newyorker--2020-01-15--The Charms of Toronto for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

When Prince Harry first started dating Meghan Markle , the Duchess-to-be was renting a house a few blocks from me , in Seaton Village , a sleepy little neighborhood in Toronto ’ s West End .
One morning , on the way to the local Italian grocery store , I found the sidewalk blocked by large black sport-utility vehicles .
The Prince was visiting .
My instant reaction was annoyance .
“ Why don ’ t they move off my sidewalks ?
” I complained to an American friend .
“ That ’ s it ?
” my friend replied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a royal romance in your neighborhood ?
” This week , I imagine that there are a great number of people wondering why one of the most prominent couples in the world would endure a grilling by the Queen and humiliation in the press to move to Canada .
My reaction to those black S.U.V.s offers a clue : nobody here really cares what they do .
The literary critic Northrop Frye once called Toronto a good place to mind your own business—a trait that must seem pretty attractive to Meghan and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in their relationship to the Royal Family , can be staggeringly cruel .
With Meghan , their overt racism is glaring .
But while the racism is new , the savagery isn ’ t .
They go after everyone , exploiting whatever vulnerabilities they find .
They called Fergie the “ Duchess of Pork ” because she struggled with her weight .
They called Kate Middleton “ Waity Katie ” because she dated Prince William for a few years before they married .
For the British , the royals rest at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and defines every member of society .
The royals are permanent celebrities , untouchable—and therefore one may degrade them however one likes , because they will always be so far above everyone else .
The British press may be casually brutal in their treatment of the royals , but they do obey a key set of rules , which Meghan and Harry are about to abandon .
The Royal Rota system , by which selected press members trade regular access to the royals in exchange for an agreement to respect their basic privacy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The cage works both ways .
It keeps the royals in a state of servitude—a Sunday Times columnist famously described the arrangement as “ we pay , you pose ” —but it also limits the voraciousness of the press .
Which is partly why it is inconceivable that Harry and Meghan would move to New York or Los Angeles , at least in the short term .
Who would want to live like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie used to , prisoners of celebrity surviving invigilation without restraint , barely able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could survive it .
But Toronto ?
There ’ s a reason why the Rolling Stones always rehearse their tours here : it ’ s big enough to have city attractions , but its people will leave you in peace .
Toronto is the ideal city to move to if you want to become less famous .
It is not a particularly amenable place for people who think they ’ re special .
There are Toronto celebrities , but ninety-nine per cent of them became celebrities elsewhere .
The only way that people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of royal scrutiny is if they believed in the vital importance of the monarchy .
Who , at this point , would be willing to sacrifice their chance at happiness for that old bit of painted board ?
The British press are calling it a # Megxit , but who really left whom ?
Has England understood how much less attractive it has become as a country over the past few years ?
It wanted the foreigners to leave , remember ?
Who would want to endure it ?
For what ?
Harry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already—a multicultural family with a weirdly strong relationship to English institutions that they ’ re trying to overcome , a love of violent sports , and a profound desire to be left alone .
I could see them fitting right in .
( She ’ s already good friends with a Mulroney . )
It ’ s almost imaginable that they could have a life here .
I mean , no one would notice if Meghan wore bluejeans to a tennis match .
It ’ s conceivable—I ’ m not saying this would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could walk her dog in the park , like I used to see her doing .
She looked so happy then , just before she met Prince Charming .
Her life has been like a Hallmark movie in reverse : she had a great life that made perfect sense , right until the wedding with the scion of one of the oldest families in Europe .
Is it any wonder that she ’ s come to believe that her story can only have a happy ending if it goes backward ?
There ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , unknown to Hallmark : it is infinitely better to be a working actress in Toronto than a Duchess in Buckingham Palace .

When Prince Harry first started dating Meghan Markle, the Duchess-to-be was renting a house a few blocks from me, in Seaton Village, a sleepy little neighborhood in Toronto’s West End. One morning, on the way to the local Italian grocery store, I found the sidewalk blocked by large black sport-utility vehicles. The Prince was visiting. My instant reaction was annoyance. “Why don’t they move off my sidewalks?” I complained to an American friend. “That’s it?” my friend replied. “That’s your reaction to a royal romance in your neighborhood?” This week, I imagine that there are a great number of people wondering why one of the most prominent couples in the world would endure a grilling by the Queen and humiliation in the press to move to Canada. My reaction to those black S.U.V.s offers a clue: nobody here really cares what they do. The literary critic Northrop Frye once called Toronto a good place to mind your own business—a trait that must seem pretty attractive to Meghan and Harry right now.
The British press, in their relationship to the Royal Family, can be staggeringly cruel. With Meghan, their overt racism is glaring. But while the racism is new, the savagery isn’t. They go after everyone, exploiting whatever vulnerabilities they find. They called Fergie the “Duchess of Pork” because she struggled with her weight. They called Kate Middleton “Waity Katie” because she dated Prince William for a few years before they married. For the British, the royals rest at the pinnacle of a class structure that freezes and defines every member of society. The royals are permanent celebrities, untouchable—and therefore one may degrade them however one likes, because they will always be so far above everyone else.
The British press may be casually brutal in their treatment of the royals, but they do obey a key set of rules, which Meghan and Harry are about to abandon. The Royal Rota system, by which selected press members trade regular access to the royals in exchange for an agreement to respect their basic privacy, has been in place for generations. The cage works both ways. It keeps the royals in a state of servitude—a Sunday Times columnist famously described the arrangement as “we pay, you pose”—but it also limits the voraciousness of the press.
Which is partly why it is inconceivable that Harry and Meghan would move to New York or Los Angeles, at least in the short term. Who would want to live like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie used to, prisoners of celebrity surviving invigilation without restraint, barely able to walk down the street? No couple could survive it. But Toronto? There’s a reason why the Rolling Stones always rehearse their tours here: it’s big enough to have city attractions, but its people will leave you in peace. Toronto is the ideal city to move to if you want to become less famous. It is not a particularly amenable place for people who think they’re special. There are Toronto celebrities, but ninety-nine per cent of them became celebrities elsewhere.
The only way that people would put up with the horror-show nonsense of royal scrutiny is if they believed in the vital importance of the monarchy. Who, at this point, would be willing to sacrifice their chance at happiness for that old bit of painted board? The British press are calling it a #Megxit, but who really left whom? Has England understood how much less attractive it has become as a country over the past few years? It wanted the foreigners to leave, remember? Who would want to endure it? For what?
Harry and Meghan seem pretty Canadian to me already—a multicultural family with a weirdly strong relationship to English institutions that they’re trying to overcome, a love of violent sports, and a profound desire to be left alone. I could see them fitting right in. (She’s already good friends with a Mulroney.) It’s almost imaginable that they could have a life here. I mean, no one would notice if Meghan wore bluejeans to a tennis match.
It’s conceivable—I’m not saying this would happen, but it is conceivable—that Meghan could walk her dog in the park, like I used to see her doing. She looked so happy then, just before she met Prince Charming. Her life has been like a Hallmark movie in reverse: she had a great life that made perfect sense, right until the wedding with the scion of one of the oldest families in Europe. Is it any wonder that she’s come to believe that her story can only have a happy ending if it goes backward? There’s a moral of a kind here, unknown to Hallmark: it is infinitely better to be a working actress in Toronto than a Duchess in Buckingham Palace.


