newyorker--2020-12-23--Trump Directs His Wrecking Ball at the COVID-19 Relief Bill and Mitch McConnell

Last Friday , he met with his former national-security adviser , Michael Flynn , whom he pardoned last month , and with Sidney Powell , Flynn ’ s attorney , who has been spreading the idea that Trump ’ s loss was the result of a Venezuelan plot to rig voting machines in favor of Biden .
( Yes , Venezuelan .
In some version of the theory , which originated among QAnon followers , Cuba was involved , too . )
During that meeting , according to the Times , Trump discussed the idea of naming Powell as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and he also asked about an idea that Flynn had publicly floated : imposing martial law and ordering the military to oversee a rerun of the election .
On Thursday morning , Trump had taken to Twitter , where he again claimed that the Democrats had stolen the election , and demanded support from other G.O.P .
leaders : “ Now Republican politicians have to fight so that their great victory is not stolen .
Don ’ t be weak fools !
” But , while the President was busy examining remaining possibilities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of government was plodding along .
In the White House , aides reviewed a list of potential Presidential pardons so long , according to some reports , that it fills a spreadsheet .
Up on Capitol Hill , negotiators hashed out the final details of a nine-hundred-billion-dollar COVID-19 relief bill , which the House and Senate finally voted through , on Monday night .
At some point , Trump appears to have noticed that there was life outside his coup fantasy , and more scope for him to cause trouble—especially for the treacherous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clock on Tuesday evening , the White House announced that Trump had issued twenty pardons and commutations .
The names on the list included two men convicted in the Russia inquiry for lying to the F.B.I.—George Papadopoulos , who advised the Trump campaign on foreign policy , and Alex van der Zwaan , a lawyer .
Pardons or commutations also went to three former Republican congressmen who were convicted of corruption , and to four former contractors for Blackwater Worldwide who were jailed for the 2007 killing of fourteen Iraqi civilians .
Before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flimsy-at-best basis for many of the pardons , Trump unexpectedly made another announcement .
In a four-minute video posted on Twitter , he lit into the COVID-19 relief bill—which a White House spokesman had said hours earlier that he intended to sign—describing it as stuffed with pork and “ a disgrace.
” After absenting himself from the negotiations over the legislation for weeks , he called for it to be rewritten , with the cash payments to individuals raised from six hundred dollars to two thousand dollars .
Although he didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his implication was clear .
If Congress didn ’ t send him a “ suitable ” bill , Trump said , the “ next Administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package .
And maybe that Administration will be me , and we will get it done.
” In substantive terms , Trump ’ s critique had some force to it .
As reporters read through the five thousand five hundred and ninety-three pages of the bill , they found that it did , indeed , contain a number of costly items @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breaks for beer and liquor producers , producers of wind energy , and Nascar .
And some people on Capitol Hill , including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , on the Democratic side , and Josh Hawley , on the Republican side , had long been calling for the bill to include much bigger cash payments .
But , in political terms , Trump ’ s intervention was a wrecking ball aimed at McConnell , who the day before had hailed the new spending bill as “ another historic rescue package to help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the start of the tortuous negotiations that preceded the passage of the new spending bill , Trump had made clear that he wanted it to include cash payments of the type included in the CARES Act , which Congress passed in March .
But , according to the Washington Post , it was Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin , Trump ’ s representative in the stimulus talks , who proposed setting the new round of payments at six hundred dollars , which was only half the size of the payments in the March bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ payments was a way of keeping down the over-all cost of the bill , which was a key aim of many Republicans , McConnell especially .
Why didn ’ t Trump intervene before the spending bill got to his desk ?
The answer is far from clear .
The Post ’ s report said that Trump “ had largely been distracted with overturning the results of the presidential election.
” But , citing an Administration official as its source , the report also said , “ He had long wanted to do more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asking aides why they couldn ’ t agree to a bigger number.
” One thing we know for sure is that Trump ’ s last-minute intervention delighted Democrats and put McConnell in a bind .
Barely an hour after the President posted his video , Nancy Pelosi , the House Speaker , added to the Senate Majority Leader ’ s torment by demanding a new vote on Trump ’ s proposal to jack up the direct payments .
“ At last , the President has agreed to $ 2,000 — Democrats are ready @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week by unanimous consent .
Let ’ s do it !
” Pelosi tweeted .
As the night went on , other Democrats gleefully lined up alongside the Speaker .
“ We can pass $ 2k checks this week if the Senate GOP agrees to stand down , ” tweeted Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , who , along with her fellow-progressive Representative Rashida Tlaib , had already proposed direct payments of two thousand dollars .
Shortly before midnight , Chuck Schumer , the Senate Minority Leader , retweeted Ocasio-Cortez ’ s message , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Whaddya say , Mitch ?
” According to the Wall Street Journal , the official answer to that question was that McConnell had no comment .
The unofficial answer was probably unprintable .
At root , Trump has always been an incendiary force and a wrecker .
As the end closes in on him and his Presidency , he ’ s turning his anger on fellow-Republicans .
What the outcome of his latest intervention will be is difficult to predict , but amending the COVID-19 spending bill in the next few days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ members of Congress have already left town , and Trump is due to fly to Florida later today .
Moreover , the relief package is tied to a broader bill to fund the entire government .
If Trump doesn ’ t sign this legislation before next Monday , then , in theory , the government will close down .
In short , Trump has created disarray , especially for his own party .
He could still back off , as he has before .
If he doesn ’ t , the outcome of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for American pocketbooks , the run-off elections in Georgia , and the polity that Biden inherits .
Oh , and one other thing : Trump still has another twenty-eight days in office to create yet more mayhem .
More on the Coronavirus • To protect American lives and revive the economy , Donald Trump and Jared Kushner should listen to Anthony Fauci rather than trash him .
• We should look to students to conceive of appropriate school-reopening plans .
It is not too late to ask what they really want .
• @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the crisis .
• Trump is helping tycoons who have donated to his reëlection campaign exploit the pandemic to maximize profits .
• Meet the high-finance mogul in charge of our economic recovery .
• The coronavirus is likely to reshape architecture .
What kinds of space are we willing to live and work in now ?

Until Tuesday evening, Donald Trump spent a week largely out of the public eye. After the Supreme Court torpedoed his effort to overturn the election result, the Electoral College confirmed Joe Biden’s win, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally recognized Biden as the President-elect, Trump skulked inside the White House with even fewer items than usual on his public schedule. As the days went by, it emerged that he was spending much of his time consulting with the dwindling band of Administration loyalists, conspiracy theorists, and out-there elected Republicans who were willing to console him with the thought that all might not be lost.
Last Friday, he met with his former national-security adviser, Michael Flynn, whom he pardoned last month, and with Sidney Powell, Flynn’s attorney, who has been spreading the idea that Trump’s loss was the result of a Venezuelan plot to rig voting machines in favor of Biden. (Yes, Venezuelan. In some version of the theory, which originated among QAnon followers, Cuba was involved, too.) During that meeting, according to the Times, Trump discussed the idea of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud, and he also asked about an idea that Flynn had publicly floated: imposing martial law and ordering the military to oversee a rerun of the election. On Thursday morning, Trump had taken to Twitter, where he again claimed that the Democrats had stolen the election, and demanded support from other G.O.P. leaders: “Now Republican politicians have to fight so that their great victory is not stolen. Don’t be weak fools!”
But, while the President was busy examining remaining possibilities to overthrow democracy, the other business of government was plodding along. In the White House, aides reviewed a list of potential Presidential pardons so long, according to some reports, that it fills a spreadsheet. Up on Capitol Hill, negotiators hashed out the final details of a nine-hundred-billion-dollar COVID-19 relief bill, which the House and Senate finally voted through, on Monday night. At some point, Trump appears to have noticed that there was life outside his coup fantasy, and more scope for him to cause trouble—especially for the treacherous McConnell.
At about seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, the White House announced that Trump had issued twenty pardons and commutations. The names on the list included two men convicted in the Russia inquiry for lying to the F.B.I.—George Papadopoulos, who advised the Trump campaign on foreign policy, and Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer. Pardons or commutations also went to three former Republican congressmen who were convicted of corruption, and to four former contractors for Blackwater Worldwide who were jailed for the 2007 killing of fourteen Iraqi civilians.
Before anyone had a chance to digest the flimsy-at-best basis for many of the pardons, Trump unexpectedly made another announcement. In a four-minute video posted on Twitter, he lit into the COVID-19 relief bill—which a White House spokesman had said hours earlier that he intended to sign—describing it as stuffed with pork and “a disgrace.” After absenting himself from the negotiations over the legislation for weeks, he called for it to be rewritten, with the cash payments to individuals raised from six hundred dollars to two thousand dollars. Although he didn’t explicitly threaten to veto the legislation, his implication was clear. If Congress didn’t send him a “suitable” bill, Trump said, the “next Administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package. And maybe that Administration will be me, and we will get it done.”
In substantive terms, Trump’s critique had some force to it. As reporters read through the five thousand five hundred and ninety-three pages of the bill, they found that it did, indeed, contain a number of costly items unrelated to the coronavirus, including tax breaks for beer and liquor producers, producers of wind energy, and Nascar. And some people on Capitol Hill, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on the Democratic side, and Josh Hawley, on the Republican side, had long been calling for the bill to include much bigger cash payments. But, in political terms, Trump’s intervention was a wrecking ball aimed at McConnell, who the day before had hailed the new spending bill as “another historic rescue package to help American families through this pandemic.”
At the start of the tortuous negotiations that preceded the passage of the new spending bill, Trump had made clear that he wanted it to include cash payments of the type included in the CARES Act, which Congress passed in March. But, according to the Washington Post, it was Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s representative in the stimulus talks, who proposed setting the new round of payments at six hundred dollars, which was only half the size of the payments in the March bill. Restricting the size of the direct payments was a way of keeping down the over-all cost of the bill, which was a key aim of many Republicans, McConnell especially.
Why didn’t Trump intervene before the spending bill got to his desk? The answer is far from clear. The Post’s report said that Trump “had largely been distracted with overturning the results of the presidential election.” But, citing an Administration official as its source, the report also said, “He had long wanted to do more than $600 in checks and kept asking aides why they couldn’t agree to a bigger number.”
One thing we know for sure is that Trump’s last-minute intervention delighted Democrats and put McConnell in a bind. Barely an hour after the President posted his video, Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, added to the Senate Majority Leader’s torment by demanding a new vote on Trump’s proposal to jack up the direct payments. “At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let’s do it!” Pelosi tweeted. As the night went on, other Democrats gleefully lined up alongside the Speaker. “We can pass $2k checks this week if the Senate GOP agrees to stand down,” tweeted Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, along with her fellow-progressive Representative Rashida Tlaib, had already proposed direct payments of two thousand dollars. Shortly before midnight, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, retweeted Ocasio-Cortez’s message, and added, “I’m in. Whaddya say, Mitch?”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the official answer to that question was that McConnell had no comment. The unofficial answer was probably unprintable. At root, Trump has always been an incendiary force and a wrecker. As the end closes in on him and his Presidency, he’s turning his anger on fellow-Republicans. What the outcome of his latest intervention will be is difficult to predict, but amending the COVID-19 spending bill in the next few days wouldn’t be easy. Many members of Congress have already left town, and Trump is due to fly to Florida later today. Moreover, the relief package is tied to a broader bill to fund the entire government. If Trump doesn’t sign this legislation before next Monday, then, in theory, the government will close down.
In short, Trump has created disarray, especially for his own party. He could still back off, as he has before. If he doesn’t, the outcome of this particular saga could have big consequences for American pocketbooks, the run-off elections in Georgia, and the polity that Biden inherits. Oh, and one other thing: Trump still has another twenty-eight days in office to create yet more mayhem.
More on the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-12-21--The New COVID-19 Relief Package Is Flawed But Essential

