were honored. Legislators said good-
ple of Texasand, as a Republican, an envelope that apparently contained bye to colleagues with whom they had
siding with Republicans of Texashe the language of a bathroom bill that endured a hundred and forty of the
has decided to support the policies of Patrick would accept. The senator, most intense days of their lives.
Barack Obama, who said, I want boys whose name Straus would not dis- Meanwhile, buses began arriving
and girls in every shower in every school close, was a lawyer, and told Straus at the capitol. Hundreds of protest-
in the country. (Obama never said this.) that the language had been carefully ers, some from distant states, burst
Patrick then added a remark aimed crafted to insure that the bill would through the doors, lling all four lev-
directly at Abbott: Tonight, Im mak- override any local antidiscrimination els of the rotunda and spilling into
ing it very clear, Governor. I want you ordinances. The senator started to open the House gallery. They unfurled
to call us back on your own time. The the envelope, but Straus said not to banners (see you in court!) and
two chambers succeeded in passing a bother. Im not a lawyer, but I am a chanted, S.B. 4 has got to go! One
budget, but a special session seemed Texan, he said. Im disgusted by all of the protest organizers, Stephanie
inevitable. this. Tell the lieutenant governor I Gharakhanian, explained to report-
Abbott clearly hated the position dont want the suicide of a single Texan ers, We wanted to make sure we gave
he had been thrust into. A special ses- on my hands. them the sendo they deserve.
sion devoted almost entirely to the A few of the Democrats in the
bathroom bill, he knew, would focus uring the regular legislative ses- chamber looked up at the chanting
even more unwanted national atten-
tion on Texas. Only the governor can
D sion, more than sixty-six hun-
dred bills were led, and more than
protesters and began to applaud. State
troopers cleared the gallery and broke
call a special session, and though he twelve hundred were passed into law. up the protest, but by that time some
can nominally set the agenda, special The session was widely seen as being of the Republicans on the oor had
sessions can get out of hand. There dictated by Dan Patrick, but many of taken oense. Matt Rinaldi, a mem-
was no guarantee that Abbott would the signature items that he had sup- ber of the Freedom Caucus from Dal-
get the outcome he hoped for. portedschool vouchers, property-tax las County, who is sometimes rated
On May 27th, the C.E.O.s of four- rollbacks, and the bathroom bill the most conservative member of the
teen companies with a signicant pres- failed to pass. House, later told Fox Business Net-
ence in Texas, including Apple, Am- The major cities in Texas recently work that he noticed several banners
azon, Cisco, Google, and I.B.M., sent joined in a lawsuit against S.B. 4 bearing the message i am undocu-
Abbott a letter. We are gravely con- the sanctuary-cities billsaying that mented and here to stay. He
cerned that any such legislation would it will lead to racial proling, and that called ICE, and then bragged to his
deeply tarnish Texas reputation as open regulating immigration is a power re- Hispanic colleagues about it.
and friendly to businesses and fami- served for the federal government. A shoving match broke out on the
lies, it said. The bill would harm the The U.S. Attorney General, Je Ses- House oor. Curses ew. Afterward,
companies ability to recruit talent to sions, announced that the Justice De- Rinaldi posted on Facebook that Poncho
Mom! Youre not watching.

Nevrez, a Democrat from the border Services reforms, adding fourteen hun- bill in the special session and threaten
town of Eagle Pass, had threatened his dred new caseworkers, he said. We to veto any amendments?
life. Poncho told me he would get me made tremendous progress on mental- Straus agreed, but noted, The leg-
on the way to my car, Rinaldi wrote, health reforms and funding. Texass islature is not obligated to act upon his
adding that he made it clear that I decrepit hospitals were going to be up- agenda items within the thirty-day pe-
would shoot him in self-defense. graded. A health-care plan for retired riod. And the Governor would have
teachers had been saved. Enormous cuts the option to call as many thirty-day
he next day, the capitol was sub- to higher education had been averted. sessions as he would like.
T dued. In the House chamber, do-
cents were again leading school tours.
These were issues a little bit under
the radar, because theyre not sensa-
So the bill could stay in commit-
tee and not get voted out?
In the rotunda, a high-school orches- tional, but theyre issues that are going Straus smiled.
tra was playing a piece for woodwinds. to make a big dierence in Texas lives,
I went up to the second oor, where Straus said. What we didnt achieve he session was the most fractious
the acoustics were better. The orches-
tra was from Kountze, a little East
was to begin xing the school-nance
system, which everybody knows is a
T in memory, and the bad feelings
stirred up in the capitol will linger long
Texas town that had the distinction, disaster. after the lawmakers return home. Im-
in 1991, of electing Americas rst Mus- Straus said that some schools in dis- migrant communities are fearful, law-
lim mayor. The musicians were arrayed tricts that had been strongly aected by makers are vengeful, and hatemongers
in the center of the rotunda, atop the the downturn in the oil and gas econ- feel entitled to spread their message.
seals of the republic and the ve na- omy might have to be closed. We had And the bitter battle among Texas Re-
tions of which Texas had once been a plan to bridge that, he noted. Un- publicans isnt over. Governor Abbott
part: Spain, France, Mexico, the United fortunately, the Senate had other pri- called a special session, to reconvene on
States, and the Confederacy. I was orities. He attributed the failure to July 18th, and set forth a list of twenty
moved by the thought that the long Patricks xation on vouchers. items that he said required action. Most
and bloody history of Texas had ar- I asked Straus about the clash be- of them could have been passed in the
rived at this moment, with small-town tween business and cultural conserva- regular session; none of them were a pri-
kids bringing the many voices of the tives. He quoted William H. Seward, ority for him before the session began.
state into harmony. Lincolns Secretary of State, who de- In addition to the bathroom bill, his list
Speaker Straus was waiting in his scribed the forthcoming Civil War as of demands included education vouch-
chambers, seated on the couch in his an irrepressible conict. The preju- ers, caps on state and local spending,
shirtsleeves, under a painting of Here- dices unleashed by the election of Don- and new abortion restrictions. He also
ford cattle. He looked far more relaxed ald Trump had poured kerosene on the asked for a thousand-dollar raise for
than I thought was warranted, given already volatile world of Texas politics. public-school teachers, which the local
that Governor Abbott was poised to Straus, referring to the bathroom bill, school boardsnot the statewould
call a special session that would likely said, We came very close this session likely have to pay for. I expect legisla-
focus on Patricks must-pass bills. But to passing a sweepingly discriminatory tors to return with a calm demeanor,
Straus seemed satised. He boasted policy. It would have sent a very neg- and with a rm commitment to make
that the priorities of the Househis ative message around the country. Texas even better, he said. Straus was
prioritieshad mostly been accom- Thats still possible, right? I asked. not intimidated. He told me, Were
plished. We did the Child Protective Couldnt Abbott put forward his own under no obligation to pass anything.
FICTION
64 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 PHOTOGRAPH BY INA JANG
ghi opened his eyes to a faint The accident had happened while ine that happening for real, though.
O glimpse of white clothing. He

heard his name: Oghi. Oghi.
The voice was soft, kind. Eight days
Oghi was speeding. Of course, every-
one sped on the highway, so it couldnt
be said that this was the sole reason,
Not in his wifes garden. She had loved
gardening. The same old curtains had
hung in their windows year-round, but
had passed since his emergency sur- and Oghi had always been a patient she was particular about the garden, a
gery, eight days during which he had driver. He didnt care if other cars passed fact that was readily apparent to any-
slipped in and out of consciousness. him, and he was good about yielding one who happened by. The plot wasnt
There had been a car accident. The to big trucks and semis. big, but every season had its charm, its
moment of impact had felt like some- The police and the insurance com- own color palettemarigold, chrysan-
one hitting him very hard with some- pany had reviewed the black box, the themum, lavenderanchored always
thing. Not with a blunt wooden instru- See-All, that was installed in Oghis around roses, and the summers were
ment but, rather, with something sharp car. He and his wife used to joke about especially beautiful. It had taken Oghi
and metal. A chisel or a claw hammer, the name whenever they went for a a long time to realize that his wifes at-
perhaps. Both legs, several ribs, and his drive. See-Less, See-None, See-Some, tachment to the garden was due to
collarbone were broken. Face mangled, See-You . . . His wife often said that her dislike of standing out. A neglected
teeth shattered. Oghis body, to put it she liked the name See-Me best, but garden would have drawn more atten-
simply, had been reduced to shreds. on the day of the accident she had said tion, so she had weeded and planted
He struggled to talk through a frac- nothing. The police and the insurance and pruned.
tured jaw. company had decided that Oghi was The garden was not as far gone as
My wife? very much at fault. hed feared. His mother-in-law had
The nurse didnt answer. Oghis The car had been speeding when it managed to look after it, more or less,
words had not made it out of his mouth. suddenly lurched forward, as happens even while grieving. Shed cleaned the
His jaw trembled precariously, a ag in cases of unintended acceleration. The house out as well. Of his wifes things,
in the wind. The nurses eyes practi- steering wheel was jerked hard in an that is, most of which shed taken to
cally bored through his lips in her eort attempt to avoid the car in front, but her own house.
to make out what he was saying, but it was too late. The impact was tremen- Some things were left untouched.
she could not understand him. Oghi dous. The airbag burst, engulng Oghi The jewelry hed given his wife when
gave up. Tears spilled from his eyes. in an unfamiliar chemical odor. The they were rst married. The necklace
The same eyes that had spilled blood moment he understood what was hap- she sometimes wore. His mother-in-
in the accident, that used to smile, crin- pening, his face grew very hot and his law said that taking those things would
kling like thin paper at the corners, body shook this way and that as he and have been like taking cash. She was fas-
every time he looked at his wife. the car rolled downhill. tidious, especially when it came to
Oghi clung to life thanks to his I.V. Oghi thought he was all but dead. money. She did not want her actions
drip. The breathing tube came out even- A sense of simultaneous despair and to be misconstrued. She waited until
tually, but he could manage only a liq- relief enveloped him. How can it be the hospital people had left to show
uid diet. When he was ready, he started over already? he wondered. He was sure him the box of jewelry shed collected
physical therapy. The doctor had told that at any moment he would oat up from the house. He couldnt tell which
him that it would take a long time for out of his body and look down at him- of the items were ones hed given to
the feeling in his legs to come back, self, slumped over, bleeding, face planted his wife and which were from other
but Oghi proved diligent. He grabbed in the airbag. He thought that hed see people.
on to the parallel bars and hoisted him- his wife, who had been thrown from It seemed as if his mother-in-law
self up with both arms while the ther- the car and had rolled all the way to was trying to tell him something. She
apist assisted. Didnt even dream of the bottom of the hill. But he was as was slow to put away the box. Oghi
moving his feet. He held on to the bars unmoving as a piece of rebar. His own struggled to ask her what was wrong,
for as long as he could, numb legs dan- agonizing weight was what told him and, in an almost apologetic voice, she
gling like a rag dolls. that he was still alive. He realized then said, About this one . . . She held up
His face was a wae that had stuck that hed just been through something a ring with a blue stone. It wasnt much.
to the ironat least, that was how his strange and terrible, and that his wife The stone was tiny. Can I keep just
wife would have described it. While was almost certainly the one who was this one? She wore it every day.
laughing loudly, of course. But no one looking down at him. She added that his wife had been
joked about Oghis face. Sometimes, Almost six months went by before wearing it on the day of the accident.
in the hospital corridors, children stared he was able to go home. The town house Oghi had never seen the ring before.
too long and too hard, their eyes lled he had shared with his wife had a gar- It was late evening before Oghi
with pure fear. They were so inconsid- den, healthy and lush, with a lawn that was nally alone in his room. He ran
erate, so uncomprehending. The chil- had to be mowed at least twice a month. his eyes over every inch of the space as
drens parents or caregivers did their Oghi dreamed frequently: in his dreams, if he were saying hello to it. It had
best to make the kids look away. Its the underbrush had grown up over his taken so long for him to be able to lie
not nice to stare, they admonished in crumbling house; weeds and brambles down in his familiar bed. When he was
hushed voices. crept up the walls. He couldnt imag- rst wheeled up to the front door, on a
gurney, his mother-in-law had come ter was never coming back. Someone to his mother-in-law she was already
out and clasped his hand and wept. was with her. A pastor. The pastor held saying that shed take care of it and not
Shed sobbed gently at rst, but after a Oghis hand in his sweaty palms. Oghi to wear himself out trying to talk.
while she was bawling loudly, like a was unable to resist. Several church His jaw hurt less than before. It
child. She wasnt crying over how for- members who had come with the pas- was still dicult to chew, so his meals
tunate it was that Oghi was at least well tor stood around the bed and watched. were bland and unchallenging, but at
enough to come home. Nor was she When the pastor began to pray, they least that was better than consuming
crying over his broken body. She was all closed their eyes. Oghi rolled his. all his nutrients through a tube. His
crying over her dead daughter. She had He wanted to tell the pastor to let go sluggish digestive system would even-
wept for a long time, all the while block- of his hand, but his still healing jaw tually recover. When he was discharged
ing the gurney from coming inside. Oghi could only quiver a little. The pastors from the hospital, the doctor had said
knew that his mother-in-law was wor- prayer was ad-libbed, and its length, that his prognosis was good. If he kept
ried about him. He also knew that she its detail, and its earnestness surprised up the physical therapy, the doctor
blamed him. He was the reason that Oghi. But, more than that, he was sur- said, even if they had to resort to pros-
her one and only child was gone. prised to see the pastor cry. Hed never theses, he would eventually be able to
Before Oghi and his wife got mar- met this pastor before in his life. walk with a cane, and, thus, he should
ried, her parents had been hostile toward The pastor said that Oghis wife had take heart. Take heart, indeed. The
him. His own parents had died when he gone to his church with her parents doctor had essentially informed Oghi
was twenty. His mother-in-law had re- when she was in high school, which that, no matter how hard he tried, the
proached his wife more than once for meant that it had been more than twenty best he could hope for was prostheses
getting engaged to an orphan. The few years since the pastor had last seen her, and a cane. Hed thought that with
times she had met Oghi in person, she yet he prayed and memorialized her as his muscles atrophying he would lose
hadnt hidden her displeasure. He hadnt if he knew her well. He lamented and weight, but that didnt happen. His
forgotten what his mother-in-law had blessed Oghis wife, saying that she had lower half, which was still paralyzed,
said to him shortly before the wedding. returned to the Good Lords breast and had withered, but his upper body kept
His wife had told him not to let it get was no doubt making up now for her getting fatter. Because of that, it would
to him, but Oghi hadnt managed to do years of not going to church. When be even longer before he could get
that. His mother-in-law had told him the pastor referred to Oghis wife as a around by himself.
not to think less of himself just because young lamb and said that God had When he asked for a mirror, the
he had no parents. Shed said this not to called her home, Oghis mother-in-law caregiver looked at him quizzically.
console him but to criticize him for stub- burst into tears. Oghi couldnt quite Then, as if understanding why, she
bornly insisting that he and his wife get make out the rest of the prayer over the grinned and fetched one for him. Oghi
a place of their own, instead of living sound of her loud weeping, but when had no idea what she thought she knew.
under her roof. But their relationship the prayer ended she stopped crying He looked at his swollen face and
had improved after the wedding. His and said amen along with the others. his crushed jaw, which now canted to
mother-in-law had even remarked some- Then, still anking his bed, they all the right. It was hard for him to make
times that it was fortunate that he had sang a hymn and read briey but rev- out his face beneath the many thin,
no parents. erentially from the Bible. papery layers of scar tissue. On his skull,
A woman Oghi had never seen be- The pastor kept reaching out to patches of coarse hair had grown in.
fore had nally pulled his weeping Oghi, saying that God would be with Hed never had hair this short, except
mother-in-law aside so that the gur- him. Oghi preferred to be alone. If he maybe when he was a newborn, and
ney could pass. She was the live-in had to have someone with him, hed now he would never be able to regrow
caregiver who had been hired to look just as soon it was the caregiver. She a full head of hair. He was just over
after Oghi. She had moved into the never meddled. He always had to sum- forty, but his only hope was of one day
small room by the front door. The in- mon her several times before she nally being able to go to the bathroom on
terview, the wage negotiation, the de- poked her head in the door. The pas- his own whenever he wanted. He would
cision to have her stay there, and the tor promised Oghis mother-in-law live a life in which he couldnt bathe
provision of a cot and a simple cloth- that he would visit regularly until Oghi himself or drink alcohol or teach
ing rack had all been handled by his agreed to be baptized, and then, nally, classes. Perhaps forever. Nevertheless,
mother-in-law. After all, as his mother- he left. his mother-in-law sighed every now
in-law put it, she was the only family Alone at last, Oghi practiced speak- and then and said how fortunate he
Oghi had left. ing with his creaky hinge of a voice. was to be alive. She had no idea how
His jaw hurt, he couldnt stop drool- much Oghi envied his wife.
is mother-in-law came back a few ing, and his pronunciation was o. Still, The caregiver was rude. She pulled
H days later. This time she didnt
cry. She seemed to have realized that
he thought he was at least intelligible,
but when he asked the caregiver to do
Oghis pants down roughly, yanked
out his catheter tube, and went to empty
no amount of crying would change the something that she didnt want to do the urine bottle, the tube swinging
fact that only Oghi, with his split wae she pretended not to understand, and from her hand. Leaving Oghis lower
of a face, had survived and her daugh- before he could even get the words out body exposed, of course. One day, Oghi
caught her laughing at the sight of his
darkened, shrivelled penis. Embarrassed,
he squeezed his thighs together, but
she slipped her hand between them,
spread his legs easily, and plucked out
the tube in one smooth motion. The
caregiver was a little older than Oghi.
She was heavyset, with tightly permed
hair, and she spoke with some regional
accent. She was strong enough to lift
Oghi and set him on the toilet with-
out any trouble, and her muscular arms
were covered in dark spots from too
much sun.
But Oghi did not re her. She was
vulgar and unsophisticated, and at
night she was too busy sleeping to pay
any attention to Oghi as he moaned
in pain, and at mealtimes she fed him
cold, watery rice porridge, but she often
leaned over him with wet hair, so he
could smell her shampoo, and, when
her shirt gaped open, he could see her
breasts. Sometimes, she leaned farther
and her breasts brushed against him. Back when we got him, Rufus was a child
Shed birthed four children, and her substitute. Now hes just a dog.
breasts sagged accordingly. And yet
one day Oghis penis shot straight up.
The caregivers face turned red, but

