newyorker--2020-08-24--“The Sand Banks, 1861,” by David Wright Faladé

We were just boys , ten- , eleven- , and twelve-year-olds , five colored and one white .
But for our smallclothes , each of us was most-all naked .
We stood on the rickety reach of pier , its planks care-laid but well used , us colored boys ’ black glistening in the noontime bright , the white one not yet leathered like the sunbeat beefs that free-ranged the island .
Our britches and coveralls and burlap shirts lay pell-mell near the spot on the shore where Ebo Joe Meekins knelt , inspecting the line of the skiff he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ either fifty or a thousand , the one age as imponderable to us as the other , and he paid us no more mind than we did him .
On the water , cleat-hitched to the pier , rocked the dugout full of oysters that we were supposed to be ferrying over to Ashbee ’ s Harbor .
Up and down it rolled with each leap or dive , as we plunged into the water one at a time or in twos and sometimes all six at once .
I was young , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with knots for knees and elbows , and I climbed from the Croatan Sound up onto the dugout .
Straddling it , a foot on each gunwale , I began walking its edge .
The wood ’ s rough grain dug into the pads of my feet with each shuffle-step forward .
The other boys waded nearby , wondering at my balancing act .
“ You look like one of Uncle John ’ s barn cats , ” Patrick , the white one , shouted up , and he splashed water to challenge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so as to keep my balance and taunted back at him , “ That the best you got ?
You can do better than that , Paddy-boy.
” Then I started rocking the dugout in place—down and up each gunwale , down and up—pushing out waves and making the others work to stay aloft .
He swam forward , grabbed a gunwale , and yanked down hard .
But I sprang overtop of him and stretched a splashless dive into the briny water beyond .
The others swarmed , wrestling to keep me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who had pulled himself onto the pier .
He went to his trousers , retrieved a penknife , and returned with one of the larger oysters from the floor of the dugout .
He pried at it until it cracked open .
I climbed up after him .
“ Smokes , Paddy , that ’ s as nice a knife as I ’ ve seen.
” “ Uncle John gave it to me.
” Patrick held it out for the others to see .
“ Said I was becoming a man and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his head back and slurped down the oyster , then opened another and extended it toward me .
I just stood there looking down at it .
“ Mass John B. told us to plant those out past the second duck blind , ” I said , “ not to eat them.
” The other boys gathered up behind me .
“ Half the Sand Banks are laughing at his fool notion of planting oyster beds , ” said Patrick , slurping down the one I ’ d refused .
“ Hellfire , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Midgett , protectful of me , told Patrick , “ Richard don ’ t need none of that .
Besides , Easterns taste like snot.
” “ Naw , they good , ” said Bill Charles .
“ But fried and on day-old bread.
” The rest chimed in then , proffering the ways and hows of oyster-eating—this , without any of us noting the sombre white man who had emerged from the thicket of pitch pine .
John B. Etheridge walked up the shore , smoking a pipe .
He wore bibbed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closed at the collar by a string tie , his everyday duck-cloth coat over that .
A slouch hat shaded his face .
John B. owned the dugout and the oysters , much of the island , in fact , including me and two of the others .
He stopped a short distance from us .
“ Patrick !
Those oysters are for my oysterage !
” The others scrambled to gather up their clothes , all but me .
I remained aside Patrick .
We both stood stock still on the pier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up .
“ What are you thinking ?
” “ Me and Dick were just letting the boys have a break is all , ” said Patrick .
John B. glared at this boy whom he had taken in as a son upon a dear older brother ’ s death .
“ How many times do I have to tell you ?
When I leave you in charge , you have to take charge.
” His voice evened , though the hard look in his eyes did not soften .
“ Not Dick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ look at me at all .
John B. often punctuated a point by the length of tense silence that followed .
“ You can ’ t be pals with every nigger on the island , ” he said .
“ Dick is no exception.
” Though it was Patrick who ’ d been scolded , I felt that it was me who had disappointed my father .
Turning , John B. said , “ Make sure those beds are planted before I see any of you around the house .
You two , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was already headed up the shore , each of us knew to whom which orders had been addressed .
Patrick and I scooped up our clothes and followed after , the others unhitching the dugout and pushing off .
John B. spoke briefly to Ebo Joe , who immediately stopped what he was doing and removed his hat , then John B. continued on .
Patrick carried his boots over a shoulder , tied together by the laces .
In short pants and a burlap shirt , I had no shoes to carry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now to us , Patrick aped his posture and gait , but I ignored him .
I rushed after John B. as he disappeared into the trees .
We made the mile-long march across the island in silence , Patrick aping , me ignoring .
At Shallowbag Bay , where most Roanoke Islanders lived , we joined up with John B.
’ s younger brother Tart , and our party of four took the sloop Margery & Sarah and sailed across the sound to Nags Head .
We landed south of Jockey ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dunes , through patches of dwarf pine and thorny scrub toward the sea .
Topping the last rise , we saw a wrecked schooner , pitched on her side near shore .
A three-master , though only two remained .
A party had already set upon the carcass , six or seven men rummaging through the hull and the debris scattered nearby for whatever might prove of value .
They made piles high up on the beach , gulls wheeling overhead .

Audio available Listen to this story Audio: David Wright Faladé reads.
We were just boys, ten-, eleven-, and twelve-year-olds, five colored and one white. But for our smallclothes, each of us was most-all naked. We stood on the rickety reach of pier, its planks care-laid but well used, us colored boys’ black glistening in the noontime bright, the white one not yet leathered like the sunbeat beefs that free-ranged the island. Our britches and coveralls and burlap shirts lay pell-mell near the spot on the shore where Ebo Joe Meekins knelt, inspecting the line of the skiff he was refitting. The old Negro was either fifty or a thousand, the one age as imponderable to us as the other, and he paid us no more mind than we did him. On the water, cleat-hitched to the pier, rocked the dugout full of oysters that we were supposed to be ferrying over to Ashbee’s Harbor. Up and down it rolled with each leap or dive, as we plunged into the water one at a time or in twos and sometimes all six at once.
I was young, square-shouldered but elseways long of limb, with knots for knees and elbows, and I climbed from the Croatan Sound up onto the dugout. Straddling it, a foot on each gunwale, I began walking its edge. The wood’s rough grain dug into the pads of my feet with each shuffle-step forward. The other boys waded nearby, wondering at my balancing act.
“You look like one of Uncle John’s barn cats,” Patrick, the white one, shouted up, and he splashed water to challenge my progress.
I halted my walk so as to keep my balance and taunted back at him, “That the best you got? You can do better than that, Paddy-boy.” Then I started rocking the dugout in place—down and up each gunwale, down and up—pushing out waves and making the others work to stay aloft.
“I’ll fix your arse,” said Patrick.
He swam forward, grabbed a gunwale, and yanked down hard. But I sprang overtop of him and stretched a splashless dive into the briny water beyond. The others swarmed, wrestling to keep me below the surface, all but Patrick, who had pulled himself onto the pier.
“Youall hungry?” he called.
He went to his trousers, retrieved a penknife, and returned with one of the larger oysters from the floor of the dugout. He pried at it until it cracked open.
I climbed up after him. “Smokes, Paddy, that’s as nice a knife as I’ve seen.”
The mother-of-pearl handle, the spey blade.
“Uncle John gave it to me.” Patrick held it out for the others to see. “Said I was becoming a man and deserved such a thing.” He threw his head back and slurped down the oyster, then opened another and extended it toward me.
I just stood there looking down at it. “Mass John B. told us to plant those out past the second duck blind,” I said, “not to eat them.”
The other boys gathered up behind me.
“Half the Sand Banks are laughing at his fool notion of planting oyster beds,” said Patrick, slurping down the one I’d refused. “Hellfire, there will always be oysters.”
Fields Midgett, protectful of me, told Patrick, “Richard don’t need none of that. Besides, Easterns taste like snot.”
“Naw, they good,” said Bill Charles. “But fried and on day-old bread.”
The rest chimed in then, proffering the ways and hows of oyster-eating—this, without any of us noting the sombre white man who had emerged from the thicket of pitch pine.
John B. Etheridge walked up the shore, smoking a pipe. He wore bibbed dungarees over a white work shirt, closed at the collar by a string tie, his everyday duck-cloth coat over that. A slouch hat shaded his face. John B. owned the dugout and the oysters, much of the island, in fact, including me and two of the others. He stopped a short distance from us.
“Patrick! Those oysters are for my oysterage!”
The others scrambled to gather up their clothes, all but me. I remained aside Patrick. We both stood stock still on the pier, heads hanging.
John B. stormed up. “What are you thinking?”
“Me and Dick were just letting the boys have a break is all,” said Patrick.
John B. glared at this boy whom he had taken in as a son upon a dear older brother’s death. “How many times do I have to tell you? When I leave you in charge, you have to take charge.” His voice evened, though the hard look in his eyes did not soften. “Not Dick, you.”
He didn’t look at me at all.
“Yes, sir, Uncle John,” said Patrick.
John B. often punctuated a point by the length of tense silence that followed.
“You can’t be pals with every nigger on the island,” he said. “Dick is no exception.”
Though it was Patrick who’d been scolded, I felt that it was me who had disappointed my father.
Turning, John B. said, “Make sure those beds are planted before I see any of you around the house. You two, with me.” And, though he was already headed up the shore, each of us knew to whom which orders had been addressed. Patrick and I scooped up our clothes and followed after, the others unhitching the dugout and pushing off.
John B. spoke briefly to Ebo Joe, who immediately stopped what he was doing and removed his hat, then John B. continued on. Patrick carried his boots over a shoulder, tied together by the laces. In short pants and a burlap shirt, I had no shoes to carry. With John B.’s back now to us, Patrick aped his posture and gait, but I ignored him. I rushed after John B. as he disappeared into the trees.
We made the mile-long march across the island in silence, Patrick aping, me ignoring. At Shallowbag Bay, where most Roanoke Islanders lived, we joined up with John B.’s younger brother Tart, and our party of four took the sloop Margery & Sarah and sailed across the sound to Nags Head. We landed south of Jockey’s Ridge and trekked over the stark dunes, through patches of dwarf pine and thorny scrub toward the sea. Topping the last rise, we saw a wrecked schooner, pitched on her side near shore. A three-master, though only two remained. A party had already set upon the carcass, six or seven men rummaging through the hull and the debris scattered nearby for whatever might prove of value. They made piles high up on the beach, gulls wheeling overhead.
The wind ripped steady and strong, whipping up sand, a stinging reminder of the recent storm that had blown through, this wreck a vestige of it. William Creef, clearly in charge of the other party, started up the dune as John B. led us down it. “I was wondering when the Roanoke Island Etheridges would come inquiring.”
“What do we have?” asked John B.
“Near sunup I seen her lurching in the surf, all torn apart and her sails blown to hell,” Creef said. “There ain’t much to prog for. A few salvageable barrels of salt is all, most of them shattered before coming ashore.”
That was very likely prevarication, it seemed to me. I looked over toward Patrick and found mirrored in his face a like skepticism.
“And there is three dead,” Creef added, pointing up the dune.
Patrick and I stared in the direction his finger had indicated, at the bloated corpses of three mariners. It appeared to be two men, each one the pale blue of death, and a woman, her skull crushed and half torn away. She was recognizable as female only by the tattered remains of a muslin dress that clung defiantly to her body. I knew to drop my eyes.
John B. didn’t react to the news of the loss of life any more than he had to Creef’s claims of a want of bounty. He and Creef moved off down the beach, discussing the particular apportionments of this shared find. Tart joined the other Creefs, working the wreck. Patrick and I followed after. Two Creefs had stacked the larger pieces of planking into a single pile and begun to burn off the wood to salvage the iron. Giant fingers of smoke stretched skyward. Tart picked his way through the scattered timber. He lifted what remained of the arch board, the name Molly McNeal inscribed thereon, then tossed it aside. Patrick, walking along the wrack line of the beach, knelt and retrieved a pair of bent spectacles and put them on.
Before I could join him, Creef’s youngest, Colie, a year or so my junior, tossed a pick and shovel at my feet. “Go on up there and bury them dead,” he said.
A punishing, arduous task—and grisly, even for me, a boy who had seen death before, for what Sand Banker had not? Our stretch of coast was called the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” and known the world over for just this reason: numberless ships and likewise many men had not survived it. But these ones here, these three dead? I found them hard to stomach.
Turning toward Patrick, I asked, “You coming, Paddy?” It was more plea than query.
And even as I uttered it, I asked myself why I had done this. Why had I lowered myself to begging? And what did I expect of Patrick? That my blood cousin who sometimes professed me “nigh on a brother” might assist in the dire undertaking? Or, better still, that he might call on the advantage of our shared name, and the rank that it implied, and remove me from the grim chore altogether? The solidarity of family, that fool and infantile notion?
Patrick stood only a few feet past Colie, the wire-rimmed frames sitting skew-whiff across his face. “Hellfire, no! Why would I?” His anger was sudden, his bravado clearly a show for the Creef boy. He turned and sauntered down the beach.
“They can’t divorce us if they can’t find us.” Cartoon by Edward Steed Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
“Go on, Dick!” The boom of John B.’s voice startled me, his towering figure staring over, face stern. “Do what you were told to.”