Speaking on the Senate floor on Sunday , Chuck Schumer , the Minority Leader , said that the new COVID-19 spending bill that both parties have agreed on was “ far from perfect , but it will deliver genuine relief to a nation in the throes of a genuine emergency.
” Based on what we know so far about the package , which the House and Senate are expected to vote on Monday or Tuesday , that is a pretty fair description .
The bill will extend the emergency relief for small businesses and the jobless which Congress approved in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to states for distributing vaccines and reopening schools .
That ’ s all to the good , but the bill also has some significant drawbacks .
Its best features are that it is large—roughly nine hundred billion dollars—and that most of the spending will be concentrated in the next few months , a period in which the majority of Americans still won ’ t have received a prick in the arm .
With the relentless spread of the coronavirus prompting more restrictive measures , jobless claims are rising again , and many small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of renters and homeowners have fallen behind on their monthly payments .
If Congress had done nothing , the country would have faced a humanitarian disaster as well as an economic one in the New Year .
The biggest item in the new package is about two hundred and eighty billion dollars to extend the Paycheck Protection Program , which pays small businesses to keep people employed .
The next biggest article—at a cost of about a hundred and sixty-six billion dollars—is the direct payment of six hundred dollars to each American , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dollars for individuals and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for two-income families , after which the amount gradually phases out .
A working family of four under the threshold will receive twenty-four hundred dollars , which won ’ t be taxable .
Another hundred and twenty billion will go to extend and expand unemployment benefits , including those that the CARES Act provided to gig workers in March .
This time , though , the extra weekly payment is three hundred dollars instead of six hundred .
Together , these three measures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the new funding .
The rest of the money will go to other programs associated with fighting the virus .
Eighty-two billion dollars will be directed at efforts to reopen schools ; forty-five billion will go to the stricken transportation sector , with twenty-nine billion to distributing vaccines and another twenty-nine billion to testing and tracing .
An additional sixty-five billion will be allocated to programs that provide nutrition , rental assistance , and child care for needy families .
As Schumer indicated , much of this money will end up in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which is obviously a good thing .
By raising the over-all level of demand in the economy , the new bill should also drive consumer spending and help prevent a double-dip recession .
In macroeconomic terms , the total amount of spending is hefty .
At approximately four per cent of G.D.P.
, it ’ s about half the size of the CARES Act and roughly comparable , relative to the size of the economy , to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 .
If you add it to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ April , the over-all fiscal response to the pandemic comes to more than fifteen per cent of G.D.P .
That makes it the biggest peacetime spending blitz in U.S. history , which is perfectly appropriate .
The pandemic is probably the biggest shock that the U.S. economy has received in peacetime .
Large-scale disaster relief was essential , and interest rates are so low that the federal government hasn ’ t encountered any difficulty in financing it .
The weaknesses of the package are tied to the politics of getting a bill passed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To keep the total cost of the package under a trillion dollars , which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell demanded , unemployment benefits will only be extended for eleven weeks .
That means the new Congress will have to address the issue again , in March .
Economists will point out that some of the direct payments will go to people who don ’ t need them , but progressive Democrats and Trump were both demanding their inclusion .
The lack of direct budget aid to states and municipalities , which have seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem that will need to be addressed this spring .
Because cities and states are on the front lines of confronting the virus , reopening schools , and organizing vaccinations , they will receive some financial aid for these particular tasks .
But more help will be needed to prevent another big round of layoffs of teachers , maintenance workers , and other public-sector employees as states try to balance their budgets .
Another problem with the package—which also applied to the CARES Act—is that it is heavily centered on the Paycheck Protection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ governments chose to address the pandemic by directly covering much or all of the payroll costs for businesses in badly affected sectors .
The Paycheck Protection Program is a government loan program that operates through banks .
As of August , the program had handed out more than five million loans , which in most cases don ’ t have to be repaid .
But many small-business owners have complained that they had difficulty in accessing the money .
Despite the program ’ s small-business targets , some of the firms that received @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones , and others were associated with elected officials and members of the Trump Administration , including Donald Trump and Jared Kushner .
According to initial reports , the new spending bill accentuates this inequity by introducing a big tax break for wealthy owners of businesses that previously received money under the program .
Even though the government covered most of the costs that these business owners faced as a result of the pandemic , they will still be able to deduct some of those costs from their taxes , which means that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Even Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said that this would be a bad idea , and Adam Looney , a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution , has warned that it could deliver a windfall of a hundred and twenty billion dollars in tax savings to members of the top one per cent .
But a version of this giveaway still made it into the final bill .
A final problem with the bill is that it only extends the federal moratorium on evictions through the end of January , leaving the onus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action .
This and other clauses of the bill seem to have been designed to win the votes of senators , particularly Republicans , who are beholden to wealthy campaign donors—an all too familiar problem .
In the final analysis , though , the new spending package should help keep the economy afloat until vaccinations are widely available .
Its finalization was necessary and welcome .
More on the Coronavirus • To protect American lives and revive the economy , Donald Trump and Jared Kushner should listen to Anthony Fauci rather than trash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students to conceive of appropriate school-reopening plans .
It is not too late to ask what they really want .
• A pregnant pediatrician on what children need during the crisis .
• Trump is helping tycoons who have donated to his reëlection campaign exploit the pandemic to maximize profits .
• Meet the high-finance mogul in charge of our economic recovery .
• The coronavirus is likely to reshape architecture .
What kinds of space are we willing to live and work in now ?

