newyorker--2020-01-27--Toni Morrison’s Profound and Unrelenting Vision

Before closing the book on that town and those people , the author has us pause for a few final images and thoughts framed by regret , shame , and horror .
The book ?
Toni Morrison ’ s début novel , “ The Bluest Eye , ” which turns fifty this year .
As the story ends , one of its protagonists , the blighted Pecola Breedlove , has been more or less abandoned by the townspeople , who have treated her with scorn for most of her life ; now she ’ s left to wander the streets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early novels bathed in the blood of gothic dread—William Faulkner ’ s “ As I Lay Dying ” ( 1930 ) , say , or Flannery O ’ Connor ’ s “ Wise Blood ” or Ralph Ellison ’ s “ Invisible Man ” ( both published in 1952 ) —Morrison ’ s book cut a new path through the American literary landscape by placing young black girls at the center of the story .
Like all the principal characters in “ The Bluest Eye , ” Pecola lives in Lorain , Ohio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ August , was born in 1931 .
When we meet Pecola , she is eleven years old but already ancient with sorrow .
Her only escape from the emotional abuse that her family and her classmates heap on her is to dream .
And the dream is this : that someone—God , perhaps—will grant her the gift of blue eyes .
The kind of blue eyes Pecola has seen in pictures of the movie star Shirley Temple .
The kind of blue eyes that she imagines lighting up the face of the girl @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Mary Janes .
Pecola feels , or the world has made her feel , that if she had blue eyes she would , at last , be free—free from her unforgivable blackness , from what her community labelled ugliness long before she could look in a mirror and determine for herself who and what she was .
Not that she ever looks in a mirror .
She knows what she ’ d find there : judgment of her blackness , her femaleness , the deforming language that has distorted the reflection of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acquire , or believes she acquires , blue eyes .
But in those harrowing final images , Claudia MacTeer , Morrison ’ s spirited nine-year-old narrator , sees what Pecola can not , what her madness , the result of all that rejection , looks like to the rest of the town : “ Grown people looked away ; children , those who were not frightened by her , laughed outright.
” In this short , intellectually expansive , emotionally questioning , and spiritually knowing book , the act of looking—and seeing—is described @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many : Peering through a window in their family home , Claudia and her older sister , Frieda , catch a first glimpse of sex .
A beloved boarder is consorting with a notorious prostitute .
What can it mean , him sucking on that woman ’ s fingers ?
Is that love ?
Or is it what a man does to , and not with , a female ?
Another example : When Pecola goes to buy some of her treasured Mary Janes , the white shopkeeper sees her but can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing in his experience has prepared him to recognize a little black girl as an entity .
Despite all this looking , few people , aside from Claudia , bear witness to much .
To do so would be to think critically about the society that formed them and be moved to effect change .
Instead , there ’ s a great deal of condemnation and parochial disapproval .
And it ’ s mostly aimed at black women—especially those mothers who don ’ t keep their home or their children clean .
Cleanliness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ godliness , and who would want to commit the double sin of being black and dirty ?
Pecola ’ s very presence exacerbates some of the other characters ’ not so buried feelings about their own race and poverty—liabilities that push these Ohioans apart , rather than unite them : no one wants to be confronted with her own despair , especially when it ’ s reflected in the eyes of another despairing person .
And the truth is , by the time we leave Pecola , pecking at the waste on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too , may feel a measure of relief at no longer having to see what Morrison sees , her profound and unrelenting vision of what life can do to the forsaken .
Morrison said that she wrote “ The Bluest Eye ” because she wanted to read it .
She began the book in 1965 , when she was thirty-four years old .
She had majored in English at Howard University , after which she did her M.A .
at Cornell .
( Her thesis , which she described as “ shaky , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the work of Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner . )
Morrison went on to teach at Texas Southern University , and then at Howard , in D.C. , where she joined a writers ’ group and worked on a short story about a little black girl who wanted blue eyes .
The character was based on a girl she ’ d known growing up in Ohio , who ’ d wanted those eyes and decided that God didn ’ t exist when He didn ’ t give them to her .
Morrison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got on with the business of living .
In 1958 , she married the Jamaican architect Harold Morrison ; seven years later , the couple was divorced , and Toni was by herself , supporting two young boys and working as an editor at L. W. Singer , a textbook company in Syracuse , New York .
During an argument , a neighbor called Morrison a tramp in front of her children .
Morrison filed a two-hundred-thousand-dollar lawsuit , which she later dropped .
She fought to protect herself , but how do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Loneliness and hurt are often an artist ’ s first tools , and Morrison put hers to work by remembering and writing about the world she ’ d come from : the funk of poverty as well as its flowers , the ghost stories that her father , a welder and a Jack-of-all-trades , told his children .
In a way , “ The Bluest Eye ” builds on those tales and honors the years when , without knowing it , Morrison was preparing to become an artist .
Set near the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before postwar prosperity changed Lorain , the book is narrated by Claudia , a feisty child , but the tone is elegiac , since a lot of the novel is driven by memory and the stories that shape it .
Before the narrative begins , Morrison gives us the crux of the tale in a sort of preface :

