newyorker--2020-05-17--Bomani Jones on Michael Jordan, “The Last Dance,” and Activism in the N.B.A.

With professional sports on hiatus , ESPN ’ s ten-part documentary series on Michael Jordan , “ The Last Dance , ” has dominated television ratings and become one of the most talked-about media events of the year .
Co-produced with Netflix , the series features behind-the-scenes footage of the Chicago Bulls during Jordan ’ s final season with the team , from 1997 to 1998 , that had never been aired .
The series , which covers Jordan ’ s entire career , risks being hagiographical—Jordan ’ s extreme competitiveness is presented as crucial to motivating his teammates , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Jordan that emerges is not always flattering , but the over-all portrait must have been pleasing enough to him , as he had significant control over the project : Jordan authorized the use of the previously unreleased footage , sat for extensive interviews , and had final-cut privileges .
To talk about “ The Last Dance ” and Jordan ’ s legacy , I spoke by phone with Bomani Jones , who hosts the ESPN podcast “ The Right Time.
” During our conversation , which has been edited for length and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Jordan and LeBron James have dealt with fame , why Jordan steered clear of politics for much of his career , and why it makes sense to think of Jordan as a man of the nineteen-eighties .
Where are you today on Michael Jordan ?
He is the greatest basketball player of all time , and it can be easy to lose sight of that when you see the new class of super-athletes .
But even with that being the case , you watch those clips of Jordan and say , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those .
Period.
” That is an observation that I can make that stands apart from whatever I think about Michael Jordan .
It ’ s interesting that he came of age in the nineteen-eighties , because he is ruthless , bottom-line , look-out-for-me in ways that are very emblematic of those times .
The thing is that looking out for himself in the way that he needed to involved dealing with other people , which seems to have been maddeningly frustrating for him .
I imagine he probably wishes he was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been all on him .
So as an athlete and as a construct within sports , the idea of him as this hard-driving , get-on-my-level guy—I don ’ t know if I ’ d say I ’ m here for it , but I understand the circumstances that create that man .
I did not see this , or any of the other things I ’ ve heard about his maniacal drive for competition , and come away from it thinking that he ’ s a bad person .
I find it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be hilarious .
But then , as a public figure , he has made the decision that he ’ s not going to talk about anything that might make people dislike him .
And that ’ s a very important thing to remember about Jordan : public image and the affection of the public are very , very , very important to him .
I found it to be a little bit disingenuous in the documentary when he talks about the Jesse Helms stuff , and he said , I was just focussed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ career .
I didn ’ t have time to think about these other things .
[ In 1990 , Jordan declined to endorse Harvey Gantt , an African-American Democrat who mounted a Senate challenge against the notoriously bigoted Jesse Helms , in Jordan ’ s home state of North Carolina .
Jordan is said to have justified his decision at the time by saying , “ Republicans buy sneakers , too.
” In “ The Last Dance , ” Jordan admits to having said the line but maintains that he said it in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s been thirty years since then , and he ain ’ t kicking it any different than he did at the time on those matters .
That ’ s a decision that he ’ s chosen to make , and I defend his right to live like that .
I just want you to be honest about the fact that you ’ re not willing to take a risk on these matters , and that ’ s a defensible position if you ’ re honest about it .
While there were certainly black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eighties and before then—Muhammad Ali being probably the most famous example—does it seem like nonwhite athletes broadly feel more comfortable doing so now ?
Yeah , I think they feel more comfortable now .
But I think also , if I want to be fair to Jordan on that , none of his contemporary stars were really out front , either .
Who ’ s the N.B.A .
player that was out front saying stop apartheid , for example ?
Isiah Thomas did a lot of work in this regard , and you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regarded , after the fact .
I think that the N.B.A .
has always existed in a different space with public relations , because it is the league that is considered to be the black league .
And they had always been very , very concerned with offending the public .
Someone could make the argument that they ’ re in a league that allows for them to say more now , because of the silence that a lot of guys took in the nineteen-eighties , because the silence developed a level of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I don ’ t know if I fully buy that argument , but I can ’ t just dismiss it out of hand .
I don ’ t recall Magic Johnson talking too much about politics ; and that ’ s before we get to the fact that I ain ’ t never heard Larry Bird talk about anything involving politics .
Right , there was a lot of concern in the eighties and beyond from the N.B.A.
, both coded and not so coded , about dress codes and stuff about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the league seeming “ too black.
” And it feels like that ’ s a bigger part of the history of the N.B.A .
than it is the N.F.L .
or baseball .
But now , in 2020—maybe this is the point you were making—the players seem more open about politics certainly than athletes who play baseball or football .
They are .
I also think that part of it is the relationship between N.B.A .
players and particularly the stars .
The league is far more of a partnership than it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the relationship between labor and management in baseball is more antagonistic than it ’ s been anywhere else .
And in football , obviously , the owners do not view the players—forget about as their equals—but even as somebody that they have to engage in dialogue with .
The N.B.A .
has understood in the last thirty years , especially , that their players have more power , because one individual player can have far more impact on the N.B.A .
than in any other sport .
What happened to the N.B.A .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ minor-league baseball ] in 1993 , that ’ s not going to happen in the N.F.L .
if Tom Brady leaves or Patrick Mahomes leaves tomorrow .
The N.B.A .
is in a different place .
The players know it ; the league knows it .
And so , as a result , they didn ’ t have any national-anthem controversy in the N.B.A .
They have a rule in place that says that you have to stand for the national anthem or not be on the floor , but they didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That kind of thing has to be negotiated .
It can only happen if you ’ ve got a dialogue between the league and the players to allow for that to happen .
By the same token , a lot of what you see politically from N.B.A .
players—I think the safety that some of them feel comes from the fact that they ’ ve got a commissioner that has encouraged this to a degree .
Now , the N.F.L .
has guys , a lot of them , who go really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re doing a lot of really good work on the ground .
But I don ’ t feel like the league , the N.F.L.
, is nearly as chummy with the players who do those things as you have in the N.B.A .

With professional sports on hiatus, ESPN’s ten-part documentary series on Michael Jordan, “The Last Dance,” has dominated television ratings and become one of the most talked-about media events of the year. Co-produced with Netflix, the series features behind-the-scenes footage of the Chicago Bulls during Jordan’s final season with the team, from 1997 to 1998, that had never been aired.
The series, which covers Jordan’s entire career, risks being hagiographical—Jordan’s extreme competitiveness is presented as crucial to motivating his teammates, if also borderline pathological. The picture of Jordan that emerges is not always flattering, but the over-all portrait must have been pleasing enough to him, as he had significant control over the project: Jordan authorized the use of the previously unreleased footage, sat for extensive interviews, and had final-cut privileges.
To talk about “The Last Dance” and Jordan’s legacy, I spoke by phone with Bomani Jones, who hosts the ESPN podcast “The Right Time.” During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the different ways that Jordan and LeBron James have dealt with fame, why Jordan steered clear of politics for much of his career, and why it makes sense to think of Jordan as a man of the nineteen-eighties.
Where are you today on Michael Jordan?
He is the greatest basketball player of all time, and it can be easy to lose sight of that when you see the new class of super-athletes. But even with that being the case, you watch those clips of Jordan and say, “There’s only been one of those. Period.” That is an observation that I can make that stands apart from whatever I think about Michael Jordan. It’s interesting that he came of age in the nineteen-eighties, because he is ruthless, bottom-line, look-out-for-me in ways that are very emblematic of those times. The thing is that looking out for himself in the way that he needed to involved dealing with other people, which seems to have been maddeningly frustrating for him. I imagine he probably wishes he was a golfer, because then it would have been all on him.
So as an athlete and as a construct within sports, the idea of him as this hard-driving, get-on-my-level guy—I don’t know if I’d say I’m here for it, but I understand the circumstances that create that man. I did not see this, or any of the other things I’ve heard about his maniacal drive for competition, and come away from it thinking that he’s a bad person. I find it, in a lot of ways, to be hilarious. But then, as a public figure, he has made the decision that he’s not going to talk about anything that might make people dislike him. And that’s a very important thing to remember about Jordan: public image and the affection of the public are very, very, very important to him.
I found it to be a little bit disingenuous in the documentary when he talks about the Jesse Helms stuff, and he said, I was just focussed on basketball, just focussed on my career. I didn’t have time to think about these other things. [In 1990, Jordan declined to endorse Harvey Gantt, an African-American Democrat who mounted a Senate challenge against the notoriously bigoted Jesse Helms, in Jordan’s home state of North Carolina. Jordan is said to have justified his decision at the time by saying, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” In “The Last Dance,” Jordan admits to having said the line but maintains that he said it in jest.] Well, it’s been thirty years since then, and he ain’t kicking it any different than he did at the time on those matters. That’s a decision that he’s chosen to make, and I defend his right to live like that. I just want you to be honest about the fact that you’re not willing to take a risk on these matters, and that’s a defensible position if you’re honest about it.
While there were certainly black athletes who took political stances in the eighties and before then—Muhammad Ali being probably the most famous example—does it seem like nonwhite athletes broadly feel more comfortable doing so now?
Yeah, I think they feel more comfortable now. But I think also, if I want to be fair to Jordan on that, none of his contemporary stars were really out front, either. Who’s the N.B.A. player that was out front saying stop apartheid, for example? Isiah Thomas did a lot of work in this regard, and you see the way that he is now regarded, after the fact.
I think that the N.B.A. has always existed in a different space with public relations, because it is the league that is considered to be the black league. And they had always been very, very concerned with offending the public. Someone could make the argument that they’re in a league that allows for them to say more now, because of the silence that a lot of guys took in the nineteen-eighties, because the silence developed a level of peace that allowed the league to grow. I don’t know if I fully buy that argument, but I can’t just dismiss it out of hand. I don’t recall Magic Johnson talking too much about politics; and that’s before we get to the fact that I ain’t never heard Larry Bird talk about anything involving politics.
Right, there was a lot of concern in the eighties and beyond from the N.B.A., both coded and not so coded, about dress codes and stuff about their players seeming too black, or the league seeming “too black.” And it feels like that’s a bigger part of the history of the N.B.A. than it is the N.F.L. or baseball. But now, in 2020—maybe this is the point you were making—the players seem more open about politics certainly than athletes who play baseball or football.
They are. I also think that part of it is the relationship between N.B.A. players and particularly the stars. The league is far more of a partnership than it is in the other two sports. Whereas the relationship between labor and management in baseball is more antagonistic than it’s been anywhere else. And in football, obviously, the owners do not view the players—forget about as their equals—but even as somebody that they have to engage in dialogue with.
The N.B.A. has understood in the last thirty years, especially, that their players have more power, because one individual player can have far more impact on the N.B.A. than in any other sport. What happened to the N.B.A. when Michael Jordan left [to play minor-league baseball] in 1993, that’s not going to happen in the N.F.L. if Tom Brady leaves or Patrick Mahomes leaves tomorrow. The N.B.A. is in a different place. The players know it; the league knows it.


