newyorker--2020-03-30--Remote Comedy’s Technical Difficulties

Remote Comedy’s Technical Difficulties

Three days after the Lower East Side venue Caveat closed its doors to the public , Sarah Rose Siskind stood alone on its stage , preparing for an audience she couldn ’ t see .
With comedy clubs across the city shutting down , Caveat ’ s co-founder Ben Lillie became one of the first to attempt streaming shows online .
Siskind , the guinea pig for this approach , was making some last-minute changes to her act .
“ Caveat has a license to play copyrighted music in the theatre , but not on a live stream—and my show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she explained .
She gave a wry smile and brandished a ukulele .
“ I pretty much know three songs , and they ’ re all sad , so .
.
.
” “ ‘ Losing My Religion ’ sounds great on a ukulele , ” Lillie said .
He headed toward the tech booth at the back of the theatre , passing shelves full of skulls , ammonites , and planetary models .
Caveat , which opened in 2017 , styles itself as a hub for “ smart entertainment , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its performers are researchers or science educators by day proved useful in drawing up an action plan for the pandemic .
One show , “ Doctors Without Boundaries , ” is m.c.
’ d by E.R .
physicians who now find themselves on the front lines of New York ’ s coronavirus response .
When its co-host Andres Mallipudi began to show symptoms of Covid-19 but remained determined to participate remotely , the club realized the broadcast could be a model for all events going forward .
Lillie , who lives two doors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as needed , but he said he wouldn ’ t ask a performer to do the same , especially if doing so required taking public transportation .
Siskind also lives nearby .
She ’ s done standup at a number of local clubs , but Caveat was the only one , by then , that had moved online—perhaps in part because of the challenges posed by remote comedy .
“ Steve Colbert ’ s monologue was the creepiest fucking thing I ’ ve ever seen , ” she said , laughing as she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without an audience .
“ So dystopian !
So , when my audience just can ’ t contain their laughter .
.
.
” She used her phone to cue a tinny laugh track .
“ It , uh , it clearly sounds electronic , ” Lillie called from the tech booth .
Siskind ’ s good cheer is representative .
“ Everyone ’ s pretty game , ” Lillie said .
“ We ’ re an experimental space , so this is what our performers do .
We have this little three-camera @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and new things , and live streaming is something we ’ ve wanted to do—we ’ ve just never had a reason to pull the trigger .
So , here we go !
” Onstage , Siskind chatted with one of the academics set to appear on her show , whom she had called for a remote sound check .
“ Last night I watched ‘ Contagion , ’ ” she confessed .
“ It ’ s the worst thing to watch , but everything else is not interesting to me .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that .
I ’ m just making my way through the list.
” She sighed and ducked behind the abandoned bar , emerging with a beer .
“ I was hoping that this show would be something familiar , you know ?
Something kind of off topic from corona.
” But , with half an hour to go , technical difficulties still loomed : she noted the sputtering projector and made a diplomatic reference to a certain demographic whose members were struggling to navigate Zoom .
“ I was trying to say boomers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ myself to say it , ” Siskind replied .
“ I feel bad making fun of them , given the coronavirus .
They ’ re having a tough time !
” She continued to call remote guests , finalizing her lineup .
After some troubleshooting , Lillie reappeared .
“ There is no way we ’ re going to get through this without insane levels of mistakes , ” Siskind told him , smiling .
“ It ’ s endearingly we ’ re-all-making-shit-up-because-of-coronavirus !
” he said .
They tapped elbows .
Minutes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ This way , I can pretend there are people in the audience—they just hate me , and they ’ re being super quiet , ” Siskind said .
“ So , much better !
” She cradled her ukulele , plucked the opening chords of Lady Gaga ’ s “ Angel Down , ” and started to sing .
♦ • How to practice social distancing , from responding to a sick housemate to the pros and cons of ordering food .
• How people cope and create new customs amid a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contain and mitigate the coronavirus outbreak .
• How much of the world is likely to be quarantined ?
• Donald Trump in the time of coronavirus .
• The coronavirus is likely to spread for more than a year before a vaccine could be widely available .
• We are all irrational panic shoppers .
• The strange terror of watching the coronavirus take Rome .

Three days after the Lower East Side venue Caveat closed its doors to the public, Sarah Rose Siskind stood alone on its stage, preparing for an audience she couldn’t see. With comedy clubs across the city shutting down, Caveat’s co-founder Ben Lillie became one of the first to attempt streaming shows online. Siskind, the guinea pig for this approach, was making some last-minute changes to her act. “Caveat has a license to play copyrighted music in the theatre, but not on a live stream—and my show is built almost entirely around copyrighted music,” she explained. She gave a wry smile and brandished a ukulele. “I pretty much know three songs, and they’re all sad, so . . .”
“ ‘Losing My Religion’ sounds great on a ukulele,” Lillie said. He headed toward the tech booth at the back of the theatre, passing shelves full of skulls, ammonites, and planetary models. Caveat, which opened in 2017, styles itself as a hub for “smart entertainment,” and the fact that many of its performers are researchers or science educators by day proved useful in drawing up an action plan for the pandemic. One show, “Doctors Without Boundaries,” is m.c.’d by E.R. physicians who now find themselves on the front lines of New York’s coronavirus response. When its co-host Andres Mallipudi began to show symptoms of Covid-19 but remained determined to participate remotely, the club realized the broadcast could be a model for all events going forward. Lillie, who lives two doors down, can come into the space as needed, but he said he wouldn’t ask a performer to do the same, especially if doing so required taking public transportation.
Siskind also lives nearby. She’s done standup at a number of local clubs, but Caveat was the only one, by then, that had moved online—perhaps in part because of the challenges posed by remote comedy. “Steve Colbert’s monologue was the creepiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, laughing as she recalled the eerie silence of a studio without an audience. “So dystopian! So, when my audience just can’t contain their laughter . . .” She used her phone to cue a tinny laugh track.
“It, uh, it clearly sounds electronic,” Lillie called from the tech booth.
“Oh, that’s the whole point,” Siskind replied brightly.
Siskind’s good cheer is representative. “Everyone’s pretty game,” Lillie said. “We’re an experimental space, so this is what our performers do. We have this little three-camera setup. We play with new formats and new things, and live streaming is something we’ve wanted to do—we’ve just never had a reason to pull the trigger. So, here we go!”
Onstage, Siskind chatted with one of the academics set to appear on her show, whom she had called for a remote sound check. “Last night I watched ‘Contagion,’ ” she confessed. “It’s the worst thing to watch, but everything else is not interesting to me. I watched ‘The Omega Man’ before that. I’m just making my way through the list.” She sighed and ducked behind the abandoned bar, emerging with a beer. “I was hoping that this show would be something familiar, you know? Something kind of off topic from corona.” But, with half an hour to go, technical difficulties still loomed: she noted the sputtering projector and made a diplomatic reference to a certain demographic whose members were struggling to navigate Zoom.
“The boomers?” the academic asked.
“I was trying to say boomers, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it,” Siskind replied. “I feel bad making fun of them, given the coronavirus. They’re having a tough time!”
She continued to call remote guests, finalizing her lineup. After some troubleshooting, Lillie reappeared.
“There is no way we’re going to get through this without insane levels of mistakes,” Siskind told him, smiling.
“It’s endearingly we’re-all-making-shit-up-because-of-coronavirus!” he said. They tapped elbows.
Minutes before airtime, the lights dimmed. “This way, I can pretend there are people in the audience—they just hate me, and they’re being super quiet,” Siskind said. “So, much better!” She cradled her ukulele, plucked the opening chords of Lady Gaga’s “Angel Down,” and started to sing. ♦
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-03-30--The Unravelling of a Dancer