Speaking on the Senate floor on Sunday, Chuck Schumer, the Minority Leader, said that the new COVID-19 spending bill that both parties have agreed on was “far from perfect, but it will deliver genuine relief to a nation in the throes of a genuine emergency.” Based on what we know so far about the package, which the House and Senate are expected to vote on Monday or Tuesday, that is a pretty fair description. The bill will extend the emergency relief for small businesses and the jobless which Congress approved in March, and also provide more money to states for distributing vaccines and reopening schools. That’s all to the good, but the bill also has some significant drawbacks.
Its best features are that it is large—roughly nine hundred billion dollars—and that most of the spending will be concentrated in the next few months, a period in which the majority of Americans still won’t have received a prick in the arm. With the relentless spread of the coronavirus prompting more restrictive measures, jobless claims are rising again, and many small businesses are facing existential challenges. Millions of renters and homeowners have fallen behind on their monthly payments. If Congress had done nothing, the country would have faced a humanitarian disaster as well as an economic one in the New Year.
The biggest item in the new package is about two hundred and eighty billion dollars to extend the Paycheck Protection Program, which pays small businesses to keep people employed. The next biggest article—at a cost of about a hundred and sixty-six billion dollars—is the direct payment of six hundred dollars to each American, with an earnings cap of seventy-five thousand dollars for individuals and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for two-income families, after which the amount gradually phases out. A working family of four under the threshold will receive twenty-four hundred dollars, which won’t be taxable. Another hundred and twenty billion will go to extend and expand unemployment benefits, including those that the CARES Act provided to gig workers in March. This time, though, the extra weekly payment is three hundred dollars instead of six hundred.
Together, these three measures will account for more than two-thirds of the new funding. The rest of the money will go to other programs associated with fighting the virus. Eighty-two billion dollars will be directed at efforts to reopen schools; forty-five billion will go to the stricken transportation sector, with twenty-nine billion to distributing vaccines and another twenty-nine billion to testing and tracing. An additional sixty-five billion will be allocated to programs that provide nutrition, rental assistance, and child care for needy families.
As Schumer indicated, much of this money will end up in the hands of people who badly need it, which is obviously a good thing. By raising the over-all level of demand in the economy, the new bill should also drive consumer spending and help prevent a double-dip recession. In macroeconomic terms, the total amount of spending is hefty. At approximately four per cent of G.D.P., it’s about half the size of the CARES Act and roughly comparable, relative to the size of the economy, to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. If you add it to the measures that Congress took in March and April, the over-all fiscal response to the pandemic comes to more than fifteen per cent of G.D.P. That makes it the biggest peacetime spending blitz in U.S. history, which is perfectly appropriate. The pandemic is probably the biggest shock that the U.S. economy has received in peacetime. Large-scale disaster relief was essential, and interest rates are so low that the federal government hasn’t encountered any difficulty in financing it.
The weaknesses of the package are tied to the politics of getting a bill passed on a bitterly divided Capitol Hill. To keep the total cost of the package under a trillion dollars, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell demanded, unemployment benefits will only be extended for eleven weeks. That means the new Congress will have to address the issue again, in March. Economists will point out that some of the direct payments will go to people who don’ t need them, but progressive Democrats and Trump were both demanding their inclusion. The lack of direct budget aid to states and municipalities, which have seen their tax bases hammered, is another problem that will need to be addressed this spring. Because cities and states are on the front lines of confronting the virus, reopening schools, and organizing vaccinations, they will receive some financial aid for these particular tasks. But more help will be needed to prevent another big round of layoffs of teachers, maintenance workers, and other public-sector employees as states try to balance their budgets.
Another problem with the package—which also applied to the CARES Act—is that it is heavily centered on the Paycheck Protection Program. In other developed countries, governments chose to address the pandemic by directly covering much or all of the payroll costs for businesses in badly affected sectors. The Paycheck Protection Program is a government loan program that operates through banks. As of August, the program had handed out more than five million loans, which in most cases don’t have to be repaid. But many small-business owners have complained that they had difficulty in accessing the money. Despite the program’s small-business targets, some of the firms that received loans turned out to be very large ones, and others were associated with elected officials and members of the Trump Administration, including Donald Trump and Jared Kushner.
According to initial reports, the new spending bill accentuates this inequity by introducing a big tax break for wealthy owners of businesses that previously received money under the program. Even though the government covered most of the costs that these business owners faced as a result of the pandemic, they will still be able to deduct some of those costs from their taxes, which means that the taxpayer will effectively pay them—twice. Even Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said that this would be a bad idea, and Adam Looney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has warned that it could deliver a windfall of a hundred and twenty billion dollars in tax savings to members of the top one per cent. But a version of this giveaway still made it into the final bill.
A final problem with the bill is that it only extends the federal moratorium on evictions through the end of January, leaving the onus on the Biden Administration to take further action. This and other clauses of the bill seem to have been designed to win the votes of senators, particularly Republicans, who are beholden to wealthy campaign donors—an all too familiar problem. In the final analysis, though, the new spending package should help keep the economy afloat until vaccinations are widely available. Its finalization was necessary and welcome.
More on the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-12-24--Charles Dickens, the Writer Who Saw Lockdown Everywhere

In February of 1824 , Charles Dickens watched in anguish as his father was arrested for debt and sent to the Marshalsea prison , just south of the Thames , in London .
“ I really believed at the time , ” Dickens told his friend and biographer , John Forster , “ that they had broken my heart.
” Soon , Dickens ’ s mother and his younger siblings joined the father at Marshalsea , while a resentful Dickens earned money at a blacking factory , labelling pots of polish for shoes and boots .
Although his father would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never fully outrun the memory of his family ’ s incarceration .
In her 2011 biography , Claire Tomalin notes that , in adulthood , Dickens became “ an obsessive visitor of prisons.
” In the autobiographical essay , “ Night Walks , ” he describes halting in the shadows of Newgate Prison , “ touching its rough stone ” and lingering “ by that wicked little Debtors ’ Door – shutting tighter than any other door one ever saw.
” While touring America as a famous author , he made sure to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , New York , and Baltimore , among others .
Dickens ’ s obsession appeared in his first novel , “ The Pickwick Papers , ” and would continue to haunt his imagination through the years .
In “ Great Expectations , ” the provincial hero Pip visits Newgate and thinks “ how strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime .
.
.
starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone ; that , it should in this new way pervade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t just the setting of Pip ’ s queasy tour .
It waits to enclose Fagin at the end of “ Oliver Twist , ” and , in “ Barnaby Rudge , ” the historical novel about the Gordon Riots of 1780 , a mob breaks into the prison and burns it down .
“ A Tale of Two Cities ” begins with the return of a Bastille prisoner to his family , and ends in La Force , where the French revolutionaries hold those condemned to die by guillotine .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ serialized between 1855 and 1857 , is set in the Marshalsea , an imagined return to the place where Dickens ’ s father was kept from him .
“ Little Dorrit ” is Dickens ’ s most harrowing prison novel , a plangent study of the costs of confinement .
The Dorrits , like the Dickenses , are released when someone else pays their debts , but Dickens shows how Little Dorrit , who was born in the Marshalsea , has trouble distinguishing freedom from captivity .
The Dorrits stamp their return to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but Little Dorrit can ’ t accept the truth of her liberty .
She moves from one ornate lodging to the next , all passing before her vision as a procession of “ unrealities.
” She muses cynically on the similarities between prisoners and tourists : “ They prowled about the churches and picture-galleries , much in the old , dreary , prison-yard manner.
” From the balcony of her Venice apartment , she looks down over the dark water as if “ it might run dry , and show her the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the old room , and the old inmates , and the old visitors : all lasting realities that had never changed.
” Flinging open a door , Dickens suggests , isn ’ t always enough to free someone .
In fact , the prison is even more prevalent in his work as a metaphor than it is as a setting .
Coketown , the fictional industrial locale of “ Hard Times , ” is a place “ where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is packed with actual prisons , but even the novel ’ s bank , Tellson ’ s , is described as a dank oubliette .
There are iron bars and a perpetual “ dismal twilight , ” and when a young man goes to work there , “ they hid him somewhere till he was old.
” Dickens , influenced by his days in the blacking factory , passionately exposed how employers entrap their workers , but he also sprinkled his prison-yard dust over his characters ’ homes .
In “ Great Expectations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dismal ” dwelling , Satis House , has all the key features : “ Some of the windows had been walled up ; of those that remained , all the lower were rustily barred.
” As anyone in quarantine can tell you , a metaphoric prison needs a metaphoric prisoner .
Dickens understood the ease with which we can become locked inside our own lives , whether through habit , circumstance , injustice , or the ever-tightening circuit of our obsessions .
Several of his most memorable characters are in some way arrested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being jilted at the altar , idles in her ruined mansion .
( On meeting Pip , she asks : “ You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born ?
” ) Then there ’ s Mrs. Clennam , from “ Little Dorrit , ” who , sitting in the standard-issue Gothic gloom , constantly broods on the past .
Of these people , whose plight might seem familiar to us , Dickens writes : “ To stop the clock of busy existence , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sequestered from it ; to suppose mankind stricken motionless , when we were brought to a stand-still [ .
.
. ]
is the mental unhealthiness of almost all recluses.
” For Dickens , imprisonment wasn ’ t just a stain on society ; it was an aspect of the self .
His flamboyant character names suggest that personality itself is a kind of cage .
There is the unyielding Mr. Gradgrind , the foolish Mr. Bumble , and the miserly “ Scrooge , ” whose name is drawn from “ screw ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to ruthless financial practices .
Scrooge , who is “ grasping ” in his pursuit of money , is trapped by his own fixations— “ secret and self-contained , and solitary as an oyster ” —and Dickens makes clear that we all share something of his padlocked heart .
Early in “ A Tale of Two Cities , ” he meditates on how distant and unknowable we are to one another .
He imagines a “ great city ” at night , but instead of touring its prisons he asks us to consider @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clustered houses encloses its own secret ; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret ; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there , is , in some of its imaginings , a secret to the heart nearest it !
” Dickens ’ s plots often depend on these secrets , which are variously withheld , traded , and revealed as the stories unfold .
But they provide more than melodrama .
The Dickensian secret , shut fast inside his characters ’ chests , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There are , he proposes , always high walls between us .
This claustrophobic vision of selfhood is mirrored in Dickens ’ s broader social commentary .
Although he wrote in the Victorian age , which saw the rise of advanced networks of communication and , via new railways , the improved circulation of people and goods , Dickens understood how the grand modernizing drive produced new kinds of imprisonment .
Industrialization captured swaths of the population in repetitive factory work .
The widening of London roads displaced the poor .
Many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slums like those in “ Bleak House , ” where “ nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses , shut up and silent.
” All around him , Dickens saw sequestered lives , despite the liberating myth of progress .
He placed much of the blame on the state , whose institutions , he felt , stifled citizens with bureaucracy .
“ Bleak House ” is again a fine example , as it satirizes a legal system that pins people beneath its sluggish machinery .
The novel ’ s central lawsuit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for decades , and potential beneficiaries are born and die before it is resolved in the Court of Chancery .
Old Miss Flite , who believes that she has a stake in the case , keeps birds caged in her room , to be released when judgment finally comes .
She refers to both the birds and the claimants of Jarndyce when she says : “ Their lives , poor silly things , are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that , one by one , the whole collection has died over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do you know , whether one of these , though they are all young , will live to be free !
” Such confinements cause a sickness both spiritual and literal ; multiple characters contract an unnamed contagion resembling smallpox .
In Dickens ’ s choked society , only disease circulates freely .
In 2019 , a trove of letters from Edward Dutton Cook , a confidant of Dickens ’ s wife , Catherine , made the news .
In one of the letters , Cook contends that Dickens resented Catherine for losing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even tried to shut her up in a lunatic asylum , poor thing !
” It had long been known that Dickens was an unkind husband , even a cruel one , but the letters recast the author as a sinister would-be jailer .
How could the man who dramatized so many injustices of his era—the atrocious conditions of workers , the marriage market ’ s harm to women ’ s lives , the moral hypocrisy of the establishment—be so brutal in his relationships ?
He was clearly attuned to the terrors of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ A Visit to Newgate , ” Dickens tenderly imagines the dream of a prisoner condemned to die the next morning .
“ The night is dark and cold , ” he writes , “ the gates have been left open , and in an instant he is in the street , flying from the scene of imprisonment like the wind.
” There ’ s an echo of the author himself in these lines .
On the page , Dickens accessed empathy in a way he couldn ’ t in life .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it also offered him an escape from the prison of his personality .
He became , in the production of his works , hundreds of people .
And yet , just like Little Dorrit , his imagination spent its liberty by continually flying back inside the penitentiary walls .
If Dickens ’ s ghost is now in handcuffs , the novels themselves , for the expansiveness and seriousness of their moral vision , can be cleared of their author ’ s crimes .
The best art is the wiliest of escape artists .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ frees itself , and flies .
• 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 .

