newyorker--2020-12-04--Introducing “Books for the Midnight Hour”: What We Read When the World Gets Dark

What book do you bring to bed , when darkness falls ?
What book is worth the proverbial price of the candle ?
“ Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night , ” Benjamin Franklin wrote , in his autobiography .
Franklin , the son of a candlemaker , knew exactly the price he would pay for the diminishment of every wick .
People—rich people , anyway—used to display such books in their portraits .
George Washington had himself painted with a book called “ Federalist , ” a reference to the Federalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ side .
You can see that tradition , carried down today , in the books people display in their video backgrounds : Prince Charles with Dick Francis , Paul Rudd with “ Jude the Obscure.
” You can even pay a bookstore to curate your bookshelf , if the thought makes you anxious .
But what about the books that aren ’ t like wallpaper ?
The ones that line the walls of your insides , the corridors of your mind ?
For years , the Harvard professors Louis Menand and Stephen Greenblatt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sorts of books , books whose meaning lasts , whose power never fades .
Those books , and some of the faculty who teach them , lie behind this series of short videos , which premièred earlier this year , on The New Yorker ’ s Instagram .
From one angle , the videos work as a syllabus , a mini-course in the age of distance learning ; from another , they are confessions , by passionate readers , about what literature says and does .
In one installment , Jonathan Lee Walton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Du Bois ’ s “ The Souls of Black Folk , ” paraphrases Czeslaw Milosz : “ In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence , one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
” What , then , is the force of one good book ?
The series ’ first season is below ; the second season , featuring selections from Sandra Cisneros , Ilan Stavans , Hua Hsu , and Allyson Hobbs , will begin Friday , on Instagram .
—Jill Lepore

What book do you bring to bed, when darkness falls? What book is worth the proverbial price of the candle? “Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, in his autobiography. Franklin, the son of a candlemaker, knew exactly the price he would pay for the diminishment of every wick.
People—rich people, anyway—used to display such books in their portraits. George Washington had himself painted with a book called “Federalist,” a reference to the Federalist Papers, on a table at his side. You can see that tradition, carried down today, in the books people display in their video backgrounds: Prince Charles with Dick Francis, Paul Rudd with “Jude the Obscure.” You can even pay a bookstore to curate your bookshelf, if the thought makes you anxious.
But what about the books that aren’t like wallpaper? The ones that line the walls of your insides, the corridors of your mind? For years, the Harvard professors Louis Menand and Stephen Greenblatt have been teaching a course about those sorts of books, books whose meaning lasts, whose power never fades. Those books, and some of the faculty who teach them, lie behind this series of short videos, which premièred earlier this year, on The New Yorker’s Instagram. From one angle, the videos work as a syllabus, a mini-course in the age of distance learning; from another, they are confessions, by passionate readers, about what literature says and does. In one installment, Jonathan Lee Walton, talking about W. E. B. Du Bois’s “The Souls of Black Folk,” paraphrases Czeslaw Milosz: “In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” What, then, is the force of one good book? The series’ first season is below; the second season, featuring selections from Sandra Cisneros, Ilan Stavans, Hua Hsu, and Allyson Hobbs, will begin Friday, on Instagram. —Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore on the Federalist Papers
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Jonathan Lee Walton on “The Souls of Black Folk”
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Stephen Greenblatt on “Hamlet”
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Maya Jasanoff on “Emma”
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Davíd Carrasco on “One Hundred Years of Solitude”


newyorker--2020-12-04--A New Kind of Hot Chicken, from Pecking House

These days , moments of joy seem to arrive mostly by surprise , offering brief relief from the dull feeling that weeks and months are blurring together .
The other night , one came via cheap beer .
It was Tsingtao , a pale lager , produced by China ’ s second-largest brewery , with an easy-drinking flavor profile that ’ s as carefully calibrated and comforting as Coca-Cola ’ s .
I ’ d never had a Tsingtao at home but have rarely eaten in a Chinese restaurant without ordering one , if not two , especially to pair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yeasty , almost creamy roundness cutting obligingly through heat .
I hadn ’ t realized how much I missed it until I opened a bag of food dropped off by Eric Huang , the impressively pedigreed Taiwanese-American chef behind a new takeout-and-delivery operation called Pecking House .
Two bottles were packed in ice , keeping the beers crisp and cold ; my first sip felt like a portal to a former life .
It was delicious on its own and a consummate foil for the salty , fiery seasoning on Huang ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what is essentially a meat-and-three meal .
Huang spent time in the kitchens of Café Boulud and Gramercy Tavern before earning the title of sous-chef at Eleven Madison Park ; last year , he left , with plans to open a Michelin-star-worthy restaurant of his own .
In the early months of the pandemic , he helped his mother , who owns a restaurant on Long Island , as she adapted her business .
Once they had established protocols for outdoor dining and to-go orders , he turned to Peking House , his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which belonged to Huang ’ s parents in the nineties and is where he spent much of his childhood .
With a lack of demand for takeout in Peking House ’ s corner of Fresh Meadows , the place closed .
His uncle still needed to pay the rent .
The empty kitchen had no oven but plenty of woks and two deep fryers ; what if Huang could deliver fried chicken ?
A few weeks of R. & D. resulted in Pecking House .
( Huang ’ s fiancée , who is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the name . )
His recipe is inspired as much by the American South as it is by his heritage .
The chicken is brined in buttermilk and battered in a mix of flour , cornstarch , potato starch , and five-spice powder , plus a secret weapon : a modified wheat dextrin called EverCrisp , which keeps the crust optimally crunchy even after time in transit .
The finishing seasoning , a tantalizing medley of crushed Tianjin chilies , Szechuan peppercorn , salt , sugar , and MSG , calls to mind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chicken .
The chicken comes in three pieces , a combination of white and dark meat , as part of a set menu that also includes “ dirty fried rice ” ( prepared Cajun style , with a wok-caramelized chicken-liver purée ) and two greenmarket-inspired sides , such as crispy Brussels sprouts dressed in sesame oil and black vinegar , and dashi-simmered kabocha squash served with caramelized onion and bacon crumble .
For vegetarians , Huang subs cauliflower for the chicken , achieving a texture that ’ s custardy yet sturdy enough to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d never know that dessert is born of creative constraint ; unable to bake , Huang devises stovetop confections , like a recent peanut-butter pudding with Concord-grape gelée and pretzel crumble that more than justifies itself .
Part of the reason that Huang decided to set out on his own was his desire to “ give Chinese cuisine a little boost , ” he told me by phone .
“ To kind of show everyone it ’ s a lot more than General Tso ’ s chicken , lo mein , takeout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ I felt that Chinese cuisine , especially Chinese-American cuisine , had not really gotten the appreciation or the kind of face-lift that it needed to enter the modern era.
” The past nine months have changed his perspective .
“ I don ’ t know when or if fine dining will come back in the same way , ” he said .
“ This kind of helped me realize that maybe it ’ s not what I want anymore .
I ’ m getting back to what being a chef is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it sounds—making people happy.
” ( Chili-fried-chicken set meal $ 35 . )
♦

These days, moments of joy seem to arrive mostly by surprise, offering brief relief from the dull feeling that weeks and months are blurring together. The other night, one came via cheap beer. It was Tsingtao, a pale lager, produced by China’s second-largest brewery, with an easy-drinking flavor profile that’s as carefully calibrated and comforting as Coca-Cola’s. I’d never had a Tsingtao at home but have rarely eaten in a Chinese restaurant without ordering one, if not two, especially to pair with anything spicy, its sweet, yeasty, almost creamy roundness cutting obligingly through heat.
I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until I opened a bag of food dropped off by Eric Huang, the impressively pedigreed Taiwanese-American chef behind a new takeout-and-delivery operation called Pecking House. Two bottles were packed in ice, keeping the beers crisp and cold; my first sip felt like a portal to a former life. It was delicious on its own and a consummate foil for the salty, fiery seasoning on Huang’s singular fried chicken, the centerpiece of what is essentially a meat-and-three meal.
Huang spent time in the kitchens of Café Boulud and Gramercy Tavern before earning the title of sous-chef at Eleven Madison Park; last year, he left, with plans to open a Michelin-star-worthy restaurant of his own. In the early months of the pandemic, he helped his mother, who owns a restaurant on Long Island, as she adapted her business. Once they had established protocols for outdoor dining and to-go orders, he turned to Peking House, his uncle’s restaurant in Queens, which belonged to Huang’s parents in the nineties and is where he spent much of his childhood.
The chicken recipe is inspired by both Taiwan and the American South, and especially Nashville. Photograph by Gioncarlo Valentine for The New Yorker
With a lack of demand for takeout in Peking House’s corner of Fresh Meadows, the place closed. His uncle still needed to pay the rent. The empty kitchen had no oven but plenty of woks and two deep fryers; what if Huang could deliver fried chicken? A few weeks of R. & D. resulted in Pecking House. (Huang’s fiancée, who is also a chef, came up with the name.) His recipe is inspired as much by the American South as it is by his heritage. The chicken is brined in buttermilk and battered in a mix of flour, cornstarch, potato starch, and five-spice powder, plus a secret weapon: a modified wheat dextrin called EverCrisp, which keeps the crust optimally crunchy even after time in transit. The finishing seasoning, a tantalizing medley of crushed Tianjin chilies, Szechuan peppercorn, salt, sugar, and MSG, calls to mind both Taiwanese popcorn chicken and Nashville hot chicken.
The chicken comes in three pieces, a combination of white and dark meat, as part of a set menu that also includes “dirty fried rice” (prepared Cajun style, with a wok-caramelized chicken-liver purée) and two greenmarket-inspired sides, such as crispy Brussels sprouts dressed in sesame oil and black vinegar, and dashi-simmered kabocha squash served with caramelized onion and bacon crumble. For vegetarians, Huang subs cauliflower for the chicken, achieving a texture that’s custardy yet sturdy enough to hold up to the batter. You’d never know that dessert is born of creative constraint; unable to bake, Huang devises stovetop confections, like a recent peanut-butter pudding with Concord-grape gelée and pretzel crumble that more than justifies itself.
Part of the reason that Huang decided to set out on his own was his desire to “give Chinese cuisine a little boost,” he told me by phone. “To kind of show everyone it’s a lot more than General Tso’s chicken, lo mein, takeout containers.” He had imagined something high-end: “I felt that Chinese cuisine, especially Chinese-American cuisine, had not really gotten the appreciation or the kind of face-lift that it needed to enter the modern era.” The past nine months have changed his perspective. “I don’t know when or if fine dining will come back in the same way,” he said. “This kind of helped me realize that maybe it’s not what I want anymore. I’m getting back to what being a chef is about to me, as cheesy as it sounds—making people happy.” (Chili-fried-chicken set meal $35.) ♦


newyorker--2020-12-04--A Taylor Mac Holiday Show, Tweaked for the Pandemic

The playwright , performance artist , and sprite Taylor Mac ( above ) does holiday cheer with a twist of @ @ @ @ @ Mac , who uses the gender-neutral pronoun “ judy , ” débuted “ Holiday Sauce @ @ @ @ @ emphasizing alternative family over Christmas capitalism , at Town Hall .
This year , it @ @ @ @ @ 12 , Mac performs “ Holiday Sauce .
.
.
Pandemic !
” ( available @ @ @ @ @ , featuring music , burlesque , a tribute to queer elders , and designs by @ @ @ @ @ and fellow-maximalist Machine Dazzle .