newyorker--2020-08-24--Slide Show: New Yorker Cartoons August 31, 2020

“ You may have invented it , but you really don ’ t get it .
”

“You may have invented it, but you really don’t get it.”
Cartoon by Liza Donnelly


newyorker--2020-08-24--A Letter from Mrs. Nice Guy

A Letter from Mrs. Nice Guy

To Whom It May Concern : Mr. Nice Guy and I have been made aware of your recent comments and , to quote you , I must request “ No more.
” Just because our last name has the word “ nice ” in it ( the name was anglicized , on Ellis Island , from “ Nice Goy , ” but that ’ s a story for another day ) does not mean that your disparagement can continue unabated .
I am writing this letter , on behalf of the entire Nice Guy family , to demand that you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recriminations based on our surname .
Despite what the media would have you believe , my husband is not a pushover .
He is , in fact , one of the most stubborn and strong-willed people you could ever have the misfortune to meet .
And the fact that neither I nor any other female member of this family ever enters into the equation reeks of sexism .
Members of the Nice Guy family have been law-abiding citizens of this country for generations , and , for the sake of our children , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the disrespect must stop .
The bullying and other torment inflicted on these youngsters are of even greater concern to us than the damage to our family ’ s honor and reputation is .
In your flippant use of our name , you are likely ignorant of the fact that the word “ nice ” has a hurtful etymology ( from the Latin nescius , meaning “ ignorant ” ) .
So not only do your comments make you look stupid—they also remind us of our painful patrimony .
As our neighbors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , life has never been a walk in the park for us .
And , yes , the Nice Guys may finish last , but that ’ s only because we care about our partners ’ pleasure .
We are a humble people .
We are tired of being pushed aside and made the butt of the joke .
Enough is enough .
Our neighbor Ms .
Enough has said as much to me .
We didn ’ t land on being called Nice Guys .
Being called Nice Guys landed on us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take this matter to court , but I asked him to wait , so that I could reach out personally and ask you to reconsider your choice of words .
Mr. Nice Guy has a team of lawyers on retainer , and he will be unwavering in his battle to right this wrong .
I know because I have seen and felt the full weight of his legal resolve .
After our pending divorce , owing to “ irreconcilable differences , ” becomes final , I plan to retain the Nice Guy name @ @ @ @ @ @ @ degradation and debasement from this day forward .
You have been warned .

To Whom It May Concern:
Mr. Nice Guy and I have been made aware of your recent comments and, to quote you, I must request “No more.”
Just because our last name has the word “nice” in it (the name was anglicized, on Ellis Island, from “Nice Goy,” but that’s a story for another day) does not mean that your disparagement can continue unabated. I am writing this letter, on behalf of the entire Nice Guy family, to demand that you cease and desist all further insults and recriminations based on our surname.
Despite what the media would have you believe, my husband is not a pushover. He is, in fact, one of the most stubborn and strong-willed people you could ever have the misfortune to meet. And the fact that neither I nor any other female member of this family ever enters into the equation reeks of sexism. Members of the Nice Guy family have been law-abiding citizens of this country for generations, and, for the sake of our children, Becky Nice Guy and Chad Nice Guy, the disrespect must stop. The bullying and other torment inflicted on these youngsters are of even greater concern to us than the damage to our family’s honor and reputation is.
In your flippant use of our name, you are likely ignorant of the fact that the word “nice” has a hurtful etymology (from the Latin nescius, meaning “ignorant”). So not only do your comments make you look stupid—they also remind us of our painful patrimony. As our neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Dumbass can tell you, life has never been a walk in the park for us.
And, yes, the Nice Guys may finish last, but that’s only because we care about our partners’ pleasure. We are a humble people. We are tired of being pushed aside and made the butt of the joke.
Enough is enough. Our neighbor Ms. Enough has said as much to me. We didn’t land on being called Nice Guys. Being called Nice Guys landed on us.
Mr. Nice Guy fully intended to take this matter to court, but I asked him to wait, so that I could reach out personally and ask you to reconsider your choice of words. Mr. Nice Guy has a team of lawyers on retainer, and he will be unwavering in his battle to right this wrong. I know because I have seen and felt the full weight of his legal resolve. After our pending divorce, owing to “irreconcilable differences,” becomes final, I plan to retain the Nice Guy name. Therefore I seek to stop its degradation and debasement from this day forward.
You have been warned.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Karen Nice Guy ♦