she was soon cackling. Even after she
had returned to her own room, the by the hand into Oghis room to prove his mother-in-law. Shed lost her hus-
sound of her laughter was clearly au- it. Oghi shook his quivering jaw left band, a tender, considerate man, a few
dible to Oghi. and right. The caregiver shrieked at years earlier, and now shed lost her
neither of them in particular that it only child. But he didnt. His wife had
ghis mother-in-law was the one wasnt right to treat people this way. been just like her. His wife had some-
O who red her. At rst she non-
chalantly pointed out the caregivers
Oghi lay there on the bed and listened
to the two women. What shocked him
times behaved as if she were about to
have a nervous breakdown. She used
bad habits. For instance, the caregiver more than the caregivers calling him to accuse Oghi of acting suspiciously,
was hiding a bottle of whiskey in her a cripple was hearing his mother-in- and when he tried to defend himself
closetthe very same whiskey that law echo the word when she yelled at shed get angry and claim that he was
Oghi had brought back from a busi- the caregiver that her life would never just making excuses. Then shed try to
ness trip to Englandand it was now amount to anything more than wiping gloss over it by saying that she was pre-
more than half empty. She must have the asses of cripples. menstrual, or on edge because of a
been drinking it only very late at night, Oghi had never seen this side of crank call the night before. His wife
because Oghi never smelled alcohol on his mother-in-law. She was hysteri- had inherited her height from her
her breath. Then his mother-in-law cal. It was as if shed peeled o her mother. She had also inherited her
noticed a familiar-looking ring on the once cultured, rened, and exceedingly thick dark hair and full eyebrows,
caregivers hand. She said that it was polite faade, exposing beneath it an though her complexion was fairer than
one of Oghis wifes rings. He heard ignorant, boorish old woman. Even her mothersOghis mother-in-law
the caregiver defending herself. This after the caregiver had packed her bags was like a rosy-cheeked lumberjack
made his mother-in-law even angrier. and left, hurling curses the whole time, next to his pale, anemic wife. But, had
She immediately ransacked the care- Oghis mother-in-law was still rant- his wife survived and endured the pas-
givers room and began throwing around ing: What a rude woman . . . No man- sage of time, she would have turned
items that she found inappropriate. She ners at all . . . Nothing but lies every out exactly like her mother.
called the caregiver a whore, a thief. The time she opens her mouth, and a wino After the caregiver was red, Oghis
caregiver started screaming. She said to boot . . . No wonder all she can do mother-in-law decided to take over for
that she was falsely accused, that the is wipe the asses of cripples. And on the time being. She looked down at
ring had been given to her by that and on. him as he lay on the bed and let out a
cripple. She pulled the mother-in-law He ought to have sympathized with sigh. So hard to nd good help. I guess
Ill have a lot of work on my hands went to great pains to avoid touching person on the other end of the line to
until we nd someone we can trust. Its anything that Oghi had touched, as if visit him. In fact, he had been debat-
awful to grow old and outlive your chil- he were infected with some terrible con- ing for a long time whether to make
dren. This must be my punishment for tagious disease. Even when picking up this call. Hed had occasional visitors
something. his water glass, she put on a disposable while in the hospital. Old friends from
His mother-in-law did not move plastic glove or placed a dishrag over college, colleagues from the university
into the caregivers room. That room it rst. where he taught. This woman had
was reserved for the new caregiver, shown up with one of those groups.
whom they would surely hire any day ghi was getting better. Before, all Oghi had been too embarrassed and
now. Instead, she slept in Oghis wifes
room. There was no bed, but all his
O hed been able to do was lie in bed
and urinate through the tube inserted
angry to speak to her at the time. Be-
cause of the accident, he had failed to
wifes things were in there. Oghi had into his penis, but now he was doing keep a date with her. She had left his
no idea what his mother-in-law did whatever it took to get to the bath- hospital room with the others and never
in that room. The door was always room and empty his urine bottle on returned.
open, but he had no way of getting in- his own. He did not wish to entrust Where am I supposed to go? she
side. Nevertheless, he could remem- the lower half of his body to his mother- asked now.
ber the room in perfect detail. In the in-law. He asked her to place a mat- He was hurt. Couldnt she gure
old days, he used to go in from time tress on the oor next to the bed so that much out on her own? She could
to time; he would walk up behind his that he could roll himself o the bed easily have got his home address from
wife where she sat and rest a hand on and crawl over to the bathroom. She the school, and it wouldnt be that hard
her shoulder. called the church deacon, who lived to convince others to come, too. He
His wife had spent most of her time next door, to help, but looked unhappy didnt answer. His mother-in-law
at home in that room. One wall was about it the whole time. Eventually, walked in just then, carrying a plastic
lined with bookcases crammed with Oghi just moved to the mattress on bag from the supermarket. Startled,
books. In the middle of the room was the oor so that there was no need to Oghi hung up. He smiled awkwardly
the desk that his wife had made mul- roll himself o the bed. This would and thanked his mother-in-law for
tiple trips to Itaewon to nd. Against have been unfathomable if the care- going to so much trouble for him, and
another wall was a display case that giver had still been working there. in such warm weather. She set the gro-
shed bought from an antique shop, and His mother-in-law went out a lot. ceries down hard and unwound her
on top of it was a row of framed pho- Mostly to church, but sometimes to scarf, which gave o a pu of the chilly
tographs. There were fewer photo- the supermarket or the bank or the in- air outside.
graphs of Oghi and his wife than there surance oce. When that happened, Oghi turned his back on his mother-
were of people unrelated to them: for- Oghi crawled slowly out to the living in-law and slowly crawled to his room.
eign women who looked beautiful but room. With the caregivers help, he had He pretended not to notice when she
headstrong. When he had asked his sat upright in a wheelchair for brief picked up the phone and pressed a sin-
wife about them, shed got excited and periods, but his mother-in-law had gle button, most likely the redial but-
explained who the women in the pic- pointed out the dangers of this and got ton. Later, when she was out of the
tures were. One was a writer rid of it. There were many house again, he came back to the liv-
who had committed sui- doorsills in the house, she ing room and discovered that the line
cide; another was a dancer said, and if the wheels caught was dead. This made him a little sad,
who had died of some dis- on one of them he would but when he considered the chances
ease. A cosmetics model, a tip forward onto his face of the phones ever ringing anyway, the
famous journalist. Some of and whatever intact nerve sadness went away.
the women Oghi recognized endings he had left would Before the accident, Oghi had been
and others he didnt. He wind up paralyzed. very busy. Busy with teaching, of course,
gured out right away what The rst time Oghi tried but also with trying to publish the in-
they had in common. They to use the phone in the liv- augural issue of an environmental-
were all successful women ing room, he got a taste of alternatives magazine. There were many
women who had succeeded pure frustration. Hed ex- people he had to meet, from investors
to the point of having inuence on a perienced constant minor frustrations to potential writers. Oghi would tell his
perfect stranger. ever since the accident, but he was truly wife that a meeting would go until nine,
Oghis mother-in-law looked after distressed to nd that he was unable and then hed come home after midnight.
him. She brought him his meals. Af- even to correctly say the name of the Hed promise her that theyd spend the
terward, she gave him six pills. Three person he was calling. A halting sound, weekend together, but unforeseen ap-
times a day, she emptied his urine bot- like nails on a chalkboard, kept issu- pointments kept cropping up.
tle, and, periodically, she laundered his ing from his throat, followed very be- When he did nally come home,
clothes and his sheets. The caregiver latedly and abruptly by something ap- his wife was always in her own room
had done all of this with bare hands, proaching coherence. with the lights o, sitting in her desk
but his mother-in-law wore gloves. She Oghi hesitated before asking the chair with her legs curled under her.
said in a timid, embarrassed-sounding
voice, Why, of course, we all want that
WRECKING BALL for him.
The pastor prayed longer than ever,
Its offices are thin read from the Bible, and sang a hymn
air. On days o with the congregants who had come
with him, and then they all left.
it still goes in
wrecking balls are hen he was alone, Oghi parted
workaholics. They
W the curtain and peeked outside.
Sitting with his back angled against
hang around up the cold wall and gazing out the win-
dow was his way of getting out of the
there, and even house. When his mother-in-law was
the idea of big at home, she spent her time either in
his wifes room or in the garden. Ini-
sky crumbles. tially, all shed done was trim back a
few of the more overgrown branches.
Andrea Cohen But, gradually, she had been making
her way along the fence and farther
into the center.
Oghi thought that his wife did this on gone, Oghis mother-in-law criticized Sometimes, when he saw her out
purposethat she went into her room the therapist. That money-grubber, there, Oghi felt a chill run through
just for show, the moment she saw his just sitting there, letting his mind wan- him. He didnt know why at rst, but
headlights. Shed slip back into bed der, not even pretending to work. The after a while he understood. She wasnt
after Oghi fell asleep. In the morning, therapist was paid by the hour. The so much caring for the plants as in-
Oghi would get ready for work quietly, longer Oghi talked, the more overtime specting them. The rst thing she did
so as not to wake her. he received. was uproot them. Some were dead, but
He often used to go out drinking Each time the pastor came to visit, others were just waiting for spring.
with friends, chewed over old memo- Oghis mother-in-law handed him a After uprooting one, she would peer
ries with them, sang karaoke in bars thick oering envelope. It was clear into the hole it had left. Then she would
that employed pretty young hostesses, that this money came out of Oghis ac- dig a little deeper and crouch down to
took o on long drives. Now he did counts. One of Oghis rm resolutions inspect again. Did she think that there
none of that. The only people he saw, had been never, ever to give money to was something there besides pebbles
other than his mother-in-law, were the a religious organization. In the past, and tiny rootlets? She examined each
physical therapist who came to the hed sponsored several children through hole in turn, as if looking for something,
house once a week and the pastor, who international charities, like Save the and when there was nothing to be found
came to pray over him every two weeks. Children and UNICEF. When it was she plopped the uprooted plant back
The physical therapist handled discovered that one of the other orga- into its hole.
Oghis body with a soft, practiced nizations hed contributed to was em- At some point, she began digging a
touch. Once, while listening to the bezzling donations, hed questioned the hole in the remotest corner of the gar-
therapists gentle commands to raise usefulness of indirect philanthropy, but den, which Oghi could see only when
his hand, take a deep breath, relax his it hadnt stopped him from donating. he pressed his face right up against the
muscles, Oghi burst into tears. The So the idea of giving money to a pas- glass. It was winter, and the ground was
therapist said, Itll be O.K., and con- tor who was not poor, who hadnt been hard and the shovel heavy, so it was not
tinued to massage him. What he said prevented from learning to read or easy work. But even the hardest ground
wasnt true, but it calmed Oghi down. forced to labor on a coee plantation will give if it is struck in the same place
After the session, Oghi conded ev- since childhood, struck Oghi as a ter- over and over, and so, little by little, his
erything to the therapist through his rible waste. But that week, as the pas- mother-in-law was able to dig up the
rattling jaw: his days of misery, his days tor leaned down to clasp Oghis hands, dirt. The hole shed dug was deep enough
of hopelessness, and his days devoid Oghi struggled to whisper the words only to plant a small sapling. Oghis
of even that. The therapist responded hed been practicing: Please get me wife would have been able to tell from
to some of it with silence and some of out of here. The pastor raised his head, the size of the hole alone the type of
it with noncommittal platitudes. Even- looked around quietly, and chuckled at sapling or plant intended for it, but he
tually, Oghis mother-in-law barged Oghis mother-in-law, who had at just had no idea. On days when the physi-
into the room, complaining that the that moment stepped into the room. cal therapist or the pastor was expected,
therapy session was dragging on too Seems our brother is eager to get his mother-in-law covered up the hole
long. The therapist quietly packed up outside and enjoy some fresh air. with a tarpaulin.
his equipment and left. After he was His mother-in-law nodded and Was she planning to dig up the
entire garden? Was she searching for had to close his eyes to keep the dirt of mood and stop talking, he put up
something hidden there? Oghi won- from falling into them. with her griping afterward about what
dered these things when he saw his You have to turn the soil over if the doctor had said. The doctor had
mother-in-law staring far more intently you want to be able to plant in the told him that he would have to un-
into the holes in the ground than at spring, she said. Otherwise, itll dergo skin transplants and dental
the plants. Did it have something to all die. treatment, in tandem with his mus-
do with his wife? She was always writ- She seemed to know that Oghi cular treatments. That was the only
ing things down and, in her room, she had been watching her in the garden. way that Oghi would regain the abil-
had left many notebooks lled with He nodded. He knew nothing about ity to speak properlywithout the
what looked to Oghi like meaningless gardening. uncontrollable drooling and the rat-
scribbles. When Oghi tried to imag- But those plants arent the real tling jawand get out of the house
ine the answers to his questions, the problem. without disgusting everyone. Natu-
chill returned. Oghi nodded again. The biggest rally, the doctor had said the way you
His mood grew more and more bit- problem after the accident was, as al- used to, instead of without disgust-
ter. It was hard for him to imagine a ways, Oghi. His recovery, that is. ing everyone.
future with his useless legs and his Im talking about money. Its time Im guessing that in your current
monstrous face covered in regenerated we settled some accounts. state youll live at least another twenty
skin. The people who had come to see She went into the living room. Oghi years, the doctor added.
him in the beginning had all disap- waited. A long time passed, but she Oghis mother-in-laws eyes had
peared. They would come again if he did not come back. Maybe she was swept up and down Oghis body. Twenty
asked them to, but friendship was im- telling him to do his own math. Oghi years would take him nowhere near
possible. He was the object of their found it disconcerting that he had to the average life span, and yet at that
pity now, and they had to watch what keep feigning ignorance, despite his moment it yawned forward like an
they said around him. When he thought suspicion that she was up to some- eternity.
about how his visitors had exchanged thing. After that day, she kept bring- Thats a long time! A really long
a few token formalities with him being up money and then dropping timetwenty years! His mother-in-
fore rushing out the door, he felt a the subject again. It was as if she law seemed to feel the same way that
surge of nausea. was giving Oghi time to come to his he did about it. No guarantee Ill live
own objective understanding of his to see the end of it, she added.
he day that the hole in the garden situation. That wasnt true. She looked healthy.
T was big enough to bury a safe,
Oghis mother-in-law came into his
She brought it up the day that he
went to the hospital in an ambulance
Healthier than Oghi. At least she could
pee comfortably.
room and stood next to his mattress, for his regular checkup. Since he never Ive added up the nursing bills,
brushing the dirt from her hands. He knew when shed have a sudden change household utilities, hospital visits,
and so on, and calculated your mini-
mum cost of living for a month, she
told him when they got home. While
other people can expect their wages
to go up every year, we no longer
have that luxury. And I didnt take
into account things like ination or
whether loan interest rates will go
up. . . . Even without all that, your
monthly expenses are a whopping
She stuck a calculator right in front
of his eyes. See that? If you see it, say
you see it.
Oghi looked at his mother-in-law.
She was holding the calculator so close
to his eyes that he couldnt read the
numbers. She glared. It seemed that
she had no intention of moving the
calculator until she got a response. Help-
lessly, he nodded.
But whats more important is not
how much we are spending but how
much we can spend. To know that,
I have to know how much we have
The secret to looking good is to be good-looking. in total.
She kept saying we. Even though erything that Oghi had believed was his stomach, Oghi told the therapist
she clearly meant Oghis assets. his no longer was. And all he had left all about what his mother-in-law was
I added up the value of the house was this useless, tattered body and the up to. The therapist didnt react, but
and the savings accounts that are in mattress it lay on. Oghi could tell that the man was
your and my daughters names. Its not shocked. The proof was in his heavy
much. You owe too much on the house. ife in the care of his mother-in- silence. Oghi didnt realize until the
At this point, youd be better o sell-
ing the house to pay o the loan, es-
L law continued. She brought him
rice porridge and slowly increased the
therapist rolled him back over that he
had interpreted Oghis words as sim-
pecially when you consider how much number of pills that he took after eat- ple moans of pain. Nor that his mother-
interest youre paying. I really think ing. Instead of going to the bank or to in-law had opened the door and was
that would be best. I also added in your the insurance oce, she went to the watching them.
pension. orist and the ower market. She com- You sure are groaning a lot. Is the
There was something she didnt plained that she had no money, but pain worse today? the therapist asked
know. He had not retired. The school she kept bringing home plants, which when he noticed Oghis mother-in-law
had given him sick leave. Unless he all looked the same to Oghi. He as- standing there.
led for retirement, he wouldnt lose sumed that she intended to plant them Oghi said that it was. It really did
his job. The dean had assured him of in the soil shed dug up. The garden sound as if he were groaning when his
that when he visited Oghi in the hos- also began lling up with trees that jaw swung unnaturally like that.
pital. The dean had told him to hurry were already sizable, their roots cov- When the session ended, the ther-
up and get better and come back to ered in balls of dirt. apist said goodbye with a touch more
work. He had said that Oghi could When the physical therapist, whose kindness than usual and urged him to
teach again as soon as his body healed. visits had become few and far between, get better soon. Oghi wondered if that
That as long as he could get around in saw the garden, he was astonished. was some sort of signal, if perhaps the
a wheelchair and talk without drool- Did you plow up the entire gar- man had understood him after all, but
ing, he could teach. At a time when so den? All by yourself ? he asked Oghis when he heard the therapist and his
many people were being forced into mother-in-law. mother-in-law talking, he realized that
early retirement, Oghi had a job that It was my daughters favorite place. it was goodbye for good.
he could keep for the rest of his life, Come spring, it has to bloom, she said. After the therapist left, his mother-
even if all he could do for now was lie Oghi waited for the physical ther- in-law went back out to the garden.
in bed. He had felt very moved by the apist to come into his room, then he Oghi opened the curtain and watched
deans encouragement. pulled out the pills that hed hidden her amid the unplanted trees. The trees,
Oh, by the way. His mother-in- under his pillow. Look at this. This is bare of any leaf or ower, balanced on
law paused on her way out the door, as what she has me taking. Eight pills at their dirt-covered roots. The holes for
if something had belatedly occurred to a time. Isnt it too much? the saplings looked dark and deep. Most
her. About your school. I submitted The therapist looked surprised. of the holes were the right size for sap-
your resignation. Its simply going to That is a lot. I tell you, its a real lings, but the hole in the remotest cor-
take too long for you to make a full problem these days. A while back I ner of the garden was especially big
recovery. had pink eye and went to the eye doc- and deep. He didnt see anything that
She slammed the door behind her. tor for it. All I had was a little mu- looked big enough for it.
Oghi was relieved that he was already cus, but he had me taking six pills at His mother-in-law held up a sap-
at on his back and could not fall a time. First time I ever got full from ling and started to remove the plastic
any farther. He had just lost the only taking pills. that covered its roots but then stopped
place he could return to. No, he hadnt The therapist laughed as if it were and looked over at Oghis window. She
just lost it. He had lost it in the ac- some big joke. Oghi lowered his voice, stared at him for a long time. His gut
cident. Perhaps even before that. It but the therapist couldnt understand told him that his mother-in-law knew
was hard to gauge, but maybe hed his croaking. He had no choice but to what had happened that day in the car.
been going along all this time obliv- speak a little louder. Come to think of it, she had never once
ious of the fact that hed lost every- They make me so drowsy, I cant mentioned the day of the accident to
thing long ago. take it. him. She had never even asked about
His wife had known. Shed known You need your rest. Thats the only it. His mother-in-law turned her cold
how close he was to losing everything. way to beat the pain. gaze back to the plant. To put his crazy
Shed blamed herself for it. She had Do they really help? thoughts to rest, Oghi told himself that
been so angry that Oghi didnt think Of course. Its much better to take she just really liked plants. He could
he could ever change her mind. She them than to hold on to them like this. not think why that might be.
had pushed him. She had made him Oghi gave up trying to convince (Translated, from the Korean,
risk danger and charge at fate. And she him and instead asked the therapist to by Sora Kim-Russell.)
had been right. Except for one thing. take him to the hospital. The therapist
It was not her fault. Oghi had brought said he would nish the days session NEWYORKER.COM
it all upon himself. Because of that, ev- rst and rolled Oghi over. As he lay on Hye-young Pyun on the role of suspense in ction.

