newyorker--2020-03-08--Sunday Reading: An Appetite for Great Chefs

A. J. Liebling once wrote that “ the primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.
” The same might be said of the qualities that make someone a really great chef .
A good appetite and a boundless inventiveness when it comes to satisfying the palate are often integral to his or her role .
This week , we ’ re bringing you a selection of pieces on chefs and the culinary arts .
In “ Good Cooking , ” Calvin Tomkins traces the career of the legendary chef Julia Child .
In “ A Man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writes about Grant Achatz , the chef at Alinea , and his battle , after a diagnosis of tongue cancer , to preserve his ability to taste .
Calvin Trillin profiles Peter Chang , whose devotees follow him from restaurant to restaurant , across the country .
Jane Kramer examines the way that Yotam Ottolenghi ’ s innovative Mediterranean cuisine is influencing the London culinary scene .
In “ A Season for Everything , ” Helen Rosner describes how the chef Niki Nakayama has helped to popularize kaiseki , an elaborate style of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ n/naka , in Los Angeles .
Finally , in “ Don ’ t Eat Before Reading This , ” from 1999 , the late chef Anthony Bourdain offers a behind-the-scenes look at Manhattan ’ s gritty culinary world .
We hope that these pieces offer an appetizing collection for your enjoyment this weekend .
Her tendency to slap and sniff and taste everything without losing a shred of her dignity was there from the beginning .
A chef with cancer fights to save his tongue .
How Niki Nakayama ’ s kaiseki restaurant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The chef who can ’ t shake his followers .
Yotam Ottolenghi ’ s ideas are changing the way London eats .

Photograph from Bettmann / Getty
A. J. Liebling once wrote that “the primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.” The same might be said of the qualities that make someone a really great chef. A good appetite and a boundless inventiveness when it comes to satisfying the palate are often integral to his or her role. This week, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces on chefs and the culinary arts. In “Good Cooking,” Calvin Tomkins traces the career of the legendary chef Julia Child. In “A Man of Taste,” D. T. Max writes about Grant Achatz, the chef at Alinea, and his battle, after a diagnosis of tongue cancer, to preserve his ability to taste. Calvin Trillin profiles Peter Chang, whose devotees follow him from restaurant to restaurant, across the country. Jane Kramer examines the way that Yotam Ottolenghi’s innovative Mediterranean cuisine is influencing the London culinary scene. In “A Season for Everything,” Helen Rosner describes how the chef Niki Nakayama has helped to popularize kaiseki, an elaborate style of Japanese meal, at her restaurant, n/naka, in Los Angeles. Finally, in “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” from 1999, the late chef Anthony Bourdain offers a behind-the-scenes look at Manhattan’s gritty culinary world. We hope that these pieces offer an appetizing collection for your enjoyment this weekend.
—David Remnick
Her tendency to slap and sniff and taste everything without losing a shred of her dignity was there from the beginning.
A chef with cancer fights to save his tongue.
Photograph by Damon Casarez for The New Yorker
How Niki Nakayama’s kaiseki restaurant became a highly coveted reservation in L.A.
The chef who can’t shake his followers.
Yotam Ottolenghi’s ideas are changing the way London eats.
Illustration by Adrian Gill
A New York chef spills some trade secrets.


newyorker--2020-03-08--How Long Will It Take to Develop a Coronavirus Vaccine?

On Monday , Donald Trump held a meeting in the White House to discuss his Administration ’ s response to COVID-19 , the novel coronavirus that has spread to every continent except Antarctica .
At the time there had been more than a hundred and five thousand cases reported in at least eighty-three countries , leading to more than thirty-five hundred deaths .
Seated around an oval table in the Cabinet Room were health experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the Food and Drug Administration , and the National Institutes of Health , as well as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johnson , Sanofi , and others .
With more than a hundred cases already discovered in the U.S. , which had resulted in six deaths ( the virus has since infected nearly four hundred people in the U.S. , and killed at least nineteen of them ) , Trump was concerned .
But he was also confused , despite having had several previous briefings with the Administration ’ s top health officials .
Grasping for some good news , he pressed the executives to deliver a vaccine within a few months , at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ( N.I.A.I.D . )
, spoke up .
“ A vaccine that you make and start testing in a year is not a vaccine that ’ s deployable , ” he said .
The earliest it would be deployable , Fauci added , is “ in a year to a year and a half , no matter how fast you go.
” The virus seems to have been circulating in the United States , particularly in Washington State , for the past month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A person can be infected but asymptomatic , and therefore unknowingly infect other people .
This limits the ability of public-health tools to contain its spread .
Even still , a COVID-19 vaccine developed , licensed , and manufactured at a global scale in twelve months would be an unprecedented , remarkable , even revolutionary achievement .
No other vaccine has come close to being developed that quickly .
The fastest effort to date was during the Zika outbreak , in 2015 , when one was ready for testing in about seven months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an approved vaccine could be sent through clinical trials .
At the meeting on Monday , Trump said , “ I like the sound of a couple months better , if I must be honest.
” John Shiver , the global head of vaccine research and development at the multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi , which is developing a COVID-19 vaccine , was at the meeting with Trump .
“ There was some confusion there , ” Shiver said , that certain officials did not understand that “ being in people , ” as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same as having a product .
Clinical trials are conducted on healthy people , which is inherently challenging .
“ You certainly don ’ t want a vaccine that can make it worse , ” Shiver said .
“ There have been some vaccine candidates historically that could actually enhance the disease.
” Sanofi is working with the United States Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority , a sort of biomedical DARPA , to advance a COVID-19 vaccine based largely on the vaccine candidate it had developed for SARS .
Shiver told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have anything ready for human trials until much later this year .
“ It ’ s difficult , ” Shiver said , “ to see how , even in the case of an emergency , a vaccine could be fully ready for licensure in a year and a half.
” The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations ( CEPI ) , an Oslo-based nonprofit organization , was established at Davos , in 2017 , to help the world prepare for a “ disease X ” pandemic .
One of its aims is to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
To create a viable , scalable vaccine “ takes vast amounts of funding and R. & D. , ” Rachel Grant , the advocacy and communications director at CEPI , told me .
“ It is a long and complex business .
It ’ s all doable , science can meet the challenges , but there is lots of attrition ” before any vaccine gets to the point of licensure .
The problem is twofold .
First , there may never be a market for a vaccine at the end of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contained , or never comes to pass .
Then , traditionally , if there is an epidemic , it may take hold in a developing country where the costs of research and development can not be recouped .
“ The resources and expertise sit in biotech and pharma , and they ’ ve got their business model , ” Grant said .
“ They ’ re not charities .
They can ’ t do this stuff for free.
” CEPI , with funding from the government of Norway , the Gates Foundation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries ( the United States is not among them ) , is trying to bridge the gap .
The challenge of vaccine development is “ what CEPI was set up to solve , ” Grant told me , “ played out writ large in an episode like this.
” Since the novel coronavirus emerged , CEPI has ramped up its grant-making expenditures to more than nineteen million dollars .
Two grant recipients—a Massachusetts-based biotech startup named Moderna and a lab at the University of Queensland , in Brisbane , Australia—have , remarkably , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will start testing in human trials in the next few months , and another biotech startup supported by CEPI is not far behind .
But , ultimately , to get three different vaccines through the final phase of clinical testing , Nick Jackson , CEPI ’ s head of programs and innovative technology , told me , will require an estimated two billion dollars .
Barney Graham is the deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center , at the N.I.A.I.D.
, in Bethesda , Maryland , which is collaborating with Moderna and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Graham is one of the world ’ s experts on the structure of viruses and how they interact with human cells to make us sick .
In the seven years before the COVID-19 virus appeared , one of Graham ’ s projects had involved understanding the MERS coronavirus , in order to potentially develop a vaccine .
( MERS , which can be transmitted from camels to humans , has been contained to the Middle East , and seems to spread mostly in confined spaces , like hospitals . )
“ There ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a human body that will make a vaccine-type response , ” he told me .
Certain proteins , when injected into a human , are antigenic , provoking the body ’ s immune system to create antibodies .
Traditionally , proteins are made “ in a microbrewery type of bioreactor , ” Graham said—a common flu-virus vaccine , for instance , is grown in chicken eggs—and it “ takes up to two years to get that protein ready .
That is not fast enough if you ’ re in a pandemic situation.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ so-called vaccine-platform manufacturing technologies for future use .
The idea is akin to creating a frozen-yogurt maker for vaccines—same machine , different flavors .
With vaccine-platform technologies , the hope is that the way in which the vaccine is manufactured and delivered to the body—such as Moderna ’ s messenger-RNA ( mRNA ) technology—will transport any antigen and , therefore , theoretically protect against any infectious disease .
“ You can make the RNA in the same way , purify it in the same way , release it in the same way , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Graham said .

