newyorker--2020-04-20--Kathleen Collins’s Otherworldly Women

Kathleen Collins’s Otherworldly Women

Good news , these past four years , has been vanishingly sparse , like a handful of lilies in a fallow field .
One of the brightest of these rare flowers is the renewal of interest in the filmmaker , playwright , and fiction writer Kathleen Collins , who died , at the age of forty-six , in 1988 .
Under the guidance of her daughter , Nina Lorez Collins , Collins ’ s written work has come to us in a posthumous torrent , first with the 2016 short-story collection “ Whatever Happened to Interracial Love ?
, ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a Black Woman ’ s Diary , ” which includes fiction , a pair of screenplays , excerpts from Collins ’ s diary , and scripts for plays .
Her richly symbolic , formidably smart feature film “ Losing Ground , ” from 1982 , has recently been rediscovered and restored to its rightful place in the canon of nineteen-eighties independent film .
Collins was , foremost , an artist and an interpreter of the striated psyche .
Her most striking characters are black women of a creative or intellectual bent—writers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with marriage , motherhood , and work take on cosmic proportions .
In “ Losing Ground , ” Sara Rogers ( played by the actor and theatre director Seret Scott ) , a vibrant professor of philosophy whose lectures are a kind of poetry , can feel herself being eclipsed by her husband , an impulsive painter named Victor ( Bill Gunn , the director of the cult-classic vampire film “ Ganja & Hess ” ) .
Sara ’ s students can ’ t bring up her brilliance without also mentioning her marriage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s this thing they ’ ve got about my having a husband ?
” she wonders .
Her scholarship is a medium for abandon : one of the most enthralling scenes has her sitting in a library , reading ; a propulsive , half-muttered voice-over shows how meditatively and almost prayerfully she takes to the task .
In part because of her growing troubles with Victor , she conducts an ambitious study of “ the ecstatic , ” a state that her husband accesses easily but which feels alien to her .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goes to see a psychic , asking her what it feels like to “ read ” another person and see her future .
The session is unsatisfying ; the psychic can ’ t understand this scientific approach to a process that , to her , is totally intuitive .
She says she can tell that Sara is “ intelligent , ” which sends Sara into a fit of anger .
Anybody could figure that out by looking at her face .
Unsettled , she leaves and wanders toward what looks like a small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she says , just before she enters and rushes down the aisle , toward the altar , where , as if urged by some unseen force , she kneels .
“ What am I looking for ?
” The components of that scene—dispassionate inquiry , occult oddity , the search for understanding as an attempt at control , a wary but nonetheless ardent relationship with Christian imagery and thought—are even more densely woven and excruciatingly resolved in Collins ’ s one-act plays , several of which are collected in “ Notes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” In fact , it ’ s possible , just by reading three of them together , to put on a subtle , harrowing program of drama dealing with doubt , domestic confusion , and the persistent encroachments of color and of the spirit .
The plays take place in rooms that are at once specific and archetypal—a bedroom , a doctor ’ s office—and therefore seem designed to be staged in your living room .
In “ Remembrance , ” a woman approaching middle age addresses the audience directly .
Atop a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shrine—a candle , a cross , a bouquet of flowers .
She has begun , she tells us , to find God .
“ It ’ s not easy to pin down the exact moment when I went looking for God , ” she says , trailing off , but it has something to do with her sense of her unfitness for everyday life .
She ’ s a dancer by craft , and here , at home , she ’ s a distracted mother and wife .
Her husband does the cooking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hundred percent all here.
” She hides in the bathroom , trying to “ locate myself , apart from other things , ” finely slivering her own identity away from those others—husband , kids—who threaten to swallow her up .
“ I try to get them out of me !
” she says .
God helps in this endeavor , somehow .
“ He ’ s so silent , and His silence is such a lovely thing , ” she says .
Later , she prays aloud , “ Cause me to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inside Your silence and be still.
” In this paradoxical idea—that God , the ultimate showstopper , makes room for the woman instead of further constraining her—there is something reminiscent of Thomas Aquinas ’ s insistence that God isn ’ t a Big Thing among other things , competing with us creatures for glory and space to breathe but , rather , the ground upon which we stand—a kind of stage .
“ Gloria Dei vivens homo , ” the early Church father Irenaeus said : “ The glory of God is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s faith , such as it is , isn ’ t orthodox , or strictly Christian .
On the contrary , she ’ s frustrated by her fixation on the tradition of her youth .
She riffles through tropes— “ the Old Rugged Cross , the Fountain Filled with Blood ” —and snorts derisively at her mastery of them , at the idea that “ you could open the Christian language and find God.
” Her own alternate language is gilded and profane .
“ I want to pee on the living room @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flaked as it is with fake Oriental gold colors that will not be distinguishable from my fake Oriental gold urine.
” This is a horror story , with domestic normalcy as the invisible , malevolent force , and a wild , unknowable deity as a balm .
“ Remembrance ” is dedicated to Seret Scott , and it ’ s hard not to think of its protagonist as an opposite of “ Losing Ground ” ’ s Sara Rogers : instead of trying to analyze the ecstatic , this woman dives into it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Reading , ” feels like a takeoff on the psychic scene in “ Losing Ground.
” Two women—one white , one black—sit in a psychic ’ s waiting room .
The black woman , Marguerite , is a fashion designer , and the white woman , Helen , is a novelist .
There ’ s a candle that keeps going out : it stays lit only if one of the women sits before it in a lotus pose , stares at it “ belligerently , ” or meditates .
This focus on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , hinting at the visual facility that makes “ Losing Ground ” such a sensual feast for the eyes .
But , in lieu of film ’ s ability to make the sublime unspoken ( in one beautiful frame of “ Losing Ground , ” a woman dressed in a red shirt and a billowing yellow skirt stands dancing in front of a calm , blue-black lake , an image that ’ s spiritual and striking enough to occasion a library of mystical texts ) , in “ The Reading ” Collins navigates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between the races .
Helen wants to unload the facts of her life on Marguerite , who ’ s not at all interested .
The psychic—who never makes it onstage—is black , too , and it becomes clear that this accounts for much of Helen ’ s attraction to this particular practice .
Helen quotes the woman at length , adding a “ black ” accent for effect .
The women are mismatched attitudinally as well : Marguerite is impeccably put-together , while Helen has made her slacker ’ s outfit an aspect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oppositional couplet that illustrates Collins ’ s genius for icily intelligent dialogue , as cold and clarifying as Aaron Copland ’ s “ Four Piano Blues , ” the women disagree about Helen ’ s sartorial affliction .
Helen calls it “ my casualness about clothes.
” For Marguerite , it ’ s “ your unwillingness to dress.
” Still , these mutually resentful women can ’ t disengage : their womanhood , and an accompanying unease in the world , keep them yoked together , entangled in talk .
The strangest , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The Healing.
” A sick black woman , Ellen , has come to see Joe , a white healer who glides his hands around her body , applying “ energy ” to her illness .
Sometimes he holds her feet to keep them “ grounded.
” Ellen implores him not to : the gesture reminds her too much of Christ washing the feet of his disciples .
Like the woman from “ Remembrance , ” she doesn ’ t want to fall victim to iconography .
She fights her desire to sing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an old spiritual : “ Somebody ’ s crying , Lord / Come by here.
” Joe keeps applying pressure to various regions of her body , and—like so many of us , witnesses to strange happenings but unequipped to interpret them—she feels waves of relief and consolation , skeptic though she is .
Even as a thrill runs through her , she cries , “ I don ’ t even believe.
” ♦

