newyorker--2020-09-14--Nicole Krauss on the Drama of Desire

Nicole Krauss on the Drama of Desire

In your story in this week ’ s issue , “ Switzerland , ” a thirteen-year-old American girl goes to live in a boarding house in Geneva with two eighteen-year-old girls .
You mentioned that the story drew on a similar experience that you had at that age .
In what ways was your year there like your narrator ’ s ?
Philip Roth—a master of mining his experiences for his art—used to begin his interviews by saying , “ Everything in this book actually happened .
Now what do you want to know ?
” Or so he told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to him about the problem of readings blinkered by a fixation on autobiography .
Though at first his quip seemed funny and a bit dismissive , the more I ’ ve lived with it , the truer it has come to seem .
Everything in this story happened to me , in one form or another , at one time or another , and the reimagining of these experiences and observations now feels as real and true as my actual memories , which , as any neuroscientist will point out , are themselves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alteration that results in “ reconsolidation.
” “ Switzerland ” is a reconsolidation of my year as a thirteen-year-old , living in a boarding house in Geneva with two much older girls : actual events mixed with my imagination and shaped by the long passage of time and its revelations .
One of the older girls , Soraya , becomes involved in a relationship with a married banker that borders on abusive .
Through the eyes of the thirteen-year-old , however , it seems that Soraya is the one in control .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around the question of power , but who do you , as the author , feel is the most powerful ?
There are many narratives about borderline abusive relationships , and of men overpowering women , but inhabiting that kind of situation wasn ’ t what drew me to write this story .
I was interested in a young woman testing her strength and will against the realities of her life : among them , that she is physically vulnerable to men , that to comply with the expectations of others requires containing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her sexuality comes with inherent dangers .
The Dutch banker doesn ’ t lead or determine this story—on the contrary , the story centers on Soraya ’ s struggle with her sense of her own power , and he , at least as he is seen by the narrator , is only an accessory to that .
He is merely the arena in which her performance of self plays out .
Writing “ Switzerland ” depended on my ability to believe in that version of Soraya ’ s “ game , ” even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the narrator ’ s perspective thirty years on , which encompasses a fuller sense of the tremendous fragility of Soraya ’ s position .
But if I was able to believe in her insistence on self-determination , it was because I ’ ve felt it in myself and in the lives of young women I ’ ve been close to , despite everything that was working against it .
You are careful not to reveal what happens to Soraya during her disappearance .
Do you know ?
Do you want the reader to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reader to live , as the narrator does , without knowing .
In this way , the story resists judgement , and instead points to the paradoxes and uncertainties we have to make do with when trying to understand ourselves and others .
Not being able to know what happened during Soraya ’ s disappearance makes it impossible to know whether the narrator was right , at thirteen , to believe that Soraya had “ the grace that comes of having pushed oneself to the brink , of having confronted some darkness or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she had lost—whether , as in the last line of the story , she was already broken or whether she was not going to break .
Thirteen is such a transitional age .
Although the narrator has been given tremendous freedom , she is still poised on the threshold between childhood and adolescence .
How important was that for you when conceiving the story ?
Very .
As I said , this story began with my own experiences as a thirteen-year-old at boarding school in Geneva .
In fact , I had just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I moved into the boarding house .
Not long ago , I found a photograph of myself from that fall , taken in a photo booth on one of my after-school wanderings in the city .
I was still a child and no longer a child , depending on which way I looked at it .
Both , really .
That liminal time is interesting to me .
I should also add that , in the photo , I look absolutely gleeful to be on my own , to be given such freedom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adolescents , my own children included , are allowed to enjoy that these days , and yet it ’ s necessary to have the space to discover and invent and test oneself .
Everything your narrator sees of sex—even her own experience of making out with a boy from school—is tinged with violence .
Is this a connection that will stay with her ?
How could it not , really ?
Later , she herself chooses boys and men who are all “ gentle , ” and from this we can infer both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safety in intimacy , and also that she ’ s taken measures to keep a certain form of danger at bay by choosing men who are “ a little afraid ” of her .
I don ’ t think she ’ d say , however , that it was the ideal solution .
The line in my last novel , “ Forest Dark , ” that I was most often asked about by journalists , perhaps because they misunderstood it , is one where a character says that she thinks she has never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with violence—and , at that moment , she knows that she will never again trust any love that doesn ’ t .
She was referring not to physical violence , of course , which is anathema to her , but to the violence of allowing another person so fully into one ’ s being .
That explosive force which is both constructive and destructive , which forges anew and undoes or breaks the old because it is so powerful an experience , one that a person might be right to want and fear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about “ the absurdity , and also the truth , of the dramas we need to feel fully alive.
” Are Soraya ’ s dramas driven by a will to feel alive , or by the opposite—a need to numb herself ?
It may be my own shortcoming as a writer , but I ’ m not drawn to inhabit characters who want to numb themselves .
I like the ones who are drawn to feeling fully alive , despite the complications and pain it often lands them in .
I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , longing , needing—and the way it animates all of us and drives the story of our lives .