newyorker--2020-08-24--Rewatching “Black Journal” Five Decades On

In early spring , we rubbernecked back to 1918 , another year when a pandemic killed thousands and flatlined economies .
By the summer , with the uprisings that followed the police killings of Breonna Taylor , George Floyd , and Rayshard Brooks , we had returned to 1968 .
The insurrections in Minneapolis and Portland , and their promise , or threat , of civil transformation , seemed to recall those which took place in Newark and Detroit a half century ago .
Our ideologue-in-chief aped Richard Nixon ’ s “ law and order ” sales pitch—or perhaps he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wallace .
It was fitting , then , that in July fifty-nine episodes of the public-affairs magazine show “ Black Journal ” became available to stream , for the first time , as part of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting .
Running , in more or less its original iteration , from 1968 to 1977 , “ Black Journal ” was a news program “ about Blacks and for Blacks ” —one that abandoned the euphemistic notion of the “ Black community , ” restoring to the people a sense of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Black Journal ” embodied it .
Originally a monthly , hour-long show , “ Black Journal ” was part of a small explosion of Black radio and television that emerged at the end of the sixties , partly in response to the recommendations of the Kerner Commission , a 1967 investigation , launched by Lyndon Johnson and led by the governor of Illinois , Otto Kerner , Jr. , into the causes of the race riots .
“ What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget—is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ghetto , ” the report ’ s introduction read .
The Kerner Commission denounced police brutality and voter suppression—and the media , for reporting “ from the standpoint of a white man ’ s world.
” Black media-makers put technology in the service of furthering the good word of Black liberation politics .
The titles of the new shows that sprang up around the country conveyed an ethos of frank talk : “ Say Brother , ” “ Like It Is , ” “ Positively Black.
” In the première of “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House delivers a short monologue on the history of the Black free press .
But the episode is decidedly of its time , which was , like ours , one of transformation , violent and hopeful by turns .
It opens with footage of Coretta Scott King as she addresses the Harvard class of ’ 68 , a new widow urging young people to protect their future .
The Ebony journalist Ponchitta Pierce , acting as correspondent , invokes the decade ’ s dilemma : “ Will their search be for middle-class detachment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chic , wood-panelled studio , House and his co-host , William Greaves , introduce each segment , which usually takes the form of a profile—of a movement , a town , a dissident .
Huey Newton , interviewed from jail , corrects misinformation about the Black Panther Party .
Ronnie Tanner , at the time the only Black jockey racing at the major tracks , muses on the loneliness of the gig .
The sobriety lifts with a skit by the influential satirist Godfrey Cambridge , in which two white executives brainstorm how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Equality Network , ” while a token Black employee , played by Cambridge , winces as they blabber .
“ We ’ ll just treat ’ em not as Negroes , ” one of the executives exclaims , clamping his hands on Cambridge ’ s shoulders , “ but dark white people !
” Recently , calls for representation on TV have been replaced with demands for structural power .
Five decades ago , “ Black Journal ” fought for this vision .
The network NET hired Greaves , Kent Garrett , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Charles Hobson—all of whom became important figures in Black documentary-making .
After a staff strike , the show ’ s executive producer , Alvin Perlmutter , a white newsman , agreed to step down , and Greaves took over .
As he wrote in a 1970 Op-Ed for the Times on the need for Black-led media , “ For the black producer , television will be just another word for jazz.
” Under Greaves , “ Black Journal ” loosened , warmed , and radicalized , with segments on the political consolidation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arts and antiwar movements .
“ Black G.I.
” examined the racism experienced by Black soldiers in the Vietnam War ; at one point , a brother , sweating on a riverboat in Upper Saigon , observes , “ I don ’ t like killing anybody .
.
.
but it ’ s a job , you know ?
” One needn ’ t strain to draw a line to Spike Lee ’ s doleful recent feature , “ Da 5 Bloods.
” The show responded to a growing conviction , among Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an international diaspora .
An insider energy flowed .
The introductory graphic was in the colors of the Pan-African flag .
House and Greaves took to wearing dashikis .
Letting their Afros bloom , the pair invited the curious Black American to explore the avant-garde of Afrocentricity .
House , who later took the name Wali Sadiq , greeted viewers in his baritone : “ Jambo !
Assalamu alaikum , brothers and sisters , and welcome to ‘ Black Journal.
’ ” As I revelled in the archive , my sense of what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was seriously upended ; “ Black Journal ” is defined by an oracular , anti-colonial time .
Hard reports were gorgeously , patiently rendered , frequently trailing off onto a sensual plane .
Watching segments on Compton and Chicago , I was reminded of the rigorously subjective work of the contemporary filmmakers RaMell Ross , Yance Ford , Ja ’ Tovia Gary , and Garrett Bradley .
A profile of the inhabitants and the detractors of Soul City , a planned community in North Carolina , founded by the civil-rights figure Floyd McKissick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Coltrane , three years a widow after John ’ s death , at the family estate , and that flows into footage—knowingly titled “ a black commercial ” —shot at Morehouse College , in which Nina Simone performs “ To Be Young , Gifted and Black.
” The art pieces were as urgent as the documentaries ; after all , “ Black Journal ” was tracking a revolution .
When , in 1970 , Tony Brown , the former host of Detroit ’ s “ Colored People ’ s Time , ” took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” became more of a talk show .
Fissures in Black opinion were dramatized in lively panel discussions shot in the New York studio , where militant activists brushed with integrationists .
In a conversation about the role of the Black woman in reforming American society , Marian Watson , a TV producer , her hair wrapped in a tignon , accuses Jean Fairfax , a legal-defense lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P.
, of careerist betrayal .
“ I think you ’ re very comfortable sitting in your office , and trying to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your plush air-conditioned place , ” she says .
The camera pans to Fairfax , who , smiling tightly , responds , “ It ’ s not very plush.
” In the midst of my immersion in “ Black Journal , ” I returned to a television special , hosted by Oprah Winfrey in June , titled “ Where Do We Go from Here ?
” In response to the summer ’ s civil unrest , Winfrey had brought together figures including the actor David Oyelowo , the politician Stacey Abrams , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It was a sentimental education , in which Winfrey ’ s personal myth was folded into the cause of the greater resistance—a kind of anti-racist entertainment .
On “ Black Journal , ” by contrast , the complexities of Black fame are brought to the fore .
Sitdown interviews—with controversial leaders like Kwame Ture ( formerly Stokely Carmichael ) and Louis Farrakhan—were pointed , tense .
Some of the best interviews were with Black entertainers who had , in the twilight of the civil-rights struggle , “ crossed over , ” only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Consider Sammy Davis , Jr. , his face lined with cosmic exhaustion .
“ Why do you feel there is a group of brothers and sisters who don ’ t like you ?
” Brown asks him .
“ Because there was a whole lot of brothers and sisters who didn ’ t like Jesus Christ !
” Davis retorts .
Davis and Lena Horne both appeared on the show to advocate for the release of Angela Davis , who gave her first national television interview , after her acquittal , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fame is a currency to be traded for the freedom of the people on the ground .
When a young Nikki Giovanni interviews Horne , she asks about her recent decision not to appear on an unnamed “ white show.
” Horne clasps her hands .
“ I didn ’ t feel like giving my life to someone that I don ’ t feel very close to , ” she says .
♦

In early spring, we rubbernecked back to 1918, another year when a pandemic killed thousands and flatlined economies. By the summer, with the uprisings that followed the police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks, we had returned to 1968. The insurrections in Minneapolis and Portland, and their promise, or threat, of civil transformation, seemed to recall those which took place in Newark and Detroit a half century ago. Our ideologue-in-chief aped Richard Nixon’s “law and order” sales pitch—or perhaps he was updating the white supremacy of George Wallace.
It was fitting, then, that in July fifty-nine episodes of the public-affairs magazine show “Black Journal” became available to stream, for the first time, as part of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. Running, in more or less its original iteration, from 1968 to 1977, “Black Journal” was a news program “about Blacks and for Blacks”—one that abandoned the euphemistic notion of the “Black community,” restoring to the people a sense of their variety. The virtue we call soul—“Black Journal” embodied it.
Originally a monthly, hour-long show, “Black Journal” was part of a small explosion of Black radio and television that emerged at the end of the sixties, partly in response to the recommendations of the Kerner Commission, a 1967 investigation, launched by Lyndon Johnson and led by the governor of Illinois, Otto Kerner, Jr., into the causes of the race riots. “What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto,” the report’s introduction read. The Kerner Commission denounced police brutality and voter suppression—and the media, for reporting “from the standpoint of a white man’s world.” Black media-makers put technology in the service of furthering the good word of Black liberation politics. The titles of the new shows that sprang up around the country conveyed an ethos of frank talk: “Say Brother,” “Like It Is,” “Positively Black.”
In the première of “Black Journal,” the presenter Lou House delivers a short monologue on the history of the Black free press. But the episode is decidedly of its time, which was, like ours, one of transformation, violent and hopeful by turns. It opens with footage of Coretta Scott King as she addresses the Harvard class of ’68, a new widow urging young people to protect their future. The Ebony journalist Ponchitta Pierce, acting as correspondent, invokes the decade’s dilemma: “Will their search be for middle-class detachment or insightful involvement?”
From a chic, wood-panelled studio, House and his co-host, William Greaves, introduce each segment, which usually takes the form of a profile—of a movement, a town, a dissident. Huey Newton, interviewed from jail, corrects misinformation about the Black Panther Party. Ronnie Tanner, at the time the only Black jockey racing at the major tracks, muses on the loneliness of the gig. The sobriety lifts with a skit by the influential satirist Godfrey Cambridge, in which two white executives brainstorm how best to portray the Negro on “The Equality Network,” while a token Black employee, played by Cambridge, winces as they blabber. “We’ll just treat ’em not as Negroes,” one of the executives exclaims, clamping his hands on Cambridge’s shoulders, “but dark white people!”
Recently, calls for representation on TV have been replaced with demands for structural power. Five decades ago, “Black Journal” fought for this vision. The network NET hired Greaves, Kent Garrett, St. Clair Bourne, Madeline Anderson, and Charles Hobson—all of whom became important figures in Black documentary-making. After a staff strike, the show’s executive producer, Alvin Perlmutter, a white newsman, agreed to step down, and Greaves took over. As he wrote in a 1970 Op-Ed for the Times on the need for Black-led media, “For the black producer, television will be just another word for jazz.”
Under Greaves, “Black Journal” loosened, warmed, and radicalized, with segments on the political consolidation of Black Muslims and on the Black Arts and antiwar movements. “Black G.I.” examined the racism experienced by Black soldiers in the Vietnam War; at one point, a brother, sweating on a riverboat in Upper Saigon, observes, “I don’t like killing anybody . . . but it’s a job, you know?” One needn’t strain to draw a line to Spike Lee’s doleful recent feature, “Da 5 Bloods.”
The show responded to a growing conviction, among Black Americans, that they were members of an international diaspora. An insider energy flowed. The introductory graphic was in the colors of the Pan-African flag. House and Greaves took to wearing dashikis. Letting their Afros bloom, the pair invited the curious Black American to explore the avant-garde of Afrocentricity. House, who later took the name Wali Sadiq, greeted viewers in his baritone: “Jambo! Assalamu alaikum, brothers and sisters, and welcome to ‘Black Journal.’ ”
As I revelled in the archive, my sense of what constitutes the unit of the television hour was seriously upended; “Black Journal” is defined by an oracular, anti-colonial time. Hard reports were gorgeously, patiently rendered, frequently trailing off onto a sensual plane. Watching segments on Compton and Chicago, I was reminded of the rigorously subjective work of the contemporary filmmakers RaMell Ross, Yance Ford, Ja’Tovia Gary, and Garrett Bradley. A profile of the inhabitants and the detractors of Soul City, a planned community in North Carolina, founded by the civil-rights figure Floyd McKissick, segues into a visit with Alice Coltrane, three years a widow after John’s death, at the family estate, and that flows into footage—knowingly titled “a black commercial”—shot at Morehouse College, in which Nina Simone performs “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” The art pieces were as urgent as the documentaries; after all, “Black Journal” was tracking a revolution.
When, in 1970, Tony Brown, the former host of Detroit’s “Colored People’s Time,” took over from Greaves, “Black Journal” became more of a talk show. Fissures in Black opinion were dramatized in lively panel discussions shot in the New York studio, where militant activists brushed with integrationists. In a conversation about the role of the Black woman in reforming American society, Marian Watson, a TV producer, her hair wrapped in a tignon, accuses Jean Fairfax, a legal-defense lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P., of careerist betrayal. “I think you’re very comfortable sitting in your office, and trying to be very community-oriented from your desk, in your plush air-conditioned place,” she says. The camera pans to Fairfax, who, smiling tightly, responds, “It’s not very plush.”
In the midst of my immersion in “Black Journal,” I returned to a television special, hosted by Oprah Winfrey in June, titled “Where Do We Go from Here?” In response to the summer’s civil unrest, Winfrey had brought together figures including the actor David Oyelowo, the politician Stacey Abrams, and the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II. It was a sentimental education, in which Winfrey’s personal myth was folded into the cause of the greater resistance—a kind of anti-racist entertainment.
On “Black Journal,” by contrast, the complexities of Black fame are brought to the fore. Sitdown interviews—with controversial leaders like Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) and Louis Farrakhan—were pointed, tense. Some of the best interviews were with Black entertainers who had, in the twilight of the civil-rights struggle, “crossed over,” only to find themselves in a racial limbo. Consider Sammy Davis, Jr., his face lined with cosmic exhaustion. “Why do you feel there is a group of brothers and sisters who don’t like you?” Brown asks him. “Because there was a whole lot of brothers and sisters who didn’t like Jesus Christ!” Davis retorts. Davis and Lena Horne both appeared on the show to advocate for the release of Angela Davis, who gave her first national television interview, after her acquittal, in 1972, to “Black Journal.” Fame is a currency to be traded for the freedom of the people on the ground. When a young Nikki Giovanni interviews Horne, she asks about her recent decision not to appear on an unnamed “white show.” Horne clasps her hands. “I didn’t feel like giving my life to someone that I don’t feel very close to,” she says. ♦


newyorker--2020-08-24--“September First Again,” by Phillis Levin

Blighted light at the tip Of a branch , why so early Do you turn ?
—leaf Dipped in vermillion @ @ @ @ @ , you point To a sidewalk wet Once with names Signed in cement to seal @ @ @ @ @ a vow Uttered by two Standing under the crown Of a tree you cleave to @ @ @ @ @ solitary witness Standing alone , limbs Crisscrossing in shadows Beginning to scrawl Lines to a @ @ @ @ @ or without intent ) On obscuring Whatever they meant .
Blighted light At the topmost @ @ @ @ @ Another day , do not go So early to ruin , green , Do not @ @ @ @