Dickens’s obsession with prisons appeared in his first novel and continued to haunt him through the years. Photograph from Alamy
In February of 1824, Charles Dickens watched in anguish as his father was arrested for debt and sent to the Marshalsea prison, just south of the Thames, in London. “I really believed at the time,” Dickens told his friend and biographer, John Forster, “that they had broken my heart.” Soon, Dickens’s mother and his younger siblings joined the father at Marshalsea, while a resentful Dickens earned money at a blacking factory, labelling pots of polish for shoes and boots. Although his father would be released within months, Dickens would never fully outrun the memory of his family’s incarceration. In her 2011 biography, Claire Tomalin notes that, in adulthood, Dickens became “an obsessive visitor of prisons.” In the autobiographical essay, “Night Walks,” he describes halting in the shadows of Newgate Prison, “touching its rough stone” and lingering “by that wicked little Debtors’ Door – shutting tighter than any other door one ever saw.” While touring America as a famous author, he made sure to go and see the prisons in Boston, New York, and Baltimore, among others.
Dickens’s obsession appeared in his first novel, “The Pickwick Papers,” and would continue to haunt his imagination through the years. In “Great Expectations,” the provincial hero Pip visits Newgate and thinks “how strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime . . . starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone; that, it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement.” Newgate isn’t just the setting of Pip’s queasy tour. It waits to enclose Fagin at the end of “Oliver Twist,” and, in “Barnaby Rudge,” the historical novel about the Gordon Riots of 1780, a mob breaks into the prison and burns it down. “A Tale of Two Cities” begins with the return of a Bastille prisoner to his family, and ends in La Force, where the French revolutionaries hold those condemned to die by guillotine. And “Little Dorrit,” which was serialized between 1855 and 1857, is set in the Marshalsea, an imagined return to the place where Dickens’s father was kept from him.
“Little Dorrit” is Dickens’s most harrowing prison novel, a plangent study of the costs of confinement. The Dorrits, like the Dickenses, are released when someone else pays their debts, but Dickens shows how Little Dorrit, who was born in the Marshalsea, has trouble distinguishing freedom from captivity. The Dorrits stamp their return to respectability with an ostentatious tour of Italy, but Little Dorrit can’t accept the truth of her liberty. She moves from one ornate lodging to the next, all passing before her vision as a procession of “unrealities.” She muses cynically on the similarities between prisoners and tourists: “They prowled about the churches and picture-galleries, much in the old, dreary, prison-yard manner.” From the balcony of her Venice apartment, she looks down over the dark water as if “it might run dry, and show her the prison again, and herself, and the old room, and the old inmates, and the old visitors: all lasting realities that had never changed.”
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
Flinging open a door, Dickens suggests, isn’t always enough to free someone. In fact, the prison is even more prevalent in his work as a metaphor than it is as a setting. Coketown, the fictional industrial locale of “Hard Times,” is a place “where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in.” “A Tale of Two Cities” is packed with actual prisons, but even the novel’s bank, Tellson’s, is described as a dank oubliette. There are iron bars and a perpetual “dismal twilight,” and when a young man goes to work there, “they hid him somewhere till he was old.” Dickens, influenced by his days in the blacking factory, passionately exposed how employers entrap their workers, but he also sprinkled his prison-yard dust over his characters’ homes. In “Great Expectations,” Miss Havisham’s “dismal” dwelling, Satis House, has all the key features: “Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred.”
As anyone in quarantine can tell you, a metaphoric prison needs a metaphoric prisoner. Dickens understood the ease with which we can become locked inside our own lives, whether through habit, circumstance, injustice, or the ever-tightening circuit of our obsessions. Several of his most memorable characters are in some way arrested. Miss Havisham, unable to forget being jilted at the altar, idles in her ruined mansion. (On meeting Pip, she asks: “You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?”) Then there’s Mrs. Clennam, from “Little Dorrit,” who, sitting in the standard-issue Gothic gloom, constantly broods on the past. Of these people, whose plight might seem familiar to us, Dickens writes: “To stop the clock of busy existence, at the hour when we were personally sequestered from it; to suppose mankind stricken motionless, when we were brought to a stand-still [. . .] is the mental unhealthiness of almost all recluses.”
For Dickens, imprisonment wasn’t just a stain on society; it was an aspect of the self. His flamboyant character names suggest that personality itself is a kind of cage. There is the unyielding Mr. Gradgrind, the foolish Mr. Bumble, and the miserly “Scrooge,” whose name is drawn from “screw” and “gouge,” both alluding to ruthless financial practices. Scrooge, who is “grasping” in his pursuit of money, is trapped by his own fixations—“secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster”—and Dickens makes clear that we all share something of his padlocked heart. Early in “A Tale of Two Cities,” he meditates on how distant and unknowable we are to one another. He imagines a “great city” at night, but instead of touring its prisons he asks us to consider that “every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!”
Dickens’s plots often depend on these secrets, which are variously withheld, traded, and revealed as the stories unfold. But they provide more than melodrama. The Dickensian secret, shut fast inside his characters’ chests, emphasizes our inherent separation from one another. There are, he proposes, always high walls between us.
This claustrophobic vision of selfhood is mirrored in Dickens’s broader social commentary. Although he wrote in the Victorian age, which saw the rise of advanced networks of communication and, via new railways, the improved circulation of people and goods, Dickens understood how the grand modernizing drive produced new kinds of imprisonment. Industrialization captured swaths of the population in repetitive factory work. The widening of London roads displaced the poor. Many of them lived in cramped, plagued slums like those in “Bleak House,” where “nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut up and silent.”
All around him, Dickens saw sequestered lives, despite the liberating myth of progress. He placed much of the blame on the state, whose institutions, he felt, stifled citizens with bureaucracy. “Bleak House” is again a fine example, as it satirizes a legal system that pins people beneath its sluggish machinery. The novel’s central lawsuit, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, has lasted for decades, and potential beneficiaries are born and die before it is resolved in the Court of Chancery. Old Miss Flite, who believes that she has a stake in the case, keeps birds caged in her room, to be released when judgment finally comes. She refers to both the birds and the claimants of Jarndyce when she says: “Their lives, poor silly things, are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by one, the whole collection has died over and over again. I doubt, do you know, whether one of these, though they are all young, will live to be free!” Such confinements cause a sickness both spiritual and literal; multiple characters contract an unnamed contagion resembling smallpox. In Dickens’s choked society, only disease circulates freely.
In 2019, a trove of letters from Edward Dutton Cook, a confidant of Dickens’s wife, Catherine, made the news. In one of the letters, Cook contends that Dickens resented Catherine for losing her looks, and that “he even tried to shut her up in a lunatic asylum, poor thing!” It had long been known that Dickens was an unkind husband, even a cruel one, but the letters recast the author as a sinister would-be jailer. How could the man who dramatized so many injustices of his era—the atrocious conditions of workers, the marriage market’s harm to women’s lives, the moral hypocrisy of the establishment—be so brutal in his relationships? He was clearly attuned to the terrors of imprisonment. In an early nonfiction sketch, “A Visit to Newgate,” Dickens tenderly imagines the dream of a prisoner condemned to die the next morning. “The night is dark and cold,” he writes, “the gates have been left open, and in an instant he is in the street, flying from the scene of imprisonment like the wind.”
There’s an echo of the author himself in these lines. On the page, Dickens accessed empathy in a way he couldn’t in life. Writing fiction liberated him financially, but it also offered him an escape from the prison of his personality. He became, in the production of his works, hundreds of people. And yet, just like Little Dorrit, his imagination spent its liberty by continually flying back inside the penitentiary walls. If Dickens’s ghost is now in handcuffs, the novels themselves, for the expansiveness and seriousness of their moral vision, can be cleared of their author’s crimes. The best art is the wiliest of escape artists. Mysteriously forging its own keys, it frees itself, and flies.
2020 in Review


newyorker--2020-12-24--Daily Cartoon: Thursday, December 24th

Daily Cartoon: Thursday, December 24th

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newyorker--2020-12-24--Our Favorite Crossword Clues of 2020