THE CRITICS
BOOKS
RUSH
The disturbing genius of the conductor Arturo Toscanini.
BY DAVID DENBY
hat is the most familiar piece of For many years, Arturo Toscanini was the Philadelphia Orchestra, with Tos-
W classical music? The most thor-
oughly roasted chestnut? A piece so
the pinnacle of musical excitement for
classical-music lovers in this country
caninis white face and hands emerg-
ing from solid black in Robert Hup-
overplayed that it has passed into the and also for many casual listeners, who kas mystically glamorous album photo-
automatic schlock-recognition zone of enjoyed the sensation of having their graphs. Toscaninis way with music
every American? Surely it is the nal, pulse rate raised. He was at the center by Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Verdi,
galloping section of Rossinis William of an American experiment in art and Wagner, and Debussy could make the
Tell Overturethe Lone Ranger music, commerce that now scarcely seems cred- work of other conductors seem daw-
the musical image of righteousness on ible: late in the Depression, in 1937, RCA, dling, nerveless. He famously stuck to
horseback. The music seems almost a which owned two NBC radio networks, the score, ending arbitrary practices
joke. But there was one conductor who created a virtuoso orchestra especially and interpretive excesses. He drove to
rode this piece as if his life, and the lives for him, and kept it going until 1954. The the climax; lyrical details were suavely
of his players, depended on it. NBC Symphony gave concerts in New caressed but pressed into the onward
I remember my parents calling me York that were broadcast on national rush. The sound he produced with any
out of my bedroom. The year was 1952, radio, and then, starting in 1948, on na- orchestra was lean, transparent, surg-
so I must have been eight. On our tele- tional television. ing, radiant. Architecture with pas-
vision, a tiny black-and-white screen RCA hyped Toscanini, and the media sion was what the young pianist Ru-
sunk into a large mahogany console, responded gratefully, some would say dolf Serkin heard in a performance of
an old man with a full head of white shamelessly: Toscanini was widely the Brahms Second Symphony. Other
hair and an elegantly clipped mustache proled and photographed, lionized celebrated conductors, including Bruno
was beating time with his right arm and domesticated by Life and count- Walter, Pierre Monteux, and, at times,
and leading a furious performance of less other publications. His NBC years Wilhelm Furtwngler, acknowledged
the horse music. I certainly knew the were probably the high-water mark of that he was the greatest of conduc-
tune (The Lone Ranger TV series classical musics popularity in America. torssome said incomparable. Hav-
began running in 1949), but I didnt Some of that popularity was doubtless ing played the cello in the rst per-
know it could sound like thisthe skit- swelled by the excruciating and often formance of Verdis Otello, in 1887,
tering string gures played with amaz- condescending music explainers ubiq- Toscanini is also the invaluable link
ing speed and clean articulation, the uitous on the radio, in books, in schools, between the nineteenth century, when
entire piece brought o with precision all eager to sell great music to the masses. so much of the operatic repertory was
ABOVE: TODD ST. JOHN; OPPOSITE: POPPERFOTO/GETTY
and power, the muscular timpani strokes Still, it was not unusual for earnest written, and the modern opera house.
outlining phrases and asserting a blood- middle-class children to struggle with In the nineteen-thirties and during
raising pressure under the crescendos. an upright at home, to sing Handel in the war period, admiration for him
You can easily see this performance a school chorus, to play Mendelssohn went well beyond music. Opera, always
right now, exactly as I did, on YouTube: in the school orchestra. At the time, central to the culture of Europe, be-
Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC both amateur and professional musi- came at that time a matter of nation-
Symphony in the televised concert of cians, listening to the NBC Symphony alist bluster and political maneuvering.
March 15, 1952. If you listen with good broadcasts, did their best to play along. After 1931, Toscanini refused to con-
headphones, the sound, though hard- RCA issued dozens of recordings duct in Italy, resisting Mussolini, who
edged, is solid and clear, and the as- made by Toscanini and the orchestra dangled honors and ocial posts; he
tonishing performance comes through. (most of them from broadcasts), as was thereafter reviled in the Fascist
Toscanini was then two weeks shy of well as selected performances made press. Hitler pleaded with him to honor
his eighty-fth birthday. with the New York Philharmonic and holy German art and preside over the
For generations, the Italian maestro was the most electrifying gure in classical music. Why did critics turn against him?
Wagner rites at the Bayreuth Festival. ness. He oered a maximum of line, a in scathing contempt for radio listen-
When Toscanini turned him down, his minimum of texture; he was all ath- ers in the Toscanini era. It incensed
recordings and broadcasts were banned lete, no philosopher. Beethoven and them that classical musicfor a brief
in Nazi Germany. Instead of going to Verdi formed his aesthetic, and he never periodbecame part of mass culture.
Bayreuth, he worked in 1936 and 1937 moved into the twentieth century, Why does all this matter? Why does
with the newly formed Palestine Or- ignoring the dazzling rhythmic and one tempo or another, one way or an-
chestra (later the Israel Philharmonic), harmonic explorations of Stravinsky, other of balancing an orchestra or
an ensemble largely composed of Jew- Bartk, Schoenberg, Berg. molding a phrase arouse worship or
ish refugees. Toscanini did not make The critic and composer Virgil condemnation? Toscaninis historical
speeches; he stuck to business. But his Thomson complained of a lack of per- importance is beyond debate, but can
sentiments were widely known, and he sonal culture in Toscanini, which al- we still experience the excitement and
became a lodestar for anti-Fascists. legedly resulted in a streamlining of more, the sense of exaltation that he
After the war, Isaiah Berlin pronounced the classics. Theodor W. Adorno, the once produced? The rejection of him
him the most morally dignied and Marxist philosopher and theorist of after his death represents a shift in mu-
inspiring hero of our timemore than twelve-tone music, appalled by Tos- sical taste. The question is whether that
Einstein (to me), more than even the caninis radio concerts and his employ- shift is also a retreat from public art.
superhuman Winston. ment by corporate America, tagged
In recent decades, however, Toscani- him as a proponent and victim of n celebration of Toscaninis hun-
nis musical reputation has faded badly.
Some of his old fans have shifted their
commodity-fetish capitalism. In eect,
Adorno said, Toscanini turned every
Ihistorian
dred-and-ftieth birthday, the music
Harvey Sachs has brought out
loyalty to the work of other conduc- piece into a chestnut. Picking up from an enormous new biography, Toscanini:
torsto Furtwngler, say, whose soul- Adorno, the music historian Joseph Musician of Conscience (Liveright).
ful expressiveness and spontaneity have Horowitz, while acknowledging Tos- Its a days-and-nights book, a detailed,
been held up as musically and emo- caninis greatness in Understanding sobersided, but very engaging and at
tionally superior to Toscaninis ery Toscanini (1987), ridiculed his tem- times gripping chronicle of music and
propulsiveness. In the revisionist view, perament and public persona, casting society, all of it devoted to the unending
Toscanini rushed through passages that him as the false messiah of the mid- drive and conscientiousness that made
other conductors would turn into con- dlebrow music-appreciation racket. Toscaninis performances so riveting
templation or mystery or sheer loveli- Both Adorno and Horowitz indulged and, to some, so repellent. Some of that
drive can be heard in a new twenty-
CD set, Toscanini: The Essential Re-
cordings, issued by Sony Classical, which
has taken over the old RCA catalogue.
The collection, also timed for the
hundred-and-ftieth birthday, includes
symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Beetho-
ven, and Brahms; orchestral pieces by
Mendelssohn, Berlioz, and Strauss; com-
plete operas by Verdi and Puccini; and
the Wagner opera excerpts that Toscanini
conducted to such hair-raising eect.
Listening again to many of Toscaninis
recordings (including those not in the
new collection but easily available from
music sites or on YouTube) has been, for
me, both a thrilling and an alarming ex-
perience. Enthusiasms from decades ago,
long folded into the back drawer of mem-
ory, came roaring back. Some of the per-
formances, bursting from speakers and
headphones, stagger belief.
Consider one of the most familiar
yet daunting of all monuments, Bee-
thovens Ninth Symphony. Before re-
hearsing the work in London, in 1939,
Toscanini wrote to Ada Mainardi, his
longtime mistress and musical-political
condante, That rst movement of
You start Monday! the ninth always makes me despair,
and he quoted some lines of Dantes the states expense, a local conserva- as an organic work, with sets, costumes,
about the damned passing through the tory. In 1886, he was serving as chorus staging, and musical direction all sup-
gates of Hell. Dante and Beethoven! master for an Italian opera company porting a dramatic idea of the piecea
Its enough to make you quake! At on tour in Rio de Janeiro. A Brazilian notion then revolutionary. When Tos-
the beginning of that movements re- conductor opped, and Toscanini, at canini nally brought the La Scala com-
capitulation, Beethoven, returning to the age of nineteen, took over a per- pany to Vienna, in 1929, the twenty-
the blunt opening bars, splits open the formance of Aida, leading the opera one-year-old Herbert von Karajan
heavens in waves of convulsive sound. from memory. That season, he con- attended a performance of Verdis Fal-
In any conductors performance, this ducted seventeen other operas with the sta, and later recalled, From the rst
should be an apocalyptic moment; Tos- same company. In his early twenties, bar, it was as if I had been struck a blow.
canini does better. In his 1952 render- he rushed from one small I was completely discon-
ing with the NBC Symphony, he un- city to anotherBrescia, certed by the perfection that
characteristically departs from the score. Verona, Turin, Novara, and had been achieved. The
Rather than instructing the kettledrums so onpulling together rag- agreement between the
to play through the passage with con- tag companies with their music and the stage perfor-
tinuous rolling thunder, as other con- mixture of amateur and pro- mance was something to-
ductors do (including Furtwngler and fessional musicians, and pro- tally inconceivable for us.
Herbert von Karajan), he had the tim- ducing performances the Falsta was Toscaninis
pani peak at each of the three crescen- likes of which had never favorite opera, but he also
dos in the passagereleasing, all three been heard in such places. revealed the structural in-
times, an almost frightening charge of In 1898, he became the prin- tegrity and dramatic distinc-
energy, as if the atom were being split cipal conductor at Italys tion of the mid-period Verdi
again and again. And throughout the premier opera house, La Scala, in Milan, worksRigoletto, Il Trovatore, La
passage Toscanini holds to his rapid a company that he left (sometimes in Traviatathat were considered tired
tempo for the entire movement. Play- disgust) and returned to again and again. and old hat when he was young. After
ing with this kind of speed and force, Sachs had fresh access to musical Toscanini, people stopped condescend-
the musicians of the NBC Symphony archives in Milan and New York; he ing to Verdi. One of the more remark-
reach the limits of what human beings has researched opera productions and able reissues in the Essential Record-
are capable of. But what is conveyed by administrative intrigues from the late ings collection is a 1944 performance
this assault on possibility? Toscaninis nineteenth and early twentieth centu- of the nal act of Rigoletto, recorded
despair? Rage? Deance of what has ries, and made heavy use of Toscani- at a Red Cross fund-raiser held at Mad-
to be? Deance of death, then? nis letters (which he edited in 2002) ison Square Garden with the combined
The same heartrending stir and and reminiscences in old age. When forces of the NBC Symphony, the New
upset, the same questions, are produced Toscanini was young, a night at the York Philharmonic, and a star cast sur-
by the extraordinary recording of the opera was an occasion for sinful fun. rounded by eighteen thousand people.
Verdi Requiem from 1951. In the Dies T he lights were on during perfor- On paper, it sounds like a circus. It wasnt.
Irae section, the subject is most cer- mancesit was a place of social inter- The strictly disciplined but buoyant
tainly death. The trumpets, summon- course. Orchestra players could be lazy, and expressive performance culminates
ing the souls to judgment from the cor- favored singers would decorate their in a storm scene that must have torn
ners of the earth, begin to sound, at arias with additional high notes and through the roof of the old Garden.
rst quietly and then with greater and take encores, and audiences responded Producing performances like this
greater insistence, and, as the rest of with ovations and catcalls, and shouted could be tough on orchestras, and on
the brass enter, and then the chorus, at the singers or at the conductor. New Toscanini himself. Sachs recounts in
Toscanini can be heard above the din works were produced all the time (as great detail Toscaninis rehearsal meth-
(just barely) screaming, Piu forte! (or late as the nineteen-twenties, thirty-ve ods, which were notorious. He was
perhaps Tutta forza!), an enraged old to forty per cent of La Scalas repertory usually gentle with singers, particularly
man confronting the ultimate and de- was new), and were received with vo- singers learning a new role, but with or-
manding more of it. But there is no ciferous approval or disapproval. At La chestras he could be a terror, singling
more. We have reached the end of Scala and elsewhere, Toscanini gave out individuals and sections, breaking
human will, human desire, and fear. In twenty-four premires, including of batons, ripping his handkerchief, de-
all my artistic life, Toscanini told an- Leoncavallos Pagliacci and Puccinis stroying his watch, throwing things, and
other conductor, I have never had one La Bohme, La Fanciulla del West, shouting in his hoarse voice, Pezzi di
moment of complete satisfaction. and Turandot. somari che siete perdio! Vergogna, matti!
Wherever he was, Toscanini did his Vergogna! (What a bunch of dunces
e was born in 1867, in Parma, a best to throttle the enjoyable high jinks; you are, by God! Shame on you, you
H small city midway between Bolo-
gna and Milan that in the late nine-
or, rather, he killed one kind of plea-
sure and created another. Any opera
crazy idiots! Shame!) During a perfor-
mance at La Scala in 1902, he was so
teenth century had ve opera houses of worth performing had to be treated not upset by the audiences shenanigans that
one sort or another, and he attended, at as a collection of arias and choruses but he stormed o the podium and bashed
his head through a glass door. There is his work with the Philharmonic speak music and appeared in various shows. In
something both comical and impressive of a mastery beyond anything they had September, 1937, the network turned over
about a time in which performance ever encountered. The Essential Re- auditions for the new orchestra to no
was a life-and-death matter. Sachs recordings collection has a few examples less an eminence than Artur Rodzinski,
ports that the insulted musicians al- of extreme renement without any loss the music director of the Cleveland Or-
most always forgave himthey knew of vitality. There is the extraordinary chestra, who selected the best players
he sueredand many are on record as Beethovens Seventh, recorded in 1936, from the sta orchestra and added young
saying that playing with him was the a performance that the conductor James string and woodwind players from around
greatest experience of their lives. Levine considers to be the most per- the country, raiding other orchestras,
fect orchestral recording he knew of. including his own. He rehearsed the
hat comes through in Sachss (Its certainly more relaxed, with sweeter musicians for weeks. Toscanini nally
W long chronicle is the extent of
Toscaninis role, witting and unwitting,
string tone, than the driving, almost
angry Seventh that the NBC Sym-
showed up in December, 1937. Samuel
Antek, a violinist in the orchestra, re-
in transforming the way that classical phony recorded in 1951.) The collection called how the rst rehearsal began:
music was produced and consumed in also includes two Rossini overtures with
He was dressed in a severely cut black al-
the twentieth century. In his seventy the Philharmonic, LItaliani in Algeri paca jacket, with a high clerical collar, formal
years as a performer, he moved opera, and Semiramide, that are breathtak- striped trousers, and pointed slipperlike shoes.
as Sachs says, from entertainment to ingly nuanced in their shading of color As he stepped up to the podium, by prear-
culture.The nineteenth-century con- and emphasis. Sachs reports that, when ranged signal, we all rose like puppets sud-
denly propelled to life by pent-up tension. . . .
ductora necessary time beater, pre- Toscanini took the Philharmonic on He looked around, apparently bewildered by
siding over a mixed lot of playersby tour in 1930, European audiences and our unexpected action, and gestured a faint
degrees metamorphosed, in the most critics were astonished by the virtuoso greeting with both arms, a mechanical smile
talented examples, into a spiritual men- playing in every section, the evenness lighting his pale face for an instant. Somewhat
embarrassed, we sat down again. Then in a
tor and charismatic culture god. The of stroke, the dynamics seamlessly rough voice he called out, Brahms! He looked
mechanical reproduction of music, matched from one phrase to the next. at us piercingly for the briefest moment, then
which became popular with such nov- By 1936, Toscanini had grown tired raised his arms. In one smashing stroke, the
elties as a foggy four-minute record- of presenting every program four times baton came down. A vibrant sound suddenly
gushed forth from the tense players like blood
ing of Caruso singing Celeste Aida, for the Philharmonics subscription con- from an artery. . . . So! So! So! he bellowed.
from 1902, gave way to complete re- certs, and he resigned, returning to Milan Cantare! Sostenere! [Sing! Sustain!]
cordings of symphonies and operas and vowing never to be the music di-
transmitted through every available rector of an orchestra again. Thats when This kind of hero worship goes be-
medium. We are now immersed: the the capitalist miracle occurred. The fol- yond irony. The NBC Symphony Or-
entire recorded history of music lies lowing year, the head of RCA, David chestra, with its ninety-two players, never
open, much of it free, to any listener Sarno, sent an emissary asking Tos- had the weight of the New York Phil-
who has the curiosity to discover it. canini to come back and conduct a hand- harmonic or the rounded, dark, burnished
But if Adorno and Horowitz are de- picked ensemble. Like the Hollywood sound of, say, the Berlin Philharmonic.
scriptively correct in asserting that Tos- studio bosses, Sarno, born in Eastern What it had was phenomenal accuracy,
canini became part of advanced con- drive, and brilliance. It was the ideal in-
sumer patterns in the monopoly phase strument for Toscaninis temperament.
of late capitalism, and the rest of that There was a serious problem, how-
Marxist bad news, Toscanini never saw ever, with the way the orchestra sounded
himself in world-historical terms. As in its early recordings. RCA, asserting
a nineteenth-century man charging pride of place, staged the concerts in
through the twentieth century, he cer- 30 Rockefeller Plaza, its corporate head-
tainly welcomed stardom and wanted quarters, transforming Studio 8-H
his concerts broadcast in America and the same 8-H that later became the
Europe. The quintessential performer, home of Saturday Night Liveinto
he seized on every opportunity to make Europe and with little formal educa- a notional concert hall. Seats were set
music under the best conditions. tion, became a hard-driving entrepre- up for fourteen hundred people, and
For years, he was known principally neur in America. A businessman and tickets were given away on a rst-come,
as a man of the theatre, but in 1926 he an inventor, he was eager to be recog- rst-served basis. It was a lovely ar-
began conducting the New York Phil- nized as a patron of culture. In the event, rangement, but 8-H, built to produce
harmonic, and became its music direc- Toscanini demanded, and got, complete clarity, rather than resonance and warmth,
tor in 1929. He was over sixty; he had control over repertory and soloists, and was never the right venue for classical
trained the La Scala musicians in the the right to approve or veto any record- music. The orchestra performed some
nineteen-twenties and taken the com- ings that came out of the broadcasts. concerts in Carnegie Hall, but the early
pany on tour as a concert orchestra, but Live music was all over the radio in recordings made in 8-H often sound
this was the rst time that he had an the thirties. NBC had a large sta en- boxy, dry, and at, even a little coarse,
orchestra of his own. Those who heard semble that played light classics and dance with blaring trumpets and insucient
solidity in the lower strings. This isnt
always a bad thingthe recordings are
markedly intimate. The sound doesnt
bloom, but you hear everything (which
Toscanini apparently liked). The com-
plete Verdi Otello, starring Ramn
Vinay, Herva Nelli, and Giuseppe Val-
dengo, recorded at two 8-H concerts in
December, 1947, has been proposed by
Levine as an outstanding candidate for
the title of Greatest Opera Recording
Ever Made. Tender and angry, in close-
miked, unresonant sound, the perfor-
mance is shockingly candid, the ulti-
mate musical portrait of betrayal and
marital turmoil. But the experience of
listening to it, I have found, cant be
repeated more than once in a decade.
Its just too much.
he creation of the NBC Symphony The craziest part is that I dated Thing One years ago.
T was celebrated at the time as a vic-
tory for American culturethe New
World coming into its own musically