Audio: Read by the author.
Blighted light at the tip
Of a branch, why so early
Do you turn?—leaf
Dipped in vermillion,
Close to the end, you point
To a sidewalk wet
Once with names
Signed in cement to seal,
For all time, a vow
Uttered by two
Standing under the crown
Of a tree you cleave to still,
For now: solitary witness
Standing alone, limbs
Crisscrossing in shadows
Beginning to scrawl
Lines to a world hell-
Bent (with or without intent)
On obscuring
Whatever they meant.
Blighted light
At the topmost bough,
Little flag hailing
Another day, do not go
So early to ruin, green,
Do not turn so soon.


newyorker--2020-08-24--Gayle Kabaker’s “Out of the Blue”

Gayle Kabaker’s “Out of the Blue”

This week ’ s cover , by the artist Gayle Kabaker , gives us a scene of summer escape just as the season begins to wind down .
We recently spoke with Kabaker about the beach , her style , and how she feels about travel since the pandemic began .
Many of your images depict an individual in nature .
Has the pandemic affected your time outdoors ?
No , I feel very lucky that we live in the country , in New England , and have a lot of space to be outside with no mask and no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stay in my bubble here and get quite exhausted even just going on a few errands .
You grew up in Hong Kong and have talked about your love of the waterfront .
Are all seashores the same for you ?
My years growing up in Hong Kong , where every weekend was spent by the ocean , probably have a lot to do with my love of the beach !
I prefer the white sand and aqua water of the tropics , but I can be happy on any beach .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beaches on Martha ’ s Vineyard and Plum Island , outside Boston .
The beach on the cover was a black-sand beach , in Bali , where I had my own small house to paint for a month .
I set up the back patio as my studio and , each day , went out to draw in my sketchbook or take photos to paint .
It was heaven .
You ’ ve been working on a hundred portraits of women .
Do you prefer painting women ?
I went to art school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women has always been my passion—women are just a bit easier for me , and therefore a bit more fun to paint .
I ’ ve been doing the portraits for an organization called Vital Voices , which has a project that focusses on a hundred women , from across the world , who have worked for positive change .
I took care to choose the details so that each woman would actually love her portrait .
The show was hung , but a few days later the opening and the exhibition were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ portrait is one of my favorites .
Dr. Amani Ballour is a pediatrician who managed an underground hospital during the Syrian civil war and treated thousands of victims of air strikes and chemical attacks .
What are your plans , if any , for when travel feels possible again ?
I ’ m teaching a painting workshop in Morocco that was moved from November to March of next year ; I ’ m praying that it feels safe to travel by then .
Although travel is a huge part of my life—it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the long New England winters—it ’ s hard to imagine going far away from home right now .
See below for more summertime covers :

This week’s cover, by the artist Gayle Kabaker, gives us a scene of summer escape just as the season begins to wind down. We recently spoke with Kabaker about the beach, her style, and how she feels about travel since the pandemic began.
Many of your images depict an individual in nature. Has the pandemic affected your time outdoors?
No, I feel very lucky that we live in the country, in New England, and have a lot of space to be outside with no mask and no worries. But I do tend to stay in my bubble here and get quite exhausted even just going on a few errands.
You grew up in Hong Kong and have talked about your love of the waterfront. Are all seashores the same for you?
My years growing up in Hong Kong, where every weekend was spent by the ocean, probably have a lot to do with my love of the beach! I prefer the white sand and aqua water of the tropics, but I can be happy on any beach. I’ve been very inspired by the beaches on Martha’s Vineyard and Plum Island, outside Boston.
The beach on the cover was a black-sand beach, in Bali, where I had my own small house to paint for a month. I set up the back patio as my studio and, each day, went out to draw in my sketchbook or take photos to paint. It was heaven.
You’ve been working on a hundred portraits of women. Do you prefer painting women?
I went to art school for fashion illustration. Drawing and painting women has always been my passion—women are just a bit easier for me, and therefore a bit more fun to paint. I’ve been doing the portraits for an organization called Vital Voices, which has a project that focusses on a hundred women, from across the world, who have worked for positive change. I took care to choose the details so that each woman would actually love her portrait. The show was hung, but a few days later the opening and the exhibition were cancelled because of the pandemic.
A portrait of Dr. Amani Ballour.
This portrait is one of my favorites. Dr. Amani Ballour is a pediatrician who managed an underground hospital during the Syrian civil war and treated thousands of victims of air strikes and chemical attacks.
What are your plans, if any, for when travel feels possible again?
I’m teaching a painting workshop in Morocco that was moved from November to March of next year; I’m praying that it feels safe to travel by then. Although travel is a huge part of my life—it’s how I get inspired and escape from the long New England winters—it’s hard to imagine going far away from home right now.
See below for more summertime covers:


newyorker--2020-08-24--Can Gore Vidal Find Rest in His Final Resting Place?

“ Never offend an enemy in a small way , ” Gore Vidal once wrote .
The prickly writer , who thrived on making enemies , may soon be spewing venom from six feet under .
Eight years after his death , he is scheduled to cast shade on his nemesis , William F. Buckley , Jr. , in a new play by Alexandra Petri , called “ Inherit the Windbag.
” The play is in virtual rehearsals right now , at Washington , D.C. , ’ s Mosaic Theatre Company , but when a stage version opens , likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Creek Cemetery would be well advised to keep an eye on Section E , Lot 293 ½ , where Vidal ’ s ashes are buried .
Vidal outlived Buckley by four years , but never forgave the man who called him a “ queer ” in a 1968 televised debate .
When Buckley died , Vidal cheered , “ RIP WFB—in hell.
” The odyssey that Vidal ’ s remains took before their interment was no less dramatic .
The writer spent many hours negotiating the details of his grave .
From his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stipulated that his ashes be placed near an Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture commissioned by the historian Henry Adams , in memory of his wife , who committed suicide .
This monument is the most visited site in the eighty-acre park , just across the street from the former Old Soldiers ’ Home , where President Lincoln summered during the Civil War .
Vidal , who made millions in real estate , understood its first three commandments : location , location , location .
Vidal also instructed that he and Howard Austen , his partner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the grave of Jimmie Trimble , a blond athlete whom Vidal met when both were students at St. Albans School .
Trimble was killed at Iwo Jima , but he lived for the rest of Vidal ’ s life in fevered fantasies .
By placing his own remains between those of Trimble and Adams—a descendant of two American Presidents , who was buried next to his wife—Vidal was , as he wrote , “ midway between heart and mind , to put it grandly.
” Like a pharaoh gilding his tomb , Vidal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his biography to be written in his lifetime by Fred Kaplan , who accompanied Vidal and Austen to the cemetery in 1994 , to complete their final interment papers .
Kaplan signed as their witness and later published a well-received book ( “ Gore Vidal : A Biography ” ) , but , when the Times dismissed Vidal as a “ minor ” writer in its review , Vidal fired off a letter to the editor , blaming Kaplan .
He claimed , preposterously , that he thought he ’ d commissioned the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( Kaplan was not the only writer to be pulverized by Vidal .
The three saddest words in the English language , Vidal once said , were “ Joyce Carol Oates.
” ) Not long after Kaplan finished the book , Vidal moved his papers ( almost four hundred boxes ’ worth ) from the University of Wisconsin ’ s Center for Film and Theater Research to Harvard University .
Months before he died , at the age of eighty-six , he added a codicil to his will , leaving his entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a blizzard of lawsuits after his death and delayed his burial for years .
“ At the end , Gore was drinking bottles of Macallan Scotch around the clock , having hallucinations , in and out of hospitals and well into dementia , ” his half sister Nina Straight said .
She was the first to sue the Vidal estate , to recover a million dollars that she said she had loaned her brother to fund his lawsuit against Buckley .
“ The end was awful , just awful , ” her son @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no longer Gore—just a deranged old man , killing himself with booze.
” Steers , who had taken possession of his uncle ’ s ashes , filed suit , too , claiming ownership of Vidal ’ s house in Los Angeles , which had been left to him in a previous will .
Later , Steers sued to have the estate trustee , Andrew Auchincloss , his third cousin , removed for “ reckless misconduct , ” claiming that Auchincloss had tried to defraud him .
Vidal , who liked to say that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , probably would have enjoyed the flurry of lawsuits .
After numerous depositions and document dumps , Straight dropped her suit , Steers lost the L.A. house , and Auchincloss remained trustee of the estate .
How the ashes made it from Los Angeles to Rock Creek Cemetery , where they were interred in 2016 , in a small private ceremony , is a mystery .
Steers ’ s attorney , Eric M. George , had no comment , citing “ a strict confidentiality clause.
” For someone who thrived on publicity to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but a public Facebook page , GoreVidalNow.com , indicates that there is at least one keeper of the literary banshee ’ s flame .
The site is managed by Michelle Gore , who is married to a third cousin of Vidal ’ s and who visited Vidal in Italy .
“ Gore , I miss you each day , ” she writes .
A sweet coda for a curmudgeon .
♦