newyorker--2020-01-15--The Anger and Anguish Fuelling Iran’s Protests

The crisis unfolding in Iran—and the passions that sustain it—occasionally features an individual face or a human voice that conveys the public ’ s anguish .
Kimia Alizadeh , a lithe , six-foot-tall athlete with raven hair , won the bronze medal , in Tae Kwon Do , at the Rio Olympics , in 2016 .
No Iranian woman had ever won a medal , in any sport , in the summer Olympics .
Few outside Iran noticed .
Over the weekend , however , Alizadeh generated headlines around the world when she defected .
In a message on Instagram @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I start ?
With a hello , a goodbye or to offer my condolences ?
Hello to the oppressed people of Iran , goodbye to the noble people of Iran , and my condolences to the perpetually mourning people of Iran.
” She recounted being “ a pawn ” of a regime that told her how to dress , dictated what she said , and paraded her and her medals around for political gain .
“ To the kind and oppressed people of Iran : I did not want to climb to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and deceit , ” she wrote .
“ I am willing to bear the difficulty of living in exile because I could no longer stay at a table where dishonesty , con-artistry and injustice were being served .
Making this decision was more difficult than earning the Olympic medal.
” In the accompanying black-and-white picture , she wears her sports uniform ; her face was buried in her hands .
Alizadeh ’ s defection coincided with protests that erupted when Iran finally admitted on Saturday , after three days of lying , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ passenger plane , on January 8th .
( U.S. officials said they detected the signatures of two heat-seeking missiles near the Boeing 737 . )
The public outpouring began as a vigil ; more than eighty of the passengers were Iranian .
The vigil quickly turned into demonstrations that started on university campuses in Tehran , then spread , on Sunday , to at least a dozen cities .
The chants were scathing .
“ Death to the liars ” was a common cry .
So was “ Clerics , get lost !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where protests against the Shah four decades ago helped end millennia of monarchies , the demonstrators shouted , “ The Supreme Leader is a murderer .
His regime is obsolete.
” Anger has gripped Iran .
On Sunday , the students at Amir Kabir University in Tehran issued a lengthy statement—a kind of manifesto , in the name of “ the children of Iran ” —outlining their grievances and their demands .
“ Today , we are surrounded by evil from every quarter.
” They railed at the theocracy for “ complete @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic neglect and a foreign policy that brought the nation close to war .
“ Dear Iranian people !
” they appealed .
“ The only way to escape the current crisis is to return to a policy based on people ’ s democratic rights , a policy that will not rush into the arms of imperialism due to its fear of despotism , and one that in the name of resistance and fighting against imperialism will not legitimize despotism.
” President Trump praised the protesters on Twitter , highlighting their refusal to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ painted on the road for Iranians to symbolically trod on .
“ Wow !
The wonderful Iranian protesters refused to step on , or in any way denigrate , our Great American Flag.
” Trump wrote on Sunday .
“ It was put on the street in order for them to trample it , and they walked around it instead .
Big progress !
” But the students expressed equal scorn for U.S. “ aggression.
” For several years , they wrote , America ’ s presence in the Middle East “ has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The protests have been a stunning contrast to the emotional outpouring by millions of demonstrators , just a week ago , at memorials for General Qassem Suleimani .
The mastermind of Iran ’ s strategy to export its ideology and influence , Suleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on January 3rd .
Iran is a society deeply polarized between those who hate the regime and those still loyal to its rigid revolutionary ideology .
The back-to-back outpourings are not a contradiction .
Iranians are passionately proud of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s seventh-century conversion to Islam or the 1979 Iranian Revolution—whether or not they like their leaders or political system .
“ The outpouring of grief after Suleimani ’ s assassination was an ephemeral peak of nationalism that dissipated as quickly as it had emerged , ” Ali Vaez , the International Crisis Group ’ s Iran Project Director , told me .
Suleimani , beyond his support among the regime ’ s hard-line base , was admired by many Iranians for protecting the country as well as the Revolution .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further defaming Iran ’ s already deeply tarnished image , also struck a nationalist nerve .
Gelare Jabbari , the host of a popular program on state-controlled television , issued a public apology on her Instagram page for propagating the regime ’ s original claim that the Ukrainian plane had a mechanical malfunction—and other lies .
“ It was very hard for me to believe the murdering of my countrymen , ” she wrote .
“ Forgive me for believing it too late .
I apologize for lying to you on television for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picked up by international media , the post was deleted .
A union of journalists in the capital also apologized and appealed to other national media not to aid the government ’ s coverup .
“ We are currently holding a funeral service for public trust , ” the union ’ s statement said .
“ The first coffins are for state broadcast company and all media and websites.
” The new protests appear distinct from four earlier confrontations between the public and the state that have occurred since 1979 .
In 1999 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reformist newspaper , Salam , was banned by the government .
Protests grew into an open challenge to the regime and lasted six days , despite mass arrests , raids on dormitories , and the use of brute force .
The most famous picture , which made the cover of The Economist , showed a long-haired student waving his blood-soaked T-shirt above a demonstration .
A decade later , after the Presidential election in 2009 , tens of millions turned out on the streets of several cities to charge the government with fraud @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Those protests raged on sporadically for more than six months , even as security forces used live ammunition , arrested thousands , and held mass Stalinesque trials .
Former senior officials , including a former vice-president and a member of parliament , went to prison .
A decade later , two opposition Presidential candidates—a former prime minister and a parliamentary speaker—are still under house arrest .
Many participants in the street marches were from the middle class and reformist political camps .
The most iconic image in 2009 was a cell-phone video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ musician , after she was shot in the chest .
Streams of blood poured from her eyes , nose , and mouth , as passersby tried to help her .
It was over in forty seconds .
On social media accounts , dissidents transposed the pattern of blood on her face onto the face of the Supreme Leader , Ayatollah Ali Khamenei .
Two other rounds of nationwide protests—the first spanning the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 , and the second in November , 2019—were triggered by pocketbook issues .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ s economy has contracted by more than nine per cent , according to the International Monetary Fund .
Prices for basic necessities have soared , while the government removed subsidies and instituted fuel rationing .
Unemployment is high , and underemployment is chronic .
U.S. sanctions are partly responsible , but Iranians also blame government corruption and mismanagement .
Protests during the past two years have been different because they included members of the lower classes in whose name the Revolution was carried out .
They were also striking because the regime used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the unrest .
In November , hundreds were killed and thousands were injured , the highest casualty count since the Revolution , according to human-rights groups .
The government shut down the country ’ s Internet—and the prospect of lingering images .
The pace of protests is now more frequent , the tone more anti-establishment , and the government ’ s reaction more violent , Vaez told me .
“ The leadership 's abject failure to allow any serious reforms has brought the system to a dead-end .
It is unlikely to regain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ class and is increasingly losing the support of its own more pious/poorer constituents.
” The regime is scrambling to placate public opinion .
On Tuesday , Iran ’ s judiciary announced the arrest of people linked to the shooting down of the Ukrainian plane , but provided no names , no number , and no specific charges ; it also announced the arrest of dozens of protesters .
Khamenei , who has been the Supreme Leader for more than three decades , announced that he would lead Friday prayers this week—the first time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there is no government transparency .
And the protests continued on Tuesday into the night .
“ The Iranian leaders may take solace in their apparent ability to corral protests , but it would be the wrong conclusion , ” Vaez said .
“ There are numerous examples of repression backfiring , hardening opposition , and in some cases toppling governments that once seemed invulnerable.
” Behind the protests , there is a wistful longing as well as deep disillusionment .
At the end of her Instagram post , Alizadeh wrote , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I will forever remain a child of my native country .
”

The crisis unfolding in Iran—and the passions that sustain it—occasionally features an individual face or a human voice that conveys the public’s anguish. Kimia Alizadeh, a lithe, six-foot-tall athlete with raven hair, won the bronze medal, in Tae Kwon Do, at the Rio Olympics, in 2016. No Iranian woman had ever won a medal, in any sport, in the summer Olympics. Few outside Iran noticed. Over the weekend, however, Alizadeh generated headlines around the world when she defected. In a message on Instagram, she wrote, “How do I start? With a hello, a goodbye or to offer my condolences? Hello to the oppressed people of Iran, goodbye to the noble people of Iran, and my condolences to the perpetually mourning people of Iran.” She recounted being “a pawn” of a regime that told her how to dress, dictated what she said, and paraded her and her medals around for political gain. “To the kind and oppressed people of Iran: I did not want to climb to a pedestal whose steps are paved with lies and deceit,” she wrote. “I am willing to bear the difficulty of living in exile because I could no longer stay at a table where dishonesty, con-artistry and injustice were being served. Making this decision was more difficult than earning the Olympic medal.” In the accompanying black-and-white picture, she wears her sports uniform; her face was buried in her hands.
Alizadeh’s defection coincided with protests that erupted when Iran finally admitted on Saturday, after three days of lying, that its Revolutionary Guard shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, on January 8th. (U.S. officials said they detected the signatures of two heat-seeking missiles near the Boeing 737.) The public outpouring began as a vigil; more than eighty of the passengers were Iranian. The vigil quickly turned into demonstrations that started on university campuses in Tehran, then spread, on Sunday, to at least a dozen cities. The chants were scathing. “Death to the liars” was a common cry. So was “Clerics, get lost!” At Tehran’s Azadi Square, where protests against the Shah four decades ago helped end millennia of monarchies, the demonstrators shouted, “The Supreme Leader is a murderer. His regime is obsolete.”
Anger has gripped Iran. On Sunday, the students at Amirkabir University in Tehran issued a lengthy statement—a kind of manifesto, in the name of “the children of Iran”—outlining their grievances and their demands. “Today, we are surrounded by evil from every quarter.” They railed at the theocracy for “complete incompetence,” from political repression to economic neglect and a foreign policy that brought the nation close to war. “Dear Iranian people!” they appealed. “The only way to escape the current crisis is to return to a policy based on people’s democratic rights, a policy that will not rush into the arms of imperialism due to its fear of despotism, and one that in the name of resistance and fighting against imperialism will not legitimize despotism.”
President Trump praised the protesters on Twitter, highlighting their refusal to walk on huge American and Israeli flags painted on the road for Iranians to symbolically trod on. “Wow! The wonderful Iranian protesters refused to step on, or in any way denigrate, our Great American Flag.” Trump wrote on Sunday. “It was put on the street in order for them to trample it, and they walked around it instead. Big progress!” But the students expressed equal scorn for U.S. “aggression.” For several years, they wrote, America’s presence in the Middle East “has produced nothing but increasing insecurity and chaos.”
The protests have been a stunning contrast to the emotional outpouring by millions of demonstrators, just a week ago, at memorials for General Qassem Suleimani. The mastermind of Iran’s strategy to export its ideology and influence, Suleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on January 3rd. Iran is a society deeply polarized between those who hate the regime and those still loyal to its rigid revolutionary ideology. The back-to-back outpourings are not a contradiction. Iranians are passionately proud of their country—which dates back millennia, before Persia’s seventh-century conversion to Islam or the 1979 Iranian Revolution—whether or not they like their leaders or political system. “The outpouring of grief after Suleimani’s assassination was an ephemeral peak of nationalism that dissipated as quickly as it had emerged,” Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project Director, told me. Suleimani, beyond his support among the regime’s hard-line base, was admired by many Iranians for protecting the country as well as the Revolution. But the shooting down of the Ukrainian flight, further defaming Iran’s already deeply tarnished image, also struck a nationalist nerve.
Kimia Alizadeh, an Olympic bronze medallist, recounted being “a pawn” of a regime that told her how to dress, dictated what she said, and paraded her around for political gain. Photograph by Richard Heathcote / Getty
Gelare Jabbari, the host of a popular program on state-controlled television, issued a public apology on her Instagram page for propagating the regime’s original claim that the Ukrainian plane had a mechanical malfunction—and other lies. “It was very hard for me to believe the murdering of my countrymen,” she wrote. “Forgive me for believing it too late. I apologize for lying to you on television for thirteen years.” After her comment was picked up by international media, the post was deleted. A union of journalists in the capital also apologized and appealed to other national media not to aid the government’s coverup. “We are currently holding a funeral service for public trust,” the union’s statement said. “The first coffins are for state broadcast company and all media and websites.”
The new protests appear distinct from four earlier confrontations between the public and the state that have occurred since 1979. In 1999, students demonstrated on campuses after a reformist newspaper, Salam, was banned by the government. Protests grew into an open challenge to the regime and lasted six days, despite mass arrests, raids on dormitories, and the use of brute force. The most famous picture, which made the cover of The Economist, showed a long-haired student waving his blood-soaked T-shirt above a demonstration.
A decade later, after the Presidential election in 2009, tens of millions turned out on the streets of several cities to charge the government with fraud in the reëlection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Those protests raged on sporadically for more than six months, even as security forces used live ammunition, arrested thousands, and held mass Stalinesque trials. Former senior officials, including a former vice-president and a member of parliament, went to prison. A decade later, two opposition Presidential candidates—a former prime minister and a parliamentary speaker—are still under house arrest. Many participants in the street marches were from the middle class and reformist political camps. The most iconic image in 2009 was a cell-phone video of Neda Soltan, a twenty-six-year-old aspiring musician, after she was shot in the chest. Streams of blood poured from her eyes, nose, and mouth, as passersby tried to help her. It was over in forty seconds. On social media accounts, dissidents transposed the pattern of blood on her face onto the face of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Two other rounds of nationwide protests—the first spanning the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, and the second in November, 2019—were triggered by pocketbook issues. In the past year, Iran’s economy has contracted by more than nine per cent, according to the International Monetary Fund. Prices for basic necessities have soared, while the government removed subsidies and instituted fuel rationing. Unemployment is high, and underemployment is chronic. U.S. sanctions are partly responsible, but Iranians also blame government corruption and mismanagement. Protests during the past two years have been different because they included members of the lower classes in whose name the Revolution was carried out. They were also striking because the regime used force against its political base to crush the unrest. In November, hundreds were killed and thousands were injured, the highest casualty count since the Revolution, according to human-rights groups. The government shut down the country’s Internet—and the prospect of lingering images.
The pace of protests is now more frequent, the tone more anti-establishment, and the government’s reaction more violent, Vaez told me. “The leadership's abject failure to allow any serious reforms has brought the system to a dead-end. It is unlikely to regain the trust and support of the middle class and is increasingly losing the support of its own more pious/poorer constituents.”
The regime is scrambling to placate public opinion. On Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary announced the arrest of people linked to the shooting down of the Ukrainian plane, but provided no names, no number, and no specific charges; it also announced the arrest of dozens of protesters. Khamenei, who has been the Supreme Leader for more than three decades, announced that he would lead Friday prayers this week—the first time in eight years. But so far there is no government transparency. And the protests continued on Tuesday into the night.
“The Iranian leaders may take solace in their apparent ability to corral protests, but it would be the wrong conclusion,” Vaez said. “There are numerous examples of repression backfiring, hardening opposition, and in some cases toppling governments that once seemed invulnerable.” Behind the protests, there is a wistful longing as well as deep disillusionment. At the end of her Instagram post, Alizadeh wrote, “Please know that wherever I am, I will forever remain a child of my native country.”