Good news, these past four years, has been vanishingly sparse, like a handful of lilies in a fallow field. One of the brightest of these rare flowers is the renewal of interest in the filmmaker, playwright, and fiction writer Kathleen Collins, who died, at the age of forty-six, in 1988. Under the guidance of her daughter, Nina Lorez Collins, Collins’s written work has come to us in a posthumous torrent, first with the 2016 short-story collection “Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?,” then with the eclectic omnibus “Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary,” which includes fiction, a pair of screenplays, excerpts from Collins’s diary, and scripts for plays. Her richly symbolic, formidably smart feature film “Losing Ground,” from 1982, has recently been rediscovered and restored to its rightful place in the canon of nineteen-eighties independent film.
Collins was, foremost, an artist and an interpreter of the striated psyche. Her most striking characters are black women of a creative or intellectual bent—writers, dancers, designers, professors—whose quotidian struggles with marriage, motherhood, and work take on cosmic proportions. In “Losing Ground,” Sara Rogers (played by the actor and theatre director Seret Scott), a vibrant professor of philosophy whose lectures are a kind of poetry, can feel herself being eclipsed by her husband, an impulsive painter named Victor (Bill Gunn, the director of the cult-classic vampire film “Ganja & Hess”). Sara’s students can’t bring up her brilliance without also mentioning her marriage, she notices. “What’s this thing they’ve got about my having a husband?” she wonders.
Her scholarship is a medium for abandon: one of the most enthralling scenes has her sitting in a library, reading; a propulsive, half-muttered voice-over shows how meditatively and almost prayerfully she takes to the task. In part because of her growing troubles with Victor, she conducts an ambitious study of “the ecstatic,” a state that her husband accesses easily but which feels alien to her.
In one lovely and suggestive passage, Sara goes to see a psychic, asking her what it feels like to “read” another person and see her future. The session is unsatisfying; the psychic can’t understand this scientific approach to a process that, to her, is totally intuitive. She says she can tell that Sara is “intelligent,” which sends Sara into a fit of anger. Anybody could figure that out by looking at her face. Unsettled, she leaves and wanders toward what looks like a small Catholic church. “This is ridiculous,” she says, just before she enters and rushes down the aisle, toward the altar, where, as if urged by some unseen force, she kneels. “What am I looking for?”
The components of that scene—dispassionate inquiry, occult oddity, the search for understanding as an attempt at control, a wary but nonetheless ardent relationship with Christian imagery and thought—are even more densely woven and excruciatingly resolved in Collins’s one-act plays, several of which are collected in “Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary.” In fact, it’s possible, just by reading three of them together, to put on a subtle, harrowing program of drama dealing with doubt, domestic confusion, and the persistent encroachments of color and of the spirit. The plays take place in rooms that are at once specific and archetypal—a bedroom, a doctor’s office—and therefore seem designed to be staged in your living room.
In “Remembrance,” a woman approaching middle age addresses the audience directly. Atop a dresser, she has erected a simple shrine—a candle, a cross, a bouquet of flowers. She has begun, she tells us, to find God. “It’s not easy to pin down the exact moment when I went looking for God,” she says, trailing off, but it has something to do with her sense of her unfitness for everyday life. She’s a dancer by craft, and here, at home, she’s a distracted mother and wife. Her husband does the cooking and shoulders the burden of being “a hundred percent all here.” She hides in the bathroom, trying to “locate myself, apart from other things,” finely slivering her own identity away from those others—husband, kids—who threaten to swallow her up. “I try to get them out of me!” she says.
God helps in this endeavor, somehow. “He’s so silent, and His silence is such a lovely thing,” she says. Later, she prays aloud, “Cause me to remember that I may locate myself forever inside Your silence and be still.” In this paradoxical idea—that God, the ultimate showstopper, makes room for the woman instead of further constraining her—there is something reminiscent of Thomas Aquinas’s insistence that God isn’t a Big Thing among other things, competing with us creatures for glory and space to breathe but, rather, the ground upon which we stand—a kind of stage. “Gloria Dei vivens homo,” the early Church father Irenaeus said: “The glory of God is the living man.”
But the woman’s faith, such as it is, isn’t orthodox, or strictly Christian. On the contrary, she’s frustrated by her fixation on the tradition of her youth. She riffles through tropes—“the Old Rugged Cross, the Fountain Filled with Blood”—and snorts derisively at her mastery of them, at the idea that “you could open the Christian language and find God.” Her own alternate language is gilded and profane. “I want to pee on the living room rug,” she says, “flaked as it is with fake Oriental gold colors that will not be distinguishable from my fake Oriental gold urine.” This is a horror story, with domestic normalcy as the invisible, malevolent force, and a wild, unknowable deity as a balm.
“Remembrance” is dedicated to Seret Scott, and it’s hard not to think of its protagonist as an opposite of “Losing Ground” ’s Sara Rogers: instead of trying to analyze the ecstatic, this woman dives into it head first. Another play, “The Reading,” feels like a takeoff on the psychic scene in “Losing Ground.” Two women—one white, one black—sit in a psychic’s waiting room. The black woman, Marguerite, is a fashion designer, and the white woman, Helen, is a novelist. There’s a candle that keeps going out: it stays lit only if one of the women sits before it in a lotus pose, stares at it “belligerently,” or meditates.
This focus on light sharpens as the play winds on, hinting at the visual facility that makes “Losing Ground” such a sensual feast for the eyes. But, in lieu of film’s ability to make the sublime unspoken (in one beautiful frame of “Losing Ground,” a woman dressed in a red shirt and a billowing yellow skirt stands dancing in front of a calm, blue-black lake, an image that’s spiritual and striking enough to occasion a library of mystical texts), in “The Reading” Collins navigates there by way of an exasperating clash between the races.
Helen wants to unload the facts of her life on Marguerite, who’s not at all interested. The psychic—who never makes it onstage—is black, too, and it becomes clear that this accounts for much of Helen’s attraction to this particular practice. Helen quotes the woman at length, adding a “black” accent for effect. The women are mismatched attitudinally as well: Marguerite is impeccably put-together, while Helen has made her slacker’s outfit an aspect of her personality. In a sharp oppositional couplet that illustrates Collins’s genius for icily intelligent dialogue, as cold and clarifying as Aaron Copland’s “Four Piano Blues,” the women disagree about Helen’s sartorial affliction. Helen calls it “my casualness about clothes.” For Marguerite, it’s “your unwillingness to dress.” Still, these mutually resentful women can’t disengage: their womanhood, and an accompanying unease in the world, keep them yoked together, entangled in talk.
The strangest, perhaps, is an abstract play called “The Healing.” A sick black woman, Ellen, has come to see Joe, a white healer who glides his hands around her body, applying “energy” to her illness. Sometimes he holds her feet to keep them “grounded.” Ellen implores him not to: the gesture reminds her too much of Christ washing the feet of his disciples. Like the woman from “Remembrance,” she doesn’t want to fall victim to iconography. She fights her desire to sing along with Joe to the refrain of an old spiritual: “Somebody’s crying, Lord / Come by here.” Joe keeps applying pressure to various regions of her body, and—like so many of us, witnesses to strange happenings but unequipped to interpret them—she feels waves of relief and consolation, skeptic though she is. Even as a thrill runs through her, she cries, “I don’t even believe.” ♦


newyorker--2020-04-21--What the Coronavirus Means for Europe’s Future

Jean Monnet , one of the founding fathers of the European Union , wrote in his memoirs , in 1978 , that Europe “ would be built through crises , and that it would be the sum of their solutions.
” Had Monnet lived to today , he surely would have been disappointed with the way that many E.U .
members initially responded to the coronavirus pandemic .
When the disease reached the Continent , it was almost as if countries became oblivious of their neighbors—the tenets of the union seemed to vanish when they were needed most .
From @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transnational health crisis as they would a terrorist threat : as a domestic issue .
Borders across the Schengen Area closed , the single market was called into question , and each country adopted its own public-health measures .
On March 13th , nearly two months after the Chinese city of Wuhan went into lockdown , the World Health Organization declared Europe to be “ the epicenter of the pandemic , ” and the shortfalls of isolated action became clear .
To understand how Europe has dealt with COVID-19 , I interviewed health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hit the hardest : Italy , Spain , and France .
Silvestro Scotti , the head of the National Federation of Doctors and General Practitioners , spoke about the tragic toll that the disease has taken on health workers in Italy , where more than a hundred doctors have died battling the virus .
Antoni Trilla , who oversees the preventive-medicine and epidemiology unit at one of Spain ’ s most prestigious public hospitals and is an adviser to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez , reflected on the speed with which the pandemic unfolded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ epidemiologist and the director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva , elaborated on the lack of global leadership during the COVID-19 crisis .
Each of the experts offered insight into how European countries responded to the worst pandemic in a century .
As of mid-April , more than a million coronavirus infections have been recorded across Europe—around half of the world ’ s confirmed cases .
With more than twenty-two thousand fatalities , Italy has the highest death toll of any European nation , followed by Spain and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by each government may have been , all three countries have had to confront similar challenges : securing medical provisions , protecting health-care workers , and finding ways to reduce the daily number of new cases .
Their measures of success—or failure—reflect a lasting disparity in resources , evident in the number of available critical-care beds or the budget allocated for health .
( According to the O.E.C.D.
, Italy and Spain spend roughly three thousand dollars per capita on health every year—nearly half of Germany ’ s spending . )
Such disparities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the months to come , as members of the E.U .
grapple with soaring debt levels , massive unemployment , and shattered economies .
Here , again , national self-interests will hover over the principle of solidarity .
COVID-19 is among the myriad crises that Europe has endured in recent years—Brexit , terror attacks , an influx of Syrian and Libyan refugees .
Euroskeptic voices will likely emerge stronger in the aftermath of the pandemic , and parties such as the anti-E.U .
Five Star Movement will no doubt exploit the fact that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help , after the E.U .
refused to provide the medical aid that it had requested .
Yet there is still time for members to make amends and to emerge from this crisis in a coördinated fashion , to judiciously implement a European stimulus plan , and to see beyond the Continent ’ s traditional north-south fractures .
Fundamentally , there is still time for Europe to show that the sum of its solutions can prove greater than its missteps .
• How to practice social distancing , from responding to a sick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordering food .
• How the coronavirus behaves inside of a patient .
• Can survivors help cure the disease and rescue the economy ?
• The long crusade of Dr. Anthony Fauci , the infectious-disease expert pinned between Donald Trump and the American people .
• The success of Hong Kong and Singapore in stemming the spread holds lessons for how to contain it in the United States .
• The coronavirus is likely to spread for more than a year before a vaccine is widely available .
• With each new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new treatment .
Can we prepare antivirals to combat the next global crisis ?
• How pandemics have propelled public-health innovations , prefigured revolutions , and redrawn maps .
• What to read , watch , cook , and listen to under coronavirus quarantine .

Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, wrote in his memoirs, in 1978, that Europe “would be built through crises, and that it would be the sum of their solutions.” Had Monnet lived to today, he surely would have been disappointed with the way that many E.U. members initially responded to the coronavirus pandemic. When the disease reached the Continent, it was almost as if countries became oblivious of their neighbors—the tenets of the union seemed to vanish when they were needed most. From Germany to Spain, governments treated the transnational health crisis as they would a terrorist threat: as a domestic issue. Borders across the Schengen Area closed, the single market was called into question, and each country adopted its own public-health measures. On March 13th, nearly two months after the Chinese city of Wuhan went into lockdown, the World Health Organization declared Europe to be “the epicenter of the pandemic,” and the shortfalls of isolated action became clear.
To understand how Europe has dealt with COVID-19, I interviewed health experts from the countries that have been hit the hardest: Italy, Spain, and France. Silvestro Scotti, the head of the National Federation of Doctors and General Practitioners, spoke about the tragic toll that the disease has taken on health workers in Italy, where more than a hundred doctors have died battling the virus. Antoni Trilla, who oversees the preventive-medicine and epidemiology unit at one of Spain’s most prestigious public hospitals and is an adviser to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, reflected on the speed with which the pandemic unfolded. And Antoine Flahault, a French epidemiologist and the director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, elaborated on the lack of global leadership during the COVID-19 crisis. Each of the experts offered insight into how European countries responded to the worst pandemic in a century.
As of mid-April, more than a million coronavirus infections have been recorded across Europe—around half of the world’s confirmed cases. With more than twenty-two thousand fatalities, Italy has the highest death toll of any European nation, followed by Spain and France. However distinct the approach taken by each government may have been, all three countries have had to confront similar challenges: securing medical provisions, protecting health-care workers, and finding ways to reduce the daily number of new cases. Their measures of success—or failure—reflect a lasting disparity in resources, evident in the number of available critical-care beds or the budget allocated for health. (According to the O.E.C.D., Italy and Spain spend roughly three thousand dollars per capita on health every year—nearly half of Germany’s spending.) Such disparities will become all the more evident in the months to come, as members of the E.U. grapple with soaring debt levels, massive unemployment, and shattered economies. Here, again, national self-interests will hover over the principle of solidarity.
COVID-19 is among the myriad crises that Europe has endured in recent years—Brexit, terror attacks, an influx of Syrian and Libyan refugees. Euroskeptic voices will likely emerge stronger in the aftermath of the pandemic, and parties such as the anti-E.U. Five Star Movement will no doubt exploit the fact that Italy had to turn to China for help, after the E.U. refused to provide the medical aid that it had requested. Yet there is still time for members to make amends and to emerge from this crisis in a coördinated fashion, to judiciously implement a European stimulus plan, and to see beyond the Continent’s traditional north-south fractures. Fundamentally, there is still time for Europe to show that the sum of its solutions can prove greater than its missteps.
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-04-21--“Some Days I Feel Like I’m Melting”: How Single Mothers in New York City Are Coping with Quarantine

Shoshana Cherson ’ s husband died suddenly in early 2019 , when their daughter was a year old .
She had been working as a doula but couldn ’ t keep a job with such uncertain hours as a single mother .
By last fall , she had found a daytime shift as a restaurant server at Jeannie ’ s , inside a Nordstrom in Manhattan , and put her daughter in a day care near her home , in Crown Heights .
On weekends , she arranged playdates with friends and their young children .
A year out from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beginning to feel less lonely , ” Cherson , who is thirty-five , said .
“ Our life was starting to hit a nice groove.
” Now , as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic , the restaurant and day care are closed .
Playdates are out .
Basic tasks that are always more complicated when alone with a toddler—shopping for groceries , dropping off laundry—are suddenly nerve-racking .
It can take a week or more to nab a grocery-delivery slot in New York , so Cherson is always running out of food @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paper .
She is using her husband ’ s life insurance to cover her rent and expenses , but she will blow through that soon .
Worst of all , she feels isolated , unmoored .
“ Being a single parent is really lonely , even when you ’ re not social-distancing , ” Cherson said .
“ The whole support system I had put in place to keep me going has now completely fallen apart.
” Almost a quarter of all children in the United States live with a single parent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world .
In New York , the American city that has been hardest hit by the pandemic , more than four hundred and twenty-five thousand children live with single parents , most of them single mothers .
The COVID-19 crisis and its economic fallout are hurting all parents , but there is good reason to believe that the burdens are falling disproportionately on single mothers , many of whom were already struggling .
( Census Bureau data from 2018 show that , among black and Latinx single mothers in the city , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cent and fifty-six per cent , respectively . )
In past recessions , job losses skewed male .
In the Great Recession , men lost nearly eighty per cent of the jobs .
Marina Adshade , a faculty member at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia , who studies the role of women in society , noted that , even in the Great Depression , women often kept working , and many others joined the workforce , mostly as teachers , nurses , clerical workers , and domestic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less , but they were more stable .
“ In the past , if you were a single mother working as a waitress , you ’ d be fine , ” Adshade said .
“ Your tips may have been lower , but you ’ d keep your job.
” This time around , though , many of the industries that employ large numbers of women , such as child care , housekeeping , hospitality , retail , travel , and the service sector , are imploding .
Many of the jobs dominated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the upper ranks of management in most industries—are still mostly intact .
Statistics from several states show that a majority of unemployment claims are coming from women ; in New York State , more than half of new claims filed in the last two weeks of March were from women , compared with a historical average of thirty-seven per cent .
What ’ s more , those numbers don ’ t take freelancers and the gig economy into account—more than a month into lockdown , the process for applying for benefits as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Freelancers use the 1099 federal tax form to report income . )
“ The low-wage jobs that kept women working are going away , and they rarely have protection like severance pay or unemployment insurance , ” Adshade said .
“ I don ’ t know how many single mothers realistically have jobs they can do at home.
” Teana Mendoza , a twenty-one-year-old single mother of three children , ages two to six , was scraping by with a job at a small shop in Harlem .
Her eldest child was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a free Head Start day-care program , and all three qualified for free breakfast and lunch .
Mendoza earned enough to rent a room for the four of them in the Bronx and make a decent dinner every night .
But when she got laid off from her job , close to a month ago , she also lost their room .
“ Right now im just going from home to home of my friends .
.
.
.
im scared to take my kids to the shelter and they get sick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mendoza wrote to me , using Twitter D.M .
because she hasn ’ t paid her phone bill .
She tries to get food from local pantries , but they are usually bare by the time she arrives .
Because she was working off the books , she can ’ t file for unemployment .
When I was in touch with her , she was down to two diapers .
Her oldest child keeps asking when she can sleep in her own bed again .
For single mothers fortunate enough to have kept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Times , one in three jobs held by women has been categorized as essential during the pandemic—lives that were already hard now feel unmanageable .
Simone Colbert , a thirty-two-year-old city employee , is trying to work from home alongside her two sons , who are five and ten .
Because she lives across from Brookdale Hospital , in East Flatbush , she is nervous about letting her children go outside , despite their restlessness .
The local sidewalks these days are often full of hospital staff and sick people coming and going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ older son has asthma .
“ There ’ s a semi truck behind Brookdale , because the morgue is at capacity .
That ’ s really scary , ” she said .
Her fidgety younger son now spends a lot of time running around and around their apartment .
One day last week , she begged him to stop—she was having trouble hearing a Webinar for work , and she worried that their neighbors would complain about the noise—and he started to cry .
Now she is more indulgent .
“ They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sigh .
“ Hopefully , my neighbors understand.
” Juggling to get everything done is starting to feel overwhelming , she said .
“ It ’ s difficult for me to do my work and be the chef and be the teacher and find time for self-care .
Some days , I feel like I ’ m melting , ” Colbert told me over the phone .
In the background , a small voice could be heard asking , “ How do you spell ‘ April ’ ?
” Adshade ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a single mother in Canada , where health care is free , unmarried couples enjoy many of the same benefits as married ones , and anyone who has lost a job receives two thousand dollars a month , with extra benefits for any children .
In America , where health-care costs are often prohibitive and tied to now precarious or nonexistent employment , and where those who have lost their jobs rarely have savings , Adshade suspects many will emerge from the pandemic thinking , The only way to insure myself against risk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family is faring so much better than all other family types right now .