newyorker--2020-05-18--No One Had Instincts Like Fred Willard

No One Had Instincts Like Fred Willard

A week ago , while talking with a friend about following one ’ s instincts , I cited an immortal scene of Fred Willard ’ s , from Christopher Guest ’ s 1996 comedy , “ Waiting for Guffman.
” In it , Willard and Catherine O ’ Hara play Ron and Sheila Albertson , the gung-ho stars of all the amateur theatre productions in their small Missouri town— “ the Lunts of Blaine , ” their director calls them .
( They ’ re also travel agents who have never travelled . )
Willard , handsome and genial as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an ascot , a pocket square , and a relaxed smile .
“ We ’ re in a glamour profession , being travel agents , ” he says , explaining why he might intimidate a fellow-actor .
Sheila adds that Ron is also intimidating because he has so much experience .
At home , she says , Ron gives her extensive notes , often for an hour or two at a time : “ He ’ s trying to help me to change my instincts , or at least ignore them.
” Ron @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the camera .
In real life , Willard , who died on Friday , at the age of eighty-six , was a master at following his instincts , and at inspiring fellow-actors to follow theirs .
He was a comic ’ s comic , beloved onscreen and off .
Throughout his six-decade career , he conveyed unusual warmth and friendliness , in Guest ’ s series of comedies and in hundreds of other roles .
In recent years , he ’ d been on “ Modern Family ” and made frequent appearances on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dad texted me every time he showed up— “ Fred Willard is playing George Washington in a Kimmel skit ” ; “ Kimmel has Fred Willard on as the headmaster of Trump ’ s military school ” —and I understood why .
It felt like our friend was on TV .
Willard was his own planet , with his own gravitational force .
You tuned in simply to enjoy being in his presence .
Guest ’ s improvised , documentary-style comedies helped showcase Willard ’ s particular gift : a sublime talent for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charming pontificator , professor , politician , or pitchman who is more comfortable in the spotlight than out of it , and for whom every opportunity to speak is an opportunity to spin gossamer silliness indefinitely .
Willard brought an innate sense of commitment to his roles—his stream-of-consciousness dog-show commentator in “ Best in Show , ” his joyously dippy band manager in “ A Mighty Wind ” —and his demeanor had an innate gentleness .
Even his characters ’ self-regard left you with a little something to love .
( “ Lotta @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he says , at the dog show , before the champion is announced . )
One of the brilliant things about “ Guffman ” is that , compared with the other ragtag talents of Blaine , the Albertsons are genuinely welcome theatrical presences : they ’ re stagey but competent , all too delighted to be professional .
Early on , after a bunch of hair-raising auditions for the town ’ s big sesquicentennial show , the Albertsons arrive in matching green-and-white windbreakers , miming , singing “ Midnight at the Oasis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s a relief .
In all the Guest movies , Willard ’ s wonderful improvised hooey , delivered with joyful confidence , helps center us , just as the Albertsons help center “ Red , White , and Blaine.
” Willard grew up in Shaker Heights , Ohio , and he went to military school at age twelve .
He played baseball at the Virginia Military Institute and served in the Army , then turned to performing : theatre in New York , Second City in Chicago .
He started acting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ met Guest in an Off Broadway production of Jules Feiffer ’ s “ Little Murders , ” directed by Alan Arkin , in 1969 .
“ I knew something was off when Fred actually started doing lines that weren ’ t in the play , to me , ” Guest told Charlie Rose , in 2003 .
“ I said to myself , ‘ You ’ re different , ’ and he is.
” In 1977 , Willard got a role on Norman Lear ’ s “ Fernwood Tonight , ” playing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s beige-suited talk-show host .
“ They said I was perfect for the part—they needed someone who was a complete fool , ” Willard said to David Letterman , in 1982 .
He waved his hand near his head : “ You have a little trap that says , ‘ Wait , I shouldn ’ t say this—I ’ ll sound foolish.
’ And , when I did that show , I just left the door open.
” In 1984 , he reëncountered Guest in “ This Is Spinal Tap , ” in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a military officer and Guest , Michael McKean , and Harry Shearer played the band .
He appeared on game shows and talk shows , and in movies and sitcoms , throughout the seventies and eighties ; he ’ s especially delightful in the 1987 Steve Martin romantic comedy “ Roxanne , ” as Mayor Deebs , the gimmick-loving , Don Johnson-suited airhead running a Colorado mountain town .
( A toast he makes : “ I would rather be with the people of this town .
.
.
than with the finest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But his big break , after three decades of being a successful working actor , was “ Waiting for Guffman.
” Guest was inspired to write “ Guffman ” after watching a junior-high production of “ Annie Get Your Gun ” : observing the pervasive quality of earnestness— “ how devoted they were to do the best performance they could , albeit at the level that they were working at , ” he ’ s said—touched him .
The resulting comedic environment , in which big dreams collide with regular people with regular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s talents .
On “ Charlie Rose , ” Guest said that , on set , actors particularly enjoyed watching Willard improvise : “ Everyone is watching Fred work .
Without exception .
It ’ s like kids at a party.
” Then he showed a clip from “ A Mighty Wind.
” In it , Willard ’ s manager character , a blond , moussed guy in a trombone-print shirt , interrupts a group of plucky folk singers rehearsing a sea shanty for a show .
“ I ’ ve got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he tells them .
“ I don ’ t know if you ’ re familiar with a book about a pirate captain—his name is Moby-Dick .
He was chasing some big whale , and he had a catchphrase he ’ d always yell out : ‘ Thar she blows !
’ So I thought if you could do that .
.
.
” He goes on to suggest that they try a bit where they get drenched in water , several times , mid-performance— “ Even the ladies !
” —and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they ’ ll turn their guitars over , “ and water splashes out .
Kerplunk !
Just a thought.
” He looks overjoyed by his helpful beneficence .
Before they shot the scene , Guest said , his only instruction to Willard had been , “ They ’ re rehearsing .
.
.
and you interrupt them.
” Willard ’ s instantly adored performances in Guest ’ s movies , especially in “ Best in Show , ” gave his career a second life , and new kinds of roles .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Undeclared ” ( “ Who ’ s that new prof in the fancy duds ?
Is it Ricky Martin ?
No , it ’ s just me !
” ) ; “ Everybody Loves Raymond ” ; “ Wall-E , ” where he became the first live-action actor in a Pixar movie ( he tells space travellers that they might experience “ some slight bone loss ” ) ; and “ Anchorman.
” ( “ Damn it !
Who typed a question mark on the teleprompter ?
” he yells , after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name .
“ Anything you put on that teleprompter , Burgundy will read !
” ) His final project , a role in Steve Carell ’ s forthcoming series “ Space Force , ” mirrors an early one , in a 1978 TV movie of the same name .
( “ Captain Stoner , is this another one of your dumb drills ?
” ) All along , Willard ’ s instincts made us feel better about our own , by showing us characters who are even more absurd than we are .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Willard described the first scene he shot for “ Guffman.
” It was in a library , and when the camera began rolling nobody spoke for a few seconds—so he did .
“ I said , ‘ I ’ ve always wondered , if you take out a library book and lose it , do you have to pay dues forever ?
’ ” His clueless character , Ron , he explained , just might want to know whether you ’ d have to “ pay a nickel a day till infinity.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ The lesson , he said : “ If you have nothing to say , just start talking .
”

