newyorker--2020-12-21--The Great Barrington Declaration Ruffles Locals’ Feathers

Steve Bannon wasn ’ t angry , but he was very disappointed .
“ You know , I ’ m pretty low-key , ” he said one recent evening .
“ And I think my instinctive reaction was ‘ I really wish they had not done this to our town.
’ Because I love our town , and we didn ’ t deserve it.
” He was sipping hot chocolate outside a busy café in Great Barrington .
“ And I must tell you , with my name , ” he added , “ it seemed like a double whammy.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ very nasty ” e-mails meant for the right-wing political operative , is a pharmacist and the chair of the select board in Great Barrington , a town of around seven thousand souls in the corner of the Berkshires where Massachusetts meets Connecticut and New York .
A popular second-home spot for New York City residents , the town was until recently best known to city dwellers as the nearest place with a full-service pot dispensary .
But that distinction was overshadowed in October , when more than three dozen epidemiologists , physicians , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stray philosopher , published a report called the “ Great Barrington Declaration.
” Sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research , a libertarian think tank based in the town , the declaration argues against lockdowns and in favor of a strategy of herd immunity as a way to contain the coronavirus .
Its chief signatories are professors at Stanford , Harvard , and Oxford , the last of whom asserted in May that covid was “ on its way out ” in the United Kingdom .
The document immediately attracted international attention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chief medical adviser , told a parliamentary committee that it was “ scientifically weak , probably dangerously flawed , operationally impractical , and , I think personally , ethically a little difficult.
” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , the World Health Organization ’ s director-general , said that it was “ scientifically and ethically problematic.
” Anthony Fauci dismissed it as “ ridiculous.
” The White House embraced it .
For the people of Great Barrington , it was the declaration ’ s title that caused anguish .
They saw it as a slur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s insistence on calling SARS-CoV-2 the “ Wuhan virus ” vilified China .
“ The town of Great Barrington is 100 % against herd immunity !
Our town ’ s name has been hijacked !
” a local posted on the town ’ s Facebook page .
“ The Declaration has absolutely nothing to do with GB .
I wonder if it ’ s even legal to use GB ’ s name in a case like this , ” another wrote , adding , “ Why not issue something called the Great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on it.
” Mostly , residents were worried that tourists would stay away—or , worse , turn up without masks .
Leigh Davis , a select-board member , drafted an angry letter to the A.I.E.R.
, protesting its “ despoiling of our town ’ s good name.
” The select board decided against publishing it , on the ground that it was too harsh .
Instead , town leaders fell back on a tried-and-true strategy : painting things .
In May , they had tried to send a hopeful message by adding rainbow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crosswalks .
In July , a local youth group painted a colorful Black Lives Matter mural in a prominent alleyway .
After the declaration was published , the town stencilled sidewalks with reminders to social-distance and wear masks .
“ We have been very proactive , ” Bannon said .
The select board also tried to dissociate itself from the declaration .
“ We ’ re not a town that does a lot of national press releases , ” Bannon said .
But , for this , “ we put out two international @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in October , made the point that “ the town itself had no role in , or forewarning of , the declaration bearing the town ’ s name.
” A second was addressed to the A.I.E.R .
: “ Your co-opting of our town ’ s name .
.
.
is exploitative and unwelcome.
” Mark Pruhenski , the town manager , wrote a letter to the Guardian , lamenting that the A.I.E.R .
“ has caused immeasurable distress to many in our community and confused many others about our town ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made the national news was in 2012 , when Bill O ’ Reilly , then still at Fox News , called it “ the town that hates Christmas , ” claiming that it had banned festive lights on Main Street .
O ’ Reilly had first picked on the town in 2007 , when the select board imposed an ordinance mandating that Christmas lights be turned off at 10 p.m. , to save energy .
Great Barrington weathered those unwelcome moments in the limelight .
Residents are hoping that this one , too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another select-board member , gave an interview to the Berkshire Edge , an online newspaper , in which he pointed out that “ the Paris Accords were signed in Paris and I don ’ t think the people of Paris formally approved that document.
” He added that Ralph Lauren had once marketed a line of bedding named for Great Barrington .
“ Though it ’ s possible , ” the Edge noted , “ those pillow shams and dust ruffles are named after the village of Great Barrington in Gloucestershire , England @ @ @ @ @ @ @ town derives its name.
” ♦

Steve Bannon wasn’t angry, but he was very disappointed. “You know, I’m pretty low-key,” he said one recent evening. “And I think my instinctive reaction was ‘I really wish they had not done this to our town.’ Because I love our town, and we didn’t deserve it.” He was sipping hot chocolate outside a busy café in Great Barrington. “And I must tell you, with my name,” he added, “it seemed like a double whammy.”
Bannon, who frequently receives “very nasty” e-mails meant for the right-wing political operative, is a pharmacist and the chair of the select board in Great Barrington, a town of around seven thousand souls in the corner of the Berkshires where Massachusetts meets Connecticut and New York. A popular second-home spot for New York City residents, the town was until recently best known to city dwellers as the nearest place with a full-service pot dispensary. But that distinction was overshadowed in October, when more than three dozen epidemiologists, physicians, and statisticians, as well as a stray philosopher, published a report called the “Great Barrington Declaration.”
Sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research, a libertarian think tank based in the town, the declaration argues against lockdowns and in favor of a strategy of herd immunity as a way to contain the coronavirus. Its chief signatories are professors at Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford, the last of whom asserted in May that covid was “on its way out” in the United Kingdom. The document immediately attracted international attention. Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical adviser, told a parliamentary committee that it was “scientifically weak, probably dangerously flawed, operationally impractical, and, I think personally, ethically a little difficult.” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, said that it was “scientifically and ethically problematic.” Anthony Fauci dismissed it as “ridiculous.” The White House embraced it.
For the people of Great Barrington, it was the declaration’s title that caused anguish. They saw it as a slur, in the way that Mike Pompeo’s insistence on calling SARS-CoV-2 the “Wuhan virus” vilified China. “The town of Great Barrington is 100% against herd immunity! Our town’s name has been hijacked!” a local posted on the town’s Facebook page. “The Declaration has absolutely nothing to do with GB. I wonder if it’s even legal to use GB’s name in a case like this,” another wrote, adding, “Why not issue something called the Great Barrington Nazi Party Declaration and put swastikas on it.” Mostly, residents were worried that tourists would stay away—or, worse, turn up without masks. Leigh Davis, a select-board member, drafted an angry letter to the A.I.E.R., protesting its “despoiling of our town’s good name.” The select board decided against publishing it, on the ground that it was too harsh.
Instead, town leaders fell back on a tried-and-true strategy: painting things. In May, they had tried to send a hopeful message by adding rainbow stripes to a number of Main Street crosswalks. In July, a local youth group painted a colorful Black Lives Matter mural in a prominent alleyway. After the declaration was published, the town stencilled sidewalks with reminders to social-distance and wear masks. “We have been very proactive,” Bannon said.
The select board also tried to dissociate itself from the declaration. “We’re not a town that does a lot of national press releases,” Bannon said. But, for this, “we put out two international press releases.” The first, published in October, made the point that “the town itself had no role in, or forewarning of, the declaration bearing the town’s name.” A second was addressed to the A.I.E.R.: “Your co-opting of our town’s name . . . is exploitative and unwelcome.” Mark Pruhenski, the town manager, wrote a letter to the Guardian, lamenting that the A.I.E.R. “has caused immeasurable distress to many in our community and confused many others about our town’s safety.”
The last time the town made the national news was in 2012, when Bill O’Reilly, then still at Fox News, called it “the town that hates Christmas,” claiming that it had banned festive lights on Main Street. O’Reilly had first picked on the town in 2007, when the select board imposed an ordinance mandating that Christmas lights be turned off at 10 p.m., to save energy. Great Barrington weathered those unwelcome moments in the limelight. Residents are hoping that this one, too, shall pass. Ed Abrahams, another select-board member, gave an interview to the Berkshire Edge, an online newspaper, in which he pointed out that “the Paris Accords were signed in Paris and I don’t think the people of Paris formally approved that document.” He added that Ralph Lauren had once marketed a line of bedding named for Great Barrington. “Though it’s possible,” the Edge noted, “those pillow shams and dust ruffles are named after the village of Great Barrington in Gloucestershire, England, from which the southern Berkshire County town derives its name.” ♦


newyorker--2020-12-21--Slide Show: New Yorker Cartoons December 28, 2020

“ Hon , it ’ s not daytime yet .
Those are just our neighbor ’ s Christmas lights .
@