Photograph by Simone Padovani / Awakening / Getty
In your story in this week’s issue, “Switzerland,” a thirteen-year-old American girl goes to live in a boarding house in Geneva with two eighteen-year-old girls. You mentioned that the story drew on a similar experience that you had at that age. In what ways was your year there like your narrator’s?
Philip Roth—a master of mining his experiences for his art—used to begin his interviews by saying, “Everything in this book actually happened. Now what do you want to know?” Or so he told me once, when I was talking to him about the problem of readings blinkered by a fixation on autobiography. Though at first his quip seemed funny and a bit dismissive, the more I’ve lived with it, the truer it has come to seem. Everything in this story happened to me, in one form or another, at one time or another, and the reimagining of these experiences and observations now feels as real and true as my actual memories, which, as any neuroscientist will point out, are themselves the result of an active process of alteration that results in “reconsolidation.” “Switzerland” is a reconsolidation of my year as a thirteen-year-old, living in a boarding house in Geneva with two much older girls: actual events mixed with my imagination and shaped by the long passage of time and its revelations.
One of the older girls, Soraya, becomes involved in a relationship with a married banker that borders on abusive. Through the eyes of the thirteen-year-old, however, it seems that Soraya is the one in control. As you make clear, the relationship revolves around the question of power, but who do you, as the author, feel is the most powerful?
There are many narratives about borderline abusive relationships, and of men overpowering women, but inhabiting that kind of situation wasn’t what drew me to write this story. I was interested in a young woman testing her strength and will against the realities of her life: among them, that she is physically vulnerable to men, that to comply with the expectations of others requires containing herself or making herself small, that her sexuality comes with inherent dangers. The Dutch banker doesn’t lead or determine this story—on the contrary, the story centers on Soraya’s struggle with her sense of her own power, and he, at least as he is seen by the narrator, is only an accessory to that. He is merely the arena in which her performance of self plays out. Writing “Switzerland” depended on my ability to believe in that version of Soraya’s “game,” even as it is thrown into doubt by the narrator’s perspective thirty years on, which encompasses a fuller sense of the tremendous fragility of Soraya’s position. But if I was able to believe in her insistence on self-determination, it was because I’ve felt it in myself and in the lives of young women I’ve been close to, despite everything that was working against it.
You are careful not to reveal what happens to Soraya during her disappearance. Do you know? Do you want the reader to imagine something specific?
I wanted the reader to live, as the narrator does, without knowing. In this way, the story resists judgement, and instead points to the paradoxes and uncertainties we have to make do with when trying to understand ourselves and others. Not being able to know what happened during Soraya’s disappearance makes it impossible to know whether the narrator was right, at thirteen, to believe that Soraya had “the grace that comes of having pushed oneself to the brink, of having confronted some darkness or fear and won,” or whether she had lost—whether, as in the last line of the story, she was already broken or whether she was not going to break.
Thirteen is such a transitional age. Although the narrator has been given tremendous freedom, she is still poised on the threshold between childhood and adolescence. How important was that for you when conceiving the story?
Very. As I said, this story began with my own experiences as a thirteen-year-old at boarding school in Geneva. In fact, I had just turned thirteen a couple of weeks before I moved into the boarding house. Not long ago, I found a photograph of myself from that fall, taken in a photo booth on one of my after-school wanderings in the city. I was still a child and no longer a child, depending on which way I looked at it. Both, really. That liminal time is interesting to me. I should also add that, in the photo, I look absolutely gleeful to be on my own, to be given such freedom. It struck me that very few adolescents, my own children included, are allowed to enjoy that these days, and yet it’s necessary to have the space to discover and invent and test oneself.
Everything your narrator sees of sex—even her own experience of making out with a boy from school—is tinged with violence. Is this a connection that will stay with her?
How could it not, really? Later, she herself chooses boys and men who are all “gentle,” and from this we can infer both that she comes to know kindness and safety in intimacy, and also that she’s taken measures to keep a certain form of danger at bay by choosing men who are “a little afraid” of her. I don’t think she’d say, however, that it was the ideal solution. The line in my last novel, “Forest Dark,” that I was most often asked about by journalists, perhaps because they misunderstood it, is one where a character says that she thinks she has never known real love that does not come with violence—and, at that moment, she knows that she will never again trust any love that doesn’t. She was referring not to physical violence, of course, which is anathema to her, but to the violence of allowing another person so fully into one’s being. That explosive force which is both constructive and destructive, which forges anew and undoes or breaks the old because it is so powerful an experience, one that a person might be right to want and fear in equal measure.
The narrator talks about “the absurdity, and also the truth, of the dramas we need to feel fully alive.” Are Soraya’s dramas driven by a will to feel alive, or by the opposite—a need to numb herself?
It may be my own shortcoming as a writer, but I’m not drawn to inhabit characters who want to numb themselves. I like the ones who are drawn to feeling fully alive, despite the complications and pain it often lands them in. I’m interested in the drama of desire—of wanting, longing, needing—and the way it animates all of us and drives the story of our lives.