Our Favorite Crossword Clues of 2020

For some , crosswords offered a reprieve from reality , a portal to a logophilic DREAM WORLD ( Place like Oz or Wonderland : ten letters ) .
But our favorite puzzles went beyond escapism .
They wrangled with the politics of language ; they shone a spotlight on remarkable people and felicitous phrases ; they informed as well as delighted ( to paraphrase a crossword-friendly text , Horace ’ s “ ___ Poetica ” : three letters ) .
In June , we added a third weekly puzzle , plus three more constructors : Wyna Liu , Caitlin Reid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , alongside Erik Agard , Patrick Berry , Kameron Austin Collins , Elizabeth C. Gorski , Natan Last , Aimee Lucido , and Anna Shechtman .
From this abundance , it was daunting to pick only a handful of favorite clues , so , instead , we decided to look for patterns .
You ’ ll find the result below : a taxonomy of New Yorker Crossword clues .
As with all taxonomies , worthy categories have been left out .
( Speaking of dream worlds , “ Wizard of Oz ” clues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own . )
But we hope you enjoy this glimpse , however unscientific , of the gestalt .
As is now tradition , we will , starting today , bring you a new year-in-review crossword every day through the end of the year .
These puzzles will test your knowledge of 2020 across eight subjects : language ( Thursday ) , literature ( Friday ) , science and tech ( Saturday ) , TV ( Sunday ) , movies ( Monday ) , music ( Tuesday ) , sports ( Wednesday ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Once you ’ ve finished those , be sure to visit the Puzzles & Games Dept .
next week for a bonus puzzle to ring in the New Year .
There ’ s a fine line between crossword humor and DAD JOKES , a coinage that made it into Patrick ’ s language-themed puzzle last year .
But we defy you to groan at these puns .
One with four legs and many hands ?
A : CARD TABLE Desert after the meal ?
A : DINE AND DASH Because wordplay is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this category merits a few subdivisions , such as : Bardolatry wordplay , a fitting tribute to the man who added hundreds of words to the English language : Meta wordplay , or clues about figures of speech : Wordplay not suitable for all ages : This may be our fact checkers ’ least favorite category , because famous quotations are so often misquotations— “ coins rubbed smooth by circulation , ” to quote Louis Menand .
Still , in the cross-world , they ’ re the coin of the realm .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ truffle oil “ about as edible as Astroglide ” A : ANTHONY BOURDAIN Somali-British poet who wrote , “ no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark ” A : WARSAN SHIRE Whence the line “ Women come to New York in search of the two Ls : labels and love ” A : SEX AND THE CITY One of the six words in Hemingway ’ s apocryphal six-word story A : SHOES Rapper with the line “ real Gs move in silence like lasagna ” ( March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brian Eno , or Yoko Ono , but we ’ re always grateful when constructors feature people ( and characters ) who rarely make it into crosswords .
French Surrealist photographer known for “ Portrait of Ubu ” ( 1936 ) A : DORA MAAR “ Bleak House ” character who was one of the first detectives in English fiction A : INSPECTOR BUCKET Frankfurt School philosopher who said , “ To those who no longer have a homeland , writing becomes home ” A : THEODOR ADORNO Civil-rights lawyer and activist who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to institutional discrimination against women ( December 14th ) Some solvers argue that trivia has no place in a crossword ; we humbly disagree .
It ’ s a bonus when you can hone your “ Jeopardy !
” skills ( we miss you , Alex Trebek ) while working through a grid .
Term that comes from the name of a news photographer in Fellini ’ s “ La Dolce Vita ” A : PAPARAZZI Org .
that once funded the Museum of Modern Art , Partisan Review , and The Paris @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the colors of the Italian flag A : CAPRESE Sung to the tune of [ Showstopping number performed by Jennifer Hudson in the 2019 movie “ Cats ” : six letters ] .
DJ ___ , former third member of Salt-N-Pepa A : SPINDERELLA Song written by Graham Nash called “ an ode to countercultural domestic bliss ” A : OUR HOUSE 1976 self-titled album with “ Love Hangover ” and “ Theme from Mahogany ” A : DIANA ROSS Bessie Smith song with the lyric “ My springs are getting rusty , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : EMPTY BED BLUES Just as crosswords can resurface the pop culture of yesteryear , so , too , can they forecast the dictionary additions of tomorrow .
Teen-age micro-demographic based on use of a popular photo-editing app A : VSCO GIRL “ Sure .
Keep telling me avocado toast is the reason I can ’ t afford a home.
” A : O.K .
BOOMER Our first and only .
So far .
.
.
Wishing you a year of smooth solving ahead , and a 😊 2021 .

Liz Maynes-Aminzade, Nicholas Henriquez, Andy Kravis

This may have been the year that no crossword went unsolved. As a source of at-home entertainment and an antidote to the mind-numbing effects of lockdown, crosswords became a staple of many quarantine diets. With Partner Mode, which we introduced in April, they could even be occasions for long-distance socializing.
For some, crosswords offered a reprieve from reality, a portal to a logophilic DREAM WORLD (Place like Oz or Wonderland: ten letters). But our favorite puzzles went beyond escapism. They wrangled with the politics of language; they shone a spotlight on remarkable people and felicitous phrases; they informed as well as delighted (to paraphrase a crossword-friendly text, Horace’s “___ Poetica”: three letters).
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
In June, we added a third weekly puzzle, plus three more constructors: Wyna Liu, Caitlin Reid, and Robyn Weintraub joined our roster, alongside Erik Agard, Patrick Berry, Kameron Austin Collins, Elizabeth C. Gorski, Natan Last, Aimee Lucido, and Anna Shechtman. From this abundance, it was daunting to pick only a handful of favorite clues, so, instead, we decided to look for patterns. You’ll find the result below: a taxonomy of New Yorker Crossword clues. As with all taxonomies, worthy categories have been left out. (Speaking of dream worlds, “Wizard of Oz” clues could have been a class of their own.) But we hope you enjoy this glimpse, however unscientific, of the gestalt.
As is now tradition, we will, starting today, bring you a new year-in-review crossword every day through the end of the year. These puzzles will test your knowledge of 2020 across eight subjects: language (Thursday), literature (Friday), science and tech (Saturday), TV (Sunday), movies (Monday), music (Tuesday), sports (Wednesday), and news and politics (Thursday). Once you’ve finished those, be sure to visit the Puzzles & Games Dept. next week for a bonus puzzle to ring in the New Year.
WORDPLAY
There’s a fine line between crossword humor and DAD JOKES, a coinage that made it into Patrick’s language-themed puzzle last year. But we defy you to groan at these puns.
One with four legs and many hands?
A: CARD TABLE
Matching outfits?
A: DATING SERVICES
Disappearing ink?
A: TEMPORARY TATTOO
Desert after the meal?
A: DINE AND DASH
Like gangbusters?
A: TRISYLLABIC
Support staff?
A: CANE
Apple products not intended for kids
A: HARD CIDERS
Soprano of note?
A: JAMES GANDOLFINI
Solve for yourself:
Event involving dough, in two senses (November 25th)
Because wordplay is the bread and butter of crossword constructors, this category merits a few subdivisions, such as:
Bardolatry wordplay, a fitting tribute to the man who added hundreds of words to the English language:
Kingdom for a horse?
A: ANIMALIA
Measure for measures?
A: TIME SIGNATURE
Meta wordplay, or clues about figures of speech:
Subject of Jon Agee’s “So Many Dynamos!”
A: PALINDROMES
“Start of spring” and “frost’s parting,” e.g.
A: ANAGRAMS
Wordplay not suitable for all ages:
Sexy frames for women’s eyes?
A: FEMINIST PORN
Hot spot?
A: EROGENOUS ZONE
QUIPS AND QUOTATIONS
This may be our fact checkers’ least favorite category, because famous quotations are so often misquotations—“coins rubbed smooth by circulation,” to quote Louis Menand. Still, in the cross-world, they’re the coin of the realm.
“Kitchen Confidential” author who deemed truffle oil “about as edible as Astroglide”
A: ANTHONY BOURDAIN
Somali-British poet who wrote, “no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark”
A: WARSAN SHIRE
Whence the line “Women come to New York in search of the two Ls: labels and love”
A: SEX AND THE CITY
One of the six words in Hemingway’s apocryphal six-word story
A: SHOES
Solve for yourself:
Rapper with the line “real Gs move in silence like lasagna” (March 20th)
GRID-WORTHY NAMES
No disrespect to Enya, Brian Eno, or Yoko Ono, but we’re always grateful when constructors feature people (and characters) who rarely make it into crosswords.
French Surrealist photographer known for “Portrait of Ubu” (1936)
A: DORA MAAR
“Bleak House” character who was one of the first detectives in English fiction
A: INSPECTOR BUCKET
“Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe: Les trois femmes noires” painter
A: MICKALENE THOMAS
Frankfurt School philosopher who said, “To those who no longer have a homeland, writing becomes home”
A: THEODOR ADORNO
Solve for yourself:
Civil-rights lawyer and activist who coined the term Jane Crow to refer to institutional discrimination against women (December 14th)
FUN FACTS
Some solvers argue that trivia has no place in a crossword; we humbly disagree. It’s a bonus when you can hone your “Jeopardy!” skills (we miss you, Alex Trebek) while working through a grid.
Term that comes from the name of a news photographer in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita”
A: PAPARAZZI
Org. that once funded the Museum of Modern Art, Partisan Review, and The Paris Review
A: CIA
Italian salad featuring the colors of the Italian flag
A: CAPRESE
Literary family with a widely misremembered name
A: BERENSTAIN BEARS
Solve for yourself:
Band that’s named after a fictional sex toy (July 15th)
REMEMBRANCE OF SONGS PAST
Sung to the tune of [Showstopping number performed by Jennifer Hudson in the 2019 movie “Cats”: six letters].
DJ ___, former third member of Salt-N-Pepa
A: SPINDERELLA
Song written by Graham Nash called “an ode to countercultural domestic bliss”
A: OUR HOUSE
1976 self-titled album with “Love Hangover” and “Theme from Mahogany”
A: DIANA ROSS
Bessie Smith song with the lyric “My springs are getting rusty, sleeping single like I do”
A: EMPTY BED BLUES
Chick Corea album inspired by a Lewis Carroll novel
A: THE MAD HATTER
Solve for yourself:
Swedish pop band once named Tech Noir (February 17th)
NEOLOGISMS
Just as crosswords can resurface the pop culture of yesteryear, so, too, can they forecast the dictionary additions of tomorrow.
Activity requiring an exit strategy
A: ESCAPE ROOM
Aesthetic mixing soft, delicate colors with dark, punkish fashion
A: PASTEL GOTH
Teen-age micro-demographic based on use of a popular photo-editing app
A: VSCO GIRL
“Sure. Keep telling me avocado toast is the reason I can’t afford a home.”
A: O.K. BOOMER
Solve for yourself:
Captcha confirmation (March 16th)
EMOJI CLUES
Our first and only. So far . . .
Solve for yourself:
☹ (October 16th)
Wishing you a year of smooth solving ahead, and a 😊 2021.