“Hon, it’s not daytime yet. Those are just our neighbor’s Christmas lights.”
Cartoon by Arantza Peña Popo


newyorker--2020-12-21--“Big Mouth” Is Still Changing—For the Better

An early episode of the fourth season of “ Big Mouth , ” now streaming on Netflix , opens with the show ’ s protagonists , Andrew Glouberman and Nick Birch , embarking on their first day of eighth grade .
“ Look at us , growing up , ” Nick ( voiced by Nick Kroll ) says .
“ Not like Bart Simpson .
That yellow schmuck has been in fourth grade for , like , thirty years.
” A clever but heartfelt cartoon that is bursting with pop-cultural references and is popular with adult viewers , “ Big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ The Simpsons.
” ( Even the use of “ schmuck ” is evocative of Krusty the Clown . )
Still , Nick ’ s comment identifies the uniqueness of this series , created by Kroll , Andrew Goldberg , Mark Levin , and Jennifer Flackett .
By allowing its characters to age—and by focussing in on them , to an almost painful degree , as they do so— “ Big Mouth ” can feel more akin to live-action TV than it does to cartoons such as “ South Park ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which have used animation to keep their protagonists static over the course of many seasons , as if preserved in amber .
“ I ’ m going through changes , ” Charles Bradley sings in the show ’ s opening theme .
( The tune was originated by Black Sabbath , that band of hormonal lads from Birmingham . )
Since 2017 , when the first season aired , “ Big Mouth ” has depicted the riotous , often alarming transformations that puberty wreaks on the young .
The characters , who , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encountered new growths and protrusions ( hard-ons , pubic hair , boobs ) , distressing secretions ( sweat , semen , blood ) , and the nutso psychological effects these bodily changes incur .
One of the show ’ s strong suits is its portrayal of the capricious ways in which youthful sexuality can express itself : Jay ( Jason Mantzoukas ) , a greasy but sympathetic classmate of Andrew and Nick ’ s , discovers that he is bisexual by humping a “ boy ” pillow as well as a “ girl @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , a bespectacled , mustachioed ball of neuroses , develops a crush on his cousin and , although he is ashamed , proceeds to send her a dick pic ; the lovable , bucktoothed nerd Missy ( Jenny Slate ) masturbates with her childhood Glo Worm and refers to the act as her “ worm dance.
” The show ’ s anarchic spirit is reflected in its graphic , borderline grotesque style of animation , which enables it to depict aspects of pubescent sexuality that might otherwise offend or disturb .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Family Guy , ” an adult cartoon that is like “ Big Mouth ” ’ s coarse , alcoholic uncle . )
The kids ’ urges and fears are represented by a slew of fantastical creatures : there are shaggy , wisecracking “ hormone monsters ” ; a finger-wagging “ shame wizard ” ; a silken-voiced “ depression kitty ” ; and , as of this season , a jumpy “ anxiety mosquito ” named Tito ( Maria Bamford ) .
Unsurprisingly , Tito is a real bummer .
“ Their penises are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bald little piglet , ” he tells Nick , a late bloomer , as the boy is getting ready to take a shower at summer camp .
The first three episodes of the fourth season , which take place at the camp , are some of the funniest TV I ’ ve watched in a while .
There ’ s a new character named Milk ( Emily Altman ) , a mouth-breathing whiner who can ’ t stop bringing up obscure factoids , seemingly apropos of nothing ( “ My dad ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no such thing as choice , only destiny ” ) .
He is a familiar prototype : the uppity dork who is so annoying that even the softer-hearted kids don ’ t feel sorry for him .
“ Milk , your dick is so weird .
I can see the veins in your balls , ” a bunkmate tells him .
“ During the Renaissance , scrota such as mine were considered a delicacy , ” Milk responds airily .
Perhaps nothing embodies the “ Big Mouth ” formula better than this exchange @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precise .
In Season 2 , a gay classmate , Matthew ( Andrew Rannells ) , and a Latina one , Gina ( Gina Rodriguez ) , got more airtime ; in Season 3 , a new student named Ali ( Ali Wong ) introduced herself as pansexual .
“ If you ’ re bisexual , you like tacos and burritos , ” she said .
“ But I ’ m saying I like tacos and burritos , and I could be into a taco that was born a burrito , or a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” This flippant distinction , which seemingly suggested that bisexuals could not be attracted to transgender and nonbinary people , led to an outcry online .
( Goldberg apologized on Twitter . )
This summer , in the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests , Jenny Slate , who is white and Jewish , announced that she would no longer voice Missy , a character with a Black father and a white , Jewish mother , because “ Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people.
” Slate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Season 4 , but she would be replaced by the Black comedian Ayo Edebiri , beginning with the penultimate episode .
Part of the charm as well as the significance of “ Big Mouth , ” I had always felt , was its commitment to the confusion of categories , born of a sense that identity , sexual and otherwise , can be a messy thing that does not necessarily adhere to a clear orthodoxy .
( In this regard , the show is similar to others I loved this year : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like FXX ’ s “ Dave ” and Hulu ’ s “ PEN15 , ” which explore race and sexuality in unexpected ways . )
As I watched Season 4 , I was relieved to see “ Big Mouth ” double down on that idea .
One of my favorite gags was Andrew ’ s obsession with Jessi ’ s new boyfriend , Michaelangelo .
Andrew , who is straight , swoons over the dreamy Brit , but this is treated as unremarkable ; it is just one more facet of Andrew ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deals with Natalie , a trans camper .
Jessi is upset when Natalie starts bunking with the girls—not because Jessi is transphobic but because last summer Natalie , who had not yet transitioned and was still known as Gabe , from the boys ’ cabin , teased Jessi mercilessly , calling her “ fire crotch.
” The show also confronts questions that were raised by Slate ’ s statement—Who should be able to give voice to Black characters ?
What would it look like to represent a biracial character fully ?
—by turning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Missy , who has grown up in a “ post-racial household , ” grapples with both her burgeoning womanhood and her evolving racial identity .
“ N-word alert !
” she blurts out nervously , when visiting her older , cooler cousins , Quinta and Lena ( Quinta Brunson and Lena Waithe ) .
The cousins , who tell Missy that her parents haven ’ t let her be Black , take her to get her hair braided ( “ What shampoo do you use ?
” “ Well , Tom ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ) and encourage her to buy new clothes , which she does—but only after bidding a weepy farewell to the overalls she has worn for the past three seasons .
“ Talking to your clothes ?
That ’ s some white-girl shit right there , ” Quinta says .
“ Girl , please , you did the exact same thing with your blanket , ” Lena retorts , reminding us that categories , though useful as shorthand , can be tricky .
When Missy ’ s mother expresses doubts about whether her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Missy blows up .
“ Stop stealing our men !
” she yells , in a hilarious , shocking moment that turns heartrending when she gasps , through tears , “ I just really wanted to show you my new hair.
” Later , in a Halloween-themed episode , Missy reaches a détente with her fragmented self and kisses her refracted reflections in a haunted house ’ s broken mirror—a sweet reimagining of a sequence from Jordan Peele ’ s horror movie “ Us.
” In this moment , her voice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s .
“ There I am , ” she says , triumphantly .
“ I ’ m all of these Missys.
” ♦