Shoshana Cherson’s husband died suddenly in early 2019, when their daughter was a year old. She had been working as a doula but couldn’t keep a job with such uncertain hours as a single mother. By last fall, she had found a daytime shift as a restaurant server at Jeannie’s, inside a Nordstrom in Manhattan, and put her daughter in a day care near her home, in Crown Heights. On weekends, she arranged playdates with friends and their young children. A year out from becoming a widow, “we were beginning to feel less lonely,” Cherson, who is thirty-five, said. “Our life was starting to hit a nice groove.”
Now, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant and day care are closed. Playdates are out. Basic tasks that are always more complicated when alone with a toddler—shopping for groceries, dropping off laundry—are suddenly nerve-racking. It can take a week or more to nab a grocery-delivery slot in New York, so Cherson is always running out of food; some friends recently gave her toilet paper. She is using her husband’s life insurance to cover her rent and expenses, but she will blow through that soon. Worst of all, she feels isolated, unmoored. “Being a single parent is really lonely, even when you’re not social-distancing,” Cherson said. “The whole support system I had put in place to keep me going has now completely fallen apart.”
Almost a quarter of all children in the United States live with a single parent, a higher share than anywhere else in the world. In New York, the American city that has been hardest hit by the pandemic, more than four hundred and twenty-five thousand children live with single parents, most of them single mothers. The COVID-19 crisis and its economic fallout are hurting all parents, but there is good reason to believe that the burdens are falling disproportionately on single mothers, many of whom were already struggling. (Census Bureau data from 2018 show that, among black and Latinx single mothers in the city, the child poverty rate was forty-six per cent and fifty-six per cent, respectively.)
In past recessions, job losses skewed male. In the Great Recession, men lost nearly eighty per cent of the jobs. Marina Adshade, a faculty member at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia, who studies the role of women in society, noted that, even in the Great Depression, women often kept working, and many others joined the workforce, mostly as teachers, nurses, clerical workers, and domestic laborers. The jobs may have paid less, but they were more stable. “In the past, if you were a single mother working as a waitress, you’d be fine,” Adshade said. “Your tips may have been lower, but you’d keep your job.”
This time around, though, many of the industries that employ large numbers of women, such as child care, housekeeping, hospitality, retail, travel, and the service sector, are imploding. Many of the jobs dominated by men—truck driving, warehouse work, and the upper ranks of management in most industries—are still mostly intact. Statistics from several states show that a majority of unemployment claims are coming from women; in New York State, more than half of new claims filed in the last two weeks of March were from women, compared with a historical average of thirty-seven per cent. What’s more, those numbers don’t take freelancers and the gig economy into account—more than a month into lockdown, the process for applying for benefits as a 1099 worker is still inchoate. (Freelancers use the 1099 federal tax form to report income.) “The low-wage jobs that kept women working are going away, and they rarely have protection like severance pay or unemployment insurance,” Adshade said. “I don’t know how many single mothers realistically have jobs they can do at home.”
Teana Mendoza, a twenty-one-year-old single mother of three children, ages two to six, was scraping by with a job at a small shop in Harlem. Her eldest child was in school, her younger two were in a free Head Start day-care program, and all three qualified for free breakfast and lunch. Mendoza earned enough to rent a room for the four of them in the Bronx and make a decent dinner every night. But when she got laid off from her job, close to a month ago, she also lost their room. “Right now im just going from home to home of my friends. . . . im scared to take my kids to the shelter and they get sick with this virus going on,” Mendoza wrote to me, using Twitter D.M. because she hasn’t paid her phone bill. She tries to get food from local pantries, but they are usually bare by the time she arrives. Because she was working off the books, she can’t file for unemployment. When I was in touch with her, she was down to two diapers. Her oldest child keeps asking when she can sleep in her own bed again.
For single mothers fortunate enough to have kept their jobs—according to an analysis by the Times, one in three jobs held by women has been categorized as essential during the pandemic—lives that were already hard now feel unmanageable. Simone Colbert, a thirty-two-year-old city employee, is trying to work from home alongside her two sons, who are five and ten. Because she lives across from Brookdale Hospital, in East Flatbush, she is nervous about letting her children go outside, despite their restlessness. The local sidewalks these days are often full of hospital staff and sick people coming and going from the emergency room, and her older son has asthma. “There’s a semi truck behind Brookdale, because the morgue is at capacity. That’s really scary,” she said. Her fidgety younger son now spends a lot of time running around and around their apartment. One day last week, she begged him to stop—she was having trouble hearing a Webinar for work, and she worried that their neighbors would complain about the noise—and he started to cry. Now she is more indulgent. “They’re kids,” Colbert said with a sigh. “Hopefully, my neighbors understand.”
Juggling to get everything done is starting to feel overwhelming, she said. “It’s difficult for me to do my work and be the chef and be the teacher and find time for self-care. Some days, I feel like I’m melting,” Colbert told me over the phone. In the background, a small voice could be heard asking, “How do you spell ‘April’?”
Adshade’s research is informed by her experiences as a single mother in Canada, where health care is free, unmarried couples enjoy many of the same benefits as married ones, and anyone who has lost a job receives two thousand dollars a month, with extra benefits for any children. In America, where health-care costs are often prohibitive and tied to now precarious or nonexistent employment, and where those who have lost their jobs rarely have savings, Adshade suspects many will emerge from the pandemic thinking, The only way to insure myself against risk is a traditional family. The traditional family is faring so much better than all other family types right now.
But a conventional nuclear family can feel out of reach even for those who already bought into the promise of marriage. Nadia, a thirty-two-year-old mother of two children, who are eight and ten, in Forest Hills, Queens, got married at twenty and dropped out of college when she became pregnant two years later. She planned to return to school after a few years at home, but money was too tight to pay for the child care she needed to attend classes. By the time the kids were four and five, her marriage was unravelling, and she started taking whatever jobs she could find: assistant to an optometrist, administrator in a doctor’s office, receptionist at a home-care agency. When the agency folded, a couple of years after her divorce, she spent most of her savings. She got a temp job at a nonprofit, then lost that job in February. She now has only a few hundred dollars in the bank. Child-support payments from her ex-husband have faded out, and the pandemic keeps her from taking him to court. When she received her stimulus check, it went straight to her landlord, whom she had not yet paid this month.
“I sat my children down and said, ‘Please, do not get married until you’ve dated the person for two years, lived with them for another two years, and know you can tolerate every inch of them,’ ” Nadia told me. She let out a small, dark laugh. “ ‘Don’t do what I did.’ ”
In coverage of how the pandemic has affected families with small children, amid observations of bickering couples and stir-crazy kids, there have been stories about how sheltering in place is bringing families together: they are apparently rediscovering the joy of the family dinner, while homebound fathers are pitching in more with housework and child care. Now that employers are discovering how much work can be done remotely, there is talk that those who are lucky enough to keep their jobs may be in a position to ask for more flexible work arrangements and a better work-life balance when stay-at-home orders are lifted.


newyorker--2020-04-21--Sarah Shun-lien Bynum Reads “Bedtime Story”

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum reads her story from the April 27 , 2020 , issue of the magazine .
Bynum is @ @ @ @ @ , “ Madeleine Is Sleeping ” and “ Ms .
Hempel Chronicles.
” Her story @ @ @ @ @ ” will be published in September .

Photograph by Mara Casey
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum reads her story from the April 27, 2020, issue of the magazine. Bynum is the author of two novels, “Madeleine Is Sleeping” and “Ms. Hempel Chronicles.” Her story collection, “Likes,” will be published in September.


newyorker--2020-04-21--Jeffrey Sachs on the Catastrophic American Response to the Coronavirus

In the early nineties , the economist Jeffrey Sachs was known as a “ shock therapist , ” for advising the Soviet Union on its controversial transition to a free-market economy .
Since then , Sachs has shifted his focus to poverty alleviation and international development , becoming one of the most visible academics in the world .
His book “ The End of Poverty , ” from 2005 , imagined a globe free of the worst forms of destitution ; Sachs also attributed misgovernment in much of Africa to poverty , rather than the other way around .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economists and development experts who were more skeptical about the impact of foreign aid . )
From 2002 to 2016 , Sachs was the director of Columbia University ’ s Earth Institute ; he is currently a professor at the university and an adviser to the United Nations .
He endorsed Bernie Sanders for President in January and has occasionally advised the senator .
I recently spoke by phone with Sachs about the coronavirus and the challenges that the crisis poses to international coöperation and the world economy .
In our conversation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clarity , we also discussed the root causes of American decline , why some poorer countries have so far avoided large outbreaks , and how Donald Trump has failed to meet even the low expectations that internationalists have for the United States .
One dominant theme in the coverage of the coronavirus has been the supposed trade-off between the economy and our health .
In a short-term or a long-term sense , do you accept that premise ?
The only way to have a viable economy and society is to control this epidemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a trade-off .
The question is how to be effective in controlling the epidemic and driving the transmission of the disease to very low levels .
Simply letting the virus run through the society would be unacceptably costly , and that ’ s why essentially no country in the world is doing that .
The real issue is to be effective in the response , and unfortunately the United States has not been effective so far .
Did any lessons you learned working in countries around the world inform your opinion of how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There are many aspects of any major crisis that are similar in character , in that they require governments to assess the situation with sophistication , to identify options , to come up with strategies , and to implement them .
Crisis management has a lot of common points .
The nature of the crisis could be geopolitical .
It could be a climate-related shock or a disease .
I would say the core issues are the capacity of political leaders and their inner team , and the capacity of the institutions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to process information in a timely way and to be able to harness expert advice and evidence in a timely way .
We live in a complicated world .
If you try to wing it , as Trump does , you end up with more than forty thousand deaths .
If you want to solve a problem , you have to be systematic about it , and know whom to turn to and how to listen and amass evidence .
For politicians , that doesn ’ t necessarily come naturally , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come at all .
Is there some leader Trump reminds you of whom you ’ ve worked with ?
Trump is the worst political leader I have experienced in all of my professional life , which is forty years of working with governments at a high level .
I ’ ve never seen anything like the narcissism of this man , and here we are , a country so rich in expertise , in resources , in capacities , and yet we ’ re watching a complete failure of a political response—with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s quite shocking , because Trump not only does not know how to approach this issue but he blocks those who do .
Something you ’ ve become known for is this idea that one of the reasons there are bad governments in the world is because of poverty , rather than looking at poverty as the result of bad governance .
Is that a fair summary ?
Yeah .
That certainly is one part of it , absolutely .
Politics comes in many shapes and forms , and I was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have potentially high capacity to address problems , except that the resources aren ’ t there for that .
So the argument was that helping poor countries could actually accomplish something , because what they most fundamentally lacked was resources .
You have just finished saying that Trump is the worst leader you ’ ve ever seen .
And we are seeing leaders all around the world , even in rich countries , handling this pandemic disastrously .
These are countries with immense wealth , with immense scientific knowledge , and immense resources @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many cases atrocious .
So does that make you think at all differently about your theory ?
Well , my point was that the quality of governance is not intrinsically linked to one ’ s G.D.P .
per capita , and that a poor place , if it had more resources , could often accomplish a lot .
And I ’ d say the converse is that a rich place that ’ s badly governed accomplishes very little .
So it ’ s consistent with that idea that you don ’ t simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means bad governance .
That actually was my point fifteen years ago .
It remains my point today—that here we have rich countries but their political systems are failing the people .
Poor countries could have good responses , in fact , but often lack the means to carry them out .
We don ’ t lack the means to carry out good responses in the United States ; we lack the leadership to do so , and there are reasons for that .
Basically , American politics has become deeply corrupt over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that normal governance already collapsed many years ago .
And people with resources and knowledge know it , but they haven ’ t cared , because things have more or less gone on O.K.
, and the stock market has been booming , and even though in almost any private conversation Trump is viewed as a complete dolt and a complete incompetent , that was more or less laughed off as manageable because he wasn ’ t doing too much damage , either .
That ’ s the real situation .
Nobody here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a long time , and not because it couldn ’ t be .
It has been increasingly designed to fail .
Specifically , it ’ s been designed to respond to powerful lobbies that want deregulation or tax cuts or some special privileges rather than to function in a normal way .
And powerful people shrug their shoulders at that , because for the élites that ’ s been O.K.
, but it obviously hasn ’ t really been O.K .
for a long time .
We ’ ve had rising death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths of despair .
We ’ ve had the failure to come to grips with climate change .
We ’ ve had widening inequalities and massive suffering .
But it hasn ’ t mattered in such a visible way .
So what you were saying before was that these countries don ’ t have the resources to have good governance , but you ’ re saying now that if you do have the resources you still need all these other things that , in America , we either once had and don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because of the way our ruling class has behaved ?