The playwright, performance artist, and sprite Taylor Mac (above) does holiday cheer with a twist of subversion. In 2017, Mac, who uses the gender-neutral pronoun “judy,” débuted “Holiday Sauce,” a vaudevillian romp emphasizing alternative family over Christmas capitalism, at Town Hall. This year, it goes virtual. On Dec. 12, Mac performs “Holiday Sauce . . . Pandemic!” (available online through Jan. 2), featuring music, burlesque, a tribute to queer elders, and designs by Mac’s frequent collaborator and fellow-maximalist Machine Dazzle.


newyorker--2020-12-04--Atul Gawande on Taming the Coronavirus

Atul Gawande on Taming the Coronavirus

Can a vaccine be distributed fairly ?
What will be the impact if a huge number of people remain opposed @ @ @ @ @ a pivotal moment in battling the coronavirus , the New Yorker staff writer Atul Gawande—recently @ @ @ @ @ ’ s COVID-19 task force—walks David Remnick through some of the challenges of the next @ @ @ @ @ the director Steve McQueen discusses his film series “ Small Axe , ” set in @ @ @ @ @ community ; and Larissa MacFarquhar looks at what happens to families in Haredi Jewish communities @ @ @ @ @ faith .
The staff writer on some of the challenges to vaccination .
The director @ @ @ @ @ Slave ” makes a series of films that draw upon his own history , in @ @ @ @ @ staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar on what happens to families in Haredi Jewish communities when one @ @ @ @ @

Illustration by Golden Cosmos
Can a vaccine be distributed fairly? What will be the impact if a huge number of people remain opposed to taking it? At a pivotal moment in battling the coronavirus, the New Yorker staff writer Atul Gawande—recently appointed to President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 task force—walks David Remnick through some of the challenges of the next six months. Plus, the director Steve McQueen discusses his film series “Small Axe,” set in London’s West Indian community; and Larissa MacFarquhar looks at what happens to families in Haredi Jewish communities when one parent leaves the faith.
Atul Gawande on Taming the Coronavirus
The staff writer on some of the challenges to vaccination.
Steve McQueen Comes Home
The director of “Twelve Years a Slave” makes a series of films that draw upon his own history, in West Indian London.
Navigating Divorce Within Religious Communities
The staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar on what happens to families in Haredi Jewish communities when one parent leaves the faith.


newyorker--2020-12-04--Donald Trump, George Wallace, and the Influence of Losers

We can be confident , as Biden is , that the great majority of Trump voters in 2020 are not irrevocably committed to Trumpism ; many of them , for example , would just prefer to have Republicans running the economy .
And asking how the forms of populist politics that Trump has exploited and stoked will evolve after his Presidency is different from asking what will become of Trump himself .
The President may imagine that he can remain the sole and powerful master of his following after January—and , perhaps , to strengthen his grip , he will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White House in 2024 , as he has mused privately about doing .
Yet he can not deny a reality : generally , ex-Presidents lose power very quickly .
( Think of Bill Clinton in 2000 , even before he left the White House , unable to persuade Al Gore , his own Vice-President , to give him a meaningful role in Gore ’ s campaign against George W .
Bush . )
Trump had no inkling what it was like to be President before he won the office , in 2016 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ again , this time by the speed at which former loyalists distance themselves .
Of course , Trump may again prove to be a mold-breaker .
It ’ s not as if the Republican Party is likely to stand up to him .
The complicity of the Party ’ s national leadership since Election Day , as Trump has recklessly promoted baseless allegations of voting fraud , is both a measure of his residual ability to intimidate and a shocking snapshot of a debased G.O.P .
establishment , which seems to have lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time before Trump .
Even so , electoral politics is a ruthless zero-sum game .
Trump failed decisively to be reëlected , becoming the first sitting President to meet that fate in nearly three decades .
As Trump himself might put it : when you ’ re a loser , people can treat you like a dog .
• After the election , assaults on truth and the press continue .
• Lessons of failed power grabs , in America and overseas .
• Could banks bail us out of the climate crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as it is , synthesizes the rudeness and the faux “ authenticity ” of recent reality television with the racialized and nativist rhetoric that dates from way back in our history .
He has drawn inspiration from such disparate populist figures as Joseph McCarthy , Arnold Schwarzenegger , and Jesse ( the Body ) Ventura , the professional wrestler who , in 1999 , was elected governor of Minnesota .
Trump ’ s most important predecessor , however , was probably George Wallace , the segregationist governor of Alabama , who ran four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the first serious presidential candidate in the twentieth century who identified himself as a working man , ” as the historian Michael Kazin writes in “ The Populist Persuasion , ” an essential history of American populist rhetoric and personalities on both the right and the left .
Wallace ’ s unapologetic racism and his summoning of the economic and cultural grievances of “ the common man ” accelerated the Republican Party ’ s embrace of the Deep South as an electoral base after the sixties , and such populist resentment is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rise to the White House .
At the apex of Wallace ’ s appeal , during the Presidential campaign of 1968 , when he competed as an independent against Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey , he championed factory workers , barbers , and policemen while denouncing “ pointy-headed college professors , ” Communists , and Wall Street money men .
He exhorted his followers , “ Yes , they ’ ve looked down their nose at you and me for a long time—the Republicans and Democrats .
Well , we ’ re going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of rednecks in this country !
” Wallace won five states that November and captured fourteen per cent of the national popular vote ; Nixon won a narrow plurality over Humphrey , attracting just over forty-three per cent nationwide .
Wallace lost to Nixon by slight margins in Tennessee and North Carolina .
Because of the vagaries of the Electoral College , if Wallace had won either of those states , and if Humphrey had overcome a narrow margin of defeat in Ohio , Nixon would have failed to win the Electoral College @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Representatives .
( Wallace was polling even higher over the summer , but then he selected as his running mate the retired Air Force general and strategic-bombing enthusiast Curtis LeMay , who , at his début press conference , lamented the public ’ s “ phobia about nuclear weapons ” and argued that there were times “ when it would be most efficient ” to use nukes on the battlefield . )
After his defeat , Wallace joked , “ Maybe I ’ ll sit under the Confederate statue ” in his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ checkers.
” His aides knew that he would run again .
He was eventually reëlected governor of Alabama , but in later Presidential bids , in 1972 and 1976 , he had much less success .
A deranged gunman shot and partially paralyzed Wallace during the 1972 campaign , and he spent the last years of his life in physical pain and in search of spiritual redemption .
In 1979 , Wallace met with John Lewis , who , fourteen years earlier—when Wallace was governor and Lewis was the chairman of the Student @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Alabama troopers as they broke up a civil-rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge , in Selma .
“ I ’ ve come to ask for your forgiveness , ” Wallace told Lewis .
The latter listened compassionately but asked , “ Why did you order the troopers to stop us , to beat us , on Bloody Sunday , in 1965 ?
” By the time of Wallace ’ s death , in 1998 , his influence over the electorate and the two major parties had dissipated to the vanishing point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Wallace ’ s authoritative biographer , writes , this was partly because , as Nixon and successive Republicans co-opted and mainstreamed aspects of Wallace ’ s strategy , “ The politics of rage that George Wallace made his own had moved from the fringes of our society to center stage.
” Carter concluded that Wallace “ was the most influential loser in twentieth-century American politics.
” Wallace was who he seemed to be—a self-made , ambitious bitter-ender with a knack for the campaign trail and a capacity for personal reflection , at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Wharton graduate who also rails against the Ivy League , has transcended Wallace ’ s political achievements by delivering transparently cynical performances that nevertheless , with his gift for stagecraft , come across to many as authentic .
In Wallace ’ s time , it was common to dismiss his candidacy for the Presidency as a last gasp from the dying Jim Crow South .
We can now see it as a warning flare—and as a reminder that it was not only Donald Trump who conceived of Trumpism .
Over the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will seek to consolidate the President ’ s voters in its electoral campaigns , even if his influence is diminished .
Some will try it Trump ’ s way .
In a brilliant survey of Republican officeholders and thinkers contemplating the G.O.P .
after Trump , my colleague Nick Lemann cites the example of Trump adapters such as Josh Hawley , the ambitious young senator from Missouri—a banker ’ s son with degrees from Stanford and Yale—who warns against “ a powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities.
” The internationalist , business-driven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reckoning for which it may not be prepared , even if Trump ’ s personal post-Presidency turns out to be an inconsequential theatre of rallies , tweets , and far-right talk-show appearances , staged in between legal and financial battles .
The most worrying part of Trump ’ s legacy is his no-longer-ambiguous disdain for elections and the Constitution .
Out of an instinct for self-preservation , an attraction to authoritarianism , and a wounded ego , Trump has launched an absurdly inept but still frightening attempt to overturn the 2020 results by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bequeathing the country a toxic legacy that now goes far beyond the contours of Wallace-ism—a mashup of conspiratorial rhetoric about Dominion voting-machine plots and urban corruption that will echo on talk radio and social-media platforms for years , and provide many rationalizations for antidemocratic action , including violence .
Anne Applebaum , in her recent book , “ Twilight of Democracy , ” traces the drift of sections of Poland ’ s post-Cold War center-right , which was , until quite recently , internationalist and ardently pro-European , but whose “ supporters and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embrace a different set of ideas , not just xenophobic and paranoid but openly authoritarian.
” The Polish narrative is a reminder that Trump ’ s election in 2016 , although it was shocking at the time to America ’ s coastal élites , trailed the rise of similar politics in Europe—which have only advanced since then .
The theme , Applebaum writes with depressing clarity , is that “ given the right conditions , any society can turn against democracy .
Indeed , if history is anything to go by , all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ More About the Presidential Transition • Donald Trump has survived impeachment , twenty-six sexual-misconduct accusations , and thousands of lawsuits .
His luck may well end now that Joe Biden is the next President .
• With litigation unlikely to change the outcome of the election , Republicans are looking to strategies that might remain even after rebuffs both at the polls and in court .
• With the Trump Presidency ending , we need to talk about how to prevent the moral injuries of the past four years from happening again .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is the need to rebalance the economy to benefit the working class .
There are many ways a Biden Administration can start .
• Trump is being forced to give up his attempt to overturn the election .
But his efforts to build an alternative reality around himself will continue .
• Sign up for our daily newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