An early episode of the fourth season of “Big Mouth,” now streaming on Netflix, opens with the show’s protagonists, Andrew Glouberman and Nick Birch, embarking on their first day of eighth grade. “Look at us, growing up,” Nick (voiced by Nick Kroll) says. “Not like Bart Simpson. That yellow schmuck has been in fourth grade for, like, thirty years.” A clever but heartfelt cartoon that is bursting with pop-cultural references and is popular with adult viewers, “Big Mouth” owes more than a little to “The Simpsons.” (Even the use of “schmuck” is evocative of Krusty the Clown.) Still, Nick’s comment identifies the uniqueness of this series, created by Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett. By allowing its characters to age—and by focussing in on them, to an almost painful degree, as they do so—“Big Mouth” can feel more akin to live-action TV than it does to cartoons such as “South Park” and “Bob’s Burgers,” which have used animation to keep their protagonists static over the course of many seasons, as if preserved in amber.
“I’m going through changes,” Charles Bradley sings in the show’s opening theme. (The tune was originated by Black Sabbath, that band of hormonal lads from Birmingham.) Since 2017, when the first season aired, “Big Mouth” has depicted the riotous, often alarming transformations that puberty wreaks on the young. The characters, who, back then, were seventh graders, encountered new growths and protrusions (hard-ons, pubic hair, boobs), distressing secretions (sweat, semen, blood), and the nutso psychological effects these bodily changes incur. One of the show’s strong suits is its portrayal of the capricious ways in which youthful sexuality can express itself: Jay (Jason Mantzoukas), a greasy but sympathetic classmate of Andrew and Nick’s, discovers that he is bisexual by humping a “boy” pillow as well as a “girl” pillow; Andrew (John Mulaney), a bespectacled, mustachioed ball of neuroses, develops a crush on his cousin and, although he is ashamed, proceeds to send her a dick pic; the lovable, bucktoothed nerd Missy (Jenny Slate) masturbates with her childhood Glo Worm and refers to the act as her “worm dance.”
The show’s anarchic spirit is reflected in its graphic, borderline grotesque style of animation, which enables it to depict aspects of pubescent sexuality that might otherwise offend or disturb. (Goldberg was a longtime writer on “Family Guy,” an adult cartoon that is like “Big Mouth” ’s coarse, alcoholic uncle.) The kids’ urges and fears are represented by a slew of fantastical creatures: there are shaggy, wisecracking “hormone monsters”; a finger-wagging “shame wizard”; a silken-voiced “depression kitty”; and, as of this season, a jumpy “anxiety mosquito” named Tito (Maria Bamford). Unsurprisingly, Tito is a real bummer. “Their penises are thick hairy hogs and yours is a bald little piglet,” he tells Nick, a late bloomer, as the boy is getting ready to take a shower at summer camp.
The first three episodes of the fourth season, which take place at the camp, are some of the funniest TV I’ve watched in a while. There’s a new character named Milk (Emily Altman), a mouth-breathing whiner who can’t stop bringing up obscure factoids, seemingly apropos of nothing (“My dad’s friend Bob Reedy says there’s no such thing as choice, only destiny”). He is a familiar prototype: the uppity dork who is so annoying that even the softer-hearted kids don’t feel sorry for him. “Milk, your dick is so weird. I can see the veins in your balls,” a bunkmate tells him. “During the Renaissance, scrota such as mine were considered a delicacy,” Milk responds airily. Perhaps nothing embodies the “Big Mouth” formula better than this exchange: gross, hilarious, weird, precise.
A TV show can have growing pains, too. Andrew and Nick are the alter egos of Goldberg and Kroll, who’ve been real-life best friends since childhood, and, early on, the series hewed closely to their adolescent milieu: upper-middle-class, white, straight Jews from Westchester. (In Season 1, the “Great Women”-themed bat mitzvah of Nick and Andrew’s sardonic friend Jessi—voiced by Jessi Klein—has an Anne Frank table.) Season by season, “Big Mouth” has had to figure out, in tandem with the roiling cultural and political realities of the past few years, how to develop and fine-tune its world alongside its characters.
In Season 2, a gay classmate, Matthew (Andrew Rannells), and a Latina one, Gina (Gina Rodriguez), got more airtime; in Season 3, a new student named Ali (Ali Wong) introduced herself as pansexual. “If you’re bisexual, you like tacos and burritos,” she said. “But I’m saying I like tacos and burritos, and I could be into a taco that was born a burrito, or a burrito that is transitioning into a taco.” This flippant distinction, which seemingly suggested that bisexuals could not be attracted to transgender and nonbinary people, led to an outcry online. (Goldberg apologized on Twitter.) This summer, in the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests, Jenny Slate, who is white and Jewish, announced that she would no longer voice Missy, a character with a Black father and a white, Jewish mother, because “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people.” Slate had already recorded Missy’s dialogue for Season 4, but she would be replaced by the Black comedian Ayo Edebiri, beginning with the penultimate episode.
Part of the charm as well as the significance of “Big Mouth,” I had always felt, was its commitment to the confusion of categories, born of a sense that identity, sexual and otherwise, can be a messy thing that does not necessarily adhere to a clear orthodoxy. (In this regard, the show is similar to others I loved this year: crude, funny, yet searching comedies like FXX’s “Dave” and Hulu’s “PEN15,” which explore race and sexuality in unexpected ways.) As I watched Season 4, I was relieved to see “Big Mouth” double down on that idea. One of my favorite gags was Andrew’s obsession with Jessi’s new boyfriend, Michaelangelo. Andrew, who is straight, swoons over the dreamy Brit, but this is treated as unremarkable; it is just one more facet of Andrew’s horniness. A more serious arc deals with Natalie, a trans camper. Jessi is upset when Natalie starts bunking with the girls—not because Jessi is transphobic but because last summer Natalie, who had not yet transitioned and was still known as Gabe, from the boys’ cabin, teased Jessi mercilessly, calling her “fire crotch.”
The show also confronts questions that were raised by Slate’s statement—Who should be able to give voice to Black characters? What would it look like to represent a biracial character fully?—by turning them into plot points. This season, Missy, who has grown up in a “post-racial household,” grapples with both her burgeoning womanhood and her evolving racial identity. “N-word alert!” she blurts out nervously, when visiting her older, cooler cousins, Quinta and Lena (Quinta Brunson and Lena Waithe). The cousins, who tell Missy that her parents haven’t let her be Black, take her to get her hair braided (“What shampoo do you use?” “Well, Tom’s of Maine, of course!”) and encourage her to buy new clothes, which she does—but only after bidding a weepy farewell to the overalls she has worn for the past three seasons. “Talking to your clothes? That’s some white-girl shit right there,” Quinta says. “Girl, please, you did the exact same thing with your blanket,” Lena retorts, reminding us that categories, though useful as shorthand, can be tricky.
When Missy’s mother expresses doubts about whether her daughter’s cornrows are “manageable,” Missy blows up. “Stop stealing our men!” she yells, in a hilarious, shocking moment that turns heartrending when she gasps, through tears, “I just really wanted to show you my new hair.” Later, in a Halloween-themed episode, Missy reaches a détente with her fragmented self and kisses her refracted reflections in a haunted house’s broken mirror—a sweet reimagining of a sequence from Jordan Peele’s horror movie “Us.” In this moment, her voice changes from Slate’s to Edebiri’s. “There I am,” she says, triumphantly. “I’m all of these Missys.” ♦


