newyorker--2020-09-12--“The Broken Hearts Gallery,” Reviewed: A Rom-Com Showcase for the Great Geraldine Viswanathan

At a time when romantic comedies are often enfeebled either by sentiment or cynicism , saccharine tones or absurd premises , a new one , “ The Broken Hearts Gallery , ” written and directed by Natalie Krinsky ( and opening on Friday in some place called “ theatres ” ) , bridges the gap with a high concept .
It is , unfortunately , a concept so high that it rarely touches the ground , and its theoretical ingenuity leaves plenty of empty dramatic space to be filled .
That work is done by its lead actress , Geraldine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did in previous roles in “ Blockers ” and “ Bad Education , ” that she ’ s among the most talented performers of her generation .
She ’ s only in need of a project at the level of her artistry .
In “ The Broken Hearts Gallery ” —Krinsky ’ s first feature—Viswanathan ’ s performance lends the movie its sole impression of vitality and spontaneity , to go with its one bright light of conceptual inspiration .
“ The Broken Hearts Gallery ” is a good bad movie , one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ center and the Tinkertoy construction of the plot .
Viswanathan plays Lucy Gulliver , a twenty-six-year-old Brooklynite who aspires to found her own art gallery and , when the action starts , is working as a gallery assistant—but not for long .
She ’ s also dating one of her bosses , Max ( Utkarsh Ambudkar ) , the gallery ’ s thirty-five-year-old second-in-command .
At a company event , when he publicly dumps her for his ex , Amelia ( Tattiawna Jones ) , a Francophile doctor , Lucy drinks too much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clients , and gets fired by the gallery owner and founder , Eva Woolf ( who pronounces her first name with a short “ e ” —a spirited archness that ’ s played to the joyful hilt by Bernadette Peters ) .
In chaos and panic , Lucy cute-meets Nick ( Dacre Montgomery ) , who is trying to renovate—hands-on—an abandoned Y.M.C.A .
and turn it into a boutique hotel .
If exhaustion hasn ’ t set in from all that setup , know that Lucy has a long string of failed relationships @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them is by keeping—or , as her roommates , Amanda ( Molly Gordon ) and Nadine ( Phillipa Soo ) , say , hoarding—souvenirs of her exes .
Lucy visits Nick at the half-built , scrap-laden renovation site while carrying a trash bag of those souvenirs ( long story ) ; he suddenly pulls a tie—Max ’ s—out of the bag and hangs it on a piece of drywall , which Lucy is suddenly inspired to label the Broken Heart Gallery ( singular ) .
The next day , she has another inspiration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picture up on social media , it goes viral , attracts other souvenir donors ( as well as some financial donors ) , and puts Lucy nearly instantly on the art-world map ( complete with a two-page spread in New York ) .
Given the project ’ s genesis from the spontaneous collaboration of Lucy and Nick , their couple-hood is in the cards from the start—yet getting them together takes more than an hour of machinations , a tedious obstacle course that includes winks and nods at serious life consequences , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a wave of the magic wand ( usually off-screen ) .
Whenever the substance of the gallery , and of Lucy ’ s devotion to it , comes to the fore , the movie comes to life ; but those moments are all too brief , and the movie all too jumpy for its substance to be developed .
( It would be good to see more of the empathetic , therapeutic element to the gallery , when Lucy video-records the donors to the museum telling the tales of heartbreak that are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Lucy , of “ Peanuts , ” with the five-cent psychiatrist ’ s booth . )
Viswanathan never rests , because the movie won ’ t let her .
The script is more or less completely inside out—most of the actions and relationship moments that the story evokes are kept rigorously off-screen , in the interest of fabricating suspense , reveals , or fantasy .
Instead , her performance has to generate the movie ’ s semblance of action .
With no job and no income , after three weeks of slothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Nick ’ s hotel , Lucy volunteers to work for him—for free—in exchange for developing the Broken Heart Gallery there .
( “ I can paint , I can saw , I can lift and lay tile , grout—that ’ s a thing , ” she tells him . )
Between Lucy ’ s handmade gallery and Nick ’ s artisanal hotel , the movie is a study in industrial arts and crafts , yet the two are not shown hoisting anything heavier than a thumbtack ( with one small plot-pointed exception @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than karaoke .
The story pivots on matters of money , which then shows up by the bagful , with minimal fuss and unexpressed motives .
Lucy is passionate about art but hardly talks about it ; Nick ’ s life in hospitality is tossed off in a one-liner that leaves a lot to unpack .
The story involves friends becoming collaborators becoming lovers , but the loam of the relationship , the talk on which a friendship can be based and a relationship can be built , never happens : the characters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Krinsky manages to make these skittery contrivances bounce vivaciously from moment to moment by way of copious , strenuous , idiosyncratic dialogue that does very little of what dialogue does at its best—express emotions and ideas , bring experiences to the fore , crystallize problems and seek resolutions .
Instead we get snippy-snappy jousting and joshing of purely ornamental import , which the cast uses as a springboard for gymnastic verbal virtuosity , and , in Viswanathan ’ s case especially , for ornamental flourishes .
Ably seconded by Soo , Gordon , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Megan Ferguson , as Nick ’ s friends , and with Montgomery as an ably stolid foil , she lends every twist and tweak a glittery wit , and every facet of every plot point an emphatic specificity .
Her comedic talents are distinctively cinematic : fixed and darting glances , raised or lowered eyebrows , a tilt of the head , a sudden hesitation all require a camera to magnify and isolate them amid the kaleidoscopic whirl .
The camera work isn ’ t virtuosic to match , but it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remains , however , somewhat nearsighted .
The movie ’ s cast is admirably wide-ranging , yet little is done with its diversity—here , identity is purely visual , as if merely decorative .
Though set in New York , the city is hardly recognizable at street level : the best city scenes are in the credit sequence at the head of the film , a fantasy-infused vision in which giant-sized souvenirs ( a padlock , a thimble , a billiard ball , a salt shaker , a snow globe ) block New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subway platform .
( Much of the movie was shot on location in Toronto . )
It turns out ( as I discovered far into writing this review ) that the gallery at the center of the film , or some version thereof , actually exists , or existed , in Croatia , and inspired Krinsky to build a story of personal import—rooted in her own experience of breakup and firing—around it .
The element of documentary—whether of the filmmaker ’ s life experience , the emotionally charged collaborative art venture , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actors ’ supercharged and overdriven performances—invests the movie with a powerful engine to drive elements of whimsical and symbolic fantasy .
Instead , the fantasy takes over and , like the sidecar in “ Duck Soup , ” leaves its source of power behind .