newyorker--2020-12-24--Yes, Mason, There Is a Santa Claus

Yes, Mason, There Is a Santa Claus

I ’ m so glad that your five tests came back negative and you ’ ll be able to join us for the holidays !
We ’ re going to eat at six , so come over any time before !
Oh , and I wanted to give you a quick heads-up—Mason still believes in Santa Claus .
( We couldn ’ t resist stretching out the harmless myth for just one more year . )
So , please , play along !
We ’ ll be taking a bite out of the cookies Mason leaves under the tree and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nine yards .
Wait till you see Mason ’ s innocent eyes light up , though .
It ’ s the cutest .
He really believes .
And while I have you , Mason also believes that whole-grain spelt wafers are “ cookies.
” And that two spelt wafers with avocado puree in the middle is an “ Oreo.
” We just can ’ t bring ourselves to give him sugar yet .
So maybe you could help us in that department , too ?
 To sell it , you should say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bite .
Try to really mean it .
And have a glass of something nearby—they are dry .
You see , once we realized how quickly Mason accepted our little white lie about Santa , we thought , We should be lying to him more. And not just to shield him from the hard truths of the world , but to help him become a happier , healthier , and more compliant boy !
Now , you asked me for some gift ideas .
We don ’ t really do toys .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toys are , please point to his conversational Mandarin flash cards .
Our ruse was almost spoiled when he had a playdate with a neighbor ’ s child who brought a Batman figurine. Mason got a good look at it before we threw it in the incinerator , so Hamlin and I went to great lengths to explain that Batman was actually a “ vape pen ” —we call everything he ’ s not allowed to touch a “ vape pen , ” or “ drugs , ” or “ screen time.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d love anything by James Baldwin .
Or an accessory for his violin .
Just wrap it in a Mattel box .
By the way , Mason also thinks that I ’ m still employed , that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is alive , and that Chris Pratt and Anna Faris are still married .
When I look at his sweet , easily duped face , it makes me wish someone would craft a lie like this for me !
I ’ d be so much healthier if I thought kale was “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wine , ” and that our democracy was not teetering on a razor ’ s edge ( all things Mason still believes , ha ha ! )
.
Oh—one last thing .
Could you act generally content around Mason ?
And effortlessly good-natured ?
I hate to ask , but Mason still believes that people are essentially good and that everything happens for a reason .
We just don ’ t have the heart to shatter the illusion—and it ’ s hard !
I mean , Hamlin and I are in the middle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not speaking , except to profess our undying love for one another in front of Mason .
And that gets increasingly difficult the more we learn about each other ’ s cheating !
But if we all stay on our toes , we should be able to sell it .
Whatever you do , don ’ t bring up COVID .
We told him that “ Covid ” was a city in Slovakia ( geography lessons be damned ) .
So—wink , wink—mum ’ s the word !
Like Mason ’ s kindergarten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , isn ’ t this all a bit much ?
Doesn ’ t Mason deserve a chance to discover the world as it is ?
To which I ’ d say , “ No , and I ’ m withdrawing my child from your school.
” Think about it : if we can keep up this charade for another year or so , we ’ ll be giving Mason a beautiful gift !
We are giving him the world as it should be. Yes , we ’ re growing a flower in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our hothouse with your refined sugar or nuance !
I know we ’ re kind of asking a lot here .
But wait till you see how sweet , simple Mason laps it up when we act kind to each other and pretend there is justice in the world .
He ’ s like a kid on Christmas morning !
We told him “ morning ” was anytime after 10 A.M. We can ’ t bear to get up before then .

I ’m so glad that your five tests came back negative and you’ll be able to join us for the holidays! We’re going to eat at six, so come over any time before! Oh, and I wanted to give you a quick heads-up—Mason still believes in Santa Claus. (We couldn’t resist stretching out the harmless myth for just one more year.) So, please, play along! We’ll be taking a bite out of the cookies Mason leaves under the tree and making soot footprints by the fireplace—the whole nine yards. Wait till you see Mason’s innocent eyes light up, though. It’s the cutest. He really believes.
And, while I have you, Mason also believes that whole-grain spelt wafers are “cookies.” And that two spelt wafers with avocado puree in the middle is an “Oreo.” We just can’t bring ourselves to give him sugar yet. So maybe you could help us in that department, too? To sell it, you should say “yummy” as you take a bite. Try to really mean it. And have a glass of something nearby—they are dry.
You see, once we realized how quickly Mason accepted our little white lie about Santa, we thought, We should be lying to him more. And not just to shield him from the hard truths of the world, but to help him become a happier, healthier, and more compliant boy!
Now, you asked me for some gift ideas. We don’t really do toys. In fact, if Mason asks you what toys are, please point to his conversational Mandarin flash cards. Our ruse was almost spoiled when he had a playdate with a neighbor’s child who brought a Batman figurine. Mason got a good look at it before we threw it in the incinerator, so Hamlin and I went to great lengths to explain that Batman was actually a “vape pen”—we call everything he’s not allowed to touch a “vape pen,” or “drugs,” or “screen time.” Anyway, I’m sure he’d love anything by James Baldwin. Or an accessory for his violin. Just wrap it in a Mattel box.
By the way, Mason also thinks that I’m still employed, that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is alive, and that Chris Pratt and Anna Faris are still married.
When I look at his sweet, easily duped face, it makes me wish someone would craft a lie like this for me! I’d be so much healthier if I thought kale was “chocolate,” bottled water was “wine,” and that our democracy was not teetering on a razor’s edge (all things Mason still believes, ha ha!).
Oh—one last thing. Could you act generally content around Mason? And effortlessly good-natured? I hate to ask, but Mason still believes that people are essentially good and that everything happens for a reason. We just don’t have the heart to shatter the illusion—and it’s hard! I mean, Hamlin and I are in the middle of an ugly divorce! We are not speaking, except to profess our undying love for one another in front of Mason. And that gets increasingly difficult the more we learn about each other’s cheating! But if we all stay on our toes, we should be able to sell it. Whatever you do, don’t bring up COVID. We told him that “Covid” was a city in Slovakia (geography lessons be damned). So—wink, wink—mum’s the word!
Like Mason’s kindergarten teacher, you’re probably thinking, isn’t this all a bit much? Doesn’t Mason deserve a chance to discover the world as it is? To which I’d say, “No, and I’m withdrawing my child from your school.” Think about it: if we can keep up this charade for another year or so, we’ll be giving Mason a beautiful gift! We are giving him the world as it should be. Yes, we’re growing a flower in a hothouse. So don’t enter our hothouse with your refined sugar or nuance!
I know we’re kind of asking a lot here. But wait till you see how sweet, simple Mason laps it up when we act kind to each other and pretend there is justice in the world. He’s like a kid on Christmas morning! We told him “morning” was anytime after 10 A.M. We can’t bear to get up before then.