Before closing the book on that town and those people, the author has us pause for a few final images and thoughts framed by regret, shame, and horror. The book? Toni Morrison’s début novel, “The Bluest Eye,” which turns fifty this year. As the story ends, one of its protagonists, the blighted Pecola Breedlove, has been more or less abandoned by the townspeople, who have treated her with scorn for most of her life; now she’s left to wander the streets in madness:
The damage done was total. She spent her days, her tendril sap-green days, walking up and down, up and down, her head jerking to the beat of a drummer so distant only she could hear. Elbows bent, hands on her shoulders, she flailed her arms like a bird in an eternal, grotesquely futile effort to fly. Beating the air, a winged but grounded bird, intent on the blue void it could not reach—could not even see—but which filled the valley of the mind.
Spectacular even alongside other early novels bathed in the blood of gothic dread—William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” (1930), say, or Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood” or Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” (both published in 1952)—Morrison’s book cut a new path through the American literary landscape by placing young black girls at the center of the story.
Like all the principal characters in “The Bluest Eye,” Pecola lives in Lorain, Ohio, where Morrison, who died last August, was born in 1931. When we meet Pecola, she is eleven years old but already ancient with sorrow. Her only escape from the emotional abuse that her family and her classmates heap on her is to dream. And the dream is this: that someone—God, perhaps—will grant her the gift of blue eyes. The kind of blue eyes Pecola has seen in pictures of the movie star Shirley Temple. The kind of blue eyes that she imagines lighting up the face of the girl on the wrapper of her favorite candies, Mary Janes. Pecola feels, or the world has made her feel, that if she had blue eyes she would, at last, be free—free from her unforgivable blackness, from what her community labelled ugliness long before she could look in a mirror and determine for herself who and what she was. Not that she ever looks in a mirror. She knows what she’d find there: judgment of her blackness, her femaleness, the deforming language that has distorted the reflection of her face. Eventually, Pecola does acquire, or believes she acquires, blue eyes. But in those harrowing final images, Claudia MacTeer, Morrison’s spirited nine-year-old narrator, sees what Pecola cannot, what her madness, the result of all that rejection, looks like to the rest of the town: “Grown people looked away; children, those who were not frightened by her, laughed outright.”
In this short, intellectually expansive, emotionally questioning, and spiritually knowing book, the act of looking—and seeing—is described again and again. One example of many: Peering through a window in their family home, Claudia and her older sister, Frieda, catch a first glimpse of sex. A beloved boarder is consorting with a notorious prostitute. What can it mean, him sucking on that woman’s fingers? Is that love? Or is it what a man does to, and not with, a female? Another example: When Pecola goes to buy some of her treasured Mary Janes, the white shopkeeper sees her but can’t fix his attention on her; nothing in his experience has prepared him to recognize a little black girl as an entity.
Despite all this looking, few people, aside from Claudia, bear witness to much. To do so would be to think critically about the society that formed them and be moved to effect change. Instead, there’s a great deal of condemnation and parochial disapproval. And it’s mostly aimed at black women—especially those mothers who don’t keep their home or their children clean. Cleanliness, of course, is next to godliness, and who would want to commit the double sin of being black and dirty? Pecola’s very presence exacerbates some of the other characters’ not so buried feelings about their own race and poverty—liabilities that push these Ohioans apart, rather than unite them: no one wants to be confronted with her own despair, especially when it’s reflected in the eyes of another despairing person. And the truth is, by the time we leave Pecola, pecking at the waste on the margins of the world, we, too, may feel a measure of relief at no longer having to see what Morrison sees, her profound and unrelenting vision of what life can do to the forsaken.
Morrison said that she wrote “The Bluest Eye” because she wanted to read it. She began the book in 1965, when she was thirty-four years old. She had majored in English at Howard University, after which she did her M.A. at Cornell. (Her thesis, which she described as “shaky,” was about suicide as a theme in the work of Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner.) Morrison went on to teach at Texas Southern University, and then at Howard, in D.C., where she joined a writers’ group and worked on a short story about a little black girl who wanted blue eyes. The character was based on a girl she’d known growing up in Ohio, who’d wanted those eyes and decided that God didn’t exist when He didn’t give them to her. Morrison put the draft in a drawer and got on with the business of living. In 1958, she married the Jamaican architect Harold Morrison; seven years later, the couple was divorced, and Toni was by herself, supporting two young boys and working as an editor at L. W. Singer, a textbook company in Syracuse, New York. During an argument, a neighbor called Morrison a tramp in front of her children. Morrison filed a two-hundred-thousand-dollar lawsuit, which she later dropped. She fought to protect herself, but how do you protect yourself from isolation or loneliness?
Loneliness and hurt are often an artist’s first tools, and Morrison put hers to work by remembering and writing about the world she’d come from: the funk of poverty as well as its flowers, the ghost stories that her father, a welder and a Jack-of-all-trades, told his children. In a way, “The Bluest Eye” builds on those tales and honors the years when, without knowing it, Morrison was preparing to become an artist. Set near the start of the Second World War, before postwar prosperity changed Lorain, the book is narrated by Claudia, a feisty child, but the tone is elegiac, since a lot of the novel is driven by memory and the stories that shape it. Before the narrative begins, Morrison gives us the crux of the tale in a sort of preface:
Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow. . . . It was a long time before my sister and I admitted to ourselves that no green was going to spring from our seeds. Once we knew, our guilt was relieved only by fights and mutual accusations about who was to blame. . . . It never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola’s father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair. What is clear now is that of all of that hope, fear, lust, love, and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth. . . . The seeds shriveled and died; her baby too. There is really nothing more to say—except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.
By dispensing with narrative suspense up front, Morrison the modernist focusses our attention on character, on how the stories we tell about and to one another often are the story. We first meet Claudia and Frieda when a white neighbor taunts them, and we are shown that whiteness has no erotic pull for Claudia; she has no interest in being defiled or overtaken by it. Given white dolls for Christmas, she destroys them. But, she says, “The dismemberment of the dolls was not the true horror. The truly horrifying thing was the transference of the same impulses to little white girls. The indifference with which I could have axed them was shaken only by my desire to do so.” Claudia has already learned to hate; she knows that the world doesn’t admire and validate her the way it does white girls, and she compensates for her vulnerability by fighting for attention and respect.
Cartoon by Liza Donnelly Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Pecola has no fight in her. (To see her name and read her story is to be reminded of Peola, another girl of color who is tormented by the question and the reality of race, in Fannie Hurst’s 1933 novel “Imitation of Life.”) But, to be fair, Pecola comes to Claudia’s family under humbling circumstances: the county places her there because she and the other Breedloves—her father, Cholly, who works at the local plant; her mother, Polly, who works as a domestic; and her older brother, Sammy—have no home. Cholly, in addition to burning his house down, went “upside his wife’s head, and everybody, as a result, was outdoors.” (“There is a difference between being put out and being put outdoors,” Morrison writes, in one of the book’s fabulous clarifying paragraphs. “If you are put out, you go somewhere else; if you are outdoors, there is no place to go. . . . Outdoors was the end of something, an irrevocable, physical fact, defining and complementing our metaphysical condition.”) At Claudia’s, Pecola falls in love with an image of a blue-eyed Shirley Temple on a cup, and in order to peer at it as much as possible she drinks three quarts of milk, which angers Claudia’s mother. Testing charity’s patience can get you put outdoors, too.


newyorker--2020-01-27--What Happens When the News Is Gone?

What Happens When the News Is Gone?

For a long time , the commissioners of Pollocksville , a town of three hundred or so people in the far eastern part of North Carolina , held their monthly public meetings in a century-old former train depot on Main Street , near the Trent River .
In September , 2018 , Hurricane Florence flooded the Trent ; the water rose as high as ten feet downtown , severely damaging dozens of structures in Pollocksville .
The train depot was nearly destroyed , along with town records that dated back to the nineteen-twenties .
The commissioners ’ meetings are now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ street from the Dollar General store .
On a Tuesday evening in November , Pollocksville ’ s five town commissioners gathered there , sitting on a raised platform beneath fluorescent lights and an American flag , to which they and the seven residents who had come to the meeting—a typical number of attendees—pledged allegiance .
Among the first orders of business was a proposed flood-damage ordinance , one of many responses to Florence that the board has considered in the past year .
Jay Bender , who ’ s been the mayor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a solid helmet of gray hair and a careful drawl .
He asked if anyone in the audience would like to comment on it .
Alice Strayhorn , a hairdresser in her late sixties who has lived in Pollocksville most of her adult life , raised her hand .
“ This flood-damage-prevention order , ” she said .
“ How are we supposed to know about that ?
You can ’ t make a comment on something you don ’ t know about.
” Strayhorn ’ s low-lying home is often the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; she had heard that there had been grants coming through to deal with flooding .
( “ That ’ s why I keep going to the meetings , ” she told me later .
“ Seeing if there ’ s anything that comes up.
” ) “ That ’ s probably true , ” Bender said .
“ But it was posted .
It was advertised.
” “ In the newspaper , ” Bender said , “ and outside the office.
” Pollocksville is situated in Jones County , and most people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t have a newspaper .
It used to be the Jones Post , a weekly founded in 1976 .
But that outlet has faded over a period of years , first becoming a regional insert delivered with other newspapers , and gradually ceasing to print much in the way of substantive local journalism .
At this point , not even its publisher is quite willing to call it a paper .
According to one estimate , the U.S. has lost one in four of its newspapers in the last fifteen years .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ folded are weekly papers and other non-dailies .
Around fifteen hundred American counties have just one paper , usually a weekly ; another two hundred counties are without a newspaper altogether .
These latter areas are what researchers call news deserts , and Jones County , one researcher told me , is a classic example .
Bender had posted a notice about the ordinance .
He had put it in the New Bern Sun Journal , which is based in a neighboring county .
Few people in Pollocksville read it .
Alice Strayhorn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minutes , before leaving early .
She spoke up just once more , to let the mayor know that his chair was at risk of toppling over .
The ordinance passed a few minutes after she left , and the board moved on to other subjects : a sewer leak by the graveyard , the town ’ s Christmas lights , its “ Welcome to Pollocksville ” sign , a dead fox , and the fate of a long-abandoned 1999 Crown Victoria .
I caught up with Strayhorn outside .
I wanted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been referring to in his reply to her .
“ I don ’ t know , ” she said , shrugging , as rain began to fall .
“ I haven ’ t received any paper.
” She told me that she ’ d already lost two cars to flooding and was worried that she ’ d lose her house .
I asked whether having a newspaper in town would make any difference to her .
“ If I put the story in a paper , maybe the board would pay more attention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I can ’ t even remember the last time we got a paper here .
The news information is very scarce now .
It ’ s not like it used to be .
I don ’ t know what happened.
” Pollocksville is the oldest of three small towns in Jones County , which sits on five hundred square miles of flat land suited to growing cotton , tobacco , and soybeans .
The county is shaped like a mounted boar ’ s head , facing west ; Pollocksville sits in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousand people live in the county , the same number that lived there a hundred years ago .
Roughly sixty per cent of its residents are white , and roughly sixty per cent of its residents voted for Donald Trump in 2016 .
In addition to the Sun Journal , a couple of other newspapers from neighboring counties trickle into Jones : the Kinston Free Press , from Lenoir County , and the Jacksonville Daily News , from Onslow County .
But none of those papers has more than a couple hundred readers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ All three are owned by the Gannett Company , which controls more than two hundred publications nationwide .
Under Gannett ’ s watch , many have become “ ghost papers , ” emaciated versions of their former selves , hobbled by cost-cutting , barely able to cover their established beats .
Penny Abernathy , a professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina , told me that , twenty years ago , a state ’ s largest newspaper could be counted on to cover its rural areas .
At its peak , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ & Observer had some two hundred and fifty newsroom employees , and it won a Pulitzer , in 1996 , for its coverage of the hog industry in rural North Carolina .
Now it ’ s down to around sixty staffers .
“ That means there are no longer the people that were roaming around in the past , doing stories that bound that region together , ” Abernathy said .
News ecosystems have become especially arid in poorer places with older residents who have less formal education than the average American .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ more papers , and have more counties without newspapers , than any other place , ” she said .

