“The Rivals”

The owners of the Red House , Senna and his wife , Shay , have left Madagascar and are back home in Italy at the time , but there are plenty of witnesses to give them , later , a detailed report of the fight between their resident accountant and their old friend and next-door neighbor .
There is Madame Rose , their neighbor on the opposite side and their chief informant .
There are the gardeners and maids from the Red House , including the formidable head housekeeper , Bertine la Grande .
There are several Antandroy market women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vegetables on their heads .
There is a boy driving a herd of zebu up the side path from their morning bath in the sea .
There is an oyster vender in a straw pillbox hat .
The maids and gardeners rush to separate the struggling old vazaha while other people stop and stare , but with a notable lack of astonishment .
Everybody up and down Finoana Beach knows the history of the trouble and the name of the woman behind it .
Not long ago , the combatants were close friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who have been in Madagascar since the early years of independence , both men of dignity and substance , as much as they can be in that libertine island atmosphere where foreigners ’ souls can rot as quickly as a bunch of soft-skinned bananas .
Both speak fluent Malagasy , highland and coastal dialects .
They ’ ve been on Naratrany long enough for the islanders to have christened them with fondly mocking nicknames .
Pianon is Valiha , the word for a tall thin twanging bamboo musical instrument , and Floristella is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ food.
” Pianon is a notary from Verona , a widower who dresses in elegant shirts and trousers tailored , colonial-style , from linen of an archaic thickness .
He has cropped white hair , a hatchet nose , and the intense yet ascetic air of erudition that is the unmistakable sign of a Jesuit education .
A passionate amateur ethnologist , he spends his free time interviewing missionaries and village headmen for a monograph he is writing on the Sakalava royal family .
His job as the live-in bookkeeper and rental manager @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him , yet he has grown attached to the space and the beauty of the big villa , which he often has to himself outside of peak vacation season , and where he has built a library .
Like everyone else , he is fond of his boss , the boisterous and decidedly nonintellectual Senna ; Shay he admires for her degree of learning , which he was surprised to find in an American woman , and he sometimes invites her along on his research expeditions .
No one could differ more from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of fallen fortunes who carries his huge belly with the complacent ease of a pasha .
In his adventurous youth , he was a famous yachtsman and deep-sea diver , whose prowess and seductive charm ensnared the hearts of beauties from Capri to Zanzibar .
Although riches , youth , and health have vanished , leaving him to a frugal pensioner ’ s existence on Naratrany , he still has a grand manner , which has made him an island personage .
His aquiline profile—noble despite his two chins—and his silver crest of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beach , where he holds court daily from the porch of his tiny bungalow , which adjoins the grounds of the Red House .
There , ensconced in a sagging director ’ s chair , surrounded by a motley array of cats and dogs and even a three-legged pet tortoise , he contemplates the tides and the changing skies over the Mozambique Channel .
He exchanges greetings with passersby , from village children to hotel owners , while perusing documents or eating heaping plates of pasta prepared by his faithful housekeeper , Marianne @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , reads thrillers , and doles out wages to the Sakalava workmen who , in starts and stops linked to the fluctuating state of his finances , have for years been at work on a grandiose extension to his bungalow , which he secretly hopes will outshine the Red House .
When Pianon first came to work for the Sennas , the two neighbors established a habit of meeting up on Floristella ’ s porch in the cool of the early morning to drink powerful Sicilian coffee from Floristella ’ s battered pot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sun rose and the fishermen set out in their pirogues and Floristella ’ s thin gray kitten purred on Pianon ’ s bony , linen-covered knee , they traded island gossip .
Shay , who liked to take fins and a mask and swim the length of Finoana Bay before breakfast , often paused far out in the water to observe the two old men on the porch of the little bungalow beside her own big house .
They had a look of casual harmony that was in keeping with the early-morning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and casuarinas that lay along the immaculate curve of beach .
When Shay came , dripping , out of the water , they ’ d call out greetings and offer her coffee , but she never wanted to disrupt their modest but perfect intimacy .
Unlike most of the village women who became embroiled with foreign men , Noelline was educated—she had completed two years at the lycée run by the sugar refinery at Ankazobe .
She could type and use a computer , and spoke French and Italian .
Beyond her intelligence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reputed genius for sex , her greatest talents were ones she shared with most resourceful wives and mistresses : an inconspicuous but relentless persistence , the ability to bide her time , to cling without being obvious , and never to show offense .
Eventually , Floristella entrusted her with the keys to his bungalow , the secrets of his defunct business exporting medicinal jungle herbs , the erratic construction work on his property , and the care and the pleasures of his swollen , diabetic body .
Noelline didn ’ t move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away in a rented two-room cinder-block house—luxurious by village standards , and paid for , of course , by Floristella—set among palms and thornbushes in one of the warren-like settlements that sprawled messily off the only paved road in Finoana .
Each morning , she buzzed up to Floristella ’ s bungalow on a battered motorbike , offering a cordial but slightly condescending greeting to Marianne , who pounded laundry and cleaned fish in the small trodden-sand yard by the sea .
In the course of the day , Noelline wrote Floristella ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ injections , climbed nimbly astride his big belly during the siesta hour , and sometimes lingered after sunset on his lamplit porch , patiently listening to his fantastical plans for rebuilding his fortune .
She never spent the night .
To Floristella ’ s many friends , and especially to Pianon , she was quietly respectful .
She absorbed Italian idioms with rapt attention , and laughed appropriately when the two men chatted on the porch .
Occasionally , she typed a document for Pianon , and sometimes , in the tone of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obscure term in Sakalava dialect , or explained some custom , like why it was fady for certain young girls to eat chicken .
The villagers knew that Noelline had her own giambillys , or lovers on the side , notably a handsome cabdriver from Saint Grimaud , a métis who was said to beat his penniless French mother .
However , the young woman jealously guarded her position with the Sicilian .
In the village , she acquired the title of Madame Floristella , much to the annoyance of his wife back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ return to the island until Floristella had discarded Noelline .
When Senna and Shay drove to the market at Saint Grimaud , they often caught sight of the portly Floristella , conferring with some sous-official on the broken , weedy courthouse steps , as Noelline , in tight jeans and pointed high heels , stood demurely in the background .
“ There she is , that sly baggage !
” Senna invariably said , and Shay as always protested .
“ Why call her that—she ’ s just doing her job !
How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ girl ?
” “ Because the other little hussies have kind hearts , but she ’ s a troublemaker , that one .
She ’ ll be the death of old Flori , wait and see.
” Senna loved to rattle his American wife with a show of cynical wisdom where Madagascar was concerned , and Shay was generally amused .
Still , she felt that , as a woman of color , she had to express solidarity with Noelline .
What would she herself do in the same circumstances ?
The fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the island seemed to like Noelline , and no one could explain her unpopularity , except to say that , although she wasn ’ t beautiful , she gave herself airs .
Bertine la Grande , the housekeeper , simply observed to Shay , “ Elle n ’ est pas bien , cette fille.
” Bertine had a Manichean vision of the world as divided into “ bien ” and “ pas bien , ” which had little to do with conventional morality : many an island prostitute was described by Bertine as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if Bertine defined Noelline , who was from the same village as she was and whom she had known since childhood , as “ pas bien , ” she was referring to something other than the girl ’ s ambitious seductiveness—a deep flaw in her nature that was visible only to someone with the same origins .
Yet , with a strange kind of loyalty , Bertine went no further in criticizing Noelline , or in trying to thwart her actions ; instead , she stood back with a fatalistic air , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they did .