On Monday, Donald Trump held a meeting in the White House to discuss his Administration’s response to COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has spread to every continent except Antarctica. At the time there had been more than a hundred and five thousand cases reported in at least eighty-three countries, leading to more than thirty-five hundred deaths. Seated around an oval table in the Cabinet Room were health experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as pharmaceutical executives from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, and others. With more than a hundred cases already discovered in the U.S., which had resulted in six deaths (the virus has since infected nearly four hundred people in the U.S., and killed at least nineteen of them), Trump was concerned. But he was also confused, despite having had several previous briefings with the Administration’s top health officials. Grasping for some good news, he pressed the executives to deliver a vaccine within a few months, at which point Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (N.I.A.I.D.), spoke up. “A vaccine that you make and start testing in a year is not a vaccine that’s deployable,” he said. The earliest it would be deployable, Fauci added, is “in a year to a year and a half, no matter how fast you go.”
The virus seems to have been circulating in the United States, particularly in Washington State, for the past month, and more cases are expected. A person can be infected but asymptomatic, and therefore unknowingly infect other people. This limits the ability of public-health tools to contain its spread. Even still, a COVID-19 vaccine developed, licensed, and manufactured at a global scale in twelve months would be an unprecedented, remarkable, even revolutionary achievement. No other vaccine has come close to being developed that quickly. The fastest effort to date was during the Zika outbreak, in 2015, when one was ready for testing in about seven months, but the epidemic fizzled out before an approved vaccine could be sent through clinical trials. At the meeting on Monday, Trump said, “I like the sound of a couple months better, if I must be honest.”
John Shiver, the global head of vaccine research and development at the multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi, which is developing a COVID-19 vaccine, was at the meeting with Trump. “There was some confusion there,” Shiver said, that certain officials did not understand that “being in people,” as in human trials, is not the same as having a product. Clinical trials are conducted on healthy people, which is inherently challenging. “You certainly don’t want a vaccine that can make it worse,” Shiver said. “There have been some vaccine candidates historically that could actually enhance the disease.” Sanofi is working with the United States Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a sort of biomedical DARPA, to advance a COVID-19 vaccine based largely on the vaccine candidate it had developed for SARS. Shiver told me that the authority doesn’t expect to have anything ready for human trials until much later this year. “It’s difficult,” Shiver said, “to see how, even in the case of an emergency, a vaccine could be fully ready for licensure in a year and a half.”
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an Oslo-based nonprofit organization, was established at Davos, in 2017, to help the world prepare for a “disease X” pandemic. One of its aims is to dramatically hasten the process of vaccine development. To create a viable, scalable vaccine “takes vast amounts of funding and R. & D.,” Rachel Grant, the advocacy and communications director at CEPI, told me. “It is a long and complex business. It’s all doable, science can meet the challenges, but there is lots of attrition” before any vaccine gets to the point of licensure. The problem is twofold. First, there may never be a market for a vaccine at the end of the development process, because the epidemic is contained, or never comes to pass. Then, traditionally, if there is an epidemic, it may take hold in a developing country where the costs of research and development cannot be recouped. “The resources and expertise sit in biotech and pharma, and they’ve got their business model,” Grant said. “They’re not charities. They can’t do this stuff for free.”
CEPI, with funding from the government of Norway, the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and several other countries (the United States is not among them), is trying to bridge the gap. The challenge of vaccine development is “what CEPI was set up to solve,” Grant told me, “played out writ large in an episode like this.” Since the novel coronavirus emerged, CEPI has ramped up its grant-making expenditures to more than nineteen million dollars. Two grant recipients—a Massachusetts-based biotech startup named Moderna and a lab at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia—have, remarkably, already developed a vaccine candidate that they will start testing in human trials in the next few months, and another biotech startup supported by CEPI is not far behind. But, ultimately, to get three different vaccines through the final phase of clinical testing, Nick Jackson, CEPI’s head of programs and innovative technology, told me, will require an estimated two billion dollars.
Barney Graham is the deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center, at the N.I.A.I.D., in Bethesda, Maryland, which is collaborating with Moderna and other academic labs on a possible vaccine. Graham is one of the world’s experts on the structure of viruses and how they interact with human cells to make us sick. In the seven years before the COVID-19 virus appeared, one of Graham’s projects had involved understanding the MERS coronavirus, in order to potentially develop a vaccine. (MERS, which can be transmitted from camels to humans, has been contained to the Middle East, and seems to spread mostly in confined spaces, like hospitals.) “There’s several ways of delivering a protein to a human body that will make a vaccine-type response,” he told me. Certain proteins, when injected into a human, are antigenic, provoking the body’s immune system to create antibodies. Traditionally, proteins are made “in a microbrewery type of bioreactor,” Graham said—a common flu-virus vaccine, for instance, is grown in chicken eggs—and it “takes up to two years to get that protein ready. That is not fast enough if you’re in a pandemic situation.” Researchers have long been working on so-called vaccine-platform manufacturing technologies for future use. The idea is akin to creating a frozen-yogurt maker for vaccines—same machine, different flavors. With vaccine-platform technologies, the hope is that the way in which the vaccine is manufactured and delivered to the body—such as Moderna’s messenger-RNA (mRNA) technology—will transport any antigen and, therefore, theoretically protect against any infectious disease. “You can make the RNA in the same way, purify it in the same way, release it in the same way, and yet make many different proteins,” Graham said.
In Moderna’s case, the vaccine contains a synthetic version of mRNA. When injected into a muscle cell, the mRNA acts like a drill sergeant, ordering the cell to create a doppelgänger of one of the coronavirus’s surface proteins—known as “spikes,” which, together, decorate the surface of the virus, giving the appearance of a crown. The spike protein is only part of the virus and therefore won’t make a person sick. But it is a crucial component of how the virus infects a human cell. In a sense, the Moderna technology outsources the labor of building these spike proteins to our own bodies. Once our muscle cells follow the vaccine’s mRNA orders, and manufacture loads of these spike-protein doppelgängers, our immune system recognizes them as foreign objects and learns how to fight them by creating antibodies.
Moderna has done several different vaccine trials with its mRNA “platform,” a few in partnership with Graham and the Vaccine Research Center. Among other things, they have tested MERS coronavirus vaccines in mice. (There are now, including COVID-19, seven known coronaviruses that infect humans, and many more carried by animals; four of them circulate in the population and are responsible for common colds, and the other two are SARS and MERS.) “The early data we already have with the mice shows it is working the way it should,” Graham said. “If this was a virus from a different family, we would not be nearly as prepared.”


newyorker--2020-03-07--The Rage and Sorrow of the Warren Supporter

There was a forlorn mood the other night inside the headquarters of Brooklyn for Warren , a few sparsely furnished rooms in the Park Slope campaign offices of the New York City councilman Brad Lander , where a group of Elizabeth Warren ’ s campaign volunteers had assembled for a round of “ sad and celebratory drinks.
” The walls were still decorated with Warren paraphernalia : a poster that said “ The Best Candidate Money Can ’ t Buy ” and a cardboard cutout of the candidate as Superwoman ; an enormous map displaying her policy platform ( categories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Equality , Climate Change ) ; a “ Lil Liberty ” lending library ; and a list of thoughtful community guidelines— “ Use gender-neutral collective nouns .
.
.
.
Listen more than you speak .
.
.
.
Be generous with each other .
.
.
.
No trashing other candidates or their supporters !
” A sign taped to the wall in one area said “ This Room is for Reflection—Feel Free to Write a Postcard to Liz and the Campaign .
We Will Send Them.
” Warren had failed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and had placed third in her home state of Massachusetts .
That morning , she ’ d informed staff on a conference call that she was ending her campaign , adding , “ I will carry you in my heart for the rest of my life.
” The volunteers drank boxed wine and I.P.A .
beer , and nibbled on chocolate cake and tortilla chips .
They posed for a picture with a cardboard cutout of Warren , draped in a rainbow feather boa , chanting “ Dream big !
Fight hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They were mostly female , although trans men , gay men , and sensitive straight , cis men were also represented : the group ’ s founder , an allergist and immunologist named Milo Vassallo , spoke about the importance of being a man who wears his Warren pin in public , and opined about what he saw as the covert sexism of the “ Bernie bros ” on his baseball team .
The women seemed especially dejected .
“ I did a lot of crying today , ” Jennie Spector , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel a lot of rage , ” Teresa Mayer , who has worked in nonprofits , said .
Liat Olenick , a teacher , said that she was sad , too .
“ But I ’ m getting to the anger stage.
” “ It ’ s just so disappointing , ” Mayer said .
“ This idea of waiting around , wondering , which old white man is she going to endorse ?
” All three are members of Indivisible Nation BK , a nonprofit organization that , they pointed out , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Olenick said , “ And after four years of movement-building led almost entirely by women , we ’ re faced with two almost eighty-year-old white men as supposedly the future of this country.
” Brooklyn for Warren , the largest of several grassroots groups in the borough , had spent hours phone-banking for Warren .
Organizers had travelled to Iowa , New Hampshire , and Virginia to knock on doors .
“ What more could we do ?
” Sze Chan , a translator who worked with New York City for Warren , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign had outdone the others by almost every metric : “ The number of calls we made , texts sent out , doors knocked on.
” “ We were everywhere , ” Spector said .
“ Biden just won a bunch of states where he had nobody on the ground.
” The problem was not Warren ’ s résumé , or her skill set , or her appeal to voters , Olenick said .
“ Sixty per cent of my conversations were with people saying , ‘ I love her !
She ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so tough .
She would make the best President .
But I ’ m voting for Biden.
’ Or , ‘ I ’ m voting for Bernie .
Because I don ’ t think she can win.
’ ” This , they felt , came from a kind of anticipatory sexism—a belief that a woman could never become the President , which became a self-fulfilling prophecy .
They noted that women were some of the worst offenders .
“ I think a lot of them were really , truly traumatized by Hillary losing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d spoken to many women who ’ d volunteered for Clinton or been precinct captains .
“ The majority of my phone conversations were working to convince women that they shouldn ’ t vote out of fear for an old white man.
” “ On Monday night , I managed to flip one woman , ” Mayer recalled .
They ’ d been canvassing in Sterling , Virginia , before Super Tuesday .
“ Her husband answered the door .
He wasn ’ t on my list , but I started in with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the top of the stairs , ‘ Who are you here for ?
Elizabeth ?
Oh , I love Elizabeth !
My girlfriends all love her , too .
She ’ s so great .
But we ’ re going to vote for Biden.
’ ” The woman believed that Warren couldn ’ t win .
Mayer spoke with her for twenty minutes—and learned that she didn ’ t identify with either party and had voted for Republicans in the past .
“ The thing that made her perk up was when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an incumbent Republican , Scott Brown.
” Mayer told the woman to “ ‘ Vote with your heart.
’ By the end of the conversation , she goes , ‘ O.K.
, I ’ ll vote for her .
It ’ s the primary , so now ’ s the time.
’ ” Her husband had disappeared .
As Mayer was leaving , “ She comes outside and she yells ‘ Teresa !
I talked to my husband .
He ’ s in for Warren , too !
’ ” Mayer went on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that if everyone answered their door , and we all had twenty minutes to talk , things would be different.
” Instead , voters had watched too much cable news .
Olenick said , “ The fact that Democrats are obsessing over electability and ending up with probably a pretty weak candidate is the greatest irony I can think of .
Versus someone who would have taken down Trump and cut him into little pieces.
” Still , they were trying not to get bitter .
Warren ’ s campaign culture is “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mayer said , “ If you were tuned into Elizabeth Warren Twitter , which I ’ ll admit is a bubble , it was never about bashing another campaign .
It was , ‘ I ’ m excited about Elizabeth , and let me share my story !
’ ” Olenick said that she ’ d developed coping strategies since Trump ’ s election , in 2016 .
“ Strategy No .
1 is , Don ’ t be alone .
Go be with other people .
Strategy No .
2 is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Warren herself , who had told her staff in that morning ’ s call , “ This fight goes on , ” and , “ We will persist.
” Olenick said she was focussing on down-ballot races .
“ That ’ s been true of so many people I ’ ve talked to in the last couple of days .
They ’ ve all been saying , ‘ We ’ ve got to take back the Senate .
’ ”