The Unravelling of a Dancer

Sharon Stern arrived at Naropa University , the first Buddhist-inspired university in America , with a portfolio of glamorous head shots .
She had a heart-shaped face and a guileless smile .
She was twenty-eight and had recently married Todd Siegel , whom her friends all described as the perfect husband .
Naropa , which was founded in Boulder , Colorado , in 1974 , by a former Buddhist monk , has three meditation halls that students visit throughout the day .
“ You are encouraged to let go of habitual patterns of thought , feeling , and action and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yourself and the world anew , ” read the welcome letter from the dean of students .
Sharon , who was in the master ’ s program in contemporary performance , had spent several years acting in community theatre in Miami , but she wasn ’ t sure where the work was leading .
In her journal and notes , she assessed her flaws : she was “ overly excitable ” ; her work could be “ cheesy ” ; she was “ not enough of a leader ” ; her sense of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me.
” She had grown up in a high-rise in a part of North Miami where people dress for the beach even when they are miles away .
Her father , Tibor , an Israeli diamond dealer , had teased her on the rare occasions when she didn ’ t get all A ’ s .
“ You disturbed the straight line , ” he told her .
She went to a Jewish day school , where her drama teacher , Lillian Andron , described her as “ Ms .
Popularity , Ms. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and when she wrote it she dotted the “ i ” by sketching a tiny flower .
She had thrived in a culture that by her mid-twenties she saw as shallow and spiritually arid .
Benjamin Stuber , a classmate at Naropa , told me , “ For the more ambitious , type-A students in the class—and I include Sharoni in that group—the spiritual side of Naropa kind of snuck up on us .
I don ’ t think we expected to be as moved as we were.
” The M.F.A .
program @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intersection of postmodernism and Buddhism .
“ It was about saying , ‘ We are going to kill off these old dualisms , like light and dark , good and bad , dirty and clean , and start to sit with things as they really are.
’ ” At Naropa , Sharon became self-conscious about the ways in which she had always used her strengths—charisma , warmth , an intuitive capacity to please—as crutches .
She had once felt that the ingredients of a fulfilling life were fairly straightforward .
“ All I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and be a mother , ” she said .
But that path felt increasingly stale .
She was working on “ re-integrating , re-patterning , re-structuring , ” she wrote to a high-school friend .
In her school notebook , she instructed herself to “ contemplate uncertainty ” every morning .
She wondered if she should project a quieter presence .
“ Maybe I have the need to talk so much in class and offer so much of my opinion because I don ’ t actually take the time to process things on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the margins of “ The Essential Chögyam Trungpa , ” a book of teachings by the founder of Naropa , she wrote , “ Can we practice meditation w/o being afraid of the foreignness ?
” In her first semester , in 2007 , she took a class with Katsura Kan , a guest artist at Naropa and one of the world ’ s most prominent choreographers and instructors of Butoh , a postmodern Japanese dance form .
A sinewy , youthful fifty-nine-year-old with a shaved head , Kan was polite and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buddhism for three decades , and he gave clipped , heavily accented instructions that sounded like koans .
“ To seek the door to the neutral is to approach transformation , ” he told the students .
Stuber , in his notebook , wrote , “ Butoh begins with the abandonment of self.
” Kan is based in Japan , where he studied with Tatsumi Hijikata , one of two choreographers credited with establishing Butoh as a distinct art form , in the nineteen-fifties .
It was originally called ankoku butoh , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s choreography was asymmetrical , erotic , and halting , requiring intense muscular control , and it often had an undertone of dread .
In one of his most famous performances , “ Story of Smallpox , ” Hijikata appeared onstage hunched over , looking feeble and diseased .
He made barely perceptible movements .
The audience heard the sound of wind and the cawing of crows .
Hijikata , who was influenced by French Surrealism , taught his apprentices to understand Butoh as inseparable from daily life .
According to the Butoh @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students ate together— “ There was even Butoh in eating a meal , ” one dancer said—and he trained them to relinquish the idea of individual expression .
One former apprentice , Waguri Yukio , said that Hijikata received phone calls from parents saying , “ Give me back my daughter.
” But Hijikata used to say , “ The person who is kidnapped will become the most skilled.
” One of Sharon ’ s classmates said that he remembers the day that “ Butoh suddenly made sense to her.
” Kan asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crawling up their limbs and taking over their bodies , an exercise designed to help them find new vocabularies for physical expression .
After the class , Sharon curled up on the floor and began crying .
“ Until then , it was as if there had only been this small corner of her own psychology that she felt comfortable with—the weather was always sunny there , ” the classmate said .
“ In actor training , we think of that as blockage .
But from then she stopped fighting it .
She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end of the semester , Kan chose six students to perform a work he had choreographed .
Like nearly all Butoh dances , the movement was slow , meditative , and quiet , close to the floor .
The students wore white paint on their bodies and faces .
Sharon performed a duet with Stuber , who recalled , “ There was a lot of rolling and twisting , and our bodies kept going round and round like we were some sort of ball .
It was about being in this place where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ performance , he remembers , Todd Siegel told him , “ I couldn ’ t tell which one of you was my wife.
” For her thesis project , Sharon decided to create a Butoh-inspired piece “ about the road to emptiness , ” as she described it in her journal .
She wanted to work on “ entering the darker places of myself , fearlessly.
” She asked Kan for guidance on Buddhist views of aging , disease , and death .
“ I want to have a serious conversation with you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Stuber said that it wouldn ’ t have surprised him if Sharon had developed a crush on Kan. “ I had a little crush on him , too , ” he said .
“ We talked a lot about mentorship in the arts , about transference and counter-transference.
” He was impressed by Sharon ’ s openness to new experience , which , he said , reminded him of the “ tender heart of the warrior ” that Chögyam Trungpa , Naropa ’ s founder , describes in one of his teachings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the one who wears layers of armor , ” Stuber said , “ but the one who puts down her sword and shield , takes off her armor , and opens her heart—she is the brave one.
” All artistic mentorship requires a certain level of devotion and imitation , but in choreography the influence tends to be more literal .
One body is taking direction from another .
The critic André Lepecki describes choreography as “ a body snatcher.
” The dancer , he writes , is “ nothing more than a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absent , remote , perhaps dead , yet haunting power of the master ’ s will .
”