At a time when romantic comedies are often enfeebled either by sentiment or cynicism, saccharine tones or absurd premises, a new one, “The Broken Hearts Gallery,” written and directed by Natalie Krinsky (and opening on Friday in some place called “theatres”), bridges the gap with a high concept. It is, unfortunately, a concept so high that it rarely touches the ground, and its theoretical ingenuity leaves plenty of empty dramatic space to be filled. That work is done by its lead actress, Geraldine Viswanathan, who shows, as she did in previous roles in “Blockers” and “Bad Education,” that she’s among the most talented performers of her generation. She’s only in need of a project at the level of her artistry. In “The Broken Hearts Gallery”—Krinsky’s first feature—Viswanathan’s performance lends the movie its sole impression of vitality and spontaneity, to go with its one bright light of conceptual inspiration.
“The Broken Hearts Gallery” is a good bad movie, one that gathers peripheral pleasures around its hollow center and the Tinkertoy construction of the plot. Viswanathan plays Lucy Gulliver, a twenty-six-year-old Brooklynite who aspires to found her own art gallery and, when the action starts, is working as a gallery assistant—but not for long. She’s also dating one of her bosses, Max (Utkarsh Ambudkar), the gallery’s thirty-five-year-old second-in-command. At a company event, when he publicly dumps her for his ex, Amelia (Tattiawna Jones), a Francophile doctor, Lucy drinks too much, makes a scene in front of clients, and gets fired by the gallery owner and founder, Eva Woolf (who pronounces her first name with a short “e”—a spirited archness that’s played to the joyful hilt by Bernadette Peters). In chaos and panic, Lucy cute-meets Nick (Dacre Montgomery), who is trying to renovate—hands-on—an abandoned Y.M.C.A. and turn it into a boutique hotel.
If exhaustion hasn’t set in from all that setup, know that Lucy has a long string of failed relationships, and her longtime way of mourning them is by keeping—or, as her roommates, Amanda (Molly Gordon) and Nadine (Phillipa Soo), say, hoarding—souvenirs of her exes. Lucy visits Nick at the half-built, scrap-laden renovation site while carrying a trash bag of those souvenirs (long story); he suddenly pulls a tie—Max’s—out of the bag and hangs it on a piece of drywall, which Lucy is suddenly inspired to label the Broken Heart Gallery (singular). The next day, she has another inspiration: she photographs it and puts the picture up on social media, it goes viral, attracts other souvenir donors (as well as some financial donors), and puts Lucy nearly instantly on the art-world map (complete with a two-page spread in New York).
Given the project’s genesis from the spontaneous collaboration of Lucy and Nick, their couple-hood is in the cards from the start—yet getting them together takes more than an hour of machinations, a tedious obstacle course that includes winks and nods at serious life consequences, but resolves them with what might as well be a wave of the magic wand (usually off-screen). Whenever the substance of the gallery, and of Lucy’s devotion to it, comes to the fore, the movie comes to life; but those moments are all too brief, and the movie all too jumpy for its substance to be developed. (It would be good to see more of the empathetic, therapeutic element to the gallery, when Lucy video-records the donors to the museum telling the tales of heartbreak that are behind the objects that they contribute, like Lucy, of “Peanuts,” with the five-cent psychiatrist’s booth.)
Viswanathan never rests, because the movie won’t let her. The script is more or less completely inside out—most of the actions and relationship moments that the story evokes are kept rigorously off-screen, in the interest of fabricating suspense, reveals, or fantasy. Instead, her performance has to generate the movie’s semblance of action. With no job and no income, after three weeks of slothing about depressed and a day of acquaintance with Nick’s hotel, Lucy volunteers to work for him—for free—in exchange for developing the Broken Heart Gallery there. (“I can paint, I can saw, I can lift and lay tile, grout—that’s a thing,” she tells him.) Between Lucy’s handmade gallery and Nick’s artisanal hotel, the movie is a study in industrial arts and crafts, yet the two are not shown hoisting anything heavier than a thumbtack (with one small plot-pointed exception) or working at anything more strenuous than karaoke. The story pivots on matters of money, which then shows up by the bagful, with minimal fuss and unexpressed motives. Lucy is passionate about art but hardly talks about it; Nick’s life in hospitality is tossed off in a one-liner that leaves a lot to unpack. The story involves friends becoming collaborators becoming lovers, but the loam of the relationship, the talk on which a friendship can be based and a relationship can be built, never happens: the characters are identifiable at first sight.
Yet Krinsky manages to make these skittery contrivances bounce vivaciously from moment to moment by way of copious, strenuous, idiosyncratic dialogue that does very little of what dialogue does at its best—express emotions and ideas, bring experiences to the fore, crystallize problems and seek resolutions. Instead we get snippy-snappy jousting and joshing of purely ornamental import, which the cast uses as a springboard for gymnastic verbal virtuosity, and, in Viswanathan’s case especially, for ornamental flourishes. Ably seconded by Soo, Gordon, and Peters, along with Arturo Castro and Megan Ferguson, as Nick’s friends, and with Montgomery as an ably stolid foil, she lends every twist and tweak a glittery wit, and every facet of every plot point an emphatic specificity. Her comedic talents are distinctively cinematic: fixed and darting glances, raised or lowered eyebrows, a tilt of the head, a sudden hesitation all require a camera to magnify and isolate them amid the kaleidoscopic whirl. The camera work isn’t virtuosic to match, but it’s at least attentive.
The attention remains, however, somewhat nearsighted. The movie’s cast is admirably wide-ranging, yet little is done with its diversity—here, identity is purely visual, as if merely decorative. Though set in New York, the city is hardly recognizable at street level: the best city scenes are in the credit sequence at the head of the film, a fantasy-infused vision in which giant-sized souvenirs (a padlock, a thimble, a billiard ball, a salt shaker, a snow globe) block New York streets and sidewalks and even a subway platform. (Much of the movie was shot on location in Toronto.)
It turns out (as I discovered far into writing this review) that the gallery at the center of the film, or some version thereof, actually exists, or existed, in Croatia, and inspired Krinsky to build a story of personal import—rooted in her own experience of breakup and firing—around it. The element of documentary—whether of the filmmaker’s life experience, the emotionally charged collaborative art venture, the New York credit sequence, or the actors’ supercharged and overdriven performances—invests the movie with a powerful engine to drive elements of whimsical and symbolic fantasy. Instead, the fantasy takes over and, like the sidecar in “Duck Soup,” leaves its source of power behind.


newyorker--2020-09-12--Racism, Contagion, and the Dangers We Pose to One Another

In her book “ On Immunity : An Inoculation , ” from 2014 , the essayist Eula Biss examines the varying , complex reasons that many Americans—and people all over the world—distrust vaccines .
Biss charts the ways that we have been taught to think about inoculation , as well as the language we use to describe it .
She connects the fears that we have about vaccines to larger concerns about the environment and government , and she gives a hearing to the parents who refuse to believe that their children ’ s health could affect the health of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her work , including an earlier essay collection on racism , “ Notes from No Man ’ s Land , ” Biss goes to great lengths to understand different points of view but can be withering about the danger of certain ideas , above all the desire to insure that our bodies and our behavior are “ natural.
” With hope rising about the availability of a coronavirus vaccine within the next several months , I recently spoke by phone with Biss , whose latest book , “ Having and Being Had , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happiness—and her own adventures in home-owning .
She explained that “ On Immunity ” was a “ jumping-off point ” for her latest work .
“ The psychology of capitalism is actually robbing us of something , ” Biss said .
“ One of the things we ’ re being robbed of is our ability to trust other people .
We need that in order to keep other people and ourselves safe .
It ’ s really destructive to the social fabric.
” During our conversation , which has been edited for length @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way to talk to vaccine skeptics , the connections between racism and contagion , and why she finds something beautiful in the idea of herd immunity .
What is the biggest challenge we face as a society in terms of getting to a place where people feel comfortable taking a vaccine ?
I ’ ve been thinking about this as I watch this whole thing unfold , and I feel like we ’ re living through the plot of “ Jaws ” right now .
One of the big problems is that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the beach , even though we all know there ’ s a shark in the water .
I think once that happens , you ’ ve broken trust or lost trust .
In the book on immunity , I was thinking a lot about the role of trust and how trust is earned and how trust is lost .
It was already clear back then , when I was writing in 2010 , that there are problems that are specific to places where there ’ s really low faith in government structures and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right now that I think we can see coming is that when people don ’ t have faith in their government and don ’ t trust their government and don ’ t feel like decisions are being made in the best interests of people ’ s health and lives , it ’ s going to be hard for them to trust a vaccine that the government has had a hand in making or testing or distributing .
But we need the government for testing and distributing vaccines .
I think we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Your book talks about why there is skepticism about vaccines , especially in foreign countries that might be victims of dictatorships or imperialism .
But as you also point out , in America , skepticism about vaccines often comes from educated , white , privileged people who you ’ d think would have generally good reason to be trustful because , broadly speaking , life has been good to them .
How do you understand that paradox , if it is one ?
I ’ m not entirely sure it is a paradox @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of different things going on there .
I think for some people that skepticism of vaccination or resistance to vaccination really is an expression of , or an extension of , a privileged attitude—a sense of “ I ’ m going to let other people take this small risk , and their risk-taking will protect me.
” I think that that ’ s a quintessential thought pattern of the privileged .
Let ’ s let others do the work for us .
That ’ s not what ’ s going on with everyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the things that gets lost when we reduce conversations about vaccination to pro and con , and when we think about an anti-vaccine stance as a homogenous position .
A lot of the people I talked to when I was working on that book—and most of them were women—were very well educated .
Many of them would point to historical events or realities when they talked about their own vaccine skepticism .
Some of them pointed to things like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment .
That was , for them , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ medical testing that hasn ’ t had its citizens ’ best interests in mind .
Also , people would point to an entire history of misogyny and sexism in medicine and the way in which women ’ s bodies , knowledge , and professionalism has been marginalized in that space .
I think there are many anti-vaccine positions that are coming from awareness .
That doesn ’ t mean that the smart or socially aware thing to do is not to vaccinate .
I think that the suspicions and lack of trust are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ awareness—and that the way to address those suspicions and fears is with a really rigorous and transparent system for safeguarding the health of people who are getting vaccines , and to be rigorous and transparent about the way vaccines are tested and monitored .
You wrote in the book that “ the metaphors we find in this gesture are overwhelmingly fearful , and almost always suggest violation , corruption and pollution.
” You ’ re talking about getting a vaccine shot .
Why is it that the language we use around vaccines is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with everything , that the language exposes .
The language is telling .
It exposes the things we ’ re thinking that we ’ re not saying .
We do seem to collectively consider it a violence .
When I say we , I ’ m extending that beyond this country because , as I point out in that passage , the British still use a violent metaphor for this technology .
[ They call it a “ jab.
” ] I think it ’ s a window into our subconscious feelings about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s doing , what we ’ re afraid it ’ s doing .
Those fears have been really persistent for well over a century , back into the eighteen-fifties .
People had really similar fears of vaccination , fears of the body being permanently polluted or the nature of the person being changed permanently by the vaccine .
Back then , the fears would take the shape of being afraid that you would become a cow or grow the horns of a cow if you were vaccinated .
The general shape of them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fears that we have today .
For me , it blew this whole project open when I saw my own fears and hesitations around vaccination echoed in the anti-vaccination movement of the eighteen-fifties , which was not only a different time and different context but a whole different vaccine that we don ’ t even use anymore .
So , then , how should we be talking to people who are skeptical about vaccines ?
I would say your book is fairly respectful of people with different views but also , at times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ views .