Audio available Listen to this story Audio: Andrea Lee reads.
When Floristella catches sight of Pianon on the Red House veranda—the side that overlooks Madame Rose Rakotomalala’s jackfruit tree—he gives a martial bellow, charges down the garden path, and attacks his neighbor with a walking stick. And though the two old Italian men, both well over seventy, are ludicrous combatants—Floristella, a diabetic, is ponderously fat, while tall Pianon is skeletal from annual bouts of malaria, so that their skirmish suggests a clash between Falstaff and Ichabod Crane—their energy and passion run high, and no one who witnesses the incident feels inclined to laugh.
The owners of the Red House, Senna and his wife, Shay, have left Madagascar and are back home in Italy at the time, but there are plenty of witnesses to give them, later, a detailed report of the fight between their resident accountant and their old friend and next-door neighbor. There is Madame Rose, their neighbor on the opposite side and their chief informant. There are the gardeners and maids from the Red House, including the formidable head housekeeper, Bertine la Grande. There are several Antandroy market women heading up the beach bearing baskets of vegetables on their heads. There is a boy driving a herd of zebu up the side path from their morning bath in the sea. There is an oyster vender in a straw pillbox hat.
The maids and gardeners rush to separate the struggling old vazaha while other people stop and stare, but with a notable lack of astonishment. Everybody up and down Finoana Beach knows the history of the trouble and the name of the woman behind it.
Not long ago, the combatants were close friends. Pianon and Floristella: both Italians who have been in Madagascar since the early years of independence, both men of dignity and substance, as much as they can be in that libertine island atmosphere where foreigners’ souls can rot as quickly as a bunch of soft-skinned bananas. Both speak fluent Malagasy, highland and coastal dialects. They’ve been on Naratrany long enough for the islanders to have christened them with fondly mocking nicknames. Pianon is Valiha, the word for a tall thin twanging bamboo musical instrument, and Floristella is Sakav, meaning, simply, “food.”
Pianon is a notary from Verona, a widower who dresses in elegant shirts and trousers tailored, colonial-style, from linen of an archaic thickness. He has cropped white hair, a hatchet nose, and the intense yet ascetic air of erudition that is the unmistakable sign of a Jesuit education. A passionate amateur ethnologist, he spends his free time interviewing missionaries and village headmen for a monograph he is writing on the Sakalava royal family. His job as the live-in bookkeeper and rental manager at the Red House is undeniably beneath him, yet he has grown attached to the space and the beauty of the big villa, which he often has to himself outside of peak vacation season, and where he has built a library. Like everyone else, he is fond of his boss, the boisterous and decidedly nonintellectual Senna; Shay he admires for her degree of learning, which he was surprised to find in an American woman, and he sometimes invites her along on his research expeditions.
No one could differ more from Pianon than Floristella, a Sicilian baron of fallen fortunes who carries his huge belly with the complacent ease of a pasha. In his adventurous youth, he was a famous yachtsman and deep-sea diver, whose prowess and seductive charm ensnared the hearts of beauties from Capri to Zanzibar. Although riches, youth, and health have vanished, leaving him to a frugal pensioner’s existence on Naratrany, he still has a grand manner, which has made him an island personage. His aquiline profile—noble despite his two chins—and his silver crest of brilliantined hair are a landmark on Finoana Beach, where he holds court daily from the porch of his tiny bungalow, which adjoins the grounds of the Red House.
There, ensconced in a sagging director’s chair, surrounded by a motley array of cats and dogs and even a three-legged pet tortoise, he contemplates the tides and the changing skies over the Mozambique Channel. He exchanges greetings with passersby, from village children to hotel owners, while perusing documents or eating heaping plates of pasta prepared by his faithful housekeeper, Marianne. He naps, smokes endless cigarettes, reads thrillers, and doles out wages to the Sakalava workmen who, in starts and stops linked to the fluctuating state of his finances, have for years been at work on a grandiose extension to his bungalow, which he secretly hopes will outshine the Red House.
When Pianon first came to work for the Sennas, the two neighbors established a habit of meeting up on Floristella’s porch in the cool of the early morning to drink powerful Sicilian coffee from Floristella’s battered pot. For a pleasant hour, as the sun rose and the fishermen set out in their pirogues and Floristella’s thin gray kitten purred on Pianon’s bony, linen-covered knee, they traded island gossip. Shay, who liked to take fins and a mask and swim the length of Finoana Bay before breakfast, often paused far out in the water to observe the two old men on the porch of the little bungalow beside her own big house. They had a look of casual harmony that was in keeping with the early-morning hush, the long shadows of palms and casuarinas that lay along the immaculate curve of beach. When Shay came, dripping, out of the water, they’d call out greetings and offer her coffee, but she never wanted to disrupt their modest but perfect intimacy.
The woman who did break up the idyll was Noelline. For years, she was Floristella’s secretary and mistress, filling the gap left by his wife, who long before had grown weary of the tedium of Madagascar and returned to Trapani, where she awaited her husband’s twice-yearly visits. Noelline, twenty-six and childless, was no longer young by island standards and, in a land where lovely women were as abundant as grains of sand, had never been considered a beauty, though she had an almost preposterously voluptuous body, a product of her mixed Sakalava and Antankarana background. The daughter of a seamstress and a ferryman, she had a demure wide face, its teak surface roughened by outbreaks of tiny pimples, a high forehead, and bright, shallow-set eyes that missed nothing. She kept her hair short and stylish, sometimes enhancing it with a waist-length tail of beaded Chinese braids, and her enviable wardrobe consisted of tight imported jeans and dresses, purchased by Floristella.
Unlike most of the village women who became embroiled with foreign men, Noelline was educated—she had completed two years at the lycée run by the sugar refinery at Ankazobe. She could type and use a computer, and spoke French and Italian. Beyond her intelligence, her undeniable energy, and a reputed genius for sex, her greatest talents were ones she shared with most resourceful wives and mistresses: an inconspicuous but relentless persistence, the ability to bide her time, to cling without being obvious, and never to show offense.
Eventually, Floristella entrusted her with the keys to his bungalow, the secrets of his defunct business exporting medicinal jungle herbs, the erratic construction work on his property, and the care and the pleasures of his swollen, diabetic body. Noelline didn’t move in with him but lived a mile away in a rented two-room cinder-block house—luxurious by village standards, and paid for, of course, by Floristella—set among palms and thornbushes in one of the warren-like settlements that sprawled messily off the only paved road in Finoana.
Each morning, she buzzed up to Floristella’s bungalow on a battered motorbike, offering a cordial but slightly condescending greeting to Marianne, who pounded laundry and cleaned fish in the small trodden-sand yard by the sea. In the course of the day, Noelline wrote Floristella’s letters, gave him his insulin injections, climbed nimbly astride his big belly during the siesta hour, and sometimes lingered after sunset on his lamplit porch, patiently listening to his fantastical plans for rebuilding his fortune. She never spent the night.
To Floristella’s many friends, and especially to Pianon, she was quietly respectful. She absorbed Italian idioms with rapt attention, and laughed appropriately when the two men chatted on the porch. Occasionally, she typed a document for Pianon, and sometimes, in the tone of a schoolmistress, translated for him an obscure term in Sakalava dialect, or explained some custom, like why it was fady for certain young girls to eat chicken.
The villagers knew that Noelline had her own giambillys, or lovers on the side, notably a handsome cabdriver from Saint Grimaud, a métis who was said to beat his penniless French mother. However, the young woman jealously guarded her position with the Sicilian. In the village, she acquired the title of Madame Floristella, much to the annoyance of his wife back in Trapani, who vowed not to return to the island until Floristella had discarded Noelline.
“Maaaake meeeeee!” Cartoon by Adam Douglas Thompson Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
When Senna and Shay drove to the market at Saint Grimaud, they often caught sight of the portly Floristella, conferring with some sous-official on the broken, weedy courthouse steps, as Noelline, in tight jeans and pointed high heels, stood demurely in the background. “There she is, that sly baggage!” Senna invariably said, and Shay as always protested.


newyorker--2020-12-30--The Best Art of 2020

The Best Art of 2020

In early December , Pantone named its official colors for 2021 , a decision that seemed to channel both the bleakness and the bright spots of the past year , not to mention the brain freeze of indecision that 2020 levels of uncertainty induced .
Instead of championing one color , as it has in the past , Pantone anointed two : “ Ultimate Gray , ” a dispiriting fog , and “ Illuminating , ” a sunny yellow .
The Internet was quick to point out that the combo also called to mind a banana and duct tape , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infamous contribution to the 2019 edition of Art Basel Miami .
The thought of that infuriatingly brilliant one-liner ( now in the collection of the Guggenheim ) makes me almost nostalgic for the vacuous hoopla of art fairs .
It ’ s hard to believe that , in the first week of March , eight fairs did descend on New York City , for Armory Week .
A number of overseas galleries made the trip , as they usually do , but the news from Europe was already worrisome , and some handshakes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Park Avenue Armory to Piers 90 and 94 .
( Belated apologies to the prescient collector whose offer of an elbow bump I greeted with side-eye . )
On March 18th , it was announced that the Met was temporarily closing its three branches ; a state-mandated shutdown of nonessential businesses soon followed .
For months , looking at art became staring at screens , and a new three-letter acronym entered the lexicon : O.V.R.
, for “ online viewing room.
” If that sounds like an enticement to see artists envision new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expectations to “ slideshow.
” Still , the art world has been luckier than other cultural sectors of New York City .
Museums and galleries reopened this fall , and there were fewer closures of the latter than feared , although one did mark the end of an era .
After twenty-six years as an independent tastemaker , the British expat Gavin Brown closed his enterprises and took a job with the doyenne Barbara Gladstone .
Perhaps the happiest art news of this dismal year is that intrepid new galleries continue to open @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reassurance that art is unstoppable .
The following is a list of some beacons that cut through the pandemic blur .
In March , this irresistibly charismatic New York-based performer—whose sui-generis style blends cabaret panache and standup shtick with grace notes of klezmer—made us feel less alone when he began posting his comforting “ quarantunes ” on Instagram .
Like the full-length performances that have earned Morgan Bassichis a loyal following from Fire Island to the Whitney Museum , the intimate clips were funny , strange , exquisitely sung , and unexpectedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simple lyrics— “ I know you ’ re scared ; I ’ m scared , too ” —until they accrue the power of incantations .
The quarantunes had that same magic , along with some good advice for bad times : “ I ’ ll tell you the secret .
Take a shower.
” If you feel like laughing out loud , read “ The Odd Years , ” Bassichis ’ s purple book of to-do lists , published by Wendy ’ s Subway .
When the Public Art Fund invited the Emirati @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a project for spaces usually reserved for advertisements on a hundred bus shelters citywide , she came up with “ Back and Forth Disco , ” a series of seventeen effervescent color pictures , taken in New York City neighborhoods favored by immigrants .
Although the project went up in January , it delivered the most delight in the early months of the pandemic , when walking outside was one of the remaining joys of city life .
Spotting Qasimi ’ s picture of a white cockatoo in a curtain store in Ridgewood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Hudson Street in Manhattan felt almost as exciting as spotting a vibrant Western tanager in a tree along the Hudson River .
Countless artists banded together throughout the COVID crisis to support essential causes .
Some turned to making masks ( Stephanie Syjuco , in the Bay Area ; Beth Lipman and Ken Sager , in Sheboygan Falls , Wisconsin ) .
On Juneteenth , the photographers ’ coalition See in Black ( founded by Joshua Kissi and Micaiah Carter ) launched a benefit for organizations “ working to dismantle systemic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to August , more than fifty participants—including Glenn Ligon , Thomas Struth , and Carrie Mae Weems—designed posters under the auspices of Between Bridges , to help ninety-eight struggling art spaces , music venues , and residencies around the world .
The prevailing spirit was hope , tinged with romance , as seen in Nicole Eisenman ’ s wistful closing-time scene , “ Never Forget Kissing in Bars.
” In late June , the American Museum of Natural History made the clear-eyed decision to remove a statue of three men from its front @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on horseback , over an indigenous and a Black figure .
New York City has more work to do to rectify racism in its public art , but several new projects are under way , including a soaring silhouette of the U.S. congresswoman Shirley Chisholm , by Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous .
For now , Simone Leigh ’ s sixteen-foot-tall monument to Black womanhood , “ Brick House ” —the inaugural commission of the High Line Plinth—keeps vigil above Tenth Avenue at West Thirtieth Street .