newyorker--2020-12-21--The Otherworldly Comedy of Julio Torres

The Otherworldly Comedy of Julio Torres

On a sofa was a throw pillow made of clear plastic filled with shredded Mylar , designed by someone he had met through Instagram .
I remarked that , if Torres were a pillow , he would be this one .
“ Yes , ” he said .
“ Impractical .
A pillow by definition , but not in execution .
A pillow , because what else are you going to call it ?
” Armisen gave himself the part of a mustachioed valet and brought in Torres and Fabrega to write and star alongside him .
He had imagined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to sculpt prosthetics out of chocolate .
Torres spun the character , Andrés , into a “ pouty little prince , ” and pushed the humor into the mystical .
In the first season , Andrés has visions of a water demon ( played by Torres ’ s former roommate , the nonbinary comedian Spike Einbinder ) , who promises to reveal the secret of Andrés ’ s origins if he agrees to watch “ The King ’ s Speech.
” Fabrega told me that , while the second season was being written @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ I want to have the moon be Andrés ’ s friend that does him favors.
’ And we were , like , ‘ O.K.
’ ” Torres dyed his hair midnight blue for the role , “ to trick the eye into thinking I ’ m acting.
” ( While shooting the first season , he left blue stains all over the furniture of his Airbnb . )
The color complemented his air of wintry inaccessibility , but , when I met him one day in the dead of January , his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such a big chunk of my comedy career , I was very into the idea of ice and diamonds and silver , ” he explained .
“ And now I ’ m feeling a little warmer .
I feel like lava.
” We were at Mood Fabrics , a store in the garment district .
Torres visits several times a year , to pick out materials for his wardrobe .
He then delivers the fabrics to a tailor in San Salvador , where his mother , Tita , an architect and designer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ process .
“ Then we experiment , with , like , a sixty-per-cent success rate , ” Torres said , wandering the aisles .
He was there to select materials for his summer attire , anticipating a months-long turnaround .
He eyed some shimmering silk .
“ Normally I ’ d be , like , ‘ This , ’ ” he said .
“ But now I ’ m not feeling too shiny.
” On the second floor , he gravitated toward a roll of neon-orange neoprene .
“ Could be some fun @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked an employee to cut him a strip .
We walked through the spandex aisle , where he took a swath of purple mesh .
“ I have tried to make swimwear , ” he said .
“ Micromanaging the fit of a Speedo long distance is very difficult.
” But difficulty seemed to be the point : why buy a pair of shorts when you can make your own across hemispheres ?
“ It ’ s something that comes up in therapy a lot—not always having to pick the harder way , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days , he was leaving for Chile , which had erupted in civil unrest , to begin filming the second season of “ Los Espookys.
” The whole series felt like an act of ostentatious difficulty : a bilingual show with a convoluted premise , shot in a country in the throes of a revolution .
“ It ’ s a miracle that it was made , ” he said .
“ My Favorite Shapes ” was also a Pan-American project .
Torres enlisted his mother and his younger sister , Marta , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to create the look of the show , down to his two-toned blue chair and translucent shoes .
( They were credited with “ Architecture and Overall Visual Concept , ” a designation that stumped the Emmy committee . )
“ He said that we were the only ones who would understand what he wanted to do , ” Tita told me , in Spanish .
The family shares an aesthetic language , influenced by the Memphis design movement of the eighties , which favors bold colors and cutout shapes ; Tita @ @ @ @ @ @ @ handbags that resemble seashells or open eyes .
For “ My Favorite Shapes , ” they made digital renderings of the set , which Torres reviewed in New York .
Marta recalled , “ Every time we would send him something , he was , like , ‘ More shapes !
More levels !
’ ” At the fabric store , Torres placed his finds at the cash register and kept browsing .
He refuses to use credit cards ( “ I just don ’ t like games ” ) and , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ account .
“ At that point , I had , like , forty dollars , ” he said .
He surveyed the brocade aisle .
The store was closing soon , and he was getting impatient .
“ There ’ s something that we ’ re just not finding , ” he said .
“ I ’ m vibing with flowers a lot , but I hate florals.
” Finally , he spied a brocade with a blue-and-green watercolor pattern .
He pulled the bolt from the shelf and felt the cloth between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s not a floral !
” he said .
“ It does exist.
” Torres was born during the last years of the Salvadoran Civil War , and he has dim memories of hiding under the dining table with his mother as helicopters noisily hovered .
But , by his account , his childhood in San Salvador was idyllic .
The family lived in a stylish apartment above his mother ’ s clothing store .
( His father , also named Julio , is a civil engineer . )
Tita sewed his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she told me that her children were “ mis muñecas ” — “ my dolls.
” Torres had few friends , immersing himself in his toys .
When his father brought home miniature cars , he created elaborate traffic jams , mimicking the cacophonous streets of San Salvador , and sold the drivers imaginary lottery tickets .
“ I was just in my own little world , ” he said .
A large chunk of his time was spent on Barbies .
Unhappy with Mattel ’ s premade Dream Houses , he enlisted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of cardboard .
“ I wanted circular windows and for the doors to open a certain way , so she made them per my specifications , setting me on this lifelong journey of being , like , ‘ If it doesn ’ t exist , I have to create it , ’ ” he said .
( At “ Saturday Night Live , ” he channelled his Barbie obsession into a recurring sketch in which interns at Mattel write captions for Barbie ’ s Instagram account . )
His parents encouraged his nontraditional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power to be different against the world , ” his sister said .
When Torres was eleven , his grandfather died , leaving crippling debts , which his father inherited .
His mother ’ s store went out of business , and the family had to move to a farmhouse where Tita had been brought up , on the outskirts of the city .
Torres was prone to allergies and developed a respiratory condition .
He hated the outdoors .
And he no longer had his mother ’ s seamstresses at his beck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like that little kingdom came tumbling down , ” he said .
He thinks of “ My Favorite Shapes ” as a way of “ claiming back my childhood , like : ‘ I want to go back in that little room and just play , without worrying about other stuff.
’ ” As an adolescent , he became withdrawn and dressed plainly , as if in hibernation .
“ Truly the dark ages , ” he recalled .
“ I wasn ’ t even an angsty teen-ager—I was a patient one.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prophecy , he vowed to move to New York someday .
He and his sister won scholarships to attend a private high school in San Salvador , where their rich classmates were picked up by servants .
“ I got picked up by my dad , whose car was older than I am , ” he said .
“ Oh , my God , the noise the car made , pulling up to this castle.
” He knew that he was gay , but considered his sexuality a “ frivolity ” that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to , like going to the dentist .
“ It felt like one of a myriad of things that made me an other , ” he said .
He was more preoccupied with his atheism .
As a child , he had been told the truth about Santa Claus—a “ politically difficult year to navigate , ” since some kids were still believers—and expected a similar revelation about God to follow , but it never did .
After high school , unable to afford tuition at an American college , he enrolled in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , at a “ scam of a nothing school ” that he despised .
He finished the program , and , while working at an ad agency , he gathered his relatives and gave a detailed presentation on why they should pay for him to go to school in New York .
His second time applying to the New School , he got a significant scholarship , and in 2009 he moved to Manhattan , with enough money to live there for two years .
“ They wanted a translation of my transcripts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so I translated them myself and I embellished a bunch of courses , ” he said .
“ And then I sheepishly put it in front of the admissions officer , and she was , like , ‘ Oh , my God , why didn ’ t you say you took all these courses when you applied ?
’ And she takes out her calculator and says , ‘ You ’ re a junior , not a freshman.
’ And I ’ m , like , ‘ Ooh , I guess I am.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ but dabbled in playwriting .
Spike Einbinder , whom he met in a class , acted in one of his short plays , as a woman who is obsessed with a gargoyle on the Chrysler Building .
“ There was construction that was obscuring her apartment ’ s view of it , and it made her go crazy , ” Einbinder recalled .
After graduating , Torres had a year to get a work visa in his area of study , but no company would sponsor him .
By the summer of 2012 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focus .
He wore only black and white and became a vegan .
“ There was something very monklike about it , ” he said .
“ I was , like , I need to thrive within limits .
”