Donald Trump will leave the White House in January, but Trumpism—that amorphous mobilization of nationalism, white nostalgia, and anti-élite grievance, twisted by disinformation—will likely remain a force in American politics for years. How bad will Trumpism after Trump be? “Seventy-two million people is a lot of people,” President-elect Joe Biden noted this week, in an interview with the Times’ Thomas L. Friedman, referring to Trump’s electorate in 2020. But, when Trump departs, “I’m not so sure that ugliness stays,” Biden said. “There may be twenty percent of it. Twenty-five percent of it, I don’t know.”
We can be confident, as Biden is, that the great majority of Trump voters in 2020 are not irrevocably committed to Trumpism; many of them, for example, would just prefer to have Republicans running the economy. And asking how the forms of populist politics that Trump has exploited and stoked will evolve after his Presidency is different from asking what will become of Trump himself. The President may imagine that he can remain the sole and powerful master of his following after January—and, perhaps, to strengthen his grip, he will even announce a preëmptive campaign for the White House in 2024, as he has mused privately about doing. Yet he cannot deny a reality: generally, ex-Presidents lose power very quickly. (Think of Bill Clinton in 2000, even before he left the White House, unable to persuade Al Gore, his own Vice-President, to give him a meaningful role in Gore’s campaign against George W. Bush.) Trump had no inkling what it was like to be President before he won the office, in 2016. Come February, he may be stunned again, this time by the speed at which former loyalists distance themselves.
Of course, Trump may again prove to be a mold-breaker. It’s not as if the Republican Party is likely to stand up to him. The complicity of the Party’s national leadership since Election Day, as Trump has recklessly promoted baseless allegations of voting fraud, is both a measure of his residual ability to intimidate and a shocking snapshot of a debased G.O.P. establishment, which seems to have lost much of its muscle memory from the time before Trump. Even so, electoral politics is a ruthless zero-sum game. Trump failed decisively to be reëlected, becoming the first sitting President to meet that fate in nearly three decades. As Trump himself might put it: when you’re a loser, people can treat you like a dog.
Editor’s Picks
Trump’s charisma, such as it is, synthesizes the rudeness and the faux “authenticity” of recent reality television with the racialized and nativist rhetoric that dates from way back in our history. He has drawn inspiration from such disparate populist figures as Joseph McCarthy, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jesse (the Body) Ventura, the professional wrestler who, in 1999, was elected governor of Minnesota. Trump’s most important predecessor, however, was probably George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, who ran four times for the White House and became “the first serious presidential candidate in the twentieth century who identified himself as a working man,” as the historian Michael Kazin writes in “The Populist Persuasion,” an essential history of American populist rhetoric and personalities on both the right and the left.
Wallace’s unapologetic racism and his summoning of the economic and cultural grievances of “the common man” accelerated the Republican Party’s embrace of the Deep South as an electoral base after the sixties, and such populist resentment is the foundation on which Trump constructed his rise to the White House. At the apex of Wallace’s appeal, during the Presidential campaign of 1968, when he competed as an independent against Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, he championed factory workers, barbers, and policemen while denouncing “pointy-headed college professors,” Communists, and Wall Street money men. He exhorted his followers, “Yes, they’ve looked down their nose at you and me for a long time—the Republicans and Democrats. Well, we’re going to show them there are a lot of rednecks in this country!”
Wallace won five states that November and captured fourteen per cent of the national popular vote; Nixon won a narrow plurality over Humphrey, attracting just over forty-three per cent nationwide. Wallace lost to Nixon by slight margins in Tennessee and North Carolina. Because of the vagaries of the Electoral College, if Wallace had won either of those states, and if Humphrey had overcome a narrow margin of defeat in Ohio, Nixon would have failed to win the Electoral College, throwing the contest to the House of Representatives. (Wallace was polling even higher over the summer, but then he selected as his running mate the retired Air Force general and strategic-bombing enthusiast Curtis LeMay, who, at his début press conference, lamented the public’s “phobia about nuclear weapons” and argued that there were times “when it would be most efficient” to use nukes on the battlefield.)
After his defeat, Wallace joked, “Maybe I’ll sit under the Confederate statue” in his home town of Clayton “and play checkers.” His aides knew that he would run again. He was eventually reëlected governor of Alabama, but in later Presidential bids, in 1972 and 1976, he had much less success. A deranged gunman shot and partially paralyzed Wallace during the 1972 campaign, and he spent the last years of his life in physical pain and in search of spiritual redemption. In 1979, Wallace met with John Lewis, who, fourteen years earlier—when Wallace was governor and Lewis was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—had had his skull cracked by Alabama troopers as they broke up a civil-rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma. “I’ve come to ask for your forgiveness,” Wallace told Lewis. The latter listened compassionately but asked, “Why did you order the troopers to stop us, to beat us, on Bloody Sunday, in 1965?”
By the time of Wallace’s death, in 1998, his influence over the electorate and the two major parties had dissipated to the vanishing point. Yet, as Dan T. Carter, Wallace’s authoritative biographer, writes, this was partly because, as Nixon and successive Republicans co-opted and mainstreamed aspects of Wallace’s strategy, “The politics of rage that George Wallace made his own had moved from the fringes of our society to center stage.” Carter concluded that Wallace “was the most influential loser in twentieth-century American politics.”
Wallace was who he seemed to be—a self-made, ambitious bitter-ender with a knack for the campaign trail and a capacity for personal reflection, at least toward the end. Trump, a Wharton graduate who also rails against the Ivy League, has transcended Wallace’s political achievements by delivering transparently cynical performances that nevertheless, with his gift for stagecraft, come across to many as authentic. In Wallace’s time, it was common to dismiss his candidacy for the Presidency as a last gasp from the dying Jim Crow South. We can now see it as a warning flare—and as a reminder that it was not only Donald Trump who conceived of Trumpism.


newyorker--2020-12-04--“Mank,” Reviewed: David Fincher’s Impassioned Dive Into Hollywood Politics