newyorker--2020-01-15--The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’s Group Text

Pestilence : Hey , guys , what horses are you gon na ride for the apocalypse tomorrow ?
Thinking of doing white .
War : Red ?
That feels like me , right ?
Pestilence : O.K.
, but , like , what do you mean by “ pale ” ?
Pestilence : O.K.
, but it feels like that ’ s sort of what I ’ m doing with white .
War : If switching colors is on the table , I have to be honest , I can ’ t find a red horse .
Can I do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you do white ?
Famine : What time is everyone getting there ?
I don ’ t want to show up and have it be just , like , me and the beasts making small talk .
Pestilence : I think I caught a bug or something and I ’ m kinda sick , so I think I ’ m gon na go on the early side and then duck out .
Death : I have , like , two birthday things on the other side of town that night , so I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Famine : Death , can I just get a ride with you ?
I think I ’ m going to the same b-day drinks .
Pestilence : O.K.
, but you each have to be on a different horse .
That ’ s , like , the whole deal .
Death : I might bring that guy I ’ m seeing .
Pestilence : Death , will you just tell me what color horse you ’ re riding ?
I ’ m doing white and I called it first .
Famine : Has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s my first and I don ’ t really know what I ’ m getting into .
War : That ’ s , like , the whole point of an apocalypse .
There ’ s only one .
Famine : Can I get some outfit advice ?
What if I was just , like , holding scales ?
Pestilence : You ’ re gon na hold them the whole night ?
Famine : Yeah , like .
.
.
weighing the food ?
Get it ?
Pestilence : Isn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have food ?
Like , you ’ d be weighing nothing ?
Also , I get that this event has a theme , but I don ’ t think it ’ s , like , costumed .
Pestilence : Wait , I can ’ t find my invite .
Were we supposed to bring an object ?
Death : The guy I ’ m seeing is my object .
War : What if you brought , like , a thermometer .
Or tea ?
Pestilence : You guys are acting like children .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in “ The Breakfast Club ” giving the finger ] Pestilence : Fuck you , guys .
I ’ m riding a white horse and I ’ m confident enough to not hold an object .
War : Has renamed the group chat “ Pestilence is a little bitch.
” Pestilence : Fine !
Don ’ t come !
I ’ m going early and hanging out with the beasts , who are actually very cool .
Death : Pale is very different from white .
Death : Also , can I add @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the chat ?
I feel like it ’ d be easier to plan ?
Famine : NO .
THE GROUP CHAT IS SACRED .
Pestilence : We ’ ve had this chat for , like , two thousand years .
You can ’ t just add someone new .
Death : Has added “ Climate Change ” to the chat .
Climate Change : Hey , guys !
So excited to meet you all !
I ’ ve never been to an apocalypse before !
War : AGAIN , THAT ’ S THE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Pestilence : So excited to hang—I feel like you and I are gon na be buds .
Pestilence : [ gif of Molly Ringwald in “ The Breakfast Club ” giving the finger ]

Pestilence: Hey, guys, what horses are you gonna ride for the apocalypse tomorrow? Thinking of doing white.
Famine: Dibs black.
War: Red? That feels like me, right?
Pestilence: Death, what color you thinking?
Death: Pale.
Pestilence: . . .
War: OMG LOL
Pestilence: O.K., but, like, what do you mean by “pale”?
Death: Pale.
Pestilence: O.K., but it feels like that’s sort of what I’m doing with white.
War: If switching colors is on the table, I have to be honest, I can’t find a red horse. Can I do strawberry roan?
Death: What if you do white?
Pestilence: O.K., seriously?
Famine: What time is everyone getting there? I don’t want to show up and have it be just, like, me and the beasts making small talk.
Pestilence: I think I caught a bug or something and I’m kinda sick, so I think I’m gonna go on the early side and then duck out.
Death: I have, like, two birthday things on the other side of town that night, so I’ll keep you all posted.
Famine: Death, can I just get a ride with you? I think I’m going to the same b-day drinks.
Pestilence: O.K., but you each have to be on a different horse. That’s, like, the whole deal.
Death: I might bring that guy I’m seeing.
Pestilence: Death, will you just tell me what color horse you’re riding? I’m doing white and I called it first.
Death: Pale.
Famine: Has anyone been to an apocalypse before? It’s my first and I don’t really know what I’m getting into.
War: That’s, like, the whole point of an apocalypse. There’s only one.
Famine: Can I get some outfit advice? What if I was just, like, holding scales?
Pestilence: You’re gonna hold them the whole night?
Famine: Yeah, like . . . weighing the food? Get it?
Pestilence: Isn’t the point that you don’t have food? Like, you’d be weighing nothing? Also, I get that this event has a theme, but I don’t think it’s, like, costumed.
War: BOOOOOOO I’m bringing a SWORD.
Pestilence: Wait, I can’t find my invite. Were we supposed to bring an object?
Death: The guy I’m seeing is my object.
War: What if you brought, like, a thermometer. Or tea?
Pestilence: I’m not a common cold! I’m a PLAQUE! It’s cool!
War: PLAQUE
Famine: PLAQUE PLAQUE PLAQUE
Death: PLAQUEEE
Pestilence: *Plague. Jesus.
Pestilence: You guys are acting like children.
War: [gif of Judge Judy rolling her eyes]
Famine: [gif of NeNe Leakes rolling her eyes]
Death: [gif of Molly Ringwald in “The Breakfast Club” giving the finger]
Pestilence: Fuck you, guys. I’m riding a white horse and I’m confident enough to not hold an object.
War: Has renamed the group chat “Pestilence is a little bitch.”
Pestilence: Fine! Don’t come! I’m going early and hanging out with the beasts, who are actually very cool.
Famine: OMG, calm down!
Death: Pale is very different from white.
Pestilence: Literally how?!
Death: Also, can I add the guy I’m seeing to the chat? I feel like it’d be easier to plan?
Famine: NO. THE GROUP CHAT IS SACRED.
Pestilence: We’ve had this chat for, like, two thousand years. You can’t just add someone new.
Death: Has added “Climate Change” to the chat.
Death: Whoops.
Death: Too late.
Climate Change: Hey, guys! So excited to meet you all! I’ve never been to an apocalypse before!
War: AGAIN, THAT’S THE POINT. THERE’S ONLY ONE.
Pestilence: So excited to hang—I feel like you and I are gonna be buds.
Famine: Plaque.
War: PLAQUEEE
Pestilence: [gif of Molly Ringwald in “The Breakfast Club” giving the finger]