Fred Willard brought an innate sense of commitment to his roles, and his demeanor had an innate gentleness. Photograph by Matthew Simmons / Getty
A week ago, while talking with a friend about following one’s instincts, I cited an immortal scene of Fred Willard’s, from Christopher Guest’s 1996 comedy, “Waiting for Guffman.” In it, Willard and Catherine O’Hara play Ron and Sheila Albertson, the gung-ho stars of all the amateur theatre productions in their small Missouri town—“the Lunts of Blaine,” their director calls them. (They’re also travel agents who have never travelled.) Willard, handsome and genial as ever, wears a sports coat, an ascot, a pocket square, and a relaxed smile. “We’re in a glamour profession, being travel agents,” he says, explaining why he might intimidate a fellow-actor. Sheila adds that Ron is also intimidating because he has so much experience. At home, she says, Ron gives her extensive notes, often for an hour or two at a time: “He’s trying to help me to change my instincts, or at least ignore them.” Ron, all affable pomposity, beams at the camera.
In real life, Willard, who died on Friday, at the age of eighty-six, was a master at following his instincts, and at inspiring fellow-actors to follow theirs. He was a comic’s comic, beloved onscreen and off. Throughout his six-decade career, he conveyed unusual warmth and friendliness, in Guest’s series of comedies and in hundreds of other roles. In recent years, he’d been on “Modern Family” and made frequent appearances on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” My dad texted me every time he showed up—“Fred Willard is playing George Washington in a Kimmel skit”; “Kimmel has Fred Willard on as the headmaster of Trump’s military school”—and I understood why. It felt like our friend was on TV. Willard was his own planet, with his own gravitational force. You tuned in simply to enjoy being in his presence.
Guest’s improvised, documentary-style comedies helped showcase Willard’s particular gift: a sublime talent for inhabiting the genial American blowhard, the charming pontificator, professor, politician, or pitchman who is more comfortable in the spotlight than out of it, and for whom every opportunity to speak is an opportunity to spin gossamer silliness indefinitely. Willard brought an innate sense of commitment to his roles—his stream-of-consciousness dog-show commentator in “Best in Show,” his joyously dippy band manager in “A Mighty Wind”—and his demeanor had an innate gentleness. Even his characters’ self-regard left you with a little something to love. (“Lotta hearts in dogs’ throats,” he says, at the dog show, before the champion is announced.) One of the brilliant things about “Guffman” is that, compared with the other ragtag talents of Blaine, the Albertsons are genuinely welcome theatrical presences: they’re stagey but competent, all too delighted to be professional. Early on, after a bunch of hair-raising auditions for the town’s big sesquicentennial show, the Albertsons arrive in matching green-and-white windbreakers, miming, singing “Midnight at the Oasis,” dancing like plucky, arthritic cheerleaders—and it’s a relief. In all the Guest movies, Willard’s wonderful improvised hooey, delivered with joyful confidence, helps center us, just as the Albertsons help center “Red, White, and Blaine.”
Willard grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and he went to military school at age twelve. He played baseball at the Virginia Military Institute and served in the Army, then turned to performing: theatre in New York, Second City in Chicago. He started acting on TV in the sixties. Willard met Guest in an Off Broadway production of Jules Feiffer’s “Little Murders,” directed by Alan Arkin, in 1969. “I knew something was off when Fred actually started doing lines that weren’t in the play, to me,” Guest told Charlie Rose, in 2003. “I said to myself, ‘You’re different,’ and he is.”
In 1977, Willard got a role on Norman Lear’s “Fernwood Tonight,” playing the dim-witted announcer sidekick to Martin Mull’s beige-suited talk-show host. “They said I was perfect for the part—they needed someone who was a complete fool,” Willard said to David Letterman, in 1982. He waved his hand near his head: “You have a little trap that says, ‘Wait, I shouldn’t say this—I’ll sound foolish.’ And, when I did that show, I just left the door open.” In 1984, he reëncountered Guest in “This Is Spinal Tap,” in which Willard had a small role as a military officer and Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer played the band. He appeared on game shows and talk shows, and in movies and sitcoms, throughout the seventies and eighties; he’s especially delightful in the 1987 Steve Martin romantic comedy “Roxanne,” as Mayor Deebs, the gimmick-loving, Don Johnson-suited airhead running a Colorado mountain town. (A toast he makes: “I would rather be with the people of this town . . . than with the finest people in the world!”) But his big break, after three decades of being a successful working actor, was “Waiting for Guffman.”
Guest was inspired to write “Guffman” after watching a junior-high production of “Annie Get Your Gun”: observing the pervasive quality of earnestness—“how devoted they were to do the best performance they could, albeit at the level that they were working at,” he’s said—touched him. The resulting comedic environment, in which big dreams collide with regular people with regular abilities, was perfectly suited to Willard’s talents. On “Charlie Rose,” Guest said that, on set, actors particularly enjoyed watching Willard improvise: “Everyone is watching Fred work. Without exception. It’s like kids at a party.” Then he showed a clip from “A Mighty Wind.” In it, Willard’s manager character, a blond, moussed guy in a trombone-print shirt, interrupts a group of plucky folk singers rehearsing a sea shanty for a show. “I’ve got an idea, a very literate reference,” he tells them. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with a book about a pirate captain—his name is Moby-Dick. He was chasing some big whale, and he had a catchphrase he’d always yell out: ‘Thar she blows!’ So I thought if you could do that . . .” He goes on to suggest that they try a bit where they get drenched in water, several times, mid-performance—“Even the ladies!”—and, at the end of the song, they’ll turn their guitars over, “and water splashes out. Kerplunk! Just a thought.” He looks overjoyed by his helpful beneficence. Before they shot the scene, Guest said, his only instruction to Willard had been, “They’re rehearsing . . . and you interrupt them.”
Willard’s instantly adored performances in Guest’s movies, especially in “Best in Show,” gave his career a second life, and new kinds of roles. He was cast in Judd Apatow’s “Undeclared” (“Who’s that new prof in the fancy duds? Is it Ricky Martin? No, it’s just me!”); “Everybody Loves Raymond”; “Wall-E,” where he became the first live-action actor in a Pixar movie (he tells space travellers that they might experience “some slight bone loss”); and “Anchorman.” (“Damn it! Who typed a question mark on the teleprompter?” he yells, after Ron Burgundy seems to question his own name. “Anything you put on that teleprompter, Burgundy will read!”) His final project, a role in Steve Carell’s forthcoming series “Space Force,” mirrors an early one, in a 1978 TV movie of the same name. (“Captain Stoner, is this another one of your dumb drills?”)
All along, Willard’s instincts made us feel better about our own, by showing us characters who are even more absurd than we are. In an interview recalling the Guest movies, Willard described the first scene he shot for “Guffman.” It was in a library, and when the camera began rolling nobody spoke for a few seconds—so he did. “I said, ‘I’ve always wondered, if you take out a library book and lose it, do you have to pay dues forever?’ ” His clueless character, Ron, he explained, just might want to know whether you’d have to “pay a nickel a day till infinity.” The scene unfolded from there. The lesson, he said: “If you have nothing to say, just start talking.”


newyorker--2020-05-18--New Test Indicates Hydroxychloroquine Causes Delusions

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —A new test of the drug hydroxychloroquine suggests that it may cause delusions , Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Monday .
In a conference call with reporters , Fauci indicated that his findings were based on a preliminary test involving one white male subject in his seventies .
“ It ’ s too early to be definitive about this , but the evidence suggests that , if you are already prone to delusions , paranoid fantasies , and a generalized detachment from reality , taking hydroxychloroquine may only make those symptoms worse , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if someone you know is taking hydroxychloroquine , “ Broach the subject with him very carefully and diplomatically .
Based on my findings , this person will not like being contradicted and is likely to fly off the handle.
” Additionally , because of the mind-altering effects of the drug , “ It ’ s important never to do what someone taking hydroxychloroquine tells you to do , ” Fauci said .
“ The only thing as dangerous as taking hydroxychloroquine is listening to someone who is taking hydroxychloroquine , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ madness .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—A new test of the drug hydroxychloroquine suggests that it may cause delusions, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Monday.
In a conference call with reporters, Fauci indicated that his findings were based on a preliminary test involving one white male subject in his seventies.
“It’s too early to be definitive about this, but the evidence suggests that, if you are already prone to delusions, paranoid fantasies, and a generalized detachment from reality, taking hydroxychloroquine may only make those symptoms worse,” he said.
Fauci said that, if someone you know is taking hydroxychloroquine, “Broach the subject with him very carefully and diplomatically. Based on my findings, this person will not like being contradicted and is likely to fly off the handle.”
Additionally, because of the mind-altering effects of the drug, “It’s important never to do what someone taking hydroxychloroquine tells you to do,” Fauci said.
“The only thing as dangerous as taking hydroxychloroquine is listening to someone who is taking hydroxychloroquine,” he said. “Therein lies the road to madness.”


newyorker--2020-05-18--Mayors Describe the Challenge of Safely Ending Lockdown

With nonessential businesses starting to reopen in many states , elected officials have to make a call on a series @ @ @ @ @ soon is too soon ?
How safe is safe enough ?
What will the cost @ @ @ @ @ of the disease and in deaths ?
To get a sense of how mayors are @ @ @ @ @ ’ s cities , David Remnick spoke with Quinton Lucas , the mayor of Kansas @ @ @ @ @ Berke , of Chattanooga ; and Marian Orr , of Cheyenne .
They expressed frustration @ @ @ @ @ lack of it , from the state and federal levels .
But Mayor Orr said @ @ @ @ @ of the lockdown could point the way to the future—including a reassessment of how her @ @ @ @ @ “ We don ’ t need this massive building , with H.V.A.C .
issues and @ @ @ @ @ technology , ” she told Remnick .
“ Perhaps the way we do business and @ @ @ @ @ changed forever .
”

Photograph by Christopher Smith / NYT / Redux
With nonessential businesses starting to reopen in many states, elected officials have to make a call on a series of impossible questions: How soon is too soon? How safe is safe enough? What will the cost be, in new cases of the disease and in deaths?
To get a sense of how mayors are handling the reopening of America’s cities, David Remnick spoke with Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri; Andy Berke, of Chattanooga; and Marian Orr, of Cheyenne. They expressed frustration with the guidance, or lack of it, from the state and federal levels. But Mayor Orr said that some of the changes of the lockdown could point the way to the future—including a reassessment of how her own city hall operates. “We don’t need this massive building, with H.V.A.C. issues and electrical costs. We need technology,” she told Remnick. “Perhaps the way we do business and deliver government services shall be changed forever.”


newyorker--2020-05-18--An Anxious, Frugal, Non-Baker’s Approach to Sourdough Starter