The best thing about David Fincher ’ s new film , “ Mank , ” is that it isn ’ t about what one expects it to be about .
More specifically , the movie ( which is streaming on Netflix ) is not about the assertion , made most strenuously by Pauline Kael in her controversial New Yorker piece “ Raising Kane , ” that Herman J. Mankiewicz , the veteran screenwriter , wrote the screenplay for “ Citizen Kane ” by himself and nearly had credit stolen from him by Orson Welles , the movie ’ s director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ co-writer .
Yes , that saga ( which I revisited recently ) is included in the film , but it is downplayed to the point of insignificance and near incomprehensibility .
Rather , “ Mank ” is about why Mankiewicz wrote “ Citizen Kane ” —what experiences inspired him to write it and were essential to it , and why he was the only person who could have done so .
The movie is not a “ gotcha ” movie , not a parroting of Kael ’ s argument , but , rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of speculative historical psychology—and a vision of Hollywood politics that shines a fervent plus ça change spotlight on current events .
It is a film that left me with a peculiar impression—especially when I viewed it a second time , after brushing up on Mankiewicz ’ s story—that it is , in some ways , an inert cinematic object , lacking a dramatic spark .
But its subject is fascinating , and its view of classic Hollywood is so personal , and passionately conflicted , that what takes place onscreen feels secondary to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own directorial psychology—of his view of the business and the art of movies , and of his place in both .
Like “ Citizen Kane , ” “ Mank ” is a movie built with flashbacks .
Its present tense is 1940 , when Mank ( I ’ ll call the character Mank , as the film does , to distinguish him from the real-life person ) —played by Gary Oldman—is deposited at a house ( along with a huge clandestine stash of liquor ) in a ranch compound in Victorville , California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Mank has been in a car accident and severely broken his leg .
He ’ s in a half-body cast , and will be doing his screenwriting from bed .
There with him is Welles ’ s collaborator John Houseman ( Sam Troughton ) , to bounce ideas off of ; a British secretary named Rita Alexander ( Lily Collins ) , to take dictation , type the script , and , as it turns out , to spur him onward with insightful queries and responses ; a German nurse named Frieda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Mank ’ s injuries ; and , very occasionally , Welles himself ( Tom Burke ) , who calls and drops by to consult .
The mainspring of the cycle of flashbacks is a round of dictation that Mank delivers to Rita : she recognizes that the subject of the script he is formulating is the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst ( played by Charles Dance ) , and her question to Mank—about the actress Marion Davies , Hearst ’ s ( much younger ) mistress—prompts a flashback to Mank ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1930 .
The long association between Mank and Hearst ( who was born in 1863 ) forms the core of “ Mank , ” and gives rise to the most dramatically and melodramatically developed scenes in the movie .
Their first encounter involves Mank ’ s visit to San Simeon , Hearst ’ s virtual duchy along the California coast , where a film shoot is underway—financed by Hearst , supervised by the M-G-M boss Louis B. Mayer ( Arliss Howard ) and his brilliant young head of production , Irving Thalberg ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s professional standing in the industry , as it undergoes a sudden and total shift from silent films to talking pictures .
There , Mank impresses Hearst with his celebrated wit and wins himself the first of many invitations to dine at Hearst ’ s palace , while also landing a job as a screenwriter at M-G-M. What Mank observes , experiences , and endures in subsequent years , both on the job and in his place beside Hearst at his long banquet table , becomes the fodder for what will eventually become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The fodder , in a word , is politics—and its perverse distortions in mass media , then and , by implication , now .
At a 1933 Hearst banquet that ’ s filled with M-G-M people , the discussion turns to California ’ s impending gubernatorial race , in which the writer Upton Sinclair is running on an explicitly socialist platform .
Mayer , a Republican , speaks with horror of socialism , even as the Depression rages and Roosevelt , newly in office , is just beginning to institute his New Deal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Hearst household , Sinclair is an unmentionable ( for having written critically about Hearst ) ; when the gubernatorial race heats up , in 1934 , after Sinclair wins the Democratic nomination , M-G-M , backed by Hearst , throws its considerable weight behind Sinclair ’ s Republican opponent .
The studio ’ s principal weapons are its prestige ( Mayer was the state chairman of the Republican Party ) and , even more important , the cinema itself : M-G-M produced a series of faux radio broadcasts , and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bedraggled-looking people endorse Sinclair with ominous language , while stereotypically appealing upright Americans express their fears that socialism will deprive them of their modest homes , livelihoods , and beloved American way of life .
Red-baiting wasn ’ t new , of course , but “ Mank ” presents these fabricated testimonials as the crucial innovation that contributed to Sinclair ’ s defeat—and that , through byways of collateral damage arising from the studio ’ s corrupt political advertising , led to Mank ’ s utter disillusionment and break with Hearst .
These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the high-society machinations that give rise to Mank ’ s anger-fuelled writing of “ Citizen Kane , ” are the raison d ’ être of “ Mank , ” and the film ’ s most dramatically strong and historically resonant parts .
They are what Fincher seems to have been most interested in filming ; the rest of the movie feels like a backward-assembled domino chain , designed to result in them .
Fincher is clearly interested in Mankiewicz ’ s character , the bright light of acerbic wit and learned insight that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other forms of recklessness .
Yet , rather than observing that character in action , Fincher rummages through published accounts of Mankiewicz ’ s life ( including Richard Meryman ’ s biography , “ Mank ” ) for alluring and revealing details , which he reassembles out of context and chronology , and shoehorns into the movie wherever he can , constructing a clear but simplistic psychological framework .
It ’ s worth comparing “ Mank ” to a similar but much better bio-pic by Fincher , “ The Social Network , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Facebook .
The fiction in that film was sufficiently vivid to supplant the reality it was based on—to give it a greater density , specificity , resonance , and interiority than the familiar documented stories of Zuckerberg ’ s life .
In “ Mank , ” by contrast , the fiction falls short—rather than taking over for real-life events , it approximates them , mainly in smaller dimensions .
“ The Social Network ” creates , whereas “ Mank ” states—and the difference begins with the casting and its inevitable effects .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ but his performance as Mank is something that he gives to the camera ; he doesn ’ t draw the camera to him .
Oldman ’ s acting is active , in voice , gesture , and facial expression , and when he ’ s not doing anything he ’ s not acting at all .
In “ The Social Network , ” a masterwork of portraiture , Jesse Eisenberg ’ s expressions as Zuckerberg are as strong in repose as in action , drawing Fincher ’ s camera gaze in and holding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s secrets or comes up against them .
“ Mank ” never discovers or even suggests the depth that its protagonist bears when he isn ’ t flashing witty , or the pathos of what ’ s trapped in his mind while he works unhappily in Hollywood .
Filming in black-and-white , with high-styled , high-contrast , heavily striated lighting , Fincher delivers a loving parody of classic Hollywood style—a symbol of the very same classic-Hollywood mythology that the movie ’ s story , in its revelation of the political depravities beneath @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its scenes , challenges and debunks .
In “ The Social Network , ” Fincher cast his directorial gaze unknowingly at the place where fake news and disinformation would wreak new forms of political debauchery .
That film is the pentimento discernible beneath the surfaces of “ Mank ” —or , rather , “ Mank ” is a do-over , which confronts the political implications that Fincher overlooked in the earlier film .
( In fairness , most people did . )
This sense of ongoing conflict , and of Fincher ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a virtual aside , a near-throwaway scene that ’ s nonetheless written as brilliantly as it ’ s filmed , with swing and verve , and that shows , in a flash , where Fincher ’ s strongest passion lies .
The scene shows Mank at the M-G-M studios in the company of his younger brother Joseph ( Tom Pelphrey ) , then a fledgling screenwriter ( and eventually a great director ) , in the company of Mayer , who has just hired the younger Mankiewicz .
In a long tracking shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ initiates the new hire in the ways of M-G-M and , in a concluding flourish , addresses his own practice while also ( as if in Fincher ’ s own voice ) speaking to the art and the business of movies today .
“ This is a business where the buyer gets nothing for his money but a memory , ” Mayer says .
“ What he bought still belongs to the man who sold it .
That ’ s the real magic of the movies , and don ’ t let anybody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this scene , means something more than copyright .
He means that movies aren ’ t like books : the moviegoer buys only a ticket for a viewing , and the studio controls access to the experience as well as the profit from future viewings .
Today , it ’ s Netflix and other major streaming services that play the role which studios did in the nineteen-thirties and forties : like the studios , streaming services control the spigot of viewing , and , like the studios , the major services are vertically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ production and the means of distribution .
Netflix both produced “ Mank ” and is the place where the film will be seen—the company , in effect , owns a thousand-screen multiplex , present in every subscriber ’ s home .
If Fincher , in “ Mank , ” looks so ruefully at the intersection of media power and political power , it ’ s because , in the age of streaming , the reign of behemoth studios and their monopoly has , in effect , returned .

The best thing about David Fincher’s new film, “Mank,” is that it isn’t about what one expects it to be about. More specifically, the movie (which is streaming on Netflix) is not about the assertion, made most strenuously by Pauline Kael in her controversial New Yorker piece “Raising Kane,” that Herman J. Mankiewicz, the veteran screenwriter, wrote the screenplay for “Citizen Kane” by himself and nearly had credit stolen from him by Orson Welles, the movie’s director, producer, star, and credited co-writer. Yes, that saga (which I revisited recently) is included in the film, but it is downplayed to the point of insignificance and near incomprehensibility. Rather, “Mank” is about why Mankiewicz wrote “Citizen Kane”—what experiences inspired him to write it and were essential to it, and why he was the only person who could have done so.
The movie is not a “gotcha” movie, not a parroting of Kael’s argument, but, rather, an astutely probing and pain-filled work of speculative historical psychology—and a vision of Hollywood politics that shines a fervent plus ça change spotlight on current events. It is a film that left me with a peculiar impression—especially when I viewed it a second time, after brushing up on Mankiewicz’s story—that it is, in some ways, an inert cinematic object, lacking a dramatic spark. But its subject is fascinating, and its view of classic Hollywood is so personal, and passionately conflicted, that what takes place onscreen feels secondary to what it reveals of Fincher’s own directorial psychology—of his view of the business and the art of movies, and of his place in both.
Like “Citizen Kane,” “Mank” is a movie built with flashbacks. Its present tense is 1940, when Mank (I’ll call the character Mank, as the film does, to distinguish him from the real-life person)—played by Gary Oldman—is deposited at a house (along with a huge clandestine stash of liquor) in a ranch compound in Victorville, California, about sixty miles from Los Angeles. Mank has been in a car accident and severely broken his leg. He’s in a half-body cast, and will be doing his screenwriting from bed. There with him is Welles’s collaborator John Houseman (Sam Troughton), to bounce ideas off of; a British secretary named Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), to take dictation, type the script, and, as it turns out, to spur him onward with insightful queries and responses; a German nurse named Frieda (Monika Gossmann), to care for Mank’s injuries; and, very occasionally, Welles himself (Tom Burke), who calls and drops by to consult. The mainspring of the cycle of flashbacks is a round of dictation that Mank delivers to Rita: she recognizes that the subject of the script he is formulating is the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (played by Charles Dance), and her question to Mank—about the actress Marion Davies, Hearst’s (much younger) mistress—prompts a flashback to Mank’s first encounter with the mogul, in 1930.
The long association between Mank and Hearst (who was born in 1863) forms the core of “Mank,” and gives rise to the most dramatically and melodramatically developed scenes in the movie. Their first encounter involves Mank’s visit to San Simeon, Hearst’s virtual duchy along the California coast, where a film shoot is underway—financed by Hearst, supervised by the M-G-M boss Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard) and his brilliant young head of production, Irving Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley)—to raise Davies’s professional standing in the industry, as it undergoes a sudden and total shift from silent films to talking pictures. There, Mank impresses Hearst with his celebrated wit and wins himself the first of many invitations to dine at Hearst’s palace, while also landing a job as a screenwriter at M-G-M. What Mank observes, experiences, and endures in subsequent years, both on the job and in his place beside Hearst at his long banquet table, becomes the fodder for what will eventually become the “Citizen Kane” script.
The fodder, in a word, is politics—and its perverse distortions in mass media, then and, by implication, now. At a 1933 Hearst banquet that’s filled with M-G-M people, the discussion turns to California’s impending gubernatorial race, in which the writer Upton Sinclair is running on an explicitly socialist platform. Mayer, a Republican, speaks with horror of socialism, even as the Depression rages and Roosevelt, newly in office, is just beginning to institute his New Deal policies. Davies tells Mank that, in the Hearst household, Sinclair is an unmentionable (for having written critically about Hearst); when the gubernatorial race heats up, in 1934, after Sinclair wins the Democratic nomination, M-G-M, backed by Hearst, throws its considerable weight behind Sinclair’s Republican opponent. The studio’s principal weapons are its prestige (Mayer was the state chairman of the Republican Party) and, even more important, the cinema itself: M-G-M produced a series of faux radio broadcasts, and then faux newsreels, in which foreign-sounding and bedraggled-looking people endorse Sinclair with ominous language, while stereotypically appealing upright Americans express their fears that socialism will deprive them of their modest homes, livelihoods, and beloved American way of life. Red-baiting wasn’t new, of course, but “Mank” presents these fabricated testimonials as the crucial innovation that contributed to Sinclair’s defeat—and that, through byways of collateral damage arising from the studio’s corrupt political advertising, led to Mank’s utter disillusionment and break with Hearst.
These politically centered scenes, which revolve around the high-society machinations that give rise to Mank’s anger-fuelled writing of “Citizen Kane,” are the raison d’être of “Mank,” and the film’s most dramatically strong and historically resonant parts. They are what Fincher seems to have been most interested in filming; the rest of the movie feels like a backward-assembled domino chain, designed to result in them. Fincher is clearly interested in Mankiewicz’s character, the bright light of acerbic wit and learned insight that was shadowed by alcoholism, gambling, and other forms of recklessness. Yet, rather than observing that character in action, Fincher rummages through published accounts of Mankiewicz’s life (including Richard Meryman’s biography, “Mank”) for alluring and revealing details, which he reassembles out of context and chronology, and shoehorns into the movie wherever he can, constructing a clear but simplistic psychological framework.
It’s worth comparing “Mank” to a similar but much better bio-pic by Fincher, “The Social Network,” about Mark Zuckerberg and his founding of Facebook. The fiction in that film was sufficiently vivid to supplant the reality it was based on—to give it a greater density, specificity, resonance, and interiority than the familiar documented stories of Zuckerberg’s life. In “Mank,” by contrast, the fiction falls short—rather than taking over for real-life events, it approximates them, mainly in smaller dimensions. “The Social Network” creates, whereas “Mank” states—and the difference begins with the casting and its inevitable effects. Oldman is a supremely gifted actor, but his performance as Mank is something that he gives to the camera; he doesn’t draw the camera to him. Oldman’s acting is active, in voice, gesture, and facial expression, and when he’s not doing anything he’s not acting at all. In “The Social Network,” a masterwork of portraiture, Jesse Eisenberg’s expressions as Zuckerberg are as strong in repose as in action, drawing Fincher’s camera gaze in and holding it there until it yields the character’s secrets or comes up against them. “Mank” never discovers or even suggests the depth that its protagonist bears when he isn’t flashing witty, or the pathos of what’s trapped in his mind while he works unhappily in Hollywood.
Filming in black-and-white, with high-styled, high-contrast, heavily striated lighting, Fincher delivers a loving parody of classic Hollywood style—a symbol of the very same classic-Hollywood mythology that the movie’s story, in its revelation of the political depravities beneath the industry’s surfaces and behind its scenes, challenges and debunks. In “The Social Network,” Fincher cast his directorial gaze unknowingly at the place where fake news and disinformation would wreak new forms of political debauchery. That film is the pentimento discernible beneath the surfaces of “Mank”—or, rather, “Mank” is a do-over, which confronts the political implications that Fincher overlooked in the earlier film. (In fairness, most people did.) This sense of ongoing conflict, and of Fincher’s personal stake in it, emerges in a virtual aside, a near-throwaway scene that’s nonetheless written as brilliantly as it’s filmed, with swing and verve, and that shows, in a flash, where Fincher’s strongest passion lies. The scene shows Mank at the M-G-M studios in the company of his younger brother Joseph (Tom Pelphrey), then a fledgling screenwriter (and eventually a great director), in the company of Mayer, who has just hired the younger Mankiewicz. In a long tracking shot through the studio corridors, Mayer pugnaciously initiates the new hire in the ways of M-G-M and, in a concluding flourish, addresses his own practice while also (as if in Fincher’s own voice) speaking to the art and the business of movies today. “This is a business where the buyer gets nothing for his money but a memory,” Mayer says. “What he bought still belongs to the man who sold it. That’s the real magic of the movies, and don’t let anybody tell you different.”
Mayer, in this scene, means something more than copyright. He means that movies aren’t like books: the moviegoer buys only a ticket for a viewing, and the studio controls access to the experience as well as the profit from future viewings. Today, it’s Netflix and other major streaming services that play the role which studios did in the nineteen-thirties and forties: like the studios, streaming services control the spigot of viewing, and, like the studios, the major services are vertically integrated, controlling both the means of production and the means of distribution. Netflix both produced “Mank” and is the place where the film will be seen—the company, in effect, owns a thousand-screen multiplex, present in every subscriber’s home. If Fincher, in “Mank,” looks so ruefully at the intersection of media power and political power, it’s because, in the age of streaming, the reign of behemoth studios and their monopoly has, in effect, returned.