This has been a despicable year, but not without its silver linings. The puppy population of New York City soared, Biden beat Trump, and the truth-to-power urgency of Black Lives Matter finally became undeniable. But to reflect on the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others—including the more than three hundred thousand lives lost to COVID-19 in the U.S.—returns us to the annus horribilis.
In early December, Pantone named its official colors for 2021, a decision that seemed to channel both the bleakness and the bright spots of the past year, not to mention the brain freeze of indecision that 2020 levels of uncertainty induced. Instead of championing one color, as it has in the past, Pantone anointed two: “Ultimate Gray,” a dispiriting fog, and “Illuminating,” a sunny yellow. The Internet was quick to point out that the combo also called to mind a banana and duct tape, the materials of Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous contribution to the 2019 edition of Art Basel Miami. The thought of that infuriatingly brilliant one-liner (now in the collection of the Guggenheim) makes me almost nostalgic for the vacuous hoopla of art fairs.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
It’s hard to believe that, in the first week of March, eight fairs did descend on New York City, for Armory Week. A number of overseas galleries made the trip, as they usually do, but the news from Europe was already worrisome, and some handshakes were being politely declined, from the Park Avenue Armory to Piers 90 and 94. (Belated apologies to the prescient collector whose offer of an elbow bump I greeted with side-eye.) On March 18th, it was announced that the Met was temporarily closing its three branches; a state-mandated shutdown of nonessential businesses soon followed.
For months, looking at art became staring at screens, and a new three-letter acronym entered the lexicon: O.V.R., for “online viewing room.” If that sounds like an enticement to see artists envision new forms with digital means, downgrade your expectations to “slideshow.” Still, the art world has been luckier than other cultural sectors of New York City. Museums and galleries reopened this fall, and there were fewer closures of the latter than feared, although one did mark the end of an era. After twenty-six years as an independent tastemaker, the British expat Gavin Brown closed his enterprises and took a job with the doyenne Barbara Gladstone.
Perhaps the happiest art news of this dismal year is that intrepid new galleries continue to open. Another silver lining of 2020 is the reassurance that art is unstoppable. The following is a list of some beacons that cut through the pandemic blur.
Morgan Bassichis
Illustration by Ohni Lisle
In March, this irresistibly charismatic New York-based performer—whose sui-generis style blends cabaret panache and standup shtick with grace notes of klezmer—made us feel less alone when they began posting their comforting “quarantunes” on Instagram. Like the full-length performances that have earned Morgan Bassichis a loyal following from Fire Island to the Whitney Museum, the intimate clips were funny, strange, exquisitely sung, and unexpectedly moving. Onstage, Bassichis often repeats simple lyrics—“I know you’re scared; I’m scared, too”—until they accrue the power of incantations. The quarantunes had that same magic, along with some good advice for bad times: “I’ll tell you the secret. Take a shower.” If you feel like laughing out loud, read “The Odd Years,” Bassichis’s purple book of to-do lists, published by Wendy’s Subway.
Farah Al Qasimi
Photograph by Farah Al Qasimi / Courtesy the artist, Helena Anrather, and the Third Line
When the Public Art Fund invited the Emirati photographer Farah Al Qasimi to conceive of a project for spaces usually reserved for advertisements on a hundred bus shelters citywide, she came up with “Back and Forth Disco,” a series of seventeen effervescent color pictures, taken in New York City neighborhoods favored by immigrants. Although the project went up in January, it delivered the most delight in the early months of the pandemic, when walking outside was one of the remaining joys of city life. Spotting Qasimi’s picture of a white cockatoo in a curtain store in Ridgewood, Queens, on a bus shelter on Hudson Street in Manhattan felt almost as exciting as spotting a vibrant Western tanager in a tree along the Hudson River.
Between Bridges


newyorker--2020-12-30--2020 Was the Worst Year Ever Because I’ve Been Trapped in a Cave Since March

The year got off to a decent enough start , I guess .
I had a great time watching the Super Bowl with my friends , and my girlfriend and I went on a really nice date on Valentine ’ s Day .
But ever since I got separated from my outdoorsmen group during our March 1st hike along the Appalachian Trail and wound up trapped in this cave , 2020 has been nothing but a string of disappointments .
When I think about all the fun stuff that I had planned for the year—all of which getting stuck in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drives me crazy .
A European vacation with my girlfriend , four weddings , three bachelor parties , opening-day tickets for the Washington Nationals with my dad—I didn ’ t get to do a single one of those things , and it ’ s left me feeling as bitter as the aftertaste of all the bats I ’ ve been eating down here to survive .
And , hey , forget about social events for a second—2020 was supposed to be a banner year for my career , too !
Right before this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finally convinced my boss at the cruise line to meet with me so I could pitch him my idea for reorganizing the cabins on our ships to fit twice as many people on board , and I just knew he was going to love it .
He probably would have even given me a promotion !
It ’ s tough to describe how boring and repetitive my life is down here .
Every day is the same—I wake up , eat some bats , walk around looking for a way out , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life ’ s simple pleasures are gone .
I can ’ t go grab a drink at a bar ; I can ’ t get a haircut ; I can ’ t check on how all those airline stocks that I bought in February are doing ; I can ’ t even see other people !
It ’ s terrible .
That ’ s why the first thing I ’ m going to do if I ever get out of this cave is hold a massive party at my place for all my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can just celebrate life .
Granted , my home isn ’ t that big , so we ’ ll be packed in pretty tight , but it will be more than worth it to see all their smiling faces again for the first time in almost a year .
I ’ m referring to seeing their entire faces , by the way , not just the top halves .
But I guess that goes without saying .
It ’ s not like it ’ s normal to walk around seeing only the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What a crazy world that would be !
Honestly , the only thing that ’ s been keeping me going during all of this has been knowing how many great stories everyone will have for me , if I ever figure out how to escape .
I can ’ t wait to hear about how much fun all those weddings , vacations , and parties were—plus a whole bunch of other events that I probably don ’ t even know about !
It ’ s been almost a year already , so I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of stuff to recap for me .
Hang on a second .
What ’ s that ?
Is that .
.
.
is that a small beam of sunlight ?
I think it is !
At last , a way out of the cave !
Look out , world—I am coming back with a brand-new appreciation for living , a ton of bats ( for which I ’ ve acquired an insatiable appetite ) , and a nasty cough !
Bring on 2021 !