In the early nineties, the economist Jeffrey Sachs was known as a “shock therapist,” for advising the Soviet Union on its controversial transition to a free-market economy. Since then, Sachs has shifted his focus to poverty alleviation and international development, becoming one of the most visible academics in the world. His book “The End of Poverty,” from 2005, imagined a globe free of the worst forms of destitution; Sachs also attributed misgovernment in much of Africa to poverty, rather than the other way around. (This thesis was much debated by other economists and development experts who were more skeptical about the impact of foreign aid.) From 2002 to 2016, Sachs was the director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute; he is currently a professor at the university and an adviser to the United Nations. He endorsed Bernie Sanders for President in January and has occasionally advised the senator.
I recently spoke by phone with Sachs about the coronavirus and the challenges that the crisis poses to international coöperation and the world economy. His upcoming book is “The Ages of Globalization.” In our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we also discussed the root causes of American decline, why some poorer countries have so far avoided large outbreaks, and how Donald Trump has failed to meet even the low expectations that internationalists have for the United States.
One dominant theme in the coverage of the coronavirus has been the supposed trade-off between the economy and our health. In a short-term or a long-term sense, do you accept that premise?
The only way to have a viable economy and society is to control this epidemic. So it’s not really a trade-off. The question is how to be effective in controlling the epidemic and driving the transmission of the disease to very low levels. Simply letting the virus run through the society would be unacceptably costly, and that’s why essentially no country in the world is doing that. The real issue is to be effective in the response, and unfortunately the United States has not been effective so far.
Did any lessons you learned working in countries around the world inform your opinion of how to deal with this latest crisis?
There are many aspects of any major crisis that are similar in character, in that they require governments to assess the situation with sophistication, to identify options, to come up with strategies, and to implement them. Crisis management has a lot of common points. The nature of the crisis could be geopolitical. It could be a climate-related shock or a disease.
I would say the core issues are the capacity of political leaders and their inner team, and the capacity of the institutions of governance—agencies, departments, and ministries—to be able to process information in a timely way and to be able to harness expert advice and evidence in a timely way. We live in a complicated world. If you try to wing it, as Trump does, you end up with more than forty thousand deaths. If you want to solve a problem, you have to be systematic about it, and know whom to turn to and how to listen and amass evidence. For politicians, that doesn’t necessarily come naturally, and for our President it doesn’t come at all.
Is there some leader Trump reminds you of whom you’ve worked with?
Trump is the worst political leader I have experienced in all of my professional life, which is forty years of working with governments at a high level. I’ve never seen anything like the narcissism of this man, and here we are, a country so rich in expertise, in resources, in capacities, and yet we’re watching a complete failure of a political response—with a massive loss of life—in real time. It’s quite shocking, because Trump not only does not know how to approach this issue but he blocks those who do.
Something you’ve become known for is this idea that one of the reasons there are bad governments in the world is because of poverty, rather than looking at poverty as the result of bad governance. Is that a fair summary?
Yeah. That certainly is one part of it, absolutely. Politics comes in many shapes and forms, and I was arguing that in many poor places you have potentially high capacity to address problems, except that the resources aren’t there for that. So the argument was that helping poor countries could actually accomplish something, because what they most fundamentally lacked was resources.
You have just finished saying that Trump is the worst leader you’ve ever seen. And we are seeing leaders all around the world, even in rich countries, handling this pandemic disastrously. These are countries with immense wealth, with immense scientific knowledge, and immense resources, and the governance is still in many cases atrocious. So does that make you think at all differently about your theory?
Well, my point was that the quality of governance is not intrinsically linked to one’s G.D.P. per capita, and that a poor place, if it had more resources, could often accomplish a lot. And I’d say the converse is that a rich place that’s badly governed accomplishes very little. So it’s consistent with that idea that you don’t simply say rich means good governance and poor means bad governance. That actually was my point fifteen years ago. It remains my point today—that here we have rich countries but their political systems are failing the people.
Poor countries could have good responses, in fact, but often lack the means to carry them out. We don’t lack the means to carry out good responses in the United States; we lack the leadership to do so, and there are reasons for that. Basically, American politics has become deeply corrupt over decades, and it became so corrupt that normal governance already collapsed many years ago. And people with resources and knowledge know it, but they haven’t cared, because things have more or less gone on O.K., and the stock market has been booming, and even though in almost any private conversation Trump is viewed as a complete dolt and a complete incompetent, that was more or less laughed off as manageable because he wasn’t doing too much damage, either.
That’s the real situation. Nobody here has viewed government as actually very functional for a long time, and not because it couldn’t be. It has been increasingly designed to fail. Specifically, it’s been designed to respond to powerful lobbies that want deregulation or tax cuts or some special privileges rather than to function in a normal way. And powerful people shrug their shoulders at that, because for the élites that’s been O.K., but it obviously hasn’t really been O.K. for a long time. We’ve had rising death rates. We’ve had the deaths of despair. We’ve had the failure to come to grips with climate change. We’ve had widening inequalities and massive suffering. But it hasn’t mattered in such a visible way.
So what you were saying before was that these countries don’t have the resources to have good governance, but you’re saying now that if you do have the resources you still need all these other things that, in America, we either once had and don’t have anymore or have let go because of the way our ruling class has behaved?
Yeah. Let me explain, just to clarify. Maybe there’s some confusion about what the real debate was. I was explaining in 2005 that it was possible, for example, to treat AIDS or to control malaria. And my critics were saying, No, it’s not possible. Those countries are just corrupt, and they’ll steal whatever you give them. And that’s why they’re poor. And I was saying that’s silly. That’s not why they’re poor, and just because they’re poor you can’t say that they couldn’t carry out such programs. And there are reasons to believe that such programs could be carried out effectively, and, indeed, since 2005, have been carried out effectively. Malaria deaths have come down. People were put on AIDS drugs. The things I recommended actually were done, and they proved themselves to be feasible. So my argument then was to not equate poverty with incompetence of governments. What we’re talking about today is a converse—don’t equate wealth with competence of governments. You can be wealthy and miserably corrupt and miserably ineffective, just like you can be poor and effective in governance. There are two different dimensions.