In her book “On Immunity: An Inoculation,” from 2014, the essayist Eula Biss examines the varying, complex reasons that many Americans—and people all over the world—distrust vaccines. Biss charts the ways that we have been taught to think about inoculation, as well as the language we use to describe it. She connects the fears that we have about vaccines to larger concerns about the environment and government, and she gives a hearing to the parents who refuse to believe that their children’s health could affect the health of other children. As in much of her work, including an earlier essay collection on racism, “Notes from No Man’s Land,” Biss goes to great lengths to understand different points of view but can be withering about the danger of certain ideas, above all the desire to insure that our bodies and our behavior are “natural.”
With hope rising about the availability of a coronavirus vaccine within the next several months, I recently spoke by phone with Biss, whose latest book, “Having and Being Had,” examines the intersection of consumption and happiness—and her own adventures in home-owning. She explained that “On Immunity” was a “jumping-off point” for her latest work. “The psychology of capitalism is actually robbing us of something,” Biss said. “One of the things we’re being robbed of is our ability to trust other people. We need that in order to keep other people and ourselves safe. It’s really destructive to the social fabric.” During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the best way to talk to vaccine skeptics, the connections between racism and contagion, and why she finds something beautiful in the idea of herd immunity.
What is the biggest challenge we face as a society in terms of getting to a place where people feel comfortable taking a vaccine?
I’ve been thinking about this as I watch this whole thing unfold, and I feel like we’re living through the plot of “Jaws” right now. One of the big problems is that the mayor keeps saying everyone should go to the beach, even though we all know there’s a shark in the water. I think once that happens, you’ve broken trust or lost trust. In the book on immunity, I was thinking a lot about the role of trust and how trust is earned and how trust is lost. It was already clear back then, when I was writing in 2010, that there are problems that are specific to places where there’s really low faith in government structures and public infrastructure.
One of the problems right now that I think we can see coming is that when people don’t have faith in their government and don’t trust their government and don’t feel like decisions are being made in the best interests of people’s health and lives, it’s going to be hard for them to trust a vaccine that the government has had a hand in making or testing or distributing. But we need the government for testing and distributing vaccines. I think we’re setting ourselves up for a bind.
Your book talks about why there is skepticism about vaccines, especially in foreign countries that might be victims of dictatorships or imperialism. But as you also point out, in America, skepticism about vaccines often comes from educated, white, privileged people who you’d think would have generally good reason to be trustful because, broadly speaking, life has been good to them. How do you understand that paradox, if it is one?
I’m not entirely sure it is a paradox. I think there are a number of different things going on there. I think for some people that skepticism of vaccination or resistance to vaccination really is an expression of, or an extension of, a privileged attitude—a sense of “I’m going to let other people take this small risk, and their risk-taking will protect me.” I think that that’s a quintessential thought pattern of the privileged. Let’s let others do the work for us.
That’s not what’s going on with everyone. I think that that’s one of the things that gets lost when we reduce conversations about vaccination to pro and con, and when we think about an anti-vaccine stance as a homogenous position. A lot of the people I talked to when I was working on that book—and most of them were women—were very well educated. Many of them would point to historical events or realities when they talked about their own vaccine skepticism. Some of them pointed to things like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. That was, for them, a reminder that the government has engaged in medical testing that hasn’t had its citizens’ best interests in mind. Also, people would point to an entire history of misogyny and sexism in medicine and the way in which women’s bodies, knowledge, and professionalism has been marginalized in that space. I think there are many anti-vaccine positions that are coming from awareness.
That doesn’t mean that the smart or socially aware thing to do is not to vaccinate. I think that the suspicions and lack of trust are raised, actually, by a historical awareness—and that the way to address those suspicions and fears is with a really rigorous and transparent system for safeguarding the health of people who are getting vaccines, and to be rigorous and transparent about the way vaccines are tested and monitored.
You wrote in the book that “the metaphors we find in this gesture are overwhelmingly fearful, and almost always suggest violation, corruption and pollution.” You’re talking about getting a vaccine shot. Why is it that the language we use around vaccines is so fraught?
I think, as with everything, that the language exposes. The language is telling. It exposes the things we’re thinking that we’re not saying. We do seem to collectively consider it a violence. When I say we, I’m extending that beyond this country because, as I point out in that passage, the British still use a violent metaphor for this technology. [They call it a “jab.”] I think it’s a window into our subconscious feelings about vaccination—what it is, what it’s doing, what we’re afraid it’s doing. Those fears have been really persistent for well over a century, back into the eighteen-fifties. People had really similar fears of vaccination, fears of the body being permanently polluted or the nature of the person being changed permanently by the vaccine. Back then, the fears would take the shape of being afraid that you would become a cow or grow the horns of a cow if you were vaccinated. The general shape of them is really similar to some of the fears that we have today. For me, it blew this whole project open when I saw my own fears and hesitations around vaccination echoed in the anti-vaccination movement of the eighteen-fifties, which was not only a different time and different context but a whole different vaccine that we don’t even use anymore.
So, then, how should we be talking to people who are skeptical about vaccines? I would say your book is fairly respectful of people with different views but also, at times, cutting about the substance of those views.
I don’t know. I’ll just start by saying that. My project in this book was inspired in part by feeling condescended to as a woman and a mother by a lot of the material that I read about vaccinations when I was pregnant and when I was a new mother. I smelled a strong whiff of misogyny in a lot of the media coverage and even in medical literature. There was an undercurrent—and sometimes it really wasn’t that subtle—of this idea that if only women weren’t so dumb and so bad at understanding science, then this wouldn’t be a problem. My commitment was to write a book that didn’t reproduce or echo any of those misogynist tropes, to write a book in which I directly address other women, with respect for their intelligence and capacity. I do very strongly believe that that’s how any conversation around this should proceed.


newyorker--2020-09-13--The Cryptic Crossword: No. 62

The Cryptic Crossword: No. 62

Some clues have been edited for clarity .
Subscribers can find explanations of the original puzzle ’ s answers in @ @ @

Some clues have been edited for clarity. Subscribers can find explanations of the original puzzle’s answers in our archive.


newyorker--2020-09-13--Sunday Reading: Creative Innovators

Sunday Reading: Creative Innovators

In 2015 , Rebecca Mead profiled Lin-Manuel Miranda , who wanted to tell a story about the Founding Fathers by melding hip-hop with history .
Miranda ’ s creative vision revolutionized the Broadway musical and influenced a generation of theatregoers .
Like Miranda , many artistic trailblazers often work at the intersection between the traditional and the visionary .
This week , we ’ re bringing you a selection of pieces on creative innovators .
In “ The Abstractionist , ” John Seabrook writes about the inventive designs of the architect Zaha Hadid .
In “ The Shadow Act , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the artist Kara Walker and considers the historical influences on her work .
In “ The Misfit , ” Judith Thurman examines the life of the reclusive avant-garde designer Rei Kawakubo .
Finally , in “ Godmother of Soul , ” Kelefa Sanneh chronicles the remarkable career of the soul singer Erykah Badu .
All of these pieces remind us that the creative spark is just a starting point for innovative virtuosity .
We hope they bring some enchantment to your Sunday .
A new musical brings the Founding Fathers back to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kawakubo is a Japanese avant-gardist of few words , and she changed women ’ s fashion .