“ Feed your starter every day.
” “ Discard half before each feeding.
” “ Weigh your starter.
” “ Feed it its own weight.
” “ Feed it equal parts flour and water.
” I think we can dispense with all of this .
Let ’ s sweep it aside , along with the suspicion that one ’ s value under quarantine hinges on whether one has joined the masses in baking bread .
I have a sourdough starter , which I feed a little flour and water the day before I use it .
I ’ ve never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ever will .
I rely on it like I rely on having leftover rice to fry , frozen bread to toast , chicken stock and dashi in impossible-to-thaw Mason jars for turning into soup or curry or sludge .
My friend Emma brought my first starter here , to my home in Hudson , New York , on the train on February 12 , 2017 .
I know the date because I have a time-stamped photo on my phone .
( My son was seven months old at the time , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was snowing , and part of the fantasy of Emma ’ s coming from the city to the relative winter quiet of upstate involved her wanting to teach me how to make sourdough bread .
I ’ d never made sourdough bread .
It required patience and precision and calibrated quantities of flour .
Late that night , Emma weighed her starter .
She added things .
She moved them from bowl to bowl .
The following morning , she weighed and added and relocated other things .
She kept explaining how easy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took a train back to the city , leaving the last stages of baking to my husband and me .
I opened a bottle of wine .
I decided that dough was designed to be baked and dumped her concoction into a red Dutch oven .
To which it stuck .
Some of it is still there—whatever I didn ’ t get out with a chisel .
I still have the “ bread , ” too , sitting somewhere in the freezer .
Even after I destroyed the clod of dough it produced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my refrigerator , a half-full Mason jar that I was supposed to regularly feed .
If I didn ’ t feed the starter , it would die .
If I did feed it , it would reproduce , forever .
And whenever it grew , I would have to throw some away .
You know how when you garden , you ’ re supposed to “ thin ” seedlings once they ’ ve sprouted , so they don ’ t crowd each other out and gobble up each other ’ s resources ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ plants , their too-heavy heads bobbing on floss-like stems .
I can ’ t even bear to be outside while my husband does this thinning .
I can ’ t even know it ’ s happening .
In the case of the starter , my paralyzing sentimentality plus frugality—and resulting inviolable inability to throw anything out—combined , in a way that I now recognize as serendipitous , with my lifelong distrust of baking .
I looked up what to do with excess sourdough starter .
A site called What ’ s Cooking America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , made with olive oil .
I felt the stirrings of providence , a rush of anticipation .
In more than two decades of cooking , I ’ d never made plain old pancakes .
Why ?
Indifference .
Anxiety .
In any baking project , I get so nervous at the thought of chemistry and rising agents that I spur myself to error .
If a bad decision presents itself , I make it .
I ’ ve managed to mess up peanut-butter cookies from the recipe on the back of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gotten yeast to bubble .
( When the recipe calls for active dry , I use instant . )
But here : a pancake recipe that required no flour—just two cups of sourdough starter , mixed with eggs , salt , sugar , a little baking soda dissolved in water , and olive oil .
I know olive oil ; its presence in a recipe comforts me .
And my son was allergic to the proteins in dairy .
I mixed the olive-oily batter and poured it into little puddles in a hot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were the best pancakes I ’ d ever eaten .
They were the best pancakes anyone had ever eaten .
They were tangy and chewy and salty , like blinis , or crêpes .
Like something studied and difficult .
I called my father-in-law , an expert baker , and asked him about feeding a starter .
He said that quantities and schedules didn ’ t matter : I could just shake some flour and water into a bowl containing the contents of my starter jar the day before I wanted pancakes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leave it out overnight to allow it to .
.
.
start .
Every Saturday , we had sourdough olive-oil pancakes .
Time passed .
My son outgrew his dairy allergy .
We started going to a bakery for croissants every Friday and to the farmers ’ market for donuts on Saturdays .
I didn ’ t feed the starter for a year .
By the time I remembered it , wedged into a sticky corner in the back of the fridge , it had shrunk to a tan , slouching inch of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moss-green liquid on top of it .
My father-in-law said to pour off the moss and feed the starter for a few days .
Three days later , we were back on sourdough pancakes .
Louis ’ s fellow-toddlers and their parents started coming for dinner occasionally , and the easiest thing to make was sourdough pancakes , with shredded carrots and sweet corn mixed into the batter and ginger-scallion vinegar on the side for the grown ups .
I realized that if I added handfuls of chopped kimchi to the batter , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kimchijeon .
Drained , chopped canned chickpeas and a little dried coconut made them taste dosa-like .
The weirdest additions I tried may have been thinly sliced celery and sauerkraut .
Dipped in habanero hot sauce ?
Yes , please !
I became dependent on Emma ’ s starter , or whatever phoenix version had emerged from the back of my fridge .
And then I lost it .
It was there , in its place , on the top shelf .
Then it wasn ’ t .
We ’ re a messy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unapologetically messy .
The starter is probably still there , somewhere .
I always half expect it to fling itself at me from a pantry like a jack-in-the-box .
But , even if it did , the microorganisms that survived the previous neglect will almost certainly have died by now .
So , a while ago , I made a new starter .
I combined flour and water in a big container .
I left it out on my kitchen counter and added more flour and water every day for four or five @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bubbled to life , I ’ ve stuck it into everything I can think of , and the results are always better than they would have been without it .
I still have never made sourdough bread .
But I ’ ve made sourdough cake : more flavorful , and more moist , than the regular kind .
The same goes for sourdough biscuits .
When quarantine started , I looked up recipes for sourdough crackers , and decided to try the two easiest ones I found , with the fewest ingredients .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I used whatever bags of flour I had open—some einkorn , some very old “ 00 ” flour I once bought because a recipe had insisted on it , some white whole wheat .
Each time , what the combination of fat , flour , salt , and sourdough starter produced was crisp , thin , delicious .

“Feed your starter every day.” “Discard half before each feeding.” “Weigh your starter.” “Feed it its own weight.” “Feed it equal parts flour and water.” I think we can dispense with all of this. Let’s sweep it aside, along with the suspicion that one’s value under quarantine hinges on whether one has joined the masses in baking bread. I have a sourdough starter, which I feed a little flour and water the day before I use it. I’ve never made bread with it. I doubt I ever will. I rely on it like I rely on having leftover rice to fry, frozen bread to toast, chicken stock and dashi in impossible-to-thaw Mason jars for turning into soup or curry or sludge.
My friend Emma brought my first starter here, to my home in Hudson, New York, on the train on February 12, 2017. I know the date because I have a time-stamped photo on my phone. (My son was seven months old at the time, and I was photographing everything.) It was snowing, and part of the fantasy of Emma’s coming from the city to the relative winter quiet of upstate involved her wanting to teach me how to make sourdough bread. I’d never made sourdough bread. It required patience and precision and calibrated quantities of flour. Late that night, Emma weighed her starter. She added things. She moved them from bowl to bowl. The following morning, she weighed and added and relocated other things. She kept explaining how easy it all was. Eventually, she took a train back to the city, leaving the last stages of baking to my husband and me. I opened a bottle of wine. I decided that dough was designed to be baked and dumped her concoction into a red Dutch oven. To which it stuck. Some of it is still there—whatever I didn’t get out with a chisel. I still have the “bread,” too, sitting somewhere in the freezer.
Even after I destroyed the clod of dough it produced, Emma’s starter remained in my refrigerator, a half-full Mason jar that I was supposed to regularly feed. If I didn’t feed the starter, it would die. If I did feed it, it would reproduce, forever. And whenever it grew, I would have to throw some away. You know how when you garden, you’re supposed to “thin” seedlings once they’ve sprouted, so they don’t crowd each other out and gobble up each other’s resources? You pluck out the weakest sprouts—tiny baby plants, their too-heavy heads bobbing on floss-like stems. I can’t even bear to be outside while my husband does this thinning. I can’t even know it’s happening.
In the case of the starter, my paralyzing sentimentality plus frugality—and resulting inviolable inability to throw anything out—combined, in a way that I now recognize as serendipitous, with my lifelong distrust of baking. I looked up what to do with excess sourdough starter. A site called What’s Cooking America popped up. It suggested sourdough-starter pancakes, made with olive oil. I felt the stirrings of providence, a rush of anticipation. In more than two decades of cooking, I’d never made plain old pancakes. Why? Indifference. Anxiety. In any baking project, I get so nervous at the thought of chemistry and rising agents that I spur myself to error. If a bad decision presents itself, I make it. I’ve managed to mess up peanut-butter cookies from the recipe on the back of the peanut-butter jar. I’ve never gotten yeast to bubble. (When the recipe calls for active dry, I use instant.) But here: a pancake recipe that required no flour—just two cups of sourdough starter, mixed with eggs, salt, sugar, a little baking soda dissolved in water, and olive oil. I know olive oil; its presence in a recipe comforts me. And my son was allergic to the proteins in dairy. I mixed the olive-oily batter and poured it into little puddles in a hot pan containing more olive oil. They were the best pancakes I’d ever eaten. They were the best pancakes anyone had ever eaten. They were tangy and chewy and salty, like blinis, or crêpes. Like something studied and difficult.
I called my father-in-law, an expert baker, and asked him about feeding a starter. He said that quantities and schedules didn’t matter: I could just shake some flour and water into a bowl containing the contents of my starter jar the day before I wanted pancakes, mix a couple of times, and leave it out overnight to allow it to . . . start. Every Saturday, we had sourdough olive-oil pancakes. Time passed. My son outgrew his dairy allergy. We started going to a bakery for croissants every Friday and to the farmers’ market for donuts on Saturdays. I didn’t feed the starter for a year. By the time I remembered it, wedged into a sticky corner in the back of the fridge, it had shrunk to a tan, slouching inch of sludge, with an equal amount of moss-green liquid on top of it. My father-in-law said to pour off the moss and feed the starter for a few days.
Three days later, we were back on sourdough pancakes. Louis’s fellow-toddlers and their parents started coming for dinner occasionally, and the easiest thing to make was sourdough pancakes, with shredded carrots and sweet corn mixed into the batter and ginger-scallion vinegar on the side for the grown ups. I realized that if I added handfuls of chopped kimchi to the batter, I could make an approximation of a kimchijeon. Drained, chopped canned chickpeas and a little dried coconut made them taste dosa-like. The weirdest additions I tried may have been thinly sliced celery and sauerkraut. Dipped in habanero hot sauce? Yes, please!
I became dependent on Emma’s starter, or whatever phoenix version had emerged from the back of my fridge. And then I lost it. It was there, in its place, on the top shelf. Then it wasn’t. We’re a messy family. All of us guiltlessly, unapologetically messy. The starter is probably still there, somewhere. I always half expect it to fling itself at me from a pantry like a jack-in-the-box. But, even if it did, the microorganisms that survived the previous neglect will almost certainly have died by now.
So, a while ago, I made a new starter. I combined flour and water in a big container. I left it out on my kitchen counter and added more flour and water every day for four or five days. Ever since that second starter bubbled to life, I’ve stuck it into everything I can think of, and the results are always better than they would have been without it. I still have never made sourdough bread. But I’ve made sourdough cake: more flavorful, and more moist, than the regular kind. The same goes for sourdough biscuits. When quarantine started, I looked up recipes for sourdough crackers, and decided to try the two easiest ones I found, with the fewest ingredients. I switched butter for olive oil. I used whatever bags of flour I had open—some einkorn, some very old “00” flour I once bought because a recipe had insisted on it, some white whole wheat. Each time, what the combination of fat, flour, salt, and sourdough starter produced was crisp, thin, delicious.
In this long liminal period, time scales have shifted. I have vinegar fermenting now, too, in a few jars, above the pots, below the cobwebs. I used to think, impatiently, that it would take a week for the first batch to be done. What takes longer than a week? Now months are fine. Months are good. I’m sure I’ll misplace this starter, too. When that happens, I’ll just make another.
Sourdough-Starter Pancakes
(adapted from What’s Cooking America)


newyorker--2020-05-18--Trump Orders Pence to Start Picking Up Pompeo’s Laundry

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —In an effort to dampen the controversy over Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ’ s alleged use of a State Department employee to run personal errands , Donald J. Trump has ordered Mike Pence to start picking up Pompeo ’ s laundry , effective immediately .
In addition to his new laundry duties , Pence will be solely responsible for walking Pompeo ’ s dog and for what the White House described as “ light housework.
” Reportedly , Pence has already hit the ground running in his new role and is in talks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shirts done .
Although assigning Pompeo ’ s errands to Pence appears to have solved one problem , it may have created a new one , because the Vice-President will no longer be available to perform the personal errands for Trump that have been his responsibility for the past three years , such as fetching cans of Diet Coke and replenishing the Oval Office ’ s supply of Sharpies .
According to a White House source , those tasks could ultimately fall to Trump ’ s son-in-law , Jared Kushner , should he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ messing up.
” While Pence ’ s appointment as Pompeo ’ s errand boy raised eyebrows in Washington , it drew the strong support of his fellow White House coronavirus-task-force member Dr. Anthony Fauci .
“ Anything that takes Mike Pence away from the coronavirus response is a great thing , ” Fauci said .