I first met Torres in late 2019, in the pre-COVID world, at his apartment in Williamsburg. He had lived there only four months, but the living room looked art-directed: blue lighting that made it feel like the inside of a fishbowl, metallic statement lamps, a wavy sectional. Torres sat beneath a circular mirror, near a row of delicate-looking ceramic hooks made by a friend. “I love them, because, if you were to use them, they would break,” he said. “So, instead of me putting them through the pain of failing, they’re just arranged together. They’re like actors, I guess. Fragile little things.”
Torres wore blue socks, a black shirt, and a sky-print jacket with a clear breast pocket, which held a watch. He had worn the watch on his commute to the “Los Espookys” writers’ room that morning but had taken it off to work. (“I can’t think when I have stuff on my hands.”) The watch, like all three of his wall clocks, was broken. “It’s a symptom of a bigger problem, which is I never know where I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to be doing,” he said. He led me into his small office, where the desk was strewn with spherical dice, an ostrich figurine, a squiggly metal brooch. (Squiggly shapes, he said, were “a constant for the time being.”) “And then you can never have enough of these,” he said, spilling out a cache of plastic diamonds left over from Halloween, when he dressed up as a gem miner.
On a sofa was a throw pillow made of clear plastic filled with shredded Mylar, designed by someone he had met through Instagram. I remarked that, if Torres were a pillow, he would be this one. “Yes,” he said. “Impractical. A pillow by definition, but not in execution. A pillow, because what else are you going to call it?”
“Los Espookys,” set in an unnamed Latin-American country, is shot in Santiago, Chile. The series originated with Armisen, who had been thinking about creating a show in Spanish. His mother is Venezuelan, and his family lived in Brazil for a time when he was growing up. “There was a real obsession with death,” Armisen recalled. “I remember soap operas had a sort of morbid element.” After visiting Mexico City several years ago, he got interested in the Latin goth scene and, drawing on a range of tonal influences, from “Twin Peaks” to “The Monkees,” came up with a show about a “Scooby-Doo”-type gang that stages horror scenes.
Armisen gave himself the part of a mustachioed valet and brought in Torres and Fabrega to write and star alongside him. He had imagined one member of the gang being able to sculpt prosthetics out of chocolate. Torres spun the character, Andrés, into a “pouty little prince,” and pushed the humor into the mystical. In the first season, Andrés has visions of a water demon (played by Torres’s former roommate, the nonbinary comedian Spike Einbinder), who promises to reveal the secret of Andrés’s origins if he agrees to watch “The King’s Speech.” Fabrega told me that, while the second season was being written, “Julio was, like, ‘I want to have the moon be Andrés’s friend that does him favors.’ And we were, like, ‘O.K.’ ”
Torres dyed his hair midnight blue for the role, “to trick the eye into thinking I’m acting.” (While shooting the first season, he left blue stains all over the furniture of his Airbnb.) The color complemented his air of wintry inaccessibility, but, when I met him one day in the dead of January, his hair was sunset orange. “For such a big chunk of my comedy career, I was very into the idea of ice and diamonds and silver,” he explained. “And now I’m feeling a little warmer. I feel like lava.”
We were at Mood Fabrics, a store in the garment district. Torres visits several times a year, to pick out materials for his wardrobe. He then delivers the fabrics to a tailor in San Salvador, where his mother, Tita, an architect and designer, still lives and can oversee the fabrication process. “Then we experiment, with, like, a sixty-per-cent success rate,” Torres said, wandering the aisles. He was there to select materials for his summer attire, anticipating a months-long turnaround. He eyed some shimmering silk. “Normally I’d be, like, ‘This,’ ” he said. “But now I’m not feeling too shiny.”
On the second floor, he gravitated toward a roll of neon-orange neoprene. “Could be some fun shorts,” he said, and asked an employee to cut him a strip. We walked through the spandex aisle, where he took a swath of purple mesh. “I have tried to make swimwear,” he said. “Micromanaging the fit of a Speedo long distance is very difficult.” But difficulty seemed to be the point: why buy a pair of shorts when you can make your own across hemispheres? “It’s something that comes up in therapy a lot—not always having to pick the harder way,” Torres said. In a few days, he was leaving for Chile, which had erupted in civil unrest, to begin filming the second season of “Los Espookys.” The whole series felt like an act of ostentatious difficulty: a bilingual show with a convoluted premise, shot in a country in the throes of a revolution. “It’s a miracle that it was made,” he said.
“My Favorite Shapes” was also a Pan-American project. Torres enlisted his mother and his younger sister, Marta, who lives in San Salvador as well, to create the look of the show, down to his two-toned blue chair and translucent shoes. (They were credited with “Architecture and Overall Visual Concept,” a designation that stumped the Emmy committee.) “He said that we were the only ones who would understand what he wanted to do,” Tita told me, in Spanish. The family shares an aesthetic language, influenced by the Memphis design movement of the eighties, which favors bold colors and cutout shapes; Tita and Marta collaborate on a line of handbags that resemble seashells or open eyes. For “My Favorite Shapes,” they made digital renderings of the set, which Torres reviewed in New York. Marta recalled, “Every time we would send him something, he was, like, ‘More shapes! More levels!’ ”
At the fabric store, Torres placed his finds at the cash register and kept browsing. He refuses to use credit cards (“I just don’t like games”) and, for a time, shut down his bank account. “At that point, I had, like, forty dollars,” he said. He surveyed the brocade aisle. The store was closing soon, and he was getting impatient. “There’s something that we’re just not finding,” he said. “I’m vibing with flowers a lot, but I hate florals.” Finally, he spied a brocade with a blue-and-green watercolor pattern. He pulled the bolt from the shelf and felt the cloth between his fingers. “A floral that’s not a floral!” he said. “It does exist.”
Torres’s unlikely rise was foretold shortly after his birth, when a fortune-teller informed his grandmother that one of her descendants would become a success in New York City. The grandmother claimed the prophecy for several of her grandchildren, but Tita was convinced that it was about her six-month-old son. She had visited New York while pregnant, not long after an earthquake devastated San Salvador. Tita loved science fiction and Brazilian telenovelas, which often feature fantastical story lines. Torres half-remembered one about a man in a dungeon whose lover is reincarnated as the moon.
Torres was born during the last years of the Salvadoran Civil War, and he has dim memories of hiding under the dining table with his mother as helicopters noisily hovered. But, by his account, his childhood in San Salvador was idyllic. The family lived in a stylish apartment above his mother’s clothing store. (His father, also named Julio, is a civil engineer.) Tita sewed his and his sister’s clothes; she told me that her children were “mis muñecas”—“my dolls.” Torres had few friends, immersing himself in his toys. When his father brought home miniature cars, he created elaborate traffic jams, mimicking the cacophonous streets of San Salvador, and sold the drivers imaginary lottery tickets. “I was just in my own little world,” he said.
Cartoon by Mick Stevens Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
A large chunk of his time was spent on Barbies. Unhappy with Mattel’s premade Dream Houses, he enlisted his mother to make customized homes out of cardboard. “I wanted circular windows and for the doors to open a certain way, so she made them per my specifications, setting me on this lifelong journey of being, like, ‘If it doesn’t exist, I have to create it,’ ” he said. (At “Saturday Night Live,” he channelled his Barbie obsession into a recurring sketch in which interns at Mattel write captions for Barbie’s Instagram account.) His parents encouraged his nontraditional interests. “It gave him the power to be different against the world,” his sister said.
When Torres was eleven, his grandfather died, leaving crippling debts, which his father inherited. His mother’s store went out of business, and the family had to move to a farmhouse where Tita had been brought up, on the outskirts of the city. Torres was prone to allergies and developed a respiratory condition. He hated the outdoors. And he no longer had his mother’s seamstresses at his beck and call. “It was almost like that little kingdom came tumbling down,” he said. He thinks of “My Favorite Shapes” as a way of “claiming back my childhood, like: ‘I want to go back in that little room and just play, without worrying about other stuff.’ ”