newyorker--2020-12-04--Long Live the Greatest-Hits Album

Long Live the Greatest-Hits Album

For devoted fans , greatest-hits records can feel like a cheat , in part because they repudiate the long-playing album as a sacrosanct document , inviolate and complete .
That dismissal also jibes with the music geek ’ s tendency to moralize suffering : a belief that pleasure needs to be both earned and accounted for .
Using that logic , an entire album of recontextualized hits is simply too indulgent .
A real listener should be prepared to endure duds , filler , cringey spoken-word interludes , skits , and various half-cooked song-experiments before getting to the thrill of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ albums have always been wildly lucrative for artists—attracting , as they do , the dilettantes and dabblers—probably hasn ’ t helped to win over the purists .
For decades , “ Eagles : Their Greatest Hits ” vied with “ Thriller ” as the best-selling album of all time , while similar compilations by Madonna ( “ The Immaculate Collection ” ) , ABBA ( “ Gold : Greatest Hits ” ) , the Beatles ( “ 1 ” ) , Bob Marley ( “ Legend : The Best of Bob Marley and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Greatest Hits ” ) , Elton John ( “ Greatest Hits ” ) , and Céline Dion ( “ All the Way .
.
.
A Decade of Song ” ) have each sold upward of twenty million copies .
Though the idea of an album as a complete , cohesive text now feels entrenched , it ’ s actually a fairly recent ( and brief ) development in the history of recorded music .
The Beatles ’ “ Sgt .
Pepper ’ s Lonely Hearts Club Band , ” released in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entry of the so-called album era , in which records were no longer merely collections of individual songs but narrative objects in their own right .
It ’ s harder to pinpoint precisely when the album era ended .
The popularity of curated playlists , in which songs by different artists are grouped together by mood , genre , or some other inscrutable metric , seems to indicate that it ’ s well behind us .
Spotify ’ s “ This Is .
.
.
” series , which compiles the most popular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , allows the service to create , present , and perpetuate a kind of populist canon—greatest-hits albums for the digital era .
( Though the ordering is different , “ This Is the White Stripes ” hews awfully close to the track listing for “ The White Stripes Greatest Hits.
” ) Greatest-hits albums do still appear from time to time ( the indie-rock band Spoon released an excellent one , “ Everything Hits at Once , ” in 2019 ) , but they mostly feel like one more thing ( along with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ notes , and large-format album art ) that streaming has made obsolete .
Still , I ’ ll cop to some fondness for the format .
At their best , greatest-hits albums cleanly illustrate an artist ’ s creative arc .
It can be edifying ( and sometimes thrilling ) to watch a writer or writers evolve over time .
There are a handful of greatest-hits collections—Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ’ “ Greatest Hits ” chief among them—that I would defend as masterpieces .
It makes some sense that the White Stripes—a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to anachronisms and incongruities—would embrace the greatest-hits form at the end of 2020 .
Beginning in the late nineties , the band presented an elaborate backstory : they told everyone that they were brother and sister when , in reality , they married in 1996 and divorced in 2000 .
They dressed exclusively in red , white , and black .
To an extent , the band seemed governed by inflexible ideas about authenticity ( Jack ’ s favorite guitar was plastic and from Montgomery Ward , and he edited the band @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a razor blade ) , but its visual presentation was meticulous and unyielding , and its history was an elaborate yarn .
There were more contradictions : Jack was a virtuosic guitarist , but Meg ’ s drumming was unfussy and elemental .
( Whether you believe that the band might have benefitted from a better drummer , or that the fission between Jack ’ s flash and Meg ’ s plodding beat-keeping was in fact the alchemical key to the band ’ s success , indicates something about what you value : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chemistry . )
Jack ’ s songs are melodic , and therefore easy to sing along with , but also brash , idiosyncratic , and strange .
Since the nineteen-sixties , garage rock has been governed by a kind of scrappy , no-pretense ethos—things should be as amateur , crude , and real as possible—but the White Stripes were engaged in deliberate , shameless theatre .
Tensions like that often lead to interesting art , and “ The White Stripes Greatest Hits ” is a good reminder of how odd and inventive the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sometimes feel familiar , as if you are travelling down a road that you drove down once before , decades ago , in the middle of the night .
( His writing is born chiefly of the blues , a deeply American idiom that has informed nearly every corner of popular music . )
Yet there is nothing common or recognizable about the way he presents these songs .
The lyrics are simple and childlike , but his voice is high , feral , and startling .
On occasion , he will sing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ startling in a different way .
On “ We ’ re Going to Be Friends , ” from “ White Blood Cells , ” released in 2001 , Jack ’ s voice is soft and tender : “ Teacher thinks that I sound funny , but she likes the way you sing , ” he coos .
On “ I Think I Smell a Rat , ” from the same record , he sounds as if someone has , in fact , just dropped a rat down the front of his pants .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ opens with “ Let ’ s Shake Hands , ” the band ’ s first official release ( it was issued as a seven-inch single in March , 1998 , on the tiny , Detroit-based label Italy Records ) , and closes with “ Seven Nation Army , ” which features a riff that is now broadcast , over and over , at sporting events around the world .
The framing of the album is not chronological but nonetheless feels deliberate : the original pressing of “ Let ’ s Shake Hands ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whereas “ Seven Nation Army ” is one of the most recognizable songs on earth .
The sequencing feels like yet another example of the band ’ s penchant for dualities : the White Stripes can be both arcane and ubiquitous .
In between those poles is a comprehensive rundown of the band ’ s many feats , from “ Ball and Biscuit , ” the band ’ s longest and most explicitly blues-indebted song , to “ Hotel Yorba , ” a bouncy acoustic number about finding a person who makes you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t an instinctively confessional lyricist—he prefers to incorporate obtuse allusions and wordy tricks—but “ Hotel Yorba ” is an earnest fantasy of domestic harmony .
If there is any through line to his narratives ( besides a fixation on death and legacy ) , it ’ s romantic yearning , a desire for more formal courtship : Jack can be irascible in interviews , and he is exceedingly particular about what he likes ( mechanical thingamajigs , taxidermy , the number three , the colors black and yellow , old photo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which has caused some critics to dismiss him as ill-natured or curmudgeonly .
Since 2018 , he has banned cell phones at his live shows , requiring concertgoers to seal them in little pouches , and , in 2019 , in an interview with the U.K. ’ s Channel 4 News , he admitted that he has never owned one himself .
“ I ’ m an anomaly , and I ’ m looking at everybody , and to me everyone sort of looks silly , ” he said .
He went on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” and suggested that social media runs on an engine of “ competition , voyeurism , jealousy—those are really shallow human characteristics.
” This resulted in some gleeful dunking on him for what seemed like a predictable , backward-looking stance , though it is also hard to say that he was wrong about any of it .
Most contemporary rock and pop stars perform a kind of transparency as part of the gig : tweeting , posting faux-candid images on Instagram , self-producing high-budget , not-so-revealing documentaries about their lives .
Jack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last figures truly dedicated to the kind of calculated obscurity perfected by Bob Dylan in the nineteen-sixties .
Jack ’ s always been a bit of a song-and-dance man when it comes to formulating and presenting his mythology , and , over the past two decades , he has developed an almost savant-like acumen for messing with the press .
( He went so far as to name a side project the Raconteurs . )
“ The White Stripes Greatest Hits ” seems germane to that trajectory .
It feels old-fashioned , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good .

