newyorker--2020-11-09--Pulling Our Politics Back from the Brink

Larry Diamond , a political scientist at Stanford ’ s Hoover Institution and a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority , in Iraq , told me , “ There ’ s no other way to say this : the Republican Party , with notably few exceptions , has become a party of semi-loyalty to democracy .
If you want to stop this , the answer is very simple .
The Republican politicians who know better , in the House , the Senate , and the governorships , have to speak up .
If they don ’ t put the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own political careers , we ’ re going to keep sliding down this path.
” As Americans confront the uncertainty of the next four years , it ’ s not clear if the tradition of force or of reason is ascendant .
Some theorists and philosophers are optimistic , beginning to map out plans to revive social cohesion and common purpose .
Others fear that the cleavages will only widen , until Americans reckon with a culture of political warfare that comes ever closer to actual combat .
Early Americans formed literary salons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , animated by the spirit of the Enlightenment .
Benjamin Franklin gathered what he called “ ingenious Acquaintances ” into a “ Club for mutual Improvement.
” Known as the Junto , it was devoted to rigor , training , and the spread of the printed word , an ethic that the club called “ Reason ’ s eye.
” By the mid-nineteenth century , the country was in the midst of a vibrant literary outpouring .
In Washington , orators such as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster gained influence through speeches that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this empire , is power , ” a journalist observed .
A generation of writers and politicians—Margaret Fuller , Elizabeth Peabody , Frederick Douglass , Walt Whitman—produced impassioned writings and speeches that they hoped would reform the young Republic , giving rise to what the scholar James Perrin Warren later called a “ culture of eloquence.
” On the lyceum circuit , they travelled from town to town , an adult-education campaign offering lectures on everything from physical exercise to the moral crisis of slavery .
Alfred Bunn , an Englishman visiting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ a matter of wonderment ” to see “ the over-tired artisan , the worn-out factory girl ” rush from work to “ the hot atmosphere of a crowded lecture room.
” Even as the country slid toward the Civil War , the lectures continued , rooted in the belief in what Warren called “ the word as a means toward reform.
” At the same time , America was embarking on a surge of political violence , much of it directed at Black people , immigrants , Native Americans , and abolitionists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of war , there were at least thirty-five major riots in the Northeast .
One of them began in June , 1857 , when three nativist gangs—the Chunkers , the Rip-Raps , and the Plug Uglies—attacked Catholic immigrants in Washington , D.C. , as they tried to cast ballots .
The U.S. Marines , called in to quell the unrest , ended up responsible for a number of deaths .
But the most ominous sign for the Republic was the growing brutality among some of the country ’ s most powerful people : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Field of Blood , ” the Yale history professor Joanne B. Freeman examined scores of previously unstudied attacks and melees , often initiated by Southern lawmakers who regarded opposition to slavery as a threat to their property and their power .
In the eighteen-forties , Representative John Dawson , of Louisiana , threatened to cut a colleague ’ s throat “ from ear to ear , ” and was stopped from shooting another only by the intervention of other congressmen .
Freeman described a legislature guided by the ethics of professional wrestling : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Congressmen brawling in bunches while colleagues stood on chairs to get a good look.
” The fighting escalated to the point that a Southern lawmaker threatened to lead an assault on the Capitol , and British diplomats came to regard the House floor as too dangerous to visit .
Benjamin Brown French , a genial New Englander who served as clerk of the House of Representatives , stopped socializing with Southerners and ultimately took to carrying a pistol .
When I asked Freeman how violence and the cult of reason could coexist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a shared motive : “ How did you prove that you were a leader in that period , to a vast audience ?
How did you earn support ?
Maybe through aggressive oratory .
Maybe by making , and keeping , promises for your constituents , state , and section of the Union .
And , for a time , maybe by displaying your domination of the political playing field with bullying and aggression.
” Freeman ’ s history of congressional violence is an account of how some of the most privileged members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ counterparts as enemies , and eventually as existential threats .
Once political leaders lost trust in each other , the public was doomed to follow .
“ Unable to turn to the government for resolution , Americans North and South turned on one another , ” she wrote .
The day after Morse unveiled his device , a newspaper used a telegraph to relay the first squib of news from Washington to Baltimore .
By the end of the century , readers were wading through a flood of cheap errata from afar—mostly of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ floods .
Neil Postman , one of the twentieth century ’ s most prominent scholars of communications , wrote , “ The telegraph may have made the country into ‘ one neighborhood , ’ but it was a peculiar one , populated by strangers who knew nothing but the most superficial facts about each other.
” In “ Amusing Ourselves to Death , ” published in 1985 , Postman described how the triumph of television further heightened the entertainment value of politics .
He watched the 1984 Presidential debates , between Ronald Reagan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hollow dodges , casual deceptions , and abbreviated answers .
With a level of alarm that now looks quaint , he bemoaned Reagan ’ s easy laugh lines and wrote , “ The men were less concerned with giving arguments than with ‘ giving off ’ impressions , which is what television does best.
” It would be three decades before the host of a reality show entered a bid for the Presidency .
But Postman already sensed that “ the demarcation line between what is show business and what is not becomes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Richard Hofstadter , the eminent political scientist , is best known for his work on what he called the “ arena for uncommonly angry minds , ” including anti-intellectualism and “ the paranoid style.
” But , in 1970 , near the end of his life , Hofstadter became fascinated by the juncture of politics and force .
It had swept through American life in recent years , producing assassinations and riots .
Working with a co-author , Michael Wallace , who collected two thousand cases of violence—massacres , rebellions , vigilantism—he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American paradox : “ There is far more violence in our national heritage than our proud , sometimes smug , national self-image admits of.
” Sharp turns in politics and economics inspired new forms of bloodletting .
After the Civil War , the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilantes adopted lynching to prevent freed Black people from working , studying , and voting .
In the first scholarly study of lynching , from 1903 , the sociologist James E. Cutler described it as a “ criminal practice which is peculiar to the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to organize and demand protections , violence ignited .
In 1914 , the National Guard stormed an encampment of workers in the Colorado coalfields , causing a rifle battle and setting tents on fire , killing eleven children and two women .
The historians Philip Taft and Philip Ross later wrote , “ The United States has had the bloodiest and most violent labor history of any industrial nation.
” Hofstadter noted that in America , unlike the rest of the world , political violence rarely involved poor citizens rising up against a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attacked one another , and , usually , the attackers were established Americans—white Protestants , in many cases—turning on minorities , immigrants , “ Catholics , radicals , workers and labor organizers.
” Hofstadter made note of “ verbal and ideological violence ” that laid the foundation for actual harm .
He also fretted about a “ rising mystique of violence on the left.
” By 1969 , the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , a civil-rights group co-founded by John Lewis , had elected new leadership and dropped “ Nonviolent ” from its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Review of Books had featured an instructional diagram for making a Molotov cocktail .
On both the left and the right , Hofstadter sensed , politics was giving way to a culture of self-expression suited to the rise of television , in which the “ distinction between politics and theatre has been deliberately blurred.
” Practitioners had figured out that what played well on TV was often the language and the imagery of force .
The language of conflict blended with entertainment and bled back into politics .
In 2006 , Laura Ingraham @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TV series “ 24 , ” which featured frequent depictions of torture .
“ The average American out there loves the show ‘ 24 , ’ ” she said .
“ In my mind , that ’ s as close to a national referendum that it ’ s O.K .
to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we ’ re going to get.
” At times , the war came home , captured in headlines about a foiled plot or a radicalized “ homegrown ” terrorist .
But , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , fought far away from what was now routinely described as the “ homeland.
” In the twilight war , Americans had acquired an enemy that felt invisible but ever present , everywhere and nowhere , threatening enough that any measures became permissible .
Geography and details became incidental .
More than three years into the Iraq War , a National Geographic poll found that fewer than a quarter of Americans with some college education could locate Iraq , Iran , Saudi Arabia , and Israel on a map .
The peril of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Less than a generation after the founding of the country , Thomas Jefferson wrote , “ If a nation expects to be ignorant and free , in a state of civilization , it expects what never was and never will be.
” But , by the early years of the twenty-first century , Americans were no longer surprised by annual reports that showed our students falling behind other countries ’ .
In a 2005 survey , two-thirds of Americans could not name the three branches of government .
Scarcely a third of high-school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of proficiency .