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an effort to dampen the controversy over Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s alleged use of a State Department employee to run personal errands, Donald J. Trump has ordered Mike Pence to start picking up Pompeo’s laundry, effective immediately.
In addition to his new laundry duties, Pence will be solely responsible for walking Pompeo’s dog and for what the White House described as “light housework.”
Reportedly, Pence has already hit the ground running in his new role and is in talks with Pompeo about how he likes his shirts done.
Although assigning Pompeo’s errands to Pence appears to have solved one problem, it may have created a new one, because the Vice-President will no longer be available to perform the personal errands for Trump that have been his responsibility for the past three years, such as fetching cans of Diet Coke and replenishing the Oval Office’s supply of Sharpies.
According to a White House source, those tasks could ultimately fall to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, should he prove capable of doing them “without messing up.”
While Pence’s appointment as Pompeo’s errand boy raised eyebrows in Washington, it drew the strong support of his fellow White House coronavirus-task-force member Dr. Anthony Fauci. “Anything that takes Mike Pence away from the coronavirus response is a great thing,” Fauci said.


newyorker--2020-05-18--“Can’t Pay May”: Making Rent in New York City During the Pandemic

In mid-March , many landlords began sending nervous reminders that rent was still due on April 1st , as if tenants might forget .
Some landlords have expressed a sense of aggrieved betrayal at tenants who have not paid their rents ; on Facebook groups such as “ ACTION : New York City Rent Strike , ” which has more than four thousand members , tenants have posted screenshots of increasingly infuriated e-mails and text messages .
One tenant posted about a landlord who threatened retaliation on the family car , another reported that a landlord claims the building is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ freeze .
Other landlords have encouraged tenants to sign rent-deferral agreements , in which the tenant agrees to add the unpaid rent onto future rent payments .
Some landlords have reminded tenants of their own bills ; they have suggested that tenants could get jobs at Amazon or at grocery stores .
They have encouraged tenants to charge their rent to a credit card , or to set up automatic debits .
If some landlords seem to be in denial about the inevitable effects of mass unemployment , Eric Kober , who was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and infrastructure planning at the New York Department of City Planning from 1991 to 2017 , suggests they look to the seventies , when population loss and lack of financing resulted in large swathes of dilapidated and abandoned housing stock .
“ Ultimately , the system is capitalized , ” Kober explained .
“ There needs to be cash flow in the system to keep it going.
” If renters can not pay and landlords get into financial trouble , buildings end up deteriorating .
If the landlords default , banks , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , end up owning buildings , and housing conditions worsen further .
Property-tax revenue falls .
Kober described it as a “ downward spiral ” that , in the past , has only halted when the government has provided low-cost loans or appointed emergency managers .
When the government itself experiences a financial shortfall , as New York will , such financing becomes difficult to come by .
After losing eight hundred thousand residents in the nineteen-seventies , the city ’ s population grew in the nineties , swelling by approximately a million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ housing construction .
But Kober corrected the idea I had seen circulating that people leaving New York as a result of the pandemic might make the city more comfortable for the middle class .
“ The only way the population goes down is if the city ceases to be a beacon of opportunity , which would be a terrible loss for New York and for the entire country , ” he said .
He recalled moving to the city in 1980 , when it was “ dirty , rundown , and just generally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and infrastructure .
If the city faces a similar fiscal crisis , he said , “ it will be cheaper for the middle class to find housing in the city , but they won ’ t want to be here.
” Durante ( Danny ) Galeotafiore is perhaps a typical example of a New York landlord who has enjoyed the city ’ s several-decade run of prosperity .
He moved to New York City from Naples , Italy , in 1976 , opened Danny ’ s Pizza , off the Montrose L stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first building in Williamsburg in 1992 .
After a few years of high crime rates , the neighborhood boomed .
He now owns five buildings in Williamsburg and in Ridgewood , Queens , with fourteen residential and commercial units .
His last rent-controlled tenant , an eighty-five-year-old woman , pays seven hundred and fifty dollars a month in a building where everyone else pays twenty-five hundred .
Since the lockdown , most of his tenants have paid their rents as usual , but some—a hair stylist , a bartender—have come calling .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them for not having savings .
The thought that the city might not continue its inexorable rise toward higher prices seemed unthinkable to him .
“ They ’ re building left and right , ” he said to me .
“ Everywhere , there ’ s no more parking spaces !
Everywhere , nothing is for sale , everything is taken .
” He envisions that the impact of the coronavirus will be more like that of 9/11 , when the market took a brief dip and then bounced back , than the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw in the seventies .
“ Where are they going to go , back home ?
” he asked me of his tenants .
“ Nobody wants to go back home .
Do you want to go back to Minneapolis ?
” I didn ’ t think so , but I first moved here in 2003—I only know the gentrified New York of low crime and delicious coffee .
Until last month , the reasons I thought about leaving were all related to real estate : the instability of renting , the dream @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nature.
” Before the pandemic , I was contemplating giving up my rental apartment , on the border of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy , to look for something cheaper in 2021 .
I love my apartment , a spacious fourth-floor walkup in a prewar building , and have no desire to move , but the rent keeps going up .
In the seventies , the area had lost thirty per cent of its populations and , in fires after the 1977 blackout , dozens of buildings .
All of that was hard to imagine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of people like me moving in , seemed only to accelerate .
The dry cleaner shut , then the coffee shop—profitable businesses killed by landlords who thought that they could do better .
Both storefronts are empty now .
A Starbucks opened down the street .
I watched as expensive restaurants and bars opened , and then failed .
I lived in Miami during the real-estate bubble of the mid-two-thousands , and I saw some of the same signs in the hastily built condos that popped up like mushrooms , the profit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cramped bedrooms , the reigning architectural theory seemingly that , if a window is big enough , you won ’ t notice that you ’ re living in a place inimical to the resident ’ s well-being .
The Google reviews of these new developments had tenants complaining about sound carrying through thin walls , weed smoke wafting through the entire building , the promised bike room that never materialized .
The landlords seemed to imagine an apparently endless supply of rootless young professionals ; you rarely saw ads targeted toward the families @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I do maintain a little Zillow file of houses in Minneapolis , where I grew up , where you can buy a cute two-bedroom house in a city with progressive politics for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than a one-bedroom apartment in Bushwick .
I have no plans to leave , and I don ’ t need my own washing machine or my own lawn , but I like to fantasize about having a home with relatively fixed long-term costs that I could plan a life around .
For decades , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been that the state and city governments should encourage real-estate development but not rent regulation .
Politicians , including Mayor Bill de Blasio , were just starting to murmur about introducing some kind of universal rent control when the pandemic hit .
After years in which small-business owners and the middle class accepted insecurity as the price of living in the paradise of New York City , are landlords about to get a reckoning ?
It ’ s too early to tell the long-term effect of the pandemic on the rental market @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Brooklyn were at record highs as March began , according to StreetEasy , but the number of new listings dropped by fifty-two per cent in the second half of March .
The exception was short-term rentals , listings for which rose by seventy per cent compared to the same time last year , as uncertain renters showed a preference for more flexibility .
Since the pandemic began , my social-media feeds have been full of the politics of staying or leaving .
The well-to-do have retreated to their hill stations , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the means to leave themselves come with a side of envy .
I lurk on a Facebook sublet group primarily used by people who identify as “ digital nomads , ” who , now “ stuck ” in Tulum , Hawaii , or Bali , are trying to off-load their New York apartments with an urgency that recalls the evacuation of the Pieds-Noirs on the verge of Algerian independence—seeking recommendations for movers who can pack up their places in absentia , looking for someone to take over their leases and buy all their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unclear whether these people ever really lived in New York , or just sustained a circular Airbnb economy ; it ’ s equally unclear if what would be devastating for the fortunes of SoulCycle and Sweetgreen would be so bad for New York City .
But , speaking purely anecdotally , a lot of people seem to be leaving town , especially young people who can ride out the quarantine with their parents , and the wealthy , who , according to news reports , are rushing to rent houses in the suburbs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ college grads will not arrive this year .
Trump has halted immigration .
If the city is going to lose people , it will need to help the ones who stay .