newyorker--2020-01-16--The Uneasy Truce of Trump’s Trade Deal with China

When the history is written of how China came to replace the United States as the world ’ s biggest economy , the interim trade deal that Donald Trump and Liu He , China ’ s Vice-Premier , signed at the White House on Wednesday will probably be relegated to the postscript .
The economic growth that China has experienced since Deng Xiaoping came to power , in the late nineteen-seventies , is so remarkable that , once you adjust for the fact that prices of the same goods can vary widely from country to country , its economy is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. economy , according to the World Bank .
As time goes on , this gap will almost certainly get larger and larger .
The sheer heft of China ’ s economy explains why so many senior figures from corporate America were sitting in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday , as Trump and Liu signed a ninety-page trade deal that was billed as Phase I of a larger agreement , which is supposed to be negotiated in the coming months and years .
For big corporations such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Chinese market is already a key one , and it has the potential to become an enormous one .
But on what terms will these companies be admitted or allowed to expand ?
For much of China ’ s epic period of economic transformation , the terms were dictated by the Chinese , and they tended to be pretty harsh .
To set up a factory or office in the Middle Kingdom , foreign companies often had to partner with a local business or buy many of their components from local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to teach the firms how to build these components and hand over proprietary technical information .
As Keith Bradsher , the Shanghai-bureau chief of the Times , explains , this in turn enabled China to create its own industrial champions , many of which are state-owned or receive heavy subsidies from the government .
Other parts of the Chinese economy remained effectively closed to non-Chinese firms .
In some areas , such as entertainment , technology , and pharmaceuticals , foreign companies looked on helplessly as their products were pirated and their copyrights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t new .
In the early nineteenth century , for instance , many cotton mills in Massachusetts relied on designs that originated in Britain and had been transported across the Atlantic .
Setting up low-cost manufacturing facilities , providing subsidies to local producers , and restricting access to potential foreign competitors were key elements of the Asian growth model , which countries like Japan , Taiwan , and South Korea pioneered in the postwar decades .
China ’ s innovation was mainly to apply this model on a massive scale , regardless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to power , he was determined to force changes in Chinese behavior and to reduce the U.S.-China trade deficit , which had grown to more than four hundred billion dollars .
He slapped tariffs on more than three hundred billion dollars ’ worth of Chinese exports , and , in August , 2019 , he announced that he would expand the duties to include nearly all Chinese goods .
With the trade dispute having already hit American farmers and industrial producers hard , there were fears that an all-out escalation could drag down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year , and perhaps cause a big fall in the stock market .
In September , Trump blinked and postponed the new tariffs .
In October , the Administration announced that the two sides had agreed to the outline of an interim deal , which was the one signed on Wednesday .
How significant is the deal ?
Trump hyped it up , of course .
“ This is the biggest deal anybody has ever seen , ” he said .
Robert Lighthizer , the hawkish U.S. Trade Representative , who led the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ measured .
In December , he said that the deal “ achieves meaningful , fully enforceable structural changes and begins rebalancing the U.S.-China trade relationship.
” But even that assessment may be too optimistic .
From the outset , China has been playing a waiting game , looking to outlast Trump .
Now it looks suspiciously like Beijing has bought off the American President with some nice headlines about buying more American goods— “ They thought it was a fifty-billion-dollar agricultural deal .
Now it ’ s much more than two hundred billion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Trump crowed—while hedging , yet again , on giving up its mercantilist practices .
The key point is that the deal doesn ’ t end the trade war .
It is merely a truce—a formalization of October ’ s commitment not to escalate things further .
Until at least the end of Trump ’ s current term , most of the tariffs he has introduced will remain in effect .
According to Chad Brown , of the Peterson Institute for International Economics , the average tariff on imports from China will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three per cent when Trump took office .
Of course , this is something that Trump , the self-proclaimed Tariff Man , sees as a feature , rather than as a bug , in the deal .
“ I ’ m leaving them ” —the tariffs— “ on because otherwise we have no card to negotiate with , ” he said .
The body of the agreement contains a lot of detailed language about China ’ s commitments to protect intellectual property , welcome foreign investment with fewer restrictions , and guarantee market @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will open itself even wider , ” Liu said in his remarks .
But Beijing has made similar public commitments before , only to renege on them or slow down their implementation .
Last year , the American side was insisting that the Chinese change some domestic laws in order to fulfil their obligations under the trade accord , but there is no mention of this in the interim agreement .
“ It really will come down to whether they ” —the Chinese— “ do what they say they are going to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Under-Secretary of Commerce who is at the Center for Strategic and International Studies , told Bloomberg Television .
Trump Administration officials pointed to the enforcement mechanisms contained in the agreement , which include the establishment of a bilateral conflict-resolution body .
Here , too , though , there may be less than meets the eye .
“ The dispute resolution section will have the same problem we ’ ve always faced , ” James Green , a former U.S. trade negotiator , told the Wall Street Journal .
“ Companies are reluctant to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or discriminatory treatment.
” Moreover , the agreement says nothing about two more key areas of conflict : government subsidies to Chinese firms and the operation of state-owned enterprises .
These thorny issues , and others , are supposed to be dealt with in negotiations leading to Phase II of the deal .
But the road ahead “ is going to be long and difficult , ” Reinsch noted .

When the history is written of how China came to replace the United States as the world’s biggest economy, the interim trade deal that Donald Trump and Liu He, China’s Vice-Premier, signed at the White House on Wednesday will probably be relegated to the postscript. The economic growth that China has experienced since Deng Xiaoping came to power, in the late nineteen-seventies, is so remarkable that, once you adjust for the fact that prices of the same goods can vary widely from country to country, its economy is already about four trillion dollars larger than the U.S. economy, according to the World Bank. As time goes on, this gap will almost certainly get larger and larger.
The sheer heft of China’s economy explains why so many senior figures from corporate America were sitting in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday, as Trump and Liu signed a ninety-page trade deal that was billed as Phase I of a larger agreement, which is supposed to be negotiated in the coming months and years. For big corporations such as Boeing, Ford, and General Electric, the Chinese market is already a key one, and it has the potential to become an enormous one. But on what terms will these companies be admitted or allowed to expand?
For much of China’s epic period of economic transformation, the terms were dictated by the Chinese, and they tended to be pretty harsh. To set up a factory or office in the Middle Kingdom, foreign companies often had to partner with a local business or buy many of their components from local firms. Often, foreign companies had to teach the firms how to build these components and hand over proprietary technical information. As Keith Bradsher, the Shanghai-bureau chief of the Times, explains, this in turn enabled China to create its own industrial champions, many of which are state-owned or receive heavy subsidies from the government. Other parts of the Chinese economy remained effectively closed to non-Chinese firms. In some areas, such as entertainment, technology, and pharmaceuticals, foreign companies looked on helplessly as their products were pirated and their copyrights breached.
The Chinese growth model wasn’t new. In the early nineteenth century, for instance, many cotton mills in Massachusetts relied on designs that originated in Britain and had been transported across the Atlantic. Setting up low-cost manufacturing facilities, providing subsidies to local producers, and restricting access to potential foreign competitors were key elements of the Asian growth model, which countries like Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea pioneered in the postwar decades. China’s innovation was mainly to apply this model on a massive scale, regardless of foreign complaints.
When Trump came to power, he was determined to force changes in Chinese behavior and to reduce the U.S.-China trade deficit, which had grown to more than four hundred billion dollars. He slapped tariffs on more than three hundred billion dollars’ worth of Chinese exports, and, in August, 2019, he announced that he would expand the duties to include nearly all Chinese goods. With the trade dispute having already hit American farmers and industrial producers hard, there were fears that an all-out escalation could drag down the entire economy going into an election year, and perhaps cause a big fall in the stock market. In September, Trump blinked and postponed the new tariffs. In October, the Administration announced that the two sides had agreed to the outline of an interim deal, which was the one signed on Wednesday.
How significant is the deal? Trump hyped it up, of course. “This is the biggest deal anybody has ever seen,” he said. Robert Lighthizer, the hawkish U.S. Trade Representative, who led the American negotiating team, has been more measured. In December, he said that the deal “achieves meaningful, fully enforceable structural changes and begins rebalancing the U.S.-China trade relationship.” But even that assessment may be too optimistic. From the outset, China has been playing a waiting game, looking to outlast Trump. Now it looks suspiciously like Beijing has bought off the American President with some nice headlines about buying more American goods—“They thought it was a fifty-billion-dollar agricultural deal. Now it’s much more than two hundred billion, of which fifty is agricultural,” Trump crowed—while hedging, yet again, on giving up its mercantilist practices.
The key point is that the deal doesn’t end the trade war. It is merely a truce—a formalization of October’s commitment not to escalate things further. Until at least the end of Trump’s current term, most of the tariffs he has introduced will remain in effect. According to Chad Bown, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the average tariff on imports from China will be 19.3 per cent, up from about three per cent when Trump took office. Of course, this is something that Trump, the self-proclaimed Tariff Man, sees as a feature, rather than as a bug, in the deal. “I’m leaving them”—the tariffs—“on because otherwise we have no card to negotiate with,” he said.
The body of the agreement contains a lot of detailed language about China’s commitments to protect intellectual property, welcome foreign investment with fewer restrictions, and guarantee market access to foreign competitors. “China will open itself even wider,” Liu said in his remarks. But Beijing has made similar public commitments before, only to renege on them or slow down their implementation. Last year, the American side was insisting that the Chinese change some domestic laws in order to fulfil their obligations under the trade accord, but there is no mention of this in the interim agreement. “It really will come down to whether they”—the Chinese—“do what they say they are going to do,” William Reinsch, a former Under-Secretary of Commerce who is at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Bloomberg Television.
Trump Administration officials pointed to the enforcement mechanisms contained in the agreement, which include the establishment of a bilateral conflict-resolution body. Here, too, though, there may be less than meets the eye. “The dispute resolution section will have the same problem we’ve always faced,” James Green, a former U.S. trade negotiator, told the Wall Street Journal. “Companies are reluctant to become poster children for market access problems or discriminatory treatment.” Moreover, the agreement says nothing about two more key areas of conflict: government subsidies to Chinese firms and the operation of state-owned enterprises. These thorny issues, and others, are supposed to be dealt with in negotiations leading to Phase II of the deal. But the road ahead “is going to be long and difficult,” Reinsch noted.
A previous version of this article misspelled Chad Bown’s surname.