Meg and Jack White, of the White Stripes, pose for the camera in 2001. Photograph by Gie Knaeps / Getty
On Friday, the White Stripes—the garage-rock duo founded by Jack and Meg White, in Detroit, in 1997—released a twenty-six-track greatest-hits compilation, titled “My Sister Thanks You and I Thank You: The White Stripes Greatest Hits.” The band put out its sixth and final LP, “Icky Thump,” in 2007, before officially dissolving in 2011. As with most breakups, the precise catalyst for the rupture remains unclear, although, in an interview with Rolling Stone, in 2014, Jack suggested that Meg wasn’t especially keen on the demands of celebrity. “She’s always been a hermit,” he said.
For devoted fans, greatest-hits records can feel like a cheat, in part because they repudiate the long-playing album as a sacrosanct document, inviolate and complete. That dismissal also jibes with the music geek’s tendency to moralize suffering: a belief that pleasure needs to be both earned and accounted for. Using that logic, an entire album of recontextualized hits is simply too indulgent. A real listener should be prepared to endure duds, filler, cringey spoken-word interludes, skits, and various half-cooked song-experiments before getting to the thrill of the single. The reality that greatest-hits albums have always been wildly lucrative for artists—attracting, as they do, the dilettantes and dabblers—probably hasn’t helped to win over the purists. For decades, “Eagles: Their Greatest Hits” vied with “Thriller” as the best-selling album of all time, while similar compilations by Madonna (“The Immaculate Collection”), ABBA (“Gold: Greatest Hits”), the Beatles (“1”), Bob Marley (“Legend: The Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers”), Queen (“Greatest Hits”), Elton John (“Greatest Hits”), and Céline Dion (“All the Way . . . A Decade of Song”) have each sold upward of twenty million copies.
Though the idea of an album as a complete, cohesive text now feels entrenched, it’s actually a fairly recent (and brief) development in the history of recorded music. The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” released in 1967, is generally considered the first entry of the so-called album era, in which records were no longer merely collections of individual songs but narrative objects in their own right. It’s harder to pinpoint precisely when the album era ended. The popularity of curated playlists, in which songs by different artists are grouped together by mood, genre, or some other inscrutable metric, seems to indicate that it’s well behind us. Spotify’s “This Is . . .” series, which compiles the most popular or emblematic tracks by any given artist, allows the service to create, present, and perpetuate a kind of populist canon—greatest-hits albums for the digital era. (Though the ordering is different, “This Is the White Stripes” hews awfully close to the track listing for “The White Stripes Greatest Hits.”) Greatest-hits albums do still appear from time to time (the indie-rock band Spoon released an excellent one, “Everything Hits at Once,” in 2019), but they mostly feel like one more thing (along with fair revenue for songwriters, extensive liner notes, and large-format album art) that streaming has made obsolete. Still, I’ll cop to some fondness for the format. At their best, greatest-hits albums cleanly illustrate an artist’s creative arc. It can be edifying (and sometimes thrilling) to watch a writer or writers evolve over time. There are a handful of greatest-hits collections—Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Greatest Hits” chief among them—that I would defend as masterpieces.
It makes some sense that the White Stripes—a band fully dedicated, from its outset, to anachronisms and incongruities—would embrace the greatest-hits form at the end of 2020. Beginning in the late nineties, the band presented an elaborate backstory: they told everyone that they were brother and sister when, in reality, they married in 1996 and divorced in 2000. They dressed exclusively in red, white, and black. To an extent, the band seemed governed by inflexible ideas about authenticity (Jack’s favorite guitar was plastic and from Montgomery Ward, and he edited the band’s recordings by slicing tape with a razor blade), but its visual presentation was meticulous and unyielding, and its history was an elaborate yarn. There were more contradictions: Jack was a virtuosic guitarist, but Meg’s drumming was unfussy and elemental. (Whether you believe that the band might have benefitted from a better drummer, or that the fission between Jack’s flash and Meg’s plodding beat-keeping was in fact the alchemical key to the band’s success, indicates something about what you value: rhythm or a kind of uncanny extramusical chemistry.) Jack’s songs are melodic, and therefore easy to sing along with, but also brash, idiosyncratic, and strange. Since the nineteen-sixties, garage rock has been governed by a kind of scrappy, no-pretense ethos—things should be as amateur, crude, and real as possible—but the White Stripes were engaged in deliberate, shameless theatre.
Tensions like that often lead to interesting art, and “The White Stripes Greatest Hits” is a good reminder of how odd and inventive the band was. Jack’s songs sometimes feel familiar, as if you are travelling down a road that you drove down once before, decades ago, in the middle of the night. (His writing is born chiefly of the blues, a deeply American idiom that has informed nearly every corner of popular music.) Yet there is nothing common or recognizable about the way he presents these songs. The lyrics are simple and childlike, but his voice is high, feral, and startling. On occasion, he will sing something gently, and it’s startling in a different way. On “We’re Going to Be Friends,” from “White Blood Cells,” released in 2001, Jack’s voice is soft and tender: “Teacher thinks that I sound funny, but she likes the way you sing,” he coos. On “I Think I Smell a Rat,” from the same record, he sounds as if someone has, in fact, just dropped a rat down the front of his pants.
“The White Stripes Greatest Hits” opens with “Let’s Shake Hands,” the band’s first official release (it was issued as a seven-inch single in March, 1998, on the tiny, Detroit-based label Italy Records), and closes with “Seven Nation Army,” which features a riff that is now broadcast, over and over, at sporting events around the world. The framing of the album is not chronological but nonetheless feels deliberate: the original pressing of “Let’s Shake Hands” was limited to a thousand copies, whereas “Seven Nation Army” is one of the most recognizable songs on earth. The sequencing feels like yet another example of the band’s penchant for dualities: the White Stripes can be both arcane and ubiquitous.
In between those poles is a comprehensive rundown of the band’s many feats, from “Ball and Biscuit,” the band’s longest and most explicitly blues-indebted song, to “Hotel Yorba,” a bouncy acoustic number about finding a person who makes you want to disappear into love. Jack isn’t an instinctively confessional lyricist—he prefers to incorporate obtuse allusions and wordy tricks—but “Hotel Yorba” is an earnest fantasy of domestic harmony. If there is any through line to his narratives (besides a fixation on death and legacy), it’s romantic yearning, a desire for more formal courtship:
It might sound silly
For me to think childish thoughts like these
But I’m so tired of acting tough
And I’m gonna do what I please
Let’s get married
In a big cathedral by a priest
’Cause if I’m the man that you love the most
You can say I do at least
Jack can be irascible in interviews, and he is exceedingly particular about what he likes (mechanical thingamajigs, taxidermy, the number three, the colors black and yellow, old photo booths, reupholstering vintage furniture), which has caused some critics to dismiss him as ill-natured or curmudgeonly. Since 2018, he has banned cell phones at his live shows, requiring concertgoers to seal them in little pouches, and, in 2019, in an interview with the U.K.’s Channel 4 News, he admitted that he has never owned one himself. “I’m an anomaly, and I’m looking at everybody, and to me everyone sort of looks silly,” he said. He went on to describe technology addiction as “sad,” and suggested that social media runs on an engine of “competition, voyeurism, jealousy—those are really shallow human characteristics.” This resulted in some gleeful dunking on him for what seemed like a predictable, backward-looking stance, though it is also hard to say that he was wrong about any of it.
Most contemporary rock and pop stars perform a kind of transparency as part of the gig: tweeting, posting faux-candid images on Instagram, self-producing high-budget, not-so-revealing documentaries about their lives. Jack White now feels like one of the last figures truly dedicated to the kind of calculated obscurity perfected by Bob Dylan in the nineteen-sixties. Jack’s always been a bit of a song-and-dance man when it comes to formulating and presenting his mythology, and, over the past two decades, he has developed an almost savant-like acumen for messing with the press. (He went so far as to name a side project the Raconteurs.) “The White Stripes Greatest Hits” seems germane to that trajectory. It feels old-fashioned, even deliberately so, but it sounds awfully good.


newyorker--2020-12-04--Fauci a Little Weirded Out by People Suddenly Listening to Him

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Dr .
Anthony Fauci is “ a little weirded out ” by people suddenly listening to him , the virologist has confirmed .
After months of being virtually ignored , Fauci said that the phenomenon of people paying attention when he says something is “ kind of freaky.
” “ I guess I got used to being in meetings where I ’ d start talking and people would take that as an opportunity to look at their phones , ” he said .
“ This whole thing of me saying things and other people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me for a loop.
” Fauci added that the novel experience of people acknowledging his existence has created “ a ton of pressure.
” “ It ’ s bizarre , frankly , to all of a sudden be saying things and have people ask follow-up questions , like they were listening to what I just said , ” he said .
“ Don ’ t get me wrong , I ’ m not complaining .
But when people are actually listening to what you say it can be kind of stressful .
You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and can ’ t just phone it in .
Be careful what you wish for , I guess .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Dr. Anthony Fauci is “a little weirded out” by people suddenly listening to him, the virologist has confirmed.
After months of being virtually ignored, Fauci said that the phenomenon of people paying attention when he says something is “kind of freaky.”
“I guess I got used to being in meetings where I’d start talking and people would take that as an opportunity to look at their phones,” he said. “This whole thing of me saying things and other people listening to me has kind of thrown me for a loop.”
Fauci added that the novel experience of people acknowledging his existence has created “a ton of pressure.”
“It’s bizarre, frankly, to all of a sudden be saying things and have people ask follow-up questions, like they were listening to what I just said,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. But when people are actually listening to what you say it can be kind of stressful. You really have to bring your A game and can’t just phone it in. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.”