“Never offend an enemy in a small way,” Gore Vidal once wrote. The prickly writer, who thrived on making enemies, may soon be spewing venom from six feet under. Eight years after his death, he is scheduled to cast shade on his nemesis, William F. Buckley, Jr., in a new play by Alexandra Petri, called “Inherit the Windbag.” The play is in virtual rehearsals right now, at Washington, D.C.,’s Mosaic Theatre Company, but when a stage version opens, likely next spring, the groundskeeper at Rock Creek Cemetery would be well advised to keep an eye on Section E, Lot 293 ½, where Vidal’s ashes are buried. Vidal outlived Buckley by four years, but never forgave the man who called him a “queer” in a 1968 televised debate. When Buckley died, Vidal cheered, “RIP WFB—in hell.”
The odyssey that Vidal’s remains took before their interment was no less dramatic. The writer spent many hours negotiating the details of his grave. From his villa in Ravello, Italy, he stipulated that his ashes be placed near an Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture commissioned by the historian Henry Adams, in memory of his wife, who committed suicide. This monument is the most visited site in the eighty-acre park, just across the street from the former Old Soldiers’ Home, where President Lincoln summered during the Civil War. Vidal, who made millions in real estate, understood its first three commandments: location, location, location.
Vidal also instructed that he and Howard Austen, his partner of fifty-three years, be buried near the grave of Jimmie Trimble, a blond athlete whom Vidal met when both were students at St. Albans School. Trimble was killed at Iwo Jima, but he lived for the rest of Vidal’s life in fevered fantasies. By placing his own remains between those of Trimble and Adams—a descendant of two American Presidents, who was buried next to his wife—Vidal was, as he wrote, “midway between heart and mind, to put it grandly.”
Like a pharaoh gilding his tomb, Vidal continued making legacy preparations: he commissioned his biography to be written in his lifetime by Fred Kaplan, who accompanied Vidal and Austen to the cemetery in 1994, to complete their final interment papers. Kaplan signed as their witness and later published a well-received book (“Gore Vidal: A Biography”), but, when the Times dismissed Vidal as a “minor” writer in its review, Vidal fired off a letter to the editor, blaming Kaplan. He claimed, preposterously, that he thought he’d commissioned the biographer Justin Kaplan, not Fred Kaplan. (Kaplan was not the only writer to be pulverized by Vidal. The three saddest words in the English language, Vidal once said, were “Joyce Carol Oates.”)
Not long after Kaplan finished the book, Vidal moved his papers (almost four hundred boxes’ worth) from the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Film and Theater Research to Harvard University. Months before he died, at the age of eighty-six, he added a codicil to his will, leaving his entire thirty-seven-million-dollar estate to Harvard, which triggered a blizzard of lawsuits after his death and delayed his burial for years. “At the end, Gore was drinking bottles of Macallan Scotch around the clock, having hallucinations, in and out of hospitals and well into dementia,” his half sister Nina Straight said. She was the first to sue the Vidal estate, to recover a million dollars that she said she had loaned her brother to fund his lawsuit against Buckley.
“The end was awful, just awful,” her son Burr Steers said. “He was no longer Gore—just a deranged old man, killing himself with booze.” Steers, who had taken possession of his uncle’s ashes, filed suit, too, claiming ownership of Vidal’s house in Los Angeles, which had been left to him in a previous will. Later, Steers sued to have the estate trustee, Andrew Auchincloss, his third cousin, removed for “reckless misconduct,” claiming that Auchincloss had tried to defraud him.
Vidal, who liked to say that, after fifty, litigation replaces sex, probably would have enjoyed the flurry of lawsuits. After numerous depositions and document dumps, Straight dropped her suit, Steers lost the L.A. house, and Auchincloss remained trustee of the estate. How the ashes made it from Los Angeles to Rock Creek Cemetery, where they were interred in 2016, in a small private ceremony, is a mystery. Steers’s attorney, Eric M. George, had no comment, citing “a strict confidentiality clause.” For someone who thrived on publicity to be buried with no fanfare seems pathetic, but a public Facebook page, GoreVidalNow.com, indicates that there is at least one keeper of the literary banshee’s flame. The site is managed by Michelle Gore, who is married to a third cousin of Vidal’s and who visited Vidal in Italy. “Gore, I miss you each day,” she writes. A sweet coda for a curmudgeon. ♦


The Mail

Although Jeffrey Toobin makes a well-reasoned argument against Attorney General William Barr ’ s overreach in federal prosecutions , the details of the case that he uses to demonstrate the problem are less convincing ( Comment , July 20th ) .
Toobin notes that Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman , who have been charged with perpetrating a Molotov-cocktail attack on a police car in Brooklyn , are both “ well-regarded lawyers.
” He then lists their credentials , including their degrees from the law schools of Fordham University and New York University .
But these facts do little to support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legal punishment is “ the most egregious example ” of Barr ’ s brand of “ federal excess.
” Consider the now widely held view that violence is a tool of last resort for those who don ’ t have a voice in society .
Even so , the powerless realize that this country ’ s legal system expects people to pay a price for violence , however justified it may be .
Given Mattis ’ s and Rahman ’ s profession , it is impossible to see them as incapable of effecting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Instead of using their positions to manifest their political beliefs and defend others , Mattis and Rahman took actions that have simply provided cover for Barr ’ s dictatorial overreach .
Lawrence Wright , in his article about the effect of the Black Death on Europe , states that Bologna ’ s “ famous university , established in 1088 , is the oldest in the world ” ( “ Crossroads , ” July 20th ) .
It is correct that Bologna ’ s university was the first to be defined as such , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fails to encompass the respected institutions of higher education that existed throughout Africa and Asia centuries before the University of Bologna was established .
For example , the Alexandrian Museum of Egypt , a research institution that was noteworthy for its scholarship on science and literature , was established in about the third century B.C.E .
The University of al-Qarawiyyin , in Fez , Morocco , was founded in 859 C.E.
, though it was not officially designated a university until modern times .
According to Guinness World Records , al-Qarawiyyin remains the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ institution in the world.
” The term “ university ” has several limitations , not least that it has long been applied only to educational institutions with distinctive structural and legal features that first developed in Europe .
It is imperative to remember that institutions of higher learning outside Europe served as preëminent intellectual centers and contributed much to our understanding of the world .
I read the reprint of Judith Thurman ’ s piece on the life of Margaret Fuller , the first female public intellectual , with excitement ( Books , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affirming role model for academically minded single women—and to have The New Yorker dedicate several pages to her life not once but twice !
However , I was again dismayed by Thurman ’ s conclusion : that Fuller ’ s “ example gives you much to admire but not enough to envy.
” Fuller managed to live an unconventional , dynamic life during a time that was more socially restrictive than ours , and yet society tends to remember her best for what Thurman calls her “ profound state of singleness.
” Independent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of single women , and we deserve better than the tired representations of them as admirable but not enviable .
Letters should be sent with the writer ’ s name , address , and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail @ newyorker.com .
Letters may be edited for length and clarity , and may be published in any medium .
We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

The Price of Justice
Although Jeffrey Toobin makes a well-reasoned argument against Attorney General William Barr’s overreach in federal prosecutions, the details of the case that he uses to demonstrate the problem are less convincing (Comment, July 20th). Toobin notes that Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman, who have been charged with perpetrating a Molotov-cocktail attack on a police car in Brooklyn, are both “well-regarded lawyers.” He then lists their credentials, including their degrees from the law schools of Fordham University and New York University. But these facts do little to support Toobin’s opinion that their prospective legal punishment is “the most egregious example” of Barr’s brand of “federal excess.” Consider the now widely held view that violence is a tool of last resort for those who don’t have a voice in society. Even so, the powerless realize that this country’s legal system expects people to pay a price for violence, however justified it may be. Given Mattis’s and Rahman’s profession, it is impossible to see them as incapable of effecting change from within the justice system. Instead of using their positions to manifest their political beliefs and defend others, Mattis and Rahman took actions that have simply provided cover for Barr’s dictatorial overreach.
Jo-Ann Maguire
Norristown, Pa.
Centers of Learning
Lawrence Wright, in his article about the effect of the Black Death on Europe, states that Bologna’s “famous university, established in 1088, is the oldest in the world” (“Crossroads,” July 20th). It is correct that Bologna’s university was the first to be defined as such, but the Western concept of a university fails to encompass the respected institutions of higher education that existed throughout Africa and Asia centuries before the University of Bologna was established. For example, the Alexandrian Museum of Egypt, a research institution that was noteworthy for its scholarship on science and literature, was established in about the third century B.C.E. The University of al-Qarawiyyin, in Fez, Morocco, was founded in 859 C.E., though it was not officially designated a university until modern times. According to Guinness World Records, al-Qarawiyyin remains the “oldest existing and continually operating educational institution in the world.” The term “university” has several limitations, not least that it has long been applied only to educational institutions with distinctive structural and legal features that first developed in Europe. It is imperative to remember that institutions of higher learning outside Europe served as preëminent intellectual centers and contributed much to our understanding of the world.
Thurston Hamlette
Brooklyn, N.Y.
An Enviable Life
I read the reprint of Judith Thurman’s piece on the life of Margaret Fuller, the first female public intellectual, with excitement (Books, July 27th). What a wonderfully affirming role model for academically minded single women—and to have The New Yorker dedicate several pages to her life not once but twice! However, I was again dismayed by Thurman’s conclusion: that Fuller’s “example gives you much to admire but not enough to envy.” Fuller managed to live an unconventional, dynamic life during a time that was more socially restrictive than ours, and yet society tends to remember her best for what Thurman calls her “profound state of singleness.” Independent women are eager to embrace positive depictions of single women, and we deserve better than the tired representations of them as admirable but not enviable.
Alice Astarita
La Jolla, Calif.
•
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.


Cartoon Caption Contest

Each week , we provide a cartoon in need of a caption .
You , the reader , submit your @ @ @ @ @ three finalists , and you vote for your favorite .
Anyone age thirteen or older @ @ @ @ @ To read the complete rules , click here .