To My Embalmers

First of all , humongous thanks for doing this .
Since I ’ ve been told I ’ m somewhat of a “ cool pharaoh ” by a lot of my servants ( who are basically my friends ) , I thought I ’ d leave a few tips and thoughts on my mummification .
And maybe some fun hieroglyphs , too .
: -P Obviously , you will be removing my rapidly decaying organs and preserving them in jars .
Would love for you to organize them alphabetically , rather than by color .
Even if the fad , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organs by color , because it looks cooler to visitors—I don ’ t know , I feel like I ’ m the kind of pharaoh who sets his own trends .
Plus , I ’ d prefer that my larynx and bladder be a few jars away from each other .
As far as removing my brain via my nose—LOL , hope that isn ’ t too weird for you !
I have a deviated septum ( seriously , a real one ) , so the right nostril is probably the best bet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The more , the better .
Lay ’ em on !
When you cover my hallowed body in salt , to remove all its moisture , PLEASE use sea salt .
I read somewhere that table salt has a lot of sodium ( can ’ t remember where ) .
I left a similar note for my tomb guys , but I really want to make sure that my casement is facing toward the door .
It always bugs me if I ’ m facing away from a door—I dunno , it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
My nephew Seth has always wanted to be a burial priest , but has been struggling to find a way into the biz—can you please include him in the rites prep ?
BTW , Seth lives in Amenhotep Palace III and actually has some prayer experience .
I might be venting some anxiety here , but PUH-LEEZE remember to perform the rites required for me to speak and eat in the afterlife .
Definitely want to do both of those things .
: D I set aside the good linens for you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re in the northwest pyramid , behind the jackal-god statues , I think .
As you know , I ’ m a big Osiris fan .
Would love some Osiris paintings on the sarcophagus—something minimal and classy .
Finally , please make sure to mummify my cat !
I couldn ’ t imagine making my way through the Underworld to the Field of Reeds without her .
I ’ m such a cat person .
: - )

First of all, humongous thanks for doing this. Since I’ve been told I’m somewhat of a “cool pharaoh” by a lot of my servants (who are basically my friends), I thought I’d leave a few tips and thoughts on my mummification. And maybe some fun hieroglyphs, too. :-P
Obviously, you will be removing my rapidly decaying organs and preserving them in jars. Would love for you to organize them alphabetically, rather than by color. Even if the fad, when I die, is to organize organs by color, because it looks cooler to visitors—I don’t know, I feel like I’m the kind of pharaoh who sets his own trends. Plus, I’d prefer that my larynx and bladder be a few jars away from each other.
As far as removing my brain via my nose—LOL, hope that isn’t too weird for you! I have a deviated septum (seriously, a real one), so the right nostril is probably the best bet.
I. Love. Amulets. The more, the better. Lay ’em on!
When you cover my hallowed body in salt, to remove all its moisture, PLEASE use sea salt. I read somewhere that table salt has a lot of sodium (can’t remember where).
I left a similar note for my tomb guys, but I really want to make sure that my casement is facing toward the door. It always bugs me if I’m facing away from a door—I dunno, it’s an anxiety thing. Shrug hieroglyph.
My nephew Seth has always wanted to be a burial priest, but has been struggling to find a way into the biz—can you please include him in the rites prep?
BTW, Seth lives in Amenhotep Palace III and actually has some prayer experience.
I might be venting some anxiety here, but PUH-LEEZE remember to perform the rites required for me to speak and eat in the afterlife. Definitely want to do both of those things. :D
I set aside the good linens for you to wrap me in. They’re in the northwest pyramid, behind the jackal-god statues, I think.
As you know, I’m a big Osiris fan. Would love some Osiris paintings on the sarcophagus—something minimal and classy.
Finally, please make sure to mummify my cat! I couldn’t imagine making my way through the Underworld to the Field of Reeds without her. I’m such a cat person. :-)


newyorker--2020-01-17--Film Forum’s Celebration of Black Actresses

Film Forum ’ s “ Black Women : Trailblazing African American Performers & Images , 1920-2001 ” ( through Feb. @ @ @ @ @ range of movies that display the artistry of black actresses .
The series offers films @ @ @ @ @ Oscar Micheaux ’ s “ Within Our Gates , ” featuring Evelyn Preer , and @ @ @ @ @ Bush Mama , ” starring Barbarao—and also films by white directors in the Hollywood studio @ @ @ @ @ Preminger ’ s musical “ Carmen Jones , ” starring Dorothy Dandridge ( above ) @

Film Forum’s “Black Women: Trailblazing African American Performers & Images, 1920-2001” (through Feb. 13) presents a wide range of movies that display the artistry of black actresses. The series offers films by black independent directors—such as Oscar Micheaux’s “Within Our Gates,” featuring Evelyn Preer, and Haile Gerima’s “Bush Mama,” starring Barbarao—and also films by white directors in the Hollywood studio system, such as Otto Preminger’s musical “Carmen Jones,” starring Dorothy Dandridge (above).


newyorker--2020-01-17--A Hundred Years of Fellini

A Hundred Years of Fellini

A hundred years ago , on January 20 , 1920 , Federico Fellini was born in the Italian town of Rimini , on the Adriatic coast .
The time and the place matter more than anything else , as we approach him now and try to make sense of the movies he bequeathed—crown jewels such as “ La Dolce Vita ” ( 1960 ) and “ 8 1/2 ” ( 1963 ) , Oscar winners such as “ La Strada ” ( 1954 ) , “ Nights of Cabiria ” ( 1957 ) , and “ Amarcord ” ( 1973 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ works .
Many of them are warmed by the music of Nino Rota .
Some glitter too fiercely for comfort .
Rimini has two faces .
One face looks out to sea , and any Fellini fan will recall the beach scenes that litter his films .
( The bullying hero of “ La Strada , ” a circus strongman , winds up collapsing in tears on the sand .
Exhausted orgiasts , in “ La Dolce Vita , ” drift through pines and emerge onto a barren strand , where a monster @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accusing eyes , has been dragged ashore in a net . )
Rimini ’ s other face is turned inland , toward the Eternal—and maternal—City , which beckons Fellini ’ s characters and gathers them to its bosom .
The first word that we hear in “ The White Sheik ” ( 1952 ) , his first film as a solo director , is “ Roma.
” It is uttered by a man at a train window , nearing his destination .
As Fellini explained to Lillian Ross , in 1965 , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the notorious March on Rome , in 1922 , two years after Fellini ’ s birth .
Fascists strode en masse toward the capital , and , shortly afterward , Mussolini came to power .
So it was that Fellini grew up in the embrace of Fascist rule .
“ Amarcord , ” his most autobiographical film ( which is saying something , for no director has fed more hungrily on the fruits of memory ) , is set in a heightened version of Rimini , staffed with figures in black uniforms .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ absurd .
As a Fascist commander , pool cue in hand , prepares to play a shot in the local bar , one of his minions tiptoes around the room , so as not to disturb the maestro at work .
Suddenly , the lights go off .
We could be in a theatre , watching a dark farce .
Foes of Fellini will point to a sequence like this and ask , Where are the victims ?
Do the sufferings of the time count for nothing , under his anesthetizing gaze ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fascism that arises from “ Amarcord ” has none of the sinuous and oppressive mood that sheathes , say , Bertolucci ’ s “ The Conformist ” ( 1970 ) , and Fellini may be the least politically engaged of major filmmakers .
He would shrug , I suspect , and say , “ That ’ s how it was ” —like it or not , that ’ s how the events of the period lodged in the soul of a boy .
But “ Amarcord ” also discovers something adolescent in Fascism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poses and its laughably doomed attempt to manhandle the vast profusion of experience into line with a single point of view .
If Fellini ’ s camera finds it hard to sit still , that is less a stylistic tic and more a principled refusal to get stuck .
No surprise , perhaps , that he began as a cartoonist , and continued to scribble sketches throughout his career .
Whenever a soirée , in his movies , swells into a gallery of grotesques , you detect his primary insistence—shared with his friend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the human visage .
When Fellini went to Rome , in 1939 , his mother wanted him to study law , but he never did .
Instead he drew , and wrote garrulous humor pieces for newspapers .
He had a regular column , “ Will You Listen to What I Have to Say ?
” After the Allies liberated the city , he opened a store called the Funny Face Shop , where caricatures could be produced in ten minutes .
Among the customers were American soldiers , who needed something to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1944 , the movie director Roberto Rossellini came to the Funny Face .
Having heard about Fellini , he invited him to participate in a new project .
The result was that Fellini received writing credits on Rossellini ’ s “ Rome , Open City ” ( 1945 ) and “ Paisan ” ( 1946 ) , which happen to be two of the most wrenching testaments to the effects of war .
( So much for his being numb to pain . )
For each movie , Fellini—who had no college degree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nominated for an Academy Award .
He started directing in the early nineteen-fifties , and didn ’ t stop until “ The Voice of the Moon ” ( 1990 ) , three years before his death .
And that ’ s how you get to be a great filmmaker .
Simple , really .