We stepped out of her house, and Strayhorn took me to her beauty parlor, at the far end of Main Street, in a former gas station. “It’s just a shaggy old shop, but it makes me my living,” she said. “I have only one white customer. I used to have a few, but they came at night, so the neighbors wouldn’t see them here.” It was one of a few public places in Pollocksville, she said, where black folks in town could comfortably share the news.
A lot of that news is not good, and none of it is widely told. A black man in his late twenties told me, “People have gone. Houses are being torn down, left to crumble. If you’re my age, you really can’t make it around here. You have to move to Charlotte or out of state.” Pointing to a volunteer firefighter station, across a field from a historically black neighborhood called Garnett Heights, on the edge of town, he told me, “Cops sit over there.” He went on, “I’m gonna keep it real with you, we call that the Klan meeting, because you never know. It still lurks.” A U.N.C. report on the legacy of segregation in Jones County noted that Pollocksville never formally annexed Garnett Heights, and so residents of the neighborhood cannot vote in municipal elections.
The man in his twenties, whose family lives in Garnett Heights, asked that I not share his name, so that he could speak freely. He works at a factory in a neighboring county. Summing up life in the area, he said, “Once you cross into eastern North Carolina, it’s just more prejudice and lower wages. Who’s telling that story?”
Sitting with Bryan Hanks, in Kinston, I asked him what it would cost, annually, to produce a real, twelve-page weekly paper in Jones County. After some back-of-the-envelope calculating, he settled on three hundred thousand dollars. “But that doesn’t cover a building,” he said. Who’d pay for that? “I can’t think of anybody on top of my head,” he said. Penny Abernathy, the U.N.C. professor, told me that when it comes to journalism in poorer areas, like Jones County, “I do not see a for-profit model, at least for now.” One hope is that nonprofits will step in. But, so far, Abernathy said, foundations have provided only a fraction of the money that news organizations used to have—and most of that money has gone to “the big national-level organizations,” not “into really what we call local news.” It’s possible that the solution will depend on public funding, she said. New Jersey recently committed a portion of an unexpected windfall to a nonprofit that aims to strengthen local news. State representatives in Massachusetts proposed a commission to study the matter and then to recommend legislation.
In addition to covering “the routine government meetings like the town council,” Abernathy said, local newspapers “have also kind of bound the community together in a variety of ways. So, if you have a business there, they got customers through the door. And, at the same time, they kind of took the national headlines and showed you how it was very much related to the community where you live.” Dan Ryan, a town commissioner in Maysville, told me that the region didn’t understand itself as well as it should in the absence of local reporting. “The census is coming up,” he pointed out. “How many people have we lost since Florence that aren’t ever coming back? Will we still have ten thousand in the county? Are we down to nine thousand? Reporting along those lines hasn’t happened, along with the ongoing recovery effort—who’s doing what, grants that had been received, money that’s been distributed, who’s been helped. It just gets left to be told through the rumor mill.”
A few weeks after leaving Pollocksville, I called Mayor Bender to tell him that I’d received a tip. Did he really spend sixty-seven thousand dollars of town money, I asked, without the approval of the town board, on rebuilding the town hall where he’d kept an office for decades? He said that he had. “We signed architectural contracts to move the town hall to another lot. We’ll close in the next week or two on the purchase.” This money had to be put toward that specific project, he told me. Anyone who was confused by that “lacks education on the use of public funds,” he said.
Jay Bender, the mayor of Pollocksville for most of the past four decades, outside the town’s temporary town hall, a former pharmacy. Photograph by Kennedi Carter for The New Yorker
I asked if he could provide proof that the aid was tied to the renovation of the town hall. “Charles,” he said, “this has kind of gone way off the edge from what you said you wanted to talk to me about.” When I had first contacted Bender, in November, I had told him I was writing a piece about news deserts, and what happens when an area goes without substantive reporting. “I kind of feel like I’m being a majorly interviewed person here,” he said. I reminded him that he’d told me previously that if a journalist got a tip about Jay Bender it would be reasonable for that journalist to look into it.
“I think the minutes and all my reports would reflect that I’ve made no secret of wanting to preserve the town hall,” he said. “No secret at all.” He added, “I have been confronted by a couple of board members who said that I was not being objective. And I have firmly admitted, publicly and privately, that I wanted to see that project succeed.” Bender, returning to an argument he’d made in our first conversation, told me, “Individuals have a personal responsibility to get the facts.” I asked how a poor Pollocksville resident driving to another county to work a twelve-hour day in a factory, then returning home to young children, could realistically be expected to get facts about the financing of a project like the town hall. “Let’s don’t pick on the town hall,” he said.
As we got toward the end of our conversation, Bender acknowledged that a newspaper could be useful to explain how and why public funds are used for certain projects. And I acknowledged that it was unusual for a reporter from a national magazine to call up the mayor of a town of three hundred people and ask about the paperwork for sixty-seven thousand dollars in public money. Later, Bender sent minutes from town meetings when the subject of the town hall’s preservation was addressed. The notes were mostly brief. Another town commissioner, Sherry Henderson, said, “The proper channels should have been followed,” but pointed out that, at the time these decisions were being made, “We were concerned with survival.” It wasn’t clear whether the town was even going to come back from Hurricane Florence; in some ways, it’s still not clear. The mayor, she suggested, was just trying to get things done.
It didn’t seem like a dire scandal, but it did seem like the kind of thing that a local reporter might ask about, and might write about, if there were an outlet for such a story. Maybe some tail-burning would have been involved. But no one in Pollocksville had a professional responsibility to ask annoying questions about the things that matter only to the citizens of that town, and to no one else, and to print the answers. I was writing a story that was mostly for other people, who didn’t live here. And a lot of people in Pollocksville wouldn’t necessarily trust what I published—they were only inclined to believe stories from people who’d spent more than a few days in their county, and more than a few months trying to understand it. They had told me so.
On the phone with the mayor, I sensed the awkwardness of our situation. Somebody else was supposed to be asking these questions.
“I do feel like you’re picking on me a little bit,” Bender said. “I’m not used to this.”