Freeman’s history of congressional violence is an account of how some of the most privileged members of a society began to see their counterparts as enemies, and eventually as existential threats. Once political leaders lost trust in each other, the public was doomed to follow. “Unable to turn to the government for resolution, Americans North and South turned on one another,” she wrote.
In 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse, the pioneer of the telegraph, transmitted his first message: “What hath God wrought?” Morse predicted that his invention would unify Americans, making “one neighborhood of the whole country.” Indeed, the telegraph brought benefits beyond measure. But it also tipped politics toward entertainment and fear, lighting a fuse that runs through to the age of @ realDonaldTrump.
The day after Morse unveiled his device, a newspaper used a telegraph to relay the first squib of news from Washington to Baltimore. By the end of the century, readers were wading through a flood of cheap errata from afar—mostly of war, crime, fires, and floods. Neil Postman, one of the twentieth century’s most prominent scholars of communications, wrote, “The telegraph may have made the country into ‘one neighborhood,’ but it was a peculiar one, populated by strangers who knew nothing but the most superficial facts about each other.”
In “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” published in 1985, Postman described how the triumph of television further heightened the entertainment value of politics. He watched the 1984 Presidential debates, between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, and lamented the hollow dodges, casual deceptions, and abbreviated answers. With a level of alarm that now looks quaint, he bemoaned Reagan’s easy laugh lines and wrote, “The men were less concerned with giving arguments than with ‘giving off’ impressions, which is what television does best.” It would be three decades before the host of a reality show entered a bid for the Presidency. But Postman already sensed that “the demarcation line between what is show business and what is not becomes harder to see with each passing day.”
Richard Hofstadter, the eminent political scientist, is best known for his work on what he called the “arena for uncommonly angry minds,” including anti-intellectualism and “the paranoid style.” But, in 1970, near the end of his life, Hofstadter became fascinated by the juncture of politics and force. It had swept through American life in recent years, producing assassinations and riots. Working with a co-author, Michael Wallace, who collected two thousand cases of violence—massacres, rebellions, vigilantism—he hoped to address what he called the American paradox: “There is far more violence in our national heritage than our proud, sometimes smug, national self-image admits of.”
Sharp turns in politics and economics inspired new forms of bloodletting. After the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilantes adopted lynching to prevent freed Black people from working, studying, and voting. In the first scholarly study of lynching, from 1903, the sociologist James E. Cutler described it as a “criminal practice which is peculiar to the United States.” Later, as workers started to organize and demand protections, violence ignited. In 1914, the National Guard stormed an encampment of workers in the Colorado coalfields, causing a rifle battle and setting tents on fire, killing eleven children and two women. The historians Philip Taft and Philip Ross later wrote, “The United States has had the bloodiest and most violent labor history of any industrial nation.”
Hofstadter noted that in America, unlike the rest of the world, political violence rarely involved poor citizens rising up against a powerful state; more often, citizens attacked one another, and, usually, the attackers were established Americans—white Protestants, in many cases—turning on minorities, immigrants, “Catholics, radicals, workers and labor organizers.” Hofstadter made note of “verbal and ideological violence” that laid the foundation for actual harm. He also fretted about a “rising mystique of violence on the left.” By 1969, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a civil-rights group co-founded by John Lewis, had elected new leadership and dropped “Nonviolent” from its name. The usually staid New York Review of Books had featured an instructional diagram for making a Molotov cocktail. On both the left and the right, Hofstadter sensed, politics was giving way to a culture of self-expression suited to the rise of television, in which the “distinction between politics and theatre has been deliberately blurred.” Practitioners had figured out that what played well on TV was often the language and the imagery of force.
Neil Postman liked to explain American history as a sequence of metaphors, which, he wrote, “create the content of our culture.” Each era had its own: the Western frontier, Upton Sinclair’s urban slaughterhouse, and eventually the gilded illusions of Las Vegas. Postman died in 2003, but he might have found the central metaphor of contemporary American culture in the era of “twilight” warfare, which began on September 11, 2001, and extended to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and at least nine other countries where U.S. troops were dispatched under the banner of fighting terrorism.
The language of conflict blended with entertainment and bled back into politics. In 2006, Laura Ingraham, the conservative commentator, cited the TV series “24,” which featured frequent depictions of torture. “The average American out there loves the show ‘24,’ ” she said. “In my mind, that’s as close to a national referendum that it’s O.K. to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we’re going to get.”
At times, the war came home, captured in headlines about a foiled plot or a radicalized “homegrown” terrorist. But, for most Americans, it was an abstraction, fought far away from what was now routinely described as the “homeland.” In the twilight war, Americans had acquired an enemy that felt invisible but ever present, everywhere and nowhere, threatening enough that any measures became permissible. Geography and details became incidental. More than three years into the Iraq War, a National Geographic poll found that fewer than a quarter of Americans with some college education could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel on a map.
The peril of ignorance is a perennial American lament. Less than a generation after the founding of the country, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” But, by the early years of the twenty-first century, Americans were no longer surprised by annual reports that showed our students falling behind other countries’. In a 2005 survey, two-thirds of Americans could not name the three branches of government. Scarcely a third of high-school seniors read at or above the level of proficiency.
Americans were not just losing their grip on the basics of science, civics, and cultural knowledge; they didn’t seem to care. In 2004, an aide to George W. Bush (widely identified as Karl Rove, though he denied it) dismissed the “reality-based community,” by which he meant people who insist on inconvenient facts. “We’re an empire now,” the aide told the journalist Ron Suskind, “and when we act, we create our own reality.” Magical thinking was taking its place on the main stage of politics. Bill Moyers, in a speech on end-times rhetoric in evangelical politics, lamented, “One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal.” In the 2008 book “The Age of American Unreason,” Susan Jacoby declared, “America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism.”
Trump made the invention of reality a central doctrine of his government. He installed a sixty-inch television in his dining room, and was said to spend as much as eight hours a day watching cable news. (Trump denies this.) He often ambled into unfamiliar facts; he suggested that Frederick Douglass was still alive (“getting recognized more and more”), congratulated Poland on the anniversary of its invasion by the Nazis, and pronounced Yosemite to rhyme with Vegemite, the Australian breakfast spread. Because of his aversion to reading intelligence briefings, aides resorted to showing him pictures and homemade movies. Linguists who assessed his spoken vocabulary found that he used the most primitive language of any of the last fifteen Presidents. (Herbert Hoover was ranked the most sophisticated.) According to the standard measure of complexity in writing, the Flesch-Kincaid index, Trump communicated at the level of a fourth grader.
The crises of 2020 imposed immovable facts on Trump’s politics of unreality. Facing the deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic and a pattern of police killings of Black men and women, Trump’s government slumped into paralysis. Congress proved unable to pass real policing reforms, and could not even gather itself to approve a second round of emergency economic assistance. Week by week, as Trump raged against problems beyond his aptitude to address, he leaned ever more on the language and the symbolism of force—a mode of expression that might be called the violent style.
Trump, who came to the Presidency by generating a miasma of fear around Mexicans and Muslims, adapted his weapons to new enemies; he railed against “human scum” and “thugs” and “traitors,” threatening to send a “surge” of federal agents into cities, such as Chicago, that are home to large Black populations. When scattered acts of looting accompanied early protests against racial injustice, Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defense, called for dominating the “battlespace.” Trump dispatched paramilitary agents to Portland, Oregon (“Worse than Afghanistan,” he said), forcing people into unmarked cars. In a speech from the South Lawn, on July 4th, he likened his project to that of the “American heroes” who “defeated the Nazis, dethroned the Fascists, toppled the Communists.” He said, “We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters.”
His most zealous supporters embraced fantasies of Antifa invasions, deep-state coups, and a cabal of Satan-worshipping, pedophile “Democrat” billionaires. Opponents began to look irredeemable, beyond rehabilitation. In August, a popular pro-gun activist who goes by Colion Noir posted a video titled “Why New Gun Owners Should Fear a Joe Biden Presidency.” He told his audience, “They’ll be coming for the handguns. These aren’t new tactics—Hitler did the same thing in Germany.”


newyorker--2020-11-09--Introducing the Trump Scouts

Introducing the Trump Scouts

MEMO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF SPECIAL PROJECTS : Now that the general election is kind of , sort of , behind us , I think we can all agree that healing our fractured nation is job No .
1 .
And what better way to mend our wounds than by creating an exciting new program for our top youths ?
With the original Boy Scouts being forced to admit not only girls but also gay girls , nonbinary-sexuals ( is that the same as bisexual ? )
, and everything in between , there is an urgent need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ values in our growing boys .
( Also , we lost the eighteen-to-thirty-fives bigly , so if we want any shot at a term for Don , Jr. , we will need the youthful , extra-constitutional energy of middle schoolers . )
Picture , if you will , thousands of ruddy-cheeked Trump Scouts cavorting in the woods , swimming in swift , icy rivers , and singing “ My Old Kentucky Home , Good-Night !
” around a campfire .
Suburban kids have become weak , lazy , and “ woke.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an earlier time , when manliness meant gutting a trout and flinging its innards at squealing wimps , or running around naked after a dip and chasing the wussies with sharp sticks in an entirely heterosexual manner .
They ’ ll make acorn pancakes every morning , using hot rocks as a griddle , and then slather them with Aunt Jemima !
( What an inspired idea President Trump had signing an executive order that mandated the return of America ’ s most beloved imitation maple syrup ! )
On Day One , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of “ The Art of the Deal ” and five dollars .
After three weeks , the boy who ends up with everyone else ’ s money will be the “ boss ” Scout .
The uniform : I ’ m seeing brown for some reason , at least for the shirts , but we should let Ivanka go wild with the design .
The Jamboree : The highlight of each year will be a gathering of all the Scouts across the nation at a weeklong Jamboree .
On the final night , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one for the history books .
Riding a bison or a tank ?
Lowered from some sort of hovering Space Force prototype ?
And it is here that we will unveil the special dress uniform that he has been working on since his first day in the Oval Office .
Composed of all the medals , ribbons , epaulets , and sashes confiscated from disgraced generals ( so many ! )
, it will cover every last inch of him , from spats to hat , with glory .
And the cape !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sturgis , South Dakota , seems the most logical location for the Jamboree , since the townspeople there are accustomed to a yearly influx of huge crowds .
And now their traditional client base is mainly dead .
Ranks : Our team hasn ’ t worked out precisely what the various Trump Scout ranks will be , but we ’ ll start with Apprentice and will go all the way to Grand Wizard .
Just as in the now disgraced B.S.A.
, Trump Scouts will be able to earn merit badges—but only in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this nation on the path to greatness .
Here are just a few .
Land surveying : Every night is taco night as you camp under the stars along the southernmost edges of Texas , Arizona , and New Mexico .
It ’ ll be just you and a tripod with a pirate-like spyglass thing on top , an assault rifle , and maybe some wooden stakes to pound into the ground .
Communications : Now that One American News is on its way to acquiring NBC to become OANBC , our friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , reporters , camera-whatevers , you name it .
With the staff of MSNBC planning to defect north , to the CBC , the first Trump Scouts to sign up might even find themselves sitting at Rachel Maddow ’ s old desk !
Enjoy those Toronto winters , Rachel—eh ?
Private investigator : Solve a real case , just like a real private eye !
In addition to receiving a merit badge stitched with shiny metallic thread , Scouts are eligible to collect the bounty that President Trump has offered for the First @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boy who finds her will also get an internship with Rudolph Giuliani ’ s law firm and preferred enrollment at Ukraine ’ s Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute .
And don ’ t think we ’ ve forgotten about the fairer sex .
Girls deserve their own traditional organization , complete with uniforms and jingoistic sing-alongs .
So we are also excited to announce the Trump Little-Lady Scouts : a national brigade of high-kicking cheerleaders !
The only requirement is that you be taller than five-ten and weigh less than a hundred and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to design the outfits .
Gim me a T !
♦