There was a forlorn mood the other night inside the headquarters of Brooklyn for Warren, a few sparsely furnished rooms in the Park Slope campaign offices of the New York City councilman Brad Lander, where a group of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign volunteers had assembled for a round of “sad and celebratory drinks.” The walls were still decorated with Warren paraphernalia: a poster that said “The Best Candidate Money Can’t Buy” and a cardboard cutout of the candidate as Superwoman; an enormous map displaying her policy platform (categories: Anti-Corruption, Systemic Reforms, Economic Equality, Climate Change); a “Lil Liberty” lending library; and a list of thoughtful community guidelines—“Use gender-neutral collective nouns. . . . Listen more than you speak. . . . Be generous with each other. . . . No trashing other candidates or their supporters!” A sign taped to the wall in one area said “This Room is for Reflection—Feel Free to Write a Postcard to Liz and the Campaign. We Will Send Them.”
Warren had failed to win any primary contests on Super Tuesday, and had placed third in her home state of Massachusetts. That morning, she’d informed staff on a conference call that she was ending her campaign, adding, “I will carry you in my heart for the rest of my life.” The volunteers drank boxed wine and I.P.A. beer, and nibbled on chocolate cake and tortilla chips. They posed for a picture with a cardboard cutout of Warren, draped in a rainbow feather boa, chanting “Dream big! Fight hard!” instead of “Cheese.” They were mostly female, although trans men, gay men, and sensitive straight, cis men were also represented: the group’s founder, an allergist and immunologist named Milo Vassallo, spoke about the importance of being a man who wears his Warren pin in public, and opined about what he saw as the covert sexism of the “Bernie bros” on his baseball team.
The women seemed especially dejected. “I did a lot of crying today,” Jennie Spector, a social worker, said.
“I feel a lot of rage,” Teresa Mayer, who has worked in nonprofits, said.
Liat Olenick, a teacher, said that she was sad, too. “But I’m getting to the anger stage.”
“It’s just so disappointing,” Mayer said. “This idea of waiting around, wondering, which old white man is she going to endorse?”
All three are members of Indivisible Nation BK, a nonprofit organization that, they pointed out, has leadership that is mostly female. Olenick said, “And after four years of movement-building led almost entirely by women, we’re faced with two almost eighty-year-old white men as supposedly the future of this country.”
Brooklyn for Warren, the largest of several grassroots groups in the borough, had spent hours phone-banking for Warren. Organizers had travelled to Iowa, New Hampshire, and Virginia to knock on doors. “What more could we do?” Sze Chan, a translator who worked with New York City for Warren, said, pointing out that the Warren campaign had outdone the others by almost every metric: “The number of calls we made, texts sent out, doors knocked on.”
“We were everywhere,” Spector said. “Biden just won a bunch of states where he had nobody on the ground.”
The problem was not Warren’s résumé, or her skill set, or her appeal to voters, Olenick said. “Sixty per cent of my conversations were with people saying, ‘I love her! She’s so smart. She’s so tough. She would make the best President. But I’m voting for Biden.’ Or, ‘I’m voting for Bernie. Because I don’t think she can win.’ ” This, they felt, came from a kind of anticipatory sexism—a belief that a woman could never become the President, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy. They noted that women were some of the worst offenders. “I think a lot of them were really, truly traumatized by Hillary losing,” Olenick said. She’d spoken to many women who’d volunteered for Clinton or been precinct captains. “The majority of my phone conversations were working to convince women that they shouldn’t vote out of fear for an old white man.”
“On Monday night, I managed to flip one woman,” Mayer recalled. They’d been canvassing in Sterling, Virginia, before Super Tuesday. “Her husband answered the door. He wasn’t on my list, but I started in with my spiel. And his wife yells from the top of the stairs, ‘Who are you here for? Elizabeth? Oh, I love Elizabeth! My girlfriends all love her, too. She’s so great. But we’re going to vote for Biden.’ ” The woman believed that Warren couldn’t win. Mayer spoke with her for twenty minutes—and learned that she didn’t identify with either party and had voted for Republicans in the past. “The thing that made her perk up was when I told her that Elizabeth had beat an incumbent Republican, Scott Brown.” Mayer told the woman to “ ‘Vote with your heart.’ By the end of the conversation, she goes, ‘O.K., I’ll vote for her. It’s the primary, so now’s the time.’ ” Her husband had disappeared. As Mayer was leaving, “She comes outside and she yells ‘Teresa! I talked to my husband. He’s in for Warren, too!’ ” Mayer went on, “The lesson for me was that if everyone answered their door, and we all had twenty minutes to talk, things would be different.”
Instead, voters had watched too much cable news. Olenick said, “The fact that Democrats are obsessing over electability and ending up with probably a pretty weak candidate is the greatest irony I can think of. Versus someone who would have taken down Trump and cut him into little pieces.” Still, they were trying not to get bitter. Warren’s campaign culture is “relentlessly positive,” Olenick noted. Mayer said, “If you were tuned into Elizabeth Warren Twitter, which I’ll admit is a bubble, it was never about bashing another campaign. It was, ‘I’m excited about Elizabeth, and let me share my story!’ ”
Olenick said that she’d developed coping strategies since Trump’s election, in 2016. “Strategy No. 1 is, Don’t be alone. Go be with other people. Strategy No. 2 is, Take action.” They were taking cues from Warren herself, who had told her staff in that morning’s call, “This fight goes on,” and, “We will persist.” Olenick said she was focussing on down-ballot races. “That’s been true of so many people I’ve talked to in the last couple of days. They’ve all been saying, ‘We’ve got to take back the Senate.’ ”


newyorker--2020-03-08--How Old Is Too Old to Work?

How Old Is Too Old to Work?