newyorker--2020-01-27--The Right to Listen

The Right to Listen

Last winter , I found myself seated around a massive table with about forty others on the ground floor of the historic Jane Addams Hull-House Museum , in Chicago .
A group of curators had invited me to participate in “ Parts of Speech , ” an exhibit consisting of six lectures by six artists held at venues across the city .
Instead of a typical talk , where I ’ d speak from a stage or behind a lectern , I ’ d proposed hosting a debtors ’ assembly—a forum where people could share stories of their financial hardship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an assembly before .
As the participants ( not “ audience members ” ) trickled into the room , I reminded myself that the event was supposed to be about listening , not talking .
Even so , I couldn ’ t resist making some opening remarks .
I told the group that my work as an organizer and documentary filmmaker had led me to understand listening as a deeply political act , and an underappreciated one .
I suggested that our lack of attention to listening connected to the larger crisis of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and powerful shape the discourse while many others go unheard .
After I ’ d finished , Laura Hanna , the co-director of the Debt Collective , an economic-justice group I ’ d helped found , reeled off statistics demonstrating that we live with Gilded Age levels of inequality .
Then she invited people to share their stories .
In that ornate , wood-panelled room , an ominous silence descended .
Looking from one quiet face to another , I panicked .
What if no one talked ?
The first person to speak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousand dollars in student loans ; many people in his life were unsympathetic to his plight , he said , because he had studied art and not “ law or something.
” A young woman began to cry .
“ I ’ m a first-generation student , I come from a family of poverty , ” she said .
“ Sorry if I get emotional , but I ’ m here with my little one , and I ’ m thinking about her future .
I ’ m a hundred and seventy-five thousand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a huge number.
” When she finished , the room burst into applause .
The dam broke .
A young man spoke of a mental-health crisis that had caused his debt to balloon ; it included ambulance and hospital bills that took three years to pay off .
A middle-aged woman described herself as “ teetering at that edge of poverty ” after she quit her job because of racist comments made by a colleague ; her high debt load meant she couldn ’ t help her college-age son .
Another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousand dollars in student loans were overwhelming not just her but her mother , who had taken many of them out on her behalf ; she described the pain of feeling judged a failure when you are trying the best you can .
An older man told how , after arriving as a refugee from Liberia , he ’ d thought education would be a lifeline .
He ’ d gotten a degree in chemistry and then attended nursing school , but now the money he owed was a trap from which he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forum progressed , the mood in the room changed .
Some people listened silently .
Others , taking it all in , felt emboldened to reveal hardships they ’ d been reluctant to divulge elsewhere .
A few got fired up : after hearing others ’ stories , the crying woman asked , “ How can this be legal ?
” A mountain of debt and shame was becoming visible—an overwhelming burden that was also a common bond .
I ’ d suggested a debtors ’ assembly because I wanted to create a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communicative coin—speaking and listening—could be valued equally .
Even so , I found myself surprised by listening ’ s power .
Though I work on issues of inequality , I was stunned by how much suffering the circle held .
“ We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak , ” the stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote , two thousand years ago .
That ’ s long been one of my favorite quotes .
The truth , though , was that it had been a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an opportunity to listen , silently and at length , to what many other people had to say .
Afterward , walking in the cold , I couldn ’ t help but think of listening as something we ’ re all entitled to—a right we ’ re often denied , and that the assembly had just reclaimed .
Today , we are constantly reminded of the importance of free speech and the First Amendment ; we exalt freedom in the expressive realm .
Is there some corresponding principle of listening worth defending ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to one another should be defended in a democracy seems strange .
That ’ s probably because we lack a shared vocabulary or framework for understanding listening as a political act .
We pay lip service to the idea of listening : stage-managed “ town-hall meetings , ” at which politicians and candidates respond to curated questions from a screened audience , are a familiar part of the political landscape .
In 2017 , Mark Zuckerberg embarked on a highly publicized national “ listening tour , ” which yielded photographs of him riding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to church in a small town , helping out on an automobile assembly line , and so on .
No one really imagined that Zuckerberg would listen to anything the people he visited had to say .
We expect powerful people to be talkers , not listeners .
Philosophers , too , have thought mostly about speech—biased , perhaps understandably , toward dazzling utterances .
When Aristotle declared man a “ political animal , ” he argued that what distinguished us from other creatures was our capacity for rational discourse .
Modern philosophers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ democracy ” in which oration and argument , declamation and debate , play out in an idealized public sphere .
Careers have been made studying “ speech-act theory , ” which examines how certain verbal expressions do things in the world ( a judge declaring a defendant “ guilty , ” for instance , or a couple “ married ” ) .
A corresponding “ listening-act theory ” doesn ’ t yet exist .
But to listen is to act ; of that , there ’ s no doubt .
It takes effort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As anyone who has been in a heated argument—or who ’ s simply tried to coexist with family members , colleagues , friends , and neighbors—well knows , it ’ s often easier not to listen .
We can tune out and let others ’ words wash over us , hearing only what we want to hear , or we can pantomime the act of listening , nodding along while waiting for our turn to speak .
Even when we want to be rapt , our attentions wane .
Deciding to listen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It accords them a special kind of recognition and respect .
In 2015 , I began making a documentary called “ What Is Democracy ?
” —a feature exploring the fate of self-government in the Trump era .
Immediately , I remembered that one of the hardest things about beginning to shoot a new documentary is remembering how to listen .
I had to make a concerted effort to bite my tongue , so as not to babble over my subjects , ruining the footage ( the way I had , to my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shoot , more than fifteen years ago ) .
I found that listening well , so that I could respond genuinely and substantively , was exhausting work .
One of the things I heard , when I listened , was that many of the people I spoke with—immigrant factory workers , asylum seekers , former prisoners , schoolchildren—simply assumed that no one was interested in listening to them .
At a community center in Miami , I asked a group of teen-agers if they ever discussed democracy at school .
“ Yes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government , ” a boy said .
“ They don ’ t ask us , ‘ How do you feel about the school ?
’ ” As far as the kids could tell , their opinions didn ’ t matter to their teachers or the administrators in charge , and they didn ’ t feel there was much they could do about it .
“ My voice isn ’ t going to change anything , ” a girl told me , with a shrug .
I asked them whether they thought the adults @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say than they did .
“ I don ’ t think people of higher power really want to hear a black mom that ’ s poor in a ghetto , ” the girl responded , matter-of-factly .
Similarly , a boy warned , an adult standing up for himself at work would only get into trouble ; it was better not to speak out and “ just get it over with.
” Their certainty about going unheard was painful to hear .