Finally, 2020 is almost over, and I say good riddance to this dumpster fire. This was definitely the worst year ever because, in early March, I fell into a cave while hiking and have spent the past ten months trapped down here with no access to the outside world.
The year got off to a decent enough start, I guess. I had a great time watching the Super Bowl with my friends, and my girlfriend and I went on a really nice date on Valentine’s Day. But ever since I got separated from my outdoorsmen group during our March 1st hike along the Appalachian Trail and wound up trapped in this cave, 2020 has been nothing but a string of disappointments.
When I think about all the fun stuff that I had planned for the year—all of which getting stuck in this cave made me miss out on—it drives me crazy. A European vacation with my girlfriend, four weddings, three bachelor parties, opening-day tickets for the Washington Nationals with my dad—I didn’t get to do a single one of those things, and it’s left me feeling as bitter as the aftertaste of all the bats I’ve been eating down here to survive.
And, hey, forget about social events for a second—2020 was supposed to be a banner year for my career, too! Right before this stupid hiking trip, I’d finally convinced my boss at the cruise line to meet with me so I could pitch him my idea for reorganizing the cabins on our ships to fit twice as many people on board, and I just knew he was going to love it. He probably would have even given me a promotion!
It’s tough to describe how boring and repetitive my life is down here. Every day is the same—I wake up, eat some bats, walk around looking for a way out, and go back to sleep. All of life’s simple pleasures are gone. I can’t go grab a drink at a bar; I can’t get a haircut; I can’t check on how all those airline stocks that I bought in February are doing; I can’t even see other people! It’s terrible.
That’s why the first thing I’m going to do if I ever get out of this cave is hold a massive party at my place for all my friends and family members, where we can just celebrate life. Granted, my home isn’t that big, so we’ll be packed in pretty tight, but it will be more than worth it to see all their smiling faces again for the first time in almost a year.
I’m referring to seeing their entire faces, by the way, not just the top halves. But I guess that goes without saying. It’s not like it’s normal to walk around seeing only the top halves of people’s faces. What a crazy world that would be!
Honestly, the only thing that’s been keeping me going during all of this has been knowing how many great stories everyone will have for me, if I ever figure out how to escape. I can’t wait to hear about how much fun all those weddings, vacations, and parties were—plus a whole bunch of other events that I probably don’t even know about! It’s been almost a year already, so I’m sure everyone has a ton of stuff to recap for me.
Hang on a second. What’s that? Is that . . . is that a small beam of sunlight? I think it is! At last, a way out of the cave! Look out, world—I am coming back with a brand-new appreciation for living, a ton of bats (for which I’ve acquired an insatiable appetite), and a nasty cough! Bring on 2021!


newyorker--2020-12-30--The Puzzle Inventor Who Makes Math Beautiful

An elementary-school math teacher silently paces his classroom in a pin-striped stockbroker shirt , his mouth full of braces .
All around him , tiny students with pencils in hand struggle over puzzles at their desks .
We see the teacher refuse to meet the gaze of one young pupil when he hands back his puzzle , the grid all filled in .
“ Nervous air is necessary , ” the teacher says .
“ I enjoy nervous air.
” The teacher , Tetsuya Miyamoto , is the inventor of KenKen , the puzzle that his students are laboring over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Miyamoto and the Machine , ” a new documentary about the way the rise of KenKen , an international phenomenon , has been at odds with the meaning its creator hoped to embed in its numerical patterns .
The film ’ s director , Daniel Sullivan , a high-school instructor , first learned of Miyamoto after his wife started competing in KenKen championships .
As in sudoku , the player fills a grid with numbers , and none of the digits in a row or column can repeat , but , within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of boxes that must amount to a particular total , whether by addition , subtraction , division , or multiplication .
The puzzle ’ s distributors refer to it as “ sudoku on steroids ” ; in Japanese , “ ken ” means “ wisdom ” or “ cleverness , ” so Miyamoto prefers to translate KenKen , with algebraic panache , as “ cleverness squared.
” KenKen puzzles resembling the ones Miyamoto crafts by hand are regularly produced for mass consumption by a piece of software called the Kenerator—but Miyamoto says these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He intends his mathematical challenges to unfold as stories .
Through charming animation , Sullivan reveals how Miyamoto ’ s feelings about his creations emerged from the story he tells about himself : at fourteen , Miyamoto placed into what he calls “ a low-level high school , ” got bored , and dropped out .
He felt lonely and overwhelmed at the thought that he was just one number in a sea of billions of interchangeable human beings .
“ If you think of yourself as just one by seven billion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can make you want to die.
” The trick , he discovered , was not to quell his nervous energy but to redirect it , in an almost Thoreauvian way .
Miyamoto ’ s philosophy , of life and KenKen , is “ not just about nervousness , ” Sullivan told me .
“ It ’ s also about simplicity , an intense focus.
” Miyamoto began to see himself as being at the center of his own story , the better to reimagine the disappointments in his life as the first act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( He recognizes the same plot at work in the lives of others , too . )
In 1993 , after years of cobbling together teaching jobs , he started his own school .
Soon he began to craft his first crude puzzles as a way to get third graders to engage with arithmetic .
In 2003 , he had an Archimedes moment , and KenKen came into being .
Three years later , he published his first book of puzzles in Japan .
It sold a million and a half copies .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2009 .
By 2011 , in the aftermath of the Great Sendai earthquake , the game ’ s addictive power was evident .
As aftershocks rattled his classroom , his students—deep inside the grid—did not lift their heads .
“ This miracle , ” he later said , recalling that day , “ is something caused by the force of my problems.
” Miyamoto treats each of his puzzles as a life ; they are hand molded to tell a story in patterns of math .
In 2016 , onstage at Google @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an ill-fitting suit , Miyamoto described the purpose of his pedagogy in ancient Greek terms : the point is to secure eudaimonia , or , as he put it , the “ happy life.
” After he put the finishing touches on a KenKen puzzle that he made for the Googlers , Miyamoto kissed it : “ My baby , how cute you are.
” Most people never see his delicate creations .
The KenKen puzzles in papers like the Times are produced by the Kenerator .
“ I feel nothing from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shown the fruits of the software .
“ Do you think that , eventually , computers will be able to make a puzzle that is more similar to your puzzles ?
” Chris Flaherty , one of the film ’ s producers , asks Miyamoto .
The Kenerator would never replace him , the sensei assures us .
“ Impossible , ” he says .
“ A machine doesn ’ t have heart .
”

An elementary-school math teacher silently paces his classroom in a pin-striped stockbroker shirt, his mouth full of braces. All around him, tiny students with pencils in hand struggle over puzzles at their desks. We see the teacher refuse to meet the gaze of one young pupil when he hands back his puzzle, the grid all filled in. “Nervous air is necessary,” the teacher says. “I enjoy nervous air.” The teacher, Tetsuya Miyamoto, is the inventor of KenKen, the puzzle that his students are laboring over. He is also the subject of “Miyamoto and the Machine,” a new documentary about the way the rise of KenKen, an international phenomenon, has been at odds with the meaning its creator hoped to embed in its numerical patterns.
The film’s director, Daniel Sullivan, a high-school instructor, first learned of Miyamoto after his wife started competing in KenKen championships. As in sudoku, the player fills a grid with numbers, and none of the digits in a row or column can repeat, but, within the grid, there are also sets of boxes that must amount to a particular total, whether by addition, subtraction, division, or multiplication. The puzzle’s distributors refer to it as “sudoku on steroids”; in Japanese, “ken” means “wisdom” or “cleverness,” so Miyamoto prefers to translate KenKen, with algebraic panache, as “cleverness squared.”
KenKen puzzles resembling the ones Miyamoto crafts by hand are regularly produced for mass consumption by a piece of software called the Kenerator—but Miyamoto says these computer-generated specimens lack a crucial narrative quality. He intends his mathematical challenges to unfold as stories. Through charming animation, Sullivan reveals how Miyamoto’s feelings about his creations emerged from the story he tells about himself: at fourteen, Miyamoto placed into what he calls “a low-level high school,” got bored, and dropped out. He felt lonely and overwhelmed at the thought that he was just one number in a sea of billions of interchangeable human beings. “If you think of yourself as just one by seven billion,” he says, “it can make you want to die.” The trick, he discovered, was not to quell his nervous energy but to redirect it, in an almost Thoreauvian way. Miyamoto’s philosophy, of life and KenKen, is “not just about nervousness,” Sullivan told me. “It’s also about simplicity, an intense focus.” Miyamoto began to see himself as being at the center of his own story, the better to reimagine the disappointments in his life as the first act in a kind of comeback narrative. (He recognizes the same plot at work in the lives of others, too.) In 1993, after years of cobbling together teaching jobs, he started his own school. Soon he began to craft his first crude puzzles as a way to get third graders to engage with arithmetic. In 2003, he had an Archimedes moment, and KenKen came into being. Three years later, he published his first book of puzzles in Japan. It sold a million and a half copies. KenKen began to appear in the Times in 2009. By 2011, in the aftermath of the Great Sendai earthquake, the game’s addictive power was evident. As aftershocks rattled his classroom, his students—deep inside the grid—did not lift their heads. “This miracle,” he later said, recalling that day, “is something caused by the force of my problems.”
Miyamoto treats each of his puzzles as a life; they are hand molded to tell a story in patterns of math. In 2016, onstage at Google’s offices in New York, in an ill-fitting suit, Miyamoto described the purpose of his pedagogy in ancient Greek terms: the point is to secure eudaimonia, or, as he put it, the “happy life.” After he put the finishing touches on a KenKen puzzle that he made for the Googlers, Miyamoto kissed it: “My baby, how cute you are.” Most people never see his delicate creations. The KenKen puzzles in papers like the Times are produced by the Kenerator. “I feel nothing from this puzzle,” Miyamoto remarks when shown the fruits of the software. “Do you think that, eventually, computers will be able to make a puzzle that is more similar to your puzzles?” Chris Flaherty, one of the film’s producers, asks Miyamoto. The Kenerator would never replace him, the sensei assures us. “Impossible,” he says. “A machine doesn’t have heart.”