A hundred years ago, on January 20, 1920, Federico Fellini was born in the Italian town of Rimini, on the Adriatic coast. The time and the place matter more than anything else, as we approach him now and try to make sense of the movies he bequeathed—crown jewels such as “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and “8 1/2” (1963), Oscar winners such as “La Strada” (1954), “Nights of Cabiria” (1957), and “Amarcord” (1973), and a cluster of other works. Many of them are warmed by the music of Nino Rota. Some glitter too fiercely for comfort.
Rimini has two faces. One face looks out to sea, and any Fellini fan will recall the beach scenes that litter his films. (The bullying hero of “La Strada,” a circus strongman, winds up collapsing in tears on the sand. Exhausted orgiasts, in “La Dolce Vita,” drift through pines and emerge onto a barren strand, where a monster of the deep, with viscid and accusing eyes, has been dragged ashore in a net.) Rimini’s other face is turned inland, toward the Eternal—and maternal—City, which beckons Fellini’s characters and gathers them to its bosom. The first word that we hear in “The White Sheik” (1952), his first film as a solo director, is “Roma.” It is uttered by a man at a train window, nearing his destination. As Fellini explained to Lillian Ross, in 1965, in this magazine:
My mother was a Roman. As soon as I came to Rome, I had the feeling that I was home. Now I consider Rome my private apartment. That is the seduction secret of Rome. It is not like being in a city, it is like being in an apartment. The streets are like corridors. Rome is still the mother.
We should also remember the notorious March on Rome, in 1922, two years after Fellini’s birth. Fascists strode en masse toward the capital, and, shortly afterward, Mussolini came to power. So it was that Fellini grew up in the embrace of Fascist rule. “Amarcord,” his most autobiographical film (which is saying something, for no director has fed more hungrily on the fruits of memory), is set in a heightened version of Rimini, staffed with figures in black uniforms. Fellini wastes no opportunity to find them absurd. As a Fascist commander, pool cue in hand, prepares to play a shot in the local bar, one of his minions tiptoes around the room, so as not to disturb the maestro at work. Suddenly, the lights go off. We could be in a theatre, watching a dark farce.
Foes of Fellini will point to a sequence like this and ask, Where are the victims? Do the sufferings of the time count for nothing, under his anesthetizing gaze? To be sure, the vision of Fascism that arises from “Amarcord” has none of the sinuous and oppressive mood that sheathes, say, Bertolucci’s “The Conformist” (1970), and Fellini may be the least politically engaged of major filmmakers. He would shrug, I suspect, and say, “That’s how it was”—like it or not, that’s how the events of the period lodged in the soul of a boy. But “Amarcord” also discovers something adolescent in Fascism itself, with its taste for proud poses and its laughably doomed attempt to manhandle the vast profusion of experience into line with a single point of view. If Fellini’s camera finds it hard to sit still, that is less a stylistic tic and more a principled refusal to get stuck.
No surprise, perhaps, that he began as a cartoonist, and continued to scribble sketches throughout his career. Whenever a soirée, in his movies, swells into a gallery of grotesques, you detect his primary insistence—shared with his friend Ingmar Bergman—on cinema as a record of the human visage. When Fellini went to Rome, in 1939, his mother wanted him to study law, but he never did. Instead he drew, and wrote garrulous humor pieces for newspapers. He had a regular column, “Will You Listen to What I Have to Say?” After the Allies liberated the city, he opened a store called the Funny Face Shop, where caricatures could be produced in ten minutes. Among the customers were American soldiers, who needed something to send home.
One day, in 1944, the movie director Roberto Rossellini came to the Funny Face. Having heard about Fellini, he invited him to participate in a new project. The result was that Fellini received writing credits on Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City” (1945) and “Paisan” (1946), which happen to be two of the most wrenching testaments to the effects of war. (So much for his being numb to pain.) For each movie, Fellini—who had no college degree, and never went to film school—was nominated for an Academy Award. He started directing in the early nineteen-fifties, and didn’t stop until “The Voice of the Moon” (1990), three years before his death. And that’s how you get to be a great filmmaker. Simple, really.
Fellini is also the great divider. “La Dolce Vita” was the film most loved by Roger Ebert, for whom it was transformed with every viewing, whereas Pauline Kael likened Fellini’s efforts to “poking your head into a sack of fertilizer and then becoming indignant because you’re covered with excrement.” The director, she said, was “shocked and horrified” by the antics of the idle rich that he surveyed. If so, the shock has not survived; what lingers, after sixty years, is a lazy amusement at mortal foibles, which are scarcely confined to the wealthy. It is the poor who flock to a strip of wasteland where a couple of kids, for a giggle, claim to have beheld the Virgin Mary. Any hint of holiness is wrecked by a rainstorm, and by the glare of the arc lights under which TV cameras hope to catch the miracle, yet Fellini does not rage at our credulity. He smiles.
The Catholic Church, meanwhile, was horrified at “La Dolce Vita.” How else to respond to a film that begins with a skyborne statue of Jesus being ferried over Rome—a second coming, brought to us by helicopter? (Notice not just the sacred cargo but, beneath it, the half-built apartment blocks: a postwar metropolis, captured in mid-boom.) Then, there’s the movie idol (Anita Ekberg), who dresses like a parody of a priest to ascend into the dome of St. Peter’s, and famously romps in the Trevi Fountain. A monument of pagan majesty, in her strapless gown, she is an alabaster bust endowed with the breath of life; more blasphemous still, she drips water onto the head of her devotee, a hangdog reporter named Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni). No infant could be more tenderly baptized.
Mastroianni is one of two performers who lend a nourishing continuity to Fellini’s films. The other is Giulietta Masina, to whom Fellini was married for fifty years. Her roles included a trumpet-tooting waif in “La Strada,” a prostitute in “Nights of Cabiria,” and a housewife visited by fantasies in Fellini’s first color feature, “Juliet of the Spirits” (1965). The joke, with Masina, is that she couldn’t be further from the voluptuaries who stalk through her husband’s tales; with Mastroianni, the joke is that, though forever cast as a seducer, he is visibly hesitant and shy, halfhearted and half-cocked, as if embarrassed by the sway of his own lusts. Never does he appear more naked than when removing his spectacles.
If anything is to mute the centennial celebrations for Fellini, it will be his attitude toward the opposite sex. He was certainly more gynophobe than misogynist, not that so fine a distinction will carry much weight today. Think of Mastroianni, as the film director rendered unable to direct, in “8 1/2,” and heckled by a parade of his past loves; or, again, as the limp Lothario in “City of Women” (1980), who strives and fails to make out with a fur-hatted passenger in the toilet of a train. Later, amid a throng of her fellow-feminists, she upbraids him as “this dismal, hollow, worn-out sultan,” declaring, “We women are simply an excuse for him to perform, once again, his bestial fables, his circus, his neurotic show.”
What’s going on here? Is Fellini paying lip service to a new moral dispensation that he doesn’t understand, or honestly chiding himself for former sins? Either way, the film is an ugly display, and I prefer the poise of “Fellini’s Casanova” (1976), in which the dying hero of the title, played by Donald Sutherland, ends up peering back, with red-rimmed eyes, at his youthful self, waltzing on a frozen Venetian canal. His partner is not a willing paramour but an animated doll. Her features, though colored like flesh, are as polished as porcelain. History’s leading lover is consoled in the arms of a machine.
The true Venice, needless to say, had no part in the scene. By the time of “Casanova,” Fellini had more or less forsaken actuality, with its risks and smuts, for the controllable universe of the studio—specifically, for the cavernous soundstages of Cinecittà, in Rome. (It was opened, in 1937, by Mussolini.) There, for “Amarcord,” he re-created Rimini, swaths of the original having been flattened by wartime bombs. For “Roma” (1972), he built half a kilometre of highway, four lanes wide, with billboards and rest stops, ignoring or defying the fact that, if he wanted real roads, he had only to step outside. “And the Ship Sails On” (1983) took place on an ocean liner, which never left the safe haven of Cinecittà, and, for “The Voice of the Moon,” Fellini said, “I felt it was necessary to build an entire country,” complete with “a piazza, a church, a discothèque, a town hall, a shopping mall.” He had attained the status of a creator, summoning small worlds to comply with his imaginings. As he once remarked, “God may not play dice, but he enjoys a good round of Trivial Pursuit every now and again.”
No wonder these late movies feel so hermetic. We may be charmed and dazzled, but often we can’t breathe. That is why, if I had to introduce a novice to Fellini, I’d suggest a big-screen showing of “I Vitelloni” (1953)—an early film, breezy and inconsequential, about a bunch of aimless pals in a Rimini-like town. Somehow, the younger Fellini strikes me as sadder and wiser than the all-powerful magus he would eventually become. (Maybe Ariel knows more than Prospero ever will.) The movie is sparsely plotted and blessed with fresh air; a typical day finds the vitelloni down at the misty beach, in coats and scarves, staring out to sea, like castaways hoping for a ship. And the ship, of course, sails on. ♦