but Sachs also sees it as a product of
Europes disintegration in the author- in the staterooms. Hollywood couldnt tus as such. . . . The performance sounds
itarian nineteen-thirties. A good por- have staged it any better. His heart was like its own phonograph record.
tion of the book is devoted to the in Italy, but he was comfortable living This comes o as witty in a kind of
social and what might be called the in the Riverdale section of New York wrathful Marxist way until you hear
geographic structure of musical high City, conducting the NBC Symphony the sort of broadcast Adorno would
lifeToscaninis restlessness, the end- until he lost concentration at a concert have caught in his American exile
less ocean voyages, the meetings with in April, 1954. He died three years later, and hear it, as you now can, in sound
celebrities, the shuing of family and just short of his ninetieth birthday. that does some justice to the perfor-
mistresses, the frequent retreats to Lago Adorno was another of Europes mance. For a revelation is at hand. A
Maggiore for a peace that was beyond dispossessed, suering the breakup of series of early Toscanini performances
his reach. But, throughout the hard European culture under the assault of with the NBC Symphony, recorded in
work and the periods of respite, the at- Fascism and Nazism. He settled in the dead 8-H, have been restored down
mosphere in Europe grows menacing. New York in 1938, around the same to the noise oor of the recording sys-
Back in 1931, in Bologna, Toscanini time as Toscanini, and he wrote sev- tem by the audio engineer Paul How-
had been set upon by Fascist thugs on eral times about the conductors radio ard, and are available on YouTube in a
his way to a performance. They are ca- broadcasts and recordings, which he process he calls Toscanini/3D sound.
pable of anything, he later said on the took as a sign of further cultural dis- Howard tells me that he painstakingly
telephone to Ada Mainardi. (The se- integration. Adorno was understand- removes clicks, hiss, and a cloudy pa-
cret police recorded his calls.) Prom- ably furious at Toscaninis indierence tina of eects from earlier attempts at
ises no longer exist. They dont remem- to what he considered the necessary improvement. The result? A restored
ber today what they said yesterday. Its direction of music post-Mahlerthe Beethoven Symphony No. 3 (Eroica)
shameful! Toscaninis ultimate choice movement toward the twelve-tone from 1939 is very recognizably a per-
exile in the New Worldwas shared composition of the Second Viennese formance by the eager young NBC
by many others. Reading of such anti- School, including the work of Ador- Symphony. The sound is lean, under-
Fascist or Jewish friends as Stefan Zweig, nos friend Alban Berg. (Sachs tells us weight in the lower strings, unrever-
one gets a glimpse of the anguished, that Toscanini was enraged after hear- berant; but individual sections and in-
hesitant, but nally precipitate aban- ing some of Bergs masterpiece, Lulu.) struments are clear and beautiful, and
donment of Europe in the thirties by Toscanini, as far as Adorno was con- the orchestra brings o Toscaninis ap-
many people of spirit. In 1939, Toscanini cerned, had literally joined what he proachsharpened attacks and impe-
was briey back in Europe to conduct called the culture industry. His per- rious speedwith breathtaking accu-
at the Lucerne Festival. In September, formances lacked spontaneity: There racy and exhilaration. Some awlessly
after war broke out, he and his wife is iron discipline. But precisely iron. functioning fetish! A relentless old
scrambled to get out of France on the The new fetish is the awlessly func- man leads a young American orches-
ocean liner Manhattan, quadrupling up tioning, metallically brilliant appara- tra, and danger is in the air.
Bernie Gunther is the brainchild of
BOOKS Philip Kerr, a prolic and uncommonly
versatile Scottish writer, who claims to
THE PLOT THICKENS