MEMO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF SPECIAL PROJECTS:
Now that the general election is kind of, sort of, behind us, I think we can all agree that healing our fractured nation is job No. 1. And what better way to mend our wounds than by creating an exciting new program for our top youths?
Gentlemen and Ivanka, I present the Trump Scouts!
With the original Boy Scouts being forced to admit not only girls but also gay girls, nonbinary-sexuals (is that the same as bisexual?), and everything in between, there is an urgent need for a traditional program that instills core values in our growing boys. (Also, we lost the eighteen-to-thirty-fives bigly, so if we want any shot at a term for Don, Jr., we will need the youthful, extra-constitutional energy of middle schoolers.)
Picture, if you will, thousands of ruddy-cheeked Trump Scouts cavorting in the woods, swimming in swift, icy rivers, and singing “My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!” around a campfire. Suburban kids have become weak, lazy, and “woke.” The Trump Scouts will bring them back to an earlier time, when manliness meant gutting a trout and flinging its innards at squealing wimps, or running around naked after a dip and chasing the wussies with sharp sticks in an entirely heterosexual manner. They’ll make acorn pancakes every morning, using hot rocks as a griddle, and then slather them with Aunt Jemima! (What an inspired idea President Trump had signing an executive order that mandated the return of America’s most beloved imitation maple syrup!)
On Day One, each Scout will be given a copy of “The Art of the Deal” and five dollars. After three weeks, the boy who ends up with everyone else’s money will be the “boss” Scout.
The uniform: I’m seeing brown for some reason, at least for the shirts, but we should let Ivanka go wild with the design.
The Jamboree: The highlight of each year will be a gathering of all the Scouts across the nation at a weeklong Jamboree. On the final night, the entrance of the Scout-in-Chief will be one for the history books. Riding a bison or a tank? Lowered from some sort of hovering Space Force prototype? And it is here that we will unveil the special dress uniform that he has been working on since his first day in the Oval Office. Composed of all the medals, ribbons, epaulets, and sashes confiscated from disgraced generals (so many!), it will cover every last inch of him, from spats to hat, with glory. And the cape! Wait until you see the cape.
Sturgis, South Dakota, seems the most logical location for the Jamboree, since the townspeople there are accustomed to a yearly influx of huge crowds. And now their traditional client base is mainly dead.
Ranks: Our team hasn’t worked out precisely what the various Trump Scout ranks will be, but we’ll start with Apprentice and will go all the way to Grand Wizard. Just as in the now disgraced B.S.A., Trump Scouts will be able to earn merit badges—but only in subjects that are actually useful to keeping this nation on the path to greatness. Here are just a few.
Land surveying: Every night is taco night as you camp under the stars along the southernmost edges of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. It’ll be just you and a tripod with a pirate-like spyglass thing on top, an assault rifle, and maybe some wooden stakes to pound into the ground.
Communications: Now that One American News is on its way to acquiring NBC to become OANBC, our friends over there are in need of anchors, reporters, camera-whatevers, you name it. With the staff of MSNBC planning to defect north, to the CBC, the first Trump Scouts to sign up might even find themselves sitting at Rachel Maddow’s old desk! Enjoy those Toronto winters, Rachel—eh?
Private investigator: Solve a real case, just like a real private eye! In addition to receiving a merit badge stitched with shiny metallic thread, Scouts are eligible to collect the bounty that President Trump has offered for the First Lady’s whereabouts. The lucky boy who finds her will also get an internship with Rudolph Giuliani’s law firm and preferred enrollment at Ukraine’s Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.
And don’t think we’ve forgotten about the fairer sex. Girls deserve their own traditional organization, complete with uniforms and jingoistic sing-alongs. So we are also excited to announce the Trump Little-Lady Scouts: a national brigade of high-kicking cheerleaders! The only requirement is that you be taller than five-ten and weigh less than a hundred and nine pounds. POTUS himself has volunteered to design the outfits. Gimme a T! ♦


newyorker--2020-11-09--Awaiting Voting Results, New York Becomes Plywood City

It is not a promising sign for democracy that New York City prepared for a Presidential election as if it were a hurricane .
If the symbol of the 2000 race was the hanging chad , and 2008 ’ s was the “ Hope ” poster , 2020 ’ s may be the boarded-up storefront .
Before the votes came in , the smart money among the business class was on destruction , whether in celebration or in protest .
Or maybe both .
In Manhattan , as Tuesday approached , entire blocks were shuttered .
This made Tom Buiocchi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his company , ServiceChannel , helps businesses such as Chipotle and Tory Burch find contractors to do work on their buildings .
“ The common problem is , you know , the toilet blew up in the bathroom of the Banana Republic in Walla Walla , Washington , ” he said .
Recently , however , he ’ s become a consigliere to companies nervous about election unrest .
In the two weeks leading up to Election Day , ServiceChannel helped put up plywood and other looting deterrents at twelve hundred buildings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were in New York .
The decision to lock down can be tricky .
“ Being the first to board up , or the only one that didn ’ t board up , could be perceived that you ’ re siding with some particular stance , ” Buiocchi said .
During the scattered looting after the murder of George Floyd , this spring , some companies were slow to respond .
At one of the stores Buiocchi services in the Bay Area , he said , “ things were being boarded up as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was literally a negotiation between the contractors and the protesters.
” Before the election , owners exchanged tips .
Looters had started bringing drills to unscrew the plywood , so owners learned to use screws with unusually shaped heads .
They added corrugated metal .
The deep-pocketed switched to plywood that was fire resistant .
Strategies were devised to prevent the spillage of blood .
( “ Biohazard , ” Buiocchi explained .
“ It elongates the amount of time you have to stay closed.
” ) One new approach involved pleas for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In SoHo , someone had scrawled a quote from the Dalai Lama on the Jimmy Choo boutique .
A Ralph Lauren store nearby had one from Ronald Reagan .
A saboteur , perhaps ?
( “ Borderline insurance fraud , ” someone called it . )
“ What the stores have learned never to do is to put up merchandising and brand-specific information like , ‘ Hey !
Two-for-one sale today !
’ ” Buiocchi explained .
The best outcome , business-wise , was a resounding victory for either candidate .
“ Clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work in twenty-four hours , ” Buiocchi said .
By Wednesday , he was ruling out that dream scenario .
Yet for the next two nights only small protests materialized in the city .
Calm—or exhaustion—mostly prevailed .
All the plywood began to imply a diminished faith in self-government .
It also , in a way , conveyed confidence in a product .
The boarded-up Versace store reinforced the idea that lots of people want Versace .
But there were limits .
The Sweetgreen near Union Square was boarded up ; was it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Shroomami bowls ?
“ The reason is , sometimes people just want to throw a garbage can through a window , and if they damage equipment it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars , ” a contractor , whose company had shuttered a bakery last week , explained .
For those most pessimistic about the long-term stability of the body public , the best option was something permanent but not panicky .
In the weeks before the election , Riot Glass , a company offering shatterproof reinforcement for windows and doors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep up with .
Brad Campbell , the C.E.O.
, invented the product six years ago , on a hunch : “ I ’ ve always felt that there was some sort of imminent chaos coming.
” His product has survived sledgehammers and worse— “ we ’ ve shot it with AK-47 rounds , ” he said , and still no shattering—but it ’ s also unobtrusive .
“ It doesn ’ t make their building look like an armed camp , ” he noted .
“ They don ’ t want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be fortified.
” By the week ’ s end , as the vote counts trickled in and a conclusion neared , the peace was holding across the country , but barely .
Armed right-wing protesters were massing outside a ballot-counting center in Maricopa County , in Arizona .
The N.Y.P.D .
was roughing up an elected official .
Trump ’ s campaign was urging his followers to “ FIGHT BACK.
” ( Some seemed to be heeding the advice : police in Philadelphia said they foiled a planned attack outside the city ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business was sanguine .
Stocks shot up , likely at the prospect of a Republican Senate with a Biden White House—the same friendly tax rates , without the pesky tweets .
But where to spend the extra dough ?
A spokesman for Tiffany ’ s pointed out that its store near Trump Tower , despite being covered in plywood , was still open for business .
♦