newyorker--2020-12-30--The Year in Quarantine Viewing

The Year in Quarantine Viewing

I ’ ve noted before that the past few years have often felt to me like that one postmodern theory course I took back in my undergrad days , where the professor explained how the spectacle of late-capitalist media has irrevocably divided us from our authentic experiences , turning us into passive viewers rather than active participants in our own lives .
Even before the spring , reality under the Trump Administration had become so appallingly unbelievable—and , when not that , so amusingly surreal—that simply existing in it was like wandering through a waking dream in which nothing could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This sense was exacerbated by the pandemic : now that most of us were no longer leaving our homes , it was impossible to be anything other than a dazed spectator , and I recall those early days of quarantine viewing as feeling not quite real .
Whether scripted or unscripted , whatever we watched converged to create a new genre : unreality TV .
In one widely viewed White House press briefing , in April , Trump outlined the government ’ s plan for battling the coronavirus .
The usual props were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ navy suit and a striped blue-and-white tie ; a small American flag was pinned to his lapel , and another , larger flag was positioned behind him .
And yet , as I watched , I wondered if I was tripping .
“ I see disinfectant , where it knocks it out in a minute , one minute , and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside , or almost a cleaning , ” Trump said , suggesting , incredibly , that one treatment for the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , responding to the general alarm raised by his comment , Trump said that he was speaking “ sarcastically.
” ) The outside world , with its people and relationships and rules , was now gone , and what was left was here before us , onscreen .
What could we do with this sort of spectacle but sit back , openmouthed , and watch , frightened , but also mildly entertained ?
Another kind of fever dream that many of us shared in the early days of quarantine was the Netflix docuseries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a group of vivid , unstable characters involved in the shadowy world of big-cat husbandry .
At the heart of the seven-part series was a convoluted feud between Joe Exotic , a flamboyant , mullet-sporting Oklahoman zookeeper , and a goggle-eyed Florida animal rescuer named Carole Baskin .
It débuted on March 20th , in tandem with the onset of the pandemic in America , and , within a month of its première , the program had been sampled by a whopping sixty-four million households worldwide .
“ Joe Exotic will go down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get through Covid-19 , ” one Twitter user opined at the time , and , indeed , not since the heyday of network television had I experienced such a collective viewing experience , a water-cooler conversation piece that , in the absence of an actual water cooler , circled around online memes , Instagram posts , and TikToks .
“ Tiger King , ” at least momentarily , blocked the large-scale trauma we were all experiencing by distracting us with a smaller tale of American chaos , greed , and foolishness .
Like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ series didn ’ t feel strictly real , nor was it scripted entertainment .
If anything , it was suggestive of a new permeability between the world of documentary filmmaking and that of reality TV , also evident in other recent popular docuseries , such as “ Cheer ” and “ The Vow.
” As Kathryn VanArendonk wrote in a piece for Vulture , documentaries tend to first find their subjects and then seek out a narrative—shaping and prodding it only minimally—while reality television determines a narrative first and then populates it with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tiger King ” ’ s outlandish personalities , melodramatic plotlines , and surprise twists made the docuseries appear less Frederick Wiseman and more “ Duck Dynasty ” or “ Intervention.
” If shows like “ Tiger King ” helped us tear our attention away from the pandemic , other programs seemed to reflect the situation we were in , mirroring the odd , wrinkle-in-time ambience of the COVID era .
Reality-TV shows like “ Love Is Blind ” and “ The Circle , ” which dropped on Netflix in January and February , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in quarantine avant la lettre , sequestered in housing complexes that they couldn ’ t leave , and communicating with their peers without meeting face to face .
Watching the amiable bartender Joey , a competitor on—and the eventual winner of— “ The Circle , ” slathering on a black charcoal face mask in the bathroom of his tiny living unit , while shout-dictating a message to one of his fellow contestants ( “ Real question : How are you holding up ?
Looked like you were buggin ’ last night ” ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recognition , almost in spite of myself .
Like Joey and his friends , we were all screaming into the void now .
Meanwhile , talk shows and award shows continued airing , though they were forced to do so without live audiences .
Hosts such as Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon delivered their spiels to largely empty rooms .
Sometimes , this gave the televised proceedings the feel of a hyper-stylized play , a “ No Exit ” for our current moment : Drew Barrymore ’ s new daytime talk show , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with the actress and host turning her mannerisms up to eleven , as if railing in the face of the in-house silence .
( “ I can ’ t go on ; I ’ ll go on , ” her beseeching eyes seemed to say . )
There were some cases in which the gambit worked : an interview that Seth Meyers did with John Mulaney , for one , felt more intimate than it would have under normal circumstances , the two seeming like good friends shooting the shit rather than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least one occasion , the absence of a real audience turned a live show into a rerun .
In September , at the Emmy Awards , hosted by Jimmy Kimmel in a deserted Staples Center ( “ I ’ m up here all alone , just like prom night ” ) , cameras panned to crowd reaction shots , causing some initial confusion among the viewers at home .
What were all these people doing there ?
It later emerged that the footage had , in fact , been taken from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a loop .
And what of actual reality-TV stars ?
They were being held to the same standards as the rest of the world , forced to confront political realities that were previously beyond their kith .
The MTV program “ Siesta Key , ” which documents the drunken fun-and-sun life style of a group of lunkheads in a Florida beach town , cut ties with one of its lead stars , Alex Kompothecras , after racist comments that he had made on social media resurfaced .
( Kompothecras was edited out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which had already been completed by the time he was canned . )
Similarly , Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute , two longtime protagonists of the West Hollywood reality series “ Vanderpump Rules , ” on Bravo , were fired after a Black former castmate , Faith Stowers , revealed that the pair had reported Stowers to the police for a crime she did not commit .
Meanwhile , another Bravo show , “ Southern Charm , ” set in Charleston , South Carolina , has touted the current season as one in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ layabouts—some of whom are descendants of slave owners—reckon with the Black Lives Matter movement .
For a long time , we could trust reality television to entertain us with the spectacle of horrible , rash people behaving horribly and rashly , and though the acts that Kompothecras , Schroeder , and Doute were called out for took place years in the past , the fallout came only in 2020 .
Could it be that the spectre of so-called cancellation would bring on a new era of well-behaved , well-informed , and socially conscious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , however , hasn ’ t arrived quite yet .
On the night of November 3rd , we sat down to watch what was arguably the greatest instance of reality TV this year—a gripping competition with unduly high stakes , and a rash , horribly behaved returning champion .
Who would win America ?
The Presidential election lasted for several days , and with the results trickling in , ever so slowly , to our screens , as the very real labor of vote counting took place on the ground , it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refreshed and scrolled and flipped through the channels endlessly , waiting to find out would happen next .
When the results did arrive , Trump ’ s refusal to accept his loss to Joe Biden was , as David Remnick noted , a continuation of the President ’ s familiar assault on truth , his stubborn upholding of what Kellyanne Conway had once dubbed “ alternative facts.
” In reality-TV terms , what Trump wanted was , essentially , to be granted a better edit , actual reality be damned .
He was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was our alternate-reality-TV President .
He was this show ’ s main star , its forever Survivor : How could he be eliminated now ?
As I watched this drama unfold in slow motion , I was reminded of an incident in July , in which Trump bragged to Fox News of his supposed facility in passing a mental acuity test , telling an interviewer that not only was he able to memorize the words “ Person , woman , man , camera , TV , ” but he could repeat them in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Person , woman , man , camera , TV ” : not just the building blocks of the Trump Administration but those of the reality medium as well .
In the new era of unreality TV , however , we might no longer have a need for reality television itself , which is perhaps why this was also the year in which it was announced that the E !
network ’ s “ Keeping Up with the Kardashians ” would be coming to an end after twenty seasons and fourteen years .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ spinoffs , multiple smartphone games , a robust array of products , and even more gossip scandals , has molded the family at its center into a kind of monolith of the reality-TV world , an always-ready-for-a-closeup hydra that stands shoulder to shoulder perhaps only with the President in creating the texture of life around us .
In recent seasons , the show itself has seemed almost beside the point , its characters existing independently of its contrived story lines , surfing the ever-roiling waters of Instagram , TikTok , YouTube , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on half shells .
Without the “ KUWTK ” anchor , the family will finally emerge free , now able to compete with its peers in the expanded reality world , a sort of “ Garden of Earthly Delights ” that the Kardashians ’ early innovations in obsessive self-documentation gave birth to : 2020 protagonists like Chris Cuomo and Carole Baskin , or Hilaria Baldwin , the wife of Alec—whose response on Instagram to suggestions that she had a disingenuous Spanish accent slipped in just under the wire in December—or the surprise TikTok @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Apodaca , a warehouse worker from Idaho , filmed himself skateboarding while swigging from a jug of Ocean Spray cranberry juice , as Fleetwood Mac ’ s “ Dreams ” lilted in the background .
The video went viral , reaching twenty-seven million views by October 4th .
The song , meanwhile , which last charted in 1977 , reëntered the Billboard Top Ten a week later .
When asked about the popularity of the video , Apodaca said , “ There ’ s just too much chaos now .
Everybody just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out with.
” • The funniest New Yorker cartoons , as chosen by our Instagram followers .
• Helen Rosner on the best cookbooks .
• Ian Crouch recounts the best jokes of the year .
• Sheldon Pearce on the albums that helped him navigate a lost plague year .
• New Yorker writers on the best books they read this year .