In her book “ Elderhood : Redefining Aging , Transforming Medicine , Reimagining Life , ” Louise Aronson , a geriatrician and a professor of medicine at the University of California , San Francisco , examines Americans ’ fraught relationship to the aging process , from our enthusiasm for supposed anti-aging cures to our troubled health-care system and the persistence of ageism among employers .
Too often , Aronson argues , people over the age of sixty-five are viewed as a single group—one whose needs and desires and humanity are given short shrift , particularly within a medical system that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the elderly .
Questions about the place of the elderly in American society have become especially pertinent in our current political moment .
On Inauguration Day , 2021 , a septuagenarian—Donald Trump , Joe Biden , or Bernie Sanders—will almost certainly be sworn into the office of the Presidency .
To discuss the perceived and real effects of aging , I recently spoke by phone with Aronson .
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed why so many Americans over sixty-five are entering the workforce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job for someone over seventy , and why we tend to view older Americans as a single , distinct group .
Your book is very sympathetic to the realities of aging , as it should be .
But what have you made of the fact that our next President is likely going to be seventy-four , seventy-eight , or seventy-nine when he is sworn into office ?
And how should we think about that as citizens ?
What a lovely question .
I guess I would see it as the most visible part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , for the last several years , by far the fastest-growing segments of the American workforce , and this comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics , have been people age sixty-five and up .
That includes two groups , and , actually , they parse it a bit , even though I complain in my book that we often don ’ t parse it .
One is ages sixty-five to seventy-four , and one is ages seventy-five and up .
The relative increases are four to five times higher than the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their thirties , forties , and fifties .
So it ’ s really this new phenomenon , which has come after a slight lag .
When we set Social Security and retirement in our sixties , the average age of death was about sixty-two .
And now the average age at death is seventy-nine , with huge variation according to gender and race .
The leading [ Presidential ] candidates are all white , which gives them a mortality advantage , as does the fact that they ’ re all educated .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their eighties .
And , actually , a man at age seventy-five has on average eleven to eleven and a half years of additional life , most likely , the vast majority of which are healthy .
To take a step back from the Presidency , how do you view this workplace trend ?
I think it ’ s a good trend for a variety of reasons .
One is that society simultaneously is quite ageist about , say , “ Isn ’ t it time to retire ?
, ” or “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” or not hiring , or all those hiring pull-down menus where they might not include a variety of birthdays of people who could be perfectly competent for the job .
I speak to a lot of people in companies where they ’ re , like , “ But maybe they won ’ t last very long.
” And they don ’ t consider the youth equivalent , which is that most younger people now switch jobs really often .
I ’ m digressing , but we can ’ t have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of age and doesn ’ t hire or phases people out on the basis of age , and then complains about older people as a burden .
You can ’ t have it both ways .
You can ’ t say , “ Oh , you ’ re not fiscally contributing , ” and then , “ We ’ re not going to let you fiscally contribute.
” That is short of productive—economic and societal hypocrisy , basically .
One of the reasons I called the book “ Elderhood ” was because I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ modern old age—the old age that evolved over the twentieth century , when we moved from an average lifespan of forty-nine to seventy-nine—is colossal , that elderhood has become like childhood and adulthood .
It is a phase of life that lasts decades and includes a huge diversity of people and functional abilities .
So we easily accept that a neonate , infant , and toddler are children , just as teen-agers are children .
And those are pretty different-looking animals .
Similarly , we have a twenty-year-old in our household , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and those are pretty different , too .
You could argue a little less so , but , the further along I get , the more I ’ m aware of the differences .
So how old are you ?
I know it ’ s a rude question , but , in this case— I ’ m thirty-seven , just so we ’ re all honest and on the record .
I did search you , to get the sense of who I was talking to .
I find I actually sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old the person is .
So , while we all talk about our twenties or thirties as being so different from each other , you ’ re saying the difference between sixties and seventies , or seventies and eighties , and eighties and nineties , are actually huge ?
Exactly .
A fascinating thing has happened in geriatrics just in the last decade , which is that we now sometimes take care of two generations .
I ’ ve had patients in their hundreds where their kids are in their seventies or eighties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their eighties and nineties who have kids in their sixties or seventies .
So it ’ s really becoming multi-generational , because of the vast numbers of people living so many more years , and we need to acknowledge that those people are different .
Different decades , no matter how old or young you are , are all very different , and that ’ s part of life ’ s excitement .
We keep moving forward .
Do you have some broad way of thinking about different ages or stages of elderhood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with old age is that we all begin young .
So it all seems very old and foreign to us .
There have been some subcategories .
A psychologist , Bernice Neugarten , named the stages Young Old , Old , and Old Old , and that was roughly sixty-five to seventy-four , seventy-five to eighty-four , and then eighty-five up .
We do have increasing numbers of centenarians , so that is a broad range .
But one could argue that the sixty-five-to-seventy-four range , except for the most disadvantaged—and there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , like stress and poverty—is a blurred line in medicine .
Are you more like an adult ?
Are you more like an elder ?
And either can be true .
And , as you get into seventies-to-eighties , there still is a range , but there are more people who are going to resemble the older people .
We got sidetracked , but can you say more about why you think it is good for older people to stay in the workforce ?
One is that the economic burden goes down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less likely you are to be the so-called burden .
But perhaps more important is that health and quality of life go up when people keep working .
I should also qualify that to use the word “ work ” broadly .
We tend not to count traditionally female things , like caregiving , although we ’ re seeing increasing grandparents participating .
But there are many ways in which you can contribute to your family or your community .
People who have lots of wealth may be doing volunteer jobs—that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that people who keep working maintain higher levels of physical function and cognitive function .
They just tend to be healthier .
It probably relates to this growing database on purpose and health , and optimism and health .
If you ’ re doing something that feels like it has purpose or meaning—although these are things we actually often intentionally strip old people of—then you have a reason to get up .

The geriatrician Louise Aronson discusses why Americans over sixty-five are entering the workforce. Source Photograph from Getty
In her book “Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life,” Louise Aronson, a geriatrician and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, examines Americans’ fraught relationship to the aging process, from our enthusiasm for supposed anti-aging cures to our troubled health-care system and the persistence of ageism among employers. Too often, Aronson argues, people over the age of sixty-five are viewed as a single group—one whose needs and desires and humanity are given short shrift, particularly within a medical system that is ostensibly centered around the needs of the elderly.
Questions about the place of the elderly in American society have become especially pertinent in our current political moment. On Inauguration Day, 2021, a septuagenarian—Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or Bernie Sanders—will almost certainly be sworn into the office of the Presidency.
To discuss the perceived and real effects of aging, I recently spoke by phone with Aronson. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why so many Americans over sixty-five are entering the workforce, whether the Presidency is the wrong job for someone over seventy, and why we tend to view older Americans as a single, distinct group.
Your book is very sympathetic to the realities of aging, as it should be. But what have you made of the fact that our next President is likely going to be seventy-four, seventy-eight, or seventy-nine when he is sworn into office? And how should we think about that as citizens?
What a lovely question. I guess I would see it as the most visible part of a national trend, which is that, for the last several years, by far the fastest-growing segments of the American workforce, and this comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, have been people age sixty-five and up. That includes two groups, and, actually, they parse it a bit, even though I complain in my book that we often don’t parse it. One is ages sixty-five to seventy-four, and one is ages seventy-five and up. The relative increases are four to five times higher than the increases in workforce gains in people in their thirties, forties, and fifties. So it’s really this new phenomenon, which has come after a slight lag.
When we set Social Security and retirement in our sixties, the average age of death was about sixty-two. And now the average age at death is seventy-nine, with huge variation according to gender and race. The leading [Presidential] candidates are all white, which gives them a mortality advantage, as does the fact that they’re all educated. So people their age very routinely live into their eighties. And, actually, a man at age seventy-five has on average eleven to eleven and a half years of additional life, most likely, the vast majority of which are healthy.
To take a step back from the Presidency, how do you view this workplace trend?
I think it’s a good trend for a variety of reasons. One is that society simultaneously is quite ageist about, say, “Isn’t it time to retire?,” or “That person’s over the hill,” or not hiring, or all those hiring pull-down menus where they might not include a variety of birthdays of people who could be perfectly competent for the job. I speak to a lot of people in companies where they’re, like, “But maybe they won’t last very long.” And they don’t consider the youth equivalent, which is that most younger people now switch jobs really often.
I’m digressing, but we can’t have a society that simultaneously discriminates on the basis of age and doesn’t hire or phases people out on the basis of age, and then complains about older people as a burden. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say, “Oh, you’re not fiscally contributing,” and then, “We’re not going to let you fiscally contribute.” That is short of productive—economic and societal hypocrisy, basically.
One of the reasons I called the book “Elderhood” was because I really wanted to emphasize the fact that modern old age—the old age that evolved over the twentieth century, when we moved from an average lifespan of forty-nine to seventy-nine—is colossal, that elderhood has become like childhood and adulthood. It is a phase of life that lasts decades and includes a huge diversity of people and functional abilities. So we easily accept that a neonate, infant, and toddler are children, just as teen-agers are children. And those are pretty different-looking animals. Similarly, we have a twenty-year-old in our household, and we’re in our mid-to-later fifties, and those are pretty different, too. You could argue a little less so, but, the further along I get, the more I’m aware of the differences.
So how old are you? I know it’s a rude question, but, in this case—
No, no. Fifty-six.
I’m thirty-seven, just so we’re all honest and on the record.
I did search you, to get the sense of who I was talking to. I find I actually sometimes do get different questions depending on how old the person is.
So, while we all talk about our twenties or thirties as being so different from each other, you’re saying the difference between sixties and seventies, or seventies and eighties, and eighties and nineties, are actually huge?
Exactly. A fascinating thing has happened in geriatrics just in the last decade, which is that we now sometimes take care of two generations. I’ve had patients in their hundreds where their kids are in their seventies or eighties. And I routinely have people in their eighties and nineties who have kids in their sixties or seventies. So it’s really becoming multi-generational, because of the vast numbers of people living so many more years, and we need to acknowledge that those people are different. Different decades, no matter how old or young you are, are all very different, and that’s part of life’s excitement. We keep moving forward.
Do you have some broad way of thinking about different ages or stages of elderhood?
I think one of the problems with old age is that we all begin young. So it all seems very old and foreign to us. There have been some subcategories. A psychologist, Bernice Neugarten, named the stages Young Old, Old, and Old Old, and that was roughly sixty-five to seventy-four, seventy-five to eighty-four, and then eighty-five up. We do have increasing numbers of centenarians, so that is a broad range. But one could argue that the sixty-five-to-seventy-four range, except for the most disadvantaged—and there are all these structural things that contribute to that, like stress and poverty—is a blurred line in medicine. Are you more like an adult? Are you more like an elder? And either can be true. And, as you get into seventies-to-eighties, there still is a range, but there are more people who are going to resemble the older people.
We got sidetracked, but can you say more about why you think it is good for older people to stay in the workforce?
One is that the economic burden goes down. The longer you work, the less likely you are to be the so-called burden. But perhaps more important is that health and quality of life go up when people keep working. I should also qualify that to use the word “work” broadly. We tend not to count traditionally female things, like caregiving, although we’re seeing increasing grandparents participating. But there are many ways in which you can contribute to your family or your community. People who have lots of wealth may be doing volunteer jobs—that’s still work. But we know unequivocally that people who keep working maintain higher levels of physical function and cognitive function. They just tend to be healthier. It probably relates to this growing database on purpose and health, and optimism and health. If you’re doing something that feels like it has purpose or meaning—although these are things we actually often intentionally strip old people of—then you have a reason to get up.