Illustration by João Fazenda
It is not a promising sign for democracy that New York City prepared for a Presidential election as if it were a hurricane. If the symbol of the 2000 race was the hanging chad, and 2008’s was the “Hope” poster, 2020’s may be the boarded-up storefront. Before the votes came in, the smart money among the business class was on destruction, whether in celebration or in protest. Or maybe both. In Manhattan, as Tuesday approached, entire blocks were shuttered.
This made Tom Buiocchi an important figure. In normal times, his company, ServiceChannel, helps businesses such as Chipotle and Tory Burch find contractors to do work on their buildings. “The common problem is, you know, the toilet blew up in the bathroom of the Banana Republic in Walla Walla, Washington,” he said. Recently, however, he’s become a consigliere to companies nervous about election unrest. In the two weeks leading up to Election Day, ServiceChannel helped put up plywood and other looting deterrents at twelve hundred buildings. Two hundred and twenty-nine of them were in New York.
The decision to lock down can be tricky. “Being the first to board up, or the only one that didn’t board up, could be perceived that you’re siding with some particular stance,” Buiocchi said. During the scattered looting after the murder of George Floyd, this spring, some companies were slow to respond. At one of the stores Buiocchi services in the Bay Area, he said, “things were being boarded up as the protesters were coming by. There was literally a negotiation between the contractors and the protesters.” Before the election, owners exchanged tips. Looters had started bringing drills to unscrew the plywood, so owners learned to use screws with unusually shaped heads. They added corrugated metal. The deep-pocketed switched to plywood that was fire resistant. Strategies were devised to prevent the spillage of blood. (“Biohazard,” Buiocchi explained. “It elongates the amount of time you have to stay closed.”) One new approach involved pleas for peace painted directly onto the plywood. In SoHo, someone had scrawled a quote from the Dalai Lama on the Jimmy Choo boutique. A Ralph Lauren store nearby had one from Ronald Reagan. A saboteur, perhaps? (“Borderline insurance fraud,” someone called it.) “What the stores have learned never to do is to put up merchandising and brand-specific information like, ‘Hey! Two-for-one sale today!’ ” Buiocchi explained.
The best outcome, business-wise, was a resounding victory for either candidate. “Clear, decisive, everybody go back to work in twenty-four hours,” Buiocchi said. By Wednesday, he was ruling out that dream scenario. Yet for the next two nights only small protests materialized in the city. Calm—or exhaustion—mostly prevailed.
All the plywood began to imply a diminished faith in self-government. It also, in a way, conveyed confidence in a product. The boarded-up Versace store reinforced the idea that lots of people want Versace. But there were limits. The Sweetgreen near Union Square was boarded up; was it worried that citizens would make a run on Shroomami bowls? “The reason is, sometimes people just want to throw a garbage can through a window, and if they damage equipment it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars,” a contractor, whose company had shuttered a bakery last week, explained.
For those most pessimistic about the long-term stability of the body public, the best option was something permanent but not panicky. In the weeks before the election, Riot Glass, a company offering shatterproof reinforcement for windows and doors, got more orders than it could keep up with. Brad Campbell, the C.E.O., invented the product six years ago, on a hunch: “I’ve always felt that there was some sort of imminent chaos coming.” His product has survived sledgehammers and worse—“we’ve shot it with AK-47 rounds,” he said, and still no shattering—but it’s also unobtrusive. “It doesn’t make their building look like an armed camp,” he noted. “They don’t want to look fortified, but they want to be fortified.”
By the week’s end, as the vote counts trickled in and a conclusion neared, the peace was holding across the country, but barely. Armed right-wing protesters were massing outside a ballot-counting center in Maricopa County, in Arizona. The N.Y.P.D. was roughing up an elected official. Trump’s campaign was urging his followers to “FIGHT BACK.” (Some seemed to be heeding the advice: police in Philadelphia said they foiled a planned attack outside the city’s election center.) But big business was sanguine. Stocks shot up, likely at the prospect of a Republican Senate with a Biden White House—the same friendly tax rates, without the pesky tweets. But where to spend the extra dough? A spokesman for Tiffany’s pointed out that its store near Trump Tower, despite being covered in plywood, was still open for business. ♦


newyorker--2020-11-09--Pascal Campion’s “Hope Again” (After Mark Ulriksen, 2012)

Trump was always a minority President , governing for part of the country in opposition to the rest of it @ @ @ @ @ 2016 election upset became its own political rationale and , ultimately , for Trump , @ @ @ @ @ plan .
Why do something different when he had defied everyone and won the first @ @ @ @ @ votes are counted , they will almost surely show Biden surpassing Clinton ’ s popular-vote @ @ @ @ @ and yet Trump believed until the end that nothing mattered except keeping the support of @ @ @ @ @ may turn out to have been wrong , but it will have been a much @ @ @ @ @ American democracy than it should have been .
And , even without final results , @ @ @ @ @ there are still two Americas , and that Trump , despite the catastrophes of his @ @ @ @ @ loyalty of the vast majority of red America—his America .

On Friday, the first outlets began to project that Joe Biden would win the 2020 Presidential election. Biden, like most Americans, spent much of the week awaiting results from states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, where the Democratic Party has been working to turn voters blue. In his latest cover, the artist Pascal Campion nods to that turn—and to the cover Mark Ulriksen drew, in 2012, when Barack Obama was reëlected. For more on the election, read:
Charles Bethea on the fight to turn Georgia blue:
Of all the people I spoke to who follow politics professionally—from academics, to consultants, to elected officials—nobody believed that Biden would win Georgia by seven points, or even that he should be favored. But they all thought the state would be the most competitive it had been since 1996, when Bill Clinton lost the state to Bob Dole by a little under three points. Democratic Presidential candidates have lost Georgia in every election since, often by large margins; in 2016, Trump won it by five. In the past four years, a million new voters have been added to the state’s rolls, and many of them are young and nonwhite. “There are more latent Democrats here now,” Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, told me. “You’ve got white transplants who aren’t conservative. You’ve got the African-American base. New Asian-American and Hispanic voters coming to the state. They all break Democratic.” Stacey Abrams, a former state legislator who has directed local voter-registration efforts, mobilized this coalition in her race for governor two years ago.
Susan Glasser on Trump remaining the President of red America:
Trump was always a minority President, governing for part of the country in opposition to the rest of it. The shock of his 2016 election upset became its own political rationale and, ultimately, for Trump, the blueprint for his reëlection plan. Why do something different when he had defied everyone and won the first time? When the final votes are counted, they will almost surely show Biden surpassing Clinton’s popular-vote margin of 2.87 million, and yet Trump believed until the end that nothing mattered except keeping the support of his Republican base. He may turn out to have been wrong, but it will have been a much, much closer call for American democracy than it should have been. And, even without final results, we can already say that there are still two Americas, and that Trump, despite the catastrophes of his rule, has retained the loyalty of the vast majority of red America—his America.
Jelani Cobb on the continuing importance of the Black vote:
“Democracy is on the ballot,” we have heard ceaselessly since the beginning of the Presidential primary season. The nation could not come back, many warned repeatedly, from a second term under Donald Trump. The fact that a congenitally moderate figure such as Joe Biden could draw this conclusion gave ballast to an idea that many people have recognized from the moment that Trump’s 2016 campaign began to gather momentum: that he represents an existential threat to the nation’s democratic traditions. And, if this is true, it also means that, to a great degree, the future of American democracy hinges on the actions of Black people living in places that this system has consistently failed.
And for more post-election covers, see below:


newyorker--2020-11-09--“The Undoing” is Empty Life-style Porn

“The Undoing” is Empty Life-style Porn

Like “ Big Little Lies , ” with which it shares David E. Kelley as creator , “ The Undoing ” has great fun telegraphing the signifiers of wealth .
The former show , set in the casual luxury of Monterey , was full of crackling fire pits , double-height living rooms , and rustic decks overlooking expanses of pristine shoreline .
Here , we get full-bore Upper East Side resplendence , where cashmere-clad , preternaturally smooth-complexioned women convene in marble-and-gilt rooms so laden with precious objets that they could double as the Met ’ s Wrightsman Galleries .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ solicit money for the school ’ s diversity efforts , to cover tuition for students who are neither rich nor white .
The mother of one such student has joined the planning committee .
Her name is Elena Alves , and , although she is played by the Italian actress Matilda De Angelis , the show uses establishing shots of Elena ’ s apartment in Spanish Harlem to suggest that her character is Latina .
Elena has ostensibly come to the meeting to help , but the awkwardness her presence arouses suggests these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dickens once called “ telescopic philanthropy , ” the kind of benevolence that , tinged by racism and classism , works best from a safe distance .
In the scene ’ s climax , the ladies are both horrified and titillated when Elena drops her top to begin nursing her infant daughter at the table , like a sensual Madonna .
“ Spectacular breasts , ” Grace ’ s friend Sylvia ( Lily Rabe ) says later , snickering .
“ The Undoing ” is not subtle , which at first I didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hit the exact pleasure center between mild critique and life-style porn .
Grace is a successful therapist and the daughter of a leonine billionaire ( Donald Sutherland ) ; her husband , Jonathan ( Hugh Grant ) , is a pediatric oncologist who has been featured in New York magazine ’ s “ Best Doctors ” issue .
As I began watching , the show seemed well positioned to skewer its subjects while allowing the viewer to revel in the flashier aspects of their lives—a “ Primates of Park Avenue ” for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But , much like the appearance of a soothsaying gypsy in a Victorian novel , the mysterious Elena , with her provocative air and accented English , portends the switch from light satire to melodrama .
At the fund-raiser—just after a glass of water has been auctioned off for a thousand dollars , as a show of the parents ’ commitment to the cause—Elena decides to go home early .
The next morning , she is found dead , bludgeoned by a hammer in her studio .
( She is , apparently , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abstract , as does almost everything else about the character . )
Jonathan is arrested ; it turns out that he was having an affair with Elena , who might have become obsessed with him after he treated her older child for cancer , and circumstantial evidence has made him the main suspect in the case .
He is also unable to afford a lawyer—he emptied his coffers while wooing Elena .
“ Your husband is a bit of a dick , ” Jonathan ’ s public defender tells Grace , suggesting that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he is no killer .
Could Jonathan be guilty ?
He is presented in the pilot episode not as a psychopath , or even as a dick , but as an irresistibly crinkly-eyed , slightly roguish man who cajoles Grace into sex by saying things like “ Make an Englishman happy.
” He is , in other words , a Hugh Grant character .
But his affair and his potentially murderous impulses are reminiscent of one Grant character in particular—the charming , conspiring politician Jeremy Thorpe in 2018 ’ s “ A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as if you ’ ve seen a lot of these characters—and plot points , and framing devices—recently .
“ The Undoing , ” though conceived as a whodunnit , is much less interested in Elena and her killer than it is in Grace ’ s internal landscape .
The show is the latest in a long tradition devoted to examining the shadowy psychic crevices of high-strung , upper-class white women , calling back to the Lifetime movie , and to steamy eighties and nineties dramas such as “ Basic Instinct , ” “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and “ Fatal Attraction.
” ( A friend who works as a development executive told me that such content is known in industry parlance as “ Adrian Lyne and wine , ” after the director of the last movie . )
Some of the most recent TV efforts , glossy things starring A-list actresses , include the Amy Adams-led “ Sharp Objects ” ( which , like “ The Undoing , ” has a gruesome act of violence at its core ) and the Naomi Watts vehicle “ Gypsy ” ( which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year came “ Little Fires Everywhere , ” starring Reese Witherspoon , three years after the aforementioned “ Big Little Lies , ” which , as in a game of prestige-TV musical chairs , stars not only Witherspoon but Kidman as well .
All of these shows evince an ongoing negotiation between the sociopolitical and the operatically psychological .
But “ Little Fires Everywhere ” —a show in which the life of a wealthy white mom becomes intertwined with that of a working-class artist of color—at least makes an attempt to contend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and class that it raises .
In “ The Undoing , ” such questions are made irrelevant by the decision to kill Elena off almost immediately .
One is left wondering why the show bothered to introduce her at all .
David E. Kelley ’ s most notable early success was that landmark of post-feminism “ Ally McBeal , ” the late-nineties network dramedy that focussed on the spectacle of a woman dithering between mating and career within the stage set of the modern workplace .
In comparison , Grace , even though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ largely post-work .
Part of the pleasure of shows like “ The Undoing ” is their characters ’ relative financial freedom , which allows them the time to do things such as plan a fund-raiser or , perhaps , a murder .
Dressed in jewel-toned velvets , with her long auburn ringlets streaming down her back , Grace has the look of a Pre-Raphaelite heroine , wandering the city streets in a daze , her cape-like coat flapping , the muddled , soft-focus haze of the show ’ s cinematography reflecting her tortured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the show ’ s third episode , the hunky detective investigating Elena ’ s murder ( Édgar Ramírez ) provides evidence that Grace might be involved in the crime—a possibility that appears to come as a surprise to Grace herself , and that hints at the limits of the therapist ’ s self-knowledge .
This mystery , however , stretches wearyingly along the show ’ s course , turning from a suspenseful device to something that suggests Grace ’ s characterological thinness .
Who is this woman ?
Kidman ’ s character in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , was also an enigma , but the actress played the role with such restraint that Celeste ’ s opacity felt deliberate .
As Grace , Kidman seems , at times , unsure of her own character ’ s intentions , shifting from blithe merriment to imperious boss-lady outbursts to turned-up-to-eleven distress .
Beset by hazy visions of events that she might or might not have actually seen—Elena and Jonathan making passionate love , Jonathan joshingly caring for one of his young cancer patients , Elena attacked with a hammer—Grace ’ s mind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than a repository of televisual clichés .
In these moments , the camera closes in tightly on Kidman ’ s lovely eyes , as if the answer can be found in their cloudy depths .
It can not .
♦

In an early scene of the HBO drama “The Undoing,” Grace Fraser, played by Nicole Kidman, arrives at the palatial Manhattan apartment of one of the other mothers from her son’s private school. She is there to take part in a planning session for a school fund-raiser, a meeting that devolves into a bitch sesh quicker than anyone can say “classic eight.” “Did you see the David Hockneys?” one woman asks, referring to the home of apparently even-richer school parents, where the fund-raiser is set to take place. “Two of them, on facing walls in the dining room,” another mom answers, as a uniformed maid serves tea.
Like “Big Little Lies,” with which it shares David E. Kelley as creator, “The Undoing” has great fun telegraphing the signifiers of wealth. The former show, set in the casual luxury of Monterey, was full of crackling fire pits, double-height living rooms, and rustic decks overlooking expanses of pristine shoreline. Here, we get full-bore Upper East Side resplendence, where cashmere-clad, preternaturally smooth-complexioned women convene in marble-and-gilt rooms so laden with precious objets that they could double as the Met’s Wrightsman Galleries.
The fund-raiser these women are working on will solicit money for the school’s diversity efforts, to cover tuition for students who are neither rich nor white. The mother of one such student has joined the planning committee. Her name is Elena Alves, and, although she is played by the Italian actress Matilda De Angelis, the show uses establishing shots of Elena’s apartment in Spanish Harlem to suggest that her character is Latina. Elena has ostensibly come to the meeting to help, but the awkwardness her presence arouses suggests these rich white mothers’ allegiance to what Dickens once called “telescopic philanthropy,” the kind of benevolence that, tinged by racism and classism, works best from a safe distance. In the scene’s climax, the ladies are both horrified and titillated when Elena drops her top to begin nursing her infant daughter at the table, like a sensual Madonna. “Spectacular breasts,” Grace’s friend Sylvia (Lily Rabe) says later, snickering.
“The Undoing” is not subtle, which at first I didn’t mind. The pilot episode hit the exact pleasure center between mild critique and life-style porn. Grace is a successful therapist and the daughter of a leonine billionaire (Donald Sutherland); her husband, Jonathan (Hugh Grant), is a pediatric oncologist who has been featured in New York magazine’s “Best Doctors” issue. As I began watching, the show seemed well positioned to skewer its subjects while allowing the viewer to revel in the flashier aspects of their lives—a “Primates of Park Avenue” for the city’s eleventh-hour pre-pandemic moment.
But, much like the appearance of a soothsaying gypsy in a Victorian novel, the mysterious Elena, with her provocative air and accented English, portends the switch from light satire to melodrama. At the fund-raiser—just after a glass of water has been auctioned off for a thousand dollars, as a show of the parents’ commitment to the cause—Elena decides to go home early. The next morning, she is found dead, bludgeoned by a hammer in her studio. (She is, apparently, an artist, though this detail remains abstract, as does almost everything else about the character.) Jonathan is arrested; it turns out that he was having an affair with Elena, who might have become obsessed with him after he treated her older child for cancer, and circumstantial evidence has made him the main suspect in the case. He is also unable to afford a lawyer—he emptied his coffers while wooing Elena. “Your husband is a bit of a dick,” Jonathan’s public defender tells Grace, suggesting that, although his client might be bad, he is no killer.
Could Jonathan be guilty? He is presented in the pilot episode not as a psychopath, or even as a dick, but as an irresistibly crinkly-eyed, slightly roguish man who cajoles Grace into sex by saying things like “Make an Englishman happy.” He is, in other words, a Hugh Grant character. But his affair and his potentially murderous impulses are reminiscent of one Grant character in particular—the charming, conspiring politician Jeremy Thorpe in 2018’s “A Very English Scandal.”
It may feel as if you’ve seen a lot of these characters—and plot points, and framing devices—recently. “The Undoing,” though conceived as a whodunnit, is much less interested in Elena and her killer than it is in Grace’s internal landscape. The show is the latest in a long tradition devoted to examining the shadowy psychic crevices of high-strung, upper-class white women, calling back to the Lifetime movie, and to steamy eighties and nineties dramas such as “Basic Instinct,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” and “Fatal Attraction.” (A friend who works as a development executive told me that such content is known in industry parlance as “Adrian Lyne and wine,” after the director of the last movie.)
Some of the most recent TV efforts, glossy things starring A-list actresses, include the Amy Adams-led “Sharp Objects” (which, like “The Undoing,” has a gruesome act of violence at its core) and the Naomi Watts vehicle “Gypsy” (which features a therapist protagonist). Earlier this year came “Little Fires Everywhere,” starring Reese Witherspoon, three years after the aforementioned “Big Little Lies,” which, as in a game of prestige-TV musical chairs, stars not only Witherspoon but Kidman as well. All of these shows evince an ongoing negotiation between the sociopolitical and the operatically psychological. But “Little Fires Everywhere”—a show in which the life of a wealthy white mom becomes intertwined with that of a working-class artist of color—at least makes an attempt to contend with some of the questions of race and class that it raises. In “The Undoing,” such questions are made irrelevant by the decision to kill Elena off almost immediately. One is left wondering why the show bothered to introduce her at all.
David E. Kelley’s most notable early success was that landmark of post-feminism “Ally McBeal,” the late-nineties network dramedy that focussed on the spectacle of a woman dithering between mating and career within the stage set of the modern workplace. In comparison, Grace, even though she is an accomplished therapist, seems largely post-work. Part of the pleasure of shows like “The Undoing” is their characters’ relative financial freedom, which allows them the time to do things such as plan a fund-raiser or, perhaps, a murder.
Dressed in jewel-toned velvets, with her long auburn ringlets streaming down her back, Grace has the look of a Pre-Raphaelite heroine, wandering the city streets in a daze, her cape-like coat flapping, the muddled, soft-focus haze of the show’s cinematography reflecting her tortured mental state. In a cliffhanger in the show’s third episode, the hunky detective investigating Elena’s murder (Édgar Ramírez) provides evidence that Grace might be involved in the crime—a possibility that appears to come as a surprise to Grace herself, and that hints at the limits of the therapist’s self-knowledge. This mystery, however, stretches wearyingly along the show’s course, turning from a suspenseful device to something that suggests Grace’s characterological thinness.
Who is this woman? Kidman’s character in “Big Little Lies,” Celeste, was also an enigma, but the actress played the role with such restraint that Celeste’s opacity felt deliberate. As Grace, Kidman seems, at times, unsure of her own character’s intentions, shifting from blithe merriment to imperious boss-lady outbursts to turned-up-to-eleven distress. Beset by hazy visions of events that she might or might not have actually seen—Elena and Jonathan making passionate love, Jonathan joshingly caring for one of his young cancer patients, Elena attacked with a hammer—Grace’s mind seems less a site of internal conflict than a repository of televisual clichés. In these moments, the camera closes in tightly on Kidman’s lovely eyes, as if the answer can be found in their cloudy depths. It cannot. ♦


newyorker--2020-11-09--Cori Bush Becomes First Black Woman, and First Nurse, to Represent Missouri in Congress