Photograph by Erik Carter / NYT / Redux
In 2015, Rebecca Mead profiled Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wanted to tell a story about the Founding Fathers by melding hip-hop with history. Miranda’s creative vision revolutionized the Broadway musical and influenced a generation of theatregoers. Like Miranda, many artistic trailblazers often work at the intersection between the traditional and the visionary. This week, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces on creative innovators. In “The Abstractionist,” John Seabrook writes about the inventive designs of the architect Zaha Hadid. In “The Shadow Act,” Hilton Als explores the imaginative silhouettes of the artist Kara Walker and considers the historical influences on her work. In “The Misfit,” Judith Thurman examines the life of the reclusive avant-garde designer Rei Kawakubo. Finally, in “Godmother of Soul,” Kelefa Sanneh chronicles the remarkable career of the soul singer Erykah Badu. All of these pieces remind us that the creative spark is just a starting point for innovative virtuosity. We hope they bring some enchantment to your Sunday.
—David Remnick
Photograph by Zach Gross
A new musical brings the Founding Fathers back to life—with a lot of hip-hop.
Photograph by Miles Aldridge
Zaha Hadid’s unfettered invention.
Kara Walker’s vision.
Photograph by Eiichiro Sakata
Rei Kawakubo is a Japanese avant-gardist of few words, and she changed women’s fashion.
Erykah Badu’s expanding musical universe.


newyorker--2020-09-13--The Trump Campaign’s Mobile App Is Collecting Massive Amounts of Voter Data

Since the Trump campaign set up a shell company called American Made Media Consultants , in 2018 , an entity it describes as a “ vendor responsible for arranging and executing media buys and related services at fair market value , ” it ’ s been nearly impossible to know whom the campaign is paying , for what , and how much .
But , on May 27th , Alan Knitowski , the C.E.O .
of Phunware , an Austin-based ad broker and software company , announced a “ strategic relationship with American Made Media Consultants on the development , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Trump-Pence 2020 Reelection Campaign ’ s mobile application portfolio.
” Although Phunware never showed up in the campaign ’ s F.E.C .
reports , Phunware ’ s S.E.C .
filings show that , since last year , it has been paid around four million dollars by A.M.M.C .
On its face , Phunware seems like a strange choice to develop the campaign ’ s app .
Before working for President Trump , Phunware ’ s software was being used in relatively few applications , the most popular being a horoscope app .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ been embroiled in a lawsuit with Uber , a former client of the company ’ s ad-placement business .
The dispute stems from a yearlong investigation by two former Phunware employees who discovered that the company was pretending to place Uber ads on Web sites like CNN when , in fact , they were appearing on pornography sites , among others , if they appeared at all .
But , according to former Phunware employees and business associates , the company ’ s value to the Trump campaign is not in software development @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paying Phunware four million dollars for an app , ” a former business partner of the company told me .
“ They are paying for data .
They are paying for targeted advertising services .
Imagine if every time I open my phone I see a campaign message that Joe Biden ’ s America means we ’ re going to have war in the streets .
That ’ s the service the Trump campaign and Brad Parscale ” —the Trump campaign ’ s senior adviser for data and digital operations— “ have bought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of the package.
” The Trump 2020 app is a massive data-collection tool in its own right .
When it launched , on April 23rd , Parscale , who was then Trump ’ s campaign manager , urged his followers on Facebook to “ download the groundbreaking Official Trump 2020 App—unlike other lame political apps you ’ ve seen.
” Despite the hype , the 2020 app recapitulates many of the functions found on the 2016 app .
There ’ s a news feed with Trump ’ s social-media posts , an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The “ gaming ” features that distinguished the 2016 app are still prominent—a “ Trump ’ s army ” member who accumulates a hundred thousand points by sharing contacts or raising money is promised a photograph with the President , while other members can use points to get discounts on MAGA gear .
Users are prompted to invite friends to download the app—more points !
—and can use the app to sign up to make calls on behalf of the campaign , to be a poll watcher , to register voters , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ events .
The most obvious new feature on the 2020 app is a live news broadcast , carefully curated by the campaign to push the President ’ s talking points .
It is hosted by a cast of campaign surrogates , including Lara Trump , Eric Trump ’ s wife , and Kimberly Guilfoyle , Donald Trump , Jr. , ’ s girlfriend and the campaign ’ s national finance chair .
There are also channels aimed at particular demographic groups , among them Women for Trump , Black Voices for Trump , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a crude approximation of a traditional news outlet , the Trump app enables users to stay fully sequestered within the fact-optional Trump universe .
“ I think everything we do is to counter the media , ” Parscale told Reuters in June .
“ This is another tool in the tool shed to fight that fight , and it ’ s a big tool.
” In May , after Twitter labelled one of Trump ’ s tweets as being in violation of its standards , sparking renewed claims of liberal-media censorship of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweet was not taken down ) , downloads of the campaign app soared .
To access the Trump app , users must share their cell-phone numbers with the campaign .
“ The most important , golden thing in politics is a cellphone number , ” Parscale told Reuters .
“ When we receive cellphone numbers , it really allows us to identify them across the databases .
Who are they , voting history , everything.
” Michael Marinaccio , the chief operating officer of Data Trust , a private Republican data company , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new this year , or at least a sense of urgency , is getting as many cell-phone numbers as we can in the voter file data.
” An effective way to do that is to entice supporters to share not only their own cell-phone numbers with the campaign but those of their contacts as well .
One estimate , by Eliran Sapir , the C.E.O .
of Apptopia , a mobile-analytics company , is that 1.4 million app downloads could provide upward of a hundred million phone numbers .
This will enable the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who have not consented to handing over their personal information .
It ’ s not unlike how Cambridge Analytica was able to harvest the data of nearly ninety million unsuspecting Facebook users , only this time it is one ’ s friends , family , and acquaintances who are willfully handing over the data for a chance to get a twenty-five-dollar discount on a MAGA hat .
By contrast , the new Biden app still collects data on users , but it outlines the specific uses of that data and doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of users ’ friends and family .
“ Unlike the Biden app , which seeks to provide users with awareness and control of the specific uses of their data , the Trump app collects as much as it can using an opt-out system and makes no promises as to the specific uses of that data , ” Samuel Woolley , the director of the propaganda research project at the University of Texas ’ s Center for Media Engagement , told me .
“ They just try to get people to turn over as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me , “ The Trump 2020 app was built by Phunware as a one-stop destination with a variety of tools to get voters engaged with President Trump ’ s reëlection campaign.
” Among its main contributions to the app ’ s data-mining capabilities is a “ location experience kit , ” which the company had previously marketed to hospitals and malls to help people navigate unfamiliar buildings .
Visitors could pair their phone ’ s Bluetooth with beacons set up throughout the facility .
Initially , the Trump 2020 app was built @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have been useful .
According to one former employee , however , the company ’ s location software , which functions even when the app is not open , may be capable of sucking up more than geographic coördinates .
It could potentially “ sniff out all of the information you have on your phone .
Any sort of registration data , your name , your phone number , potentially your Social Security number , and other pieces of data .
It could sniff out how many apps you have on your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have on your phone , what apps you deleted recently , how much time you ’ ve spent in an app , and your dwell time at various specific locations .
It could give a very intimate picture of that individual and their relationship with that mobile device.
” ( Phunware did not respond to multiple requests for comment . )