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit your caption here, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Anyone age thirteen or older can enter or vote. To read the complete rules, click here.
Teresa Burns Parkhurst Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop


newyorker--2020-08-24--Amid Wildfires, an Apocalyptic August in California

In the early hours of Tuesday , August 18th , the California sky split with lightning : dry , purple , spectacular , relentless .
The following evening , the sunset was streaked , psychedelically , with luminous shades of clementine and fuchsia .
A heat wave—the sort that was described with words like “ historic ” and “ unprecedented ” —was finally on the wane , and the stream of cool air was welcome .
I stood outside my apartment , in San Francisco , and sent photographs of the sunset to friends on the East Coast .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; I wasn ’ t thinking .
The magnificence of the evening sky was due to particulate matter generated by the C.Z.U.
, L.N.U.
, and S.C.U .
Lightning Complex fires , which had been sparked by the storms .
So far , the latter two are the second- and third-largest fires , respectively , in California history .
( The largest , the Mendocino Complex Fire , occurred in 2018 . )
This past week , evacuation orders were issued across the state , including in Napa , Sonoma , Santa Cruz @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which abuts Silicon Valley .
People fled their homes in Solano County , near Sacramento , and in rural areas close to the Sierra Nevada mountain range , which includes Yosemite National Park and Tahoe National Forest .
( To date , more than a hundred thousand people have been evacuated . )
Photographs surfaced of burning houses , burning farmland , burning woods .
Images of Big Basin , California ’ s oldest state park , showed five-hundred-year-old redwoods blackened and scarred .
There were pictures of people standing in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a gnarled oven—and of evacuees ’ stalactite-looking tail lights , melted en route to safety .
Once again , California has declared a state of emergency .
The state has always had a fire season , but this month ’ s fires are unprecedented .
Unprecedented does not mean unanticipated : in recent years , fires have intensified—a consequence of climate change , exurban sprawl , and neglected electrical infrastructure .
A certain amount of dry vegetation is natural , but rising temperatures have yielded longer periods of drought , accompanied by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have led to weaker , drier , and dead trees , and to parched brush and grasses—in short , abundant kindling .
Californian housing policy , and the subsequent housing crisis , has led developers and residents to push outward , and nearly a third of residential buildings in the state are situated where urban and wild lands meet .
Meanwhile , in 2019 , P. G. & E. , the electrical utility that services much of California , declared bankruptcy , after being found liable for the wildfires of 2017 and 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kincade Fire , the state ’ s largest that season , was catalyzed when a P. G. & E. transmission line malfunctioned .
Forest mismanagement has contributed to the problem .
In the early twentieth century , the United States Forest Service adopted a policy of suppressing all fires , and California followed suit .
For decades , the state resisted mitigation strategies such as controlled burns , in which fires are deliberately set to clear out dry brush and overly dense clusters of trees .
California began setting controlled burns in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of vulnerable territory ; in 2018 , Cal Fire , the state ’ s fire-protection agency , made plans to triple the amount of “ prescribed fire ” on state-controlled land , but the burns were temporarily paused this spring , due to the coronavirus .
In recent years , the state has strategically deployed herds of goats , which can be spotted not just in the countryside but in various parts of San Francisco—on hillsides below the mansions of Pacific Heights , and on the shoulder of Highway 1—contentedly clearing the brush @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library from last year ’ s fires .
But , over all , the state ’ s parks and forests are still glutted with flammable vegetation .
In 2018 , one source of the Mendocino Complex Fire was a rancher working to plug a wasp nest ; as he hammered down a stake , a spark flew into dry grass .
This month ’ s fires were set off by lightning strikes .
But fires thrive in hospitable environments ; their growth can seem preternatural .
By Friday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and sixty fires spread across the state .
More than a million acres have burned .
San Francisco during fire season is subdued and strange .
It is hard to overstate just how close the wildfires are .
Nearly everyone here has a personal connection—friends , family , memories—to the areas most affected .
City residents are protected by both density and geography .
Still , the air feels heavy ; ash drifts onto everything .
People close their windows and hibernate .
Those who can work from home do so .
Things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meant public schools , offices , and cable cars ; last year , it meant parts of the electrical grid .
This year , the rhythms of the city were already disrupted .
The cable cars shut down in mid-March .
School buildings and white-collar workplaces have been shuttered for months .
The Bay Area was in the midst of planned , rolling blackouts , prompted by the heat wave .
One benefit of living in California during the pandemic has been the abundance of open , uncrowded natural spaces .
The heat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
It is a cruel irony that outdoor spaces are now inhospitable and unsafe .
People can not congregate indoors , owing to the virus ; they can not congregate outdoors , because of the fires .
( In other parts of the country , where winter is unforgiving , this dynamic may soon become familiar ; both ash and snow render outdoor dining—a Hail Mary pass for restaurants during the pandemic—untenable . )
In the Bay Area , where housing is short and the cost of living is high , many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are packed beyond comfortable capacity ; in San Francisco , thousands of people live in parks or on the street .
There are very few places to go .
In 2018 , during the Camp Fire—the state ’ s deadliest wildfire , sparked by neglected P. G. & E. equipment—my household purchased N95 masks from a hardware store .
This spring , we donated the unused masks to local medical workers , handing them off to a P.P.E.-clad administrator in a hospital parking lot .
We figured that the pandemic would pass before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to restock before fall .
( We did not yet know that the N95 masks we had purchased , which had exhalation valves—a comfort when the sky is smoke-choked—would turn out to be a public-health hazard during a respiratory pandemic . )
Now we ’ ve begun discussing how we might apportion our apartment in a COVID-19-safe way , should friends or family be evacuated .
We ’ ve contemplated hanging up tarps and building ad-hoc air-filtration systems ; for now , we ’ ve settled on indoor masks .
Because of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open all the windows .
People want to help , but aid , like everything , is complicated by the virus .
Many organizations on the ground are asking for money rather than dropped-off donations , which come with a risk of transmission ; money is tight at a time when nearly fifteen per cent of Californians are unemployed .
Service journalism during wildfire season is usually bleak ; with the pandemic , it ’ s nearly apocalyptic .
“ Masks for Smoke and COVID-19—What Kind is Best ?
” a headline on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ titled “ How to Survive , ” the San Francisco Chronicle offers detailed guides : “ How to keep flames from igniting your home ” ; “ What to do in 1st critical minutes.
” It is tempting to turn to metaphor , or to memes .
On social media , a viral photograph of a sign outside a senior center—advising hand washing , mask wearing , and social distancing , and swarmed by an inferno—earned the caption “ This is fine.
” But memes are a distraction , and metaphor fails .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ public-health measure , are reopening as evacuation shelters .
It is grape-harvesting season , and the vineyards are on fire .
Farmworkers , who have been hit hard by the coronavirus , are still moving methodically through fields of produce , harvesting fruits and vegetables in brutal heat and toxic air .
Many are undocumented , without health insurance , and ineligible for government assistance .
Then there is the crisis of firefighting resources .
In the past , California has bolstered its crews with inmate firefighters , who are paid a dollar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lines under showers of retardant .
Many were released from prison earlier this year , as a protective measure against the coronavirus ; because they have criminal records , it is extremely difficult for them to get jobs with Cal Fire .
Others are still incarcerated in facilities where the virus is widespread .
The state has had to appeal to out-of-state agencies , which are sending equipment and assistance : fire engines from Arizona , Nevada , and Texas .
Everything seems characterized by a sense of wild fragility .