newyorker--2020-04-21--What We Miss Without Museums

What We Miss Without Museums

The other morning , I woke in the dark with terrifying visions .
To quiet myself , I imagined walking into the great lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—hundreds of miles away from my dark room in Chicago .
There would be cherry blossoms in the huge vases , maybe dogwood .
I ascended the stone stairs , turned to the right , and threw myself down before Nicolas Poussin ’ s “ Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun , ” from 1658 .
I wanted to watch mythic Orion , his eyes closed and hand outstretched , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ path toward the radiant , arriving day .
I went to the Met every Friday night for sixteen years , until I left New York in 2011 .
I visited “ Blind Orion ” over and over .
In the painting , Orion is a giant .
He has been blinded by an angry king and is being guided by Cedalion , a small figure on his shoulder , toward the light of the sun , which will bring back his sight .
It ’ s a painting about vision and wonder : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about to see again .
When I reluctantly left my inward vision to begin another day of sheltering in place with our two young children , I laughed a little , thinking that , of all the work at the Met , I ’ d chosen to remember this painting , in which damage is repaired , and everything that has been taken away will be restored in the morning .
I have almost nothing tangible here in Chicago to remind me of the years I sat with the Poussin and the other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I never took a single photograph .
If someone else did , especially with a flash , I hissed at them like a duenna : No photographs !
If I wanted to write about a painting , I simply went back to the museum to look at it again .
Consulting a reproduction—flat , glaring , reductive , intrusive—only let the air out of the feeling .
I ’ ve noticed that even family photographs sometimes fail in this way ; they first give back a moment , then seem to take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spent visiting “ Blind Orion , ” I came to feel that the painting was also about touch .
Orion ’ s hands have learned the world in their own way .
I spent a lot of time looking at his large , bare foot , too , the heel lifted and about to step forward .
The area of paint between his heel and the ground seems tender , the colors gently mingled .
Part of why I feel disoriented now , when I wake in the night , is the way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ With the children in our house , my days , even in seclusion , are full of collision , but I am missing other experiences .
I miss passing people in the street , brushing up against a hedge in the park or a shelf in the grocery store .
I miss standing in a museum where you are able to immerse yourself in sensory worlds .
I remember “ Blind Orion ” in my body : the painting ’ s quiet blue-green belief that the world is there and will be revealed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways to lose a painting .
Paintings get stolen , destroyed , deaccessioned , sold into private collections from which they never reëmerge .
The museums have been dark for weeks , and already a beautiful van Gogh—of a gray-green early spring day in his parents ’ garden—has been stolen from a shuttered museum in the Netherlands .
Often , you see a painting once , when you are in a foreign city , or when it travels for an exhibition , and you never see it again .
Sometimes , you simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ celebrate its a hundred-and-fifty-year history with a building-wide exhibition beginning March 30th , but I won ’ t see “ Blind Orion ” in whatever new light they had planned for it .
After I left New York and my life changed , I stopped hissing at other people in museums .
I started taking photographs .
Over the past nine years , I have taken thousands .
In recent weeks , while museum doors have been closed , I have been trying to make a personal , remembered museum .
Every day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ photos of artwork to write an entry for an online notebook .
I ’ ve been keeping the notebook on and off for years , but now I do it urgently , sending messages in bottles to friends and strangers , trying to offer what I ’ ve stored , what I miss .
I call these daily entries the Frederick Project , after the mouse in Leo Lionni ’ s story for children .
All summer , while the other mice store grain , Frederick stores up impressions of colors .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and dull and waiting , and Frederick tries to share what he can of the colors he remembers .
The contents of my museum date back to 2011 , when my husband and I settled in Cambridge , Massachusetts .
Our family of two became three , became four .
I was in museums for a few minutes every month or two , holding a baby , or with a child clinging at my legs .
I noticed what they noticed—a watercolor boat , an elegant stone puma .
I was never still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had acquired a smartphone .
When I saw something that interested me , I took hurried pictures .
“ I ’ ll look at this later ” : that ’ s how it began .
Gradually , a methodology emerged .
First , a photo of the wall text , then of the work itself , in its frame or in its case or on its pedestal .
Then , closer up , a sequence of six or seven details , following what drew my eye .
In these seconds , my eye @ @ @ @ @ @ @ learn a painting almost as I used to do over many hours and repeated visits .
Photography accelerated seeing , magnifying areas of paint , cutting away context and concentrating on details .
When I stepped back to take a last shot , I found a different vantage point , the painting resolved , and the photograph improved .
All through these years , while we , like many parents , have been endlessly photographing our children , trying to capture the evanescent beauties of their growing up , I have also been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can never quite be still with anymore .
More and more , I see through photographs , after the fact—a historian of my own experience .
What ’ s most beautiful in the photos are the isolated details : the edge of a watercolor where blue filters down through calligraphic black trees ; the join in a sculpture where angled nails enter fabric ; the curve of fruit in a still-life , yellow-green against dove gray .
Shortly after we moved to Chicago , in 2016 , I went to the Art Institute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be .
There was Berthe Morisot ’ s “ Woman in a Garden , ” from 1882-83 .
Morisot handled paint with extraordinary freedom .
Her paint is thick ; its texture can be celebratory or melancholy ; her brushstrokes are bold and surprising .
The qualities of paint she achieves in her work are among the most radical of all the radically textured Impressionist paintings .
The woman at the center of Morisot ’ s painting is not decorative : she is thinking .
I knew what it was to be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the painting , there is a figure behind the woman , whom I think of as a child , possibly Morisot ’ s daughter Julie , who appeared in nearly a third of her paintings , often in a garden .
When I first saw the painting , my own children were four and one and a half .
I was never out of touch with them , even when I went to the museum alone for an hour .
We were looking for a house ; I wanted a garden—someplace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a place that we could make with our hands but that would still reach toward the sky .
“ Woman in a Garden , ” like “ Blind Orion , ” is a painting of tenderness and wonder , not on a grand , mythic scale but in an intimate , domestic way .