newyorker--2020-01-17--Swedish Home Cooking at Aquavit

Swedish Home Cooking at Aquavit

Take care when eating the mini sausages at Aquavit , which are fermented for twenty-four hours , then cold-smoked , baked , seared to order , and served with a slightly fruity whole-grain mustard .
Their tight , crisp skin , encasing a mixture of barley , spiced pork , and beef , is slick with delicious fat , and you might find , while reluctantly cutting the last of three in half—for equitable sharing with your dinner date , of course—that it slips from beneath your fork and bounces off your plate , as you both look on in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say : take care to eat the mini sausages at Aquavit .
Last summer , the thirty-two-year-old Swedish restaurant closed for renovations ; it reopened in October .
The dining room has been outfitted with midnight-blue banquettes and blond hardwood floors .
The wall dividing it from the kitchen is now made entirely of glass , with an automatic door for servers to glide through .
The prix-fixe dining-room menu includes a number of new dishes—from the same chef , Emma Bengtsson , who has run the kitchen since 2014—while retaining fan favorites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a marbled medallion of Mangalitsa pork collar , as tender and shaggy as corned beef and plated with a tart , crimson umeboshi-plum purée , as I was to revisit the Arctic Bird ’ s Nest dessert , a dramatic trompe-l ’ oeil featuring white-chocolate eggs with sea-buckthorn-curd yolks .
These updates make the restaurant feel subtly refreshed , which I imagine will go a long way for the types of diners who ’ ve been keeping the place afloat ; on a blandly corporate block of Midtown East , Aquavit seems to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The plush and quiet dining room is lovely , but conspicuously lacking in sex appeal .
( On two recent visits , the soundtrack included Norah Jones ’ s 2002 album , “ Come Away with Me.
” ) Where things get more exciting , and where there is potential to attract fresh blood , is in the bar .
The high-ceilinged , stripped-down corridor that was previously a zone for drinks and snacks is now essentially its own establishment ( although it shares the dining room ’ s kitchen ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or Swedish home cooking .
Various iterations of the restaurant—which relocated in 2005 and has had many chefs over the years , most famously Marcus Samuelsson—have included a more casual café , and , before the renovation , the lunch menu offered husmanskost .
But as dining habits at large seem to be trending away from formality and toward the celebration of unpretentious traditions , the bar menu feels newly relevant .
Here is where you ’ ll find those remarkable sausages , plus dill potato chips sliced so thin they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , yet somehow sturdy enough to hold up to onion dip .
Dense , pale-crusted sourdough bread is served with cultured butter that tastes alluringly briny , a detail I found befuddling until it hit me—sea salt !
Recently harvested sea salt .
That the classics are fairly straightforward makes them no less spectacular .
Pink folds of gravlax are showered in fresh-shaved horseradish .
Swedish meatballs are nestled with quick-pickled cucumbers , lingonberries , and a luscious potato purée .
A fat wedge of princess cake—whipped cream , raspberry jam , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of candy-green marzipan—looks exactly the way it does on “ The Great British Baking Show.
” And then there are the surprises .
Duxelles—a concentrated paste made of mushrooms , shallots , and thyme—sits with fluffy caramelized sour cream at the bottom of a shallow bowl , overlaid with julienned apple and crackly fried sourdough twists .
Finished tableside with a frothy and fragrant broth , it redefines cream-of-mushroom soup .
Among a handful of ice-cream flavors , the humblest-sounding steals the scene , malty , starchy , and just right : rice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 34 .
Dining-room prix fixe , $ 115- $ 225 . )
♦

Take care when eating the mini sausages at Aquavit, which are fermented for twenty-four hours, then cold-smoked, baked, seared to order, and served with a slightly fruity whole-grain mustard. Their tight, crisp skin, encasing a mixture of barley, spiced pork, and beef, is slick with delicious fat, and you might find, while reluctantly cutting the last of three in half—for equitable sharing with your dinner date, of course—that it slips from beneath your fork and bounces off your plate, as you both look on in abject horror.
Which is all to say: take care to eat the mini sausages at Aquavit. Last summer, the thirty-two-year-old Swedish restaurant closed for renovations; it reopened in October. The dining room has been outfitted with midnight-blue banquettes and blond hardwood floors. The wall dividing it from the kitchen is now made entirely of glass, with an automatic door for servers to glide through.
The bar’s mushroom soup, which starts with duxelles (a concentrated paste of mushrooms, shallots, and thyme), caramelized sour cream, julienned apples, sourdough croutons, and chives, is finished with a creamy mushroom broth. Photograph by Caroline Tompkins for The New Yorker
The prix-fixe dining-room menu includes a number of new dishes—from the same chef, Emma Bengtsson, who has run the kitchen since 2014—while retaining fan favorites. I was as pleased to try a marbled medallion of Mangalitsa pork collar, as tender and shaggy as corned beef and plated with a tart, crimson umeboshi-plum purée, as I was to revisit the Arctic Bird’s Nest dessert, a dramatic trompe-l’oeil featuring white-chocolate eggs with sea-buckthorn-curd yolks.
These updates make the restaurant feel subtly refreshed, which I imagine will go a long way for the types of diners who’ve been keeping the place afloat; on a blandly corporate block of Midtown East, Aquavit seems to attract mostly suits and well-to-do middle-aged tourists. The plush and quiet dining room is lovely, but conspicuously lacking in sex appeal. (On two recent visits, the soundtrack included Norah Jones’s 2002 album, “Come Away with Me.”)
In the much more formal dining room, where meals are prix-fixe only, new dishes include a medallion of Mangalitsa pork collar, served with barley, rutabaga, and a tart umeboshi-plum purée. Photograph by Caroline Tompkins for The New Yorker
Where things get more exciting, and where there is potential to attract fresh blood, is in the bar. The high-ceilinged, stripped-down corridor that was previously a zone for drinks and snacks is now essentially its own establishment (although it shares the dining room’s kitchen), with a full menu focussed on husmanskost, or Swedish home cooking.
Various iterations of the restaurant—which relocated in 2005 and has had many chefs over the years, most famously Marcus Samuelsson—have included a more casual café, and, before the renovation, the lunch menu offered husmanskost. But as dining habits at large seem to be trending away from formality and toward the celebration of unpretentious traditions, the bar menu feels newly relevant.
Clockwise from left: the mushroom soup; dill potato chips with onion dip; live scallop with apple, grapes, and pistachios; mini sausages with whole-grain mustard. Photograph by Caroline Tompkins for The New Yorker
Here is where you’ll find those remarkable sausages, plus dill potato chips sliced so thin they’re as translucent as green stained glass, yet somehow sturdy enough to hold up to onion dip. Dense, pale-crusted sourdough bread is served with cultured butter that tastes alluringly briny, a detail I found befuddling until it hit me—sea salt! Recently harvested sea salt.
That the classics are fairly straightforward makes them no less spectacular. Pink folds of gravlax are showered in fresh-shaved horseradish. Swedish meatballs are nestled with quick-pickled cucumbers, lingonberries, and a luscious potato purée. A fat wedge of princess cake—whipped cream, raspberry jam, and vanilla sponge layered beneath a thick sheet of candy-green marzipan—looks exactly the way it does on “The Great British Baking Show.”
The popular Arctic Bird’s Nest dessert, a dramatically convincing trompe-l’oeil that the chef Emma Bengtsson conceived of years ago, is still available in the dining room. Photograph by Caroline Tompkins for The New Yorker
And then there are the surprises. Duxelles—a concentrated paste made of mushrooms, shallots, and thyme—sits with fluffy caramelized sour cream at the bottom of a shallow bowl, overlaid with julienned apple and crackly fried sourdough twists. Finished tableside with a frothy and fragrant broth, it redefines cream-of-mushroom soup. Among a handful of ice-cream flavors, the humblest-sounding steals the scene, malty, starchy, and just right: rice. (Bar dishes, $6-$34. Dining-room prix fixe, $115-$225.) ♦


newyorker--2020-01-17--Impeachment Spoiler Alert: There Will Be No Impartial Justice in Donald Trump’s Impeachment Trial