If you’re going off vibes, rather than the calendar, then the year started in March, with January and February (Donald Trump’s impeachment trial; J. Lo and Shakira’s Super Bowl halftime show) still squarely in 2019 territory. On March 1st, Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed the first case of COVID-19 in New York City, and, the following day, he held his first coronavirus press briefing, which was broadcast by local news stations as well as by national outlets such as CNN. The Cuomo Show continued, every day, for more than a hundred days, and, in the process, the Governor became an unlikely heartthrob. Twitter users declared themselves “Cuomosexuals,” the YouTube comedian Randy Rainbow released a tribute song (“stranded in my bedroom / no one to love / then there he is / my favorite Gov”), and speculation regarding the Governor’s alleged nipple rings mounted. Later generations might chalk this up to a form of Stockholm syndrome—a natural-enough result of a politician speaking somewhat candidly to his quarantined, captive, collectively traumatized audience. And so 2020 began. What a journey it’s been since!
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
I’ve noted before that the past few years have often felt to me like that one postmodern-theory course I took back in my undergrad days, where the professor explained how the spectacle of late-capitalist media has irrevocably divided us from our authentic experiences, turning us into passive viewers rather than active participants in our own lives. Even before the spring, reality under the Trump Administration had become so appallingly unbelievable—and, when not that, so amusingly surreal—that simply existing in it was like wandering through a waking dream in which nothing could be truly grasped, only observed. This sense was exacerbated by the pandemic: now that most of us were no longer leaving our homes, it was impossible to be anything other than a dazed spectator, and I recall those early days of quarantine viewing as feeling not quite real. Whether scripted or unscripted, whatever we watched converged to create a new genre: unreality TV.
In one widely viewed White House press briefing, in April, Trump outlined the government’s plan for battling the coronavirus. The usual props were there: the President wore a sombre navy suit and a striped blue-and-white tie; a small American flag was pinned to his lapel, and another, larger flag was positioned behind him. And yet, as I watched, I wondered if I was tripping. “I see disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning,” Trump said, suggesting, incredibly, that one treatment for the coronavirus might involve absorbing bleach. (Later, responding to the general alarm raised by his comment, Trump said that he was speaking “sarcastically.”) The outside world, with its people and relationships and rules, was now gone, and what was left was here before us, onscreen. What could we do with this sort of spectacle but sit back, openmouthed, and watch, frightened, but also mildly entertained?
“Tiger King,” at least momentarily, blocked the large-scale trauma we were all experiencing by distracting us with a smaller tale of American chaos, greed, and foolishness. Photograph courtesy Netflix
Another kind of fever dream that many of us shared in the early days of quarantine was the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King,” which followed a group of vivid, unstable characters involved in the shadowy world of big-cat husbandry. At the heart of the seven-part series was a convoluted feud between Joe Exotic, a flamboyant, mullet-sporting Oklahoman zookeeper, and a goggle-eyed Florida animal rescuer named Carole Baskin. It débuted on March 20th, in tandem with the onset of the pandemic in America, and, within a month of its première, the program had been sampled by a whopping sixty-four million households worldwide. “Joe Exotic will go down as the man who singlehandedly helped us get through Covid-19,” one Twitter user opined at the time, and, indeed, not since the heyday of network television had I experienced such a collective viewing experience, a water-cooler conversation piece that, in the absence of an actual water cooler, circled around via online memes, Instagram posts, and TikToks. “Tiger King,” at least momentarily, blocked the large-scale trauma we were all experiencing by distracting us with a smaller tale of American chaos, greed, and foolishness.
Like Trump’s press briefings, the series didn’t feel strictly real, nor was it scripted entertainment. If anything, it was suggestive of a new permeability between the world of documentary filmmaking and that of reality TV, also evident in other recent popular docuseries, such as “Cheer” and “The Vow.” As Kathryn VanArendonk wrote in a piece for Vulture, documentaries tend to first find their subjects and then seek out a narrative—shaping and prodding it only minimally—while reality television determines a narrative first and then populates it with eminently proddable, shapeable subjects. “Tiger King” ’s outlandish personalities, melodramatic plotlines, and surprise twists made the docuseries appear less Frederick Wiseman and more “Duck Dynasty” or “Intervention.”
Like the bartender Joey and his friends on “The Circle,” we all spent 2020 screaming into the void. Photograph courtesy Netflix
If shows like “Tiger King” helped us tear our attention away from the pandemic, other programs seemed to reflect the situation we were in, mirroring the odd, wrinkle-in-time ambience of the COVID era. Reality-TV shows like “Love Is Blind” and “The Circle,” which dropped on Netflix in January and February, respectively, depicted contestants who were essentially in quarantine avant la lettre, sequestered in housing complexes that they couldn’t leave, and communicating with their peers without meeting face to face. Watching the amiable bartender Joey, a competitor on—and the eventual winner of—“The Circle,” slathering on a black charcoal face mask in the bathroom of his tiny living unit, while shout-dictating a message to one of his fellow-contestants (“Real question: How are you holding up? Looked like you were buggin’ last night”), made me feel a pang of recognition, almost in spite of myself. Like Joey and his friends, we were all screaming into the void now.
Meanwhile, talk shows and awards shows continued airing, though they were forced to do so without live audiences. Hosts such as Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon delivered their spiels to largely empty rooms. Sometimes, this gave the televised proceedings the feel of a hyper-stylized play, a “No Exit” for our current moment: Drew Barrymore’s new daytime talk show, in particular, resembled an avant-garde exercise, with the actress and host turning her mannerisms up to eleven, as if railing in the face of the in-house silence. (“I can’t go on; I’ll go on,” her beseeching eyes seemed to say.) There were some cases in which the gambit worked: an interview that Seth Meyers did with John Mulaney, for one, felt more intimate than it would have under normal circumstances, the two seeming like good friends shooting the shit rather than host and interviewee. And, on at least one occasion, the absence of a real audience turned a live show into a rerun. In September, at the Emmy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel in a deserted Staples Center (“I’m up here all alone, just like prom night”), cameras panned to crowd reaction shots, causing some initial confusion among the viewers at home. What were all these people doing there? It later emerged that the footage had, in fact, been taken from a previous awards ceremony. Life was now a loop.
As far as the role of actors and performers went, quarantine viewing was characterized, too, by a kind of category confusion. Celebrities boldly crossed dividing lines between genres, mediums, and formats. Out-of-work stars documented their quarantine lives on social media (January Jones was one notable example), or led live group meditations (Lizzo), or started Instagram book clubs (Kaia Gerber), or hopped on the latest viral TikTok dance trend (Jennifer Lopez). Anchors broke character, emerging as viral stars. CNN’s Van Jones abandoned journalistic objectivity and began weeping as Biden’s win was announced; Chris Cuomo, also of CNN, followed in the footsteps of his older brother, Governor Andrew, and was declared “Daddy” by thirsty fans, the siblings fawned over like Queens-born, pandemic-tackling Hemsworths. Meanwhile, the consistent use of Zoom on the news and on talk shows made every public personality, from Miley Cyrus to Bibi Netanyahu, look as if they were in a drab work meeting, or, alternatively, as if they were taping a Kardashian confessional. Suddenly, hardly anyone looked glamorous, and everyone was a reality star.
Drew Barrymore’s new talk show resembled an avant-garde exercise, with the actress and host turning her mannerisms up to eleven, as if railing in the face of the in-house silence. Photograph by Ben Watts / CBS
And what of actual reality-TV stars? They were being held to the same standards as the rest of the world, forced to confront political realities that were previously beyond their kith. The MTV program “Siesta Key,” which documents the drunken fun-and-sun life style of a group of lunkheads in a Florida beach town, cut ties with one of its lead stars, Alex Kompothecras, after racist comments that he had made on social media resurfaced. (Kompothecras was edited out of the show’s third season, which had already been completed by the time he was canned.) Similarly, Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute, two longtime protagonists of the West Hollywood reality series “Vanderpump Rules,” on Bravo, were fired after a Black former castmate, Faith Stowers, revealed that the pair had reported Stowers to the police for a crime she did not commit.
Meanwhile, another Bravo show, “Southern Charm,” set in Charleston, South Carolina, has touted the current season as one in which its cast of privileged, white layabouts—some of whom are descendants of slave owners—reckon with the Black Lives Matter movement. For a long time, we could trust reality television to entertain us with the spectacle of horrible, rash people behaving horribly and rashly, and though the acts that Kompothecras, Schroeder, and Doute were called out for took place years in the past, the fallout came only in 2020. Could it be that the spectre of so-called cancellation would bring on a new era of well-behaved, well-informed, and socially conscious reality stars?
This brave new world hasn’t arrived quite yet. On the night of November 3rd, we sat down to watch what was arguably the greatest instance of reality TV this year—a gripping competition with unduly high stakes, and a rash, horribly behaved returning champion. Who would win America? The Presidential election lasted for several days, and with the results trickling in, ever so slowly, to our screens, as the very real labor of vote counting took place on the ground, it was an almost interminable viewing experience. We refreshed and scrolled and flipped through the channels endlessly, waiting to find out what would happen next.
In 2020, Donald Trump was not just our reality-TV President; he was our alternate-reality-TV President. Photograph by Brian Cahn / ZUMA / Alamy
When the results did arrive, Trump’s refusal to accept his loss to Joe Biden was, as David Remnick noted, a continuation of the President’s familiar assault on truth, his stubborn upholding of what Kellyanne Conway had once dubbed “alternative facts.” In reality-TV terms, what Trump wanted was, essentially, to be granted a better edit, actual reality be damned. He was not just our reality-TV President; he was our alternate-reality-TV President. He was this show’s main star, its forever Survivor: How could he be eliminated now? As I watched this drama unfold in slow motion, I was reminded of an incident in July, in which Trump bragged to Fox News of his supposed facility in passing a mental-acuity test, telling an interviewer that not only was he able to memorize the words “Person, woman, man, camera, TV” but he could repeat them in order. These words were apropos. “Person, woman, man, camera, TV”: not just the building blocks of the Trump Administration but those of the reality medium as well.
In the new era of unreality TV, however, we might no longer have a need for reality television itself, which is perhaps why this was also the year in which it was announced that the E! network’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” would be coming to an end after twenty seasons and fourteen years. The series, which has sparked several spinoffs, multiple smartphone games, a robust array of products, and even more gossip scandals, has molded the family at its center into a kind of monolith of the reality-TV world, an always-ready-for-a-closeup hydra that stands shoulder to shoulder perhaps only with the President in creating the texture of life around us. In recent seasons, the show itself has seemed almost beside the point, its characters existing independently of its contrived story lines, surfing the ever-roiling waters of Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and the Daily Mail, like iPhone-scrolling Venuses on half shells.