The other morning, I woke in the dark with terrifying visions. To quiet myself, I imagined walking into the great lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—hundreds of miles away from my dark room in Chicago. There would be cherry blossoms in the huge vases, maybe dogwood. I ascended the stone stairs, turned to the right, and threw myself down before Nicolas Poussin’s “Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun,” from 1658. I wanted to watch mythic Orion, his eyes closed and hand outstretched, making his way along the soft dirt path toward the radiant, arriving day.
I went to the Met every Friday night for sixteen years, until I left New York in 2011. I visited “Blind Orion” over and over. In the painting, Orion is a giant. He has been blinded by an angry king and is being guided by Cedalion, a small figure on his shoulder, toward the light of the sun, which will bring back his sight. It’s a painting about vision and wonder: look at the beautiful world he is about to see again.
When I reluctantly left my inward vision to begin another day of sheltering in place with our two young children, I laughed a little, thinking that, of all the work at the Met, I’d chosen to remember this painting, in which damage is repaired, and everything that has been taken away will be restored in the morning.
I have almost nothing tangible here in Chicago to remind me of the years I sat with the Poussin and the other works I loved. At the Met, I never took a single photograph. If someone else did, especially with a flash, I hissed at them like a duenna: No photographs! If I wanted to write about a painting, I simply went back to the museum to look at it again. Consulting a reproduction—flat, glaring, reductive, intrusive—only let the air out of the feeling. I’ve noticed that even family photographs sometimes fail in this way; they first give back a moment, then seem to take it away.
In the years I spent visiting “Blind Orion,” I came to feel that the painting was also about touch. Orion’s hands have learned the world in their own way. I spent a lot of time looking at his large, bare foot, too, the heel lifted and about to step forward. The area of paint between his heel and the ground seems tender, the colors gently mingled.
Part of why I feel disoriented now, when I wake in the night, is the way the daylight hours have lacked touch. With the children in our house, my days, even in seclusion, are full of collision, but I am missing other experiences. I miss passing people in the street, brushing up against a hedge in the park or a shelf in the grocery store. I miss standing in a museum where you are able to immerse yourself in sensory worlds. I remember “Blind Orion” in my body: the painting’s quiet blue-green belief that the world is there and will be revealed to us.
There are so many ways to lose a painting. Paintings get stolen, destroyed, deaccessioned, sold into private collections from which they never reëmerge. The museums have been dark for weeks, and already a beautiful van Gogh—of a gray-green early spring day in his parents’ garden—has been stolen from a shuttered museum in the Netherlands. Often, you see a painting once, when you are in a foreign city, or when it travels for an exhibition, and you never see it again. Sometimes, you simply move away. The Met intended to celebrate its a hundred-and-fifty-year history with a building-wide exhibition beginning March 30th, but I won’t see “Blind Orion” in whatever new light they had planned for it.
After I left New York and my life changed, I stopped hissing at other people in museums. I started taking photographs. Over the past nine years, I have taken thousands. In recent weeks, while museum doors have been closed, I have been trying to make a personal, remembered museum. Every day, I use a few of my photos of artwork to write an entry for an online notebook. I’ve been keeping the notebook on and off for years, but now I do it urgently, sending messages in bottles to friends and strangers, trying to offer what I’ve stored, what I miss. I call these daily entries the Frederick Project, after the mouse in Leo Lionni’s story for children. All summer, while the other mice store grain, Frederick stores up impressions of colors. When winter comes, his friends are huddled and dull and waiting, and Frederick tries to share what he can of the colors he remembers.
The contents of my museum date back to 2011, when my husband and I settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our family of two became three, became four. I was in museums for a few minutes every month or two, holding a baby, or with a child clinging at my legs. I noticed what they noticed—a watercolor boat, an elegant stone puma. I was never still. After years of refusing, I had acquired a smartphone. When I saw something that interested me, I took hurried pictures. “I’ll look at this later”: that’s how it began.
Gradually, a methodology emerged. First, a photo of the wall text, then of the work itself, in its frame or in its case or on its pedestal. Then, closer up, a sequence of six or seven details, following what drew my eye. In these seconds, my eye and the camera together were able to learn a painting almost as I used to do over many hours and repeated visits. Photography accelerated seeing, magnifying areas of paint, cutting away context and concentrating on details. When I stepped back to take a last shot, I found a different vantage point, the painting resolved, and the photograph improved.
All through these years, while we, like many parents, have been endlessly photographing our children, trying to capture the evanescent beauties of their growing up, I have also been endlessly taking pictures of the art I can never quite be still with anymore. More and more, I see through photographs, after the fact—a historian of my own experience. What’s most beautiful in the photos are the isolated details: the edge of a watercolor where blue filters down through calligraphic black trees; the join in a sculpture where angled nails enter fabric; the curve of fruit in a still-life, yellow-green against dove gray.
Shortly after we moved to Chicago, in 2016, I went to the Art Institute to see who my new companions would be. There was Berthe Morisot’s “Woman in a Garden,” from 1882-83.
“Woman in a Garden,” by Berthe Morisot, from 1882-83.
Morisot handled paint with extraordinary freedom. Her paint is thick; its texture can be celebratory or melancholy; her brushstrokes are bold and surprising. The qualities of paint she achieves in her work are among the most radical of all the radically textured Impressionist paintings.
The woman at the center of Morisot’s painting is not decorative: she is thinking. I knew what it was to be a woman like her, from the inside. In the painting, there is a figure behind the woman, whom I think of as a child, possibly Morisot’s daughter Julie, who appeared in nearly a third of her paintings, often in a garden. When I first saw the painting, my own children were four and one and a half. I was never out of touch with them, even when I went to the museum alone for an hour. We were looking for a house; I wanted a garden—someplace secluded but continuous with the world, a place that we could make with our hands but that would still reach toward the sky. “Woman in a Garden,” like “Blind Orion,” is a painting of tenderness and wonder, not on a grand, mythic scale but in an intimate, domestic way.
When I got home from my first hurried visit to the painting, I pieced it back together through the images I had collected. I looked at one detail that showed the woman’s face on its own, then another that showed her face together with the straw hat of the figure behind her. The woman’s eyes looked different in the two photographs. Even in reproductions, the colors that connect the woman to the other figure change the way her eyes seem.
At a museum, you occasionally see someone looking at a painting by holding their hand up to obstruct part of it and squinting with one eye. This person is usually an artist or an art historian. Taking photographs mimics an old technique for learning about the contingencies of the painting: what would it be like if it were not done this way? Just as Muybridge’s famous photos of horses running taught us about movements unobservable by the ordinary eye, photographing paintings can bring out interactions among colors, the dynamics of details we don’t even realize we’re seeing.
I have captured different parts of “Woman in a Garden” every time I’ve seen it. By now, I have hundreds of photographs. When I go back through them, it’s like seeing an old friend talking on a screen. First, there is delight, then bewilderment; something fundamental about the feeling of the person in space hasn’t quite made it through. If I close my computer and try to picture “Woman in a Garden,” I have a sense of different parts of it—the central face, a rake to one side—but it’s like a collage of squares at different magnifications. When I wake in the night, I can’t yet rest before it.
Museums know the desires of our hands. That is why they have so many “Do Not Touch” signs, so many guards to caution us back. The special presence of paintings comes from their being at once untouchable and viscerally evocative of touch. It is this presence that I cannot find within my photographs, grateful though I am for my gallery. It never occurred to me when I visited Orion in person, but from this remote vantage it seems Poussin’s painting is really about the concert of sight and touch. I wonder how the change in Orion’s vision will affect the sensitivity of his fingers.
When the museums open again, we will go back with our children. We’ll hold still and caution them not to get too close to these presences—but in an ordinary, less fearful way. I’ll take some pictures of the van Goghs in case they’re gone the next time, and I’ll make a point of standing with “Woman in a Garden” for a while, to try to learn the feel of it.
Last fall, I led a little expedition of our son’s class of four-year-olds to a mural by the great William Walker, a few blocks away from their school, on a concrete wall next to a train underpass. It’s usually called “Childhood Is Without Prejudice,” and shows four large faces of children, overlapping and some nine feet high.
“Childhood Is Without Prejudice,” by William Walker, from 1977.
I had shown the children slides before we left their classroom, and, when we rounded a corner and they saw the actual wall of painting, the beautiful giant children, they all, as one, took off running. They leapt at it, tried to get into it, put their hands all over it. I walked up near a little cluster of girls who had their faces pressed close, and asked the leader among them what she was doing. “We’re smelling it,” she said, as if it were obvious. “Right here, it has a smell.” I put my nose to it: moisture, coolness, dust from the trains passing overhead, and some faint reality that I’ve never smelled on any other wall.


newyorker--2020-04-21--The Pandemic Isn’t a Black Swan but a Portent of a More Fragile Global System

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is “ irritated , ” he told Bloomberg Television on March 31st , whenever the coronavirus pandemic is referred to as a “ black swan , ” the term he coined for an unpredictable , rare , catastrophic event , in his best-selling 2007 book of that title .
“ The Black Swan ” was meant to explain why , in a networked world , we need to change business practices and social norms—not , as he recently told me , to provide “ a cliché for any bad thing that surprises us.
” Besides , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gates , Laurie Garrett , and others , had predicted it—a white swan if ever there was one .
“ We issued our warning that , effectively , you should kill it in the egg , ” Taleb told Bloomberg .
Governments “ did not want to spend pennies in January ; now they are going to spend trillions.
” The warning that he referred to appeared in a January 26th paper that he co-authored with Joseph Norman and Yaneer Bar-Yam , when the virus was still mainly confined to China .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increased connectivity , ” the spread will be “ nonlinear ” —two key contributors to Taleb ’ s anxiety .
For statisticians , “ nonlinearity ” describes events very much like a pandemic : an output disproportionate to known inputs ( the structure and growth of pathogens , say ) , owing to both unknown and unknowable inputs ( their incubation periods in humans , or random mutations ) , or eccentric interaction among various inputs ( wet markets and airplane travel ) , or exponential growth ( from networked human contact ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are ruin problems , ” the paper states , exposure to which “ leads to a certain eventual extinction.
” The authors call for “ drastically pruning contact networks , ” and other measures that we now associate with sheltering in place and social distancing .
“ Decision-makers must act swiftly , ” the authors conclude , “ and avoid the fallacy that to have an appropriate respect for uncertainty in the face of possible irreversible catastrophe amounts to ‘ paranoia.
’ ” ( “ Had we used masks then ” —in late @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stimulus , ” Taleb told me . )
Yet , for anyone who knows his work , Taleb ’ s irritation may seem a little forced .
His profession , he says , is “ probability.
” But his vocation is showing how the unpredictable is increasingly probable .
If he was right about the spread of this pandemic it ’ s because he has been so alert to the dangers of connectivity and nonlinearity more generally , to pandemics and other chance calamities for which COVID-19 is a storm signal .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ list of the next four black swans , ” Taleb told me , and that misses his point entirely .
In a way , focussing on his January warning distracts us from his main aim , which is building political structures so that societies will be better able to cope with mounting , random events .
Indeed , if Taleb is chronically irritated , it is by those economists , officials , journalists , and executives—the “ naïve empiricists ” —who think that our tomorrows are likely to be pretty much like our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that these are the people who , consulting bell curves , focus on their bulging centers , and disregard potentially fatal “ fat tails ” —events that seem “ statistically remote ” but “ contribute most to outcomes , ” by precipitating chain reactions , say .
( Last week , Dr. Phil told Fox ’ s Laura Ingraham that we should open up the country again , noting , wrongly , that “ three hundred and sixty thousand people die each year “ from swimming pools — but we don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In response , Taleb tweeted , “ Drowning in swimming pools is extremely contagious and multiplicative.
” ) Naïve empiricists plant us , he argued in “ The Black Swan , ” in “ Mediocristan.
” We actually live in “ Extremistan.
” Taleb , who is sixty-one , came by this impatience honestly .
As a young man , he lived through Lebanon ’ s civil war , which was precipitated by Palestinian militias escaping a Jordanian crackdown , in 1971 , and led to bloody clashes between Maronite Christians and Sunni @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the Syrians as well .
The conflict lasted fifteen years and left some ninety thousand people dead .
“ These events were unexplainable , but intelligent people thought they were capable of providing convincing explanations for them—after the fact , ” Taleb writes in “ The Black Swan.
” “ The more intelligent the person , the better sounding the explanation.
” But how could anyone have anticipated “ that people who seemed a model of tolerance could become the purest of barbarians overnight ?
” Given the prior cruelties of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sound ingenuous , but Taleb experienced sudden violence firsthand .
He grew fascinated , and outraged , by extrapolations from an illusory normal—the evil of banality .
“ I later saw the exact same illusion of understanding in business success and the financial markets , ” he writes .
“ Later ” began in 1983 , when , after university in Paris , and a Wharton M.B.A. , Taleb became an options trader— “ my core identity , ” he says .
Over the next twelve years , he conducted two hundred thousand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reports .
Along the way , he developed an investment strategy that entailed exposure to regular , small losses , while positioning him to benefit from irregular , massive gains—something like a venture capitalist .
He explored , especially , scenarios for derivatives : asset bundles where fat tails—price volatilities , say—can either enrich or impoverish traders , and do so exponentially when they increase the scale of the movement .
These were the years , moreover , when , following Japan , large U.S. manufacturing companies were converting to “ just-in-time ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supply-chains , and forgoing stockpiles of necessary components in favor of acquiring them on an as-needed basis , often relying on single , authorized suppliers .
The idea was that lowering inventory would reduce costs .
But Taleb , extrapolating from trading risks , believed that “ managing without buffers was irresponsible , ” because “ fat-tail events ” can never be completely avoided .
As the Harvard Business Review reported this month , Chinese suppliers shut down by the pandemic have stymied the production capabilities of a majority of the companies that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global information networks deepened Taleb ’ s concern .
He reserved a special impatience for economists who saw these networks as stabilizing—who thought that the average thought or action , derived from an ever-widening group , would produce an increasingly tolerable standard—and who believed that crowds had wisdom , and bigger crowds more wisdom .
Thus networked , institutional buyers and sellers were supposed to produce more rational markets , a supposition that seemed to justify the deregulation of derivatives , in 2000 , which helped accelerate the crash of 2008 .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ danger has always been too much connectivity.
” Proliferating global networks , both physical and virtual , inevitably incorporate more fat-tail risks into a more interdependent and “ fragile ” system : not only risks such as pathogens but also computer viruses , or the hacking of information networks , or reckless budgetary management by financial institutions or state governments , or spectacular acts of terror .
Any negative event along these lines can create a rolling , widening collapse—a true black swan—in the same way that the failure of a single transformer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has initiated ordinary citizens into the esoteric “ mayhem ” that Taleb ’ s writings portend .
Who knows what will change for countries when the pandemic ends ?
What we do know , Taleb says , is what can not remain the same .
He is “ too much a cosmopolitan ” to want global networks undone , even if they could be .
But he does want the institutional equivalent of “ circuit breakers , fail-safe protocols , and backup systems , ” many of which he summarizes in his fourth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Antifragile , ” published in 2012 .
For countries , he envisions political and economic principles that amount to an analogue of his investment strategy : government officials and corporate executives accepting what may seem like too-small gains from their investment dollars , while protecting themselves from catastrophic loss .