In the early hours of Tuesday, August 18th, the California sky split with lightning: dry, purple, spectacular, relentless. The following evening, the sunset was streaked, psychedelically, with luminous shades of clementine and fuchsia. A heat wave—the sort that was described with words like “historic” and “unprecedented”—was finally on the wane, and the stream of cool air was welcome. I stood outside my apartment, in San Francisco, and sent photographs of the sunset to friends on the East Coast. The landscape here so regularly stuns and humbles; I wasn’t thinking.
The magnificence of the evening sky was due to particulate matter generated by the C.Z.U., L.N.U., and S.C.U. Lightning Complex fires, which had been sparked by the storms. So far, the latter two are the second- and third-largest fires, respectively, in California history. (The largest, the Mendocino Complex Fire, occurred in 2018.) This past week, evacuation orders were issued across the state, including in Napa, Sonoma, Santa Cruz, and parts of San Mateo County, which abuts Silicon Valley. People fled their homes in Solano County, near Sacramento, and in rural areas close to the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which includes Yosemite National Park and Tahoe National Forest. (To date, more than a hundred thousand people have been evacuated.) Photographs surfaced of burning houses, burning farmland, burning woods. Images of Big Basin, California’s oldest state park, showed five-hundred-year-old redwoods blackened and scarred. There were pictures of people standing in the smoldering remains of their homes—a twisted gate, a gnarled oven—and of evacuees’ stalactite-looking tail lights, melted en route to safety. Once again, California has declared a state of emergency.
The state has always had a fire season, but this month’s fires are unprecedented. Unprecedented does not mean unanticipated: in recent years, fires have intensified—a consequence of climate change, exurban sprawl, and neglected electrical infrastructure. A certain amount of dry vegetation is natural, but rising temperatures have yielded longer periods of drought, accompanied by insect infestations and disease; these factors have led to weaker, drier, and dead trees, and to parched brush and grasses—in short, abundant kindling. Californian housing policy, and the subsequent housing crisis, has led developers and residents to push outward, and nearly a third of residential buildings in the state are situated where urban and wild lands meet. Meanwhile, in 2019, P. G. & E., the electrical utility that services much of California, declared bankruptcy, after being found liable for the wildfires of 2017 and 2018. That year, Sonoma’s Kincade Fire, the state’s largest that season, was catalyzed when a P. G. & E. transmission line malfunctioned.
Forest mismanagement has contributed to the problem. In the early twentieth century, the United States Forest Service adopted a policy of suppressing all fires, and California followed suit. For decades, the state resisted mitigation strategies such as controlled burns, in which fires are deliberately set to clear out dry brush and overly dense clusters of trees. California began setting controlled burns in the seventies but only addressed a modest fraction of vulnerable territory; in 2018, Cal Fire, the state’s fire-protection agency, made plans to triple the amount of “prescribed fire” on state-controlled land, but the burns were temporarily paused this spring, due to the coronavirus. In recent years, the state has strategically deployed herds of goats, which can be spotted not just in the countryside but in various parts of San Francisco—on hillsides below the mansions of Pacific Heights, and on the shoulder of Highway 1—contentedly clearing the brush. The goats are credited with saving the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library from last year’s fires. But, over all, the state’s parks and forests are still glutted with flammable vegetation.
In 2018, one source of the Mendocino Complex Fire was a rancher working to plug a wasp nest; as he hammered down a stake, a spark flew into dry grass. This month’s fires were set off by lightning strikes. But fires thrive in hospitable environments; their growth can seem preternatural. By Friday, August 21st, there were five hundred and sixty fires spread across the state. More than a million acres have burned.
San Francisco during fire season is subdued and strange. It is hard to overstate just how close the wildfires are. Nearly everyone here has a personal connection—friends, family, memories—to the areas most affected. City residents are protected by both density and geography. Still, the air feels heavy; ash drifts onto everything. People close their windows and hibernate. Those who can work from home do so. Things shut down. In 2018, this meant public schools, offices, and cable cars; last year, it meant parts of the electrical grid. This year, the rhythms of the city were already disrupted. The cable cars shut down in mid-March. School buildings and white-collar workplaces have been shuttered for months. The Bay Area was in the midst of planned, rolling blackouts, prompted by the heat wave.
One benefit of living in California during the pandemic has been the abundance of open, uncrowded natural spaces. The heat wave tested this; the wildfires nullified it. It is a cruel irony that outdoor spaces are now inhospitable and unsafe. People cannot congregate indoors, owing to the virus; they cannot congregate outdoors, because of the fires. (In other parts of the country, where winter is unforgiving, this dynamic may soon become familiar; both ash and snow render outdoor dining—a Hail Mary pass for restaurants during the pandemic—untenable.) In the Bay Area, where housing is short and the cost of living is high, many people live in homes and apartments that are packed beyond comfortable capacity; in San Francisco, thousands of people live in parks or on the street. There are very few places to go.
In 2018, during the Camp Fire—the state’s deadliest wildfire, sparked by neglected P. G. & E. equipment—my household purchased N95 masks from a hardware store. This spring, we donated the unused masks to local medical workers, handing them off to a P.P.E.-clad administrator in a hospital parking lot. We figured that the pandemic would pass before fire season; we would be able to restock before fall. (We did not yet know that the N95 masks we had purchased, which had exhalation valves—a comfort when the sky is smoke-choked—would turn out to be a public-health hazard during a respiratory pandemic.) Now we’ve begun discussing how we might apportion our apartment in a COVID-19-safe way, should friends or family be evacuated. We’ve contemplated hanging up tarps and building ad-hoc air-filtration systems; for now, we’ve settled on indoor masks. Because of the fires, we can’t simply open all the windows.
People want to help, but aid, like everything, is complicated by the virus. Many organizations on the ground are asking for money rather than dropped-off donations, which come with a risk of transmission; money is tight at a time when nearly fifteen per cent of Californians are unemployed. Service journalism during wildfire season is usually bleak; with the pandemic, it’s nearly apocalyptic. “Masks for Smoke and COVID-19—What Kind is Best?” a headline on KQED asks. In a running series titled “How to Survive,” the San Francisco Chronicle offers detailed guides: “How to keep flames from igniting your home”; “What to do in 1st critical minutes.” It is tempting to turn to metaphor, or to memes. On social media, a viral photograph of a sign outside a senior center—advising hand washing, mask wearing, and social distancing, and swarmed by an inferno—earned the caption “This is fine.”
On social media, a viral photograph of a sign outside a senior center—advising coronavirus-safety practices while swarmed by an inferno—earned the caption “This is fine.” Photograph by Noah Berger / AP / Shutterstock
But memes are a distraction, and metaphor fails. Public schools, previously closed as a public-health measure, are reopening as evacuation shelters. It is grape-harvesting season, and the wineries are on fire. Farmworkers, who have been hit hard by the coronavirus, are still moving methodically through fields of produce, harvesting fruits and vegetables in brutal heat and toxic air. Many are undocumented, without health insurance, and ineligible for government assistance. Then there is the crisis of firefighting resources. In the past, California has bolstered its crews with inmate firefighters, who are paid a dollar an hour to stand at the front lines under showers of retardant. Many were released from prison earlier this year, as a protective measure against the coronavirus; because they have criminal records, it is extremely difficult for them to get jobs with Cal Fire. Others are still incarcerated in facilities where the virus is widespread. The state has had to appeal to out-of-state agencies, which are sending equipment and assistance: fire engines from Arizona, Nevada, and Texas. Everything seems characterized by a sense of wild fragility.
It’s hard not to see all this in terms of a cascading series of national failures: the chaotic, politicized, fabulistic response to the virus; the political influence of oil and gas conglomerates; the fecklessness of private utility companies; cruel immigration policies and weakened labor protections; environmental rollbacks; a weakened social safety net. Some failures, like global warming, are bigger than any one country’s, although the United States has failed here, too. According to meteorologists, last week’s dry lightning was connected to the heat wave, which was generated by winds from Tropical Storm Fausto. Colorado is also experiencing a spate of wildfires, one of which is the second-largest in its history. These are the conditions for secondary environmental and public-health crises. Smoke from the fires in California and Colorado is uncoiling across the country. Plumes have already drifted as far as Kansas.
The air is cleanest on the coast, even as smoke billows from beach towns like Point Reyes and Santa Cruz. On Friday night, people gathered on Ocean Beach, in San Francisco, to picnic, fly kites, and take photographs of the sunset’s radioactive, marigold glow. Tanker ships turned toward the open Pacific; a flock of pelicans pushed northward. A hurricane of birds, stretching the length of about two city blocks, hovered ominously over the waves, and a surfer, caught beneath them, emerged from the water to say with slack awe that he had never seen anything like it. A friend of mine wondered aloud whether the birds knew something we did not. No, thank you, I thought. A “Spare the Air” alert—a temporary ban on wood burning—had been issued for the entire Bay Area, but, in a spot designated for bonfires on the beach, people nurtured small ones against the wind.
The crescent moon hung low and orange. Back in my own neighborhood, on the southeastern side of the city, diners lingered at sidewalk tables outside bars and restaurants, masks pulled down around their chins like orthodontic headgear. A group of teen-age girls cruised up Valencia Street on e-scooters; a man playing a guitar serenaded two-tops at a Spanish restaurant. The air wasn’t clear, but it offered some relief. In October, the traditional fire season will begin.


newyorker--2020-08-24--The Tragic Charisma of Justin Townes Earle

It was announced on Sunday that the singer and songwriter Justin Townes Earle had died at the age of thirty-eight .
His family did not give a cause of death but confirmed the news on Earle ’ s Instagram account , writing , “ It is with tremendous sadness that we inform you of the passing of our son , husband , father , and friend , Justin.
” He is survived by his wife , Jenn Marie , and a three-year-old daughter , Etta St. James .
Earle was named after Townes Van Zandt , the extraordinary but deeply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him ; Earle , too , struggled with serious drug use , beginning when he was young .
Earle is the son of the musician Steve Earle and Carol-Ann Hunter , and was raised in and around Nashville , mostly by his mother .
In 1994 , when Earle was just twelve—the year , he has said , he first began using heroin—his father served a jail sentence for weapons and narcotics possession .
Certain demons—actual , inherited , metaphysical—were omnipresent in Earle ’ s life from its outset .
Yet those who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , charisma , and tenacity—a steadfast determination to transmute suffering into beauty .
Earle released his début full-length album , “ The Good Life , ” in 2008 .
Prior to starting a solo career , Earle had played in a few groups around Nashville , and , for a brief while , was a member of the Dukes , his father ’ s backing band .
His style mixed traditional country , gospel , blues , and rock and roll—a raucous , heavy mélange that critics tended to label either alt-country or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s a genre that ’ s often thought of as intrinsically nostalgic , a deliberate and sentimental re-creation of a bygone era , and , while there are artists who do indulge in a kind of old-timey pageantry , there ’ s little about the form itself that feels irrelevant by design .
Though Earle often performed in tailored suits , and had the gangly , eternally wayward carriage of Hank Williams , he always struck me as a man very much of his time and place , someone who understood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ richness and cruelty of the modern world .
I met Earle in 2009 , just before his second record , “ Midnight at the Movies , ” was released .
At the time , he was living in New York , in a neighborhood he described as “ way out in the asshole of Brooklyn.
” He liked it here—the city was constantly reinventing itself , making new and different demands of him .
“ I need a city that changes around me , not me changing faster than a city , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ showman , and his concerts made for riveting theatre .
“ The song is where it all starts , but there ’ s a lot that comes after that , ” he told me of performing live .
His voice was round and a little bit wild—like Buddy Holly , if Holly had been in a few more bar fights—and he had a particular way of playing guitar , which he once explained as “ a swat kind of thing , almost like a clawhammer , except you ’ re keeping your index @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Lyrically , Earle often leaned into dark moments with insouciance and dry humor .
He had a punk-rock heart , and liked the fission of desolation and ecstasy , the sacred mixing with the profane : “ Lord I ’ m going uptown / To the Harlem River to drown / Dirty water ’ s gon na cover me over / And I ’ m not gon na make a sound , ” he sang on “ Harlem River Blues , ” from 2010 .
He performed the song on “ Late @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jason Isbell on guitar .
Each time I watch the clip , I ’ m reminded of how liberating it can feel to hear someone sing calmly about feeling thoroughly lost .
“ Harlem River Blues ” was a fraught period for Earle .
He relapsed that year , and , while on tour in Indianapolis , he was arrested and accused of destroying his dressing room and punching the club owner ’ s daughter .
Eventually , he got sober again , and more records followed , including a suite about his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2014 , and “ Absent Fathers , ” from 2015 .
No matter how good Earle ’ s records were , one still got the sense that there was a masterpiece coming at some point down the line—he just needed to get his desires and vulnerabilities lined up in the right way .
Though he was drawn toward melancholy , he knew the shape of joy , too .
In 2017 , he appeared on his father ’ s Sirius XM show to promote a new record , “ Kids in the Streets.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” a perfect ode to small pleasures : “ But you ca n't trust a rich girl / No farther than you can throw her / Need a middle-class queen riding by in a champagne Corolla , ” he sings .
Earle released his last record , “ The Saint of Lost Causes , ” in 2019 .
The cover features a painting of Jude the Apostle , whom Roman Catholics know as the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes .
It ’ s a potent symbol , even independent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decaying concrete statue of Saint Jude propped up in a corner of my garden , simply for the daily reminder that no matter how dire or grim circumstances may seem , hope is never senseless .
Earle seemed to both embrace and reject the idea of his own redemption .
The record ends with “ Talking to Myself , ” a brutal self-interrogation buoyed by pedal steel .
“ And I know better than to think that it can be fixed / Best that I can do is just to learn to live @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One of my favorite Earle performances is an acoustic cover of Paul Simon ’ s “ Graceland , ” which he recorded in 2017 for Hamburger Küchensessions , a German series in which musicians perform from the corner of a kitchen .
Take a breath before you watch it .
His eyes are fluttering , and he appears unshaven , a little jittery .
But his voice is beautiful—fragile and strong .
“ Graceland ” is a kind of American hymn , a song about tragedy and heartache and also the part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to keep going anyway , always—to atone and reclaim , as many times as it takes .
Earle speeds the song up , and doesn ’ t quite cling to the melody or the lyrics as Simon wrote them , but his rendition is heavy , spare , and stunning .
“ I ’ m going to Graceland , ” he promises , over and over as the song ends .
It feels good to think that he is there right now , received and at peace .