These sorts of selfless states might be likened to what Western psychiatrists call depersonalization, a condition in which people feel that they have become observers, detached from their own body and thoughts. But Robert Sharf, a professor of Buddhist studies at the University of California, Berkeley, told me, “The depersonalization to which Buddhists aspire is not supposed to result in dysfunctional alienation. The dissolution of the ego is meant to occur within an institutional and ideological framework that helps one make sense of the experience. Nowadays, people who become depressed or depersonalized through secularized meditation practices don’t have access to the conceptual resources and social structures to help them handle what is happening to them.”
Mauricio Sierra-Siegert, a psychiatrist who spent fifteen years working in the Depersonalisation Research Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, told me that a frequent topic of conversation among colleagues was whether “spiritual enlightenment resembled the state of depersonalization.” Sierra-Siegert, who has practiced Zen Buddhism for thirty years and is now a professor at Colegiatura Colombiana, in Medellín, has observed that cultural expectations appear to shape the degree to which people experience depersonalization as a source of distress. When he moved from London to Colombia, he said, he was surprised to discover that although some of his patients felt that their selves weren’t real, they did not seem to be suffering from this observation the way that his London patients were. “They didn’t experience it as a symptom—it was not why they had come to me,” he said. He believes that the disparity arises from the fact that Colombian culture is less individualistic. “If you feel like you are your own island—if you are entirely identified with your own story and image—then the experience of becoming depersonalized will be more threatening,” he said.
Britton told me that she had assumed that meditators with a history of psychiatric troubles would be the ones in her study most vulnerable to breakdown. Instead, she found that those most likely to become distressed were people like Sharon, overachievers with a high level of ambition and drive. “In the transmission of Buddhism to the contemporary West, we are not starting from similar baselines,” Lindahl said. “When you are trying to undercut certain features of selfhood, because you’ve been told that those are the source of suffering, it can require a much greater change, and be more destabilizing, for someone from a very goal-oriented, identity-oriented society.” Britton added, “I think that people underestimate how difficult it is to change your culture in terms of lived experience. You can’t just decide ‘I am going to reform my psyche and being according to another culture’s definition.’ ”
In the summer of 2011, Sharon performed in São Paulo with Kan and his company. Thabatta Mizrahi, a close childhood friend who lives in Brazil, came to the performance. Sharon danced alone, topless, with her long brown hair so wild that it looked like a tent. She repeatedly started to lift herself off the floor, only to fall back again. “When I used to watch her perform, there was always a little bit of Sharon in the characters she would play,” Mizrahi told me. “But this time I couldn’t find her.”
Mizrahi and Sharon spent three days together, and Mizrahi found her friend disconnected and emotionally blunted. She was thinner than Mizrahi had ever seen her. She had been fasting. Sharon felt she was too large, Kan said, compared with the other dancers. He urged her to eat more, telling her that in Butoh “you make your weakness into dance.”
“How much farther away from it all will we be going?” Cartoon by Brendan Loper Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Maureen Momo Freehill, an American Butoh dancer, told me that when she trained for several years in Japan, she, too, found herself restricting what she ate. Her size, she said, came to feel like yet another imposing aspect of her American identity. “My self-referencing just became so obvious,” she said. “It was: what do I want, I’m the one, it’s about me.”
Mizrahi was troubled by the way that Sharon spoke about Kan. “Admiration is good, it’s healthy, it’s motivating,” she later wrote her in an e-mail, but not when we “lose sight of who we are.” Mizrahi sensed that it wasn’t Kan’s personality to which Sharon was drawn but the fact that he “embodied this art form, and she had to make sacrifices to continue gaining knowledge from her mentor.” At the end of the visit, as Sharon stood at Mizrahi’s door, she suddenly took a lighter tone. “I know you think I look too skinny, but do I look good?” Sharon asked.
“I was, like, of all the things, that’s what you’re worried about?” Mizrahi said. Later, she wondered if what Sharon had really been asking was “Do you still see me?”
Sharon’s parents also expressed concern that her personality was changing. “Since you met him and follow his teaching, you have lost your identity,” Tibor wrote in an e‑mail. Tibor is jovial, outgoing, and commanding; one has the sense, when talking to him, of being slightly, though not unpleasantly, pummelled. He wrote Sharon impetuous e-mails (“all this for a sick dance, that hardly anyone shows interest”), followed by apologies and expressions of love.
Kan cautioned Sharon about adopting his life style. “I think this is a bit too much for you I apologize because you have your history your world your family,” he wrote. He explained that, since he had become a Butoh dancer, in 1979, he’d resigned himself to the possibility of ending up “lying stone dead somewhere by the side of the road.” His goal was modest: to survive as an avant-garde artist. Sharon often went swing dancing at night, and Kan seemed puzzled by her attraction to “social dance—dance that is entertainment.” He told me, “Creation is not about entertaining. Creation is very painful.”
Sharon was not dissuaded. “Do you think I have more respect for money and ‘comfort’ than for LOVE and art?” she wrote him. “Butoh is my journey . . . through you. Big ship, small ship, stormy sea or quiet sea. I was never so clear about something in my life.”
In August, 2011, a month after the trip to Brazil, Sharon went to Copenhagen with Kan for a performance called “100 Dancers.” Artists from around the world took over the public spaces of the city. Kan said that, after the performance, Sharon disappeared. Hours later, she was found in a church shouting, “Coming up! A hundred dancers!” She seemed not to realize that the dance had ended. She was so disruptive that the police were called, and she was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Bispebjerg Hospital. When Kan came to the hospital, he said, two police officers told him that Sharon’s parents had reported that he had kidnapped her. “I will go out with all my strength to make sure that you come back to your country and family,” Tibor wrote Sharon in an e-mail. “I have no other choice, but to go after your master and his reputation.” To Kan, he wrote, “I will hunt you down if you stay in touch with my daughter.”
Sharon’s parents flew to Copenhagen and took her back to Miami. A few weeks later, Kan wrote Sharon an e-mail clarifying the terms of their relationship: “My love has limitation, we only can share the creation on the stage.” In Miami, Sharon saw a psychiatrist, who gave her a diagnosis of depression and prescribed her an antidepressant and an antipsychotic, but she took the medications inconsistently. Although Sharon’s family and childhood friends said that she’d never previously shown signs of depression, her Butoh colleagues said that she’d spoken about her struggles with it. She began seeing a psychologist, Eli Levy, who knew her family. It was clear to Levy that finding Butoh had been Sharon’s “eureka moment,” he said. “I think she believed the dance itself was a release from the ills of society.”
When she wasn’t dancing, though, she seemed to absorb the world’s sorrows too completely. Her friend Tracey-Ann Jarrett-Peña, who knew Sharon from swing dancing, said that, when they discussed acts of police brutality in Egypt, Sharon seemed physically pained; it was as if there were no protective boundary between herself and others. Sharon began to ask Jarrett-Peña, who is black, about her experiences of racism. Jarrett-Peña’s husband, Martin Peña, said, “We kept telling her, ‘Sharon, you can’t feel this guilty for other people’s acts of violence.’ ”
Sharon’s acting teacher, Lillian Andron, said that when Sharon visited her she seemed like an “automaton.” Andron and her husband, Michael, run a Jewish community theatre in North Miami Beach where Sharon had performed after college. Having directed her for years, they were acquainted with all her facial expressions, but on this visit they didn’t recognize her gestures. It was clear to them that Sharon had been reaching for that creative and spiritual space in which “you cross over into a different dimension, and you’re not sure if you’re playing the instrument or the instrument is playing you,” Lillian said. “That’s what all of us want. But we hope we do it in a way that is healthy.”
Sharon’s father demanded that she cut off contact with Kan, but she continued communicating with him. Kan joked, “I will be your personal psychotherapist.” He seemed to believe that dancing could be her medicine. He liked to imagine the day, he told me, when ill people might seek help from a choreographer. If a married couple had a crisis in their relationship, he said, “they can go to the choreographer and make a duet,” rather than getting divorced. Just as the Sterns supposed that a form of art was the problem, Kan assumed that it could be the solution.
Kan told Sharon that she needed to focus on her recovery and could not perform with him until she was stable. “If you don’t want me anymore—on any level, don’t feel you owe me anything,” she wrote him in an e-mail. “You’ve given me so much already.” In her journal, she wrote that she needed to “accept the inevitable truth that nothing lasts.”


newyorker--2020-03-30--A Preventable Cancer Is on the Rise in Alabama

One winter day in 2016 , Tonya Carter felt a sharp pain in her lower back .
In the months that followed , the pain grew more frequent and more diffuse , running down the back of her legs when she was sitting , and flaring up when she lay on the sofa in her living room at night .
A devout Christian , Carter prayed that God , whom she referred to as “ my ultimate physician , ” would make the pain go away .
It didn ’ t go away .
She would have gone to see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently , but it was beyond her financial means .
Carter worked for Comfort Keepers , a company that provides in-home care for seniors .
She liked the job , which involved tending to elderly people who required assistance with personal care and such chores as cooking and cleaning .
Carter was a dedicated caretaker , sometimes fixing homemade corn bread and turnip greens for her clients .
Her salary was low : eight dollars an hour , without benefits .
“ That ’ s good for around here , ” said Carter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small city in northeastern Alabama with a troubled racial history—in 1961 , a Freedom Riders bus was firebombed by a local mob—and an uncertain future .
In 1999 , a nearby U.S. Army base , Fort McClellan , closed down .
Since then , Anniston ’ s population has shrunk , and the poverty rate has risen to nearly thirty per cent .
Carter sometimes considered moving elsewhere , but her options were limited .
At the time she started working at Comfort Keepers , she was divorced and had four children , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Between rent , utilities , and providing for her family ’ s needs , her income was stretched far too thin to pay for health insurance .
In dozens of states , Carter would have qualified for Medicaid , particularly after the passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act , which extended Medicaid benefits to all households earning up to a hundred and thirty-eight per cent of the poverty line .
But in 2014 , when Medicaid expansion took hold , Alabama and twenty-four other states , almost all of which had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year , Robert Bentley , then the state ’ s governor , argued that it would burden taxpayers and foster “ dependency on government.
” In Alabama , as in much of the South , the Affordable Care Act was derisively called Obamacare , and was attacked as a wasteful government program that showered benefits on undeserving recipients .
In 2016 , Donald Trump tweeted that Hillary Clinton “ wants Obamacare for illegal immigrants.
” More recently , Jeff Sessions , who is running for his former Alabama Senate seat , aired a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provide “ free health care for illegal immigrants.
” In fact , undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid , but it ’ s not hard to imagine how such a claim might arouse indignation among poor voters in Alabama , where the income requirements for Medicaid are more stringent than in any state except Texas .
In a family of four , a parent qualifies for benefits only if the household income is less than three hundred and ninety-three dollars a month—roughly eighteen per cent of the poverty line .
Carter had gone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hadn ’ t seen a gynecologist in more than a decade .
As the months passed , her mind raced with theories about what might be wrong .
Maybe she had kidney stones , or endometriosis .
The pain spread through her abdomen and her pelvic area , and she began to bleed after intercourse .
“ It was just out of nowhere , and it was continuous , ” she said .
At work , Carter ducked into the bathroom whenever the pain grew unbearable , hoping that her absence wouldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ episode , she emerged to discover that her client , an elderly man , had walked outside and fallen .
Although the man was not seriously injured , she was mortified by the incident .
By the summer , Carter was suffering so acutely that she finally sought medical care .
The cause of her distress , she learned , was cervical cancer .
Recently , a nurse informed her that the disease had advanced to Stage IV B : it had spread to her ovaries and other internal organs , and was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now that she was sick , she qualified for Medicaid .
A century ago , cervical cancer was the deadliest form of cancer among women in the United States .
Since then , the prevalence and the lethality of the disease have declined dramatically .
The widespread use of Pap smears has allowed doctors to detect abnormalities earlier .
And in 2006 the F.D.A .
approved the use of the human papillomavirus , or H.P.V.
, vaccine , which can protect women from the most dangerous strains of the virus .
Cervical cancer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are transmitted sexually .
Cervical cancer is now viewed by most physicians as preventable , and in more affluent parts of the country it is correspondingly rare .
But in the poorer pockets of less wealthy states it remains disturbingly common .
According to the American Cancer Society , more than four thousand women in this country will die from the disease this year .
Women who develop cervical cancer in Alabama are more likely to die than their counterparts in any other state—and in recent years Alabama ’ s mortality rate has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rights Watch published a report identifying some of the reasons for Alabama ’ s outlier status .
Sex education is not mandated in the public schools , which may help to explain why the state ranks low in H.P.V.-vaccination rates .
In small towns and rural areas , the number of doctors and medical facilities has fallen , contributing to the proliferation of a disease that disproportionately affects poor women and women of color .
The Human Rights Watch report found that Alabama women without medical insurance routinely delayed getting care , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gynecological cancers weren ’ t found until symptoms developed to more advanced stages.
” The Alabama Department of Public Health does operate a few programs that encourage prevention , including one that provides free screening for cervical cancer .
But , because the program has a small budget and little funding for outreach , many poor women are unaware that it exists .
Human Rights Watch found that only eighteen per cent of eligible women were using the program .
Tonya Carter , overwhelmed by pain , eventually visited a clinic in downtown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She was discharged without receiving any diagnostic tests .
“ They didn ’ t even check my vitals , ” she told me .
The doctor , who criticized her for not having a gynecologist , said , almost in passing , “ Why haven ’ t you contacted the health department ?
” She said nothing about free screenings .
After visiting the clinic , Carter called her county health department , and learned of the state ’ s screening program .
By the time she got a test , the cancer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a damp , overcast morning in December , a few weeks after she received the diagnosis of Stage IV B cancer .
She had invited me to accompany her to a CT scan at an outpatient clinic .
She is forty-eight , with pale-blue eyes and a diffident manner .
Her scalp was bare , from multiple rounds of chemotherapy , and her short-term memory was spotty— “ chemo brain , ” she called it .
The drugs had made her so fatigued that it was hard for her to get out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carter had forced herself to wake up early that day ; like all her cancer-related medical appointments , the CT scan took place sixty miles west of Anniston , at a clinic near Birmingham .
Since 2010 , fourteen hospitals in the state , more than half of them in rural areas , have closed , forcing women to make long treks to get care .
Corporate consolidation and low reimbursement rates from the federal government have contributed to the trend , but another major factor is Alabama ’ s refusal to expand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rooms of rural hospitals have been inundated with poor , uninsured patients .
Hospitals often receive no compensation for treating these patients , which lowers their operating margins and fuels what the Chartis Center for Rural Health has called a “ closure crisis.
” In February , the organization reported that the eight states with the highest number of rural-hospital closures since 2010 had all declined to expand Medicaid .