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is “irritated,” he told Bloomberg Television on March 31st, whenever the coronavirus pandemic is referred to as a “black swan,” the term he coined for an unpredictable, rare, catastrophic event, in his best-selling 2007 book of that title. “The Black Swan” was meant to explain why, in a networked world, we need to change business practices and social norms—not, as he recently told me, to provide “a cliché for any bad thing that surprises us.” Besides, the pandemic was wholly predictable—he, like Bill Gates, Laurie Garrett, and others, had predicted it—a white swan if ever there was one. “We issued our warning that, effectively, you should kill it in the egg,” Taleb told Bloomberg. Governments “did not want to spend pennies in January; now they are going to spend trillions.”
The warning that he referred to appeared in a January 26th paper that he co-authored with Joseph Norman and Yaneer Bar-Yam, when the virus was still mainly confined to China. The paper cautions that, owing to “increased connectivity,” the spread will be “nonlinear”—two key contributors to Taleb’s anxiety. For statisticians, “nonlinearity” describes events very much like a pandemic: an output disproportionate to known inputs (the structure and growth of pathogens, say), owing to both unknown and unknowable inputs (their incubation periods in humans, or random mutations), or eccentric interaction among various inputs (wet markets and airplane travel), or exponential growth (from networked human contact), or all three.
“These are ruin problems,” the paper states, exposure to which “leads to a certain eventual extinction.” The authors call for “drastically pruning contact networks,” and other measures that we now associate with sheltering in place and social distancing. “Decision-makers must act swiftly,” the authors conclude, “and avoid the fallacy that to have an appropriate respect for uncertainty in the face of possible irreversible catastrophe amounts to ‘paranoia.’ ” (“Had we used masks then”—in late January—“we could have saved ourselves the stimulus,” Taleb told me.)
Yet, for anyone who knows his work, Taleb’s irritation may seem a little forced. His profession, he says, is “probability.” But his vocation is showing how the unpredictable is increasingly probable. If he was right about the spread of this pandemic it’s because he has been so alert to the dangers of connectivity and nonlinearity more generally, to pandemics and other chance calamities for which COVID-19 is a storm signal. “I keep getting asked for a list of the next four black swans,” Taleb told me, and that misses his point entirely. In a way, focussing on his January warning distracts us from his main aim, which is building political structures so that societies will be better able to cope with mounting, random events.
Indeed, if Taleb is chronically irritated, it is by those economists, officials, journalists, and executives—the “naïve empiricists”—who think that our tomorrows are likely to be pretty much like our yesterdays. He explained in a conversation that these are the people who, consulting bell curves, focus on their bulging centers, and disregard potentially fatal “fat tails”—events that seem “statistically remote” but “contribute most to outcomes,” by precipitating chain reactions, say. (Last week, Dr. Phil told Fox’s Laura Ingraham that we should open up the country again, noting, wrongly, that “three hundred and sixty thousand people die each year “from swimming pools — but we don’t shut the country down for that.” In response, Taleb tweeted, “Drowning in swimming pools is extremely contagious and multiplicative.”) Naïve empiricists plant us, he argued in “The Black Swan,” in “Mediocristan.” We actually live in “Extremistan.”
Taleb, who is sixty-one, came by this impatience honestly. As a young man, he lived through Lebanon’s civil war, which was precipitated by Palestinian militias escaping a Jordanian crackdown, in 1971, and led to bloody clashes between Maronite Christians and Sunni Muslims, drawing in Shiites, Druze, and the Syrians as well. The conflict lasted fifteen years and left some ninety thousand people dead. “These events were unexplainable, but intelligent people thought they were capable of providing convincing explanations for them—after the fact,” Taleb writes in “The Black Swan.” “The more intelligent the person, the better sounding the explanation.” But how could anyone have anticipated “that people who seemed a model of tolerance could become the purest of barbarians overnight?” Given the prior cruelties of the twentieth century, the question may sound ingenuous, but Taleb experienced sudden violence firsthand. He grew fascinated, and outraged, by extrapolations from an illusory normal—the evil of banality. “I later saw the exact same illusion of understanding in business success and the financial markets,” he writes.
“Later” began in 1983, when, after university in Paris, and a Wharton M.B.A., Taleb became an options trader—“my core identity,” he says. Over the next twelve years, he conducted two hundred thousand trades, and examined seventy thousand risk-management reports. Along the way, he developed an investment strategy that entailed exposure to regular, small losses, while positioning him to benefit from irregular, massive gains—something like a venture capitalist. He explored, especially, scenarios for derivatives: asset bundles where fat tails—price volatilities, say—can either enrich or impoverish traders, and do so exponentially when they increase the scale of the movement.
These were the years, moreover, when, following Japan, large U.S. manufacturing companies were converting to “just-in-time” production, which involved integrating and synchronizing supply-chains, and forgoing stockpiles of necessary components in favor of acquiring them on an as-needed basis, often relying on single, authorized suppliers. The idea was that lowering inventory would reduce costs. But Taleb, extrapolating from trading risks, believed that “managing without buffers was irresponsible,” because “fat-tail events” can never be completely avoided. As the Harvard Business Review reported this month, Chinese suppliers shut down by the pandemic have stymied the production capabilities of a majority of the companies that depend on them.
The coming of global information networks deepened Taleb’s concern. He reserved a special impatience for economists who saw these networks as stabilizing—who thought that the average thought or action, derived from an ever-widening group, would produce an increasingly tolerable standard—and who believed that crowds had wisdom, and bigger crowds more wisdom. Thus networked, institutional buyers and sellers were supposed to produce more rational markets, a supposition that seemed to justify the deregulation of derivatives, in 2000, which helped accelerate the crash of 2008.
As Taleb told me, “The great danger has always been too much connectivity.” Proliferating global networks, both physical and virtual, inevitably incorporate more fat-tail risks into a more interdependent and “fragile” system: not only risks such as pathogens but also computer viruses, or the hacking of information networks, or reckless budgetary management by financial institutions or state governments, or spectacular acts of terror. Any negative event along these lines can create a rolling, widening collapse—a true black swan—in the same way that the failure of a single transformer can collapse an electricity grid.
COVID-19 has initiated ordinary citizens into the esoteric “mayhem” that Taleb’s writings portend. Who knows what will change for countries when the pandemic ends? What we do know, Taleb says, is what cannot remain the same. He is “too much a cosmopolitan” to want global networks undone, even if they could be. But he does want the institutional equivalent of “circuit breakers, fail-safe protocols, and backup systems,” many of which he summarizes in his fourth, and favorite, book, “Antifragile,” published in 2012. For countries, he envisions political and economic principles that amount to an analogue of his investment strategy: government officials and corporate executives accepting what may seem like too-small gains from their investment dollars, while protecting themselves from catastrophic loss.
Anyone who has read the Federalist Papers can see what he’s getting at. The “separation of powers” is hardly the most efficient form of government; getting something done entails a complex, time-consuming process of building consensus among distributed centers of authority. But James Madison understood that tyranny—however distant it was from the minds of likely Presidents in his own generation—is so calamitous to a republic, and so incipient in the human condition, that it must be structurally mitigated. For Taleb, an antifragile country would encourage the distribution of power among smaller, more local, experimental, and self-sufficient entities—in short, build a system that could survive random stresses, rather than break under any particular one. (His word for this beneficial distribution is “fractal.”)