Last winter, I found myself seated around a massive table with about forty others on the ground floor of the historic Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, in Chicago. A group of curators had invited me to participate in “Parts of Speech,” an exhibit consisting of six lectures by six artists held at venues across the city. Instead of a typical talk, where I’d speak from a stage or behind a lectern, I’d proposed hosting a debtors’ assembly—a forum where people could share stories of their financial hardship.
I’d never hosted such an assembly before. As the participants (not “audience members”) trickled into the room, I reminded myself that the event was supposed to be about listening, not talking. Even so, I couldn’t resist making some opening remarks. I told the group that my work as an organizer and documentary filmmaker had led me to understand listening as a deeply political act, and an underappreciated one. I suggested that our lack of attention to listening connected to the larger crisis of American democracy, in which the wealthy and powerful shape the discourse while many others go unheard. After I’d finished, Laura Hanna, the co-director of the Debt Collective, an economic-justice group I’d helped found, reeled off statistics demonstrating that we live with Gilded Age levels of inequality. Then she invited people to share their stories. In that ornate, wood-panelled room, an ominous silence descended. Looking from one quiet face to another, I panicked. What if no one talked?
The first person to speak confessed to owing a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in student loans; many people in his life were unsympathetic to his plight, he said, because he had studied art and not “law or something.” A young woman began to cry. “I’m a first-generation student, I come from a family of poverty,” she said. “Sorry if I get emotional, but I’m here with my little one, and I’m thinking about her future. I’m a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars in student-loan debt, and that’s a huge number.” When she finished, the room burst into applause.
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The dam broke. A young man spoke of a mental-health crisis that had caused his debt to balloon; it included ambulance and hospital bills that took three years to pay off. A middle-aged woman described herself as “teetering at that edge of poverty” after she quit her job because of racist comments made by a colleague; her high debt load meant she couldn’t help her college-age son. Another woman explained that her hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in student loans were overwhelming not just her but her mother, who had taken many of them out on her behalf; she described the pain of feeling judged a failure when you are trying the best you can. An older man told how, after arriving as a refugee from Liberia, he’d thought education would be a lifeline. He’d gotten a degree in chemistry and then attended nursing school, but now the money he owed was a trap from which he couldn’t escape.
As the forum progressed, the mood in the room changed. Some people listened silently. Others, taking it all in, felt emboldened to reveal hardships they’d been reluctant to divulge elsewhere. A few got fired up: after hearing others’ stories, the crying woman asked, “How can this be legal?” A mountain of debt and shame was becoming visible—an overwhelming burden that was also a common bond. I’d suggested a debtors’ assembly because I wanted to create a space in which both sides of the communicative coin—speaking and listening—could be valued equally. Even so, I found myself surprised by listening’s power. Though I work on issues of inequality, I was stunned by how much suffering the circle held.
“We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak,” the stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, two thousand years ago. That’s long been one of my favorite quotes. The truth, though, was that it had been a long time since I’d had an opportunity to listen, silently and at length, to what many other people had to say. Afterward, walking in the cold, I couldn’t help but think of listening as something we’re all entitled to—a right we’re often denied, and that the assembly had just reclaimed. Today, we are constantly reminded of the importance of free speech and the First Amendment; we exalt freedom in the expressive realm. Is there some corresponding principle of listening worth defending?
We expect powerful people to be talkers, not listeners.
The idea that the right to listen to one another should be defended in a democracy seems strange. That’s probably because we lack a shared vocabulary or framework for understanding listening as a political act. We pay lip service to the idea of listening: stage-managed “town-hall meetings,” at which politicians and candidates respond to curated questions from a screened audience, are a familiar part of the political landscape. In 2017, Mark Zuckerberg embarked on a highly publicized national “listening tour,” which yielded photographs of him riding a tractor with a farmer, going to church in a small town, helping out on an automobile assembly line, and so on. No one really imagined that Zuckerberg would listen to anything the people he visited had to say. We expect powerful people to be talkers, not listeners.
Philosophers, too, have thought mostly about speech—biased, perhaps understandably, toward dazzling utterances. When Aristotle declared man a “political animal,” he argued that what distinguished us from other creatures was our capacity for rational discourse. Modern philosophers have developed a framework of “deliberative democracy” in which oration and argument, declamation and debate, play out in an idealized public sphere. Careers have been made studying “speech-act theory,” which examines how certain verbal expressions do things in the world (a judge declaring a defendant “guilty,” for instance, or a couple “married”). A corresponding “listening-act theory” doesn’t yet exist.
But to listen is to act; of that, there’s no doubt. It takes effort and doesn’t happen by default. As anyone who has been in a heated argument—or who’s simply tried to coexist with family members, colleagues, friends, and neighbors—well knows, it’s often easier not to listen. We can tune out and let others’ words wash over us, hearing only what we want to hear, or we can pantomime the act of listening, nodding along while waiting for our turn to speak. Even when we want to be rapt, our attentions wane. Deciding to listen to someone is a meaningful gesture. It accords them a special kind of recognition and respect.
In 2015, I began making a documentary called “What Is Democracy?”—a feature exploring the fate of self-government in the Trump era. Immediately, I remembered that one of the hardest things about beginning to shoot a new documentary is remembering how to listen. I had to make a concerted effort to bite my tongue, so as not to babble over my subjects, ruining the footage (the way I had, to my eternal embarrassment, during my first film shoot, more than fifteen years ago). I found that listening well, so that I could respond genuinely and substantively, was exhausting work.
One of the things I heard, when I listened, was that many of the people I spoke with—immigrant factory workers, asylum seekers, former prisoners, schoolchildren—simply assumed that no one was interested in listening to them. At a community center in Miami, I asked a group of teen-agers if they ever discussed democracy at school. “Yes, but it’s about branches of government,” a boy said. “They don’t ask us, ‘How do you feel about the school?’ ” As far as the kids could tell, their opinions didn’t matter to their teachers or the administrators in charge, and they didn’t feel there was much they could do about it. “My voice isn’t going to change anything,” a girl told me, with a shrug. I asked them whether they thought the adults in their lives had more of a say than they did. “I don’t think people of higher power really want to hear a black mom that’s poor in a ghetto,” the girl responded, matter-of-factly. Similarly, a boy warned, an adult standing up for himself at work would only get into trouble; it was better not to speak out and “just get it over with.” Their certainty about going unheard was painful to hear.
It wasn’t just other people’s voices that preoccupied me. When I began filming “What Is Democracy?,” I cringed at my own voice, which sounds nothing like the voices of the men who generally occupy positions of cinematic authority. For better and worse, my documentary sensibility has been shaped by male directors, such as Errol Morris, Adam Curtis, and Werner Herzog, whom viewers can often hear offscreen, asking probing questions or providing erudite commentary. I had fully absorbed the sound of the male auteur and sage.
Early in the filmmaking process, I stumbled across “The Public Voice of Women,” an essay by the classicist-turned-television presenter Mary Beard. From antiquity onward, Beard traces the ways women have been muted and mocked, compared to braying donkeys and worse. She quotes the lecturer Dio Chrysostom—“the Golden Mouth”—who, in the second century A.D., asked his audience to imagine what he considered to be a nightmare scenario: “An entire community . . . struck by the following strange affliction: all the men suddenly got female voices, and no male—child or adult—could say anything in a manly way. Would not that seem terrible and harder to bear than any plague?”
Over the centuries, we’ve been taught to believe that deep voices are deep. Margaret Thatcher, famously, took lessons with a speech coach at the National Theatre to learn how to lower her pitch; Theresa May has admitted to modulating her delivery in the House of Commons, lest she sound a “shrill note.” I realized that I had a version of the same impulse. Beard’s essay turned a dial in my head; I began to hear myself and others in new ways. Re-watching Herzog’s films, for example, I found myself imagining how their reception might shift if they were narrated by a California Valley Girl instead of a man with an imposing Bavarian accent. “What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams,” my imagined feminine narrator would lilt. Why shouldn’t she come off as equally profound?
A listener, when she realizes that she struggles to attend to only certain kinds of voices, apprehends the divisions in society. How we hear someone relates to that person’s gender, race, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, and wealth. Some voices are perceived as authoritative, others are ignored; some are broadcast around the world, others fade for lack of funds. Attempting to create what the essayist Rebecca Solnit calls “a democracy of equal audibility” is a social enterprise—it’s one of the tasks of feminist, anti-racist, and economic-justice movements. What would such a democracy sound like? Certainly not like one booming bass note.
The social prejudices that muffle other frequencies are often reinforced by those invested in the status quo. Some critics of the freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez complain that she sounds like a teen-age girl—as if that were such a terrible thing to be. Every time she speaks on the floor of the House of Representatives, Ocasio-Cortez helps to establish that higher-pitched voices can also be heard as commanding and capable. Greta Thunberg, a seventeen-year-old girl with Asperger’s syndrome, similarly extends our auditory range. But Thunberg also points us toward another set of obstacles impeding our ability to hear. “Listen to the scientists,” she often says. It’s no accident that, for many people, listening to them has been difficult: fossil-fuel companies have spent millions to spread misinformation about climate change. To defend our right to listen to one another, we must sometimes strain to hear voices that the powerful would drown out.
This past October, two years after the conclusion of his listening tour, Zuckerberg was questioned in Congress by Ocasio-Cortez. She noted that “the official policy of Facebook”—which has declared that it won’t ban ads that contain well-documented lies—“now allows politicians to pay to spread disinformation.” She wanted to know how far this policy could be pushed. Would she, for example, be allowed to run ads falsely claiming that Republican candidates up for reëlection had voted for the Green New Deal?
“Probably,” Zuckerberg said. The previous week, he had delivered a lecture at Georgetown University titled “Standing for Voice and Free Expression.” In it, he had placed his company in a lineage of free-speech pioneers, including Eugene Debs and Martin Luther King, Jr. “The ability to speak freely has been central in the fight for democracy worldwide,” he said. The central argument of the speech was that any attempt on Facebook’s part to distinguish between deliberate disinformation and ordinary free speech would be anti-democratic.