newyorker--2020-09-14--Slide Show: New Yorker Cartoons September 21, 2020

“ Janey !
What did I say about drawing on the walls ?
Perspective !
Balance !
Basic compositional principles @ @

“Janey! What did I say about drawing on the walls? Perspective! Balance! Basic compositional principles!”
Cartoon by Johnny DiNapoli


newyorker--2020-09-14--Stop Doomscrolling and Play a Board Game About Class Warfare

Amid a turn toward the convergence of leisure and escapism—I ’ m looking at you , recreational sourdough bakers—a number of French citizens are heading in the opposite direction .
Take the success of Kapital !
, a board game about class warfare .
Kapital !
is the creation of Michel Pinçon and Monique Pinçon-Charlot , celebrity sociologists in a country where “ celebrity sociologist ” is not an oxymoron .
At Christmas , the game was a runaway hit .
The magazine Les Inrockuptibles recommended it as “ a delicious poisoned gift for your right-wing friend , ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Since then , another twenty thousand customers have paid thirty-five euros apiece in order to “ understand , apprehend , and even experience the sociological mechanisms of domination , ” as the game ’ s promotional copy promises .
“ It makes you want to take up a pitchfork !
” Maud R. wrote , leaving five stars on a retailer ’ s Web site .
“ Les Pinçon-Charlot , ” as the couple is known in the press , met in the library at the University of Lille in 1965 and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He is the son of laborers from the Ardennes ; she was raised in the moyenne bourgeoisie of the Lozère , where her father was a prosecutor .
“ We both had a kind of rage in our stomachs , ” Pinçon-Charlot recalled .
“ We were convinced that our respective unhappinesses were as natural as the sun or the snow.
” In their life ’ s work of studying class relations , they have met the patrimonial classes where they live : villas , châteaux , vineyards , banks , private clubs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parties .
They spent three years biking around France doing research for a book on stag hunting , and have conducted field work in their bathing suits on the beaches of the Riviera .
“ It helped that we could go out together , as a couple , ” Pinçon-Charlot said .
“ Everything operates through that worldly sociability.
” Pinçon-Charlot is tiny , with heavily lined , no-bullshit eyes peeking out from under dense bangs .
( The hair style , an interview subject once gingerly informed her , marked her as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) She was sitting in the dining room of the couple ’ s row house , in Bourg-la-Reine , a suburb of Paris , offering a visitor hand sanitizer and sparkling water while her husband trimmed hedges in the garden .
A red ( like Communism ) Kapital !
box sat on the table .
Pinçon-Charlot ( “ a Communist of the soul , ” if not currently a Party member ) opened it and took out a game board , a die , and a stack of K , the game ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s roll the die !
” she instructed .
The visitor rolled a two .
Pinçon-Charlot rolled a six , establishing her as the “ dominant ” player to the visitor ’ s “ dominated.
” “ In life , it ’ s like that , ” she said , sighing .
“ Frankly , it ’ s all chance.
” Pinçon-Charlot began distributing the cash .
She dealt herself 50K in each category : financial capital , cultural capital , social capital , and symbolic capital , according to the groups first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Her opponent received a fifth of that .
“ In real life , I wouldn ’ t have five times as much , ” Pinçon-Charlot said .
“ It ’ d be more.
” Kapital !
follows a simple , snakes-and-ladders-style trajectory .
You roll and then move your game piece the corresponding number of spaces along a winding road .
The path—eighty-two squares , for the average life expectancy in France—begins at birth and ends in a tax haven .
If a dominant player lands on “ General Strike , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 30K in financial capital ; a “ Revolution ” means that the wealth in the game gets redistributed .
Every round , each player draws a card from a designated pile and reads it aloud .
“ You buy a newspaper : who better than oneself to promulgate dominant opinion , n ’ est-ce pas ?
” Pinçon-Charlot read .
The card instructed her to surrender 10K of her financial capital and to collect 10K each of symbolic and social capital .
Kapital !
has been described as the “ anti-Monopoly , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely correct when she attributes the game ’ s success to “ being perfectly in tune with the political moment , in France and everywhere else—the whole world is under the same globalized capitalism.
” The game that became Monopoly , it turns out , was first conceived , in 1903 , as a left-wing protest against the privatization of property , but the allure of racking up hotels and railroads was so strong that the critique was lost on players .
Kapital !
risks no such ambiguity .
“ In France , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” a pedagogical factoid , printed in red italics at the bottom of the card , warned .
“ The news that one receives and the manner in which it ’ s presented reflect their vision of the world and their interests , not ours.
” It was the visitor ’ s turn .
“ It ’ s your birthday : you receive season tickets to your city ’ s theatre , and that brings you 10K of cultural capital , ” the card read .
A butterfly flew in through an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ profiting socially from a promising encounter at a rallye , a kind of débutante party for pedigreed teens .
The visitor , meanwhile , was having car trouble and had to cancel her summer vacation , costing her a cultural arm and a symbolic leg .
♦