newyorker--2020-12-05--The Most Misquoted Movie Lines of All Time

Despite this iconic exchange occurring in one of the most climactic scenes in movie history , Darth Vader never says , “ Luke , I am your father.
” In actuality , he says , “ No , I am your father.
” This line was ingrained in our collective memory after we saw  “ The Empire Strikes Back , ” but the character ’ s name is actually Luke , not Lork , and the quote is “ No , I am your father.
” “ Luke , I think I dropped my car keys down this big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t seen the movie , you know this line .
But rewind the tape , and you ’ ll find that Darth Vader never mentions anything about his car keys or dropping them down a big hole .
“ Luke , I am your best friend , Lork.
” Just about everyone remembers hearing Anakin Skywalker deliver this shocking twist .
What they ’ re not remembering ?
That he was Luke ’ s father—not his best friend—and that Darth Vader ’ s name is “ Darth Vader.
” “ I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here to say that I ’ m your dad in a major way !
” Ask just about anyone , and they ’ ll swear that this is what James Earl Jones says to Mark Hamill in the Cloud City ’ s central air shaft .
The truth ?
He says , “ No , I am your father.
” “ Why , hello , Luke Skywalker , it is I—the Darth Vader .
Though I understand that you currently believe me to be your father ’ s murderer , I am afraid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , more than a bit of a mixup .
Rather than murdering your father , I had unprotected space-sex with your mother , who then carried you in space-pregnancy before giving birth , which , by most definitions of the word ‘ father , ’ would make me , in fact , thereby , your father .
I hope this has helped.
” Darth Vader never says any of this. Close , but no cigar—Darth Vader never says the word “ father ” five times in a row .
Despite being ranked No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of “ 100 Years .
.
.
100 Movie Quotes , ” everyone still gets this one wrong .
Darth Vader really says , “ No , I am your father.
” “ Frankly , my dear Lork , I think my car keys are down this big hole.
” You ’ ll stump even the biggest movie buffs with this one—Darth Vader never actually utters these words .
“ Toto , I have a feeling my father ’ s damn car keys aren ’ t in Kansas anymore.
” The line is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ Toto , you are my dear father , and I am Lork .
And frankly , I do not give an ass.
” The line is “ No , I am your father.
” Rick actually says , “ Play it , Sam .
”

“Luke, I am your father.”
Despite this iconic exchange occurring in one of the most climactic scenes in movie history, Darth Vader never says, “Luke, I am your father.” In actuality, he says, “No, I am your father.”
“Lork, I am your father.”
This line was ingrained in our collective memory after we saw “The Empire Strikes Back,” but the character’s name is actually Luke, not Lork, and the quote is “No, I am your father.”
“Luke, I think I dropped my car keys down this big hole.”
Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you know this line. But rewind the tape, and you’ll find that Darth Vader never mentions anything about his car keys or dropping them down a big hole.
“Luke, I am your best friend, Lork.”
Just about everyone remembers hearing Anakin Skywalker deliver this shocking twist. What they’re not remembering? That he was Luke’s father—not his best friend—and that Darth Vader’s name is “Darth Vader.”
“I’m Darth Vader, and I’m here to say that I’m your dad in a major way!”
Ask just about anyone, and they’ll swear that this is what James Earl Jones says to Mark Hamill in the Cloud City’s central air shaft. The truth? He says, “No, I am your father.”
“Why, hello, Luke Skywalker, it is I—the Darth Vader. Though I understand that you currently believe me to be your father’s murderer, I am afraid there has been, to be frank, more than a bit of a mixup. Rather than murdering your father, I had unprotected space-sex with your mother, who then carried you in space-pregnancy before giving birth, which, by most definitions of the word ‘father,’ would make me, in fact, thereby, your father. I hope this has helped.”
Darth Vader never says any of this.
“Father father father father father.”
Close, but no cigar—Darth Vader never says the word “father” five times in a row.
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Despite being ranked No. 1 on A.F.I.’s list of “100 Years . . . 100 Movie Quotes,” everyone still gets this one wrong. Darth Vader really says, “No, I am your father.”
“Frankly, my dear Lork, I think my car keys are down this big hole.”
You’ll stump even the biggest movie buffs with this one—Darth Vader never actually utters these words.
“Toto, I have a feeling my father’s damn car keys aren’t in Kansas anymore.”
The line is “No, I am your father.”
“Toto, you are my dear father, and I am Lork. And frankly, I do not give an ass.”
The line is “No, I am your father.”
“No, I am your father.”
Rick actually says, “Play it, Sam.”


newyorker--2020-12-05--The Secret History of T. S. Eliot’s Muse

Eliot ’ s letters to Hale , who for nearly seventeen years was his confidante , his beloved , and his muse , were another matter .
They don ’ t just repeat “ gossip and scandal , ” they produce it .
Scholars have known about this correspondence since Hale donated Eliot ’ s letters to Princeton , in 1956 , but for decades , the trove of documents remained a tantalizing secret—kept sealed , at Eliot ’ s insistence , until fifty years after both he and Hale had died .
On January 2nd of this year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unearthed from the basement of Princeton ’ s Firestone Library and made available to the public .
The line to read them began forming at 8 A.M .
The first surprise awaiting scholars was not a letter to Hale but , in essence , one addressed to them : a four-page statement that Eliot had written in 1960 , with instructions that it be released on the same day that the Princeton letters were unveiled ( or whenever , as he feared , they were leaked ) .
In the statement , Eliot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order to exact revenge on him for refusing to marry her .
As for his own part in the drama , Eliot suggests that he was simply deluded , “ that the letters I had been writing to her were the letters of an hallucinated man.
” ( He also claims , with a legalistic precision worthy of Bill Clinton , that he “ never at any time had any sexual relations with Emily Hale.
” ) Eliot ’ s dissociation from his earlier self—from the man who wrote to Hale passionately , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the strange swerves between intimacy and detachment that characterize his side of their long and fraught relationship .
The real subject of Eliot ’ s statement isn ’ t love but poetry .
“ Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me , ” he insists .
By attempting to renege on the undying love he had promised Hale , Eliot also hopes to revoke a more complex vow , one that these letters keep : the promise of a poet to his muse .
There is no way to say whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s art .
What reading his letters makes clear , however , is that the deferral of his desire—the ascetic refusal to make his most enduring love ever truly complete—was what sustained it .
Just a year later , he had completely transformed his life : in June , 1915 , he published his first major poem , “ The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock , ” in Poetry magazine , and married Vivienne Haigh-Wood , an English governess who was passionate about the arts and , unbeknownst to Eliot , prone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a half that followed , there is little record of Eliot and Hale ’ s relationship .
There appear to be many years of silence and at least one miserable encounter in London .
What we do know is that they met again in 1930 , and , shortly thereafter , the still-married poet poured his heart out to Hale in a transatlantic confession , sixteen years after his first , futile proclamation .
“ [ L ] oving and adoring you , ” he wrote by hand , “ has given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in my life .
.
.
in the midst of agony a deep peace + resignation springs.
” The best included his Christian faith ; Eliot implies that his 1927 conversion to Anglo-Catholicism owed something to Hale ’ s devotion as a Unitarian .
And , of course , it included his poetry .
At this point , he considered Hale both his saintly muse and his ideal reader .
“ There is no need to explain ‘ Ash Wednesday ’ to you , ” he told her .
“ No one else @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his wife ’ s copy of “ Poems 1909-1925 , ” he had written , “ For my dearest Vivienne , this book , which no one else will quite understand.
” ) That Emily Hale ’ s letters would become a part of his literary monument was a possibility Eliot considered only two months after his confession of love .
He told her of a “ locked tin box ” he kept for his literary executor , with “ a closed envelope marked ‘ to be burnt at once ’ ” —her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ couldn ’ t quite bear the thought of their destruction , and entertained the opposite fantasy , too : “ But what I wish to do is to mark it ‘ to be given to the Bodleian Library , not to be opened for 60 years.
’ ” He wanted her to be remembered always as the Beatrice to his Dante , the moral force behind his religious conversion , and the inspiration behind some of his most beautiful poems .
Most readers know Eliot as the arch-impersonal poet , who bewildered the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and proclaimed that “ poetry is not a turning loose of emotion , but an escape from emotion.
” Readers of this Eliot might , at first , have difficulty recognizing the gushy , hyperbolic admirer who signed his letters to Hale as “ Tom.
” In many of the letters , he described Hale as a kind of divinity , or at least nobility : “ my Dove , ” “ my paragon ” ; his “ one Fixed Point in this world.
” Yet Eliot ’ s grandiloquent devotion can also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certain messy feelings—the turmoil of his marriage , his uncertainty about his career—into something closer to what he sometimes called an “ art emotion , ” an impersonal , transcendent feeling .
In his famous 1919 essay , “ Tradition and the Individual Talent , ” Eliot wrote , “ The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice , a continual extinction of personality.
” In 1936 , when Hale had at last returned his affection , Eliot marvelled to find himself engaged in a “ perpetual daily surrender ” to Hale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
.
.
to something bigger than either ‘ me ’ or ‘ you ’ – to something that only you and I together can look at.
” Something , perhaps , like a poem .
Writing to Hale was also therapeutic .
“ I like to be able to write to you and curse the people I am fondest of , ” Eliot confessed : Eliot divulged a great deal in his letters—about his family resentments , about his sexual experience ( or lack thereof ) , and even about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advances on him .
( His friendship with Lytton Strachey ended , he said , when the Bloomsbury writer “ went down on his knees and kissed me.
” ) As an Anglo-Catholic , Eliot already had a confessor , but his relationship with Hale was beyond confessional—she did not have the power to absolve him but to absorb him .
Eliot wrote to her obsessively , often twice a week .
He learned when the ships carrying mail departed from England and kept track of which ones sailed fastest .
Hale , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Eliot ’ s unceasing correspondence .
Much later , in a statement she wrote to accompany the archive , she would describe herself in this period as “ the confidante by letters of all which was pent up in this gifted , emotional , grasping personality.
” Hale , by then teaching at Scripps College , was overworked , and her health , although she tried to hide it from Eliot , was faltering .
Her neuritis made it difficult for her to write .
It wasn ’ t only Eliot ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her .
She was growing attached to him , and he was still married .
From 1931 to 1934 , Hale suggested at least five times that Eliot consider divorcing his wife .
Eventually , Hale ’ s deteriorating health compelled her to take leave from Scripps .
Only then did Eliot acknowledge his own hand in her collapse : “ by constantly pressing myself upon your attention , and importuning you with my correspondence , I was really tampering insidiously with your mind.
” The melodrama of his self-censure— “ I see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ telling .
Like a vampire , he had not only drawn what he needed out of Hale but also , in the process , transformed her .
She was falling in love .
Although Eliot had sought a formal separation from his wife in 1933 , he made it clear to Hale that , as a converted Anglo-Catholic , he was both unwilling and unable to get a divorce .
But for this constraint , he reminded her when pressed , “ I would literally give my eyesight to be able to marry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways in which he felt them to be already bonded—the feeling of “ simply belonging , ” which , he said , had “ something eternal about it.
” His avowals became more pronounced in 1934 , when Hale began an eighteen-month holiday in England and Europe .
Whenever Hale came to London during her trip , Eliot let her borrow his flat—a spartan apartment in a Kensington clergy house .
The two of them spent the night before she left for America together , with Eliot literally at Hale ’ s feet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and rejoicing , ” he wrote , almost as soon as she was gone , “ and when I go to bed I shall imagine you kissing me ; and when you take off your stocking you must imagine me kissing your dear dear feet and striving to approach your beautiful saintly soul.
” ( In January , 1936 , Eliot wrote , “ I love your foot , and to kiss it has special symbolism , because you have to take off your stocking to let me kiss it , and that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consent.
” ) Marking this consummation , of sorts , they even exchanged rings .
“ This ring means to me all that a wedding ring can mean , ” he promised , “ and I love to wake up and feel it binding my finger , and know that it will always bind that finger .
”