Christoph Niemann’s “Whiteout”

Snow , which at once sharpens , obscures , and shapes a landscape , has always been a rich subject for artists , and Christoph Niemann ’ s latest cover explores some of its stranger qualities .
( It hasn ’ t been a snowy winter in New York , but there ’ s been enough to make the image feel apt . )
We recently talked to Niemann about his process and some of his favorite animations .
This cover is the result of both digital and analog methods .
Can you tell us more about that process ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the process !
I ’ ve done a rainy-day cover , in which I tried to create a simplified rendition of drops on a window .
Here I wanted to do the same thing with snow .
Specifically , I wanted to play with the fact that snow appears dark in front of a light background and white in front of a dark background , such as a building .
Initially , I tried to create that effect with a hole puncher .
I liked the look , but it felt a bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into a pixel drawing , which allowed me to connect the character to the background—but I missed the roundness of the paper snowflakes , so I softened the pixels to round shapes .
The last real challenge was to apply this effect to the animation .
Part of what ’ s interesting here is that every element is reduced to its base qualities .
What made you choose those elements : a bicycle , a bridge , snow falling ?
It ’ s an experience that a lot of people have had , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal experience .
Everyone thinks that they ’ re the only one who really knows what it feels like .
It ’ s a bit uncomfortable—windy , cold , wet , slippery—but also poetic .
There are the faint silhouettes , the muffled sound .
The beauty of an abstract drawing is that it lets a reader project her own memories onto the composition .
You split your time between Berlin and New York .
Is there anything special about New York that brings you back ?
Friends and work , obviously .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ runs .
Running over the Brooklyn Bridge is beautiful but tricky .
After around 7 A.M. , there are way too many people , so I like to go when it rains or snows .
It ’ s much less crowded .
Your animated image feels modern , but it also evokes works such as “ Out of the Inkwell , ” from the early days of animation .
Are there one or two animators you especially admire ?
Winsor McCay ’ s “ Gertie the Dinosaur ” is a favorite .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , my all-time favorites are the Walt Disney Sport Goofy clips .
I could watch them for hours !
See below for more covers that celebrate snow in New York :

Snow, which at once sharpens, obscures, and shapes a landscape, has always been a rich subject for artists, and Christoph Niemann’s latest cover explores some of its stranger qualities. (It hasn’t been a snowy winter in New York, but there’s been enough to make the image feel apt.) We recently talked to Niemann about his process and some of his favorite animations.
This cover is the result of both digital and analog methods. Can you tell us more about that process?
That mix was the interesting aspect of the process! I’ve done a rainy-day cover, in which I tried to create a simplified rendition of drops on a window. Here I wanted to do the same thing with snow. Specifically, I wanted to play with the fact that snow appears dark in front of a light background and white in front of a dark background, such as a building.
Niemann’s early version involved cut paper and circles made with a hole puncher.
Initially, I tried to create that effect with a hole puncher. I liked the look, but it felt a bit too messy. Then I turned it into a pixel drawing, which allowed me to connect the character to the background—but I missed the roundness of the paper snowflakes, so I softened the pixels to round shapes. The last real challenge was to apply this effect to the animation.
Part of what’s interesting here is that every element is reduced to its base qualities. What made you choose those elements: a bicycle, a bridge, snow falling?
It’s an experience that a lot of people have had, but it’s also a very personal experience. Everyone thinks that they’re the only one who really knows what it feels like. It’s a bit uncomfortable—windy, cold, wet, slippery—but also poetic. There are the faint silhouettes, the muffled sound. The beauty of an abstract drawing is that it lets a reader project her own memories onto the composition.
A detail from Niemann’s cut-paper version and a digital sketch with square pixels.
You split your time between Berlin and New York. Is there anything special about New York that brings you back?
Friends and work, obviously. But another essential draw is going for runs. Running over the Brooklyn Bridge is beautiful but tricky. After around 7 A.M., there are way too many people, so I like to go when it rains or snows. It’s much less crowded.
Your animated image feels modern, but it also evokes works such as “Out of the Inkwell,” from the early days of animation. Are there one or two animators you especially admire?
Winsor McCay’s “Gertie the Dinosaur” is a favorite. But, in terms of pure animation aesthetic, my all-time favorites are the Walt Disney Sport Goofy clips. I could watch them for hours!
See below for more covers that celebrate snow in New York:


newyorker--2020-01-27--The Dangers of Ambition in “A Soldier’s Play” and “Timon of Athens”

Give me a ladder to climb—the jungle gym of the corporate org chart , the hazy inner ranks of some large church , the series of badges and pins upon which military order is maintained—and I can spin out a story about America .
Hierarchy is our great imaginative canvas .
We don ’ t want to know just about the inner workings of the mob , but also about how the one guy became the boss ; follow not just baseball but the World Series ; if the hero ’ s a priest , he ’ d better have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us how you survived , sure , but also how you got over .
There ’ s a technical aspect to this narrative preference : upward motion feels like forward motion , and success has beats that are easy to chart and make propulsive .
But the deeper issue is moral—against our higher instincts , and despite the ample evidence of experience , we stow away a pinch of belief that there ’ s more freedom at the top of the pile .
Charles Fuller ’ s “ A Soldier ’ s Play @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Pulitzer Prize in 1982—is obsessed with signs of seniority .
Thwarted advancement makes the piece move .
The play , which has been revived by the Roundabout Theatre Company , at American Airlines Theatre , under the direction of Kenny Leon , takes place in the mid-nineteen-forties , on a segregated Army base in Louisiana , where a black sergeant , Vernon Waters ( David Alan Grier ) , has been mysteriously killed .
Everybody blames his death on the Klan , but nobody seems to really know what happened .
Waters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bleed into the present investigation of his death , is a proud , haughty , casually abusive man who wields his rank as a bludgeon and whose humor—Grier ’ s well-honed specialty as a performer , now spiked with rancor—is a firearm trained on the soldiers under his command .
He ’ s a bully ; Grier makes his malice terrifying , but also seductive .
Waters has it in for the Southerners in the regiment .
Their regionalisms and humble folkways—songs and jokes , manners refined and reinforced by fear of violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mere bowing and scraping and jiving at the feet of the white world .
Waters thinks these men are holding blacks back with their levity and obeisance .
Better , he thinks , to rise within the white man ’ s meritocracy and eventually subvert it on its own terms .
He ’ s a perverse opposite of the great writer and activist Audre Lorde , who warned that “ the master ’ s tools will never dismantle the master ’ s house.
” Notions of uplift , shorn of love , have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within the military is , to him , an accrual of human dignity ; he uses official discipline—taking away one man ’ s hard-earned “ stripes ” over a trifle , sending another man to military jail—to strip others of their dignity .
Yet , for all his grasping , he lacks the respect that his success was supposed to win .
Even his pettiest order can be reversed by Captain Taylor ( Jerry O ’ Connell ) , the white man who ’ s the head honcho on the base .
Waters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a private named C. J. Memphis ( J. Alphonse Nicholson ) , a star baseball player who sings the hell out of the blues and wins more favor from whites by way of his talent than Waters does by his rank .
( This implicit dismissal of art rings true even today ; Waters is a bit like the contemporary corporate striver who brags about never cracking open a work of fiction . )
There are two plays here : the interstitial telling of how Waters ’ s wickedness , born of racism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sends him spiralling downward , toward the grave ; and a much more rote detective story about how his killer is caught .
“ A Soldier ’ s Play ” is weakest precisely as it strains to transition between these two strands : there are awkwardly choreographed scene changes performed by the privates , and work songs that are effective on their own but not necessarily as the hinges they ’ re meant to be .
Blair Underwood plays Captain Richard Davenport , a black man who has come to the base to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ derision from Captain Taylor , who just can ’ t get used to the sight of a black officer ( not to mention one who wears sleek dark aviators indoors ) , and awed reverence ( salutes and grins and slyly happy repetitions of his title , Captain ) from the blacks who are gratified to see a version of themselves represented in so starchy a shirt , such an impeccable tie .
Davenport ’ s rank kicks up almost as much chaos as Waters ’ s death .
Underwood is fine in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far the cornier half of the proceedings .
There ’ s too much focus on his relationship , and eventual fraught reconciliation , with Taylor , and too little on what ’ s behind the anguished howl he belts out after he ’ s broken the case .
There could be a terser version of this show whose focus is all on Waters , and on the inner decline that accompanies his professional advance .
Grier plays the sergeant with a pleasing near-incoherence , his splashes of anger and despair always threatening the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he charms and the next he bites .
He flexes his face into pantomimes of unspeakable cruelty and turns his roly-poly body into a harbinger of constant threat .
Waters ’ s final words are the first ones we hear spoken : “ They still hate you !
” —it ’ s the truth as a taunt .
The range and precision of Grier ’ s voice makes his upper registers citrusy and substantial , and his lower tones ragged , like the sound of a blown-out subwoofer .
The multivalence of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entire performance—now comic , now inviting doom , and , finally , much too late , sodden with remorse—gives his moments onstage their bitter , dismal truth : upward motion means nothing when your ceiling is somebody else ’ s floor .
“ Timon of Athens , ” William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton ’ s brusque tale of hard luck , directed by Simon Godwin at the Theatre for a New Audience ’ s Polonsky Shakespeare Center , is another disillusioned illustration of social position gone sour .
Timon ( Kathryn Hunter ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the flipped gender of the protagonist , originally written as male—who is profligately generous to her friends , and who learns in the worst way that they won ’ t return the favor .
The show opens with Timon hosting a grand dinner .
Little do the revellers know that their benefactor is badly in debt .
The good times are about to shudder to a close .
The sanest among Timon ’ s guests is the astringently philosophical Apemantus ( Arnie Burton ) , who so scorns the display that he pulls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what looks to be a lunch box and plops down at a makeshift kids ’ table .
Despite his warnings , and those of Timon ’ s loyal attendants , she has spent her very last cent , and , when the bill collectors come , the rich partyers are no help .
Soon , Timon , repelled by Athens and its “ affable wolves , ” is living on the city ’ s outskirts , her once sparkling whites sooty and the fun in her face gone .
The language in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full of the rhetorical device chiasmus .
In a typical passage , a pair of thieves come to Timon on her heath in order to “ wait for certain money ” ; in her refusal , she inverts their syntax as well as their wishes—if only “ money were as certain as your waiting.
” These clever phrasings are echoed in Hunter ’ s astounding performance .
She brings to each dense moment a platter bejewelled with ironies .
There ’ s a wistful murmur under her act as the happy socialite ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into a kind of Catskills comic .
( One running bit is her patter with the audience . )
Hunter ’ s voice is low , husky , and silkily resonant , a rare instrument , and the more destitute her Timon becomes the more ardently she sings her syllables .
Each of her fine gestures expresses a paradox that sits beneath the text .
Her eyes rage and then melt , all in the space of a second .
There is neither up nor down , utter failure nor lasting success , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person nearly naked , cast away and caught in life ’ s centrifuge .
No great nation , or battalion , or sign of status is relevant to existence at the city ’ s peripheries : better to search for higher loves and find a friend or two .
♦