newyorker--2020-03-08--George the Poet’s Undefinably Good Podcast

The medium of podcasting has become so essential that it feels like it ’ s been around forever , while also being novel enough to surprise listeners with new forms and content , such as a deep dive into the cultural significance of Dolly Parton , or The Paris Review ’ s peregrination through its own archive .
It ’ s still unusual , though , when a podcast blows through the medium ’ s newly established boundaries , offering an experience as innovative as it is undefinable .
“ Have You Heard George ’ s Podcast ?
, ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ artist and activist , does just that , as evidenced by the nominations received for its first season at last year ’ s British Podcast Awards .
It was nominated in six disparate categories : Best Current Affairs , Moment of the Year , Best Arts & Culture , Best Fiction , Best New Podcast , and Smartest Podcast , the latter four of which it won , along with a special award as Podcast of the Year .
All that was before “ Have You Heard George ’ s Podcast ?
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concluded earlier this year , having been scooped up by the BBC and thereby brought to an even wider audience .
As the podcast judges discovered , categorizing Mpanga ’ s creation is a mug ’ s game , as is summing it up with anything other than bemused superlatives .
But here ’ s a short list of some of the subjects that “ Have You Heard George ’ s Podcast ?
” addresses : growing up on a London council estate , or housing project ; the interplay between crime and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Grenfell Tower tragedy ; the consequence of a lack of generational wealth ; the history of black American music ; the modern slave trade ; contemporary Ugandan politics ; the trials of romantic commitment ; the experience of writer ’ s block ; the imperative to use one ’ s talent ; the anxieties that come along with being an artist ; the wearying ordeal of being subject to racist policing .
In one episode , Mpanga samples a video clip shot in the summer of 2018 , when he was stopped and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ house after returning from performing a show .
“ Google me !
Wikipedia me !
” he tells the cops in the video ; if they had , they would have learned that the previous month , he had opened the BBC ’ s coverage of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with one of his poems .
Formally , the podcast is unpredictable , moving between memoir , reportage , fiction , even comedy .
( It ’ s also hard to dip into : the podcast aspires to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seasons , and is best listened to from beginning to end .
Chapter 3 will appear later this year . )
At one moment , “ Have You Heard George ’ s Podcast ?
” offers consciousness-raising exhortation ; at the next , consciousness-streaming self-examination .
With a complexly layered sound design , the podcast is mostly but not exclusively spoken by Mpanga , whose voice is gentle , persuasive , and generous , and whose other stylistic innovation is to render the podcast almost entirely in rhyming verse that , like the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ amounts to a naturalistic but heightened form of everyday speech .
“ I did feel very vindicated , ” Mpanga said , of his podcast-award sweep , when we met recently in Central London .
Mpanga is twenty-nine , grew up in Harlesden , in northwest London , the second of six children whose parents emigrated from Uganda , in the nineteen-eighties .
He grew up on a housing estate called St. Raphael ’ s ; he writes with artful offhandedness of the neighborhood ’ s quotidian violence , drugs , and gang @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first season of “ Have You Heard George ’ s Podcast ?
” begins with Mpanga watching his nephews and their friends playing in the street .
“ I ’ m twenty years older than these kids , and I ’ m imagining what the next twenty years will be like for them , ” he says on the podcast .
“ Some of them will obviously be dead .
Some in jail .
Some sitting right here watching their own kids , asking the same questions.
” The bleak assessment has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seeks to explain the logic of the streets without glamorization or endorsement .
“ Nobodyness—that ’ s a thing that ’ s chasing a lot of us , ” he said .
“ It ’ s like you ’ re nothing—you ’ re not counted.
” As a child , Mpanga was set on a different path by his own parents , who were discovering that the education system had lower expectations for their children than they did .
Mpanga was accepted at eleven into Queen Elizabeth Boys , a selective secondary school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a three-hour round trip by bus from his home .
“ My mum obviously wanted me to go to Q.E.
, but I wasn ’ t ready for the competition / Blud , I couldn ’ t even do long addition , ” he recounts in a long autobiographical digression , in an episode called “ A North West Story.
” The BBC Concert Orchestra accompanied Mpanga ’ s recitation of the piece during a live performance at BBC ’ s Radio Theatre .
School was a difficult experience , he says , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he went to Cambridge University to read politics , psychology , and sociology .
Sometimes , “ Have You Heard George ’ s Podcast ?
” has the energy of a late-night monologue delivered by an undergraduate drunk on learning , outpacing his professor in facts and finesse .
Of his education experience , he told me , “ When you examine the nuances of these spaces , and these awkward social challenges , you ’ ll find individuals with stories about how they navigated their unique situations , using some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who had learned to be an m.c .
while still in his mid-teens , started performing under the name George the Poet while at Cambridge .
Upon leaving college , he signed with a record label ; but , despite being nominated for awards , he parted ways with the company , having decided that the medium was too restrictive for the message he sought to express .
In “ Have You Heard George ’ s Podcast ?
” Mpanga considers the perception that grime and drill , London ’ s subgenres @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ways in which the larger industry profits from that relentless focus : “ We now provide the fuel for a multibillion-dollar storytelling industry / And all we have to show for it is new versions of the same story , ” he says .
Mpanga ’ s love for music is a constant presence in the podcast , including the sixth episode of the first series , when he goes from dissecting London to exploring the Ugandan pop scene , in just one of the podcast ’ s continent-crossing excursions .
Mpanga @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his parents ’ homeland of Uganda , and with his own homeland of Britain , fuels the podcast ’ s profoundest inquiry .
At a moment when it seems that the entire country , having finally Brexited , is engaged in a painful process of figuring out its identity , Mpanga ’ s journey through his own story offers unexpected resonances for listeners of quite different backgrounds from his own .
Mpanga generated headlines when he revealed , in the final episode of the second season , that he had turned down an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Queen nominating persons of achievement to become Members of the Order of the British Empire .
He declined the honor because of the imperial past for which it is named—a past in which , he recounts in the podcast in a devastatingly soft tone , “ Your forefathers grabbed my motherland , pinned her down , and took turns.
” In the final episode of the second season , Mpanga imagines conversations between himself and Uganda and Britain , the countries personified as young women with whom he is entangled in complex , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no spoiler to reveal that the episode includes a moving pronouncement of his love for Britain .
“ I think a lot of people missed that , ” Mpanga told me .
“ A lot of people came out of the woodwork to tell me I was wrong , that I should ‘ go back to Africa.
’ ” He went on , “ Britain has a fascinating history ; some great ideas have sprung from this part of the world—ideas that I use every single day to make the highest contribution I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , the benefits that I have got from this country , from the traumatic history that my people have encountered in relation to Britain ?
I can ’ t separate them .
“ And , just like in a marriage , or a relationship , or a friendship , you have to educate the other person on the love that you want , ” he went on .
“ As much as you might feel you don ’ t deserve to have to do this , how are they ever going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this relationship , if you don ’ t give them every opportunity to do that—especially if you know you can ’ t live without them ?
” He didn ’ t imagine that he could ever turn his back on Britain , or permanently move away , he said .
“ And even if I did—I grew up here .
I found myself here .
I met my parents here , you know ?
”