Carter’s fiancé, Patrick Poore, a soft-spoken man wearing rimless glasses and a Crimson Tide sweatshirt, had driven her to the appointment. Afterward, they invited me to lunch. They told me that they’d prayed together that morning, hoping for some good news. As Carter’s condition worsened, she had to tell Comfort Keepers that she was too sick to work; as a result she lost her main source of income.
The one thing that she no longer had to pay for was medical care. The irony was not lost on her. “It took me having cancer to get some assistance,” she said. “If I was going to yearly checkups, it could have been caught way before. If I’d had the means, the insurance, prior to that, then it would have been prevented.”
Carter wondered how much longer she would be around to care for her children, including her youngest daughter, a seventeen-year-old who has diabetes. “There are days when I’m depressed,” she said. “I worry about my children, and what their life would be like if I wasn’t there.” Tears pooled in her eyes. Carter then told me that she and Patrick, whom she began dating a few years ago, were in love, but that he was hesitant to marry someone who was terminally ill. “I want to know what it’s like to be married with him—to have a life with him,” she said, her voice thick with grief. “And I don’t know if that’s gonna happen.”
In Tuscaloosa, I met thirty-eight-year-old Laquisha Brant, who received a diagnosis of cervical cancer in 2019. She lives in a Section 8 apartment with a grime-stained entrance and bare walls. Before Brant learned that she had cancer, she was married and had a job at a nursing home. She was now too weak to work, her marriage had unravelled, and she was surviving on a combination of public subsidies and assistance from the Laura Crandall Brown Foundation—a nonprofit, based in Birmingham, that offers financial support to women with gynecologic cancer. “It’s like my whole life had to stop,” she told me, over lunch at a Red Lobster. She listed other things she’d lost: her hair, her eyebrows, her vigor, her appetite. One bright spot was her doctor, who, she said, had helped her through the most difficult phases of her treatment. “She cried with me,” Brant said. But, though she was hopeful that her final chemotherapy treatment, in early December, would put her cancer in remission, she was unsure whether she could continue to get follow-up care, since a nurse had called her recently to inform her that her Medicaid was being cut off. Jennifer Young Pierce, a gynecologic oncologist in Mobile, told me that although low-income people with breast or cervical cancer qualify for Medicaid, the benefits were often discontinued once the disease went into remission. “It’s ‘Good news, you’re cancer-free!’—and then they drop you like a hot potato,” Pierce said. More than sixty per cent of cervical-cancer recurrences take place in the two years after an initial round of treatment has been completed. Any lapse in coverage could have dire consequences, Pierce said, since recurrences were “more often lethal than not.”
Pierce has been fighting for years to get Americans to change their approach to cervical cancer. A South Carolina native, she first witnessed the link between poverty and the disease while she was in medical school. As part of her residency, she worked in an outreach clinic in Cape Town, South Africa. The clinic’s director, Lynette Denny, had set up examination rooms in shipping containers, so that impoverished women living in remote townships could be screened for cervical cancer; in developing countries, the disease remains one of the leading causes of women’s death. Denny urged Pierce to provide similar services for vulnerable women in her own community. In 2012, Pierce and a colleague launched an organization called Cervical Cancer-Free South Carolina, and also helped run a mobile-clinic outreach unit that dispatched an R.V. to rural areas to offer Pap smears.
A few years ago, a friend recruited Pierce to come to Alabama, where the cervical-cancer problem was even worse. She now runs the Cancer Control and Prevention program at the Mitchell Cancer Institute, in Mobile. One of her missions, she told me, was to educate other doctors in the state about the H.P.V. vaccine, which many pediatricians in Alabama recommend halfheartedly, perhaps accepting the unfounded view that it encourages sexual activity. Pierce told me that she’s been going “door to door,” trying to persuade pediatricians to push back when families resist vaccinating. It was difficult work, she said, not least because two dozen counties in Alabama had no pediatricians, which meant that she had to “track down family-medicine doctors,” who are less likely to offer vaccinations in the first place. She also had to treat the gravely ill women who flowed into her clinic “like the tide.” On Christmas Eve, she’d attended to a young woman in her mid-twenties as she died of cervical cancer. Pierce informed the woman’s parents and siblings, who rushed to the intensive-care unit to say goodbye. Everyone in the room was sobbing, Pierce recalled. Even when cervical cancer was caught at an early stage, she said, the standard treatment was “a horror”—weeks of intensive radiation that caused aneurysms, sexual dysfunction, infertility, and scarring. “There are days when I feel like we are on the front lines of an epidemic that nobody wants to talk about,” she told me.
Along with increasing vaccination rates, broadening access to health care is an obvious way to fix the problem. But, in much of the South, a surprising number of the poor and working-class people who would benefit from changing the system are opposed to doing so. A few years ago, Jonathan Metzl, a psychiatrist and sociologist at Vanderbilt, began organizing focus-group discussions near churches and low-income housing projects in Tennessee, which, like Alabama, had refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. At one such meeting, in Nashville, a group of working-class white men were invited to talk about the health-care system. Many of the participants—amputees, men with oxygen cannisters—were in visibly poor health. Some acknowledged having to rely on various forms of assistance to deal with their ailments. “I would be dead without Medicaid or the V.A.,” one man said. But, when Metzl asked about the role of “government” and about programs such as the Affordable Care Act, a man complained that people on welfare with “ten and twelve kids” were abusing the system. Another claimed that “illegal mothertruckers” received all the benefits, and that ordinary Americans were subsidizing them. A flurry of complaints about Mexican immigrants followed, prompting one man to say, “We’re starting to sound like Donald Trump.”
In 2019, Metzl published a book, “Dying of Whiteness,” in which he argued that people who voiced such views, fuelled by racial animosity and “the toxic effects of dogma,” ended up supporting policies that put their own lives at risk. “No way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens,” a white former cabdriver suffering from terminal liver disease told him. “Ain’t no way I would ever support Obamacare, or sign up for it. I would rather die.” A growing body of evidence suggests that clinging to such beliefs has indeed shortened lives. States that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act have seen reductions in mortality from kidney failure and cardiovascular disease, along with an increase in early-stage cancer diagnoses. They have also seen lower rates of infant and maternal mortality. A study published last July by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that, from 2014 through 2017, states that expanded Medicaid saved the lives of more than nineteen thousand adults between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-four alone. In the states that rejected expansion, the researchers concluded, fifteen and a half thousand lives were lost.
The data, though striking, may not be enough to loosen the hold of racial resentment. As Metzl and others have pointed out, states where benefits are scarce are precisely where this kind of anger is most likely to flourish. Since the early two-thousands, the journalist Thomas Frank and other writers have argued that Republicans, by harnessing such frustrations, have repeatedly persuaded many working-class citizens to vote against their economic interests. Metzl contends that Republicans have been just as adept at getting lower-income whites to vote against their “biological self-interests.”
Tonya Carter, of Anniston, told me that she didn’t follow politics closely—her fate, she liked to say, was in God’s hands. But, in our initial phone conversation, she said that if she had been able to get insurance through the Affordable Care Act she surely would not have developed advanced cancer. This made me think that, unlike the working-class men quoted in Metzl’s study, she believed that the government has a responsibility to care for people who cannot afford to pay for health insurance. When Carter and I met, she told me how optimistic she’d been when she first heard about the A.C.A. “I was so excited,” she said. “I was hoping that it would benefit me.” Then she went online and learned that the cheapest plan cost hundreds of dollars a month—far more than she could afford. Her enthusiasm gave way to bitterness. “What came out of Obama’s mouth?” she said. “ ‘Every citizen will have insurance.’ And it failed. To me, it failed, and I’m pretty sure there are other people in my shoes who feel like it failed.”
“You knew I was a cat lady before you married me.” Cartoon by Amy Hwang Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
But Carter did not fully comprehend why the Affordable Care Act had “failed” in Alabama. She didn’t realize that, in the three dozen states that have expanded Medicaid since 2014, the law had made it possible for millions of low-income people to get insurance at no cost. When I mentioned this, she looked surprised and distraught. “It’s pretty upsetting to hear,” she said. She was even more perturbed to hear that a common reason cited by politicians for rejecting Medicaid expansion was a desire to avoid burdening taxpayers. “I wonder what those people who don’t want their taxes to be raised—what if they had a loved one in my shoes?” she said. “What’s the cost of giving the citizens of Alabama insurance versus allowing us to die?”
According to a study conducted by David Becker, an economist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, expanding Medicaid would by now have cost Alabama seven hundred and seventy-one million dollars—a figure that reflects both treatment costs and administrative expenses. But Becker calculated that, even with the federal matching rate for new Medicaid enrollees starting to fall in 2017, these costs would be more than offset by folding existing state programs into Medicaid, and also by levying taxes on the billions of Medicaid dollars spent in Alabama. Indeed, he believed that expanding Medicaid would generate a net surplus of nine hundred and thirty-five million dollars. Becker told me recently that he had expected his study to inspire “some debate” in the Alabama legislature. “That never happened,” he said. Perhaps this was because many of the voters in Alabama who stood to benefit most from Medicaid expansion kept backing politicians who opposed it. As I discovered, Tonya Carter was one of those voters. Although she didn’t consider herself to be a political person, she told me that in the 2016 Presidential election she voted for Donald Trump, who is intent on overturning the Affordable Care Act.