Since the Trump campaign set up a shell company called American Made Media Consultants, in 2018, an entity it describes as a “vendor responsible for arranging and executing media buys and related services at fair market value,” it’s been nearly impossible to know whom the campaign is paying, for what, and how much. But, on May 27th, Alan Knitowski, the C.E.O. of Phunware, an Austin-based ad broker and software company, announced a “strategic relationship with American Made Media Consultants on the development, launch and ongoing management and evolution of the Trump-Pence 2020 Reelection Campaign’s mobile application portfolio.” Although Phunware never showed up in the campaign’s F.E.C. reports, Phunware’s S.E.C. filings show that, since last year, it has been paid around four million dollars by A.M.M.C.
On its face, Phunware seems like a strange choice to develop the campaign’s app. Before working for President Trump, Phunware’s software was being used in relatively few applications, the most popular being a horoscope app. And, since 2019, it has been embroiled in a lawsuit with Uber, a former client of the company’s ad-placement business. The dispute stems from a yearlong investigation by two former Phunware employees who discovered that the company was pretending to place Uber ads on Web sites like CNN when, in fact, they were appearing on pornography sites, among others, if they appeared at all. But, according to former Phunware employees and business associates, the company’s value to the Trump campaign is not in software development. “The Trump campaign is not paying Phunware four million dollars for an app,” a former business partner of the company told me. “They are paying for data. They are paying for targeted advertising services. Imagine if every time I open my phone I see a campaign message that Joe Biden’s America means we’re going to have war in the streets. That’s the service the Trump campaign and Brad Parscale”—the Trump campaign’s senior adviser for data and digital operations—“have bought from Phunware. An app is just part of the package.”
The Trump 2020 app is an enormous data-collection tool in its own right. When it launched, on April 23rd, Parscale, who was then Trump’s campaign manager, urged his followers on Facebook to “download the groundbreaking Official Trump 2020 App—unlike other lame political apps you’ve seen.” Despite the hype, the 2020 app recapitulates many of the functions found on the 2016 app. There’s a news feed with Trump’s social-media posts, an events calendar, and recorded videos. The “gaming” features that distinguished the 2016 app are still prominent—a “Trump’s army” member who accumulates a hundred thousand points by sharing contacts or raising money is promised a photograph with the President, while other members can use points to get discounts on MAGA gear. Users are prompted to invite friends to download the app—more points!—and can use the app to sign up to make calls on behalf of the campaign, to be a poll watcher, to register voters, and to get tickets to virtual and in-person events.
The most obvious new feature on the 2020 app is a live news broadcast, carefully curated by the campaign to push the President’s talking points. It is hosted by a cast of campaign surrogates, including Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump, Jr.,’s girlfriend and the campaign’s national finance chair. There are also channels aimed at particular demographic groups, among them Women for Trump, Black Voices for Trump, and Latinos for Trump. Though it is a crude approximation of a traditional news outlet, the Trump app enables users to stay fully sequestered within the fact-optional Trump universe. “I think everything we do is to counter the media,” Parscale told Reuters in June. “This is another tool in the tool shed to fight that fight, and it’s a big tool.” In May, after Twitter labelled one of Trump’s tweets as being in violation of its standards, sparking renewed claims of liberal-media censorship of conservatives (despite the fact that the tweet was not taken down), downloads of the campaign app soared.
To access the Trump app, users must share their cell-phone numbers with the campaign. “The most important, golden thing in politics is a cellphone number,” Parscale told Reuters. “When we receive cellphone numbers, it really allows us to identify them across the databases. Who are they, voting history, everything.” Michael Marinaccio, the chief operating officer of Data Trust, a private Republican data company, said recently that “what’s new this year, or at least a sense of urgency, is getting as many cell-phone numbers as we can in the voter file data.” An effective way to do that is to entice supporters to share not only their own cell-phone numbers with the campaign but those of their contacts as well. One estimate, by Eliran Sapir, the C.E.O. of Apptopia, a mobile-analytics company, is that 1.4 million app downloads could provide upward of a hundred million phone numbers. This will enable the Trump campaign to find and target people who have not consented to handing over their personal information. It’s not unlike how Cambridge Analytica was able to harvest the data of nearly ninety million unsuspecting Facebook users, only this time it is one’s friends, family, and acquaintances who are willfully handing over the data for a chance to get a twenty-five-dollar discount on a MAGA hat.
By contrast, the new Biden app still collects data on users, but it outlines the specific uses of that data and doesn’t automatically collect the e-mail and phone numbers of users’ friends and family. “Unlike the Biden app, which seeks to provide users with awareness and control of the specific uses of their data, the Trump app collects as much as it can using an opt-out system and makes no promises as to the specific uses of that data,” Samuel Woolley, the director of the propaganda research project at the University of Texas’s Center for Media Engagement, told me. “They just try to get people to turn over as much as possible.”
A Trump spokesperson told me, “The Trump 2020 app was built by Phunware as a one-stop destination with a variety of tools to get voters engaged with President Trump’s reëlection campaign.” Among its main contributions to the app’s data-mining capabilities is a “location experience kit,” which the company had previously marketed to hospitals and malls to help people navigate unfamiliar buildings. Visitors could pair their phone’s Bluetooth with beacons set up throughout the facility. Initially, the Trump 2020 app was built around big rallies, where this feature would have been useful. According to one former employee, however, the company’s location software, which functions even when the app is not open, may be capable of sucking up more than geographic coördinates. It could potentially “sniff out all of the information you have on your phone. Any sort of registration data, your name, your phone number, potentially your Social Security number, and other pieces of data. It could sniff out how many apps you have on your phone, what type of apps you have on your phone, what apps you deleted recently, how much time you’ve spent in an app, and your dwell time at various specific locations. It could give a very intimate picture of that individual and their relationship with that mobile device.” (Phunware did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
In 2017, as Phunware was moving into the election space, the company’s Web site announced, “As soon as the first few campaigns recognize the value of mobile ad targeting for voter engagement, the floodgates will open. Which campaign will get there first and strike it rich?” A year later, according to people familiar with the effort, the company used its location-tracking capabilities to create a lobbying campaign on behalf of a health-care company aiming to influence legislators in Georgia. It put a “geofence” around the governor’s mansion that recorded the I.D. of every device that went in and out of the building, and then used the I.D.s to send targeted messages to those phones (likely including the governor’s) about the legislation it was aiming to influence. The legislation passed. Phunware’s leadership has also discussed their ability to geofence polling places, according to people who were present during these discussions, in order to send targeted campaign ads to voters as they step into the voting booth. While it is illegal to advertise in the vicinity of the polls, using location data in this way to send targeted ads could enable a campaign to breach that border surreptitiously.
Phunware’s data collection on behalf of the Trump campaign likely extends beyond the app as well. According to Phunware’s chief operating officer, Randall Crowder, the company has created a “data exchange” that “enables digital marketers to design custom audiences within minutes using geographic, interest, intent, and demographic segments . . . high-quality G.P.S. location data points from one hundred million-plus devices in the United States to increase scale of location-based audiences.” In its promotional materials, the company also claims to have unique device I.D.s for more than a billion mobile devices worldwide, and to have developed what it calls a Knowledge Graph—a “consumer-centric collection of actions, preferences, characteristics and predicted behavior” from the data it has siphoned from mobile phones and tablets. Much like Facebook’s social graph, which has been described as “the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related,” this enables the company to quickly sort through large data sets, uncovering connections and relations that otherwise would be obscured. For example: middle-aged women who live alone, rarely vote, own guns, and live in a border state.
So how did Phunware obtain a billion unique device I.D.s? As the company described it to the S.E.C., they were collected from phones and tablets that use Phunware’s software. But, according to people who have worked with the company, in addition to the data it obtains through its software, Phunware has been using its ad-placement business as a wholesale data-mining operation. When it bids to place an ad in an app like, for example, Pandora, it scoops up the I.D. of every phone and tablet that would have been exposed to the ad, even if it loses the bid. By collecting and storing this information, the company is able to compile a fairly comprehensive picture of every app downloaded on those devices, and any registration data a user has shared in order to use the app.
This information can yield rich demographic data. If a campaign is looking for young men with an affinity for guns, for instance, it might look at who has downloaded both Call of Duty and CCW, the Concealed Carry Fifty State app. Then, using the location data associated with the device I.D., the data can be unmasked and linked to an individual. Once a campaign knows who someone is, and where a person lives, it is not difficult to start building a voter file, and using this information to tailor ads and messages.
Tom Wheeler, the former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, told me, “These are Cambridge Analytica-like techniques. It’s collecting the descriptive power of data from multiple sources, most of which the consumer doesn’t even know are being collected. And that’s what Cambridge Analytica did.”
In late July, a group of lawmakers, led by Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, and his Democratic colleague Ron Wyden, of Oregon, sent a letter to the chair of the Federal Trade Commission asking him to investigate whether using bidding information in this way constitutes an unfair and deceptive practice. “Few Americans realize that companies are siphoning off and sharing that ‘bidstream’ data to compile exhaustive dossiers about them,” they wrote, “which are then sold to hedge funds, political campaigns, and even to the government without court orders.” According to Charles Manning, the C.E.O. of Kochava, a data marketplace, “There are no regulatory bodies that appear to be aware of the technological foundations upon which digital advertising operates. This is a challenge, because without understanding how programmatic ads are bought and sold, regulators face an uphill battle in applying regulation that deals with opaque supply chains where fraudulent behavior can flourish.”
The Trump app, at least, is explicit about what it expects from its users: “You may be asked to provide certain information, including your name, username, password, e-mail, date of birth, gender, address, employment information, and other descriptive information,” the app’s privacy policy states. “The Services [of the app] may include features that rely on the use of information stored on, or made available through, your mobile Device. . . . We . . . reserve the right to store any information about the people you contact via the Services. . . . We reserve the right to use, share, exchange and/or disclose to DJTFP affiliated committee and third parties any of your information for any lawful purpose.” (When I asked Woolley why the campaign was asking supporters to share their contacts, since it already had access to them through the app’s permissions, he pointed out that, when a user shares their contacts to earn points, “that actually sends out messages to your contacts asking them to download the app. So rather than just getting data on your friends and family, they are able to also reach out to them using you as a reference.”)
The policy also notes that the campaign will be collecting information gleaned from G.P.S. and other location services, and that users will be tracked as they move around the Internet. Users also agree to give the campaign access to the phone’s Bluetooth connection, calendar, storage, and microphone, as well as permission to read the contents of their memory card, modify or delete the contents of the card, view the phone status and identity, view its Wi-Fi connections, and prevent the phone from going to sleep. These permissions give the Trump data operation access to the intimate details of users’ lives, the ability to listen in on those lives, and to follow users everywhere they go. It’s a colossal—and essentially free—data-mining enterprise. As Woolley and his colleague Jacob Gursky wrote in MIT Technology Review, the Trump 2020 app is “a voter surveillance tool of extraordinary power.”
I learned this firsthand after downloading the Trump 2020 app on a burner phone I bought in order to examine it, using an alias and a new e-mail address. Two days later, the President sent me a note, thanking me for joining his team. Lara Trump invited me (for a small donation) to become a Presidential adviser. Eric Trump called me one of his father’s “FIERCEST supporters from the beginning.” But the messages I began getting from the Trump campaign every couple of hours were sent not only to the name and address I’d used to access the app. They were also sent to the e-mail address and name associated with the credit card I’d used to buy the phone and its SIM card, neither of which I had shared with the campaign. Despite my best efforts, they knew who I was and where to reach me.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-09-13--The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