The medium of podcasting has become so essential that it feels like it’s been around forever, while also being novel enough to surprise listeners with new forms and content, such as a deep dive into the cultural significance of Dolly Parton, or The Paris Review’s peregrination through its own archive. It’s still unusual, though, when a podcast blows through the medium’s newly established boundaries, offering an experience as innovative as it is undefinable. “Have You Heard George’s Podcast?,” by George Mpanga, a British spoken-word artist and activist, does just that, as evidenced by the nominations received for its first season at last year’s British Podcast Awards. It was nominated in six disparate categories: Best Current Affairs, Moment of the Year, Best Arts & Culture, Best Fiction, Best New Podcast, and Smartest Podcast, the latter four of which it won, along with a special award as Podcast of the Year. All that was before “Have You Heard George’s Podcast?” returned for an acclaimed second season that concluded earlier this year, having been scooped up by the BBC and thereby brought to an even wider audience.
As the podcast judges discovered, categorizing Mpanga’s creation is a mug’s game, as is summing it up with anything other than bemused superlatives. But here’s a short list of some of the subjects that “Have You Heard George’s Podcast?” addresses: growing up on a London council estate, or housing project; the interplay between crime and rap music; school segregation; the Grenfell Tower tragedy; the consequence of a lack of generational wealth; the history of black American music; the modern slave trade; contemporary Ugandan politics; the trials of romantic commitment; the experience of writer’s block; the imperative to use one’s talent; the anxieties that come along with being an artist; the wearying ordeal of being subject to racist policing. In one episode, Mpanga samples a video clip shot in the summer of 2018, when he was stopped and searched by police outside his parents’ house after returning from performing a show. “Google me! Wikipedia me!” he tells the cops in the video; if they had, they would have learned that the previous month, he had opened the BBC’s coverage of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with one of his poems.
Formally, the podcast is unpredictable, moving between memoir, reportage, fiction, even comedy. (It’s also hard to dip into: the podcast aspires to a literary form, offering chapters instead of seasons, and is best listened to from beginning to end. Chapter 3 will appear later this year.) At one moment, “Have You Heard George’s Podcast?” offers consciousness-raising exhortation; at the next, consciousness-streaming self-examination. With a complexly layered sound design, the podcast is mostly but not exclusively spoken by Mpanga, whose voice is gentle, persuasive, and generous, and whose other stylistic innovation is to render the podcast almost entirely in rhyming verse that, like the rapping to which it is indebted, amounts to a naturalistic but heightened form of everyday speech.
“I did feel very vindicated,” Mpanga said, of his podcast-award sweep, when we met recently in Central London. Mpanga is twenty-nine, grew up in Harlesden, in northwest London, the second of six children whose parents emigrated from Uganda, in the nineteen-eighties. He grew up on a housing estate called St. Raphael’s; he writes with artful offhandedness of the neighborhood’s quotidian violence, drugs, and gang affiliations. The first episode of the first season of “Have You Heard George’s Podcast?” begins with Mpanga watching his nephews and their friends playing in the street. “I’m twenty years older than these kids, and I’m imagining what the next twenty years will be like for them,” he says on the podcast. “Some of them will obviously be dead. Some in jail. Some sitting right here watching their own kids, asking the same questions.” The bleak assessment has a pedagogical purpose: Mpanga’s podcast seeks to explain the logic of the streets without glamorization or endorsement. “Nobodyness—that’s a thing that’s chasing a lot of us,” he said. “It’s like you’re nothing—you’re not counted.”
As a child, Mpanga was set on a different path by his own parents, who were discovering that the education system had lower expectations for their children than they did. Mpanga was accepted at eleven into Queen Elizabeth Boys, a selective secondary school in a more affluent area that entailed a three-hour round trip by bus from his home. “My mum obviously wanted me to go to Q.E., but I wasn’t ready for the competition / Blud, I couldn’t even do long addition,” he recounts in a long autobiographical digression, in an episode called “A North West Story.” The BBC Concert Orchestra accompanied Mpanga’s recitation of the piece during a live performance at BBC’s Radio Theatre. School was a difficult experience, he says, but it produced results: At nineteen, he went to Cambridge University to read politics, psychology, and sociology. Sometimes, “Have You Heard George’s Podcast?” has the energy of a late-night monologue delivered by an undergraduate drunk on learning, outpacing his professor in facts and finesse. Of his education experience, he told me, “When you examine the nuances of these spaces, and these awkward social challenges, you’ll find individuals with stories about how they navigated their unique situations, using some of the imperfections of their environment.”
Mpanga, who had learned to be an m.c. while still in his mid-teens, started performing under the name George the Poet while at Cambridge. Upon leaving college, he signed with a record label; but, despite being nominated for awards, he parted ways with the company, having decided that the medium was too restrictive for the message he sought to express. In “Have You Heard George’s Podcast?” Mpanga considers the perception that grime and drill, London’s subgenres of rap, celebrate violence, and the ways in which the larger industry profits from that relentless focus: “We now provide the fuel for a multibillion-dollar storytelling industry / And all we have to show for it is new versions of the same story,” he says. Mpanga’s love for music is a constant presence in the podcast, including the sixth episode of the first series, when he goes from dissecting London to exploring the Ugandan pop scene, in just one of the podcast’s continent-crossing excursions.
Mpanga’s consideration of his relationship with his parents’ homeland of Uganda, and with his own homeland of Britain, fuels the podcast’s profoundest inquiry. At a moment when it seems that the entire country, having finally Brexited, is engaged in a painful process of figuring out its identity, Mpanga’s journey through his own story offers unexpected resonances for listeners of quite different backgrounds from his own. Mpanga generated headlines when he revealed, in the final episode of the second season, that he had turned down an M.B.E., an honor awarded by the Queen nominating persons of achievement to become Members of the Order of the British Empire. He declined the honor because of the imperial past for which it is named—a past in which, he recounts in the podcast in a devastatingly soft tone, “Your forefathers grabbed my motherland, pinned her down, and took turns.”
In the final episode of the second season, Mpanga imagines conversations between himself and Uganda and Britain, the countries personified as young women with whom he is entangled in complex, difficult, important relationships; it is no spoiler to reveal that the episode includes a moving pronouncement of his love for Britain. “I think a lot of people missed that,” Mpanga told me. “A lot of people came out of the woodwork to tell me I was wrong, that I should ‘go back to Africa.’ ” He went on, “Britain has a fascinating history; some great ideas have sprung from this part of the world—ideas that I use every single day to make the highest contribution I can. So how can I divorce that, the benefits that I have got from this country, from the traumatic history that my people have encountered in relation to Britain? I can’t separate them.
“And, just like in a marriage, or a relationship, or a friendship, you have to educate the other person on the love that you want,” he went on. “As much as you might feel you don’t deserve to have to do this, how are they ever going to be what you need them to be in this relationship, if you don’t give them every opportunity to do that—especially if you know you can’t live without them?” He didn’t imagine that he could ever turn his back on Britain, or permanently move away, he said. “And even if I did—I grew up here. I found myself here. I met my parents here, you know?”


newyorker--2020-03-09--Matthew Klam on the Madness of Becoming a Parent

Your story in this week ’ s issue , “ The Liver , ” in a way picks up where your last story in the magazine , “ Adina , Astrid , Chipewee , Jasmine , ” left off .
In that story , a woman goes into premature labor .
In this story , we see a couple experiencing the first days of their preemie daughter ’ s life , in the neonatal I.C.U .
Is it fair to say that the stories were inspired by a personal experience of childbirth ?
Absolutely .
They were inspired by my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends , loved ones , and friends of friends who ’ d struggled to conceive , coped with infertility , had one miscarriage after another , ectopic pregnancies , multiple I.V.F.s , preeclampsia , bed rest , emergency C-sections , premature births , difficulty breast-feeding , you name it .
The opening scene ?
One night in the mid-nineties , I was the designated driver to rush my housemate ’ s very pregnant sister through the city , in a borrowed S.U.V.
, in the middle of a blizzard , backing down blocked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where , fifteen minutes later , she gave birth .
And although entire scenes and stretches of dialogue and characters were cobbled together from those stories , as well as from my own imagination , I began with detailed notes of the moments following my daughter ’ s birth .
My notebook was two or three folded pieces of paper that I carried around the hospital , in my back pocket .
I had a sort of two-fisted approach to note-taking , so that on one side was straight-up reporting of names @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things I witnessed or overheard—scenes of euphoria , but also of bewilderment , a firsthand description of a newborn medevac rescue , and another of a traumatic outcome for a baby born at twenty-one weeks—and on the other side was a personal diary of my state of mind .
But about my personal experience : I tend not to understand a lot of what happens to me while it ’ s happening , and I often react by standing with my mouth open , in stunned silence , wondering whether someone put LSD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harder I tried to replicate my experience , as I drafted this story , the more I realized that everything I ’ d taken in was colored by my own distorted perceptions .
Still , like my narrator , I spent a few long days in the neonatal wing of a hospital , in a provocative T-shirt I ’ d haphazardly thrown on in the dark , back home .
My T-shirt said , “ Kiss me , I ’ m pro-choice.
” The couple in the story have already gone through a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conceive , and then suddenly become parents , months before they ’ re prepared to .
The writing has a frantic quality to it—long , trailing sentences , abrupt moments of humor and horror .
Was that meant to reflect the emotional roller coaster these two are living through ?
Yes , it ’ s a unique emotional ride .
I remember once walking through a cemetery , and seeing the tombstone of a three-day-old baby , and wondering what would possess a grieving parent to memorialize a child that had been around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t understand—until I laid eyes on my newborn baby , and then I did .
A kid pops out and some madness overtakes you .
The guy in the story is nuts , and I was him at times , so I know .
The story does capture some of that , like a mosquito trapped in amber .
I was bombarded with concentrated emotion , anxiety , and technology .
I remember more than once , during those days in the NICU , standing in front of a bulletin board @ @ @ @ @ @ @ posted alongside updated photos of the same kids , who ’ d returned in triumph , years later , to thank their nurses and show off their exquisite development .
I imagined , as every day passed and my daughter grew stronger , the photos of us , upon our return .
But we never went back .
The story is also , to some extent , a satire about how hospitals deal with new parents , no ?
Yes , and an ode to the beleaguered , heroic , benumbed nurses and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ craziest populations imaginable : new parents of babies who aren ’ t yet out of the woods .
Manic , relieved , careening , despairing , exultant , and stupefied—all might describe parents of NICU babies , at any given moment .
That mood suggested a satirical approach .
The narrator was just about to end his marriage when his wife told him she was pregnant .
Do you think the relationship will hold ?
If so , what will hold it together ?
It ’ s true that the narrator felt hollowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conceive , but I don ’ t know if he would ’ ve followed through on his threat to leave .
He hadn ’ t actually mentioned leaving to his wife .
I do think that he was overwhelmed with guilt for even considering it and unable to forgive himself for that impulse .
Then , as the story opens , he rises to the occasion , as the situation demands , but he ’ s also working overtime to shed that guilt .
And now that their daughter has been born , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ll last ?
I hope it will , but people are so surprising .
Good relationships break up for the sanest and also the dumbest reasons .
It ’ s interesting to see how couples react to challenging events .
Some grow closer .
Some are destroyed .
When you consider the indignity of marriage and the daily struggle to keep things viable , it ’ s hard to fault the people who give up .
But I think there ’ s a chance that this trial will bring this couple closer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and grateful , every day that follows , for the health and beauty of their groovy new daughter .
You first wrote a draft of “ The Liver ” back in 2007 , not long after “ Adina , Astrid , Chipewee , Jasmine ” was published .
What made you put it aside and then go back to it ?
I showed an early draft of the piece to readers and didn ’ t get the response I wanted and was all too happy to shelve it .
The story freaked me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ checking some facts for this piece , I took a video tour of two or three NICUs , in various hospitals , and the sight of those places overwhelmed me .
I did glance at the piece once or twice over the years , wondering why it wasn ’ t working , and this past fall someone who ’ d heard me read it a few years ago asked about it , so I went back in and was able to cut a lot .
I think the earlier iteration was overwhelmed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engine—we root for a baby—and I think I ’ d suffocated that with other unnecessary forces .
But having some distance from the story made the problems easier to see .
Note to writers : if you ’ re struggling with a story , set it on a shelf for twelve years and voilà .
You wrote your first novel , “ Who Is Rich ?
, ” in between the two drafts of this story .
Do you think that changed how you approached it the second time around ?
Writing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more willing to work through setbacks , so it probably was good training for anything I ’ d write going forward .
Do you have any favorite short stories about birth ?
I can ’ t think of any , but I do have some favorite hospital narratives : Lorrie Moore ’ s story “ People Like That Are the Only People Here ” and John Jeremiah Sullivan ’ s essay “ Feet in Smoke.
” Moore ’ s is the standard for any piece about crazed parents caring for a baby in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about his brother ’ s trip back from the dead has all kinds of quasi-metaphysical things happening , these liminal moments that offer a sort of grace , a sense of wonder at the miracle of a human life .
Spending time in hospitals does make us conscious of that miracle , but we ’ re so inundated with the psychic demands that we barely notice , or we do notice but then gleefully forget the whole thing .
In our everyday lives , all kinds of things are happening that we struggle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or even into a fragment worth keeping .
We make sense of things momentarily , but then lose that sense because there ’ s no vessel for it .
But here the story is the vessel , and although it ’ s an ugly , clumsy process , the writer has to find a way to fill it .