newyorker--2020-12-21--How Leonora Carrington Feminized Surrealism

The success of a creation story hangs on how richly it seeds the life to come .
Carrington ’ s encompasses all the elements of her life and her art .
There is her decadence and indelicate sense of fancy ; her fascination with animals and with bodies , both otherworldly and profane .
Above all , there is her high-spirited , baroque sense of humor , mating the artificial to the natural , and recalling Henri Bergson ’ s claim that the essence of comedy is the image of “ something mechanical encrusted upon the living.
” Her humor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a delightfully macabre collection of stories , along with hundreds of paintings , sculptures , and objets—have been unearthed on several occasions since her death , in 2011 .
Each time her work is reborn , it seems more prescient , her comedy more finely tuned to our growing consciousness of the nonhuman world and the forces that inhabit it .
In Carrington ’ s creation story , the butt of the joke is her true origins , an incurably repressive Anglo-Irish upbringing , which she fled in 1937 .
She settled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when the Nazis descended , Madrid , New York , and Mexico City , where she spent the rest of her life .
She never again saw her father , a Lancashire mill owner who , in her twenties , had her committed to a mental institution .
“ Of the two , I was far more afraid of my father than I was of Hitler , ” she claimed .
She seldom visited her mother , an able , sympathetic woman , more mesmerized by the whirligig of the London scene than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Debutante , ” a story Carrington wrote just after leaving home , shows the savagery she wrought from her family ’ s money and good English manners .
A girl befriends a hyena at the zoo , teaches it to speak , and persuades it to take her place at a ball .
The hyena attends wearing the face of the girl ’ s maid , killed and eaten as part of its evening toilette .
“ Nurse !
Do let ’ s pretend that I ’ m a hungry hyena , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lewis Carroll ’ s Alice shouts , in “ Through the Looking Glass.
” Alice is too young to imagine her game of make-believe literalized as gruesome social satire , but Carrington , a devoted reader of Carroll and Jonathan Swift , certainly could .
The Cheshire Cat and the Houyhnhnms must have taught her that comedy and critique both work by casting the familiar aspects of life in new , doubtful guises .
Which is more artificial , she asks : dressing a hyena as a human or a human as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hyena and a human ?
Shouldn ’ t the two be allies in a planetary war against débutante balls , against kings and queens and empires , against the cannibalizing machinery of capital , which takes the domination of women and nature as its origin point ?
Surrealist art , with its convulsive , outlandish juxtapositions , showed Carrington how to discern the folly of the humans she knew .
It also invited her to cavort with nonhuman creatures , drawing on their beauty and suffering to make tame ideas about character @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and gloriously unhinged .
The distinctions between human and animal , animal and machine , flicker in and out of focus in her early stories , but the fiction she wrote in the nineteen-fifties and sixties dissolves them lavishly .
Here we find several barnyards ’ worth of chimeras , extravagant beings who commune with all manner of “ mechanical artifacts.
” They are bearers of utopian hopes and victims of threats from ordinary humans .
Consider her story “ As They Rode Along the Edge , ” a romance featuring Virginia Fur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cat , with “ bats and moths imprisoned ” in her hair and a blind nightingale lodged in her throat .
Her lover , Igname the Boar , woos her in “ a wig made of squirrels ’ tails.
” Their children are seven little boars conceived under “ a mountain of cats.
” Virginia boils and eats all but one of the children , after men hunt and kill their father .
In Carrington ’ s writing , the critic Janet Lyon has observed , the appearance of an ordinary human always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of death .
Ordinary humans , when confronted with Carrington ’ s creatures , brandish their superior rationality and industry .
Sometimes they press the point with guns , other times with atomic bombs , as in her novel “ The Hearing Trumpet , ” to be reissued next month by New York Review Books .
Yet they remain ignorant of how pitiable it is to be merely human in the first place .
“ To be one human creature is to be a legion of mannequins , ” a goddess in one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the creature steps into the mannequin he immediately believes it to be real and alive and as long as he believes this he is trapped inside the dead image , which moves in ever-increasing circles away from Great Nature.
” For Carrington , humanity was a seductive costume donned by dummies .
To step out of the costume risked deranging the self that one unthinkingly inhabited , courting madness , the dissolution of the belief in the human world as the arbiter of reality .
But it was also to draw closer to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a new , liberating art .
Who could turn down this flattering invitation ?
You will serve as her accomplice , as well as her pupil—the débutante to her masked hyena .
Together , you form one of her conjoined beings : the narrator who weaves the story of her life ; the reader who lets herself be ensnared by it .
“ Down Below ” imagines its narrator and its readers journeying toward Knowledge as a collective entity , yet the circumstances leading up to its writing were singular and bizarre .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ rebellions .
Her father sent her to a convent school in 1930 ; the nuns sent her back .
In 1936 , her mother sent her to study art in London , where she fell in with the Surrealists .
They worshipped her as a muse , a witch—not the old and ugly kind , André Breton explained , but an enchantress with “ a smooth , mocking gaze.
” This reputation still clings to her , unlike the bedsheets she is said to have worn to parties .
Even her well-intentioned biographer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the teen-age Leonora , “ the beautiful , sparky young woman with her dark eyes , crimson lips , and cascade of raven curls ” destined to meet the German Surrealist Max Ernst , twenty-six years older than her , and soon to anoint her his femme-enfant .
Her family had wrongheadedly nicknamed her Prim .
He renamed her the Bride of the Wind .

When asked to describe the circumstances of her birth, the Surrealist painter and writer Leonora Carrington liked to tell people that she had not been born; she had been made. One melancholy day, her mother, bloated by chocolate truffles, oyster purée, and cold pheasant, feeling fat and listless and undesirable, had lain on top of a machine. The machine was a marvellous contraption, designed to extract hundreds of gallons of semen from animals—pigs, cockerels, stallions, urchins, bats, ducks—and, one can imagine, bring its user to the most spectacular orgasm, turning her whole sad, sick being inside out and upside down. From this communion of human, animal, and machine, Leonora was conceived. When she emerged, on April 6, 1917, England shook.
The success of a creation story hangs on how richly it seeds the life to come. Carrington’s encompasses all the elements of her life and her art. There is her decadence and indelicate sense of fancy; her fascination with animals and with bodies, both otherworldly and profane. Above all, there is her high-spirited, baroque sense of humor, mating the artificial to the natural, and recalling Henri Bergson’s claim that the essence of comedy is the image of “something mechanical encrusted upon the living.” Her humor and its offspring—two novels, a memoir, a delightfully macabre collection of stories, along with hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and objets—have been unearthed on several occasions since her death, in 2011. Each time her work is reborn, it seems more prescient, her comedy more finely tuned to our growing consciousness of the nonhuman world and the forces that inhabit it.
In Carrington’s creation story, the butt of the joke is her true origins, an incurably repressive Anglo-Irish upbringing, which she fled in 1937. She settled first in France, and then, when the Nazis descended, Madrid, New York, and Mexico City, where she spent the rest of her life. She never again saw her father, a Lancashire mill owner who, in her twenties, had her committed to a mental institution. “Of the two, I was far more afraid of my father than I was of Hitler,” she claimed. She seldom visited her mother, an able, sympathetic woman, more mesmerized by the whirligig of the London scene than by art or literature. “The Debutante,” a story Carrington wrote just after leaving home, shows the savagery she wrought from her family’s money and good English manners. A girl befriends a hyena at the zoo, teaches it to speak, and persuades it to take her place at a ball. The hyena attends wearing the face of the girl’s maid, killed and eaten as part of its evening toilette.
“Nurse! Do let’s pretend that I’m a hungry hyena, and you’re a bone,” Lewis Carroll’s Alice shouts, in “Through the Looking Glass.” Alice is too young to imagine her game of make-believe literalized as gruesome social satire, but Carrington, a devoted reader of Carroll and Jonathan Swift, certainly could. The Cheshire Cat and the Houyhnhnms must have taught her that comedy and critique both work by casting the familiar aspects of life in new, doubtful guises. Which is more artificial, she asks: dressing a hyena as a human or a human as a woman? What is the difference between a hyena and a human? Shouldn’t the two be allies in a planetary war against débutante balls, against kings and queens and empires, against the cannibalizing machinery of capital, which takes the domination of women and nature as its origin point?
Surrealist art, with its convulsive, outlandish juxtapositions, showed Carrington how to discern the folly of the humans she knew. It also invited her to cavort with nonhuman creatures, drawing on their beauty and suffering to make tame ideas about character and plot more porous, elastic, and gloriously unhinged. The distinctions between human and animal, animal and machine, flicker in and out of focus in her early stories, but the fiction she wrote in the nineteen-fifties and sixties dissolves them lavishly. Here we find several barnyards’ worth of chimeras, extravagant beings who commune with all manner of “mechanical artifacts.” They are bearers of utopian hopes and victims of threats from ordinary humans. Consider her story “As They Rode Along the Edge,” a romance featuring Virginia Fur, not quite woman, not quite cat, with “bats and moths imprisoned” in her hair and a blind nightingale lodged in her throat. Her lover, Igname the Boar, woos her in “a wig made of squirrels’ tails.” Their children are seven little boars conceived under “a mountain of cats.” Virginia boils and eats all but one of the children, after men hunt and kill their father.
“Play Shadow.” Surrealism, with its convulsive, outlandish juxtapositions, showed Carrington how to discern the folly of the humans she knew. Art: © 2020 Estate of Leonora Carrington / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images
In Carrington’s writing, the critic Janet Lyon has observed, the appearance of an ordinary human always feels like an aberration, a harbinger of death. Ordinary humans, when confronted with Carrington’s creatures, brandish their superior rationality and industry. Sometimes they press the point with guns, other times with atomic bombs, as in her novel “The Hearing Trumpet,” to be reissued next month by New York Review Books. Yet they remain ignorant of how pitiable it is to be merely human in the first place. “To be one human creature is to be a legion of mannequins,” a goddess in one of her stories proclaims. “When the creature steps into the mannequin he immediately believes it to be real and alive and as long as he believes this he is trapped inside the dead image, which moves in ever-increasing circles away from Great Nature.” For Carrington, humanity was a seductive costume donned by dummies. To step out of the costume risked deranging the self that one unthinkingly inhabited, courting madness, the dissolution of the belief in the human world as the arbiter of reality. But it was also to draw closer to Great Nature, in the quest for a new, liberating art.
The story of Carrington’s liberation from the human world is the subject of her memoir, “Down Below” (1944). The book opens by summoning its reader:


newyorker--2020-12-21--The Year in Funnies

The Year in Funnies

“ Forget about what else is going on in the world .
As soon as we put on this uniform @ @ @ @ @ job to remain creepy .
”