The buildings at 18, 20, and 22 Goodwin Place are situated near the border of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, in Brooklyn, near the Gates Avenue stop on the J/Z train. The complex, where a two-bedroom apartment rents for $2,599 a month, was constructed in 2006, and has a green façade with recessed balconies. On StreetEasy, it is advertised as the Aventurine Condominiums. (“Aventurine, a green quartz crystal with specks of gray, has healing properties and is known as the comfort stone.”) In the early days of social-distancing measures, a few residents put up a sign offering assistance with child care or shopping, or just a friendly ear for anyone who wanted to talk. This led to the formation of an online chat group, where many residents got to know their neighbors for the first time. They coördinated regular cleaning of the complex’s banisters and entry keypads, and put up signs expressing gratitude for delivery and postal workers. One tenant is undergoing cancer treatment, and the group stayed on alert to help her out. As they conversed, they learned about newly unemployed residents who had worked in food service, in early-childhood education, and in consulting. “That was the situation,” Jeremy Cohan, one of the tenants, told me. “And then, relatively quickly, people started talking about how it was crazy that we should have to pay the rent under these conditions.” At the end of March, around two-thirds of the buildings’ tenants decided to rent-strike, a group which included some who had lost their jobs and some who were withholding rent in solidarity.
The tenants consulted with a lawyer who works with the organization Communities Resist, and put their demands in a letter to their property manager, Dome’s Management: that the landlord forgive rent for anyone whose income was affected by COVID-19, that the buildings receive adequate cleaning and the completion of outstanding repairs, that late fees be forgiven, and that the landlord renounce pursuing retaliation against the tenants who have organized. (Dome’s Management did not respond to a request for comment.) The tenants also started calling their elected representatives, asking them to back rent cancellation for the unemployed: Antonio Reynoso, their city councilman; Erik Dilan, their assemblyman; Julia Salazar, their state senator; and Governor Andrew Cuomo.
There are multiple categories of rent-stabilized buildings in New York. Some buildings, such as the Aventurine Condominiums, are relatively new constructions that received tax breaks in exchange for capping rent increases over time; other, older buildings, constructed before 1974, have rent stabilization dating to a different set of laws, and tend to have much lower rents. Cohan, a professor at the School of Visual Arts, has lived on Goodwin Place for more than a decade. He calls it a “gentrification tower”—one of many new developments in Bushwick and Bed-Stuy that have received tax incentives from the state in exchange for providing rent-regulated housing, but which tend to charge relatively high rents on new leases. The battle over housing in New York has traditionally revolved around the city’s limited supply of rent-regulated buildings and the tactics landlords have used to deregulate apartments or obscure a building’s regulated status. Landlords have used a range of strategies, legal and illegal, to bring such apartments to market rate, and being overcharged for rent in a stabilized apartment is one of the few conditions in which tenants are legally protected when they withhold rent. Rent-stabilized apartments make up only forty-four per cent of the city’s rental stock, but their tenants tend to play an outsized role in housing advocacy, in part because they have more rights to exercise against their landlords.
Cohan and his neighbors learned that their apartments were supposed to be rent stabilized in 2015, around the time that the state attorney general launched an inquiry into landlords who had received tax subsidies without regulating the rent. Last year, Cohan settled out of court for the rent he had been overcharged over the years. Since then, he told me, with satisfaction, the building’s apartments will see only limited, state-regulated increases in rent. But, he said, there are other issues. The building receives only irregular attention from its super. The halls don’t get cleaned. There have been water and gas leaks, ant invasions, and broken light fixtures. “We’re not living in a slum,” Cohan said. “It’s a new building, and fairly nice in a certain way, but the upkeep is not what it should be. Were it the case that we had been guaranteed all our rights from day one, we could have come to an amicable settlement,” he continued, referring to the rent strike. “But there are larger issues in terms of there being some conflict.”
In addition to being a professor, Cohan is an organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America, one of many political groups that have joined the push for rent forgiveness during the coronavirus pandemic. He says that most of the complex’s residents are young, and that turnover is frequent. Tenants’-rights movements in New York have traditionally been led by longtime residents of rent-stabilized buildings, but the pandemic has made housing insecurity immediate to a broader population, and has given tenants of unregulated, market-rate apartments an impetus to pursue more protections. “People are being politicized by a situation where the government is not doing its job to take care of people, nor are the wealthy taking care of people as they should,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this since the Great Depression—both with the state of the economy and the people standing up and taking action.”
New York, more than almost any other city in America, is a city of renters: two-thirds of its households, or 5.4 million people, live in rental units. Since mid-March, more than eight hundred thousand New Yorkers have filed for unemployment benefits, but the state system has faced backups and delays in getting money to the unemployed. New York State’s unemployment benefits cover about half of a person’s weekly pay, with a maximum benefit of about five hundred dollars a week, plus an extra six hundred dollars a week from the CARES act. Many New York workers do not qualify for benefits because of their immigration status or the nature of their work. Twin bills to suspend rent and mortgage payments for people facing financial hardship were introduced in the state legislature by Michael Gianaris, a state senator from Queens, and Yuh-Line Niou, an assembly member from lower Manhattan, but they never made it out of committee. On March 20th, Governor Cuomo announced a three-month moratorium on evictions. On May 7th, with the expiration of the moratorium looming, he extended it to August 20th, though only for people on unemployment or facing coronavirus-related “financial hardship.” (He also banned late fees, and said that tenants could put their security deposits toward rent.) But Cuomo has given no information about how cash-poor tenants should be expected to catch up with their rent, or whether landlords will be able to eventually evict tenants who have fallen behind. “It’s not that you won’t owe rent at one time, because you signed a contract, and even the people to whom you pay the rent have to pay the rent, and they have expenses,” Cuomo said, in response to a query from a reporter at a press conference on March 30th. Meanwhile, he encouraged state-regulated lenders to suspend payments for residential mortgages, a gesture that struck many tenants as unfairly privileging homeowners over renters.
By April 1st, banners had started appearing in the windows of my neighborhood: “Cancel Rent Now.” By May 1st, more than thirteen thousand people had signed a pledge to rent-strike, also demanding the cancellation of rent for at least four months in New York State, a freeze on rent increases, a guarantee that tenants would be able to renew their leases during the pandemic, and a rehousing of the homeless. The Upstate-Downstate Housing Alliance, a nonprofit umbrella organization for a coalition of housing-advocacy groups, announced that its members had organized more than fifty buildings statewide whose tenants would not be paying rent, in what is now being referred to as “Can’t Pay May.” On April 17th, the congresswoman Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, introduced a bill that would institute a nationwide cancellation of rents and home-mortgage payments through the duration of the pandemic and establish a relief fund for landlords and mortgage holders.
The coronavirus landed in a city where housing was already a stress point. In March, more than sixty-two thousand people stayed in New York City municipal shelters, more than twenty thousand of them children. Since 1994, the city has deregulated some three hundred thousand rent-stabilized apartments. The waiting list for public housing, as of March, 2019, was more than a hundred and eighty thousand families long. Meanwhile, demand for market-rate housing has pushed rent up precipitously; median rents increased more than thirty per cent between 2010 and 2018, according to an analysis by StreetEasy of its own listings, with increases especially pronounced in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. The most recent New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, from 2017, found that fifty-six per cent of surveyed households were “rent burdened,” which means that more than thirty per cent of their income went toward paying rent.
Less quantifiable is the indignity of being a tenant in New York City. New Yorkers are used to paying a lot of money for the privilege of paying someone a lot of money: broker’s fees that range from one month to fifteen per cent of a year’s worth of rent when you sign a new lease, fees to get your credit checked, fees to get your keys. (A recent state law capped broker’s fees at twenty dollars, but its enforcement has been paused by a court challenge from real-estate interests.) I once had a landlord who charged a mysterious “gas fee” of seventy-five dollars a month. (My current gas bill is about thirty dollars a month.) Rents on market-rate apartments tend to go up at unpredictable rates, and one hesitates to raise problems with a landlord who might prove vindictive. Home ownership in New York City often does not make financial sense even for those who can afford a down payment, but renting for life makes it hard to build a sense of certainty.


newyorker--2020-05-18--Some Zoos, and Some of Their Animals, May Not Survive the Pandemic