Photograph by Pixie Klam
Your story in this week’s issue, “The Liver,” in a way picks up where your last story in the magazine, “Adina, Astrid, Chipewee, Jasmine,” left off. In that story, a woman goes into premature labor. In this story, we see a couple experiencing the first days of their preemie daughter’s life, in the neonatal I.C.U. Is it fair to say that the stories were inspired by a personal experience of childbirth?
Absolutely. They were inspired by my experiences, as well as those of friends, loved ones, and friends of friends who’d struggled to conceive, coped with infertility, had one miscarriage after another, ectopic pregnancies, multiple I.V.F.s, preeclampsia, bed rest, emergency C-sections, premature births, difficulty breast-feeding, you name it. The opening scene? One night in the mid-nineties, I was the designated driver to rush my housemate’s very pregnant sister through the city, in a borrowed S.U.V., in the middle of a blizzard, backing down blocked streets, rolling up to the hospital, where, fifteen minutes later, she gave birth.
And although entire scenes and stretches of dialogue and characters were cobbled together from those stories, as well as from my own imagination, I began with detailed notes of the moments following my daughter’s birth. My notebook was two or three folded pieces of paper that I carried around the hospital, in my back pocket. I had a sort of two-fisted approach to note-taking, so that on one side was straight-up reporting of names of procedures, and machines, and things I witnessed or overheard—scenes of euphoria, but also of bewilderment, a firsthand description of a newborn medevac rescue, and another of a traumatic outcome for a baby born at twenty-one weeks—and on the other side was a personal diary of my state of mind.
But about my personal experience: I tend not to understand a lot of what happens to me while it’s happening, and I often react by standing with my mouth open, in stunned silence, wondering whether someone put LSD in my milkshake again. And the harder I tried to replicate my experience, as I drafted this story, the more I realized that everything I’d taken in was colored by my own distorted perceptions. Still, like my narrator, I spent a few long days in the neonatal wing of a hospital, in a provocative T-shirt I’d haphazardly thrown on in the dark, back home. My T-shirt said, “Kiss me, I’m pro-choice.”
The couple in the story have already gone through a kind of relationship-shaking trauma, trying to conceive, and then suddenly become parents, months before they’re prepared to. The writing has a frantic quality to it—long, trailing sentences, abrupt moments of humor and horror. Was that meant to reflect the emotional roller coaster these two are living through?
Yes, it’s a unique emotional ride. I remember once walking through a cemetery, and seeing the tombstone of a three-day-old baby, and wondering what would possess a grieving parent to memorialize a child that had been around for so short a time. I didn’t understand—until I laid eyes on my newborn baby, and then I did. A kid pops out and some madness overtakes you. The guy in the story is nuts, and I was him at times, so I know. The story does capture some of that, like a mosquito trapped in amber. I was bombarded with concentrated emotion, anxiety, and technology. I remember more than once, during those days in the NICU, standing in front of a bulletin board where photos of tiny preemie babies were posted alongside updated photos of the same kids, who’d returned in triumph, years later, to thank their nurses and show off their exquisite development. I imagined, as every day passed and my daughter grew stronger, the photos of us, upon our return. But we never went back.
The story is also, to some extent, a satire about how hospitals deal with new parents, no?
Yes, and an ode to the beleaguered, heroic, benumbed nurses and doctors who interface with one of the craziest populations imaginable: new parents of babies who aren’t yet out of the woods. Manic, relieved, careening, despairing, exultant, and stupefied—all might describe parents of NICU babies, at any given moment. That mood suggested a satirical approach.
The narrator was just about to end his marriage when his wife told him she was pregnant. Do you think the relationship will hold? If so, what will hold it together?
It’s true that the narrator felt hollowed out and desperate during their struggle to conceive, but I don’t know if he would’ve followed through on his threat to leave. He hadn’t actually mentioned leaving to his wife. I do think that he was overwhelmed with guilt for even considering it and unable to forgive himself for that impulse. Then, as the story opens, he rises to the occasion, as the situation demands, but he’s also working overtime to shed that guilt.
And now that their daughter has been born, geez, who knows if it’ll last? I hope it will, but people are so surprising. Good relationships break up for the sanest and also the dumbest reasons. It’s interesting to see how couples react to challenging events. Some grow closer. Some are destroyed. When you consider the indignity of marriage and the daily struggle to keep things viable, it’s hard to fault the people who give up. But I think there’s a chance that this trial will bring this couple closer, and that they’ll be awestruck and grateful, every day that follows, for the health and beauty of their groovy new daughter.
You first wrote a draft of “The Liver” back in 2007, not long after “Adina, Astrid, Chipewee, Jasmine” was published. What made you put it aside and then go back to it?
I showed an early draft of the piece to readers and didn’t get the response I wanted and was all too happy to shelve it. The story freaked me out, and still does. While checking some facts for this piece, I took a video tour of two or three NICUs, in various hospitals, and the sight of those places overwhelmed me. I did glance at the piece once or twice over the years, wondering why it wasn’t working, and this past fall someone who’d heard me read it a few years ago asked about it, so I went back in and was able to cut a lot. I think the earlier iteration was overwhelmed by conflict. The story has a natural engine—we root for a baby—and I think I’d suffocated that with other unnecessary forces. But having some distance from the story made the problems easier to see. Note to writers: if you’re struggling with a story, set it on a shelf for twelve years and voilà.


newyorker--2020-03-09--“All the Natalie Portmans” and the Limits of Hollywood Fantasy