“Forget about what else is going on in the world. As soon as we put on this uniform, it’s our job to remain creepy.”
Cartoon by Drew Dernavich


newyorker--2020-12-21--How Ammon Bundy Helped Foment an Anti-Masker Rebellion in Idaho

Minutes before Davis arrived at her desk on the chamber floor , several of her colleagues heard glass shattering and a huge ruckus from above .
A crowd of about two hundred unmasked men , women , and children , carrying American flags and homemade signs , had climbed the capitol rotunda ’ s grand marble staircase and crowded into a fourth-floor hallway leading to the House chamber ’ s viewing gallery , most of which had been reserved for lawmakers with health concerns .
A line of state troopers in black masks stood between the crowd and a set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our house !
” the protesters shouted .
A chant began : “ Let us in !
Let us in !
” Several men at the front of the crowd—including Ammon Bundy , the second-generation rancher-provocateur and de-facto leader of the health-freedom movement in Idaho—began jostling the locked door .
The crowd surged forward ; the troopers dropped their shoulders and tried to hold the line .
In the melee , the glass pane of one of the doors broke , scattering glass across the marble .
After the House speaker , Scott @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could come in if they agreed to behave , the crowd flooded into the viewing gallery , ripped off the bright red “ SEAT UNAVAILABLE ” signs , and passed them around to use as fans in the late-summer heat .
“ They say we can ’ t come in , we say different , ” Sarah Clendenon , a former Idaho State Senate candidate , said over Facebook Live .
“ All the social-distancing nonsense is over.
” Clendenon is the co-executive director of Health Freedom Idaho , a grassroots advocacy group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Is That Mask Giving You Lung Cancer ?
” and “ 20 Facts About Abortion-Tainted Vaccines , ” alongside recipes for paleo banana bread .
Turning the camera on herself , she held up “ the one and only mask I will ever wear ” : that of Guy Fawkes , the failed Parliament bomber and anarchist folk hero .
Many in the crowd carried weapons—not an uncommon sight in the open-carry capitol , but the screaming and breaking glass had put legislators on edge .
“ Bad day to forget my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remarked as she walked past Davis ’ s desk .
Davis recognized some of the crowd from prior committee hearings on gun rights and public-health issues .
“ I know the group—it ’ s grown , ” she told me .
“ This was a lot more people than I had ever seen.
” That afternoon , unmasked health-freedom activists overflowed a small committee room as they heckled lawmakers .
Greg Chaney , the Republican chairman of the Judiciary , Rules and Administration Committee , moved the hearings to the two-hundred-and-forty-seat Lincoln Auditorium @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demanded access to a desk reserved at the front of the auditorium for credentialled members of the press .
On Tuesday afternoon , when the videographer Bryan Bowermaster refused to leave the press table after several requests from police , Chaney ordered him removed , and the crowd exploded .
“ You ’ re a tyrant !
” a man screamed , as a scuffle broke out around Bowermaster and more troopers filed in to keep the crowd in control .
When Chaney announced that the hearing was moving again , to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only exit ramp for her wheelchair was directly through the protest line .
“ Two troopers got me out , ” she said .
“ One pushed me and one cleared the path up the hill .
It didn ’ t hit me until afterwards .
I got to my car and started shaking.
” “ I have an eleven-year-old at home , ” Davis told me .
“ I didn ’ t ever in my dreams think I signed up to roll through a riot.
” Born in Michigan and trained in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. Olympic Development Team ski racer when a high-speed crash on Bald Mountain paralyzed her from the chest down .
In early 2017 , following a twenty-year competitive career , she decided to run for office after her daughter came to her in tears asking if President Trump would take her Hispanic friends away .
“ I wanted to show her that , if you don ’ t like the way things are going , you don ’ t just complain or leave—you get involved and make a difference , ” she said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than twelve percentage points , she joined Representative Sally Toone and Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett as one of three Democratic women representing a district that includes both conservative farming communities on the Snake River and the liberal enclaves around Sun Valley .
Though she unwinds from work with solo multiday mountain-biking trips on an adapted hand cycle in the backcountry , what happened in the statehouse this August unnerved her .
For Davis , who thrived after her injury with the help of technology and medicine , the overarching issue was clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people here in Idaho , ” she said , “ who don ’ t believe in science.
” Last spring , Idaho ’ s Brad Little was among the country ’ s first conservative governors to impose public-health orders .
On March 20th , the state quarantined Blaine County , where the virus had spiked to what was briefly the highest infection rate in the country ; the following week , Little ordered a statewide stay-at-home order , mobilized the Idaho National Guard , and reallocated nearly forty million dollars from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
By the time Little extended the stay-at-home order , on April 15th , Representative Heather Scott , of northern Idaho , had already referred to him as “ Little Hitler.
” Forcing people to stay home was “ no different than Nazi Germany , ” Scott said , where “ nonessential workers got put on a train.
” Judy Boyle , a representative from Midvale , about sixty-five miles northwest of Boise , upped the Nazi ante , calling mask requirements “ too similar to not allowing Jews to shop when they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yellow star !
!
!
” Even as Little earned high approval ratings on the crisis from average Idahoans , ranking members of his own party turned on him , with Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin and the former U.S. congressman Raúl Labrador ( who is expected to challenge Little in 2022 ) kicking off the mutiny .
McGeachin and Little didn ’ t speak for several weeks after she and Labrador travelled to northern Idaho to support a brewery that was defying state orders .
The conflict played out against the backdrop of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which , by May 30th , had restaurants and bars up and running , leading , in turn , to an uncontrolled second wave of the virus .
On July 9th , Idaho surpassed Florida for the fastest-growing infection rate in the country .
Little , who makes a point of wearing a mask in public , tried to balance calls for statewide mandates against the insurrection in his own party .
Under pressure from Republicans in the statehouse to roll back any statewide orders , he ultimately deferred to the state ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was right for their own communities .
That decision kicked off months of messy public debates on district health boards , which are composed largely of elected county commissioners , many of whom doubt the efficacy of masks and the threat of the virus .
Some jurisdictions , unwilling to wait for the health boards to act , passed their own mandates , replicating within the state the same policy patchwork at play nationwide .
( Little ’ s office did not respond to questions for this story . )
In the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order , Ammon Bundy began coördinating his first protests , as did Health Freedom Idaho and the Idaho Freedom Foundation ( I.F.F . )
, a dark-money-funded libertarian policy shop and the state ’ s center of gravity for right-wing advocacy .
( A recently filed citizen-watchdog complaint alleges that the I.F.F .
is breaking the law by identifying itself as a 501 ( c ) 3 charity while operating as a lobbying organization .
The I.F.F .
has called the allegation “ bogus ” and said that it follows “ the law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I.F.F.
, which was already a thorn in the side of the G.O.P .
establishment when the pandemic hit , the crisis offered a range of opportunities .
If Idahoans complied with mask mandates and business shutdowns , Bundy warned protesters in the spring , “ then they will go further until we are lined up naked facing a mass grave being shot in the back of the head.
” Together with Health Freedom Idaho and the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance , the I.F.F .
staged a joint rally in mid-April , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capitol with rifles and homemade signs : “ Faith Over Fear , ” “ Liberty or Death , ” “ Brad Little Is Non-Essential.
” That month , Bundy brought protesters to a police officer ’ s home in Meridian , after the officer arrested a young mother who refused to leave a closed playground ; in July , protesters shut down a public-health district meeting in Caldwell .
By the time of the August spectacle at the state capitol , Bundy and the health-freedom activists had spent four months staging increasingly bold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , several legislators embraced the activists ’ world view .
“ This emergency declaration created the situation that we ’ re in , not the virus , ” Representative Vito Barbieri said .
Barbieri represents a district just outside Coeur d ’ Alene , which , with a population of fifty-two thousand , is the largest city in the anti-government stronghold of the Idaho Panhandle .
Two months before President Trump took the myth mainstream , Barbieri accused hospitals of “ making up statistics ” about COVID-19 for profit .
“ N95 masks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added .
The former representative Tim Remington , a pastor who represented the same district , suggested that the virus was not as contagious as reported .
“ I ’ ve actually laid hands on people that have COVID and prayed for them .
I never got COVID , ” he said .