newyorker--2020-12-24--The Movies That Mattered in 2020

The Movies That Mattered in 2020

The irony is that it made such a promising start , with a little help from the French .
If you cast your mind all the way back to the belle époque , otherwise known as January , you may remember Ladj Ly ’ s “ Les Misérables , ” which follows a trio of cops through a combustible suburb of Paris .
The police are neither heroes nor outright villains .
They know their patch , with its wealth of problems , all too well , and not for a second do you mistake their job for an easy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overbearing actions that light the fuse .
For any idealists out there who still believe in cinema as an international language , here is rousing proof : it fell to a French director to foretell the rage and the unrest that would define the American summer .
An equal grip is exerted by Céline Sciamma ’ s “ Portrait of a Lady on Fire , ” although its setting—remotest Brittany , in the late eighteenth century—is a world away from the burbs .
The movie , having had a brief outing at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and more appropriate release on Valentine ’ s Day .
As a demonstration of Cupid ’ s aim , it is unerring : the tale of a painter who falls in love with her sitter , a well-bred woman named Héloïse .
( For a French audience , no name carries a greater amatory charge . )
So lovestruck are the two of them that they have neither the will nor the ability to remove the barbs , and , as a viewer , you are similarly transfixed .
And that , pretty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be many months before a film—any film , of any size or school—left such a mark .
As early spring arrived , so did COVID-19 , an affliction that , like a notable Burgundy , will forever bear the date of its vintage .
The majority of cinemas went dark ; the larger and more densely packed your city , the less inclined you were to sally forth in search of films .
Any historian of the medium can reel off the various forces that have threatened its existence over the past century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Second World War , the monstrous march of television , the VCR , the DVD , and “ Police Academy 5 : Assignment Miami Beach.
” ( You know , the one that even Steve Guttenberg didn ’ t show up for . )
This year , however , saw a cunning and unprecedented pincer movement , as moviegoers found themselves beset not by one menace but by two separate foes .
On the left flank was the coronavirus , whose spike proteins would be delighted to hitch a ride on your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ streaming revolution , which had been gathering strength for some time .
Now came its moment to attack .
This turn of events is a flat-out catastrophe , though not for everybody .
I happen to love being a groundling , stuck in the pit of an auditorium and staring stupidly upward .
Millions of people , though , will exercise the sane and risk-free option—staying home , staying safe , and deciding what to watch and when to watch it , at an hour of their delicious choosing .
Or , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night of their choosing , from suppertime till dawn .
Across the land , up goes the plaintive cry : “ Just one more episode !
” What matters here is not what we watched in 2020 but how we watched it , and whether our new methods and mores of watching are here to stay .
A change of dimensions , countless viewers will say , is no big deal , nor is the switch to the domestic arena : a film is a film is a film , wheresoe ’ er @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a rose .
Not so .
A wild film and a hothouse film are very different things .
One is tangled up in the public gaze , out of our control ; we can not stop it or curtail it as it runs .
The other is transplanted to TV , as if grown under glass , and , humongous though our screen may be , much of the fragrance is gone .
What ’ s more , we can lop the story off at any time .
Take a movie like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” It ’ s a drama , grounded in real events , about a school superintendent on Long Island , who is congenial , handsome , highly respected , and even more highly fraudulent , embezzling millions as he strolls the path to success .
He is played by Hugh Jackman , and , when I caught the movie at a film festival , in late 2019 , I reckoned that it was the best work that Jackman had ever done , as if he were testing the resilience of his own blessings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cracking point .
“ Bad Education ” never made it into American cinemas ; it had to settle for homeschooling , with a slot on HBO , in April .
Jackman wound up with an Emmy nomination instead of an Oscar nod , but that ’ s not the issue .
Seen again on the small screen , the film looks a little seedier , and the precise balance that the actor found between fraudulence and bonhomie—truth or dare , so to speak—is lost .
The other performances that stayed with me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no particular order : Cristin Milioti , in “ Palm Springs , ” remaining upbeat even when she hit the downside ; Kate Winslet , in “ Ammonite ” ; Diane Lane , in “ Let Him Go ” ; Amanda Seyfried , glittering amid the gloom of “ Mank ” ; and someone named Meryl Streep , for whom , on the basis of her efforts in “ Let Them All Talk , ” I predict a bright future .
The last and the youngest on the list is Helena Zengel , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against Tom Hanks in “ News of the World , ” Paul Greengrass ’ s new Western , which comes out on Christmas Day .
Zengel is now twelve years old , and what ’ s remarkable is that , though armed with blond hair , blue eyes , and , God help us , freckles , she is formidably uncute throughout the film .
At times , indeed , she nears the brink of the feral ; we see her roped by the ankle to a stake , like an untamable dog @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and scream .
In each instance , those performances are more forceful than the films in which they occur .
( Such an imbalance can come in handy , when awards are being dished out . )
Only in Chloé Zhao ’ s “ Nomadland , ” I think , is the glow of the star—Frances McDormand , who appears in almost every scene—matched by the sky of the whole movie .
It tells of a widow who quits a dead town in Nevada and travels around , living in her van , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pays O.K.
, as does the pre-Christmas spell at an Amazon warehouse .
The pull of the narrative , like McDormand ’ s presence among her fellow-wanderers , seems neither willed nor forced , and the heroine ’ s plight , though particular to the economics of now , has the timeless texture of a fable .
Some folks are made to drift .
I was lucky enough to see “ Nomadland ” at the Venice Film Festival , which , by some miracle , went ahead as planned , at the start @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the plans were tweaked , in line with precautions .
The standard red-carpet hoopla , outside premières , was cooled to a minimum .
( Scarcely the most painful of sacrifices . )
Viewers were spaced apart at screenings ; unoccupied seats were taped off ; and , as you entered the movie theatre , your temperature was taken with a thermometer held to your forehead .
If this made you feel like a cow lining up for the stun gun , so what ?
The opportunity to see films emblazoned upon wide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enthusiasts , was a gift to be grateful for—as , heaven knows , was the chance to be in Venice , a paradise with a lengthy record of plague .
I felt like a criminal , freed on parole .
Nearly two weeks of visual feasting , and then it was back to the slammer .
The city was not empty , by any means , but neither was it swamped by the human flood .
Now , if ever , was the time to pay tribute to the obvious .
In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took solace in a visit to the Ducal Palace : a couple of hours , alone but for the guards , in a succession of vast halls , which are usually so thronged that you can ’ t spot your own toes , still less the Tintorettos on the far wall .
( Mind you , that artist does present a constant challenge to the Film Festival .
Not only are his paintings better than almost every movie you will see , but some of them , dense with dramatic gesture , are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If this was the state of the city in the fall , what on earth was it like in March , during the initial lockdown , when there were no tourists whatsoever , and when the residents , too , had all but vanished from the streets ?
The answer was provided in style by the Festival ’ s pre-opening film , Andrea Segre ’ s “ Molecole.
” It ’ s a documentary , shot in Venice during that compulsory suspension of regular life—an interlude of mournful and mirrorlike tranquillity , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ along the Grand Canal without being rocked by the wake of passing boats .
His film is also a diary , soaked in personal reminiscence .
If it ever shows in New York , take the plunge .

No year that sees the deaths of Sean Connery, Olivia de Havilland, and Chadwick Boseman can be hailed as a time of unbroken happiness. Private viewings of “Goldfinger,” “The Heiress,” and “Get On Up” could do only so much to attenuate our grief. But shadows even murkier and more prolonged fell across the landscape of 2020; in many countries, the making, releasing, and watching of films either stopped dead or slowed to a dismal crawl. It would be ludicrous to claim that this unnerving standstill was the worst aspect of the coronavirus pandemic; nobody has perished from a chronic lack of James Bond. But the resulting loss of livelihoods is no small matter, as Tom Cruise has pointed out, in a voice of thunder; and the loss of liveliness, in the souls and the social schedules of ordinary moviegoers, has added to the burden of a terrible year.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
The irony is that it made such a promising start, with a little help from the French. If you cast your mind all the way back to the belle époque, otherwise known as January, you may remember Ladj Ly’s “Les Misérables,” which follows a trio of cops through a combustible suburb of Paris. The police are neither heroes nor outright villains. They know their patch, with its wealth of problems, all too well, and not for a second do you mistake their job for an easy ride; nonetheless, it is their overbearing actions that light the fuse. For any idealists out there who still believe in cinema as an international language, here is rousing proof: it fell to a French director to foretell the rage and the unrest that would define the American summer.
An equal grip is exerted by Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” although its setting—remotest Brittany, in the late eighteenth century—is a world away from the burbs. The movie, having had a brief outing at the end of 2019, enjoyed a wider and more appropriate release on Valentine’s Day. As a demonstration of Cupid’s aim, it is unerring: the tale of a painter who falls in love with her sitter, a well-bred woman named Héloïse. (For a French audience, no name carries a greater amatory charge.) So lovestruck are the two of them that they have neither the will nor the ability to remove the barbs, and, as a viewer, you are similarly transfixed.
As a demonstration of Cupid’s aim, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is unerring. Photograph courtesy Lilies Films
And that, pretty much, was that. It would be many months before a film—any film, of any size or school—left such a mark. As early spring arrived, so did COVID-19, an affliction that, like a notable Burgundy, will forever bear the date of its vintage. The majority of cinemas went dark; the larger and more densely packed your city, the less inclined you were to sally forth in search of films. Any historian of the medium can reel off the various forces that have threatened its existence over the past century, including the advent of sound, the Second World War, the monstrous march of television, the VCR, the DVD, and “Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach.” (You know, the one that even Steve Guttenberg didn’t show up for.) This year, however, saw a cunning and unprecedented pincer movement, as moviegoers found themselves beset not by one menace but by two separate foes. On the left flank was the coronavirus, whose spike proteins would be delighted to hitch a ride on your popcorn. On the right lay the streaming revolution, which had been gathering strength for some time. Now came its moment to attack.
This turn of events is a flat-out catastrophe, though not for everybody. I happen to love being a groundling, stuck in the pit of an auditorium and staring stupidly upward. Millions of people, though, will exercise the sane and risk-free option—staying home, staying safe, and deciding what to watch and when to watch it, at an hour of their delicious choosing. Or, in the case of Netflix, a complete night of their choosing, from suppertime till dawn. Across the land, up goes the plaintive cry: “Just one more episode!”
What matters here is not what we watched in 2020 but how we watched it, and whether our new methods and mores of watching are here to stay. A change of dimensions, countless viewers will say, is no big deal, nor is the switch to the domestic arena: a film is a film is a film, wheresoe’er it blooms, just as a rose is a rose. Not so. A wild film and a hothouse film are very different things. One is tangled up in the public gaze, out of our control; we cannot stop it or curtail it as it runs. The other is transplanted to TV, as if grown under glass, and, humongous though our screen may be, much of the fragrance is gone. What’s more, we can lop the story off at any time.
Take a movie like Cory Finley’s “Bad Education.” It’s a drama, grounded in real events, about a school superintendent on Long Island, who is congenial, handsome, highly respected, and even more highly fraudulent, embezzling millions as he strolls the path to success. He is played by Hugh Jackman, and, when I caught the movie at a film festival, in late 2019, I reckoned that it was the best work that Jackman had ever done, as if he were testing the resilience of his own blessings; that famous smile was stretched to the cracking point. “Bad Education” never made it into American cinemas; it had to settle for homeschooling, with a slot on HBO, in April. Jackman wound up with an Emmy nomination instead of an Oscar nod, but that’s not the issue. Seen again on the small screen, the film looks a little seedier, and the precise balance that the actor found between fraudulence and bonhomie—truth or dare, so to speak—is lost.
Hugh Jackman was nominated for an Emmy for his role in “Bad Education,” which never made it to the big screen in the U.S., owing to the pandemic. Photograph courtesy HBO
The other performances that stayed with me this year were all female. In no particular order: Cristin Milioti, in “Palm Springs,” remaining upbeat even when she hit the downside; Kate Winslet, in “Ammonite”; Diane Lane, in “Let Him Go”; Amanda Seyfried, glittering amid the gloom of “Mank”; and someone named Meryl Streep, for whom, on the basis of her efforts in “Let Them All Talk,” I predict a bright future. The last and the youngest on the list is Helena Zengel, the German actress who holds her own against Tom Hanks in “News of the World,” Paul Greengrass’s new Western, which comes out on Christmas Day. Zengel is now twelve years old, and what’s remarkable is that, though armed with blond hair, blue eyes, and, God help us, freckles, she is formidably uncute throughout the film. At times, indeed, she nears the brink of the feral; we see her roped by the ankle to a stake, like an untamable dog. Shirley Temple would take one look and scream.
In each instance, those performances are more forceful than the films in which they occur. (Such an imbalance can come in handy, when awards are being dished out.) Only in Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” I think, is the glow of the star—Frances McDormand, who appears in almost every scene—matched by the sky of the whole movie. It tells of a widow who quits a dead town in Nevada and travels around, living in her van, in search of seasonal employment. Beet-picking pays O.K., as does the pre-Christmas spell at an Amazon warehouse. The pull of the narrative, like McDormand’s presence among her fellow-wanderers, seems neither willed nor forced, and the heroine’s plight, though particular to the economics of now, has the timeless texture of a fable. Some folks are made to drift.