have found his literary calling at the
age of twelve, when he retrieved a for-
bidden copy of Lady Chatterleys
On Bernie Gunther, Third Reich detective. Lover from his parents library and
began writing dirty stories that he
BY JANE KRAMER rented out, seriatim, to his classmates.
His Gunther novelsthe latest, Prus-
sian Blue (Marian Wood), is the twelfth
in the serieshad their origin in a post-
graduate course on law and philoso-
phy at the University of Birmingham,
where Kerr developed an insistent cu-
riosity about the inuence of German
Romanticism on that countrys legal
philosophy and, in turn, on the legally
codied embrace of state terror that
began there in 1933. Kerr made his rst
trip to Berlin in the early eighties, a
few years after the course ended, and
he kept returning.
I am a big fan of Bernie Gunther.
I devoured the rst three Gunther
novels, in gulps of fright and pleasure,
at the end of 1993, when they were
published as a trilogy called Berlin
Noir. At the time, I was on assign-
ment in Germany, staying in hotels
where my late-night options were
Gunther and a glass of room-service
Riesling or TV reruns of the Rocky
movies, with the grunts in German.
It was no contest. For the next twelve
years, my reporting life was marked
by a certain frustration, as Kerr set
Gunther aside and tried that versatile
hand at science ction, fantasy ction,
childrens ction, and two anthologies
S urvivors pay with their conscience,
the novelist Sybille Bedford wrote
First World War in the relative safety
of a Berlin mansion and was able to
called The Penguin Book of Lies
and The Penguin Book of Fights,
in her memoir, Quicksands. Some ee Europe and spend the Second Feuds and Heartfelt Hatreds. I re-
have paid to the end of their own road. World War in comfortable, even glam- fused to read any of them, on princi-
Those who have got o lightly paid orous, literary exile in Los Angeles. But ple. I was waiting for Gunther, whose
perhaps too little. . . . I feel I am one insofar as she had already spent a long blunt Berlin chivalry I had found ap-
of those. I often wonder what Bed- writing life examining the ways in pealing. I was still waiting when Bed-
ford would have made of the detective which a persons acknowledged debts fords Quicksands arrived, in 2005,
known to readers as Bernie Gunther, to conscience could provide that per- reminding me that, in matters of the
commissar of the Murder Squad of the son with the illusion of some small, cost to conscience of survival, Bedford
Kriminalpolizei, in Berlin. (Call it the salutary spacea space in which it was and Gunther might well be kindred
Scotland Yard of Germany.) Bedford, imperative to remember, and to act spirits. A year later, Bedford died, and,
born in Berlin to an elderly German with decencyher words have always coincidentally, Kerr resurrected his re-
baron and his young, wealthy Jewish reminded me of Gunther, one of crime luctant detective.
wife, was a month shy of her ninety- ctions most satisfying and unlikely Since then, Kerr has kept Gunther
fourth birthday when her memoir ap- survivors: the good cop in the belly of one step ahead of the Gestaponot
peared, in 2005. She had survived the the Nazi beast. to mention the Maa, the South Amer-
ican diaspora of death-camp comman-
Philip Kerrs Prussian Blue deepens the story of literatures most cryptic sleuth. dants, and the Stasiand scrambling
78 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY BOB STAAKE
for his life in novels that cover more Kriminalpolizei) headquarters by two erty expropriations and the construc-
than twenty years of mid-twentieth- Gestapo agents with orders to deliver tion scams. Heydrich was the ideolog-
century German history. The series has him to the Nazi nerve center on Prinz- ical zealot of the two; he was already
sent Gunther back and forth in time, Albrecht-Strasse, where Reinhard masterminding the genocide that he
often in the same book, on parallel ad- Heydrichcommandant of the S.S., formalized three years later, at the
ventures and eerie rencounters with chief of police, and head of the state Wannsee Conference, as the Final Solu-
people he had seriously regretted en- security apparatusis holding court tion to the Jewish Question; and even
countering in the rst place. I have in a vast white oce two oors above Hitler referred to him (it has to be said,
known him not only as the on-again, the torture chambers in the basement. with admiration) as the man with the
o-again Commissar Gunther but also As Gunther describes it, this is a place iron heart. Bormann murdered no less
as a private Berlin gumshoe, a con- of woe, where no one except Dante enthusiastically, but for money, rage,
script sleuth for Joseph Goebbels, and and perhaps Virgil could enter with- and the trustworthy silence of a corpse.
a postwar concierge, working incog- out wondering if they would ever come What they shared was a desire to de-
nito at the Grand Hotel du Cap Fer- out again. Heydrich lets our hero stroy each other. The result is that when
rat and spending his days o at Villa sweat for a few minutes, and then Gunther and his Murder Squad assis-
Mauresque, with Somerset Maugham, oers him a cigarette from a silver tant, Friedrich Korscha Kripo cop
lling in as a fourth at bridge. But none box. The respite is brief. A big Mer- whom he insists on bringing with
of his adventures have been so strangely cedes waits downstairs to spirit Gun- himarrive at the ocial guesthouse
familiar as Prussian Blue, whose plot ther out of Berlin to Bavaria, where, below the Berghof, Gunther has a sec-
takes in high crime, sexual scandal, just hours earlier, a man had been mur- ond, secret investigation to pursue for
nancial fraud, methamphetamines, dered on the Berghof terrace after a Heydrich. His orders are to cast a se-
and murder in Hitlers Alpine dysto- reportedly amiable breakfast meet- rious eye on Bormann, and to uncover
pia during the week before the Fhrers ing of the engineers, architects, and the kind of evidence that can be used,
ftieth birthday. civil servants involved in planning the if not to destroy him, then to place him
latest costly improvements to the rmly in Heydrichs power.
he seat of that dystopia, in fact as Fhrers house.
T in ction, was a small mountain
known as Obersalzberg, where Hitler
The victim was one of the engineers,
a man in his forties named Karl Flex.
never knew how hard it was to de-
Iwhich
scribe a thriller, especially one in
had his Mar-a-Lago: an old chalet that The weapon was a rie so quiet that fact and ction blend so seam-
he bought, in 1933, apparently with a nobody on the terrace had heard the lessly, until I sat down with Prussian
chunk of the Mein Kampf royalties, shot, or even known that anything odd Blue. Thrillers are thorny gifts for
and in the course of the next six years had happened until Flex fell forward, critics. Its not a matter of Elizabeth
transformed from a rustic summer re- with a bullet hole in the back of his meets Darcy, and, after a number of
treat into a mansion that in all but name head. In fact, no one could say for sure setbacks involving pride, prejudice, and
was the German chancellery. He called that Flex was the intended target. It social station, they work things out,
it the Berghofthe mountain house was, as Heydrich himself admits, a case declare their love, and, in the end,
and spent much more time living there that only Bernie Gunther had the mind marry. With a great thriller, the im-
than he did in Berlin, a city he disliked and the persistence to solve, especially portant thing is to tell the story while
intensely. He received his most impor- given that the killer had to be caught, never giving anything away, certainly
tant state visitors at the Berghof, and handed over, and dispatchedwhich not who did it and, in the case of a
installed a shadow government in and is to say, all evidence of the crime and Gunther thrillerdensely populated
around the valley town of Berchtes- the criminal obliteratedby the time and always dizzyingly complexthe
gaden, importing a reliably complicit Hitler arrived to celebrate his birthday. logic by which our redoubtable pro-
sta and leaving them free to settle There is also, of course, the possibility tagonist nally gets his man.
into houses and oces that they were that, once he has solved the case, Gun- The best thrillers share some of that
able to expropriate at prices so low that ther will be dispatched as well. depth and density. They are really so-
most of the local families were forced to The man in charge of the Berghof, cial histories, disguised in nineteenth-
leave. Highways were built to Berchtes- and Heydrichs match when it came to century-novel form, though often with
gaden. Trains from Munich stopped villainy, at least among Germans who a bit of late-twentieth-century nou-
there. And if you wanted to see the Fhrer still believed that Hitler was excitable veau roman thrown in, perhaps to sig-
your path up the magic mountain of Na- but blamelessa visionary whose rav- nal the sensitive self-searching of some
tional Socialist pathology was blocked ings might ll tens of thousands of fol- of their toughest sleuths. They paint
unless you were invited, vetted, and lowers at a torchlit rally with fear and what could even be called ethnographic
then inspected by the soldiers waiting trembling, but who in fact lived only portraits of societies in which partic-
in front of locked gates. to restore Germany to its rightful glory ular kinds of crimes consistently ap-
Enter Bernie Gunther. It is April is the Fhrers chief of sta and pri- pear and of the people who tend to
of 1939, a week before Hitlers birth- vate secretary, Martin Bormann. Bor- commit those crimes. By now, thrill-
day, and Gunther has just been in- mann ran the protection rackets in ers like Philip Kerrs have become a
tercepted in the lobby of Kripo (for Berchtesgaden, along with the prop- genre in themselves and, more to the
point, a voyage in themselves. They are ping into Hitlers Germany like a local decided to survive. It was his one am-
exhaustively researched, reportorial in in a time machine. And the important bition, a personal je men fous to the re-
detail, and, in their invention, obses- dierence, the one that makes Kerr gime. He never lied about who he wasa
sively liberating, which may account unique among his big-picture-thriller Social Democrat, passionately anti-fascist
for the fact that most journalists I know predecessors and contemporaries, is and certainly no anti-Semitebut, by
love them, and more than a few end that so many of the minor characters his lights, he was tolerated by the Nazis
up writing them. Read Jo Nesbs se- in Prussian Blue, Troost among them, who kept him on call both because of
ries about the brooding, tormented po- actually did exist in 1939, pretty much his genius for detection and because,
liceman Harry Hole, for the texture as the historians and even the lm foot- knowing that he despised them all, they
and temperament of Oslo and the age of the time depict them, alongside also knew that he could not be com-
crimes and cops that describe it. Read the Reinhard Heydrichs and the Mar- promised by any one of them and used
Henning Mankells Kurt Wallander tin Bormanns. Taken together, they against the rest.
novels for their evocations of numb- give Gunther a kind of verisimilitude Occasionally, he found someone to
ing loneliness in provincial Sweden. by association, because the mystery at trust, even among the Nazis encamped
Go back and read Ngaio Marsh for the heart of any Gunther book isnt in Berchtesgaden in Prussian Blue
New Zealand and James McClure for who did it or who is real. Its Gunther. someone struggling with regrets, caught
Natal and Martin Cruz Smith for Mos- Could an indispensable but always, between loyalty and shame. There was
cow and James Lee Burke for Louisi- in the end, expendable contrarian cop the brilliant and sympathetic Gerdy.
ana and, for Italy, Michael Dibdin, really have survived ten minutes in a And there was Albert Bormann, a Nazi
whose police detective Aurelio Zen Germany possessed by the demons of Motor Corps general repulsed by the
sorts with Cartesian clarity the cul- Blut und Boden? And, if so, given Gun- savagery of his brother, Martin, who
tures of that polyglot country, region thers talents and the opportunities for had started murdering, Albert says, at
by region, and the crimes that express ight on some of those far-ung mis- the age of nineteen, when he and three
their dierence. Read John le Carr sions he cannot refuse, why does he other young paramilitary thugs stomped
for anywhere his imagination alights. choose to stay? He is the case that to death the Jewish political philoso-
And, most of all, take a fresh look at cant be closed, the secret to his own pher and Shakespeare translator Gus-
Raymond Chandler, to whom Kerr is longevity as ction. tav Landauerafter which he posed
often compared and whose Philip for pictures, grinning, with his booted
Marlowe (indistinguishable now from elancholic would be too mild a foot on Landauers head. Albert oers
Humphrey Bogart) will lead you
through the streets and the secrets of
M word to describe Bernie Gun-
ther. I prefer to think of him as the
the evidence of his brothers crimes to
Gunther, although they both agree that
Los Angeles. Marlboro Man of Weltschmerz. I murders like that were now so com-
Gunther has a lot in common with imagine him with the same wry, pen- monplace in Germany that to impress
Marlowe. They cover the same mid- etrating, cowboy gaze, the eyes that Heydrich Gunther would need evi-
century years. They are cynical by na- tell you hes seen it all. He can quote dence of a serious oense: hiding a Jew,
ture, skeptical of truths, and, because the most mournful bits of Goethe and say, or joining the Resistance.
of this, shrewd and acute interpreters brood over the philosophical I of But Gunthers closest condant in
of what passes for reality in our vividly Fichtebut its usually only to him- the book is entirely Kerrs creation, an
postlapsarian world. Add to that their self and, by extension, you. Hes reluc- S.S. captain and fellow-Berliner named
sentimental weakness for women, al- tant to show his hand, unless it levels Hermann Kaspel, who shares his frus-
though Gunthers taste tends to be the eld in a potentially nasty encoun- tration with the lazy sleuthing of Mar-
more Weimar than Hollywood. (The ter or gives him a tactical advantage tin Bormanns dim, corrupt Bavarian
woman with whom he shares two while out shing for information. Then cops. Kaspel is a Nazi. A believer, he
deeply rueful kisses, by way of good- his style is pure Berlintough, mock- says. Not ready to admit the worst of
bye, after he solves the mystery of the ing, scathingly direct. He never men- Hitler. He and Gunther agree to dis-
engineers murder, is Gerdy Troost, the tions the Iron Cross that he earned agree, and in no time they are a team,
Fhrers interior designer and the blue- ghting in some of the worst battles acknowledging their common need to
stocking of his Alpine entourage. She of the First World War and has left occupy whatever narrowing space is
is almost androgynously slim, partial buried in a drawer; or the loss of his left for justice in Germany, and the
to trousers, mens shirts, and, for pa- rst wife, the love of his life, to the in- trust it inspires between them.
nache, a casually tossed-on white fur uenza epidemic that decimated what In this, Gunther is unique among
jacket. Give her a top hat and youd was left of Europe in 1918. the berheroes who usually command
have Cabaret.) By the time Hitler took over the our empathy in thrillers set during
But Southern California was Chan- Chancellery, in 1933ten years after the Hitler yearsthe martyred resist-
dlers own stomping ground. He oc- the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich, and ers drawn from Stauenberg, say, or
cupied the same time and space as Mar- with his followers on the rampage again the noble commoners like Schindler.
lowe, whereas Kerr, who was born in at homeGunther had moved beyond The dierence lies in the radical prag-
Edinburgh eleven years after the end disillusion, which is to say, he had no matism of Gunthers moral compass,
of the Second World War, keeps drop- expectations left of human beings. He which is keyed to neither outrage nor
indierence. Kerr underlines the odd
symbiosis between his two good cops
when Kaspel dies with his illusions
intact, mistaken for Guntherand
Gunther, grieving, exacts some mea-
sure of revenge.
russian blue is the name of a ferro-

P cyanide pigment rst synthesized in
1704, in Berlin, much loved by painters
for its depth of color but known in the
world of toxicology as an exceptionally
painful antidote to heavy-metal poison-
ing. In the winter of 1956, when Gun-
ther and his old Kripo sidekick, Fried-
rich Korsch, meet again, in a dark alley
in Villefranche, it was already the weapon
of choice among the secret agents of
the Soviet bloc. Their meeting, in the
rst chapters of Prussian Blue, signals
one of those parallel adventures which Ever since you got that romper, you never want to
run through so many of the Gunther stand stiffly in the corner with me anymore.
novels, and involves a deadly chase
through France that frames the story of
their week in Berchtesgaden, seventeen