It was announced on Sunday that the singer and songwriter Justin Townes Earle had died, at the age of thirty-eight. His family did not give a cause of death but confirmed the news on Earle’s Instagram account, writing, “It is with tremendous sadness that we inform you of the passing of our son, husband, father, and friend, Justin.” He is survived by his wife, Jenn Marie, and a three-year-old daughter, Etta St. James. Earle was named after Townes Van Zandt, the extraordinary but deeply troubled folk singer whose addictions ultimately undid him; Earle, too, struggled with serious drug use, beginning when he was young. Earle is the son of the musician Steve Earle and Carol-Ann Hunter, and was raised in and around Nashville, mostly by his mother. In 1994, when Earle was just twelve—the year, he has said, he first began using heroin—his father served a jail sentence for weapons and narcotics possession. Certain demons—actual, inherited, metaphysical—were omnipresent in Earle’s life from its outset. Yet those who loved him were moved by his frankness, charisma, and tenacity—a steadfast determination to transmute suffering into beauty.
Earle released his début full-length album, “The Good Life,” in 2008. Prior to starting a solo career, Earle had played in a few groups around Nashville, and, for a brief while, was a member of the Dukes, his father’s backing band. His style mixed traditional country, gospel, blues, and rock and roll—a raucous, heavy mélange that critics tended to label either alt-country or Americana, depending on the decade. It’s a genre that’s often thought of as intrinsically nostalgic, a deliberate and sentimental re-creation of a bygone era, and, while there are artists who do indulge in a kind of old-timey pageantry, there’s little about the form itself that feels irrelevant by design. Though Earle often performed in tailored suits, and had the gangly, eternally wayward carriage of Hank Williams, he always struck me as a man very much of his time and place, someone who understood, on a cellular level, the richness and cruelty of the modern world.
I met Earle in 2009, just before his second record, “Midnight at the Movies,” was released. At the time, he was living in New York, in a neighborhood he described as “way out in the asshole of Brooklyn.” He liked it here—the city was constantly reinventing itself, making new and different demands of him. “I need a city that changes around me, not me changing faster than a city,” he said. Earle was an electrifying showman, and his concerts made for riveting theatre. “The song is where it all starts, but there’s a lot that comes after that,” he told me of performing live. His voice was round and a little bit wild—like Buddy Holly, if Holly had been in a few more bar fights—and he had a particular way of playing guitar, which he once explained as “a swat kind of thing, almost like a clawhammer, except you’re keeping your index finger free to get in the middle.”
Lyrically, Earle often leaned into dark moments with insouciance and dry humor. He had a punk-rock heart, and liked the fission of desolation and ecstasy, the sacred mixing with the profane: “Lord I’m going uptown / To the Harlem River to drown / Dirty water’s gonna cover me over / And I’m not gonna make a sound,” he sang on “Harlem River Blues,” from 2010. He performed the song on “Late Night with David Letterman,” with Jason Isbell on guitar. Each time I watch the clip, I’m reminded of how liberating it can feel to hear someone sing calmly about feeling thoroughly lost. “Harlem River Blues” was a fraught period for Earle. He relapsed that year, and, while on tour in Indianapolis, he was arrested and accused of destroying his dressing room and punching the club owner’s daughter.
Eventually, he got sober again, and more records followed, including a suite about his parents—“Single Mothers,” from 2014, and “Absent Fathers,” from 2015. No matter how good Earle’s records were, one still got the sense that there was a masterpiece coming at some point down the line—he just needed to get his desires and vulnerabilities lined up in the right way. Though he was drawn toward melancholy, he knew the shape of joy, too. In 2017, he appeared on his father’s Sirius XM show to promote a new record, “Kids in the Streets.” He played “Champagne Corolla,” a perfect ode to small pleasures: “But you can't trust a rich girl / No farther than you can throw her / Need a middle-class queen riding by in a champagne Corolla,” he sings.
Earle released his last record, “The Saint of Lost Causes,” in 2019. The cover features a painting of Jude the Apostle, whom Roman Catholics know as the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes. It’s a potent symbol, even independent of a religious context. I keep a decaying concrete statue of Saint Jude propped up in a corner of my garden, simply for the daily reminder that no matter how dire or grim circumstances may seem, hope is never senseless. Earle seemed to both embrace and reject the idea of his own redemption. The record ends with “Talking to Myself,” a brutal self-interrogation buoyed by pedal steel. “And I know better than to think that it can be fixed / Best that I can do is just to learn to live with this,” he sings.
One of my favorite Earle performances is an acoustic cover of Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” which he recorded in 2017 for Hamburger Küchensessions, a German series in which musicians perform from the corner of a kitchen. Take a breath before you watch it. His eyes are fluttering, and he appears unshaven, a little jittery. But his voice is beautiful—fragile and strong. “Graceland” is a kind of American hymn, a song about tragedy and heartache and also the part of a person’s spirit that tells them to keep going anyway, always—to atone and reclaim, as many times as it takes. Earle speeds the song up, and doesn’t quite cling to the melody or the lyrics as Simon wrote them, but his rendition is heavy, spare, and stunning. “I’m going to Graceland,” he promises, over and over as the song ends. It feels good to think that he is there right now, received and at peace.


newyorker--2020-08-24--The 2020 Republican National Convention Schedule of Events

Montage of Republicans who sadly can not be with us , owing to long-standing commitments for teeth-cleaning and dropping their children off at online college .
Time-Share Opportunities at Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku : Only ninety minutes , and all participants get a two-hundred-dollar Visa gift card .
PERFORMANCE : Antonio Sabàto , Jr. , and the Tiki-Torch Dancers .
( Tiki-Torch Dancers appearance subject to scheduling availability . )
TONIGHT ’ S FEATURED SPEAKERS : The St. Louis racist couple ; Susan Collins ’ s “ concern ” ; and Senator Tim Scott , of South Carolina @ @ @ @ @ @ @ My Idea of What a Native American Prayer Probably Sounds Like.
” Gavel in and call to order by an eighth-grader from Tampa we ’ re pretty sure is Q .
• None THEME : “ A Salute to John Lewis .
.
.
’ s Attackers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge , ” hosted by Goya beans .
• None INVOCATION : Jerry Falwell , Jr. , “ Jesus Was Also a Watcher of Men.
” • None PERFORMANCE : Dean Cain and the Tiki-Torch Dancers .
( Tiki-Torch Dancers appearance subject @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FEATURED SPEAKERS : Two of the four “ Fox and Friends ” ; the bird-watcher Karen ; and Senator Tim Scott , of South Carolina .
• None Film by Dinesh D ’ Souza : “ The New Gift of the Magi : A Baker Who Refused to Make a Cake for a Gay Couple and a Gay Couple Who Refused to Wear Masks in a Bakery.
” • None Senator Lindsey Graham : “ I agree with everything Trump just said.
” • None KEYNOTE ADDRESS : Eric Trump , “ Fond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
or Was It José ?
”

David Mandel, Billy Kimball, Rachel Axler, Lew Morton

The 2020 Republican National Convention, Washington, D.C.
Schedule of Events
Night 1
Senator Mitch McConnell: “I did not hear Trump’s opening remarks.”
Montage of Republicans who sadly cannot be with us, owing to long-standing commitments for teeth-cleaning and dropping their children off at online college.
Time-Share Opportunities at Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku: Only ninety minutes, and all participants get a two-hundred-dollar Visa gift card.
PERFORMANCE: Antonio Sabàto, Jr., and the Tiki-Torch Dancers. (Tiki-Torch Dancers appearance subject to scheduling availability.)
TONIGHT’S FEATURED SPEAKERS: The St. Louis racist couple; Susan Collins’s “concern”; and Senator Tim Scott, of South Carolina.
Report from the Platform Committee (cancelled).
INVOCATION: MAGA-Hat Kid, “My Idea of What a Native American Prayer Probably Sounds Like.”
Confederate Pledge of Allegiance, led by Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Gavel in and call to order by an eighth-grader from Tampa we’re pretty sure is Q.
THEME: “Cabinet Members Ethics Violations,” hosted by the MyPillow Guy.
Night 2
THEME: “A Salute to John Lewis . . . ’s Attackers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge,” hosted by Goya beans.
Russian Pledge of Allegiance, led by James Woods.
INVOCATION: Jerry Falwell, Jr., “Jesus Was Also a Watcher of Men.”
PERFORMANCE: Dean Cain and the Tiki-Torch Dancers. (Tiki-Torch Dancers appearance subject to scheduling availability.)
FEATURED SPEAKERS: Two of the four “Fox and Friends”; the bird-watcher Karen; and Senator Tim Scott, of South Carolina.
Film by Dinesh D’Souza: “The New Gift of the Magi: A Baker Who Refused to Make a Cake for a Gay Couple and a Gay Couple Who Refused to Wear Masks in a Bakery.”
8 P.M.-10 P.M.: Unscheduled trip to Walter Reed hospital (private).
Ladies and Gentlemen, Kellyanne Conway (cancelled).
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP: “The Russia Hoax” (prerecorded).
Senator Lindsey Graham: “I agree with everything Trump just said.”
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Eric Trump, “Fond Remembrances of Our Chauffeur Jorge . . . or Was It José?”


newyorker--2020-08-24--Everyone Knew Who Shot Ahmaud Arbery. Why Did the Killers Walk Free?

It has been six months since Ahmaud Arbery , a young Black man , was shot by three white men while he was out for a Sunday jog near his childhood home .
The video of the killing , taken by one of the men who participated in it , could be said to have kindled the blaze that ignited after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd .
There was no mystery to be solved in Arbery ’ s killing .
It happened in broad daylight , and the men who did it were on the scene when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ free , and no one was arrested for seventy-four days—until after the video was made public and caused a scandal .
What , exactly , were prosecutors thinking ?
Caroline Lester spoke with Arbery ’ s mother , a local reporter , lawyers , and a district attorney to understand what happened in those seventy-four days .
His case , she finds , highlights a fundamental problem for criminal-justice reform : we may change the laws that govern policing , but those laws have to be vigorously enforced .
And district attorneys may @ @ @ @ @ @ @

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Photograph by Sean Rayford / Getty
It has been six months since Ahmaud Arbery, a young Black man, was shot by three white men while he was out for a Sunday jog near his childhood home. The video of the killing, taken by one of the men who participated in it, could be said to have kindled the blaze that ignited after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
There was no mystery to be solved in Arbery’s killing. It happened in broad daylight, and the men who did it were on the scene when police arrived. But the killers walked free, and no one was arrested for seventy-four days—until after the video was made public and caused a scandal. What, exactly, were prosecutors thinking? Caroline Lester spoke with Arbery’s mother, a local reporter, lawyers, and a district attorney to understand what happened in those seventy-four days. His case, she finds, highlights a fundamental problem for criminal-justice reform: we may change the laws that govern policing, but those laws have to be vigorously enforced. And district attorneys may have little incentive to do so.