newyorker--2020-03-30--The Slow Fade of City Life

The Slow Fade of City Life

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newyorker--2020-03-30--An Open-Air Opera, Cut Short by Social Distancing

In 2015 , the Los Angeles-based theatre company the Industry mounted “ Hopscotch , ” an outdoor , mobile , multi-composer opera of staggering logistical complexity and transporting , almost delirious beauty .
It unfolded like a magical-realist fable in which the experience of the observer becomes part of the story .
Certain of its images—a trumpeter playing at the top of a water tower , with a trombonist on a distant rooftop answering him ; a soprano , in a red dress , gliding along the cast-iron walkways of the Bradbury Building ’ s famed atrium ; another soprano @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Los Angeles River—will stay with me as long as I remember anything .
It was a waking dream of a city , and I keep wishing I could have it back .
In February and March , the Industry presented a new opera , “ Sweet Land , ” its most ambitious venture since “ Hopscotch.
” The vibe was stranger and darker , bordering on nightmarish .
The title has a bitterly ironic ring : the work tells of lands plundered , peoples murdered , cultures appropriated .
My reaction was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which soon shut down American public life .
Yet “ Sweet Land ” would have been a punch in the gut under any circumstances .
Chaotic , conflicted , implacably honest , it unfurled a narrative that dismantled its own ideological underpinnings and exposed its own lies .
“ Hopscotch ” and “ Sweet Land ” both emanated from the potent theatrical sensibility of the director Yuval Sharon , who founded the Industry , in 2010 .
He has a singular flair for staging work in open-air spaces , letting landscapes become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for “ Sweet Land ” was the Los Angeles State Historic Park—a patch of green in a concrete expanse , hemmed in by freeways , the L.A. River , and a light-rail line .
During the performances , which began in the evening , trains would periodically clatter by , with perplexed commuters peering out the windows .
The image of a train hurtling into the dark is an elemental trope of American myth ; in “ Sweet Land , ” myth merged with the grimy routine of the everyday .
As in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much more unsettling way , the border between stage and city disappeared .
The program for “ Sweet Land ” included a “ Land Acknowledgment.
” Julia Bogany , of the Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians , wrote , “ We , the Indigenous People , the Traditional Caretakers of this landscape , are the direct descendants of the First People who formed our lands , our worlds during creation time .
We have always been here.
” One aim of “ Sweet Land ” is to give voice to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Los Angeles Basin .
At the same time , the opera reserves its right to fantasize on historical themes .
A cryptic prologue , titled “ Contact , ” portrays the first encounter between groups called the Arrivals and the Hosts—essentially , colonists and indigenous tribes .
Sharon and his co-director , the Native American artist Cannupa Hanska Luger , chose not to let any one perspective dominate the proceedings .
Two creative teams produced the music and the text : the Chinese-American composer Du Yun worked with the writer Aja @ @ @ @ @ @ @ composer of Navajo background , was paired with the poet Douglas Kearney .
There are two distinct narrative components , “ Feast ” and “ Train , ” each ensconced in its own roundhouse venue .
After the prologue , which takes place in bleachers overlooking the park , the audience is divided in half , with one group sent to “ Feast ” and the other to “ Train ” ; only by attending “ Sweet Land ” twice could you see both .
The structures were built for the occasion , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew .
“ Feast ” depicts what happens immediately after the Arrivals make their appearance .
It is loosely based on the interaction between the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and local peoples—an initial period of peace and mutual assistance followed by aggression on the part of the settlers .
A warm , welcoming atmosphere , signalled by dozens of lit candles , dissipates when an Arrival named Jimmy Gin declares , “ God gave us dominion over everything , ” and threatens Makwa , a young woman of the tribe .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ seem to retreat .
The second part of “ Feast ” is a kind of erasure of the first , presenting history as the victors tell it .
Makwa is being married off to Jimmy Gin , alongside a Thanksgiving-style feast .
She protests in vain as the ceremony proceeds .
“ Who wants seconds ?
” someone cries .
“ Train ” is a tale of industrialization and brutalization .
The language of missionary conquest and Manifest Destiny— “ The Word of God is the Hand of God ” —intersects with scenes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and mob violence .
Doors rumble back and forth on casters , conjuring a real , or metaphorical , speeding train .
In the second part , that bloodshed is forgotten as the society gives in to consumerism and self-gratification .
A percussion-heavy chamber orchestra is positioned at the center of the roundhouse , with the audience arrayed in a circle surrounding it and the performers racing around the space ’ s outer rim .
Du Yun and Raven Chacon , the co-composers , prove to be a good match .
Both draw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , from the folk-primeval to the experimental .
Chacon brings to bear his understanding of Native American musical traditions : in the latter half of “ Feast , ” he creates a mesmerizing multicultural counterpoint , blending Makwa ’ s sorrowful arias of remembrance with the sinuous cantilena of Host spirits and blocky four-part hymns sung by the Arrivals .
Shimmers and flecks of instrumental sound establish a wide-open atmosphere , as if the city had wafted away into wilderness .
The sonic textures of “ Train ” sometimes become dense to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provides a thunderous climax in the form of bulldozing drones , pounding ostinato , and blasts of electric-guitar feedback .
Between the two parts of “ Feast ” and “ Train , ” the audiences leave their venues to see an outdoor interlude called “ The Crossroads.
” A trio of singers evoke ancient spirits : Carmina Escobar and Micaela Tobin jointly played the trickster Coyote , and Sharon Chohi Kim was the monster Wiindigo .
The costumes , designed by Luger and E. B. Brooks , combine folkloric and surrealist features : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fur , animal heads .
The music , partly improvised , wavers between unearthly ululation and piercing lyricism .
Throughout the scene , a sprinkler system is operating in an adjoining field , and images of horses , deer , and buffalo are projected onto the spray of water—ghosts of the land as it once was .
At the end , the full audience reassembles in the bleachers to witness “ Echoes and Expulsions , ” a harrowing epilogue of protest and lament .
Unseen singers tell of the dark side of L.A. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of the Chinese massacre of 1871 , of a Latina woman undergoing involuntary sterilization .
A youthful figure crawls around a construction site at the corner of the park—perhaps scavenging for food , perhaps digging for the truth .
Trains trundle by ; fire engines scream across the North Broadway Bridge , in the distance .
A chill descends , and not just because it can get cold at night in L.A .
The coronavirus shutdown cut short “ Sweet Land ” in the middle of its run .
Smaller , nonprofit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because of the crisis ; some may not come back .
The Industry is trying to recoup lost revenue by offering a video of “ Sweet Land ” for sale online .
Cameras can not capture the eerie power of the event , but the zooming lens picks out details that I missed live : subtitles projected on billboards like spectral graffiti , the image of a deer flickering across the bridge .
The video was made after the cancellation of the show , when the city was closing up .
The last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
♦