Maybe you ’ ve seen the slightly unhinged Dior campaign starring Natalie Portman .
Whether that great brand is using the ads to sell dresses or perfumes , high heels or sunglasses , or just waving its hand around and reminding us of its lasting existence , I couldn ’ t tell you ; the product , as far as I can see , is Portman herself , and the bouquet of associations she carries to the consumer ’ s front door—and , as it happens , to an uneven but intriguing new play called “ All the Natalie Portmans.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a TV commercial , which is itself a kind of abstract play : Portman , as Miss Dior , flits from one glossy frame to the next , all action , like James Bond on a vaguely fun spring-break vacation : she jumps off a pier ( who knows where ? )
into what looks like a dubiously unperturbed and unpolluted lake ; does elegant doughnuts in a pink sports car , spelling out in the sand the word “ love ” in loopy script ; embraces some anonymous hunk with enough passion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some gentle apocalypse .
Portman is everywhere , and everybody , and having a ball .
At the end of the commercial , she walks toward the camera , which settles on her face , in closeup : the face that launched a thousand fragrant magazine pages—balmed-up lips , efficient nose , chiselled cheeks , honeyed eyes .
“ What would you do for love ?
” she asks , suggestively , but she looks less like a lover than like someone so intoxicatingly free—of difficulty , of context—that , like most totems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us in almost equal measure .
I thought of the ad , with its utter placelessness and its wordless hints of easy wealth , as I watched “ All the Natalie Portmans , ” written by C. A. Johnson and directed by Kate Whoriskey , at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theatre Space .
You want to know what you ’ d do for love ?
Try this : Keyonna ( Kara Young ) is a black sixteen-year-old growing up in northeast Washington , D.C. , living under the weight of crushing problems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the anti-Miss Dior : her father ’ s dead , her mother ’ s an addict , and she and her older brother , Samuel ( Joshua Boone ) , are on the verge of being tossed out of their apartment , and far too acquainted with day-to-day hunger .
Keyonna ’ s circumstances are all too specific ; context clings to her like a shadow .
Still , love abounds where freedom doesn ’ t : Keyonna and Samuel look out for each other , even as they settle into a strange @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engaged in a strained “ friends with benefits ” relationship with—Chantel ( Renika Williams ) , whom Keyonna , unbeknownst to Samuel , has recently kissed .
Keyonna is out ; Chantel isn ’ t .
Romance is almost as painful for Keyonna as her relationship with her mother , who disappears whenever she wants to , and shows up without the money the family needs for rent .
Keyonna dreams of being a screenwriter , and tends monastically to a collage on the living-room wall : the faces of the actresses , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that she loves .
She soothes herself with stories , while her mother and brother tease her for her taste .
Why doesn ’ t she watch something a little .
.
.
blacker ?
Whoopi Goldberg is the sole black face on the wall , a little visual joke that had me laughing as soon as I noticed it .
The collage is dominated by pictures of Portman , who , before long , starts showing up in the flesh ( played by Elise Kibler ) , dressed up as her characters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and “ Garden State ” and “ The Professional.
” At Keyonna ’ s lowest moments , here comes Portman : perfectly timed , beguilingly free , ready to create a distraction that feels like Keyonna ’ s desperate grasp at survival .
The Portman interludes , and the accompanying visual and aural trappings—a hilarious invocation of the “ Garden State ” soundtrack ; the instantly recognizable costumes , especially the death-black , ominously avian tutu from “ Black Swan ” —are , initially , funny and humanizing , and point to how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us and serve as background to our pain .
The result , in “ Portmans , ” is a kind of social surrealism , in which feeling draws as much on the imagination as it does on rough , objective , material fact .
In a better calibrated script , one that took as much care with each of its characters as Johnson does with Keyonna , the flights into comic , gonzo Portmanism would help assuage the creeping sense we get that the details of the family ’ s life fit neatly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve seen something like this before : Daddy dead ; Momma ’ s brains and morals fried by alcohol ; brother eventually incarcerated ( by whose fault we soon find out ) ; poor baby sitting at home all alone , too stressed for schoolwork .
This chafes , not because such things never happen in real life but because their depiction in stories like this always sticks to appearances , to the troubles obvious in the skin , but never makes it further , never glances the heart .
As it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Keyonna—bolstered by a rich , deep , moving performance by Young—who walks through a world of tropes like a Technicolor figure in a black-and-white talkie .
Much of the play ’ s charm , despite its narrative fuzziness , lies in the way Johnson portrays the creative precision and generous adornments of black speech .
She rushes pleasingly toward the specific : D.C. slang , instantly familiar if you ’ ve ever lived there or visited for long , is lathered on .
The volleys of loving encouragement , sly ribbing , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Samuel are some of the best moments of the play .
That kind of articulation , rooted in place and politics and fired by a real but endangered affection , might also have been used to address the theme that Portman ’ s odd , hovering presence tries to point to ; namely , that , at the bottom of the American class and racial structure , a straight white woman having fun , free to change costumes whenever the going gets rough , might appear to be as much a cruel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Natalie ” kisses Keyonna , during the lowest of her many brutal lows , it serves only to further devastate her .
Freedom hurts most when you can taste but never fully partake in it .
This is tough territory , how race mingles with desire and leaves behind a sour alloy .
It ’ s reminiscent of Pecola Breedlove ’ s doomed yearnings in Toni Morrison ’ s “ The Bluest Eye , ” which leans into the story ’ s flights of fancy and brings them under the lights , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I wanted more of Keyonna ’ s imaginings : everybody ’ s heard about troubles like hers , but nobody ’ s seen what ravages they might wreak in a mind so sensitive and determined and tortured by distant hope .
Young ’ s lovely performance is at its best not when she ’ s blissed out by escapism , or broken down by her mother ’ s antics , but when she ’ s tiptoeing unsteadily on the line between these modes .
That ’ s humanity : a dream walking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among the casual cruelties of official speech ; thoughts of Heaven stuck in the mud .
The real Natalie Portman showed up at the Oscars earlier this year wearing , over her dress , a black cape whose piping was decorated with the names of all the female directors whom the Academy had failed to acknowledge with nominations : Greta Gerwig , Lorene Scafaria , Marielle Heller , Mati Diop , on and on .
You might imagine a young girl like Keyonna , obsessed with film and dazzled by the red carpet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ onscreen and murmuring , “ Good point , ” then , looking around at the chaos of her own life , adding , “ But if you only knew how much worse things could be.
” ♦

Maybe you’ve seen the slightly unhinged Dior campaign starring Natalie Portman. Whether that great brand is using the ads to sell dresses or perfumes, high heels or sunglasses, or just waving its hand around and reminding us of its lasting existence, I couldn’t tell you; the product, as far as I can see, is Portman herself, and the bouquet of associations she carries to the consumer’s front door—and, as it happens, to an uneven but intriguing new play called “All the Natalie Portmans.”
But here, first, is a TV commercial, which is itself a kind of abstract play: Portman, as Miss Dior, flits from one glossy frame to the next, all action, like James Bond on a vaguely fun spring-break vacation: she jumps off a pier (who knows where?) into what looks like a dubiously unperturbed and unpolluted lake; does elegant doughnuts in a pink sports car, spelling out in the sand the word “love” in loopy script; embraces some anonymous hunk with enough passion for the last night on earth before some gentle apocalypse. Portman is everywhere, and everybody, and having a ball. At the end of the commercial, she walks toward the camera, which settles on her face, in closeup: the face that launched a thousand fragrant magazine pages—balmed-up lips, efficient nose, chiselled cheeks, honeyed eyes. “What would you do for love?” she asks, suggestively, but she looks less like a lover than like someone so intoxicatingly free—of difficulty, of context—that, like most totems of prosperity, she galvanizes and alienates us in almost equal measure.
I thought of the ad, with its utter placelessness and its wordless hints of easy wealth, as I watched “All the Natalie Portmans,” written by C. A. Johnson and directed by Kate Whoriskey, at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theatre Space. You want to know what you’d do for love? Try this: Keyonna (Kara Young) is a black sixteen-year-old growing up in northeast Washington, D.C., living under the weight of crushing problems within her family. She’s the anti-Miss Dior: her father’s dead, her mother’s an addict, and she and her older brother, Samuel (Joshua Boone), are on the verge of being tossed out of their apartment, and far too acquainted with day-to-day hunger. Keyonna’s circumstances are all too specific; context clings to her like a shadow.
Still, love abounds where freedom doesn’t: Keyonna and Samuel look out for each other, even as they settle into a strange love triangle. Samuel is enamored of—and engaged in a strained “friends with benefits” relationship with—Chantel (Renika Williams), whom Keyonna, unbeknownst to Samuel, has recently kissed. Keyonna is out; Chantel isn’t. Romance is almost as painful for Keyonna as her relationship with her mother, who disappears whenever she wants to, and shows up without the money the family needs for rent.
Keyonna dreams of being a screenwriter, and tends monastically to a collage on the living-room wall: the faces of the actresses, mostly white, who populate the movies that she loves. She soothes herself with stories, while her mother and brother tease her for her taste. Why doesn’t she watch something a little . . . blacker? Whoopi Goldberg is the sole black face on the wall, a little visual joke that had me laughing as soon as I noticed it. The collage is dominated by pictures of Portman, who, before long, starts showing up in the flesh (played by Elise Kibler), dressed up as her characters from flicks like “Black Swan” and “Garden State” and “The Professional.” At Keyonna’s lowest moments, here comes Portman: perfectly timed, beguilingly free, ready to create a distraction that feels like Keyonna’s desperate grasp at survival.
The Portman interludes, and the accompanying visual and aural trappings—a hilarious invocation of the “Garden State” soundtrack; the instantly recognizable costumes, especially the death-black, ominously avian tutu from “Black Swan”—are, initially, funny and humanizing, and point to how popular art and its personae simultaneously distract us and serve as background to our pain. The result, in “Portmans,” is a kind of social surrealism, in which feeling draws as much on the imagination as it does on rough, objective, material fact.
In a better calibrated script, one that took as much care with each of its characters as Johnson does with Keyonna, the flights into comic, gonzo Portmanism would help assuage the creeping sense we get that the details of the family’s life fit neatly into a clichéd black melodrama. We’ve seen something like this before: Daddy dead; Momma’s brains and morals fried by alcohol; brother eventually incarcerated (by whose fault we soon find out); poor baby sitting at home all alone, too stressed for schoolwork.
This chafes, not because such things never happen in real life but because their depiction in stories like this always sticks to appearances, to the troubles obvious in the skin, but never makes it further, never glances the heart. As it stands, we get the wonderfully complex Keyonna—bolstered by a rich, deep, moving performance by Young—who walks through a world of tropes like a Technicolor figure in a black-and-white talkie.
Much of the play’s charm, despite its narrative fuzziness, lies in the way Johnson portrays the creative precision and generous adornments of black speech. She rushes pleasingly toward the specific: D.C. slang, instantly familiar if you’ve ever lived there or visited for long, is lathered on. The volleys of loving encouragement, sly ribbing, and, often, recriminating eruption between Keyonna and Samuel are some of the best moments of the play.
That kind of articulation, rooted in place and politics and fired by a real but endangered affection, might also have been used to address the theme that Portman’s odd, hovering presence tries to point to; namely, that, at the bottom of the American class and racial structure, a straight white woman having fun, free to change costumes whenever the going gets rough, might appear to be as much a cruel apparition as a friendly partner. When “Natalie” kisses Keyonna, during the lowest of her many brutal lows, it serves only to further devastate her. Freedom hurts most when you can taste but never fully partake in it.
This is tough territory, how race mingles with desire and leaves behind a sour alloy. It’s reminiscent of Pecola Breedlove’s doomed yearnings in Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” which leans into the story’s flights of fancy and brings them under the lights, rather than relegating them to a sideshow. I wanted more of Keyonna’s imaginings: everybody’s heard about troubles like hers, but nobody’s seen what ravages they might wreak in a mind so sensitive and determined and tortured by distant hope. Young’s lovely performance is at its best not when she’s blissed out by escapism, or broken down by her mother’s antics, but when she’s tiptoeing unsteadily on the line between these modes. That’s humanity: a dream walking through a swamp; local syntax dancing among the casual cruelties of official speech; thoughts of Heaven stuck in the mud.
The real Natalie Portman showed up at the Oscars earlier this year wearing, over her dress, a black cape whose piping was decorated with the names of all the female directors whom the Academy had failed to acknowledge with nominations: Greta Gerwig, Lorene Scafaria, Marielle Heller, Mati Diop, on and on. You might imagine a young girl like Keyonna, obsessed with film and dazzled by the red carpet and its camera flashes, seeing Portman onscreen and murmuring, “Good point,” then, looking around at the chaos of her own life, adding, “But if you only knew how much worse things could be.” ♦