Marianna (Muffy) Davis is a seven-time Paralympic medallist, a member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, and, since December, 2018, a Democratic member of the Idaho state legislature. She arrived at the state capitol building, in Boise, on the morning of Monday, August 24th, to prepare for a special legislative session to deliberate emergency bills on two issues: mail-in voting and protection for government, schools, and businesses from lawsuits stemming from coronavirus infection. At the time, Boise’s Ada County and the surrounding communities of southwest Idaho were dealing with one of the most severe COVID-19 outbreaks in the country.
Minutes before Davis arrived at her desk on the chamber floor, several of her colleagues heard glass shattering and a huge ruckus from above. A crowd of about two hundred unmasked men, women, and children, carrying American flags and homemade signs, had climbed the capitol rotunda’s grand marble staircase and crowded into a fourth-floor hallway leading to the House chamber’s viewing gallery, most of which had been reserved for lawmakers with health concerns. A line of state troopers in black masks stood between the crowd and a set of glass-panelled doors. “This is our house!” the protesters shouted. A chant began: “Let us in! Let us in!”
Several men at the front of the crowd—including Ammon Bundy, the second-generation rancher-provocateur and de-facto leader of the health-freedom movement in Idaho—began jostling the locked door. The crowd surged forward; the troopers dropped their shoulders and tried to hold the line. In the melee, the glass pane of one of the doors broke, scattering glass across the marble. After the House speaker, Scott Bedke, told the protesters that they could come in if they agreed to behave, the crowd flooded into the viewing gallery, ripped off the bright red “SEAT UNAVAILABLE” signs, and passed them around to use as fans in the late-summer heat.
“They say we can’t come in, we say different,” Sarah Clendenon, a former Idaho State Senate candidate, said over Facebook Live. “All the social-distancing nonsense is over.” Clendenon is the co-executive director of Health Freedom Idaho, a grassroots advocacy group whose Web site runs headlines such as “Is That Mask Giving You Lung Cancer?” and “20 Facts About Abortion-Tainted Vaccines,” alongside recipes for paleo banana bread. Turning the camera on herself, she held up “the one and only mask I will ever wear”: that of Guy Fawkes, the failed Parliament bomber and anarchist folk hero.
Many in the crowd carried weapons—not an uncommon sight in the open-carry capitol, but the screaming and breaking glass had put legislators on edge. “Bad day to forget my gun,” a masked Republican representative remarked as she walked past Davis’s desk. Davis recognized some of the crowd from prior committee hearings on gun rights and public-health issues. “I know the group—it’s grown,” she told me. “This was a lot more people than I had ever seen.”
That afternoon, unmasked health-freedom activists overflowed a small committee room as they heckled lawmakers. Greg Chaney, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee, moved the hearings to the two-hundred-and-forty-seat Lincoln Auditorium; there, though, the activists demanded access to a desk reserved at the front of the auditorium for credentialled members of the press.
On Tuesday afternoon, when the videographer Bryan Bowermaster refused to leave the press table after several requests from police, Chaney ordered him removed, and the crowd exploded. “You’re a tyrant!” a man screamed, as a scuffle broke out around Bowermaster and more troopers filed in to keep the crowd in control. When Chaney announced that the hearing was moving again, to a private room, Davis saw that the only exit ramp for her wheelchair was directly through the protest line. “Two troopers got me out,” she said. “One pushed me and one cleared the path up the hill. It didn’t hit me until afterwards. I got to my car and started shaking.”
“I have an eleven-year-old at home,” Davis told me. “I didn’t ever in my dreams think I signed up to roll through a riot.”
Born in Michigan and trained in Sun Valley, Davis was a sixteen-year-old U.S. Olympic Development Team ski racer when a high-speed crash on Bald Mountain paralyzed her from the chest down. In early 2017, following a twenty-year competitive career, she decided to run for office after her daughter came to her in tears asking if President Trump would take her Hispanic friends away. “I wanted to show her that, if you don’t like the way things are going, you don’t just complain or leave—you get involved and make a difference,” she said. Beating the incumbent Republican by more than twelve percentage points, she joined Representative Sally Toone and Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett as one of three Democratic women representing a district that includes both conservative farming communities on the Snake River and the liberal enclaves around Sun Valley.
Though she unwinds from work with solo multiday mountain-biking trips on an adapted hand cycle in the backcountry, what happened in the statehouse this August unnerved her. For Davis, who thrived after her injury with the help of technology and medicine, the overarching issue was clear. “There’s a lot of people here in Idaho,” she said, “who don’t believe in science.”
Since 1995, when the Democratic governor Cecil Andrus completed the last of his four nonconsecutive terms, Idaho has been ruled almost exclusively by Republicans. In the statehouse, where the G.O.P. outnumbers Democrats four to one, the real political action isn’t between the two parties but within the conservative ranks. The pandemic has pitted establishment Republicans, who defer to public-health officials’ expertise, against hard-right libertarians who prize austere constitutionalism.
Last spring, Idaho’s Brad Little was among the country’s first conservative governors to impose public-health orders. On March 20th, the state quarantined Blaine County, where the virus had spiked to what was briefly the highest infection rate in the country; the following week, Little ordered a statewide stay-at-home order, mobilized the Idaho National Guard, and reallocated nearly forty million dollars from the state budget for medical and testing equipment. By the time Little extended the stay-at-home order, on April 15th, Representative Heather Scott, of northern Idaho, had already referred to him as “Little Hitler.” Forcing people to stay home was “no different than Nazi Germany,” Scott said, where “nonessential workers got put on a train.” Judy Boyle, a representative from Midvale, about sixty-five miles northwest of Boise, upped the Nazi ante, calling mask requirements “too similar to not allowing Jews to shop when they were ‘required’ to wear the yellow star!!!”
Even as Little earned high approval ratings on the crisis from average Idahoans, ranking members of his own party turned on him, with Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin and the former U.S. congressman Raúl Labrador (who is expected to challenge Little in 2022) kicking off the mutiny. McGeachin and Little didn’t speak for several weeks after she and Labrador travelled to northern Idaho to support a brewery that was defying state orders. The conflict played out against the backdrop of the state’s rapid reopening, which, by May 30th, had restaurants and bars up and running, leading, in turn, to an uncontrolled second wave of the virus. On July 9th, Idaho surpassed Florida for the fastest-growing infection rate in the country.
In July, anti-mask protesters in Boise demonstrated against Mayor Lauren McLean’s order mandating face coverings. Photograph by Katherine Jones / Idaho Statesman / AP
Little, who makes a point of wearing a mask in public, tried to balance calls for statewide mandates against the insurrection in his own party. Under pressure from Republicans in the statehouse to roll back any statewide orders, he ultimately deferred to the state’s seven public-health districts to decide what was right for their own communities. That decision kicked off months of messy public debates on district health boards, which are composed largely of elected county commissioners, many of whom doubt the efficacy of masks and the threat of the virus. Some jurisdictions, unwilling to wait for the health boards to act, passed their own mandates, replicating within the state the same policy patchwork at play nationwide. (Little’s office did not respond to questions for this story.)
In the first week of Little’s initial stay-at-home order, Ammon Bundy began coördinating his first protests, as did Health Freedom Idaho and the Idaho Freedom Foundation (I.F.F.), a dark-money-funded libertarian policy shop and the state’s center of gravity for right-wing advocacy. (A recently filed citizen-watchdog complaint alleges that the I.F.F. is breaking the law by identifying itself as a 501(c)3 charity while operating as a lobbying organization. The I.F.F. has called the allegation “bogus” and said that it follows “the law to the letter.”) For the I.F.F., which was already a thorn in the side of the G.O.P. establishment when the pandemic hit, the crisis offered a range of opportunities. If Idahoans complied with mask mandates and business shutdowns, Bundy warned protesters in the spring, “then they will go further until we are lined up naked facing a mass grave being shot in the back of the head.”