Shortly after 2 P.M. on Thursday , ninety-nine of the hundred members of the United States Senate raised their hands and swore en masse to do “ impartial justice ” in the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump .
That , of course , is an impossibility in the political world they inhabit .
Neither impartiality nor justice is on offer in this proceeding .
Three years into Trump ’ s tenure , there is precisely no one in the U.S. Capitol who is undecided about the President , on the subject of his impeachment or any other .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the way that the Trump Presidency has conditioned us to expect : Will there be wild new revelations ?
( There already have been in the past twenty-four hours . )
Will there be inappropriate tweeting by the defendant in the White House ?
( A given . )
Will even a single senator break from the calcified partisan battle lines ?
( Who knows ? )
This Senate trial is only the third such proceeding in American history , and , despite what appears to be its preordained acquittal of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ starting out with such great uncertainty that it ’ s still not even clear if there will be witnesses called and evidence submitted .
How can it be a trial without them ?
The Democrat-controlled House voted to impeach Trump in a party-line vote in December , and yet key facts about the President ’ s aborted scheme to pressure Ukraine for his personal political benefit remain unknown ( although they are very much knowable ) , owing to an executive-branch information blockade ordered by Trump .
Will those facts come out before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bangs down the gavel on the trial ’ s seemingly inevitable outcome ?
In today ’ s brutally dysfunctional capital—in which institutions of government are controlled by feuding clans that communicate with each other almost exclusively via hostile tweets and cable-news sound bites—anything can turn into an exercise in raw power politics .
Even the ministerial matter of transmitting the articles of impeachment from the House to the Senate and beginning the Senate trial became the subject of an entire holiday season of made-for-TV drama .
For weeks , Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d received assurances from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about what kind of trial he planned to run .
No such assurances were forthcoming , although Pelosi arguably succeeded in one respect—turning the debate away from her side ’ s forthcoming defeat in the Senate to the matter of what would constitute a fair trial .
Democrats have redefined victory to mean not necessarily winning the case but merely getting a proper hearing for it .
For now , at least .
On Wednesday , after Pelosi finally ended her hold on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seven members of the House as managers who will prosecute the case in the Senate .
On Thursday , at the stroke of noon , the House managers marched across the Capitol and physically presented the articles to the Senate in a self-consciously anachronistic twenty-first-century enactment of a process dreamed up by our eighteenth-century founders .
There was gravitas , solemnity , talk of “ high crimes and misdemeanors.
” There were “ wherefore ” s and “ hear ye , hear ye ” s .
Chief Justice John Roberts was summoned over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ senatorial oath and take up his duties as the trial ’ s presiding officer .
The Senate Minority Leader , Chuck Schumer , later said that , as Roberts entered the chamber , “ I saw members on both sides of the aisle visibly gulp.
” “ The weight of history , ” as Schumer put it , was visibly upon the Senate .
“ God bless you , ” Senator Chuck Grassley , the Iowa Republican , who was sitting in the chair , told Roberts after he swore him in .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been dispensed with , McConnell has not revealed whether and how there will even be votes on requiring the testimony of new witnesses and the submission of documents that the White House refused to provide to the House , a stonewall more complete than any Administration ’ s in history .
If such votes do happen , they are not likely to be until a week or more into the proceedings .
Meanwhile , new revelations continue to spill out about Trump ’ s Ukraine machinations , including a series of sensational @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contributor Lev Parnas , who said that Trump knew of Parnas ’ s efforts with Rudy Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice-President Joe Biden .
The suspense surrounding the trial mixes the dread certainty that today ’ s Senate is ill-equipped to handle its constitutionally dictated obligation with a lingering curiosity about whether a handful of Republican senators will force McConnell to hold a proceeding that is something other than a sham .
“ The Senate is on trial as well as the President , ” Jerry Nadler , the chairman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the press conference where Pelosi introduced him and six others as the impeachment managers .
It was a seemingly self-evident observation that nonetheless bears much repeating .
The Senate trial could take between three and six weeks , according to one estimate , though Trump ’ s advisers are pushing Republicans for a much more abbreviated proceeding .
However long it lasts , the trial will essentially consist of a hundred senators sitting silently at their desks , stripped of their cell phones and laptops and all the other accoutrements of modern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of evidence in a case about which they have presumably already made up their minds .
We listeners will have plenty of time to contemplate the Senate itself and what it has become in the Trump era .
“ I understand that the politics of impeachment are difficult for many Senators , ” Val Demings , one of the House managers , from Florida , tweeted soon after Pelosi appointed her to the job .
“ But I have not written off the Senate .
Each Senator still has the power to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is no closer to a real jury than the proceeding is to being a real trial .
On Wednesday , Politico counted twenty-six Republican senators who had already put out statements or otherwise publicly indicated that they would vote against conviction and twenty-four more who probably would ; Democrats were equally united around planned votes to convict .
Republican sources have said that they don ’ t expect a single Republican defection on the final trial verdict , just as there was not a single Republican defection in the House on the impeachment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Senate has been one of the main arenas in which it has become clear just how totally and completely Trump has taken over the Republican Party .
He has not only vanquished doubters ; he has dominated them .
Skeptics have been purged .
Senators have abased themselves again and again .
Those who stood up to Trump inside his own party have been exiled , silenced , or flipped .
The President is on trial for holding hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine hostage for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , indeed , the Government Accountability Office , a nonpartisan government watchdog , announced on Thursday , as the trial began , that the aid holdup was an illegal abuse of executive power .
But Republican senators who claim an interest in national security have been loath even to acknowledge that there might be anything wrong with Trump ’ s behavior , even as an abstract matter of principle .
The suspense surrounding the trial , then , is not about the possibility that Republicans might suddenly change their minds about Donald Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not going to revert to his 2016 Trump-bashing self .
Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer are not miraculously going to start talking and produce a plan for the trial that everyone can get behind .
The Senate that voted 100–0 on the rules governing the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton , twenty-one years ago , is a thing of the distant past .
Today ’ s uncertainty is about the nature , shape , and contours of the trial that will result from this more intemperate political moment .
Mitt Romney , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moderates—Lamar Alexander , of Tennessee ; Susan Collins , of Maine ; Lisa Murkowski , of Alaska—may yet force their colleagues to vote on bringing in Administration witnesses , such as Trump ’ s former national-security adviser John Bolton , whom the White House does not want to testify .
But it is doubtful that even a single one of them will ultimately vote to convict .
This is why the real uncertainty remains what it has been since the day Pelosi and the House embarked upon this impeachment course , last September @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes after the trial—after Democrats have taken their shot at Trump and , in all likelihood , failed .
Soon after the day ’ s ceremonial start to the Senate trial had wrapped up , Trump appeared before the cameras to call the case against him a “ big hoax , ” “ a witch-hunt hoax , ” “ a complete hoax , ” and “ a phony hoax.
” What will he talk about when the trial is over and he is completely and totally vindicated in the greatest acquittal of all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?

Shortly after 2 P.M. on Thursday, ninety-nine of the hundred members of the United States Senate raised their hands and swore en masse to do “impartial justice” in the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump. That, of course, is an impossibility in the political world they inhabit. Neither impartiality nor justice is on offer in this proceeding. Three years into Trump’s tenure, there is precisely no one in the U.S. Capitol who is undecided about the President, on the subject of his impeachment or any other. And yet there is real suspense, in the way that the Trump Presidency has conditioned us to expect: Will there be wild new revelations? (There already have been in the past twenty-four hours.) Will there be inappropriate tweeting by the defendant in the White House? (A given.) Will even a single senator break from the calcified partisan battle lines? (Who knows?)
This Senate trial is only the third such proceeding in American history, and, despite what appears to be its preordained acquittal of the President by his fellow-Republicans, it is starting out with such great uncertainty that it’s still not even clear if there will be witnesses called and evidence submitted. How can it be a trial without them? The Democrat-controlled House voted to impeach Trump in a party-line vote in December, and yet key facts about the President’s aborted scheme to pressure Ukraine for his personal political benefit remain unknown (although they are very much knowable), owing to an executive-branch information blockade ordered by Trump. Will those facts come out before the Chief Justice of the United States bangs down the gavel on the trial’s seemingly inevitable outcome?
In today’s brutally dysfunctional capital—in which institutions of government are controlled by feuding clans that communicate with each other almost exclusively via hostile tweets and cable-news sound bites—anything can turn into an exercise in raw power politics. Even the ministerial matter of transmitting the articles of impeachment from the House to the Senate and beginning the Senate trial became the subject of an entire holiday season of made-for-TV drama. For weeks, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to turn over the articles until she’d received assurances from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about what kind of trial he planned to run. No such assurances were forthcoming, although Pelosi arguably succeeded in one respect—turning the debate away from her side’s forthcoming defeat in the Senate to the matter of what would constitute a fair trial. Democrats have redefined victory to mean not necessarily winning the case but merely getting a proper hearing for it. For now, at least.
On Wednesday, after Pelosi finally ended her hold on the articles of impeachment, she named seven members of the House as managers who will prosecute the case in the Senate. On Thursday, at the stroke of noon, the House managers marched across the Capitol and physically presented the articles to the Senate in a self-consciously anachronistic twenty-first-century enactment of a process dreamed up by our eighteenth-century founders. There was gravitas, solemnity, talk of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” There were “wherefore”s and “hear ye, hear ye”s. Chief Justice John Roberts was summoned over from the Supreme Court to administer the senatorial oath and take up his duties as the trial’s presiding officer. The Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, later said that, as Roberts entered the chamber, “I saw members on both sides of the aisle visibly gulp.” “The weight of history,” as Schumer put it, was visibly upon the Senate. “God bless you,” Senator Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican, who was sitting in the chair, told Roberts after he swore him in.
But even now that the constitutional formalities have been dispensed with, McConnell has not revealed whether and how there will even be votes on requiring the testimony of new witnesses and the submission of documents that the White House refused to provide to the House, a stonewall more complete than any Administration’s in history. If such votes do happen, they are not likely to be until a week or more into the proceedings. Meanwhile, new revelations continue to spill out about Trump’s Ukraine machinations, including a series of sensational interviews this week by the indicted Trump contributor Lev Parnas, who said that Trump knew of Parnas’s efforts with Rudy Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice-President Joe Biden. The suspense surrounding the trial mixes the dread certainty that today’s Senate is ill-equipped to handle its constitutionally dictated obligation with a lingering curiosity about whether a handful of Republican senators will force McConnell to hold a proceeding that is something other than a sham.
“The Senate is on trial as well as the President,” Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said at the press conference where Pelosi introduced him and six others as the impeachment managers. It was a seemingly self-evident observation that nonetheless bears much repeating. The Senate trial could take between three and six weeks, according to one estimate, though Trump’s advisers are pushing Republicans for a much more abbreviated proceeding. However long it lasts, the trial will essentially consist of a hundred senators sitting silently at their desks, stripped of their cell phones and laptops and all the other accoutrements of modern political life, listening to the presentation of evidence in a case about which they have presumably already made up their minds. We listeners will have plenty of time to contemplate the Senate itself and what it has become in the Trump era.
“I understand that the politics of impeachment are difficult for many Senators,” Val Demings, one of the House managers, from Florida, tweeted soon after Pelosi appointed her to the job. “But I have not written off the Senate. Each Senator still has the power to do the right thing.” But this Senate is no closer to a real jury than the proceeding is to being a real trial. On Wednesday, Politico counted twenty-six Republican senators who had already put out statements or otherwise publicly indicated that they would vote against conviction and twenty-four more who probably would; Democrats were equally united around planned votes to convict. Republican sources have said that they don’t expect a single Republican defection on the final trial verdict, just as there was not a single Republican defection in the House on the impeachment itself.
For the past three years, the Senate has been one of the main arenas in which it has become clear just how totally and completely Trump has taken over the Republican Party. He has not only vanquished doubters; he has dominated them. Skeptics have been purged. Senators have abased themselves again and again. Those who stood up to Trump inside his own party have been exiled, silenced, or flipped. The President is on trial for holding hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine hostage for his own personal political ends, and, indeed, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan government watchdog, announced on Thursday, as the trial began, that the aid holdup was an illegal abuse of executive power. But Republican senators who claim an interest in national security have been loath even to acknowledge that there might be anything wrong with Trump’s behavior, even as an abstract matter of principle.