In 2015, the Los Angeles-based theatre company the Industry mounted “Hopscotch,” an outdoor, mobile, multi-composer opera of staggering logistical complexity and transporting, almost delirious beauty. It unfolded like a magical-realist fable in which the experience of the observer becomes part of the story. Certain of its images—a trumpeter playing at the top of a water tower, with a trombonist on a distant rooftop answering him; a soprano, in a red dress, gliding along the cast-iron walkways of the Bradbury Building’s famed atrium; another soprano singing while riding in a Jeep along the Los Angeles River—will stay with me as long as I remember anything. It was a waking dream of a city, and I keep wishing I could have it back.
In February and March, the Industry presented a new opera, “Sweet Land,” its most ambitious venture since “Hopscotch.” The vibe was stranger and darker, bordering on nightmarish. The title has a bitterly ironic ring: the work tells of lands plundered, peoples murdered, cultures appropriated. My reaction was undoubtedly conditioned by the encroaching coronavirus pandemic, which soon shut down American public life. Yet “Sweet Land” would have been a punch in the gut under any circumstances. Chaotic, conflicted, implacably honest, it unfurled a narrative that dismantled its own ideological underpinnings and exposed its own lies.
“Hopscotch” and “Sweet Land” both emanated from the potent theatrical sensibility of the director Yuval Sharon, who founded the Industry, in 2010. He has a singular flair for staging work in open-air spaces, letting landscapes become part of the drama. The setting for “Sweet Land” was the Los Angeles State Historic Park—a patch of green in a concrete expanse, hemmed in by freeways, the L.A. River, and a light-rail line. During the performances, which began in the evening, trains would periodically clatter by, with perplexed commuters peering out the windows. The image of a train hurtling into the dark is an elemental trope of American myth; in “Sweet Land,” myth merged with the grimy routine of the everyday. As in “Hopscotch,” but in a much more unsettling way, the border between stage and city disappeared.
The program for “Sweet Land” included a “Land Acknowledgment.” Julia Bogany, of the Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, wrote, “We, the Indigenous People, the Traditional Caretakers of this landscape, are the direct descendants of the First People who formed our lands, our worlds during creation time. We have always been here.” One aim of “Sweet Land” is to give voice to the Tongva people, who once thrived in the Los Angeles Basin. At the same time, the opera reserves its right to fantasize on historical themes. A cryptic prologue, titled “Contact,” portrays the first encounter between groups called the Arrivals and the Hosts—essentially, colonists and indigenous tribes.
Sharon and his co-director, the Native American artist Cannupa Hanska Luger, chose not to let any one perspective dominate the proceedings. Two creative teams produced the music and the text: the Chinese-American composer Du Yun worked with the writer Aja Couchois Duncan; Raven Chacon, a composer of Navajo background, was paired with the poet Douglas Kearney. There are two distinct narrative components, “Feast” and “Train,” each ensconced in its own roundhouse venue. After the prologue, which takes place in bleachers overlooking the park, the audience is divided in half, with one group sent to “Feast” and the other to “Train”; only by attending “Sweet Land” twice could you see both. The structures were built for the occasion, under the direction of the theatre designer Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew.
“Feast” depicts what happens immediately after the Arrivals make their appearance. It is loosely based on the interaction between the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and local peoples—an initial period of peace and mutual assistance followed by aggression on the part of the settlers. A warm, welcoming atmosphere, signalled by dozens of lit candles, dissipates when an Arrival named Jimmy Gin declares, “God gave us dominion over everything,” and threatens Makwa, a young woman of the tribe. Weapons are drawn, and the Arrivals seem to retreat. The second part of “Feast” is a kind of erasure of the first, presenting history as the victors tell it. Makwa is being married off to Jimmy Gin, alongside a Thanksgiving-style feast. She protests in vain as the ceremony proceeds. “Who wants seconds?” someone cries.
“Train” is a tale of industrialization and brutalization. The language of missionary conquest and Manifest Destiny—“The Word of God is the Hand of God”—intersects with scenes of animal slaughter, work-gang labor, and mob violence. Doors rumble back and forth on casters, conjuring a real, or metaphorical, speeding train. In the second part, that bloodshed is forgotten as the society gives in to consumerism and self-gratification. A percussion-heavy chamber orchestra is positioned at the center of the roundhouse, with the audience arrayed in a circle surrounding it and the performers racing around the space’s outer rim.
Du Yun and Raven Chacon, the co-composers, prove to be a good match. Both draw on a wide spectrum of musical techniques, from the folk-primeval to the experimental. Chacon brings to bear his understanding of Native American musical traditions: in the latter half of “Feast,” he creates a mesmerizing multicultural counterpoint, blending Makwa’s sorrowful arias of remembrance with the sinuous cantilena of Host spirits and blocky four-part hymns sung by the Arrivals. Shimmers and flecks of instrumental sound establish a wide-open atmosphere, as if the city had wafted away into wilderness. The sonic textures of “Train” sometimes become dense to the point of incoherence, but Du Yun provides a thunderous climax in the form of bulldozing drones, pounding ostinato, and blasts of electric-guitar feedback.
Between the two parts of “Feast” and “Train,” the audiences leave their venues to see an outdoor interlude called “The Crossroads.” A trio of singers evoke ancient spirits: Carmina Escobar and Micaela Tobin jointly played the trickster Coyote, and Sharon Chohi Kim was the monster Wiindigo. The costumes, designed by Luger and E. B. Brooks, combine folkloric and surrealist features: brightly colored woollen garments, masses of fur, animal heads. The music, partly improvised, wavers between unearthly ululation and piercing lyricism. Throughout the scene, a sprinkler system is operating in an adjoining field, and images of horses, deer, and buffalo are projected onto the spray of water—ghosts of the land as it once was.
At the end, the full audience reassembles in the bleachers to witness “Echoes and Expulsions,” a harrowing epilogue of protest and lament. Unseen singers tell of the dark side of L.A. history: stories of enslaved indigenous children, of the Chinese massacre of 1871, of a Latina woman undergoing involuntary sterilization. A youthful figure crawls around a construction site at the corner of the park—perhaps scavenging for food, perhaps digging for the truth. Trains trundle by; fire engines scream across the North Broadway Bridge, in the distance. A chill descends, and not just because it can get cold at night in L.A.
The coronavirus shutdown cut short “Sweet Land” in the middle of its run. Smaller, nonprofit groups like the Industry are already reeling because of the crisis; some may not come back. The Industry is trying to recoup lost revenue by offering a video of “Sweet Land” for sale online. Cameras cannot capture the eerie power of the event, but the zooming lens picks out details that I missed live: subtitles projected on billboards like spectral graffiti, the image of a deer flickering across the bridge. The video was made after the cancellation of the show, when the city was closing up. The last train that passes through is almost empty. ♦