In 1961 , Estes Kefauver , the crusading Democratic senator from Tennessee , denounced the Electoral College as “ a loaded pistol pointed at our system of government.
” Its continued existence , he said , as he opened hearings on election reform , created “ a game of Russian roulette ” because , at some point , the antidemocratic distortions of the College could threaten the country ’ s integrity .
Judging from Twitter ’ s obsessions , at least , that hour may be approaching .
The polls indicate that Donald Trump is likely to win fewer votes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just as he won fewer than Hillary Clinton , in 2016 .
Yet Trump may still win reëlection , since the Electoral College favors voters in small and rural states over those in large and urban ones .
Last week , a new book by Bob Woodward revealed how Trump lied , in the early weeks of the pandemic , about the severity of the coronavirus , even though that put American lives at risk ; the thought that a reëlected Trump might feel triumphantly affirmed in such mendacity is terrifying .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has given us our Trump problem would be misguided .
His Presidency , and the chance that it will recur despite his persistent unpopularity , reflects a deeper malignancy in our Constitution , one that looks increasingly unsustainable .
James Madison , who helped conceive the Electoral College at the Constitutional Convention , of 1787 , later admitted that delegates had written the rules while impaired by “ the hurrying influence produced by fatigue and impatience.
” The system is so buggy that , between 1800 and 2016 , according to Alexander Keyssar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , members of Congress introduced more than eight hundred constitutional amendments to fix its technical problems or to abolish it altogether .
In much of the postwar era , strong majorities of Americans have favored dumping the College and adopting a direct national election for President .
After Kefauver ’ s hearings , during the civil-rights era , this idea gained momentum until , in 1969 , the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to establish a national popular vote for the White House .
President Richard Nixon called it “ a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filibuster backed by segregationist Southerners in the Senate killed it .
That defeat reflects the centrality of race and racism in any convincing explanation of the Electoral College ’ s staying power .
In the antebellum period , the College assured that slave power shaped Presidential elections , because of the notorious three-fifths compromise , which increased the electoral clout of slave states .
Today , it effectively dilutes the votes of African-Americans , Latinos , and Asian-Americans , because they live disproportionately in populous states , which have less power in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heavily white Wyoming will cast three electoral votes , or about one per every hundred and ninety thousand residents ; diverse California will cast fifty-five votes , or one per seven hundred and fifteen thousand people .
Electoral College abolitionists , knowing that the last successful constitutional amendment addressing the College was adopted in 1804 , have in recent years embraced a clever workaround , called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact .
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have passed bills containing identical language pledging to cast their electoral votes for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ votes nationally .
The jurisdictions in the compact currently have a hundred and ninety-six electoral votes among them , seventy-four short of the two hundred and seventy needed to bring the compact into effect , thereby guaranteeing that the candidate who wins the largest number of votes in the relevant constituency—the United States , not just the handful of “ battleground ” or “ swing ” states—wins the College and gets the job .
If the National Popular Vote plan ever succeeds , it would elide some problems , such as the current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting , but it would fix the most egregious deficit : the undermining of one person , one vote .
The various arguments advanced for and against the Electoral College seem to outnumber the stars .
A book issued by the group promoting the National Popular Vote plan runs a thousand pages , refuting no fewer than a hundred and thirty-one “ myths ” about the way we elect our Presidents .
But the basic case for a national popular vote is simple and appealing .
To be fair , the case made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relies on a clear foundation : the role of federalism in the American experiment .
Some who favor the status quo fear that a nationalized Presidential vote would also nationalize American politics and undermine states .
In fact , the constitutional powers of state governments and the role of the Senate , whose membership advantages small states over large ones , would , among many other continuing features of federalism , insure that the United States remains a “ consensus democracy , ” in the phrase of the political scientist Arend Lijphart—that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we must grapple with divided power .
A few days after the 2016 election , Trump told Lesley Stahl , of “ 60 Minutes , ” that he had “ respect ” for the Electoral College , but would “ rather see it where you went with simple votes .
You know , you get one hundred million votes , and somebody else gets ninety million votes , and you win.
” Like so many of his statements , this one proved unreliable .
And , as his supporters realized that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ College , their preference for the institution hardened .
In 2012 , fifty-four per cent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents favored replacing the College with a national popular vote , according to the Pew Research Center , even though George W. Bush , too , had lost the popular vote , in 2000 .
Today , only a third of them take that position .
The National Popular Vote project relies mostly on the backing of Democrats and blue states ; after Trump , it will not be easy to revitalize cross-party support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the popular vote might very well improve our rancid politics .
A Republican Party with an incentive to compete for votes in California and New York , for example , might be less tempted by white nationalism .
Whenever the Trump years pass , our democracy , assuming that it endures , will face a major repair job .
There will be new laws , one hopes , to prevent future Presidents from owning hotels down the street from the White House , and from withholding their tax returns , and from using @ @ @ @ @ @ @ firm .
To tear at the roots of Trumpism , however , will require much more .
The Electoral College is a legacy of “ distrust of the people , ” as Kefauver put it , and an artifact of racial injustice .
If we haven ’ t learned by now that it must go , what will it take ?
♦

Illustration by João Fazenda
In 1961, Estes Kefauver, the crusading Democratic senator from Tennessee, denounced the Electoral College as “a loaded pistol pointed at our system of government.” Its continued existence, he said, as he opened hearings on election reform, created “a game of Russian roulette” because, at some point, the antidemocratic distortions of the College could threaten the country’s integrity. Judging from Twitter’s obsessions, at least, that hour may be approaching. The polls indicate that Donald Trump is likely to win fewer votes nationally than Joe Biden this fall, just as he won fewer than Hillary Clinton, in 2016. Yet Trump may still win reëlection, since the Electoral College favors voters in small and rural states over those in large and urban ones. Last week, a new book by Bob Woodward revealed how Trump lied, in the early weeks of the pandemic, about the severity of the coronavirus, even though that put American lives at risk; the thought that a reëlected Trump might feel triumphantly affirmed in such mendacity is terrifying. But criticizing the Electoral College simply because it has given us our Trump problem would be misguided. His Presidency, and the chance that it will recur despite his persistent unpopularity, reflects a deeper malignancy in our Constitution, one that looks increasingly unsustainable.
James Madison, who helped conceive the Electoral College at the Constitutional Convention, of 1787, later admitted that delegates had written the rules while impaired by “the hurrying influence produced by fatigue and impatience.” The system is so buggy that, between 1800 and 2016, according to Alexander Keyssar, a rigorous historian of the institution, members of Congress introduced more than eight hundred constitutional amendments to fix its technical problems or to abolish it altogether. In much of the postwar era, strong majorities of Americans have favored dumping the College and adopting a direct national election for President. After Kefauver’s hearings, during the civil-rights era, this idea gained momentum until, in 1969, the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to establish a national popular vote for the White House. President Richard Nixon called it “a thoroughly acceptable reform,” but a filibuster backed by segregationist Southerners in the Senate killed it.
That defeat reflects the centrality of race and racism in any convincing explanation of the Electoral College’s staying power. In the antebellum period, the College assured that slave power shaped Presidential elections, because of the notorious three-fifths compromise, which increased the electoral clout of slave states. Today, it effectively dilutes the votes of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans, because they live disproportionately in populous states, which have less power in the College per capita. This year, heavily white Wyoming will cast three electoral votes, or about one per every hundred and ninety thousand residents; diverse California will cast fifty-five votes, or one per seven hundred and fifteen thousand people.
Electoral College abolitionists, knowing that the last successful constitutional amendment addressing the College was adopted in 1804, have in recent years embraced a clever workaround, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have passed bills containing identical language pledging to cast their electoral votes for the Presidential candidate who wins the most votes nationally. The jurisdictions in the compact currently have a hundred and ninety-six electoral votes among them, seventy-four short of the two hundred and seventy needed to bring the compact into effect, thereby guaranteeing that the candidate who wins the largest number of votes in the relevant constituency—the United States, not just the handful of “battleground” or “swing” states—wins the College and gets the job. If the National Popular Vote plan ever succeeds, it would elide some problems, such as the current system’s reliance on winner-take-all plurality voting, but it would fix the most egregious deficit: the undermining of one person, one vote.
The various arguments advanced for and against the Electoral College seem to outnumber the stars. A book issued by the group promoting the National Popular Vote plan runs a thousand pages, refuting no fewer than a hundred and thirty-one “myths” about the way we elect our Presidents. But the basic case for a national popular vote is simple and appealing. To be fair, the case made by supporters of the Electoral College also relies on a clear foundation: the role of federalism in the American experiment. Some who favor the status quo fear that a nationalized Presidential vote would also nationalize American politics and undermine states. In fact, the constitutional powers of state governments and the role of the Senate, whose membership advantages small states over large ones, would, among many other continuing features of federalism, insure that the United States remains a “consensus democracy,” in the phrase of the political scientist Arend Lijphart—that is, one in which, by design, we must grapple with divided power.
A few days after the 2016 election, Trump told Lesley Stahl, of “60 Minutes,” that he had “respect” for the Electoral College, but would “rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get one hundred million votes, and somebody else gets ninety million votes, and you win.” Like so many of his statements, this one proved unreliable. And, as his supporters realized that he had become President because of the Electoral College, their preference for the institution hardened. In 2012, fifty-four per cent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents favored replacing the College with a national popular vote, according to the Pew Research Center, even though George W. Bush, too, had lost the popular vote, in 2000. Today, only a third of them take that position. The National Popular Vote project relies mostly on the backing of Democrats and blue states; after Trump, it will not be easy to revitalize cross-party support. Yet a Presidential election decided by the popular vote might very well improve our rancid politics. A Republican Party with an incentive to compete for votes in California and New York, for example, might be less tempted by white nationalism.
Whenever the Trump years pass, our democracy, assuming that it endures, will face a major repair job. There will be new laws, one hopes, to prevent future Presidents from owning hotels down the street from the White House, and from withholding their tax returns, and from using the Justice Department as a personal law firm. To tear at the roots of Trumpism, however, will require much more. The Electoral College is a legacy of “distrust of the people,” as Kefauver put it, and an artifact of racial injustice. If we haven’t learned by now that it must go, what will it take? ♦
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-09-13--Michael Frayn on the State of Britain and the Future of Theatre