Give me a ladder to climb—the jungle gym of the corporate org chart, the hazy inner ranks of some large church, the series of badges and pins upon which military order is maintained—and I can spin out a story about America. Hierarchy is our great imaginative canvas. We don’t want to know just about the inner workings of the mob, but also about how the one guy became the boss; follow not just baseball but the World Series; if the hero’s a priest, he’d better have a plan to be Pope. Tell us how you survived, sure, but also how you got over.
There’s a technical aspect to this narrative preference: upward motion feels like forward motion, and success has beats that are easy to chart and make propulsive. But the deeper issue is moral—against our higher instincts, and despite the ample evidence of experience, we stow away a pinch of belief that there’s more freedom at the top of the pile.
Charles Fuller’s “A Soldier’s Play”—which débuted in 1981 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982—is obsessed with signs of seniority. Thwarted advancement makes the piece move. The play, which has been revived by the Roundabout Theatre Company, at American Airlines Theatre, under the direction of Kenny Leon, takes place in the mid-nineteen-forties, on a segregated Army base in Louisiana, where a black sergeant, Vernon Waters (David Alan Grier), has been mysteriously killed. Everybody blames his death on the Klan, but nobody seems to really know what happened. Waters, whom we glimpse in flashbacks that bleed into the present investigation of his death, is a proud, haughty, casually abusive man who wields his rank as a bludgeon and whose humor—Grier’s well-honed specialty as a performer, now spiked with rancor—is a firearm trained on the soldiers under his command. He’s a bully; Grier makes his malice terrifying, but also seductive.
Waters has it in for the Southerners in the regiment. Their regionalisms and humble folkways—songs and jokes, manners refined and reinforced by fear of violence and, often, death—seem to him mere bowing and scraping and jiving at the feet of the white world. Waters thinks these men are holding blacks back with their levity and obeisance. Better, he thinks, to rise within the white man’s meritocracy and eventually subvert it on its own terms. He’s a perverse opposite of the great writer and activist Audre Lorde, who warned that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Notions of uplift, shorn of love, have made him a husk. His ascent within the military is, to him, an accrual of human dignity; he uses official discipline—taking away one man’s hard-earned “stripes” over a trifle, sending another man to military jail—to strip others of their dignity.
Yet, for all his grasping, he lacks the respect that his success was supposed to win. Even his pettiest order can be reversed by Captain Taylor (Jerry O’Connell), the white man who’s the head honcho on the base. Waters hates just about everybody, but especially a private named C. J. Memphis (J. Alphonse Nicholson), a star baseball player who sings the hell out of the blues and wins more favor from whites by way of his talent than Waters does by his rank. (This implicit dismissal of art rings true even today; Waters is a bit like the contemporary corporate striver who brags about never cracking open a work of fiction.)
There are two plays here: the interstitial telling of how Waters’s wickedness, born of racism and spurred on by sheer spite, sends him spiralling downward, toward the grave; and a much more rote detective story about how his killer is caught. “A Soldier’s Play” is weakest precisely as it strains to transition between these two strands: there are awkwardly choreographed scene changes performed by the privates, and work songs that are effective on their own but not necessarily as the hinges they’re meant to be.
Blair Underwood plays Captain Richard Davenport, a black man who has come to the base to sift through the facts. He inspires derision from Captain Taylor, who just can’t get used to the sight of a black officer (not to mention one who wears sleek dark aviators indoors), and awed reverence (salutes and grins and slyly happy repetitions of his title, Captain) from the blacks who are gratified to see a version of themselves represented in so starchy a shirt, such an impeccable tie. Davenport’s rank kicks up almost as much chaos as Waters’s death.
Underwood is fine in the role, but his is by far the cornier half of the proceedings. There’s too much focus on his relationship, and eventual fraught reconciliation, with Taylor, and too little on what’s behind the anguished howl he belts out after he’s broken the case. There could be a terser version of this show whose focus is all on Waters, and on the inner decline that accompanies his professional advance. Grier plays the sergeant with a pleasing near-incoherence, his splashes of anger and despair always threatening the arrival of fiercer waters. One minute he charms and the next he bites. He flexes his face into pantomimes of unspeakable cruelty and turns his roly-poly body into a harbinger of constant threat.
Waters’s final words are the first ones we hear spoken: “They still hate you!” —it’s the truth as a taunt. The range and precision of Grier’s voice makes his upper registers citrusy and substantial, and his lower tones ragged, like the sound of a blown-out subwoofer. The multivalence of that voice, and of Grier’s entire performance—now comic, now inviting doom, and, finally, much too late, sodden with remorse—gives his moments onstage their bitter, dismal truth: upward motion means nothing when your ceiling is somebody else’s floor.
“Timon of Athens,” William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton’s brusque tale of hard luck, directed by Simon Godwin at the Theatre for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center, is another disillusioned illustration of social position gone sour. Timon (Kathryn Hunter) is a rich woman—Hunter effortlessly pulls off the flipped gender of the protagonist, originally written as male—who is profligately generous to her friends, and who learns in the worst way that they won’t return the favor. The show opens with Timon hosting a grand dinner. Little do the revellers know that their benefactor is badly in debt. The good times are about to shudder to a close.
The sanest among Timon’s guests is the astringently philosophical Apemantus (Arnie Burton), who so scorns the display that he pulls a root vegetable and some water out of what looks to be a lunch box and plops down at a makeshift kids’ table. Despite his warnings, and those of Timon’s loyal attendants, she has spent her very last cent, and, when the bill collectors come, the rich partyers are no help. Soon, Timon, repelled by Athens and its “affable wolves,” is living on the city’s outskirts, her once sparkling whites sooty and the fun in her face gone.
The language in the latter half of the play is full of the rhetorical device chiasmus. In a typical passage, a pair of thieves come to Timon on her heath in order to “wait for certain money”; in her refusal, she inverts their syntax as well as their wishes—if only “money were as certain as your waiting.” These clever phrasings are echoed in Hunter’s astounding performance. She brings to each dense moment a platter bejewelled with ironies. There’s a wistful murmur under her act as the happy socialite; homelessness and crazily jaded misanthropy turn her into a kind of Catskills comic. (One running bit is her patter with the audience.) Hunter’s voice is low, husky, and silkily resonant, a rare instrument, and the more destitute her Timon becomes the more ardently she sings her syllables. Each of her fine gestures expresses a paradox that sits beneath the text. Her eyes rage and then melt, all in the space of a second.
There is neither up nor down, utter failure nor lasting success, for Hunter’s wind-tossed Timon—only the person nearly naked, cast away and caught in life’s centrifuge. No great nation, or battalion, or sign of status is relevant to existence at the city’s peripheries: better to search for higher loves and find a friend or two. ♦