Cori Bush can lay claim to more than one professional title .
She is Pastor Cori Bush , having founded a church in her native St. Louis , about a decade ago .
She is also Cori Bush , registered nurse .
And now she is Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush .
Her victory , a romp in Missouri ’ s First Congressional District that saw her win by sixty percentage points , was foretold by the August Democratic primary , when Bush , running as a progressive in the anti-sclerotic mode of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley , defeated Lacy Clay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a local African-American political dynasty , Clay has represented the district since 2001 , having succeeded his father , Bill , who was first elected in 1968 .
Bush , forty-four , isn ’ t just new blood .
She will be both the first Black woman and likely the first nurse to represent Missouri in Congress .
( Sending clergy to Washington , D.C. , is old hat for the Show-Me State . )
Despite its blue tilt , Bush ’ s district contains multitudes .
It includes the St. Louis Cardinals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s upscale Central West End neighborhood , home to Mark and Patricia McCloskey .
They are the couple who became famous this summer—and earned a speaking spot at the Republican National Convention—for waving guns at Black Lives Matter marchers while dressed like models in the most ill-conceived Talbots catalogue ever .
Among the marchers that day was Bush ; her district also includes Ferguson , where the B.L.M .
movement was galvanized , in 2014 , following the killing of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer .
Those protests are what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as the daughter of a politician , she had sworn she would never do .
Her father , Errol Bush , is an alderman and a former mayor of Northwoods , a small city in St. Louis County .
“ With all the negativity and all the corruption around , with everything he had to fight , I was , like , Why would you sign up for this ?
” she recalled over the phone , two days after her own election .
The gravity of what happened in Ferguson had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did her anger .
“ That afternoon , I was scrolling on Facebook , seeing this picture of this person laying on the ground , ” she said of the August day when Brown was shot at least six times .
Police then left his body in the street for four hours , on a hot afternoon .
“ I kept seeing the picture and just not thinking it was real , ” she said .
Finally , “ I ’ m , like , O.K.
, let me click on this and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next evening , she drove to Ferguson , where a second night of demonstrations had begun .
“ I just drove around , stayed in my car , and just watched what was going on .
Then , the next day , I actually got out .
It was the fact that the thing didn ’ t go away , that it was gaining steam.
” Looting had begun ; a building had burned .
“ There were thousands of people in the street , with a lot of violence happening .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this situation .
I was , like , You ’ re a nurse , you can be a medic .
You ’ re clergy , you can go out and pray with people.
” Through the mental-health clinic where she worked , she helped set up a crisis-response team .
“ We pitched a tent just a few feet from where Michael Brown ’ s body had laid on the ground , to do grief-and-trauma work.
” Her group partnered with others to provide food , diapers , and financial assistance to people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bush ’ s account , she grew up inured to racist treatment from cops .
“ I never really questioned it , ” she said.
“ I saw countless friends abused by the police , harassed by the police , profiled by the police , in different parts of town .
As a child , my father was pulled over by the police so many times , I used to think that he was a horrible driver , and I would get so upset , like , ‘ Why won ’ t you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on , “ I didn ’ t think hard on the question of Is this O.K .
or not ?
Is this right ?
Because you ’ re taught in school that the police are right.
” Her impulse as a girl was to blame herself for two instances when , she said , officers sexually harassed her .
“ It was , like , O.K.
, well , maybe I ’ m doing something wrong .
Maybe this skirt isn ’ t the right skirt .
That was the mind-set at that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a preacher and a nurse ’ s backbone , Bush became a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement .
Urged on by fellow-activists who wanted to see more Black women in the Senate , she ran in 2016 , when Roy Blunt , the Republican incumbent , was up for reëlection ; she came in a distant second in the primary .
In 2018 , she set her sights on Lacy Clay , losing again .
But this year , buoyed by the surge of B.L.M .
activism , and despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what was likely Covid-19 , which sent her to the hospital twice , Bush broke through .
She said she ’ s not concerned about the way that many Republicans have treated Congress ’ s young progressive women of color as punching bags—Ocasio-Cortez , for instance , who campaigned for Bush during the 2018 primary .
“ I have been dealing with anger from the right wing , from extremists , from white supremacists , since 2014 , and I ’ ve learned the best ways for me to deal with it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways is to shrug it off and laugh , as she did when Mark McCloskey called her a “ Marxist revolutionary ” at the Republican Convention .
“ If they couldn ’ t scare me in the scariest time , which was Ferguson before everybody started to get used to protests , when all of that was new , am I bothered by what they ’ ll try to do to me now ?
Not at all.
” ♦

Cori Bush Illustration by João Fazenda
Cori Bush can lay claim to more than one professional title. She is Pastor Cori Bush, having founded a church in her native St. Louis, about a decade ago. She is also Cori Bush, registered nurse. And now she is Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush. Her victory, a romp in Missouri’s First Congressional District that saw her win by sixty percentage points, was foretold by the August Democratic primary, when Bush, running as a progressive in the anti-sclerotic mode of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, defeated Lacy Clay, the incumbent. A member of a local African-American political dynasty, Clay has represented the district since 2001, having succeeded his father, Bill, who was first elected in 1968. Bush, forty-four, isn’t just new blood. She will be both the first Black woman and likely the first nurse to represent Missouri in Congress. (Sending clergy to Washington, D.C., is old hat for the Show-Me State.)
Despite its blue tilt, Bush’s district contains multitudes. It includes the St. Louis Cardinals, Anheuser-Busch headquarters, and the city’s upscale Central West End neighborhood, home to Mark and Patricia McCloskey. They are the couple who became famous this summer—and earned a speaking spot at the Republican National Convention—for waving guns at Black Lives Matter marchers while dressed like models in the most ill-conceived Talbots catalogue ever. Among the marchers that day was Bush; her district also includes Ferguson, where the B.L.M. movement was galvanized, in 2014, following the killing of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer. Those protests are what propelled Bush into running for office—something that, as the daughter of a politician, she had sworn she would never do. Her father, Errol Bush, is an alderman and a former mayor of Northwoods, a small city in St. Louis County. “With all the negativity and all the corruption around, with everything he had to fight, I was, like, Why would you sign up for this?” she recalled over the phone, two days after her own election.
The gravity of what happened in Ferguson had dawned on her only gradually, as did her anger. “That afternoon, I was scrolling on Facebook, seeing this picture of this person laying on the ground,” she said of the August day when Brown was shot at least six times. Police then left his body in the street for four hours, on a hot afternoon. “I kept seeing the picture and just not thinking it was real,” she said. Finally, “I’m, like, O.K., let me click on this and see what this is about.” The next evening, she drove to Ferguson, where a second night of demonstrations had begun. “I just drove around, stayed in my car, and just watched what was going on. Then, the next day, I actually got out. It was the fact that the thing didn’t go away, that it was gaining steam.” Looting had begun; a building had burned. “There were thousands of people in the street, with a lot of violence happening. I felt like I could offer something to this situation. I was, like, You’re a nurse, you can be a medic. You’re clergy, you can go out and pray with people.”
Through the mental-health clinic where she worked, she helped set up a crisis-response team. “We pitched a tent just a few feet from where Michael Brown’s body had laid on the ground, to do grief-and-trauma work.” Her group partnered with others to provide food, diapers, and financial assistance to people whose lives had been disrupted.
By Bush’s account, she grew up inured to racist treatment from cops. “I never really questioned it,” she said.“I saw countless friends abused by the police, harassed by the police, profiled by the police, in different parts of town. As a child, my father was pulled over by the police so many times, I used to think that he was a horrible driver, and I would get so upset, like, ‘Why won’t you drive right?’ ” She went on, “I didn’t think hard on the question of Is this O.K. or not? Is this right? Because you’re taught in school that the police are right.” Her impulse as a girl was to blame herself for two instances when, she said, officers sexually harassed her. “It was, like, O.K., well, maybe I’m doing something wrong. Maybe this skirt isn’t the right skirt. That was the mind-set at that time.”
With the speech-making skills of a preacher and a nurse’s backbone, Bush became a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. Urged on by fellow-activists who wanted to see more Black women in the Senate, she ran in 2016, when Roy Blunt, the Republican incumbent, was up for reëlection; she came in a distant second in the primary. In 2018, she set her sights on Lacy Clay, losing again. But this year, buoyed by the surge of B.L.M. activism, and despite being slowed by a nasty case of what was likely Covid-19, which sent her to the hospital twice, Bush broke through.
She said she’s not concerned about the way that many Republicans have treated Congress’s young progressive women of color as punching bags—Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, who campaigned for Bush during the 2018 primary. “I have been dealing with anger from the right wing, from extremists, from white supremacists, since 2014, and I’ve learned the best ways for me to deal with it,” Bush said. One of those ways is to shrug it off and laugh, as she did when Mark McCloskey called her a “Marxist revolutionary” at the Republican Convention. “If they couldn’t scare me in the scariest time, which was Ferguson before everybody started to get used to protests, when all of that was new, am I bothered by what they’ll try to do to me now? Not at all.” ♦