years earlier, and interrupts it when you
least expect it. Korsch is now a Stasi en- many, when the obvious choice was to ironically) in Kerrs acknowledgments
forcer, working for Erich Mielke, who head west and disappear, as far as he pageslet alone the far deeper mystery
would soon become the East German could get from the virtual army of old of why, in a time of horric cruelty and
Minister for State Security and create Nazis and new Stasi eager to silence the genocidal murder, when many of the best
the most intrusive and eective police good cop with a memory as long and people in Germany have left, or tried to
state in Communist Eastern Europe. fresh as their crimes. But it wasnt really ee, others have elected to remain at
Mielke has traced Gunther to the South a choice for Gunther. He longed for home, anxiously holding the fort and
of France with a proposition, and makes Germany, for the inexplicable balm of hoping to last until the carnage ends.
it clear that Gunthers second wife, es- homeof Heimatwhich had rst The word Heimat is a thick German Ro-
tranged and living in Berlin, will suer drawn him to Berlin and kept him in mantic concept. It cant really be reduced
if he says no. his adopted city through the worst of to such a, well, homey word as home,
The job is this: in the morning, Gun- times. He claims that as late as 39, when though that is its English meaning. Hei-
ther will board a train to London, where he was ordered to Obersalzberg, Berlin mat is home with attitude, a mystical
he will receive a vial of the heavy metal was the one place in Germany where he sense of connectedness that infuses and,
thallium, and use it to poison a double could still breathe in the dimly linger- in a way, locates identity in the self and
agent who, in fact, had once betrayed ing cosmopolitanism of the Weimar in contemplation of the self. Innerlich-
Gunther with so little remorse that he yearswhen it was a riotously polyglot keit, or innerness, the Germans say.
would happily see her killedbut not town, an immigrant town, Social Dem- Gunther cant go home to his beloved
by him. Gunther gets on the train and, ocratic to Communist to anarchist at its Berlin, where too many people know
of course, escapes, though not before kill- working-class core, and had, in fact, cast him, and some of them want him dead.
ing one of his minders in the toilet. Sud- the lowest percentage of National So- Three days after crossing the border from
denly, he is a wanted man in France, pur- cialist votes of any German state. It was France, he gets on a train for Munich,
sued by Korsch and zigzagging his way where he could count on the rare but with a new name, a new birthday, a new
north on local trains and stolen bicycles, sustaining comforts of old friendships, drivers license, and a new passporta
sleeping in elds and barns. Its a terri- tender women, bad cigarettes, good beer, man without a past but, as he says to
fying journey, with policemen waiting at and fat Berlin sausages, and on the knowl- himself, maybe a ghting chance for a
every station, descriptions of him in all edge that he might possibly save some future. It may be that, for Philip Kerr,
the papers, craven locals eager to report lives, while saving his own, whenever he depositing Gunther in the city where
each sighting, and Korsch luring him to had the chance. the German nightmare began in a beer
the inevitable showdown. Not much later, None of which solves the mystery of hall, in 1923, was a way of settling Gun-
Bernie Gunther is across the border in Bernie Gunther, hiding in plain sight thers debt to consciencea very pain-
West Germany. among the worst villains of the Third ful reckoning, not unlike the antidote to
The mystery, of course, is why Ger- Reichtheir fates recorded helpfully (if poison called Prussian blue.
lieve therefore I am; who writes that the
BOOKS best proof that God exists is the circu-
lar proof one was offered as a child (It
PAUL IS DEAD
is absolutely true, because my father told
me so)that brilliant, mutilated Chris-
tian is the unnamed patron of The King-
Emmanuel Carrres The Kingdom explores the creation of Christianity. dom. An amazingly various book, it nar-
rates the authors crises of religious faith
BY JAMES WOOD in the nineteen-nineties; combines con-
ventional history and speculative recon-
struction to describe the rise of early
Christianity; deftly animates the rst-
century lives and journeys of Paul, Luke,
and John; and attempts to explain how
an unlikely cult, formed around the death
and resurrection of an ascetic lyrical rev-
olutionary, grew into the established
Church we know today. Can one be-
lieve that such things are still believed?
Nietzsche asked, scornfully. And yet they
are still believed, Carrre replies.
Fortunately, Emmanuel Carrre lacks
Kierkegaards anguished Northern mas-
ochism. In matters of appetite, he is pleas-
ingly French: sensuous, libidinousthe
healthy lover of pagan Mediterranean
pleasures that Nietzsche admired and
Camus incarnated. He is French in an-
other way, too: he likes reason, argument,
evidence, and the virtues of the secular
state. Carrre was born in 1957 into a
privileged and intellectual family. (His
mother, Hlne Carrre dEncausse,
is a distinguished historian and the
permanent secretary of the Acadmie
Franaise.) Though Carrres wife jok-
ingly suspects him of being Catholic
around the edges, he comes from a mi-
lieu that was likely to be interested in
theology only, in Borgess words, as a
ierkegaard relates a chilling parable to believe? Christs kingdom is like that, branch of fantastic literature.
K in The Sickness Unto Death. An
emperor summons a poor day laborer.
Kierkegaard says.
The French writer Emmanuel Car-
Yet by the late nineteen-eighties, after
launching a fairly successful literary ca-
The man never dreamed that the em- rre doesnt mention Kierkegaard in his reera book about Werner Herzog; a
peror even knew of his existence. The latest book, The Kingdom (Farrar, few well-received novelshe had be-
emperor tells him that he wants to have Straus & Giroux), but the Danish phi- come depressed and unproductive: I
him as his son-in-law, a bizarre announce- losopherthe Danish Christian luna- could no longer write, I didnt know how
ment that must strike the man as some- tic, one might sayhovers over the book to love, I knew I wasnt particularly lik-
thing he would never dare tell the world, as Gods face is said to have hovered over able. Just being me became literally un-
for fear of being mocked; it seems as if the waters during the creation of the bearable. Inuenced by his eccentric
the emperor wanted only to make a fool world. The Kierkegaard whose work is godmother Jacqueline, who was a mys-
of his subject. Now, Kierkegaard says, scarred by the great offense of Chris- tic, a poet, and, above all, a devout Cath-
suppose that this event was never made tianity, by its shocking challenge to rea- olic, he read Augustines Confessions
a public fact; no evidence exists that the son and empirical evidence; who claimed and the Gospel of John. That gospel
emperor ever summoned the laborer, so that modern philosophy amounts to the spoke to him so powerfully that he began
that his only recourse would be blind premise I think therefore I am, while to read a daily extract and write com-
faith. How many would have the courage Christianity equals the premise I be- mentary on it. Broken, vulnerable, and
stripped of his intellectual pride, he be-
The puzzle of a small sects against-all-odds triumph fascinates Carrre. came accessible to my Lord.
82 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY NICK LITTLE
It was a fairly short fever. Nowadays Carrre works himself and his own fact, Carrre is much more cautious than
an agnostic, Carrre spends the early stories into these books, partly because Renan, who thickly painted a lyrical
sections of this book reviewing his al- he is a good postmodernist, who is portrait of Jesus as a beautiful utopian
most three years as a committed Chris- suspicious of concealed or invisible dreamer.)
tian. What shocks him is the extremism third-person narrators. He likes inter- Carrre brings to life, in this way, the
of his faith. He was drawn to theologi- vening frames. As he puts it in The dustiest of old school assignments. I
cal stringency, melodramatic all-or- Kingdom, When Im being told a remember dreading having to plot
nothings, and obnoxiously proud circu- story, I like to know whos telling it. St. Pauls travels through the ancient
larity. He is appalled to nd in his old Thats why I like narratives in the rst world (complete with pencilled maps
notebooks such remarks as this: The person, thats why I write in the rst of Corinth, Damascus, Jerusalem,
sole argument that can allow us to admit person and would even be incapable of Philippi, Athens, and so on). But Car-
that Jesus is the truth and life is that He writing anything dierently. Its a laud- rre is like some brilliantly improper
says it, and since He is truth and life, He able intention, except that it is almost teacher, the one you were lucky enough
must be believed. And this: An atheist contradicted by his habit of inhabiting to enjoy before he got red, a whirling
believes that God does not exist. A be- the minds of his biographical subjects. eccentric who feels free to compare Paul
liever knows that God exists. One has an But Carrre is also easy to forgive, be- to Philip K. Dick, ecclesiastical author-
opinion, the other knowledge. cause he is such engrossing and charm- ities to the Bolsheviks, and prayer to
Carrre has become celebrated for ing companywitty, restless, intellec- yoga, and who throws in references to
his propulsive, original, free-ranging nar- tually bold, confessional, shame-proof, the martial arts, his enjoyment of por-
ratives, which frequently mix memoir, simultaneously shallow and deep. nography, A Funny Thing Happened
biography, and ction in rather blithely on the Way to the Forum, Gogol and
measured proportions. I Am Alive and hat appeal is powerful in The King- Dostoyevsky, and Mel Gibsons dodgy
You Are Dead, his fantastically engag-
ing book about Philip K. Dick, pub-
T dom, and the tension between rst-
and third-person narration is better
Christ movie.
Heres how Carrre imagines the
lished in 1993, tells the life of the science- resolved than in his earlier work. Here tradition of the Eucharist (the Church
ction writer from within, as if he were Carrres autobiographical interventions service that commemorates Christs
writing a novelization of Dicks life. (Car- seem not showy or superuous (as they Last Supper) might have originated.
rre calls him Phil throughout.) There can in Limonov) but necessary. For He describes Pauls visit to Philippi, a
are no references and very few named one thing, it has become exceedingly rare city half populated by Macedonians
sources, yet the material appears to rely to encounter crises of faith as experienced and half by Roman settlers. He lightly
on the established record, and is clearly by a secular intellectual, and Carrres amplies four fairly reticent verses from
built from the same archival labor that oscillation between orthodox fervor and the Acts of the Apostles, our only source.
a conventional biographer would per- wistful agnosticism holds undeniable These tell us of Pauls arrival and min-
form. The same goes for Carrres pre- fascination. Instead of surreptitiously c- istry in Philippi, and the hospitality
vious book, Limonov (2011), which de- tionalizing his story of the rise of early shown him by a woman named Lydia,
scribes the rebellious life and career of Christianity, he proceeds like a free- a dealer in purple cloth. No doubt
the Russian writer and troublemaker lanceand slightly obeatscholar. His there arent many Jews, Carrre writes,
Eduard Limonov, who lived in poverty inquiry into the lives and testimonies of because theres no synagogue. But there
in New York, prospered in Paris, and re- Paul and Luke, and their journeys through is a little group that gathers outside the
turned to Russia, where, once an oppo- the far-ung extremities of the Roman walls on the banks of a river, to cele-
sition leader, he has since become a erce Empire, is scrupulously thorough, and brate the Sabbath in an informal way.
supporter of Vladimir Putin. Limonov relies on an enormous amount of read- Its members arent Jews, they only have
vibrates with borrowed energy: Carrre ing, gently summoned. But because Car- a vague knowledge of the Torah. He
uses, essentially, a present-tense version rre is not a Biblical scholar, and doesnt goes on to liken this group to people
of the novelists best friend, free indirect want to be one, he allows his imagina- who do yoga or Tai Chi in places where
style, to inhabit and animate the vio- tion to linger and play. He likes to psy- there arent any teachers. He reckons
lently short-circuiting mind of his per- chologize, to reconstruct scenes and ep- that ten or twenty people gathered for
petually unappeased protagonist. It is a isodes, to speculate when the historical supper at Lydias house. Pauls charisma
hard book to put down, perhaps because record is thin. Still, he tells us when hes was so great, Carrre suggests, that they
it has a certain uneasy moral short- doing this, and the lack of historical ev- all start to believe in the resurrection
circuiting of its own: again, there are no idence turns out to be his ally, encour- of this Jesus whose name they didnt
references, so fact and ction are allowed aging him to speculate obviously rather even know a few days ago. In doing
to trade uniform and mufti; and Car- than to novelize silently. (There is good so, he continues, it doesnt occur to
rres pumped-up admiration of Limon- French precedent for this kind of inter- them that they are betraying Judaism,
ovs often cruel escapades seems, at times, vention: he often cites the nineteenth- which they adopted with a zeal that
like the wan intellectuals envy of bloody century scholar Ernest Renan, whose bi- was as vibrant as it was ill-informed.
warfare. (Masha Gessen, in The New ographical narrative, Vie de Jsus, dared On the contrary, they thank God for
York Review of Books, noted numerous to ll in Jesus lost years, between his having sent them such a learned rabbi.
errors of fact.) youth and the start of his ministry. In They still observe the Sabbath, and they
build into their ritual a new meal of
BRIEFLY NOTED remembrance, which now occurs the