Michael Frayn was born in the suburbs of London , in 1933 .
He studied philosophy at Cambridge , in the nineteen-fifties , before becoming a reporter and columnist for the Guardian and then a star columnist for the Observer in the sixties—experiences he put to wry use in “ Towards the End of the Morning , ” a novel about world-weary Fleet Street hacks , published in 1967 .
He turned to theatre in the seventies , and he may be best known , at least in Britain , as the creator of the imperishable stage farce “ Noises @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1982 .
A decade and a half later , his drama “ Copenhagen , ” which pried open the mysterious relationship between the nuclear physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the midst of the Second World War , won the Tony Award for Best Play .
Another award-winning drama , “ Democracy , ” from 2003 , delved into the muddied compromises of German politics .
Frayn ’ s most recent play , “ Afterlife , ” is from 2008 , and he has hinted it might be his last ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ visionary theatre director Max Reinhardt .
( Like many of Frayn ’ s works , it was directed by Michael Blakemore . )
He has written a memoir , numerous screenplays and television scripts , and a well-regarded philosophical study on the concept of uncertainty .
He has also translated nearly all the plays of Anton Chekhov , among other works of Russian literature .
Despite his irksomely abundant talents , Frayn has an old-fashioned English distrust of over-egging anything , especially himself : in a Profile for this magazine from 2004 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , cheerful , tidy , hardworking , discreet , modest , logically scrupulous , and parsimonious in matters of sentiment.
” Frayn told MacFarquhar , “ I have a moderate view of life.
” He would have spent this summer doing the rounds of British literary festivals to promote his new book , “ Magic Mobile , ” a volume of short comic pieces , but he and his wife , the writer Claire Tomalin , with whom he has lived since 1981 , are taking lockdown seriously , and venturing out as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , it ’ s nice to be released from all that , and just get on with working and reading , ” he told me recently , on a Zoom call of intermittent reliability .
He was sitting in his office among neat shelves of dictionaries and play scripts .
His three children live close by , and “ often come over and sit in the garden or go for walks , ” he said .
We went on to talk about the possibilities of socially distanced drama , how laughter has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Britain in the wake of the coronavirus , and what Chekhov did during pandemics .
Later , we spoke again by Zoom ; these interviews have been edited and condensed .
Some theatres in Britain have tried reopening at reduced capacity , but there ’ s a fear that productions might not get going properly again until next year—assuming theatres even make it through Christmas .
Has it affected you ?
I have , I think , four revivals in the U.K. scheduled for next year , and they ’ re all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether we ’ re going to be doing any theatre next year or not .
It ’ s an impossible situation .
There ’ s something to be said for social distancing on the stage—some directors do a lot of it , because they want to use the whole area of the stage .
Things like love scenes are much more effective if you get the lovers apart , on opposite sides of the stage , and make them play to each other across the width of it .
I really don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all the people who are supposed to have sword fights onstage have to stay well out of bash-bash-bash range of each other .
But you do need to pack audiences in together .
It ’ s just simply not financially viable to have audiences that are a quarter of the size of the audience you ’ re expecting .
Also , the theatre works by having this very close , communal response .
Particularly comedy—people do set each other off laughing .
To get a comedy going , you really need to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people .
Of course , when it doesn ’ t work , that ’ s even worse—when you ’ re sitting next to a lot of people who are supposed to be laughing , and they don ’ t laugh .
And laughter in the theatre suddenly seems to be risky behavior , doesn ’ t it ?
All those virus-bearing aerosols .
Normally , people say that laughter is good for you—I like to think I ’ m dispensing medicine to the public .
But if I ’ m also killing them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If Zoom could make their system more sophisticated so that everyone in the audience could be represented by an avatar in the theatre , and each avatar could hear the other person , it would be as good as having an audience .
But you see the difficulties we ’ re having even maintaining this conversation with two people .
The thought of all the people with avatars being visible and audible , coming back into existence , going out of existence again , would be a very dicey prospect .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make of actors sometimes , that they ’ ve phoned in their performance—but , theoretically , the audience could phone in their responses and that could be broadcast around the empty auditorium .
Theatre architects and technicians are working hard at the moment to try and find solutions that would allow for better audience capacity—I saw a scheme recently for surrounding every seat with plexiglass , so you ’ d be shielded from your neighbor .
If you ’ re shut away behind that , you might as well be shut away at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would encourage the actors , you could have lots of little screens , five hundred screens in the house .
Your new book , “ Magic Mobile , ” is an array of comic miniatures and vignettes , and your previous book , “ Matchbox Theatre , ” was a series of playlets .
Is there something appealing about working on a small scale ?
No doubt I have more ideas for short pieces because that ’ s how I began my career , by writing stuff as a reporter for the Guardian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maybe I ’ m just in old age , or second childhood , reverting to where I began .
I ’ ve been thinking about comedy and the pandemic—obviously , so much of it has been so grim , but in Britain , at least , there ’ s been a lot of humor , too , partly because so many people think the government has been so incompetent .
I don ’ t know if it ’ s a particularly British thing .
The British like to feel that they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve got a sense of humor—and particularly feel that the Germans don ’ t have a sense of humor .
But that doesn ’ t actually survive going to Germany and meeting Germans .
I think everyone in difficult situations tries to laugh about them if they possibly can , don ’ t they ?
Do you feel that the government response has been inept—that Boris Johnson and the Conservatives have really messed it up ?
I sympathize with suddenly having to face this enormous challenge .
But here we have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who ’ ve got in on false prospectus anyway , and they ’ ve suddenly been confronted with the coronavirus .
We ’ ve got a Prime Minister who is very idle and doesn ’ t quickly respond to events , and I think it took him some time to realize how serious this was—he ran around shaking people ’ s hands and allowing huge sporting events after everyone knew you couldn ’ t do this .