Seventeen years of correspondence between Hale and Eliot—more than a thousand letters—was made available to the public this year. Photograph by Mary Patten / Courtesy Smith College Archives
In 1949, eight years after James Joyce died, his letters began to travel the world. Thanks to microfilm technology, popularized a few years earlier, the contents of his archive at the University of Buffalo became more accessible to curious readers and meddlesome critics than ever before. T. S. Eliot encountered them thousands of miles away, at the British Museum, in London, where he came face to face with a past self: his own letters to the Irish writer, lit up on a projection screen before him. Such exposure made Eliot uneasy. Later, in a letter sent across the ocean to Emily Hale, a teacher at a boarding school in Massachusetts, Eliot recalled the anxiety he’d experienced that day in the museum: “I thought, how fortunate that I did not know Joyce intimately enough to have made personal revelations or to have expressed adverse opinions, or repeated gossip or scandal, about living people!”
Eliot’s letters to Hale, who for nearly seventeen years was his confidante, his beloved, and his muse, were another matter. They don’t just repeat “gossip and scandal,” they produce it. Scholars have known about this correspondence since Hale donated Eliot’s letters to Princeton, in 1956, but for decades, the trove of documents remained a tantalizing secret—kept sealed, at Eliot’s insistence, until fifty years after both he and Hale had died.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
On January 2nd of this year, 1,131 letters from Eliot to Hale were unearthed from the basement of Princeton’s Firestone Library and made available to the public. The line to read them began forming at 8 A.M. The first surprise awaiting scholars was not a letter to Hale but, in essence, one addressed to them: a four-page statement that Eliot had written in 1960, with instructions that it be released on the same day that the Princeton letters were unveiled (or whenever, as he feared, they were leaked).
In the statement, Eliot implies that Hale saved his correspondence in order to exact revenge on him for refusing to marry her. As for his own part in the drama, Eliot suggests that he was simply deluded, “that the letters I had been writing to her were the letters of an hallucinated man.” (He also claims, with a legalistic precision worthy of Bill Clinton, that he “never at any time had any sexual relations with Emily Hale.”) Eliot’s dissociation from his earlier self—from the man who wrote to Hale passionately, almost daily, for nearly two decades—epitomizes the strange swerves between intimacy and detachment that characterize his side of their long and fraught relationship.
The real subject of Eliot’s statement isn’t love but poetry. “Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me,” he insists. By attempting to renege on the undying love he had promised Hale, Eliot also hopes to revoke a more complex vow, one that these letters keep: the promise of a poet to his muse. There is no way to say whether marrying Hale would have destroyed Eliot’s art. What reading his letters makes clear, however, is that the deferral of his desire—the ascetic refusal to make his most enduring love ever truly complete—was what sustained it.
In 1913, Thomas Stearns Eliot and Emily Hale performed in a theatrical adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma,” in a parlor room right off Harvard’s campus. Eliot was a Ph.D. student in philosophy: gawky and painfully shy. Hale, with her trained singer’s voice and cultivated grace, had an arresting presence. After more than a year of operagoing and ice skating, Eliot proclaimed his love to Hale, stopping just short of proposing marriage. Hale was caught off guard; she could not reciprocate. Heartbroken, Eliot left to study in England.
Just a year later, he had completely transformed his life: in June, 1915, he published his first major poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” in Poetry magazine, and married Vivienne Haigh-Wood, an English governess who was passionate about the arts and, unbeknownst to Eliot, prone to mental illness. For the decade and a half that followed, there is little record of Eliot and Hale’s relationship. There appear to be many years of silence and at least one miserable encounter in London. What we do know is that they met again in 1930, and, shortly thereafter, the still-married poet poured his heart out to Hale in a transatlantic confession, sixteen years after his first, futile proclamation. “[L]oving and adoring you,” he wrote by hand, “has given me the very best I have had in my life . . . in the midst of agony a deep peace + resignation springs.” The best included his Christian faith; Eliot implies that his 1927 conversion to Anglo-Catholicism owed something to Hale’s devotion as a Unitarian. And, of course, it included his poetry. At this point, he considered Hale both his saintly muse and his ideal reader. “There is no need to explain ‘Ash Wednesday’ to you,” he told her. “No one else will ever understand it.” (In his wife’s copy of “Poems 1909-1925,” he had written, “For my dearest Vivienne, this book, which no one else will quite understand.”)
That Emily Hale’s letters would become a part of his literary monument was a possibility Eliot considered only two months after his confession of love. He told her of a “locked tin box” he kept for his literary executor, with “a closed envelope marked ‘to be burnt at once’ ”—her letters, of course. Yet he couldn’t quite bear the thought of their destruction, and entertained the opposite fantasy, too: “But what I wish to do is to mark it ‘to be given to the Bodleian Library, not to be opened for 60 years.’ ” He wanted her to be remembered always as the Beatrice to his Dante, the moral force behind his religious conversion, and the inspiration behind some of his most beautiful poems.
T. S. Eliot and Emily Hale in Dorset, Vermont, during the summer of 1946. Photo courtesy Princeton University Library
Most readers know Eliot as the arch-impersonal poet, who bewildered the world with “The Waste Land” and proclaimed that “poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion.” Readers of this Eliot might, at first, have difficulty recognizing the gushy, hyperbolic admirer who signed his letters to Hale as “Tom.” In many of the letters, he described Hale as a kind of divinity, or at least nobility: “my Dove,” “my paragon”; his “one Fixed Point in this world.” Yet Eliot’s grandiloquent devotion can also sound like a kind of escape from certain messy feelings—the turmoil of his marriage, his uncertainty about his career—into something closer to what he sometimes called an “art emotion,” an impersonal, transcendent feeling. In his famous 1919 essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot wrote, “The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.” In 1936, when Hale had at last returned his affection, Eliot marvelled to find himself engaged in a “perpetual daily surrender” to Hale, “and yet at the same time . . . to something bigger than either ‘me’ or ‘you’ – to something that only you and I together can look at.” Something, perhaps, like a poem.
Writing to Hale was also therapeutic. “I like to be able to write to you and curse the people I am fondest of,” Eliot confessed:
I think that we all have these feelings but that most people are prudent about what they put into letters, for fear of being misunderstood. I am not afraid of being misunderstood by you, but I would rather be misunderstood than not say exactly what I feel at the moment of writing.
Eliot divulged a great deal in his letters—about his family resentments, about his sexual experience (or lack thereof), and even about the men who had made physical and emotional advances on him. (His friendship with Lytton Strachey ended, he said, when the Bloomsbury writer “went down on his knees and kissed me.”) As an Anglo-Catholic, Eliot already had a confessor, but his relationship with Hale was beyond confessional—she did not have the power to absolve him but to absorb him.
Eliot wrote to her obsessively, often twice a week. He learned when the ships carrying mail departed from England and kept track of which ones sailed fastest. Hale, for her part, was clearly burdened by Eliot’s unceasing correspondence. Much later, in a statement she wrote to accompany the archive, she would describe herself in this period as “the confidante by letters of all which was pent up in this gifted, emotional, grasping personality.” Hale, by then teaching at Scripps College, was overworked, and her health, although she tried to hide it from Eliot, was faltering. Her neuritis made it difficult for her to write. It wasn’t only Eliot’s insatiable demand for letters that taxed her. She was growing attached to him, and he was still married. From 1931 to 1934, Hale suggested at least five times that Eliot consider divorcing his wife. Eventually, Hale’s deteriorating health compelled her to take leave from Scripps. Only then did Eliot acknowledge his own hand in her collapse: “by constantly pressing myself upon your attention, and importuning you with my correspondence, I was really tampering insidiously with your mind.” The melodrama of his self-censure—“I see myself as a blood-sucker”—is especially telling. Like a vampire, he had not only drawn what he needed out of Hale but also, in the process, transformed her. She was falling in love.
Hale described herself as “the confidante by letters of all which was pent up in this gifted, emotional, grasping personality.” Photograph by Shelley Szwast / Courtesy Princeton University Library
Although Eliot had sought a formal separation from his wife in 1933, he made it clear to Hale that, as a converted Anglo-Catholic, he was both unwilling and unable to get a divorce. But for this constraint, he reminded her when pressed, “I would literally give my eyesight to be able to marry you.” He dwelled instead on the ways in which he felt them to be already bonded—the feeling of “simply belonging,” which, he said, had “something eternal about it.” His avowals became more pronounced in 1934, when Hale began an eighteen-month holiday in England and Europe. Whenever Hale came to London during her trip, Eliot let her borrow his flat—a spartan apartment in a Kensington clergy house. The two of them spent the night before she left for America together, with Eliot literally at Hale’s feet. “I am filled with wretchedness and rejoicing,” he wrote, almost as soon as she was gone, “and when I go to bed I shall imagine you kissing me; and when you take off your stocking you must imagine me kissing your dear dear feet and striving to approach your beautiful saintly soul.” (In January, 1936, Eliot wrote, “I love your foot, and to kiss it has special symbolism, because you have to take off your stocking to let me kiss it, and that is a kind of special act of consent.”) Marking this consummation, of sorts, they even exchanged rings. “This ring means to me all that a wedding ring can mean,” he promised, “and I love to wake up and feel it binding my finger, and know that it will always bind that finger.”