newyorker--2020-12-25--Holiday Classics from the Archive

Holiday Classics from the Archive

In 1949 , near the start of the Cold War , E. B .
White published a Comment in The New Yorker about the challenges of celebrating the holidays during a perilous season .
It can be difficult , he wrote , to “ hear the incredibly distant sound of Christmas in these times , through the dark , material woods that surround it.
” As we come to the end of 2020 , it seems equally daunting to find comfort during this extraordinary holiday season .
When the future appears precarious , how do we view the holidays through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fear that his readers felt back then , just as all of us recognize the struggles and concerns of our friends , family , and neighbors today .
Yet , as he so keenly observed , it is in the essential simplicity of small seasonal kindnesses and altruism that , even in the bleakest hours , the spirit of the holidays can often be perceived .
Today , as a thank-you to our readers—and with thoughts of gratitude for all the nurses , doctors , other health-care workers , and scientists who ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to our welfare this past year—we ’ re bringing you some of our favorite holiday stories from the archive , newly available for online reading and sharing .
In “ Hack Wednesday , ” by Margaret Atwood , a Canadian journalist reflects on her marriage and past decisions as Christmas draws near .
In “ The Burden of the Feast , ” Bobbie Ann Mason recounts growing up on her family ’ s Kentucky farm and explores the nostalgic allure of holiday cooking .
In “ Winter in Martinique , ” Patrick Chamoiseau @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that his mother raised while he was growing up in the Caribbean .
Lorrie Moore writes about the complexities of celebrating Hanukkah , Kwanzaa , and Christmas all at once , and James Thurber offers a parody of “ A Visit from Saint Nicholas , ” drawing inspiration from Ernest Hemingway .
In “ Year ’ s End , ” by Jhumpa Lahiri , a college student returns home for the holidays to discover that his loved ones have changed in his absence .
In “ The Christmas Miracle , ” Rebecca Curtis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is thwarted by the mysterious deaths of several cats .
Finally , Frank McCourt recalls an unconventional holiday dinner that he had with his landlady and her son after returning to New York from a stint in the U.S. Army .
We hope you ’ ll take some time to enjoy these classic pieces from our archive , and that they offer a welcome reprieve this holiday season .
Consider them our gift to you .
Happy Holidays .
“ Marcia knows that the day itself is seeping away from her , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go , and will never come back.
” To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year .
“ The events over Christmas had never been discussed , never acknowledged.
” Ruminations on a youthful attachment to the Christmas pigs of Martinique .
“ A Visit from Saint Nicholas ( in the Ernest Hemingway Manner ) ” “ It was the night before Christmas .
The house was very quiet .
No creatures were stirring in the house .
There weren ’ t even any mice stirring.
” Reflections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that once seemed so oppressively ordinary .
“ It was Christmas , the most magical , horrible , spiritual , dark , and stressful time of the year .
”

In 1949, near the start of the Cold War, E. B. White published a Comment in The New Yorker about the challenges of celebrating the holidays during a perilous season. It can be difficult, he wrote, to “hear the incredibly distant sound of Christmas in these times, through the dark, material woods that surround it.” As we come to the end of 2020, it seems equally daunting to find comfort during this extraordinary holiday season. When the future appears precarious, how do we view the holidays through a hopeful lens? White knew the fear that his readers felt back then, just as all of us recognize the struggles and concerns of our friends, family, and neighbors today. Yet, as he so keenly observed, it is in the essential simplicity of small seasonal kindnesses and altruism that, even in the bleakest hours, the spirit of the holidays can often be perceived.
More from the Archive Sign up for Classics, a twice-weekly newsletter featuring notable pieces from the past.
Today, as a thank-you to our readers—and with thoughts of gratitude for all the nurses, doctors, other health-care workers, and scientists who’ve dedicated so much of their lives to our welfare this past year—we’re bringing you some of our favorite holiday stories from the archive, newly available for online reading and sharing. In “Hack Wednesday,” by Margaret Atwood, a Canadian journalist reflects on her marriage and past decisions as Christmas draws near. In “The Burden of the Feast,” Bobbie Ann Mason recounts growing up on her family’s Kentucky farm and explores the nostalgic allure of holiday cooking. In “Winter in Martinique,” Patrick Chamoiseau describes his enchantment with the Christmas pigs that his mother raised while he was growing up in the Caribbean. Lorrie Moore writes about the complexities of celebrating Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas all at once, and James Thurber offers a parody of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas,” drawing inspiration from Ernest Hemingway. In “Year’s End,” by Jhumpa Lahiri, a college student returns home for the holidays to discover that his loved ones have changed in his absence. In “The Christmas Miracle,” Rebecca Curtis conjures a tale of a family gathering that is thwarted by the mysterious deaths of several cats. Finally, Frank McCourt recalls an unconventional holiday dinner that he had with his landlady and her son after returning to New York from a stint in the U.S. Army. We hope you’ll take some time to enjoy these classic pieces from our archive, and that they offer a welcome reprieve this holiday season. Consider them our gift to you. Happy Holidays.
“Marcia knows that the day itself is seeping away from her, that it will go and will continue to go, and will never come back.”
Recalling a peculiar holiday dinner of stray souls.
Photograph by Andreas Feininger / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty
To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year.
Photographs (left to right) by Mark Guthrie / Millennium Images, UK; Bharat Sikka (2002)
“The events over Christmas had never been discussed, never acknowledged.”
Ruminations on a youthful attachment to the Christmas pigs of Martinique.
Photograph by Nigel Dobinson / Getty
“It was the night before Christmas. The house was very quiet. No creatures were stirring in the house. There weren’t even any mice stirring.”
Illustration by Lanelle Mason
Reflections on farm life and the holiday fare that once seemed so oppressively ordinary.
Memories of an improvised holiday.
“It was Christmas, the most magical, horrible, spiritual, dark, and stressful time of the year.”


newyorker--2020-12-25--New Year’s Eve Goes Virtual

New Year’s Eve Goes Virtual

Since 1907 , the Times Square Ball ( pictured ) has dropped in New York City for all but two @ @ @ @ @ .
( The exceptions were the wartime dimouts of 1942 and 1943 . )
On @ @ @ @ @ descends at midnight , as usual , but the party is virtual : the public @ @ @ @ @ gather in Times Square this year .
But there are still festivities—broadcast on TV and @ @ @ @ @ by Gloria Gaynor , whose rousing disco anthem “ I Will Survive ” is the @ @ @ @ @ the New Year .

Since 1907, the Times Square Ball (pictured) has dropped in New York City for all but two New Year’s Eves. (The exceptions were the wartime dimouts of 1942 and 1943.) On Dec. 31, the ball descends at midnight, as usual, but the party is virtual: the public isn’t invited to gather in Times Square this year. But there are still festivities—broadcast on TV and live-streamed via nye2021.com—including a performance by Gloria Gaynor, whose rousing disco anthem “I Will Survive” is the perfect song to ring in the New Year.