The Mail

As was true for Peter Hessler , the Peace Corps was a formative experience in my life and helped make me the person that I am today ( “ Broken Bonds , ” March 16th ) .
During my posting in Guayaquil , Ecuador , where I worked in community development from 1965 to 1967 , the program showed me—a small-town idealist with no idea what to do with my life—that my vocation was to teach .
Before I returned to the United States , a community leader told me that they never understood why we came there , why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why we were leaving .
The truth is , I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself and to come home a better person .
Learning Spanish and living abroad indisputably enhanced my fifty-year career in education .
I am appalled by the roles that Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott played in closing the Peace Corps ’ s China program .
Americans are gaining more than they realize with the Peace Corps , which has produced not only knowledgeable teachers but also business leaders , social entrepreneurs , civil servants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compare the Peace Corps ’ s China budget for 2018 , $ 4.2 million , with the nearly one trillion dollars spent so far on the conflict in Afghanistan , and then compare the results .
I sympathize with Hessler ’ s concern regarding the exit of the Peace Corps from China , but I was surprised that he did not write more explicitly about Xi Jinping , whose rise signalled a key geopolitical shift and further limited the kinds of liberties that Hessler found integral to his experience .
I studied in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When I returned , five years later , I was struck by the changes affecting foreigners and locals alike , from a concerted campaign of ideological guidance in universities to a notable increase in censorship .
The memorable incidents that Hessler recounts , such as showing his class an absentee ballot for the 1996 Presidential election and sharing “ banned books ” with a colleague , arose from the cracks in the Chinese Communist system .
But , as China experts such as Elizabeth Economy have observed , Xi has strengthened the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those gaps is ill-advised , even dangerous , for foreigners .
Hessler does acknowledge that Chinese citizens today “ are often more tolerant and aware ” despite the Great Firewall ’ s being “ more sophisticated than ever , ” but , by attributing the Peace Corps ’ s closure largely to anti-China sentiment in the U.S. , he doesn ’ t fully reckon with the fact that Xi ’ s China may no longer be among the “ interested countries , ” willing to at least tacitly accept the Corps ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who served in China from 2012 to 2014 and who later worked as the China Desk Officer at the Peace Corps headquarters , in Washington , D.C. , from 2015 to 2017 , I read Hessler ’ s piece as a eulogy for Peace Corps China .
My “ micro-history , ” to use Hessler ’ s term , with China covered the rise of Xi Jinping , the Umbrella Revolution , in Hong Kong , and a remarkable reduction in rural Chinese poverty , including among most of my college-age students .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese wife , returning to a United States where many children learn Mandarin in school , and watching dozens of teams race dragon boats on the Potomac .
The Corps ’ s work with China will likely appear even more precious in hindsight : a radical collaboration of Chinese and American public servants who believed in development through bilateral education and exchange , even amid difficult political and economic circumstances .
Letters should be sent with the writer ’ s name , address , and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ length and clarity , and may be published in any medium .
We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

Disturbing the Peace
As was true for Peter Hessler, the Peace Corps was a formative experience in my life and helped make me the person that I am today (“Broken Bonds,” March 16th). During my posting in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where I worked in community development from 1965 to 1967, the program showed me—a small-town idealist with no idea what to do with my life—that my vocation was to teach. Before I returned to the United States, a community leader told me that they never understood why we came there, why we stayed, and, now, why we were leaving. The truth is, I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself and to come home a better person. Learning Spanish and living abroad indisputably enhanced my fifty-year career in education.
I am appalled by the roles that Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott played in closing the Peace Corps’s China program. Americans are gaining more than they realize with the Peace Corps, which has produced not only knowledgeable teachers but also business leaders, social entrepreneurs, civil servants, journalists, and policymakers. Just compare the Peace Corps’s China budget for 2018, $4.2 million, with the nearly one trillion dollars spent so far on the conflict in Afghanistan, and then compare the results.
Margot Kinsey Jones
New York City
I sympathize with Hessler’s concern regarding the exit of the Peace Corps from China, but I was surprised that he did not write more explicitly about Xi Jinping, whose rise signalled a key geopolitical shift and further limited the kinds of liberties that Hessler found integral to his experience. I studied in China as a high-school student in 2012. When I returned, five years later, I was struck by the changes affecting foreigners and locals alike, from a concerted campaign of ideological guidance in universities to a notable increase in censorship. The memorable incidents that Hessler recounts, such as showing his class an absentee ballot for the 1996 Presidential election and sharing “banned books” with a colleague, arose from the cracks in the Chinese Communist system. But, as China experts such as Elizabeth Economy have observed, Xi has strengthened the system, to the extent that finding those gaps is ill-advised, even dangerous, for foreigners. Hessler does acknowledge that Chinese citizens today “are often more tolerant and aware” despite the Great Firewall’s being “more sophisticated than ever,” but, by attributing the Peace Corps’s closure largely to anti-China sentiment in the U.S., he doesn’t fully reckon with the fact that Xi’s China may no longer be among the “interested countries,” willing to at least tacitly accept the Corps’s mission.
Jacob Pagano
Los Angeles, Calif.
As a Peace Corps volunteer who served in China from 2012 to 2014 and who later worked as the China Desk Officer at the Peace Corps headquarters, in Washington, D.C., from 2015 to 2017, I read Hessler’s piece as a eulogy for Peace Corps China. My “micro-history,” to use Hessler’s term, with China covered the rise of Xi Jinping, the Umbrella Revolution, in Hong Kong, and a remarkable reduction in rural Chinese poverty, including among most of my college-age students. It also comprised meeting and marrying my Chinese wife, returning to a United States where many children learn Mandarin in school, and watching dozens of teams race dragon boats on the Potomac. The Corps’s work with China will likely appear even more precious in hindsight: a radical collaboration of Chinese and American public servants who believed in development through bilateral education and exchange, even amid difficult political and economic circumstances.
Russell Evans
Arlington, Va.
•
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.


newyorker--2020-03-30--“Mask,” by Beth Bachmann

“Mask,” by Beth Bachmann

During our self-isolation , you send me collages of God ’ s blown animals , breathed into , heated and shaped like glass .
Our skin is full of holes for oil and sweat .
When I whisper , Breathe me in , I mean all of me—the scent of my flesh , but also me , my god , the beginning of the fulfillment of this desire .
In a mask , you can be whoever I want you to be , king or dog : muse comes from muzzle , to track your kill .
The plague doctors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bird , the beak filled with fresh clippings : juniper , rose , clove .
The mask is a type of respirator , meaning breathe again , which is how we ’ ve managed to stay alive all these years .
Through the glass eyes , they could examine the body they could not touch with their bare hands .
Breath can be both instinctive and controlled .
Matisse ’ s most famous cutout is “ Blue Nude II , ” a woman who appears to be made of parts , but who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of paper .

Audio: Read by the author.
During our self-isolation, you send me collages
of God’s blown animals, breathed into, heated
and shaped like glass. Our skin is full of holes
for oil and sweat. When I whisper, Breathe me in,
I mean all of me—the scent of my flesh, but also me,
my god, the beginning of the fulfillment of this desire.
In a mask, you can be whoever I want you to be, king
or dog: muse comes from muzzle, to track your kill.
The plague doctors wore masks in the shape of a bird,
the beak filled with fresh clippings: juniper, rose, clove.
The mask is a type of respirator, meaning breathe again,
which is how we’ve managed to stay alive all these years.
Through the glass eyes, they could examine the body
they could not touch with their bare hands.
Breath can be both instinctive and controlled.
Matisse’s most famous cutout is “Blue Nude II,”
a woman who appears to be made of parts, but who
was scissored instead from a single sheet of paper.


Quarantine FOMO

If I don ’ t go into the living room , I will miss my partner talking on the phone to surgeons who are cancelling elective surgeries .
And if I do go into the living room I ’ ll miss what ’ s happening in this room—namely , waiting for a Zoom link to load .
And if I go to the kettle-boiling event in the kitchen I ’ ll miss the squirrel hopping around on the fire escape , and you can never predict when that will happen again .
But if I watch the squirrel I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreseeable future : sitting on the couch wearing noise-cancelling headphones .
If I stand at my windowsill anxiety-stroking the leaves of my plant , I ’ ll miss whatever is going on in my closet , and I ’ ve never been there before and I ’ ve been meaning to go .
And while I ’ m here , repositioning my desk against a different wall to create a sense that I have left the room in the past ten hours , I ’ m missing being inside all my friends ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another wall to create a sense that they ’ ve left the room in the past ten hours , and I didn ’ t go to that yesterday , either .
I ’ ve already committed to squeezing inside our storage space for the next half hour to recount the number of toilet-paper rolls .
The only thing is , then I ’ ll miss crouching in the living room and picking my own hairs off the carpet in order to create a sense of control over the uncontrollable .
It can be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better for your health : a more intense workout of jumping up and down in place in front of your stove or a more relaxed workout of floor yoga poses beneath your bed .
Either way , I ’ ll know that someone , somewhere , is having a Google Hangout without me .
If I sit on the edge of the tub telling myself to be brave , I ’ ll miss standing at the window , looking down at the street , and thinking that one good thing about not having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have to touch as many doorknobs .
And who knows when I ’ ll get another opportunity to take a selfie with that dog from sixty yards away ?
If I maintain my public image by choosing a fly outfit , walking down the street with confidence , and looking into the dark windows of shuttered restaurants , then I ’ ll miss ordering the “ It ” cocktail to go at my favorite bar in a Styrofoam cup .
And if I go to the grocery store to wander @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing left but artichokes in a jar and dented cans of pearl onions I ’ ll miss Skyping with my friend while we say over and over , “ This is so crazy , ” and maybe this is the one time someone really cool shows up to that .
I would sit at the dining-room table with a thermometer in my mouth for the second time today , but I ’ d hate to miss listening to my partner negotiate airline refunds , especially since it ’ s spring break .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ask if my cough is coronavirus-related I ’ ll miss the tri-daily bannister sanitation , and I already responded to that event on Facebook as “ interested.
” And if I go to my primary-care physician ’ s office in Manhattan for a test I ’ ll miss watching another hour of a dystopian show that used to scare me when I could still leave the house without wearing latex gloves .
And if I test positive for the virus and go to a hospital I ’ ll miss lying on a hospital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I go to a gymnasium I ’ ll miss the while-supplies-last pop-up shop of disinfecting wipes .
And if I recover from the coronavirus then I ’ ll miss being injected with the new vaccine .
But if I don ’ t get the new vaccine then I ’ ll get the coronavirus .
So it ’ s really hard to judge what the best move is .
Honestly , sometimes I just want to stay home and do nothing at all .
♦