Amid a turn toward the convergence of leisure and escapism—I’m looking at you, recreational sourdough bakers—a number of French citizens are heading in the opposite direction. Take the success of Kapital!, a board game about class warfare. Kapital! is the creation of Michel Pinçon and Monique Pinçon-Charlot, celebrity sociologists in a country where “celebrity sociologist” is not an oxymoron. At Christmas, the game was a runaway hit. The magazine Les Inrockuptibles recommended it as “a delicious poisoned gift for your right-wing friend,” and ten thousand copies sold out in weeks. Since then, another twenty thousand customers have paid thirty-five euros apiece in order to “understand, apprehend, and even experience the sociological mechanisms of domination,” as the game’s promotional copy promises. “It makes you want to take up a pitchfork!” Maud R. wrote, leaving five stars on a retailer’s Web site.
“Les Pinçon-Charlot,” as the couple is known in the press, met in the library at the University of Lille in 1965 and have been married for fifty-three years. He is the son of laborers from the Ardennes; she was raised in the moyenne bourgeoisie of the Lozère, where her father was a prosecutor. “We both had a kind of rage in our stomachs,” Pinçon-Charlot recalled. “We were convinced that our respective unhappinesses were as natural as the sun or the snow.” In their life’s work of studying class relations, they have met the patrimonial classes where they live: villas, châteaux, vineyards, banks, private clubs, private schools, racecourses, dinner parties. They spent three years biking around France doing research for a book on stag hunting, and have conducted field work in their bathing suits on the beaches of the Riviera. “It helped that we could go out together, as a couple,” Pinçon-Charlot said. “Everything operates through that worldly sociability.”
Pinçon-Charlot is tiny, with heavily lined, no-bullshit eyes peeking out from under dense bangs. (The hair style, an interview subject once gingerly informed her, marked her as an interloper on the society scene.) She was sitting in the dining room of the couple’s row house, in Bourg-la-Reine, a suburb of Paris, offering a visitor hand sanitizer and sparkling water while her husband trimmed hedges in the garden. A red (like Communism) Kapital! box sat on the table. Pinçon-Charlot (“a Communist of the soul,” if not currently a Party member) opened it and took out a game board, a die, and a stack of K, the game’s paper currency.
“Let’s roll the die!” she instructed. The visitor rolled a two. Pinçon-Charlot rolled a six, establishing her as the “dominant” player to the visitor’s “dominated.” “In life, it’s like that,” she said, sighing. “Frankly, it’s all chance.”
Pinçon-Charlot began distributing the cash. She dealt herself 50K in each category: financial capital, cultural capital, social capital, and symbolic capital, according to the groups first established by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Her opponent received a fifth of that.
“In real life, I wouldn’t have five times as much,” Pinçon-Charlot said. “It’d be more.”
Kapital! follows a simple, snakes-and-ladders-style trajectory. You roll and then move your game piece the corresponding number of spaces along a winding road. The path—eighty-two squares, for the average life expectancy in France—begins at birth and ends in a tax haven. If a dominant player lands on “General Strike,” she has to skip a turn and forfeit 30K in financial capital; a “Revolution” means that the wealth in the game gets redistributed. Every round, each player draws a card from a designated pile and reads it aloud.
“You buy a newspaper: who better than oneself to promulgate dominant opinion, n’est-ce pas?” Pinçon-Charlot read. The card instructed her to surrender 10K of her financial capital and to collect 10K each of symbolic and social capital.
Kapital! has been described as the “anti-Monopoly,” which goes to show that Pinçon-Charlot is likely correct when she attributes the game’s success to “being perfectly in tune with the political moment, in France and everywhere else—the whole world is under the same globalized capitalism.” The game that became Monopoly, it turns out, was first conceived, in 1903, as a left-wing protest against the privatization of property, but the allure of racking up hotels and railroads was so strong that the critique was lost on players.
Kapital! risks no such ambiguity. “In France, ten billionaires possess almost all the media,” a pedagogical factoid, printed in red italics at the bottom of the card, warned. “The news that one receives and the manner in which it’s presented reflect their vision of the world and their interests, not ours.”
It was the visitor’s turn. “It’s your birthday: you receive season tickets to your city’s theatre, and that brings you 10K of cultural capital,” the card read.
A butterfly flew in through an open window. Pinçon-Charlot rolled again, profiting socially from a promising encounter at a rallye, a kind of débutante party for pedigreed teens. The visitor, meanwhile, was having car trouble and had to cancel her summer vacation, costing her a cultural arm and a symbolic leg. ♦