newyorker--2020-01-27--The Super Bowl, with Estrogen

The Super Bowl, with Estrogen

On Sunday , the San Francisco 49ers will face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV , in Miami .
Recently , one state over , several dozen girls gathered at the John Lewis Invictus Academy , in Atlanta , for their own football game .
The school was hosting the Jen Welter Girls ’ Flag Football Camp , a free workshop where kids would “ ball out with some of the best , ” according to the camp ’ s Web site .
A tropical storm had relocated the balling to the gym , where about seventy girls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ printed with the camp ’ s team name , Grrridiron Girls , and logo : a line drawing of a football with long , pointy fingernails where the laces should be .
“ I ’ ve been playing flag football for a year , just at the park or the schools around me , ” Ella White , a sixteen-year-old who ’ d come straight from ballet class , said .
She smiled .
“ There ’ s a lot of estrogen in here.
” Shortly after 2 p.m. , Jen Welter , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ baseball cap , and a Grrridiron Girls shirt with the sleeves rolled up , addressed the campers .
Her long brown hair had been pulled into a ponytail , and thick mascara coated her lashes .
“ We ’ ve got all kinds of battles trying to get girls and women an opportunity to play football , ” she said .
“ And we ’ ve got to fight natural disasters , too ?
” Welter spent more than a decade as a linebacker in women ’ s professional-football leagues before she suited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ season as a running back with the Texas Revolution , a men ’ s team in the Champions Indoor Football league ( official stat line : one game , three carries , -1 yards ) .
The following year , she became the first woman to land an N.F.L .
coaching gig ( a preseason internship with the Arizona Cardinals ) .
But , when no full-time N.F.L .
job materialized , she began teaching at youth camps across the country and discovered that even the coed ones were mostly male .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an opportunity to learn football , ” she said .
In 2017 , she started her camp .
First up , drills .
The kids broke into groups and rotated through nine stations that had names like Flag Wars , Dictating Terms , and Around the World .
Welter directed Read & React , a fast-moving defensive drill that required running forward , backward , or side to side depending on the command .
Her coaching persona was like a cross between Bill Belichick—the gruff head coach of the New England Patriots—and Oprah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” a girl with pigtails said .
“ All of you on defense right now got beat .
Why ?
” Welter asked .
“ You weren ’ t ready.
” “ Nobody even noticed that I fell back there , ” a girl in pink-and-blue Fila sneakers complained .
“ I ’ d love to tell you that you ’ ll never fall down on a football field , but that ’ s simply not the case , ” Welter said .
“ All we ask is that you get up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the games began .
Traffic cones split the gym floor into thirds , and in each section two teams of seven faced off .
Although bodies constantly banged and players regularly landed with a loud thud on the hardwood floor , some girls wished for a little more contact .
“ I get put on my butt a lot , ” Rachel Wayne , the only girl on the Lanier High School varsity football team , said .
( She plays middle linebacker . )
“ But it ’ s fun .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ college , but there ’ s part of me that ’ s , like , ‘ I just want to be normal.
’ ” White , the ballerina , would like to play tackle .
“ But my mom won ’ t let me , ” she said .
“ She ’ s , like , ‘ Those concussions !
I won ’ t allow it !
’ ” At five-thirty , the final whistle blew .
Everyone gathered for a sendoff from Welter .
She talked about diversity and teamwork , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ room .
“ Someone asked me once why I ’ m O.K .
with boys coming to girls ’ camp , ” she said .
“ Know why ?
Girls weren ’ t allowed to play football when I was your age .
We got ta be better than the generation before us.
” As the crowd cleared out , two boys in Grrridiron Girls shirts stood waiting for their mothers .
“ It was a good experience because I learned that women don ’ t have a lot of opportunities , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , said .
“ I don ’ t mind playing with the girls , ” Kaden Mitchell , who is also eleven , said .
“ Yeah , ” Paul said .
“ Because they have skills.
” The feeling wasn ’ t mutual .
“ When I play football at school , I usually go home because of an injury , ” Zoë Rolen , who is nine , said , referring to the roughness of the boys on her team .
Did they accept her on the gridiron ?
She shrugged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t care what they think.
” ♦

On Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers will face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV, in Miami. Recently, one state over, several dozen girls gathered at the John Lewis Invictus Academy, in Atlanta, for their own football game. The school was hosting the Jen Welter Girls’ Flag Football Camp, a free workshop where kids would “ball out with some of the best,” according to the camp’s Web site. A tropical storm had relocated the balling to the gym, where about seventy girls and ten boys pulled on red T-shirts printed with the camp’s team name, Grrridiron Girls, and logo: a line drawing of a football with long, pointy fingernails where the laces should be.
“I’ve been playing flag football for a year, just at the park or the schools around me,” Ella White, a sixteen-year-old who’d come straight from ballet class, said. She smiled. “There’s a lot of estrogen in here.”
Shortly after 2 p.m., Jen Welter, dressed in black leggings, a black baseball cap, and a Grrridiron Girls shirt with the sleeves rolled up, addressed the campers. Her long brown hair had been pulled into a ponytail, and thick mascara coated her lashes. “We’ve got all kinds of battles trying to get girls and women an opportunity to play football,” she said. “And we’ve got to fight natural disasters, too?”
Welter spent more than a decade as a linebacker in women’s professional-football leagues before she suited up, in 2014, for a season as a running back with the Texas Revolution, a men’s team in the Champions Indoor Football league (official stat line: one game, three carries, -1 yards). The following year, she became the first woman to land an N.F.L. coaching gig (a preseason internship with the Arizona Cardinals). But, when no full-time N.F.L. job materialized, she began teaching at youth camps across the country and discovered that even the coed ones were mostly male. “Nobody was specifically looking to give girls an opportunity to learn football,” she said. In 2017, she started her camp.
First up, drills. The kids broke into groups and rotated through nine stations that had names like Flag Wars, Dictating Terms, and Around the World. Welter directed Read & React, a fast-moving defensive drill that required running forward, backward, or side to side depending on the command. Her coaching persona was like a cross between Bill Belichick—the gruff head coach of the New England Patriots—and Oprah.
“Pass!” Welter barked. “Run! Pass! Shuffle!”
“That was horrible for me,” a girl with pigtails said.
“All of you on defense right now got beat. Why?” Welter asked. “You weren’t ready.”
“Nobody even noticed that I fell back there,” a girl in pink-and-blue Fila sneakers complained.
Cartoon by David Sipress Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
“I’d love to tell you that you’ll never fall down on a football field, but that’s simply not the case,” Welter said. “All we ask is that you get up and keep going.”
Two hours later, the games began. Traffic cones split the gym floor into thirds, and in each section two teams of seven faced off. Although bodies constantly banged and players regularly landed with a loud thud on the hardwood floor, some girls wished for a little more contact. “I get put on my butt a lot,” Rachel Wayne, the only girl on the Lanier High School varsity football team, said. (She plays middle linebacker.) “But it’s fun. My mom wants me to play in college, but there’s part of me that’s, like, ‘I just want to be normal.’ ”
White, the ballerina, would like to play tackle. “But my mom won’t let me,” she said. “She’s, like, ‘Those concussions! I won’t allow it!’ ”
At five-thirty, the final whistle blew. Everyone gathered for a sendoff from Welter. She talked about diversity and teamwork, and finally brought up the elephant in the room. “Someone asked me once why I’m O.K. with boys coming to girls’ camp,” she said. “Know why? Girls weren’t allowed to play football when I was your age. We gotta be better than the generation before us.”
As the crowd cleared out, two boys in Grrridiron Girls shirts stood waiting for their mothers. “It was a good experience because I learned that women don’t have a lot of opportunities,” an eleven-year-old named Calvin Paul, Jr., said.
“I don’t mind playing with the girls,” Kaden Mitchell, who is also eleven, said.
“Yeah,” Paul said. “Because they have skills.”
The feeling wasn’t mutual. “When I play football at school, I usually go home because of an injury,” Zoë Rolen, who is nine, said, referring to the roughness of the boys on her team. Did they accept her on the gridiron? She shrugged and said, “I don’t care what they think.” ♦