In late March , an elegant four-year-old tiger named Nadia , at the Bronx Zoo , developed a dry cough and lost her appetite .
The zoo had been closed for eleven days because of the coronavirus pandemic , and no employee had symptoms of the new coronavirus sweeping across New York .
Out of an abundance of caution , the veterinary staff tested Nadia in April , as her problems persisted .
It was not a simple swab .
The zoo had to anesthetize the two-hundred-pound cat and take samples from her nose , throat , and respiratory tract @ @ @ @ @ @ @ labs at Cornell University and the University of Illinois .
Nadia is also no ordinary tiger .
Malayan tigers are among the world ’ s most endangered animals ; with fewer than two hundred and fifty left in the wild , they are threatened with extinction because of human poaching and loss of habitat .
Nadia was born at the Bronx Zoo , as part of its Malayan-tiger breeding program .
Her COVID-19 test came back positive .
By the end of April , seven other big cats—four more tigers , in addition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ separate exhibit—also tested positive , through samples of their feces .
The zoo concluded that they had all been exposed to a human , probably a zoo employee , who was asymptomatic .
The news about Nadia stunned staff at more than two hundred accredited U.S. zoos ( not including animal “ exhibitors , ” like Joe Exotic , of “ Tiger King ” fame ) and more than ten thousand zoos around the world .
Within twenty-four hours , many introduced stricter handling protocols , more protective gear , and social distancing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but also other animals now believed to be vulnerable to COVID-19 , from great apes to ferrets and even skunks .
But Nadia ’ s test result six weeks ago was only the beginning of an unprecedented series of crises—some existential—faced by zoological parks dedicated to the study and survival of thousands of the Earth ’ s other animal species .
Unlike entertainment centers , movie theatres , or sports stadiums , zoos can ’ t simply shut their doors or tell staff to work from home .
Zoos still have to feed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from six thousand species ( a thousand of them endangered or threatened ) in the United States alone—at a time in which revenues have plummeted to nothing , Dan Ashe , the president of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums , told me .
In the United States , at least eighty per cent of zoos and aquariums accredited by the A.Z.A .
are closed , which means no ticket sales , no merchandise bought for the kids , no stroller rentals , and no food sales , all of which contribute to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The amount of losses through the whole zoological community is staggering , ” Steven Monfort , the director of the Smithsonian ’ s National Zoo , in Washington , D.C. , told me .
“ Most of us are trying to figure out how to get to the spring of 2021 and hope that there ’ s a vaccine or something so that visitation by then will be more normal.
” With new social-distancing rules , most zoos expect to reopen eventually , but , at least initially , at roughly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ income , at best .
“ All of us have plans , but we don ’ t know how well those plans will work , ” Monfort added .
Most U.S. zoos have laid off or furloughed up to half of their staffs , according to several zoos .
In Portland , the Oregon Zoo has laid off a quarter of its staff , in addition to two hundred part-time employees .
Sixty per cent of its revenue comes from ticket sales , but zoos generally operate on a seasonal basis , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , costs have long exceeded revenues .
“ If we can ’ t open , we will just run out of money by the end of September , ” Sheri Horiszny , the Oregon Zoo ’ s deputy director , told me .
“ We won ’ t be able to operate as we have—possibly ever , and certainly for the immediate future.
” The problem is global , she said .
“ Ninety per cent of the zoos on the planet were closed .
Virtually all are now strapped—some are devastated.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Zoo has a wrenching contingency plan for its seven hundred animals if funding or the food-supply chain fail to help the facility survive .
“ If—and this is really the worst , worst case of all—if I no longer have any money to buy feed , or if it should happen that my feed supplier is no longer able to supply due to new restrictions , then I would slaughter animals to feed other animals , ” Verena Kaspari told the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur last month .
The zoo made a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first , she said .
The zoo is noted for its panda twins , penguins , and seals .
The last to go , Kaspari said , would be Vitus , a snowy polar bear that stands twelve feet tall .
In Canada , two playful pandas at the Calgary Zoo—Da Mao and Er Shun—are being sent back to China .
The zoo ’ s star attractions , they are the victims of another aspect of the pandemic : the disruption of food supplies .
The zoo was able to stockpile and freeze @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the large cats , and protein biscuits for the primates .
But each panda eats eighty-eight pounds of fresh bamboo every day .
Calgary used to get its fresh bamboo flown in from China , but then flights from China to Calgary stopped .
The only remaining route was a weekly flight from China to Toronto , but the bamboo wasn ’ t fresh by the time it reached Calgary .
The zoo started importing bamboo from California , but then flights stopped from there , as well .
The zoo then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the U.S. to Calgary , in central Canada , but the trucks stopped in Vancouver first , and , by the time they arrived in Calgary , the bamboo was spoiled .
The zoo then hired a courier company to pick up the bamboo from Vancouver .
But access to the airport took three days—and more shipments of the bamboo spoiled .
Finally , the zoo began trucking in bamboo from Victoria , a region near Vancouver , but bamboo is not an indigenous plant , so the region couldn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ten days , there was a curveball , ” Clément Lanthier , the C.E.O .
and president of the Calgary Zoo , told me .
“ These are very precious animals .
I can ’ t take the risk of having to tell my staff that the pandas could starve because bamboo won ’ t get here until tomorrow or next week .
So it ’ s time for the pandas to go back home.
” The pair arrived in Calgary only two years ago—after six years of planning and a twenty-one-million-dollar investment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ zoos everywhere .
“ People ’ s perceptions of zoos is that we just pick up poop , ” Horiszny , from the Oregon Zoo , told me .
The Portland zoo made changes early on when it realized food was an issue for the entire planet .
“ But imagine if you have a dinner party with six to ten guests , and one is lactose intolerant , another has a gluten allergy , and a third is philosophically vegetarian , ” she said .
“ We have two thousand ‘ guests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with different dietary needs .
So every day we have a challenge meeting those needs.
” The cost of animal care can also be staggering .
In 2018 , the San Diego Zoo and its sister Safari Park spent more than two hundred million dollars on operations to feed and care for its animals .
The Oregon Zoo budgets more than a quarter million dollars just to care for Chendra , its Asian elephant , for six months .
The zoo has an innovative program to save the Oregon silverspot butterfly from extinction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twenty-six thousand dollars for nine months—for a horticulturist to tend to the thousands of violet plants in a greenhouse that provide food for twelve hundred silverspot caterpillars .
A human also needs to keep the caterpillars clean , watered , and fed until they become adults and can be released , the zoo ’ s director , Don Moore , told me .
“ Yes , it ’ s very expensive to feed animals !
” he e-mailed .
Zoos also have heavy medical costs , from artificial insemination of endangered pandas to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aging animals .
Ashe , the A.Z.A .
president , noted that veterinarians provide twenty-four-hour care to the animals at zoo facilities .
“ They get better health care than you or I do , ” he said .

In late March, an elegant four-year-old tiger named Nadia, at the Bronx Zoo, developed a dry cough and lost her appetite. The zoo had been closed for eleven days because of the coronavirus pandemic, and no employee had symptoms of the new coronavirus sweeping across New York. Out of an abundance of caution, the veterinary staff tested Nadia in April, as her problems persisted. It was not a simple swab. The zoo had to anesthetize the two-hundred-pound cat and take samples from her nose, throat, and respiratory tract, then ship them off to veterinary labs at Cornell University and the University of Illinois. Nadia is also no ordinary tiger. Malayan tigers are among the world’s most endangered animals; with fewer than two hundred and fifty left in the wild, they are threatened with extinction because of human poaching and loss of habitat. Nadia was born at the Bronx Zoo, as part of its Malayan-tiger breeding program. Her COVID-19 test came back positive. By the end of April, seven other big cats—four more tigers, in addition to three lions who live in a separate exhibit—also tested positive, through samples of their feces. The zoo concluded that they had all been exposed to a human, probably a zoo employee, who was asymptomatic. The news about Nadia stunned staff at more than two hundred accredited U.S. zoos (not including animal “exhibitors,” like Joe Exotic, of “Tiger King” fame) and more than ten thousand zoos around the world. Within twenty-four hours, many introduced stricter handling protocols, more protective gear, and social distancing between humans and zoo animals—not just tigers but also other animals now believed to be vulnerable to COVID-19, from great apes to ferrets and even skunks.
But Nadia’s test result six weeks ago was only the beginning of an unprecedented series of crises—some existential—faced by zoological parks dedicated to the study and survival of thousands of the Earth’s other animal species. Unlike entertainment centers, movie theatres, or sports stadiums, zoos can’t simply shut their doors or tell staff to work from home. Zoos still have to feed and care for animals—nearly a million, from six thousand species (a thousand of them endangered or threatened) in the United States alone—at a time in which revenues have plummeted to nothing, Dan Ashe, the president of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, told me. In the United States, at least eighty per cent of zoos and aquariums accredited by the A.Z.A. are closed, which means no ticket sales, no merchandise bought for the kids, no stroller rentals, and no food sales, all of which contribute to both zoo programs and long-term conservation worldwide.
“The amount of losses through the whole zoological community is staggering,” Steven Monfort, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, in Washington, D.C., told me. “Most of us are trying to figure out how to get to the spring of 2021 and hope that there’s a vaccine or something so that visitation by then will be more normal.” With new social-distancing rules, most zoos expect to reopen eventually, but, at least initially, at roughly a quarter capacity—producing only a quarter of income, at best. “All of us have plans, but we don’t know how well those plans will work,” Monfort added.
Most U.S. zoos have laid off or furloughed up to half of their staffs, according to several zoos. In Portland, the Oregon Zoo has laid off a quarter of its staff, in addition to two hundred part-time employees. Sixty per cent of its revenue comes from ticket sales, but zoos generally operate on a seasonal basis, so, for nine months of the year, costs have long exceeded revenues. “If we can’t open, we will just run out of money by the end of September,” Sheri Horiszny, the Oregon Zoo’s deputy director, told me. “We won’t be able to operate as we have—possibly ever, and certainly for the immediate future.” The problem is global, she said. “Ninety per cent of the zoos on the planet were closed. Virtually all are now strapped—some are devastated.”
In northern Germany, the shuttered Neumünster Zoo has a wrenching contingency plan for its seven hundred animals if funding or the food-supply chain fail to help the facility survive. “If—and this is really the worst, worst case of all—if I no longer have any money to buy feed, or if it should happen that my feed supplier is no longer able to supply due to new restrictions, then I would slaughter animals to feed other animals,” Verena Kaspari told the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur last month. The zoo made a list of which animals it would euthanize first, she said. The zoo is noted for its panda twins, penguins, and seals. The last to go, Kaspari said, would be Vitus, a snowy polar bear that stands twelve feet tall.
In Canada, two playful pandas at the Calgary Zoo—Da Mao and Er Shun—are being sent back to China. The zoo’s star attractions, they are the victims of another aspect of the pandemic: the disruption of food supplies. The zoo was able to stockpile and freeze fish for the penguins, horse meat for the large cats, and protein biscuits for the primates. But each panda eats eighty-eight pounds of fresh bamboo every day. Calgary used to get its fresh bamboo flown in from China, but then flights from China to Calgary stopped. The only remaining route was a weekly flight from China to Toronto, but the bamboo wasn’t fresh by the time it reached Calgary. The zoo started importing bamboo from California, but then flights stopped from there, as well. The zoo then tried trucking bamboo from the West Coast of the U.S. to Calgary, in central Canada, but the trucks stopped in Vancouver first, and, by the time they arrived in Calgary, the bamboo was spoiled. The zoo then hired a courier company to pick up the bamboo from Vancouver. But access to the airport took three days—and more shipments of the bamboo spoiled. Finally, the zoo began trucking in bamboo from Victoria, a region near Vancouver, but bamboo is not an indigenous plant, so the region couldn’t supply the quantity needed.
“Every ten days, there was a curveball,” Clément Lanthier, the C.E.O. and president of the Calgary Zoo, told me. “These are very precious animals. I can’t take the risk of having to tell my staff that the pandas could starve because bamboo won’t get here until tomorrow or next week. So it’s time for the pandas to go back home.” The pair arrived in Calgary only two years ago—after six years of planning and a twenty-one-million-dollar investment.
The food challenge is staggering for zoos everywhere. “People’s perceptions of zoos is that we just pick up poop,” Horiszny, from the Oregon Zoo, told me. The Portland zoo made changes early on when it realized food was an issue for the entire planet. “But imagine if you have a dinner party with six to ten guests, and one is lactose intolerant, another has a gluten allergy, and a third is philosophically vegetarian,” she said. “We have two thousand ‘guests’ from two hundred and twenty species with different dietary needs. So every day we have a challenge meeting those needs.”
The cost of animal care can also be staggering. In 2018, the San Diego Zoo and its sister Safari Park spent more than two hundred million dollars on operations to feed and care for its animals. The Oregon Zoo budgets more than a quarter million dollars just to care for Chendra, its Asian elephant, for six months. The zoo has an innovative program to save the Oregon silverspot butterfly from extinction. But it costs a hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars for nine months—for a horticulturist to tend to the thousands of violet plants in a greenhouse that provide food for twelve hundred silverspot caterpillars. A human also needs to keep the caterpillars clean, watered, and fed until they become adults and can be released, the zoo’s director, Don Moore, told me. “Yes, it’s very expensive to feed animals!” he e-mailed. Zoos also have heavy medical costs, from artificial insemination of endangered pandas to providing medication and surgery for ill or aging animals. Ashe, the A.Z.A. president, noted that veterinarians provide twenty-four-hour care to the animals at zoo facilities. “They get better health care than you or I do,” he said.
The National Zoo, in Washington, D.C., is losing more than a million dollars a month that it has no chance of recouping. Like other zoos, it launched a COVID-19 emergency-response campaign for donations. “But there’s no way, no philanthropic answer, that will fill the bucket of needs,” Monfort told me. “The question is what happens in the longer run.” The Washington zoo also manages long-term research programs in twenty-five countries, in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In 2018, American zoos, in total, contributed more than two hundred and thirty million dollars for field conservation worldwide—funds generated largely off ticket sales. “Without revenue coming in, it is challenging our members to find ways to keep up that commitment to conservation. We fear the bottom will fall out of that in 2020,” Ashe told me. “This dormant period is going to have a real impact on conservation in the field for animals,” ranging from elephants and giraffes to rhinos, manatees, orangutans, gorillas, and condors.
Zoos that qualify as small businesses—with fewer than five hundred employees—have applied for federal aid through the Payroll Protection Program. At least sixty per cent of the members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums have won aid, Ashe told me. The current program covers payroll and other expenditures, but not animal care—and only for two months, through mid-June. Larger zoos—in San Diego, St. Louis, and the Audubon Zoo, in New Orleans—do not qualify. Others, in Cleveland and Little Rock, and the National Zoo, don’t qualify because of their ties to the government. Horiszny, of the Oregon Zoo, predicted that some zoos will never recover. “Virtually all are now strapped, some are devastated,” she said. “In natural disasters, some of those animals were sent to other zoos. Now there is nowhere to send an animal. Everyone’s in trouble.”
The pandemic has affected the behavior of animals, as well. Many species have demonstrated the same kinds of loneliness that people have. “It’s fair to say animals miss people as much as people miss animals,” Ashe, the A.Z.A. president, said. In zoos, humans offer a form of sensory stimulus to other species. Without them, the penguins, pandas, elephants, chimpanzees, and even camels and meerkats seem a little bored. “The variety of smells that come through the zoo every day are enrichment for them. Their day is less interesting or varied without us.” Some species—particularly elephants and great apes—notice the absence of humans. “They have strong bonds and enjoy interacting with guests and showing off,” Monfort, from the National Zoo, said. “When guests are not there, some tend to act a little needy.”