If I don’t go into the living room, I will miss my partner talking on the phone to surgeons who are cancelling elective surgeries. And if I do go into the living room I’ll miss what’s happening in this room—namely, waiting for a Zoom link to load.
And if I go to the kettle-boiling event in the kitchen I’ll miss the squirrel hopping around on the fire escape, and you can never predict when that will happen again. But if I watch the squirrel I’ll miss our social plan for the foreseeable future: sitting on the couch wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
If I stand at my windowsill anxiety-stroking the leaves of my plant, I’ll miss whatever is going on in my closet, and I’ve never been there before and I’ve been meaning to go.
And while I’m here, repositioning my desk against a different wall to create a sense that I have left the room in the past ten hours, I’m missing being inside all my friends’ homes while they reposition their desks against another wall to create a sense that they’ve left the room in the past ten hours, and I didn’t go to that yesterday, either.
I’ve already committed to squeezing inside our storage space for the next half hour to recount the number of toilet-paper rolls. The only thing is, then I’ll miss crouching in the living room and picking my own hairs off the carpet in order to create a sense of control over the uncontrollable. It can be so hard to judge what really is better for your health: a more intense workout of jumping up and down in place in front of your stove or a more relaxed workout of floor yoga poses beneath your bed. Either way, I’ll know that someone, somewhere, is having a Google Hangout without me.
If I sit on the edge of the tub telling myself to be brave, I’ll miss standing at the window, looking down at the street, and thinking that one good thing about not having a dog to walk is that I don’t have to touch as many doorknobs. And who knows when I’ll get another opportunity to take a selfie with that dog from sixty yards away?
If I maintain my public image by choosing a fly outfit, walking down the street with confidence, and looking into the dark windows of shuttered restaurants, then I’ll miss ordering the “It” cocktail to go at my favorite bar in a Styrofoam cup.
And if I go to the grocery store to wander the aisles of canned food which have nothing left but artichokes in a jar and dented cans of pearl onions I’ll miss Skyping with my friend while we say over and over, “This is so crazy,” and maybe this is the one time someone really cool shows up to that.
I would sit at the dining-room table with a thermometer in my mouth for the second time today, but I’d hate to miss listening to my partner negotiate airline refunds, especially since it’s spring break.
And if I call my primary-care physician to ask if my cough is coronavirus-related I’ll miss the tri-daily bannister sanitation, and I already responded to that event on Facebook as “interested.” And if I go to my primary-care physician’s office in Manhattan for a test I’ll miss watching another hour of a dystopian show that used to scare me when I could still leave the house without wearing latex gloves.
And if I test positive for the virus and go to a hospital I’ll miss lying on a hospital bed in a gymnasium. And if I go to a gymnasium I’ll miss the while-supplies-last pop-up shop of disinfecting wipes. And if I recover from the coronavirus then I’ll miss being injected with the new vaccine.
But if I don’t get the new vaccine then I’ll get the coronavirus. So it’s really hard to judge what the best move is.
Honestly, sometimes I just want to stay home and do nothing at all. ♦


newyorker--2020-03-30--Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Briefly Noted Book Reviews

The Precipice , by Toby Ord ( Hachette ) .
In a book that seems made for the present moment , Ord , a moral philosopher , examines and seeks to quantify existential risk—the looming threats that might someday wipe out humanity .
There ’ s good news ( it ’ s exceedingly unlikely that a star will blunder through our solar system and “ disrupt planetary orbits , causing the Earth to freeze or boil or even crash into another planet ” ) and bad ( climate change is dire , though bioengineered pathogens , released by evildoers or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scourge ) .
Still , there are ample proposals for risk mitigation , and readers may find the sections that argue for why humanity deserves saving , and why we ’ re equipped to face the challenges , even more arresting than the array of potential cataclysms .
The Magical Language of Others , by E. J. Koh ( Tin House ) .
This memoir relates the stories of four generations of women in Koh ’ s family , tracing the ways that language binds them together .
When Koh was a teen-ager @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her parents returned to Korea , and her mother sent a string of letters—forty-nine in all—back to her daughter .
Translations of these dispatches , filled with the music of Korean-inflected English , alternate with accounts of tectonic shifts in Koh ’ s life .
While she is studying in Japan , memories of a Japanese-speaking grandmother who witnessed the Jeju Island massacre compel Koh to learn the language , befriending local shopkeepers and salarymen as she does .
“ They sat next to me , watered me with conversation , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a grain of rice by itself.
” The Glass Hotel , by Emily St. John Mandel ( Knopf ) .
The 2008 financial crisis becomes , in this panoramic novel , a platform for questions about self-reinvention and the ruptures of modern society .
At the story ’ s center are the Canadian half siblings Paul , an addict and would-be musician , and Vincent , a resourceful woman of many permutations : bartender , assistant cook on a container ship , and girlfriend of a Bernie Madoff-like investor , whose wealth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strange webs in “ the kingdom of money.
” While Vincent ’ s search for purpose propels the novel , its subjects are pleasingly omnivorous , ranging from the logistics of global shipping to a fraudster ’ s elaborate prison fantasies of a “ counterlife.
” Then the Fish Swallowed Him , by Amir Ahmadi Arian ( HarperVia ) .
The English-language début of a celebrated Iranian writer and translator , this novel follows a middle-aged bus driver , Yunus , who is imprisoned after he is falsely accused of helping organize a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ C.I.A .
and Mossad .
For twenty-five years , Yunus has led an austere life ; his closest relationships are with Tehran ’ s crowded , smoggy streets , the routes of which he envisages while trapped in his cell .
Despite his tepid participation in the strike , Yunus endures torture and solitary confinement , as well as an apocalypse-obsessed and unsettlingly charismatic interrogator—a depiction of how abstract political machinations crystallize into absurd , capricious violence .

The Precipice, by Toby Ord (Hachette). In a book that seems made for the present moment, Ord, a moral philosopher, examines and seeks to quantify existential risk—the looming threats that might someday wipe out humanity. There’s good news (it’s exceedingly unlikely that a star will blunder through our solar system and “disrupt planetary orbits, causing the Earth to freeze or boil or even crash into another planet”) and bad (climate change is dire, though bioengineered pathogens, released by evildoers or laboratory accidents, might prove a speedier scourge). Still, there are ample proposals for risk mitigation, and readers may find the sections that argue for why humanity deserves saving, and why we’re equipped to face the challenges, even more arresting than the array of potential cataclysms.
The Magical Language of Others, by E. J. Koh (Tin House). This memoir relates the stories of four generations of women in Koh’s family, tracing the ways that language binds them together. When Koh was a teen-ager in California, in the two-thousands, her parents returned to Korea, and her mother sent a string of letters—forty-nine in all—back to her daughter. Translations of these dispatches, filled with the music of Korean-inflected English, alternate with accounts of tectonic shifts in Koh’s life. While she is studying in Japan, memories of a Japanese-speaking grandmother who witnessed the Jeju Island massacre compel Koh to learn the language, befriending local shopkeepers and salarymen as she does. “They sat next to me, watered me with conversation,” she writes. “You cannot cook a grain of rice by itself.”
The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf). The 2008 financial crisis becomes, in this panoramic novel, a platform for questions about self-reinvention and the ruptures of modern society. At the story’s center are the Canadian half siblings Paul, an addict and would-be musician, and Vincent, a resourceful woman of many permutations: bartender, assistant cook on a container ship, and girlfriend of a Bernie Madoff-like investor, whose wealth, neurotic accomplices, and downfall illustrate the strange webs in “the kingdom of money.” While Vincent’s search for purpose propels the novel, its subjects are pleasingly omnivorous, ranging from the logistics of global shipping to a fraudster’s elaborate prison fantasies of a “counterlife.”
Then the Fish Swallowed Him, by Amir Ahmadi Arian (HarperVia). The English-language début of a celebrated Iranian writer and translator, this novel follows a middle-aged bus driver, Yunus, who is imprisoned after he is falsely accused of helping organize a union strike with the aid of the C.I.A. and Mossad. For twenty-five years, Yunus has led an austere life; his closest relationships are with Tehran’s crowded, smoggy streets, the routes of which he envisages while trapped in his cell. Despite his tepid participation in the strike, Yunus endures torture and solitary confinement, as well as an apocalypse-obsessed and unsettlingly charismatic interrogator—a depiction of how abstract political machinations crystallize into absurd, capricious violence.


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Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit your caption here, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Anyone age thirteen or older can enter or vote. To read the complete rules, click here.
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