newyorker--2020-12-31--The Best of the Talk of the Town in 2020

Reporting a story for the Talk of the Town section has traditionally required a fair amount of hanging out .
Since the magazine ’ s début , in 1925 , Talk writers have loitered on film sets and on street corners , and have eavesdropped on—or overheard , if you will—endless conversations , from the musings of spoiled private-school kids on the Upper East Side to the romantic overtures of young men at the Biltmore Bar .
When the pandemic hit , however , this kind of fly-on-the-wall reporting became all but impossible .
With street corners empty and conversations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to find ever more creative ways to capture the rhythms of life in the COVID era .
Zoom and FaceTime were helpful tools , as a way of entering a subject ’ s home , and writers zeroed in on the minutiae in the background—a C.E.O.
’ s unmade bed ; a plate of Mexican-wedding cookies in Laura Dern ’ s living room .
Many writers went outside to cover the workers who were keeping things running : porta-potty operators , food-delivery guys , and a rabbi among them .
There were also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well as stories that asked the big questions , like who ’ s responsible for all the broken windows on the subway ?
But , as inventive as these stories were , they never felt out of place .
The best Talk pieces of the year , a handful of which are listed below , in chronological order , embody the style of the section that the staff writer Lillian Ross once described as “ the sharpest , funniest , and often timeliest short form writing in the history of the magazine.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began on August 4 , 1993 , when the sixty-eight-year-old formal-wear executive , dubbed the “ tuxedo king ” by the tabloids , was abducted from the parking lot of a Jackson Heights diner .
The kidnappers dropped him in a narrow pit , shackled him into a squat , and sealed the pit with a heavy lid .
“ big state energy , ” the State of New Jersey tweeted , apropos of nothing , on December 21st .
“ u up , ” the State of New Jersey tweeted , without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eve .
“ Who let New Jersey have a Twitter , ” a guy named Gary wondered , on Twitter , not long ago .
“ your mom , ” the State of New Jersey responded .
That one got nearly half a million likes .
In the final scene of the movie “ The Oscar , ” Frankie Fane is at the Academy Awards , up for Best Actor .
When Merle Oberon , as herself , announces the winner— “ Frank .
.
.
Sinatra ” —Fane begins clapping psychotically , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a GIF in every frame .
In China , where He Yujia has been contracted to translate the first four Johnson books , reader concerns have nothing to do with health or speed .
Yujia is an engaging thirty-three-year-old who , apart from sporadic gigs as an amateur standup comedian , works seven days a week for as many as fourteen hours a day .
Words pour out of her like a mountain stream at the sunny end of that shrinking glacier .
Though not a germaphobe by nature , he ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 9 a.m. , he set out for work wearing a pair of light-brown gloves .
“ I call them subway condoms , ” he said .
“ I use gloves everywhere .
I don ’ t touch my face .
If I see someone coughing or sneezing , I keep my distance .
On airplanes , I wipe everything down .
I stay away from bowls of mixed nuts or candy.
” He told a story of visiting a temple in Bhubaneswar , India , and having a monkey jump on his back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ Twenty-four hours later , rip-roaring diarrhea.
” Codekas ’ s main tip for the quarantined : carve out a space of your own , away from your partner .
“ When Matt was on Skype , I went into the closet , ” she said .
Think of it as a quarantine within a quarantine .
—Tyler Foggatt , “ To Have and To Hold , in Quarantine and in Health ” ( March 23 , 2020 ) “ Controlling cleanliness around B.M.s is the earliest way the child asserts control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Contemporary Freudian Society , said .
“ The fact that now we are all presumably losing control creates a regressive push to a very early time .
So , I guess that translates in the unconscious to ‘ If I have a lifelong supply of toilet paper , I ’ ll never be out of control , never be a helpless , dirty child again.
’ ” —Henry Alford , “ What Would Freud Make of the Toilet-Paper Panic ?
” ( March 30 , 2020 ) The texts from Elmhurst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , sometimes , garbled : “ I just wan na get better and spend whatever I ha left with u guys not here.
” “ I will wall out here.
” ( I will walk out of here . )
“ Scared working as hard as a I can to get rid of this nightmare.
” —Victor Zapana , Jr. , “ Texts from my Father , in Elmhurst Hospital ” ( April 13 , 2020 ) The last time the artist Tom Sachs was at his SoHo studio before he began quarantining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their house in Queens , he had only thirty minutes to grab whatever he might need in order to work remotely .
“ I thought it was just going to be for a long weekend , ” he said , on a video call from his basement studio in Rockaway .
“ I brought my laptop and an extra phone charger .
I brought a Cup O ’ Noodles cardboard box filled with the scraps that were on the table that were really disorganized .
I only brought one pencil , so I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ —Naomi Fry , “ The Art of Making Do ( and Emergency AirPod Retrieval ) ” ( May 4 , 2020 ) Taylor admits to naked partisanship—Room Rater gushed over the “ lovely ” view of some unexceptional shrubbery visible through a window in Hillary Clinton ’ s study—but , regarding bookshelves , there is one hard-and-fast rule .
“ You ’ re going to get whacked on Room Rater if you put more than one of your own books cover forward , ” he said .
“ A little self-promotion is fine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ When I left home , ” he wrote , “ I thought about what I would do when I arrived in New York : treat the sick and pray for the souls of the dead and wonder about 100 years from now , when all of this is just a fairy tale about death becoming a person who takes the form of a bat to fly across the world : the next generations ’ story of the witch that eats children.
” —Mark Rozzo , “ War Poems of the Pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Both David Mansfield and his wife , Maggie , fell ill with COVID-19 in March .
She was sicker than he was , but neither needed to be hospitalized .
When they got better , he turned to long-neglected projects around the house .
She suggested he get rid of some dead yew trees in the front yard .
The yews surrounded a rusty iron pipe , about four and a half feet in diameter , with a round cover , set down vertically in the ground ; he assumed it was some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more he examined it , once the yews were gone , the odder it seemed .
He sent an inquiry to the offices of the Township of West Orange , and a woman there quickly called him back .
She had never come across such a thing before .
She said that a building permit issued for that address in 1961 allowed for the construction of a steel fallout shelter .
—Ian Frazier , “ A Reminder of ‘ Duck and Cover ’ in a New Jersey Front Yard ” ( June 8 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used to be Trump ’ s mouthpiece , but he has extended his reach , offering himself as a spokesperson to anyone who can pay .
On Cameo , he holds a pillow that says “ MOOCH ” and bellows , “ I ’ ll talk about anything , as you guys know .
So look me up , dial me in , and tell me what you want me to say to you !
” He concludes with a loud kissing noise and promises to respond within three days .
—Antonia Hitchens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Fox News to .
.
.
the Cameo App ?
” ( June 29 , 2020 ) Moss smiled .
She has two cats , Lucy and Ethel , one of which was slinking in and out of the frame .
“ We ’ re talking about Shirley , ” Moss whispered in its ear .
“ She also liked cats , Ethel.
” She turned onto a dead-end road , passing a rival agent ’ s sign .
“ That guy is eightysomething , ” she said , “ and I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faster than you.
” —Charles Bethea , “ Would You Like to Buy a Bunker ?
” ( July 6 & 13 , 2020 ) He once visited his friend Lauren Bacall for breakfast and inadvertently terrified her grandsons .
“ Their mum went to the bedroom and said , ‘ Boys , come out—Davy Jones is in the kitchen !
’ So they locked the door .
Like , ‘ Are you insane ?
’ ” “ What kind of style do you want ?
” Eiden asked Stevens .
“ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ myself in the middle of , ” Eiden recalled .
—Nick Paumgarten , “ Is Working with the Lincoln Project Sleeping with the Enemy ?
” ( July 20 , 2020 ) In the street , the barricades lay in splinters .
Witnesses said that the driver had approached the barriers , stopped , then slowly plowed through them , his tinkly music providing a taunting soundtrack .
Kapital !
is the creation of Michel Pinçon and Monique Pinçon-Charlot , celebrity sociologists in a country where “ celebrity sociologist ” is not an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up in a sensitive role in the Trump Administration ?
After graduating from Harvard , in 2016 , Max Kennedy did some time at consulting and investment firms ; he planned to take the LSAT in March , but the pandemic cancelled it .
At loose ends , he responded to a friend ’ s suggestion that he join a volunteer task force that Jared Kushner was forming , to get vital personal protective equipment , such as masks , to virus hot spots .
Kushner , he was told , was looking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hours for no pay .
“ I was torn , to some extent , ” Kennedy , a lifelong Democrat , said .
“ But it was such an unprecedented time .
It didn ’ t seem political—it seemed larger than the Administration.
” And he knew people who ’ d been sick .
So in March he volunteered for the White House COVID-19 Supply-Chain Task Force , and drove to Washington .