The Mail

Siddhartha Mukherjee ’ s engrossing exposé of the weaknesses in America ’ s health-care system explains how electronic medical records have not lived up to their promise ( “ After the Storm , ” May 4th ) .
Their failure to enable clinicians to efficiently track patient care is particularly evident among migrant farmworkers with urgent or ongoing health needs , who frequently travel for work and must navigate a new health system after each move .
The coronavirus has further constricted this population ’ s access to care , as some mobile health services that usually reach farmworker camps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve been a clinician for twenty-five years , and throughout that time I have hoped for the promise of electronic medical records to be realized .
But in the face of the system ’ s inadequacy we must fill the holes .
My nonprofit program , the Migrant Clinicians Network , does virtual case management for migrants by finding them new health centers when they move , booking appointments , and transferring medical records from one system to the next .
In an ideal world , this service would be unnecessary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we have to implement such novel solutions to meet our patients ’ needs .
“ When Ernie Met Bert , ” by Jill Lepore , is an inaccurate portrayal of Sesame Workshop ’ s history and operations ( A Critic at Large , May 11th ) .
The New Yorker never asked us to comment or to verify facts , and the result is not only a misrepresentation of our past but a mischaracterization of our present .
The Jim Henson Company ’ s decision to sell its Muppets to Disney has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Muppets are separate , and remain our property .
Our arrangement with HBO , far from betraying the spirit of our founding , provides the funding necessary for “ Sesame Street ” to continue to be produced at the highest quality and to appear on PBS at no cost .
I am happy to defend how we fight the good fight every day to help kids grow smarter , stronger , and kinder in a world in which not enough people care about early-childhood development .
We have used the same formative research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on careful testing with children , expert input , and the highest educational standards to create the most nutritious show available to kids today .
Daniel Patrick Moynihan ’ s famous quip “ Everyone is entitled to his own opinion , but not his own facts ” is one of the most enduringly relevant lines ever uttered by a twentieth-century New Yorker .
This magazine ’ s account of “ Sesame Street ” can be trusted on neither score .
Micah Hauser , in his meditation on the death of the handshake after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ greeting people ( The Talk of the Town , May 4th ) .
Fans of the Marx Brothers must protest one particular variant ’ s being left off his list .
The “ Harpo Handshake , ” as it was practiced in the offices of the Boston Globe during the last years of the twentieth century , involved each party grasping the other ’ s raised left leg with their right hand .
I was spotted , with Martin Nolan , the editor of the editorial page , doing the Harpo on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the editor of the Globe .
He rubbed his chin and said , “ Jeez , I hope this doesn ’ t catch on.
” 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 can not reply to every letter .

Medical Troubles
Siddhartha Mukherjee’s engrossing exposé of the weaknesses in America’s health-care system explains how electronic medical records have not lived up to their promise (“After the Storm,” May 4th). Their failure to enable clinicians to efficiently track patient care is particularly evident among migrant farmworkers with urgent or ongoing health needs, who frequently travel for work and must navigate a new health system after each move. The coronavirus has further constricted this population’s access to care, as some mobile health services that usually reach farmworker camps have been suspended or scaled back.
I’ve been a clinician for twenty-five years, and throughout that time I have hoped for the promise of electronic medical records to be realized. But in the face of the system’s inadequacy we must fill the holes. My nonprofit program, the Migrant Clinicians Network, does virtual case management for migrants by finding them new health centers when they move, booking appointments, and transferring medical records from one system to the next. In an ideal world, this service would be unnecessary. With the onslaught of the pandemic, we have to implement such novel solutions to meet our patients’ needs.
Laszlo Madaras
Chief Medical Officer
Migrant Clinicians Network
Austin, Texas
“Sesame Street” Responds
“When Ernie Met Bert,” by Jill Lepore, is an inaccurate portrayal of Sesame Workshop’s history and operations (A Critic at Large, May 11th). The New Yorker never asked us to comment or to verify facts, and the result is not only a misrepresentation of our past but a mischaracterization of our present. The Jim Henson Company’s decision to sell its Muppets to Disney has nothing to do with us; our Muppets are separate, and remain our property. Our arrangement with HBO, far from betraying the spirit of our founding, provides the funding necessary for “Sesame Street” to continue to be produced at the highest quality and to appear on PBS at no cost.
I am happy to defend how we fight the good fight every day to help kids grow smarter, stronger, and kinder in a world in which not enough people care about early-childhood development. We have used the same formative research model since our earliest days, relying on careful testing with children, expert input, and the highest educational standards to create the most nutritious show available to kids today. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous quip “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts” is one of the most enduringly relevant lines ever uttered by a twentieth-century New Yorker. This magazine’s account of “Sesame Street” can be trusted on neither score.
Jeffrey D. Dunn
President and C.E.O.
Sesame Workshop
New York City
Losing Your Grip
Micah Hauser, in his meditation on the death of the handshake after COVID-19, describes some historical ways of greeting people (The Talk of the Town, May 4th). Fans of the Marx Brothers must protest one particular variant’s being left off his list. The “Harpo Handshake,” as it was practiced in the offices of the Boston Globe during the last years of the twentieth century, involved each party grasping the other’s raised left leg with their right hand. I was spotted, with Martin Nolan, the editor of the editorial page, doing the Harpo on the edge of the newsroom by Jack Driscoll, the editor of the Globe. He rubbed his chin and said, “Jeez, I hope this doesn’t catch on.”
Margo Miller
Boston, Mass.
•
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--2020-05-18--“Property,” by Nick Laird

“Property,” by Nick Laird

What I think I know about the sunset is the trees appear to be rising in front of it , rising in front of the brilliant , splintered , overripe light , toward animate clouds arrayed and edged in grays and dusky pinks—a few blues , damson , pastel—and that scalloping excellent white .
I didn ’ t mention the green , the green that is pushing itself everywhere , my being , and I was yes slightly stoned , down in the gazebo , having sat by the dam on the Mombaccus Creek smoking for half an hour , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It did not .
The only sound was a cardinal in the trees and when overhead fourteen geese honked me and headed south and now my children up in Jackie ’ s garden , arguing , ignoring the pleas of the babysitter I am paying twenty dollars an hour .
I saw a red cardinal up at the car once one weekend here last spring , so fiercely territorial his own reflection in the wing mirror meant he spent a good hour trying to repel the imaginary intruder .
I find sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moment of sunset .
The beavers ’ architected dam .
The colors .
The babysitter .
The soundtrack of an endless quarrel .
An evening to go on and on burning .
Cocteau was asked if his home was on fire , what one thing would he save ?
The fire , he said , only the fire .

What I think I know about the sunset is
the trees appear to be rising in front of it,
rising in front of the brilliant, splintered,
overripe light, toward animate clouds arrayed
and edged in grays and dusky pinks—a few blues,
damson, pastel—and that scalloping excellent white.
I didn’t mention the green, the green that is
pushing itself everywhere, my being, and I was yes
slightly stoned, down in the gazebo, having sat
by the dam on the Mombaccus Creek smoking
for half an hour, waiting for the beaver to come back.
It did not. The only sound was a cardinal
in the trees and when overhead fourteen geese
honked me and headed south and now my children
up in Jackie’s garden, arguing, ignoring the pleas
of the babysitter I am paying twenty dollars an hour.
I saw a red cardinal up at the car once one weekend
here last spring, so fiercely territorial his own
reflection in the wing mirror meant he spent
a good hour trying to repel the imaginary intruder.
I find sometimes I want all of it. The moment of
sunset. The beavers’ architected dam. The colors.
The babysitter. The soundtrack of an endless
quarrel. An evening to go on and on burning.
Cocteau was asked if his home was on fire, what
one thing would he save? The fire, he said, only
the fire.