day after the Sabbath:
Paradise Lost, by David S. Brown (Harvard). This incisive bi- At one point in the meal, Paul gets up,
breaks a piece of bread, and says its the body
ography of F. Scott Fitzgerald attempts to distance the writer of Christ. He raises a goblet lled with wine
from the literary world of appers, romancers, and boozers and says its Christs blood. In silence, the bread
with which he is often conated. Brown, a historian, sees Fitz- and the wine are passed around the table, and
gerald as an essentially conservative social critic who was dis- everyone eats a piece of bread, drinks a mouth-
mayed by the collapse of older moral codes before the grow- ful of wine. In memory, Paul says, of the last
meal that the savior ate on this earth before
ing cultural inuence of moneymakers and movie stars. Yet, being crucied. Afterward, they sing a sort of
despite Browns insistence on the rigor of Fitzgeralds think- hymn about his death and Christs resurrection.
ing, the book suggests that he was ensnared by the very social
trappings he disdained. In his story, like those of his best- Such writing is somehow both pa-
known characters, a man of great potential is destroyed by tiently secular and glowingly devout,
wealth and beauty. aided by John Lamberts luminous trans-
lation. I was put in mind of Jos Sara-
Abandon Me, by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury). I had a one-word magos novel The Gospel According to
list of things I needed: everything, the author of this bold col- Jesus Christ, which reimagines Jesus
lection of memoiristic essays states. This hunger, in her tales life and death with similarly persuasive
of childhood, drug addiction, and erotic passion, fuels both authority. Carrre bears down on the fer-
self-invention and self-destruction. Febos, the adopted daugh- vid and slightly kooky atmosphere of the
ter of an often absent sea captain, grows up keenly aware that early Church. He is interested in the un-
identity is complex: She is Puerto Rican, but not really. In- likelihood of the sects eventual triumph.
dian, but not really. Gay, but not really. In the mesmerizing Local Jews might well be hostile to an
title essay, she gets to know her troubled birth father, begins upstart group that espoused such beliefs
an obsessive relationship with a married woman, and explores as the notion that the Messiah was God
her Native American heritage. At times, the determined lyri- made esh, or that we will be spiritually
cism of the prose lapses into false profundity, but the sheer and physically restored to eternal life in
fearlessness of the narrative is captivating. a heavenly kingdom. Some Greeks treated
Pauls ministry with amused tolerance
Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World, by Kathy Cham- they were aristocrats of the spirit, wealthy
berlain (Overlook). This compelling portrait of Jane Carlyle, in their own philosophers and gods, look-
the wife of the essayist Thomas Carlyle, illuminates the outing down on oddly single-minded par-
wardly decorous but often inwardly tempestuous lives of Vic- venus.The Romans mainly left the Chris-
torian women. Contemporaries admired her for her intellect, tians alone until Nero (the emperor
and her sharp and evocative letters later won praise from Vir- between 54 and 68 A.D.) began to per-
ginia Woolf. But she was sickly, depressive, and stymied; she secute them in Rome; Tacitus suggests
never published her own work and subordinated herself to her that Nero used them as scapegoats for
husbands career. Chamberlain examines Janes romantic friend- the great re of Rome, in 64. But Taci-
ship with the novelist Geraldine Jewsbury and her patronage tus adds that the Christians, devotees of
of a German governess and writer who made intimate obser- what he calls a most mischievous su-
vations of the Carlyles. For Jane, such female friendships were perstition, were likely convicted not be-
essential bonds of survival formed in enclosed spaces. cause they started the re but because
of their otherworldly beliefs and prac-
Do I Make Myself Clear?, by Harold Evans (Little, Brown). ticestheir hatred of humanity.
Going well beyond the typical style guides proscriptions against The gure who is chiey responsible
the passive voice, clich, and so on, this polemic on writing both for the spectacular growth of Chris-
takes the view that the oppressive opaqueness of much con- tianity and for the kind of erce moral
temporary prose is a moral issue. Contemptuous of politi- atmosphere that might have led to Tac-
cians, C.E.O.s, and marketers who use words not for com- itus gibe is Paul, who lies at the center
municating ideas but concealing them, Evans rewrites of this bookfar more so than Jesus
health-insurance policies, governmental reports on terrorism, does. For several reasons, perhaps. We
and even Jane Austen, in order to demonstrate the virtues of know more about Paul than about Jesus.
concision and clarity. Human life is at stake, he claims. Gen- Paul is Christianitys great and early ideo-
eral Motors could have recalled vehicles with faulty ignition logue, the man who shaped its legacy,
switches more quickly had managers not been imprisoned by who took a cluster of strange parables
a lexicon of assurance, which favored convoluted euphemisms and sometimes gnomic statements and,
over precise statements about risks. emphasizing the apocalyptic, built them
into a theology. And Pauls fanaticism who follow the Way. As Luke relates in thinks, is the hidden fear behind Pauls
draws Carrres religious admiration, even Acts, Saul was on his way to Damascus, admonition to the Galatians:
as it repels and alienates his French hu- to arrest those blasphemers he could nd
The person he once was had become a mon-
manism. Paul and Luke, who consume and bring them back to stand trial in Je- ster to him, and he had become a monster to the
most of the authors attention, would rusalem, when a light blinded him, and person he once was. If the two could have met,
seem to correspond to the two wings of he fell to the ground. Jesus voice asked the person he once was would have cursed him.
Carrres complicated temperament: Paul, him, Why are you persecuting me?, He would have prayed to God to let him die, the
the Jewish convert to Christianity, the and then told him to go into the city and way the heroes of vampire movies make their
friends swear theyll drive a stake through their
urgent believer in resurrection, salvation, await his orders. Pauls conversion was hearts if theyre ever bitten. But thats what they
and the end of the world, has something momentous. During the next twenty say before it happens. Once contaminated, their
of that proud religious unreasonableness years, this incandescent missionary vis- only thought is to bite others in turn, in partic-
which Carrre exhibited when he was ited Christian churches and communi- ular those who come at them with a stake to make
making his daily commentary on the ties from Corinth to Antioch; and when good the promise they made to the person who
no longer exists. I think that Pauls nights must
Gospel of John. Luke, a physician of he could not reach them he wrote to have been haunted by a nightmare of this kind.
Greek cultural origin who travelled with them, setting down the epistles that form
Paul and is assumed by Church tradi- (with the Gospels) the core of the New Rampant speculation, outrageous psy-
tion to have chronicled Pauls ministry Testament. These letters are, as Carrre chologizing, insouciantly unscholarly be-
in Acts of the Apostles, seems a milder explains, the oldest Christian texts (they haviorbut diabolically plausible. Car-
gure. Carrre splits himself between predate the Gospels by twenty or thirty rre is not afraid of Pauls reconverting
these two evangelists, mapping a hal- years), and perhaps the most modern from Christianity to Judaism (what might
lowed geography that also represents one Biblical texts, the only ones whose au- be considered the orthodox anxiety) so
of the abiding struggles within the Eu- thor is clearly identied and speaks in much as fearful of conversion generally.
ropean tradition: Athens and Jerusalem. his own name. We are hardly surprised when he adds
Jesus was an event within Judaism; it I can feel my eyes glazing overalas, what we have all been thinking: that he
was not especially scandalous that a young I am back in school againbut sud- is really talking about himself. He quotes
Jewish radical went about proclaiming denly the reader wakes up, because Mon- a friend, who tells him, When you were
himself the Messiah, ambiguously call- sieur Carrre, at the blackboard with his a Christian, what you feared the most
ing himself the son of Man, and quar- maps and dates, is shaking things up. was becoming the skeptic that youre
relling with the rabbis about aspects of Pauls letters, he says, are like those which only too happy to be now. But who says
the law. But it was another thing entirely Lenin wrote to various factions of the you wont change again? Once a con-
to claimas Paul didthat Jesus came Second International from Paris, Ge- vert, always convertible.
to earth to wash away an original sin neva, and Zurich before 1917. More in- What makes The Kingdom so en-
contracted by humans in Eden; that this teresting still, Monsieur Carrre has got grossing is this element of personal strug-
Jesus was crucied by the Romans, was hold of a detail in the Letter to the Ga- gle, our sense that the agnostic author is
buried, and rose from the dead; and that latians, in which Paul warns the congre- looking over his shoulder at the armies
he would soon come again, in a rescue gants not to believe rival teachings by of faith, as they pursue him to the wall
mission that would usher in a new eter- impostors: Even if I came to preach of rationality. That struggle plays out
nal kingdom. In place of the intimate, something other than what I have here over the two scandalsthe two
familial struggle of the Jews and their preached, you shouldnt believe me. And great oenses, to use Kierkegaards fa-
God, Paul invokes a strict theology of suddenly the classroom is awake, be- vorite wordat the heart of the Chris-
sin and salvation. Kierkegaard, at his cause Monsieur Carrre is making early tian message. The rst is epistemologi-
most Protestant-masochistic, says that Christianity sound like . . . science c- cal, and has to do with the claim that
Christianitys singularity lies in its un- tion. In a sparkling, unexpected digres- Jesus is God made esh, and that he died
derstanding of sin; if thats true, it was sionthere are many such in this book and rose again from the dead. The no-
Pauls singularity rather than Jesus. The he mentions Dicks fascination with the tion of a fully human god, who shares
new theology transfers Judaisms healthy Stalinist show trials, in which the vic- human weaknesses and frailties without
involvement in this life onto a palpitat- tims were forced to deny what they had any diminution of divinity, is so outra-
ing anticipation of the next; the present believed their whole lives, and to de- geous that Christians anxiously police
becomes eternitys duller portal. nounce their earlier selves as unrecog- Christs full humanity. Yes, he got angry,
nizable monsters. And then he wheels and he could be intolerant, enigmatic,
aul was born Saul, in Tarsus (now in back to Paul. This terrorof the split even faltering in strength; he died, hu-
P Turkey), perhaps a few years after
the birth of Jesus, whom he never met.
self, the self who has turned from one
pole to its oppositewas largely un-
manly, on the Cross. But dont for a mo-
ment suggest that he slept with Mary
He was a devout student of Judaism, and known in the ancient world, Carrre Magdalene, or that he spent his teen-
was sent to Jerusalem for schooling with maintains, until Pauls conversion. But age yearswell, doing what other teen-
one of the most eminent rabbis of the because violent, sudden conversion had age boys are known to do a great deal
age. Filled with piety, Saul became an happened to Paul, he must have dreaded, of. The legend about the Virgin Mary is
eager persecutor of the early Christians, more or less consciously, that it could designed, in part, to obscure the outra-
who were known at this time as those happen to him again. This, Carrre geousness of Jesus humanity. (Carrre,
in full-on French secular mode, correc- Dick vibrates with a profoundly uneasy what he deeply admires; he is repelled
tively reminds us that Mary had sex. She respect. by an ideal he cannot quite dislodge.
might have come, lets hope so for her, I nd Carrres ambivalence, both in Athens or Jerusalem: Which will win?
maybe she even masturbated.) that book and in The Kingdom, mov- Carrre writes about the episode in the
But, to the extent that Jesus human- ing because I spent much of my child- Odyssey when Odysseus has to decide
ity is outrageous, then so is his divinity. hood, in Durham, around and inside its between staying on Calypsos paradisal
For if Jesus is the Son of God, then God great Romanesque cathedral. When I island (where he has spent seven years)
changedyou could say that God con- realized, in my teens, that I did not be- or returning home to Ithaca. Calypsos
verted. The distant, unnameable, venge- lieve in God, I had to wrestle with an charms are intense: she oers eternal
ful Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible becomes unhappy idea: that this great building, pleasures, and she reminds our hero that
the approachable Father who washes which for centuries had housed genera- Penelope, his wife back home, cannot
away all our sins. As both Jack Miles and tions of believers, was a monument to possibly rival the beauty of an immortal
Harold Bloom have suggested, the Yah- an error. Could that be so? Can one say goddess. Odysseus concedes as much,
weh of the Hebrew Bible cannot also be that a cathedral is a mistake, exactly? One but still he chooses to go home; he
the father of Jesus Christ; either Christ shouldnt, and yet the world views and chooses the mortal and the mutable over
represents an almost incomprehensible beliefs of the faithful twelfth-century the deathless and the eternal. Carrre re-
break with that world or Yahweh com- masons who cut and laid those stones minds us that this decision is often seen
mitted suicide on the Cross. And this are, when compared with mine, as dis- as a pinnacle of ancient wisdom: The
Man-God, this impossible incarnation tantly magical as Harry Potters. (The life of a man is better than that of a god,
of Yahweh, died and was resurrected! rst two Harry Potter movies used for the simple reason that its real. Au-
Paul puts this amazing fact at the cen- Durham Cathedral as a location.) thentic suering is better than deceptive
ter of his teaching, and insists that if The second great scandal of Chris- bliss. Eternity is not desirable because
Christ was not raised from the dead then tianity is the radical challenge it poses its not part of our common lot. Against
empty, too, your faith. If for this life only to conventional morality. In the tradi- this, there is the radical eschatological
we have hoped in Christ, we are the most tion of Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky, mysticism of Jesus and, especially, of Paul,
pitiable people of all. Carrre does not Carrre emphasizes the punishing who says that the only thing to expect
believe in the Resurrection, but he once sacrice of self that Jesus teaching en- from this life is to be delivered from it,
did, and the fact that others do intrigues, joins. Classical and Jewish thinking had and to go to where Christ reigns. There
fascinates, troubles, and moves him. And promoted the Golden RuleHillel said is an unsolvable dierence, Carrre says,
so he cannot help admiring Pauls mag- it was the essence of the Torahbut between Pauls ideal and that of Odys-
nicent unreasonableness. There is a cer- had never said, Love your enemies. seus. Each one calls the only true good
tain type of mind, he writes elsewhere And not only love your enemies but also what the other condemns as baneful il-
in this book, that is attracted to radical Be perfect as your heavenly Father is per- lusion. Odysseus says that wisdom al-
doctrines. The more opposed it is to fect. This overriding command cannot ways consists in turning your attention
common sense, the more that proves its be a worldly imperative; it is impossi- to the human condition and life on earth,
truth. The harder it is to believe, the more ble. It is the shocking inversion of health Paul says it consists in tearing yourself
deserving you are. Paul personied this that Nietzsche railed against, and per- away. Odysseus says that, regardless of
type of mindwhich could be called fa- haps the hatred of humanity with how beautiful it is, paradise is a ction,
naticism. Luke, as I imagine him, didnt. which, Tacitus says, Christian were and Paul says thats the only reality. Paul,
charged. Everything natural and human carried away, goes as far as congratulat-
question haunts this book, and it is turned upside down. With only slight ing God for having chosen what is not
A is surely the secret reason that Car-
rre wrote his biography of Philip K.
exaggeration, Carrre summarizes this
outrageous benevolence:
to invalidate what is.
These are eloquent words, but for most
Dick: Is Christianity just science ction, of us this is no choice at allbecause we
Love your enemies, take joy in being unhappy,
a branch of fantastic literature? He cant prefer being small to being big, poor to rich, sick
were never in a position to choose, and
leave Dick alone, partly because Dick to healthy. And whereas the Torah posits the el- because, anyway, we dont accept the al-
was a writer of fantastic literature who ementary, evident, and veriable truth that its ternatives. Of course, eternal life does not
eventually came to believe that God was not good for men to be alone, Jesus said: Dont exist; we do not choose, because we hap-
speaking directly to him, as he had spo- desire women, dont take a wife, if you have one, lessly inhabit, what is over what is not. If,
keep her so as not to harm her, but it would be
ken to men like Moses and Muhammad. better if you didnt have one. Dont have children
in Kierkegaards parable, we got the call
For Dick, God supplanted the extrater- either. Let them come to you, take inspiration to see the emperor, we would ignore it,
restrials. In a speech in France, late in from their innocence, but dont have any. Love in the way we learn to ignore the phone
his life, he told a bemused audience of children in general, not in particular, not like call oering us a free vacation at a Flor-
sci- fans that hed had direct contact men have loved their children since time began: ida resort. But for Carrre the dierence
more than those of others, because theyre their
with the Programmer, as Carrre puts own. And evenno, above alldont love your-
is unsolvable. He once went to the pal-
it. There are certain atheists who have selves. It is human to want ones own good: dont. ace, and he heard the awful news; and he
no compunction about dismissing fer- cant quite put it out of his head, even
vent believers as victims of delusion and You can feel both the attraction and the thoughindeed, precisely becauseno
hallucination. But Carrres book about recoil in Carrres stridency. He fears one else believes him.
in his voice and the stories he tells.
POP MUSIC Moreland was born in 1985 in
Longview, Texas. His family relocated
AMERICAN ANYONE
to northern Kentucky when he was
young, and he grew up near the Ohio
River, not far from Cincinnati. North-
John Morelands roots and rebellion. ern Kentuckys regional identity is not
quite Southern and not quite Midwest-
BY AMANDA PETRUSICH ern; instead, its blankly pleasant in a
way that makes all futures seem pos-
sible. It is a place from which anything
or anyone could credibly come.
Moreland grew up on punk and
hardcore records, and internalized a
strong do-it-yourself ethos early on.
When youre eighteen and your fa-
vorite bands are eighties hardcore
bands, how do you nd somebody like
Guy Clark? Its kind of a complicated
path, he told American Songwriter, in
2015. His father introduced him to
folk and country music, though he
didnt become a fan of those genres
until he caught Steve Earles video for
Rich Mans War, a protest song, on
television.
Moreland released his rst record,
Endless Oklahoma Sky, which he
made with the Black Gold Band, in
2008; Big Bad Luv, which was re-
leased this spring on 4AD, is his sev-
enth. Morelands decision to sign with
an independent label known for issu-
ing albums by underground bands like
the Cocteau Twins and the Pixies seems
like an acknowledgment of his punk-
rock youtha deliberate and willful
disregard for expectations. Musically,
There are no heroes or villains in his songs, just folks doing the best they can. Moreland mostly forgoes punks an-
tagonism. Rather than struggling
heres something about the twang try artisthis work is just as indebted against heartache, his best tracks are
T and drawl of country music that
feels particularly well suited to the
to folk and rock musicbut he seems
to draw from the same winsome, mel-
almost shrugging. (One is titled Amen,
So Be It.) He appears less plainly ag-
way we like to tell the American nar- ancholic well as Hank Williams, who, grieved about his pain than many of
rative. Country began as a rural genre, in 1949, wrote Im So Lonesome I his peers are; musicians like Sturgill
born in isolated Southern enclaves; its Could Cry, still the high-water mark Simpson, Jason Isbell, and Chris Sta-
rst stars yodelled or sang their way for spiritually ruinous country an- pleton draw from comparable sources
out of obscurity, then revelled in re- thems. (Elvis Presley, in his Aloha but write more vexed and obviously
lating the tale, disclosing everything from Hawaii TV special, in 1973, re- cathartic songs. Moreland doesnt buck
theyd gained and lost along the way. ferred to it as the saddest song Ive against anything. He takes sadness, sur-
Country musicians have shouldered ever heard in my life.) Moreland, like veys it, and puts it aside.
much of the work of establishing a na- Williams, writes easy, sauntering mel- Yet Moreland is still ercely pres-
tional identity in song. Gratitude, pride, odies that evoke the sensation of drift- ent in his work. It is as if, just by lis-
and swashbuckling self-determination ing downstream in a ramshackle ski. tening to him, a person is taken into
synchronize nicely with pedal steel. Yet he imbues them with moments his condence. That trustthe neg-
So does a deeply embedded sense of of deep compunction. The dissonance ligible distance between what More-
grief. in Morelands songs lies not in their land feels and what he singscan
John Moreland, a songwriter from structurethere are no hard angles create a beguiling intimacy. He is con-
Tulsa, Oklahoma, is not only a coun- or jagged bitsbut in the ruefulness fessing, but expects no absolution.
88 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY KRISTIAN HAMMERSTAD
This quality makes him an obvious seems to say; its going to hurt no mat-
descendant of Townes Van Zandt, ter what you do. Its no use, he sings.
who was equally resigned to a certain God bless these blues.
amount of suering. At times, he also
reminds me of Bruce Springsteen he title of Morelands new record
they share the same gruness of tone,
warmth, and knack for making a
T is a tweak of Big Bad Love, a
collection of short stories, from 1990,
straightforward song into something by the Mississippi-born writer Larry
revelatory. Brown. Browns narrators are lonesome,
Moreland is expert at leading a full uncompanionable types, yet they yearn
band. Sallisaw Blue, which opens for more. This cant be living, one
Big Bad Luv, is a rollicking, honky- says. I drink too much Old Milwau-
tonk song, heavy on piano and har- kee and wake up in the morning and
monica; it feels destined for roadhouse it tastes like old bread crusts in my
jukeboxes, where it will play in perpe- mouth. They lurch down country roads,
tuity while patrons order more beers. shing lukewarm cans of beer from
But he does something singular when front-seat coolers, worrying about
hes alone with an acoustic guitar. money or never nding the best per-
Break My Heart Sweetly, from his son to love. Such is the price of seek-
2013 album, In the Throes, is a dev- ing. Theres a neon sign that says Big
astating ballad about not knowing how Bad Love, Moreland sings. And a
to get over someone. I guess I cant noose hanging down from the heavens
let go til you wreck me completely, above. If you want one, expect the other.
break my heart sweetly, drape me in Big Bad Luv, much like Browns
blue, he sings, strumming along. He book, is about wanting. Morelands songs
performed the song on The Late are populated by gures in comparable
Show with Stephen Colbert in 2016, states of tumult: broken men metabo-
wearing a crimson T-shirt, glasses, and lizing loss, trying to gure out what love
a scraggly beard. His voice slipped and means and how much anyone can rea-
splintered a little each time he sang sonably expect of it. Moreland seems
the word heart. For performers ac- to regard this existential duress almost
customed to dark and cramped rock fondly. It is, at least, fodder for the work,
clubs, network-television performances enabling, as he puts it, the living I have
can elicit a funny stiness, but More- earned on love gone wrong.
landwho barely looked up as he There is something gloriously Amer-
playedwas so arresting that, when ican about turning pain into business
he nished, you could practically hear in the end, everything is grist for the
the audience exhale. mill. If we dont bleed, it dont feel like
As a lyricist, Moreland is uninter- a song, he oers, on Old Wounds.
ested in indictments; there are no he- The idea is to take your hits and keep
roes or villains, he suggests, just folks goingdont slow down to survey the
making their way through the world damage. Slumming I-40 with Ameri-
the best they can. (Youve been fall- can songs, Moreland whoops. They
ing short of golden, Ive been every can bury our bodies in American wrongs.
kind of wrong, he admits, on Every The only unforgivable American sin, it
Kind of Wrong.) The question that seems, is to give up on yourself.
nags him isnt so much how to reason This is Morelands rst release since
through the grand mystery of human getting married, and he can be defen-
relationsI dont own anything, you sive, in interviews, about being labelled
dont know shit, he sings on Sallisaw a hopeless depressive. Im a real per-
Blue, dispensing with the idea of a son who is sad sometimes, and happy
neat resolutionbut how to make other times, and thats how it is, he
peace with the fact that people usually told Rolling Stone, earlier this year. But
muck things up in the end. Navigat- even the most sanguine moments on
ing heartbreak can feel a little like being Big Bad LuvLove aint a sickness,
mired in quicksandthe more you though I once thought it was, he sings
struggle, the deeper you sinkwhich on Lies I Chose to Believe, nodding
makes Morelands approach to heal- toward explicit growthbetray the
ing feel kind. Dont worry about it, he battles it took for him to get there.
rately, to let Lee see the woman shes
THE THEATRE becoming as her disease progresses. But
even a fatal illness cant change the sweet
THE SICK ROOM