Reporting a story for the Talk of the Town section has traditionally required a fair amount of hanging out. Since the magazine’s début, in 1925, Talk writers have loitered on film sets and on street corners, and have eavesdropped on—or overheard, if you will—endless conversations, from the musings of spoiled private-school kids on the Upper East Side to the romantic overtures of young men at the Biltmore Bar. When the pandemic hit, however, this kind of fly-on-the-wall reporting became all but impossible. With street corners empty and conversations happening inside homes, our writers had to find ever more creative ways to capture the rhythms of life in the COVID era. Zoom and FaceTime were helpful tools, as a way of entering a subject’s home, and writers zeroed in on the minutiae in the background—a C.E.O.’s unmade bed; a plate of Mexican-wedding cookies in Laura Dern’s living room. Many writers went outside to cover the workers who were keeping things running: porta-potty operators, food-delivery guys, and a rabbi among them. There were also pieces that experimented with form, as well as stories that asked the big questions, like who’s responsible for all the broken windows on the subway?
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
But, as inventive as these stories were, they never felt out of place. The best Talk pieces of the year, a handful of which are listed below, in chronological order, embody the style of the section that the staff writer Lillian Ross once described as “the sharpest, funniest, and often timeliest short form writing in the history of the magazine.”
The other Harvey Weinstein’s ordeal began on August 4, 1993, when the sixty-eight-year-old formal-wear executive, dubbed the “tuxedo king” by the tabloids, was abducted from the parking lot of a Jackson Heights diner. The kidnappers dropped him in a narrow pit, shackled him into a squat, and sealed the pit with a heavy lid.
—Bruce Handy, “A Tale of Two Harveys” (January 20, 2020)
“big state energy,” the State of New Jersey tweeted, apropos of nothing, on December 21st. “u up,” the State of New Jersey tweeted, without punctuation, at 2:45 a.m. on Christmas Eve. “Who let New Jersey have a Twitter,” a guy named Gary wondered, on Twitter, not long ago. “your mom,” the State of New Jersey responded. That one got nearly half a million likes.
—Andrew Marantz, “How New Jersey’s Twitter Found Its ‘Big-State Energy’ ” (January 20, 2020)
In the final scene of the movie “The Oscar,” Frankie Fane is at the Academy Awards, up for Best Actor. When Merle Oberon, as herself, announces the winner—“Frank . . . Sinatra”—Fane begins clapping psychotically, his face a mask of bewilderment, a GIF in every frame.
—Dana Goodyear, “The Return of ‘The Oscar,’ An Unseeable, Unwatchable Flop” (February 10, 2020)
In China, where He Yujia has been contracted to translate the first four Johnson books, reader concerns have nothing to do with health or speed. Yujia is an engaging thirty-three-year-old who, apart from sporadic gigs as an amateur standup comedian, works seven days a week for as many as fourteen hours a day. Words pour out of her like a mountain stream at the sunny end of that shrinking glacier.
—Peter Hessler, “China’s L.B.J. Cliffhanger!” (February 10, 2020)
Though not a germaphobe by nature, he’d been converted by the job. At 9 a.m., he set out for work wearing a pair of light-brown gloves. “I call them subway condoms,” he said. “I use gloves everywhere. I don’t touch my face. If I see someone coughing or sneezing, I keep my distance. On airplanes, I wipe everything down. I stay away from bowls of mixed nuts or candy.” He told a story of visiting a temple in Bhubaneswar, India, and having a monkey jump on his back and stick a finger in his mouth: “Twenty-four hours later, rip-roaring diarrhea.”
—Nick Paumgarten, “A Local Guide to the Coronavirus” (March 9, 2020)
Codekas’s main tip for the quarantined: carve out a space of your own, away from your partner. “When Matt was on Skype, I went into the closet,” she said. Think of it as a quarantine within a quarantine.
—Tyler Foggatt, “To Have and To Hold, in Quarantine and in Health” (March 23, 2020)
“Controlling cleanliness around B.M.s is the earliest way the child asserts control,” Andrea Greenman, the president of the Contemporary Freudian Society, said. “The fact that now we are all presumably losing control creates a regressive push to a very early time. So, I guess that translates in the unconscious to ‘If I have a lifelong supply of toilet paper, I’ll never be out of control, never be a helpless, dirty child again.’ ”
—Henry Alford, “What Would Freud Make of the Toilet-Paper Panic?” (March 30, 2020)
The texts from Elmhurst were frequent, but increasingly strained and, sometimes, garbled:
“I just wanna get better and spend whatever I ha left with u guys not here.”
“I cann’t sleep.”
“I will wall out here.” (I will walk out of here.)
“Scared working as hard as a I can to get rid of this nightmare.”
—Victor Zapana, Jr., “Texts from my Father, in Elmhurst Hospital” (April 13, 2020)
The last time the artist Tom Sachs was at his SoHo studio before he began quarantining with his wife and young son at their house in Queens, he had only thirty minutes to grab whatever he might need in order to work remotely. “I thought it was just going to be for a long weekend,” he said, on a video call from his basement studio in Rockaway. “I brought my laptop and an extra phone charger. I brought a Cup O’Noodles cardboard box filled with the scraps that were on the table that were really disorganized. I only brought one pencil, so I’m shaving my pencil perfectly.”
—Naomi Fry, “The Art of Making Do (and Emergency AirPod Retrieval)” (May 4, 2020)
Taylor admits to naked partisanship—Room Rater gushed over the “lovely” view of some unexceptional shrubbery visible through a window in Hillary Clinton’s study—but, regarding bookshelves, there is one hard-and-fast rule. “You’re going to get whacked on Room Rater if you put more than one of your own books cover forward,” he said. “A little self-promotion is fine, but don’t push it.”
—Bruce Handy, “What Would Room Rater Say?” (May 18, 2020)
“When I left home,” he wrote, “I thought about what I would do when I arrived in New York: treat the sick and pray for the souls of the dead and wonder about 100 years from now, when all of this is just a fairy tale about death becoming a person who takes the form of a bat to fly across the world: the next generations’ story of the witch that eats children.”
—Mark Rozzo, “War Poems of the Pandemic” (May 18, 2020)
Both David Mansfield and his wife, Maggie, fell ill with COVID-19 in March. She was sicker than he was, but neither needed to be hospitalized. When they got better, he turned to long-neglected projects around the house. She suggested he get rid of some dead yew trees in the front yard. The yews surrounded a rusty iron pipe, about four and a half feet in diameter, with a round cover, set down vertically in the ground; he assumed it was some kind of drainage pipe. But the more he examined it, once the yews were gone, the odder it seemed. He sent an inquiry to the offices of the Township of West Orange, and a woman there quickly called him back. She had never come across such a thing before. She said that a building permit issued for that address in 1961 allowed for the construction of a steel fallout shelter.
—Ian Frazier, “A Reminder of ‘Duck and Cover’ in a New Jersey Front Yard” (June 8 & 15, 2020)
Anthony Scaramucci used to be Trump’s mouthpiece, but he has extended his reach, offering himself as a spokesperson to anyone who can pay. On Cameo, he holds a pillow that says “MOOCH” and bellows, “I’ll talk about anything, as you guys know. So look me up, dial me in, and tell me what you want me to say to you!” He concludes with a loud kissing noise and promises to respond within three days.
—Antonia Hitchens, “From the Trump White House to Fox News to . . . the Cameo App?” (June 29, 2020)
Moss smiled. She has two cats, Lucy and Ethel, one of which was slinking in and out of the frame. “We’re talking about Shirley,” Moss whispered in its ear. “She also liked cats, Ethel.”
—Michael Schulman, “Shirley Jackson’s Son Talks to His Fictional Mom, Elisabeth Moss” (June 29, 2020)
She turned onto a dead-end road, passing a rival agent’s sign. “That guy is eightysomething,” she said, “and I guarantee he’d hump a hill faster than you.”
—Charles Bethea, “Would You Like to Buy a Bunker?” (July 6 & 13, 2020)
He once visited his friend Lauren Bacall for breakfast and inadvertently terrified her grandsons. “Their mum went to the bedroom and said, ‘Boys, come out—Davy Jones is in the kitchen!’ So they locked the door. Like, ‘Are you insane?’ ”