Michael Frayn was born in the suburbs of London, in 1933. He studied philosophy at Cambridge, in the nineteen-fifties, before becoming a reporter and columnist for the Guardian and then a star columnist for the Observer in the sixties—experiences he put to wry use in “Towards the End of the Morning,” a novel about world-weary Fleet Street hacks, published in 1967. He turned to theatre in the seventies, and he may be best known, at least in Britain, as the creator of the imperishable stage farce “Noises Off,” which was first produced in 1982. A decade and a half later, his drama “Copenhagen,” which pried open the mysterious relationship between the nuclear physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the midst of the Second World War, won the Tony Award for Best Play. Another award-winning drama, “Democracy,” from 2003, delved into the muddied compromises of German politics. Frayn’s most recent play, “Afterlife,” is from 2008, and he has hinted it might be his last; it explored the checkered career of the visionary theatre director Max Reinhardt. (Like many of Frayn’s works, it was directed by Michael Blakemore.) He has written a memoir, numerous screenplays and television scripts, and a well-regarded philosophical study on the concept of uncertainty. He has also translated nearly all the plays of Anton Chekhov, among other works of Russian literature.
Despite his irksomely abundant talents, Frayn has an old-fashioned English distrust of over-egging anything, especially himself: in a Profile for this magazine from 2004, Larissa MacFarquhar described him as “optimistic, cheerful, tidy, hardworking, discreet, modest, logically scrupulous, and parsimonious in matters of sentiment.” Frayn told MacFarquhar, “I have a moderate view of life.”
He would have spent this summer doing the rounds of British literary festivals to promote his new book, “Magic Mobile,” a volume of short comic pieces, but he and his wife, the writer Claire Tomalin, with whom he has lived since 1981, are taking lockdown seriously, and venturing out as little as possible. “In a way, it’s nice to be released from all that, and just get on with working and reading,” he told me recently, on a Zoom call of intermittent reliability. He was sitting in his office among neat shelves of dictionaries and play scripts. His three children live close by, and “often come over and sit in the garden or go for walks,” he said.
We went on to talk about the possibilities of socially distanced drama, how laughter has become a health risk, the state of Britain in the wake of the coronavirus, and what Chekhov did during pandemics. Later, we spoke again by Zoom; these interviews have been edited and condensed.
Some theatres in Britain have tried reopening at reduced capacity, but there’s a fear that productions might not get going properly again until next year—assuming theatres even make it through Christmas. Has it affected you?
I have, I think, four revivals in the U.K. scheduled for next year, and they’re all just hanging fire. No one knows whether we’re going to be doing any theatre next year or not. It’s an impossible situation.
There’s something to be said for social distancing on the stage—some directors do a lot of it, because they want to use the whole area of the stage. Things like love scenes are much more effective if you get the lovers apart, on opposite sides of the stage, and make them play to each other across the width of it. I really don’t think we lose very much if all the people who are supposed to have sword fights onstage have to stay well out of bash-bash-bash range of each other.
But you do need to pack audiences in together. It’s just simply not financially viable to have audiences that are a quarter of the size of the audience you’re expecting. Also, the theatre works by having this very close, communal response. Particularly comedy—people do set each other off laughing. To get a comedy going, you really need to be very close to a lot of other people. Of course, when it doesn’t work, that’s even worse—when you’re sitting next to a lot of people who are supposed to be laughing, and they don’t laugh.
And laughter in the theatre suddenly seems to be risky behavior, doesn’t it? All those virus-bearing aerosols.
Normally, people say that laughter is good for you—I like to think I’m dispensing medicine to the public. But if I’m also killing them that’s not so good.
If Zoom could make their system more sophisticated so that everyone in the audience could be represented by an avatar in the theatre, and each avatar could hear the other person, it would be as good as having an audience. But you see the difficulties we’re having even maintaining this conversation with two people. The thought of all the people with avatars being visible and audible, coming back into existence, going out of existence again, would be a very dicey prospect. It’s one of the criticisms that people make of actors sometimes, that they’ve phoned in their performance—but, theoretically, the audience could phone in their responses and that could be broadcast around the empty auditorium.
Theatre architects and technicians are working hard at the moment to try and find solutions that would allow for better audience capacity—I saw a scheme recently for surrounding every seat with plexiglass, so you’d be shielded from your neighbor.
If you’re shut away behind that, you might as well be shut away at home, using Zoom. If it would encourage the actors, you could have lots of little screens, five hundred screens in the house.
Your new book, “Magic Mobile,” is an array of comic miniatures and vignettes, and your previous book, “Matchbox Theatre,” was a series of playlets. Is there something appealing about working on a small scale?
No doubt I have more ideas for short pieces because that’s how I began my career, by writing stuff as a reporter for the Guardian. Then I became a columnist. Maybe I’m just in old age, or second childhood, reverting to where I began.
I’ve been thinking about comedy and the pandemic—obviously, so much of it has been so grim, but in Britain, at least, there’s been a lot of humor, too, partly because so many people think the government has been so incompetent.
I don’t know if it’s a particularly British thing. The British like to feel that they’re the only people in the world who’ve got a sense of humor—and particularly feel that the Germans don’t have a sense of humor. But that doesn’t actually survive going to Germany and meeting Germans. I think everyone in difficult situations tries to laugh about them if they possibly can, don’t they?
Do you feel that the government response has been inept—that Boris Johnson and the Conservatives have really messed it up?
I sympathize with suddenly having to face this enormous challenge. But here we have a newly elected government of incompetents and liars, who’ve got in on false prospectus anyway, and they’ve suddenly been confronted with the coronavirus. We’ve got a Prime Minister who is very idle and doesn’t quickly respond to events, and I think it took him some time to realize how serious this was—he ran around shaking people’s hands and allowing huge sporting events after everyone knew you couldn’t do this.
He even boasted at one stage about shaking hands while he was visiting a hospital.
Everyone’s first instinct is denial, isn’t it, when something really awful occurs. People famously walk away from road accidents and things—thinking if they can just leave the wreck of the car and the dead bodies and walk home, everything will be all right. I suppose it’s kind of understandable. But you do hope governments can do a bit better than that.
The close relationship between comedy and tragedy is a hallmark of your work; your most famous play, “Noises Off,” is hugely funny, but it’s also terrifying, in its way—the actors who are performing in the play-within-the-play, this terrible old-school British farce and watching it fall apart at the seams, are genuinely frightened, because they want the show to go on.
Comedy has got to be about something serious. A lot of people, even if they’re involved in performing comedy, think that you’re just doing funny things. But it’s people basically trying to behave seriously in a serious situation, where something real is at issue, and not being quite able to do it. Bergson said that all comedy is human beings behaving like machines. I don’t think that’s quite true—I don’t think you can make that an absolutely general principle—but I think frequently what happens in comedy is that people are faced with a new situation, like the coronavirus or whatever, and simply can’t get the responses fresh enough to cope with it. So they go on coping with the situation that previously existed.
You’ve said before that one reason you’re attracted to writing plays is that you have the comfort of the dialogic voice—you don’t have to take sides. Is it that you want to keep a certain distance?
When I used to write a column in the paper, it was supposed to be my personality that was on display. And I got less and less interested in that over the years, and more and more interested in writing about either real people or invented people and seeing life through their eyes.


newyorker--2020-09-13--P.A. System at Trump Rally Accidentally Blasts Woodward Tapes

MINDEN , NEVADA ( The Borowitz Report ) —Questions arose after the P.A .
system at a Trump rally in @ @ @ @ @ Bob Woodward ’ s interviews with the President .
As supporters streamed into the rally @ @ @ @ @ such classic rock songs as “ Fortunate Son ” and “ You Can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ ” were supplanted by audio of Trump acknowledging that the coronavirus was far deadlier than @ @ @ @ @ was heard revealing the details of a previously secret weapons program , campaign aides frantically @ @ @ @ @ and started scrambling for an explanation .
“ We have no idea how this happened @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Jared was in charge of the playlist.
” Unlike artists like John Fogerty @ @ @ @ @ Woodward said that he wholeheartedly endorsed the Trump campaign ’ s use of his recordings @ @ @ @ @ If the people at these rallies watch Fox News , this might be the only @ @ @ @ @ , ” Woodward said .

MINDEN, NEVADA (The Borowitz Report)—Questions arose after the P.A. system at a Trump rally in Nevada accidentally blasted excerpts from Bob Woodward’s interviews with the President.
As supporters streamed into the rally, the customary sounds of such classic rock songs as “Fortunate Son” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” were supplanted by audio of Trump acknowledging that the coronavirus was far deadlier than a flu.
After Trump was heard revealing the details of a previously secret weapons program, campaign aides frantically disconnected the P.A. system and started scrambling for an explanation.
“We have no idea how this happened,” one aide said. “Jared was in charge of the playlist.”
Unlike artists like John Fogerty and the Rolling Stones, Woodward said that he wholeheartedly endorsed the Trump campaign’s use of his recordings at its rallies.
“If the people at these rallies watch Fox News, this might be the only way they hear these tapes,” Woodward said.