newyorker--2020-11-09--The Ability to Cry

The Ability to Cry

Our little cockapoo was attacked by a pit bull when he was a puppy , and subsequently lost his courage , like the lion in “ The Wizard of Oz.
” Our younger son is a reticent boy , and the person closest to him—his older brother—died by suicide shortly after we met Julia .
She had befriended both the boy and the dog as no other adult had .
The calls I made to Julia went straight to her voice mail , which was full .
Increasingly agitated , I Googled , and found a two-sentence obituary .
Death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had not been a stranger , having taken my elder son , my mother-in-law , and my father .
I had not cried the day that Vincent died , or later when first my mother-in-law and then my father died .
But , seeing Julia ’ s obituary , I broke into uncontrollable sobs .
A friend listened to me cry on the phone and told me that I was crying for the others , too .
Another friend wrote to me that night and said that she , too , belonged to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do collect interest.
” My mother-in-law , who also lived in China , died not long after Vincent did .
We had kept the news from her , for she was already frail .
The thought that she did not have to suffer the insufferable was a small solace .
But the reason I didn ’ t tell my parents was murkier .
The day after Vincent died , my friend Edmund White texted me from New York : “ Come to the city .
I ’ ll hold you and we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s mother e-mailed , “ I wish I could be with you tonight so I could put my arms around you and try to soothe your pain.
” My mother is not one to put her arms around me .
My father was not one to express his feelings easily .
In the weeks after Vincent ’ s death , I thought of telling my father and asking him to keep the news to himself .
But that would ’ ve been the cruellest thing to have done to him , even though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve known .
When my mother finally learned of Vincent ’ s suicide , she left a phone message : “ All children should love their parents .
I just don ’ t understand how a child could do that to his parents.
” That I shed tears for Julia did not mean I knew her well .
These are a few things I remember : she once told me that she felt more comfortable with animals than with people ; the first summer she dog-sat for us , she asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shelf—she read them all , and her favorites were Zora Neale Hurston ’ s “ Their Eyes Were Watching God ” and Tom Drury ’ s “ The Driftless Area ” ; in a few passing conversations , she gave me a glimpse of her childhood , in rural Pennsylvania , with an alcoholic mother and an abusive father ; whenever she had time , she would go to public lectures at the university where I teach ; she was fluent in Spanish , and she was learning German—her two sons were in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and she could finally arrange to take evening classes .
A few times , she talked about her depression .
One evening , she texted me to say that all she wanted was to curl up on our sofa with the dog .
A month before she died , she asked me about a minor character in my first novel , whose mother , a political activist , was executed when he was a young boy .
“ What do you think he ’ s like now ?
” she said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man , will he know more about her ?
” I admitted that I had not thought of the boy after finishing the novel , and Julia said that I should write a sequel .
I would never do that , but this I did not tell her .
Everything I do , or do not do , may be explained by Marianne Moore ’ s poem “ Silence , ” which I read at Vincent ’ s memorial : Make my house your inn—I can say that to my characters .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , but inns are not residences .
After nine hours of surgery , I followed the gurney to the I.C.U.
, where my father had to have a second , emergency surgery , right after he arrived .
The double doors of the I.C.U .
opened to a busy waiting area with multiple elevators .
There was no seating .
My father was being treated at the university hospital affiliated with my alma mater .
It was a good hospital , but even a good hospital in Beijing might not always provide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a moment out there , a nurse or a doctor would say , and a moment could be ten minutes , or an hour .
I stood outside the I.C.U .
for three and a half hours .
I understood then why folding chairs and stools and even chaise longues were sold along with crutches and wheelchairs and adult diapers in the shops near the hospital .
I had seen people sitting in a corner as though they were picnicking .
But even if a shop were open at midnight I would not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there a piece of cardboard you can find and sit on ?
” my sister asked on the phone .
She , too , lives in the United States and had also flown to Beijing to see our father , but had not been able to extend her stay in China , and had left right before the surgery .
I chose to stand .
I was rigid with pride , which was not far from fear .
If I sat down , I might not be able to stand up again .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ might become Alice , swimming in an ocean of my tears .
A year after Vincent died , one of his school friends visited my office .
She had just begun to attend the university .
She was in high school when he was in middle school , and they had sat next to each other in a language course .
“ Back then , I thought , This kid is so smart , so fun , so imaginative—this kid is going to change the world , ” the girl said .
She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way she called Vincent “ this kid ” made me change the subject .
I asked her about her new college life , and she replied with a poised sweetness .
Later , I was hit by a memory : we had been driving home from school when Vincent told me about the high schooler sitting next to him in Mandarin class .
I said I wasn ’ t sure if she would like to be described that way .
“ But she has a round face just like you , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the time like you do.
” When I was seven , I was terrified of darkness , which amplified any small noise into monsters in a cave , or ghosts in a graveyard .
“ In a Newtonian world , ” my father explained to me—and it was the first time I ’ d heard that we lived in a Newtonian world— “ any sound comes from a vibration , and a scientific mind does not make up a story but determines what the sound source is.
” When I was nine , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cleaver , placing its edge at a safe and efficient angle .
“ This way , you can cut anything with your eyes closed , ” he said .
For a while , I practiced , cutting cucumbers in rapid chopping motions without looking .
The cucumber pieces eventually came out paper-thin .
In my last year of high school , I attempted suicide .
My father , admitting that he did not understand me , spoke again of our Newtonian reality : “ Think of time in classical physics—a linear element , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move along that axis .
What you can not sort out , you may be able to do so when you ’ re in college .
What you don ’ t want is to stop at this point in time.
” The tears I couldn ’ t stop shedding—for Julia , for her sons , for our younger son who had to be told about her death , for our dog who would not remember her so would not know to miss her , just as he would not remember and miss Vincent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after he became the fifth family member—all those tears felt like a challenge to my father ’ s urging to keep smiling or a challenge to Marianne Moore ’ s restraint .
More so , they felt like a confrontation with my own belief : I was like the Pequod , with a sperm whale on the starboard side and a right whale hoisted on the larboard .
I had thought that I could proceed with two deaths , my father ’ s and my son ’ s , and that I would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capsizing .
His statement , wistful , was an anomaly .
He spoke very little about himself .
If I were his biographer , I could write no more than a meagre page .
Here ’ s what I know about his life : He was born in Zhejiang Province , in a mountain village so poor that , contrary to what we had been taught in school , there had not even been an evil-landlord class .
His father was a peasant , illiterate , but his mother could read and write—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sneak her letters to my father from his drawer and read them .
This was unusual for a peasant woman of her generation , though where and how she had received her education was unknown to me .
My father ’ s uncle and aunt—his mother ’ s siblings—lived in a nearby town , and when my father finished the village school my grandmother made a sole request of her siblings , which was to advance my father ’ s education .
They brought him to town .
After middle school , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and becoming a teacher , but his aunt insisted that he be more ambitious .
He went to the nearest city for high school and , having excelled , was selected to be sent to a university in Moscow .
But that future was dashed when he was given a diagnosis of tuberculosis .
( Only once did he explain to us how he had become infected : he was a poor boarder , unable to afford food , and a kindhearted teacher often shared his food with him .
Later , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ )

I’ve been ghosted, I told a friend on a Friday afternoon, when I hadn’t been able to reach Julia for days. The following week, I would be out of town, and Julia—I have changed her name—was scheduled to take care of our dog and our younger son in the hours before my husband got home from work, but she had not replied to my messages for confirmation. It was unlike her. The previous two summers when we’d travelled, she had sent multiple photos and video clips, from our home in New Jersey, to let us know that the dog was happy and the garden was prospering. On the days that I was away, she picked up our son from school and had dinner with him. She transcribed their conversations, about history and politics, physics and feminism, Internet memes and Tokyo’s rush hours, and sent them to me, accompanied by emojis.
Our little cockapoo was attacked by a pit bull when he was a puppy, and subsequently lost his courage, like the lion in “The Wizard of Oz.” Our younger son is a reticent boy, and the person closest to him—his older brother—died by suicide shortly after we met Julia. She had befriended both the boy and the dog as no other adult had.
The calls I made to Julia went straight to her voice mail, which was full. Increasingly agitated, I Googled, and found a two-sentence obituary. Death, in the past sixteen months, had not been a stranger, having taken my elder son, my mother-in-law, and my father. I had not cried the day that Vincent died, or later when first my mother-in-law and then my father died. But, seeing Julia’s obituary, I broke into uncontrollable sobs. A friend listened to me cry on the phone and told me that I was crying for the others, too. Another friend wrote to me that night and said that she, too, belonged to the “delayed crying club—and those tears do collect interest.”
My father had heart trouble for more than half his life, but he had stayed active until his last weeks. The day before he went into heart surgery, from which he would never regain consciousness, he told me that he was prepared for any outcome. I had the urge then to confess to him the loss of Vincent, his eldest grandchild. I had flown to Beijing, where I grew up and where my parents still lived, when his health declined.
My mother-in-law, who also lived in China, died not long after Vincent did. We had kept the news from her, for she was already frail. The thought that she did not have to suffer the insufferable was a small solace. But the reason I didn’t tell my parents was murkier. The day after Vincent died, my friend Edmund White texted me from New York: “Come to the city. I’ll hold you and we’ll grieve together.” A friend’s mother e-mailed, “I wish I could be with you tonight so I could put my arms around you and try to soothe your pain.” My mother is not one to put her arms around me. My father was not one to express his feelings easily.
In the weeks after Vincent’s death, I thought of telling my father and asking him to keep the news to himself. But that would’ve been the cruellest thing to have done to him, even though he was among the most stoic people I’ve known. When my mother finally learned of Vincent’s suicide, she left a phone message: “All children should love their parents. I just don’t understand how a child could do that to his parents.”
That I shed tears for Julia did not mean I knew her well. These are a few things I remember: she once told me that she felt more comfortable with animals than with people; the first summer she dog-sat for us, she asked me to pick ten novels from my shelf—she read them all, and her favorites were Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and Tom Drury’s “The Driftless Area”; in a few passing conversations, she gave me a glimpse of her childhood, in rural Pennsylvania, with an alcoholic mother and an abusive father; whenever she had time, she would go to public lectures at the university where I teach; she was fluent in Spanish, and she was learning German—her two sons were in middle school and high school then, and she could finally arrange to take evening classes.
A few times, she talked about her depression. One evening, she texted me to say that all she wanted was to curl up on our sofa with the dog. A month before she died, she asked me about a minor character in my first novel, whose mother, a political activist, was executed when he was a young boy. “What do you think he’s like now?” she said. “Now that he’s a grown man, will he know more about her?”
I admitted that I had not thought of the boy after finishing the novel, and Julia said that I should write a sequel. I would never do that, but this I did not tell her. Everything I do, or do not do, may be explained by Marianne Moore’s poem “Silence,” which I read at Vincent’s memorial:
My father used to say,
“Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow’s grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat—
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth—
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.”
Nor was he insincere in saying, “Make my house your inn.”
Inns are not residences.
Make my house your inn—I can say that to my characters. They have all visited, sometimes staying for years, but inns are not residences.
When I accompanied my father to the operating room, it occurred to me that I had been given another opportunity to tell him about Vincent. If I whispered to him, he might not hear me before he fell under anesthesia. When he woke up, he might not even remember, though I had a feeling that he would not wake up again. There was less than ninety pounds of him left.
After nine hours of surgery, I followed the gurney to the I.C.U., where my father had to have a second, emergency surgery, right after he arrived. The double doors of the I.C.U. opened to a busy waiting area with multiple elevators. There was no seating. My father was being treated at the university hospital affiliated with my alma mater. It was a good hospital, but even a good hospital in Beijing might not always provide seating for the family. Wait for a moment out there, a nurse or a doctor would say, and a moment could be ten minutes, or an hour. I stood outside the I.C.U. for three and a half hours.
I understood then why folding chairs and stools and even chaise longues were sold along with crutches and wheelchairs and adult diapers in the shops near the hospital. I had seen people sitting in a corner as though they were picnicking. But even if a shop were open at midnight I would not purchase a folding chair. “Is there a piece of cardboard you can find and sit on?” my sister asked on the phone. She, too, lives in the United States and had also flown to Beijing to see our father, but had not been able to extend her stay in China, and had left right before the surgery.
I chose to stand. I was rigid with pride, which was not far from fear. If I sat down, I might not be able to stand up again. If I shed one tear, I might become Alice, swimming in an ocean of my tears.
Before I turned six, I cried easily. One day, my father brought me a mirror. “How sad you look when you cry, but others won’t understand your sadness,” he said. “If you keep smiling, people will think you’re a happy person. You yourself will feel better.”
A year after Vincent died, one of his school friends visited my office. She had just begun to attend the university. She was in high school when he was in middle school, and they had sat next to each other in a language course.
“Back then, I thought, This kid is so smart, so fun, so imaginative—this kid is going to change the world,” the girl said. She was eighteen at most, and the way she called Vincent “this kid” made me change the subject. I asked her about her new college life, and she replied with a poised sweetness. Later, I was hit by a memory: we had been driving home from school when Vincent told me about the high schooler sitting next to him in Mandarin class.
“What’s she like?” I asked.
“Mommy-like,” he said.
I said I wasn’t sure if she would like to be described that way.
“But she has a round face just like you,” he said. “And she smiles all the time like you do.”
When I was seven, I was terrified of darkness, which amplified any small noise into monsters in a cave, or ghosts in a graveyard. “In a Newtonian world,” my father explained to me—and it was the first time I’d heard that we lived in a Newtonian world—“any sound comes from a vibration, and a scientific mind does not make up a story but determines what the sound source is.”
When I was nine, he taught me how to use a cleaver, placing its edge at a safe and efficient angle. “This way, you can cut anything with your eyes closed,” he said. For a while, I practiced, cutting cucumbers in rapid chopping motions without looking. The cucumber pieces eventually came out paper-thin.


The Mail

Peter Schjeldahl provides a nuanced look at the postponement of the artist Philip Guston ’ s exhibition—which had been scheduled to go up at four major art museums—because of its depictions of Klansmen ( The Art World , October 19th ) .
And yet this moment requires more than a nostalgia for the days of “ tolerance for uncongenial expression.
” The problem is with discourse itself : liberal values such as open debate and artistic license have been short-circuited .
The clash with fascism is not a difference of opinion that can be hashed out with mutual respect .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Klan imagery meant something very different just four years ago , before the election of Donald Trump , who has abetted white supremacists .
Better not to show the paintings at all than to give such people the opportunity to pose before them for selfies .
It pains me to take issue with Schjeldahl and his subtle support for the institutions that postponed the “ Philip Guston Now ” show .
But it seems to me that his analysis and , by extension , that of the museum officials responsible for the delay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s paintings are not so much a condemnation of the Ku Klux Klan as an indictment of white society for being made of the same clay .
Guston looked in the mirror and said , We are all Klansmen now .
That is a message that white élites , however liberal and cultured , will always wish to run away from .
My Name Is Marlinspike Anna Wiener ’ s Profile of Moxie Marlinspike , who founded Signal , the end-to-end encrypted messaging service , presents a rare example of ethical technology in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Privacy Settings , ” October 26th ) .
I research and teach on the power and responsibility of Big Tech , and I struggle to find model companies to show my students .
Wiener compellingly illustrates how Marlinspike ’ s pro-privacy efforts have grown out of anarchist and punk cultures .
Situated in the context of those fringe movements , Marlinspike ’ s vision is intriguing as a potential paradigm for mainstream privacy norms online .
When accepting an award in 2017 , Marlinspike said that we should celebrate technological progress , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Wiener ’ s piece explains why , when it comes to subverting surveillance practices and making the Internet a more ethical place , the two can not be separated .
Wiener mentions that the origins of Marlinspike ’ s chosen surname are mysterious .
Attentive readers of Hilary Mantel ’ s historical novel “ Wolf Hall ” know the name : Marlinspike is the kitten born in the rooms of Cardinal Wolsey , whom Thomas Cromwell , the book ’ s hero , served as confidential secretary .
Cromwell brings the kitten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his son , proclaims , “ I am a giant , my name is Marlinspike.
” Is it possible that Wiener does not know Tintin , the young reporter-adventurer of comic-book fame , whose sidekick Captain Haddock , through a series of fortuitous events , ends up as the wealthy owner of Marlinspike Hall ?
That ’ s our first clue .
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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any medium .
We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

The Curator’s Dilemma
Peter Schjeldahl provides a nuanced look at the postponement of the artist Philip Guston’s exhibition—which had been scheduled to go up at four major art museums—because of its depictions of Klansmen (The Art World, October 19th). And yet this moment requires more than a nostalgia for the days of “tolerance for uncongenial expression.” The problem is with discourse itself: liberal values such as open debate and artistic license have been short-circuited. The clash with fascism is not a difference of opinion that can be hashed out with mutual respect. Guston’s swastika and Ku Klux Klan imagery meant something very different just four years ago, before the election of Donald Trump, who has abetted white supremacists. Better not to show the paintings at all than to give such people the opportunity to pose before them for selfies.
Luke Jaeger
Northampton, Mass.
It pains me to take issue with Schjeldahl and his subtle support for the institutions that postponed the “Philip Guston Now” show. But it seems to me that his analysis and, by extension, that of the museum officials responsible for the delay, mischaracterize the work: Guston’s paintings are not so much a condemnation of the Ku Klux Klan as an indictment of white society for being made of the same clay. Guston looked in the mirror and said, We are all Klansmen now. That is a message that white élites, however liberal and cultured, will always wish to run away from.
Sheridan Swinson
Leominster, England
My Name Is Marlinspike
Anna Wiener’s Profile of Moxie Marlinspike, who founded Signal, the end-to-end encrypted messaging service, presents a rare example of ethical technology in the age of surveillance capitalism (“Privacy Settings,” October 26th). I research and teach on the power and responsibility of Big Tech, and I struggle to find model companies to show my students. Wiener compellingly illustrates how Marlinspike’s pro-privacy efforts have grown out of anarchist and punk cultures. Situated in the context of those fringe movements, Marlinspike’s vision is intriguing as a potential paradigm for mainstream privacy norms online. When accepting an award in 2017, Marlinspike said that we should celebrate technological progress, and not the individuals who brought it about. Wiener’s piece explains why, when it comes to subverting surveillance practices and making the Internet a more ethical place, the two cannot be separated.
Swati Srivastava
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Ind.
Wiener mentions that the origins of Marlinspike’s chosen surname are mysterious. Attentive readers of Hilary Mantel’s historical novel “Wolf Hall” know the name: Marlinspike is the kitten born in the rooms of Cardinal Wolsey, whom Thomas Cromwell, the book’s hero, served as confidential secretary. Cromwell brings the kitten home and, holding it out to his son, proclaims, “I am a giant, my name is Marlinspike.”
Aviva Cantor
New York City
Is it possible that Wiener does not know Tintin, the young reporter-adventurer of comic-book fame, whose sidekick Captain Haddock, through a series of fortuitous events, ends up as the wealthy owner of Marlinspike Hall? That’s our first clue.
Mary Jane Mortimer
Boulder, Colo.
•
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.