timbre of Bessies voice or her concern
for others; her habit of goodness is what
will see her through, if anything does.
Three shows about death. Lee, meanwhile, learns to embrace not
what separates her from her sister but
BY HILTON ALS what links themBessies frighteningly
unconditional love.
hree shows I saw recently all fea- Bessie are playing roles in a drama based The day I saw the play, it seemed as
T ture death as an imminent possi-
bility or reality, and, although each pro-
on need and the need to be needed.
Of course, every family dishes out its
if the lead actresses were having trouble
remembering their linesthey kept trip-
duction handles what Henry James share of rejection, too. Bessies sister, Lee ping over one anotherand, while Tay-
called the distinguished thing dier- ( Janeane Garofalo), left home long ago to lor gives the most interesting, poised per-
ently, they all, like most weak or senti- live her own life, but that wasnt what she formance, it isnt as great as shed proba-
mental plays on the subject, include a got. A single mother living hand to mouth, bly like it to be, because Garofalo cant
lot of talk or foreshadowing seem to speak and do any stage
about It before It happens. business at the same time.
When Bessie (Lili Taylor) Using her trademark whine
is told by the befuddled, em- which works onscreen far bet-
pathetic Dr. Wally (Triney ter than onstageshes half in
Sandoval) that she has leu- the role and half outside it.
kemia, in the current revival Meanwhile, Weston, a pro
of Scott McPhersons 1990 whose dither and winsome-
play, Marvins Room (a ness have got her through other
Roundabout Theatre Com- performances, tries to stay out
pany production, at the of the way and save herself.
American Airlines), she looks Despite the plays lengthit
acutely embarrassed, as if the runs a little more than two
doctor had just walked in on hoursit feels truncated,
her in some private space, un- somehow, and thats because
happily nude. Bessie doesnt the actors are so unresolved
know who she is in her re- when it comes to whom theyre
duced, vulnerable state. For playing and why. The director,
most of her adult life, she has Anne Kauman, does the best
protected herself against her she can, but what can you
own needs by taking care of do with a script whose most
others; other peoples inr- potent inuence seems to be
mities give her a reason to be. TVor, more precisely, all
Theres plenty of sickness those Lifetime movies that end
in the modest Florida home with a healing circle and the
that Bessie shares with her fa- quiet acceptance of home?
ther, Marvin, a stroke victim,
whom she cheerfully describes ts the death of the mind
as having been dying for about
twenty yearswe never meet Each play handles the distinguished thing dierently.
I
free thoughtthat Win-
ston (Tom Sturridge) ghts
himand her aunt, Ruth in 1984 (at the Hudson).
(Celia Weston), who has just got over a she can barely control her delinquent older Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan,
mysterious back ailment. Ruth walks son, Hank ( Jack DiFalco), who blames who adapted the play from George Or-
slightly hunched over: phantom pain is her for depriving him of a father; when- wells classic 1949 novel (they also di-
her friend. When Bessie goes out and ever they try to have a conversation, both rected the piece), obviously have a pas-
leaves Ruth in charge of Marvins medi- parties end up seething with resentment. sion for the material, but I fearand
cine, Ruth, invariably, fails to give it to McPherson wrote Marvins Room its a good fearthat Icke and Macmil-
him. Ruth admits that she is useless, three years before he died, of complica- lan were so excited by the book, and
and, in a way, her willful uselessnessshe tions from AIDS, and its disarming in their thoughts on how to dramatize it,
talks about her ineptitude in a little girls its conventions, including the healing that they did more than the audience
voiceis what Bessie wants, despite her that takes place in the second act, as can handle. This is a measure of our
annoyance. Like most families, Ruth and Bessie starts to let go, or, more accu- limitation as audience members, not of
90 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS GASH
their talent. In a number of ways, Icke Partys edicts are laid out, he is phys-
and Macmillan have made a successful ically tortured. Icke and Macmillan in-
lm, which indirectly emphasizes how tensify the horror by turning up the
constricted the stage can be. lights and amping up the sound on the
Airstrip One, formerly known as teeth-grindingly eective music. (Na-
Great Britain, with its rotting nine- tasha Chivers and Tom Gibbons are
teenth-century houses and crazy gar- responsible for the lighting and the
den walls sagging in all directions, is sound design, respectively, and both
dened by wara war that never ends. are strong creators.) But, ultimately,
It is ruled by the Inner Party, a politi- the torture comes o as imagined and
cal regime in which having your own theatricalized; its more about what
opinion is considered a thoughtcrime. Icke and Macmillan want us to see
The Party says, WAR IS PEACE, FREE- than what Winston might feel. What
DOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS one comes to understand about the
STRENGTH. How did the world come barbaric process while watching 1984
to this? Nothing makes sense on a moral is that it generally happens in silencea
level, and so theres no way to know how silence apart from the voices that could
to be a citizen, let alone to care for your save you.
fellow-citizens. Big Brother, the Party
leader, is always watching you. And what here are a lot of voices and sounds
Big Brother sees, we see, too.
Winston keeps a diary; although this
T in Seeing You, the new im-
mersive theatre piece created and co-
is not specically outlawed, it seems rea- directed by Randy Weiner, but as I stood
sonable to expect that if it were found around with the other spectators, lis-
he would be sentenced to death or, as tening and watching, I wondered if I
Orwell says, to at least . . . twenty-ve was too old to be immersed. Weiner,
years in a forced labor camp. We see who more or less started the trend, as a
Winston writing in the library at the producer of Sleep No More, attempts
Ministry of Truth, where he works total theatre again: a spectacle that in-
with Julia (Olivia Wilde), who loves corporates dance, scripted and impro-
him, despite what she knows about him, vised dialogue, lights, music, and so on
as Inner Party members walk by, includ- to describe the horrors of the Second
ing OBrien (Reed Birney), who en- World War and how death can aect
forces the anti-individuality laws, and the psychology of lovers and the idea
Parsons (Wayne Duvall), whose big- of family. The big dierence between
chested bonhomie is at odds with the Seeing You and Sleep No More is
pinched, grief-stricken look of most of that the earlier show was lled with
Airstrip Ones residents. a mysterious creepiness that got into
Big Brother knows that the best way your bones, sending you right back
to crush your mind is by stealing your to childhood and to the claustropho-
soul, but Winston and Julia have man- bic chill of walking through a haunted
aged to hold on to theirsat least for house at a country fair, not quite believ-
a time. To convey the couples inten- ing that youd get out. Seeing You
sitylove racing against the clock is decidedly less engaging. It doesnt
Icke and Macmillan sequester them in get into your bones because its gim-
a room and videotape them as they hide mickry feels manufactured purely to
from Big Brother and endeavor to un- freak you out. Actors enact narratives
derstand what it means to make them- cheating lovers ght, closeted gay sol-
selves naked and true to each other. The diers meet and then part, a family eats
cameras are there because Big Brother dinnerthat are clichd versions of
is everywhere, but they also give Stur- the Second World War movies that
ridge and Wilde, actors Ive admired on mattered. Granted, The Best Years of
lm, a chance to do what they do best, Our Lives didnt confront queerness,
which is to relate to each other in inti- but so what? Stories about gay soldiers
mate circumstances dened by the in this contextthe show is staged in
screen, not by stagecraft. a former meatpacking warehouse across
Eventually, Winston is found out, the street from a designer shopping
and, during a series of excruciating ex- emporiumfeel designer-driven; noth-
changes with OBrien, in which the ings organic here, not even death.
in crayon by a child. He even has eye-
THE CURRENT CINEMA holes, though presumably no eyes to
peer through them. Unlike the bogey-
COME BACK
man, C is pure spirit.
Whats surprising, given that we
never see the face of the deceased, and
A Ghost Story and Okja. that his hands are covered, is how ex-
pressive Aeck manages to be, supply-
BY ANTHONY LANE ing a jolt to his statuesque calm and his
yearning motions alike. The loveliest
and the loneliest sight in the lm is a
wide shot of a grassy eld, with a pale
sun above and, in the bottom right, the
small white spectre, plodding along, the
hem of his sheet dragging behind like
the train of a wedding dress. Not that
he is lost. On the contrary, he is head-
ing home from the morgue, toward the
single-story house that he shared with
M. And there he will stay.
We talk of being haunted by a fatal
mistake, but Lowerys lm is prompted
by geographical woe: ghosts linger in
one place because it contains some-
body they love and can no longer have.
Whatever M does, C is right there,
gazing upon her, unsuspected, and
largely unstirred. On rare occasions, he
David Lowerys lm nds unexpected depths of pathos in the act of haunting. wields the powers of a poltergeist
causing the lights to icker in fury, say,
I ninhis1957,short novel Pnin, published

Vladimir Nabokov wrote:
Orchard. Only much later in the movie
do we discover the source of the noise,
and only in the nal credits will the
when she brings a guy home. Eventu-
ally, she packs up and moves away, but
even then C remains on the spot, as if
Pnin slowly walked under the solemn pines.
The sky was dying. He did not believe in an lovers be identied. She is M (Rooney the time they once enjoyed there were
autocratic God. He did believe, dimly, in a de- Mara), he is C (Casey Aeck), and more precious than M herself. New
mocracy of ghosts. The souls of the dead, per- thats that. residentsa single mother with two
haps, formed committees, and these, in con- The next morning, Cs life is over. kidsshow up, and their contentment
tinuous session, attended to the destinies of
the quick.
Having left the house, he is seen enrages C; plates are tugged from
slumped against the steering wheel of shelves and ung across the room. Later,
I happen to nd this the most beau- a crashed car. (The crash itself, like during another tenancy, a prolix party-
tiful passage in all Nabokov. (Substi- other major incidents, occurs oscreen; goer drones on about eternity, asking
tute living for quick, and the eect in this lm, aftermath is everything.) what, if anything, will survive it. In an-
is halved.) Moreover, the creed that he At the morgue, M views the body, swer to that conundrum, the sheeted
sketches out seems far from implausi- which is draped in a white sheet; she observer sticks around while years of
ble, though I have often wondered what exits, there is a lengthy pause, and then habitation, or empty desolation, roll
form the attending might take. Now, the sheet sits up. For every viewer who by. He is there in the future, when the
thanks to A Ghost Story, a new lm snickers at this, I reckon, there will be modest house is pulled down and an
by David Lowery, we have some sort another who accepts it without a shiver, oce building erected in its stead, and
of clue. Only a clue, mind you; the ques- and a third who will be faintly freaked he is there in the distant past, when a
tions that Lowery raises hang in the out. A Ghost Story is seldom a scary pioneer family pitches camp, and the
air, like motes of dust, long after the movie, but it comes from scary stock; father stakes his claimknocking poles
movie is done. the last gure to sit up like that, with into the earth, to mark his dwelling
It starts with two people in bed. such sudden purpose, was the white- place.
They murmur, canoodle, and doze as masked bogeyman who lay on the oor All this is a far cry from Lowerys
the hours grow small, only to be awak- behind Jamie Lee Curtis, in Hallow- last work, Petes Dragon (2016), the
ened by a soundhard to place, but een (1978). He also stood very still, clad Disney tale of a Mowgli-like kid who
akin to the deep twang of a spring, or in a white sheet, and that is what C scampers through the forests of the
to the melancholy breaking of a string wears, for the rest of this movie, re- wild American north with his giant
that Chekhov species in The Cherry sembling every basic ghost ever drawn green companion. But try watching
92 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY BYRON EGGENSCHWILER
that movies rst six minutesa match- someone, the second ghost says, or Okja lives in the high hills of South
less mini-drama of wonder and dread, signals. Who? C asks, to which the Korea, where she gambols with her
which, like A Ghost Story, arises from other replies, I dont remember. best friend, a human teen-ager named
the trauma of a road accident. As for Imagine such exchanges being car- Mija (the remarkable Ahn Seo-hyun).
Mara and Aeck, they have teamed ried on across the land, as though Their days are Edenic, and therefore
up with Lowery before, on Aint Them invisible neighbors were chatting over doomed to irruption. Okja is the prize
Bodies Saints (2013), in which they the garden fence, and you reach Nabo- exhibit of an evil corporation (satire
play another loving couple, though fate kovs democracy of ghosts. It turns has never been Bongs subtlest suit),
and justice often keep them apart. The out to be neither high-own nor mys- which plans to transport her rst to its
throb of separation clearly nags at Low- tical but, rather, rueful and downbeat. headquarters, in Seoul, then to New
ery, as does the elasticity of time: the And it leads to the saddest detail of York, where she will be put on public
way in which it hops ahead like a skip- all, when, years later, the second ghost, show, and, nallythis is less well ad-
ping stone, describes a circle, or slows standing on the rubble of his demol- vertisedto the slaughterhouse. Mija,
to an intolerable crawl. A Ghost Story ished home, says, I dont think theyre needless to say, has other ideas.
takes this to ludicrous lengths as M, coming. At this precise instant, he During a Bong movie, you cant quite
seated on the kitchen oor, feeds her foldsjust crumples and drops, leav- tell where it will tug you next, either
grief by consuming almost an entire ing nothing but a wrinkled sheet on in mood or in the zigzag of the plot,
pie. The challenge, for us, is to witness the ground. The waiting was all he had. and even afterward you cant be sure
every chomp, and theres no break in I must have watched special eects what youve seen. Okja is a fairy tale
the scene until shes done. Let us pray worth hundreds of millions of dollars of sorts, though too foulmouthed for
that Mara nailed it on the rst take. this year, but nothing has rent the heart children; it nips from pastoral bliss to
One occupational hazard, for any as much as this plain low-budget col- a terrorist pig-napping by the Animal
ghost story, is that the quick may prove lapse, and it makes you wonder: Was Liberation Front; and it takes the
less interesting than the dead, and Low- that a soul in Purgatory, and is he now eco-menace from Bongs sublime The
ery doesnt quite avoid the trap. Nol at peace? Or do the dead themselves Host (2006) and replays the fright as
Coward saw it coming in Blithe Spirit, pass on, living here until their hopeless farce, with a spirited turn from Tilda
and gave us Madame Arcati, the me- cause expires, and dying thus around us Swinton, as the company boss, and,
dium, as a solid counterweight to his every day? Im afraid, a barely watchable one from
seductive wraith. M, by comparison, is Jake Gyllenhaal, as a drunk TV pre-
an insubstantial presence, not helped he latest lm from Bong Joon-ho senter. What makes the jumble cohere,
by her lack of a name. (Are those ini-
tials meant to give the characters a tinge
T is called Okja, and the title re-
fers to a pig. Not just any pig, either,
as usual with Bong, is his extraordi-
nary grasp of space and speed, espe-
of the universal? Bad idea. No lovers but a superpigone of a new race of cially in the Korean half of the lm.
like to think of themselves as generic.) porkers being bred, with a little help Look at Mija haring down steep in-
The ghost, on the other hand, grows from genetic mutation, to solve the clines, or along city streets, in pursuit
ever more imposing, and the movies global food crisis. Okja is among the of the travelling beast. As we follow
most touching spectacleits also the rst alumni of the program, and shes the girls progress, and feel her rising
funniestis that of C standing at the a honey: sweet of temper, loyal, and in- panic, we realize that she loves her bul-
window and waving to another ghost, telligent. To look at, shes mud-colored bous playmate, and why not? Okja is
in the adjacent house. Neither can and oddly snoutless, with stomping a pearl among swine.
speak, but their gestures are subtitled, feet instead of trotters. In terms of size,
implying that the departed have a lan- she ranks halfway between hippo and NEWYORKER.COM
guage of their own. Im waiting for the Hindenburg. Richard Brody blogs about movies.
THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT 2017 COND NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
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CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST
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 Joe Dator,
must be received by Sunday, July 16th. The finalists in the June 26th contest appear below. We will
announce the winner, and the finalists in this weeks contest, in the July 31st issue. Anyone age thirteen
or older can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.
THIS WEEKS CONTEST

..........................................................................................................................
THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION
Its never done.

Wendy MacLeod, Gambier, Ohio
Ask the kids how they want their backpacks. Put it down slowlythe mothers are
Jason Newport, Durham, N.C. very protective of their young.
Nicholas Pigg, Okemos, Mich.
Did I mention I quit my job today?
Mark E. Hoffman, Birmingham, Ala.

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What are some of the main articles and sections covered in the issue?

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What literary works or authors are discussed in the book reviews?

What literary works or authors are discussed in the book reviews?

PRICE $8.

99 JULY 10 & 17, 2017

5 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

23 THE TALK OF THE TOWN

RIGHT: CAROLYN DRAKE/MAGNUM

PODCAST PHOTO BOOTH

THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 3

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

6 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017

10 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017

THE THEATRE Hamlet

A Midsummer Nights Dream

New York Musical Festival

Opening Skinners Box

12 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 13

Davalois Fearon Dance

INSITU Site-Specific Dance Festival

Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival

THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 15

Morgan Library and Museum

THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 17

18 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017

Bastille Day band 79.5 performs, followed by a live art experi-

20 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017

TABLES FOR TWO turmeric, saron, and prunesyou dip

THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 21

ple of these United States, at this very hour.

THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 27

THE KYRGIOS ENIGMA

yrgios is hardly the rst to strug-

THE MUELLER PROBE

THE FUTURE IS TEXAS

hen Frederick Law Olm- NPR. It is progressive, blue, reason-

W sted passed through Texas,

he twelve members of the Texas

O glimpse of white clothing. He

THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 71

THE PLOT THICKENS

russian blue is the name of a ferro-

BRIEFLY NOTED remembrance, which now occurs the

THE SICK ROOM

I ninhis1957,short novel Pnin, published

THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2017 93

THIS WEEKS CONTEST

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

Its never done.

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