newyorker--2020-09-14--Is Richard Jenkins the Most Famous Person in Rhode Island?

Rhode Island and Delaware are the tiniest states , but they ’ ve had big claims to fame lately .
Delaware , of course , has Joe Biden , who ’ s been campaigning from his home , in Wilmington .
And Rhode Island managed to upstage all the other states during the virtual roll call at the Democratic National Convention , thanks to a mysterious man in black holding up a plate of calamari .
The Calamari Ninja , as some people called him—he ’ s John Bordieri , the executive chef of Iggy ’ s Boardwalk Lobster and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most famous person living in Rhode Island .
His competition , not counting natives who ’ ve moved away ( Viola Davis , the Farrelly brothers ) or celebrities with vacation homes there ( Taylor Swift , Jay Leno ) , includes the character actor Richard Jenkins , who has lived in the state for the past fifty years .
“ I am not the most famous person in Rhode Island , by far , ” Jenkins said the other day , as he and his wife , Sharon , took a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci and the former U.S. senator Claiborne Pell ( both deceased ) and the pro golfers Billy Andrade and Brad Faxon ( eh ) .
From behind the wheel , Sharon brought up the actor turned alt-right troll James Woods , who has several houses in Rhode Island .
“ Is it me ?
” Jenkins asked himself .
“ That ’ s a depressing thought.
” Jenkins , who is seventy-three , with the unassuming air of an assistant bank manager , is famous in a very Rhode @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in more than eighty films , but , even with two Oscar nominations , for “ The Visitor ” and “ The Shape of Water , ” and an Emmy win , for “ Olive Kitteridge , ” he tends to slip under people ’ s radars .
“ They say , ‘ What have I seen you in ?
’ You go , ‘ I have no idea what you ’ ve seen , ’ ” Jenkins said .
“ I had a woman tap me on the shoulder on an airplane @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been on “ The Bob Newhart Show ” ?
Because you look just like him.
’ I turned around and said , ‘ Are you asking me if I am Bob Newhart , or are you saying you have to look like him to be on his show ?
’ ” The couple moved to Providence in 1970 , when Jenkins got an apprenticeship at the Trinity Repertory Company .
Back then , he said , Providence was a “ burned-out mill town.
” He grew up in DeKalb , Illinois , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his acting career , he made pizzas , detasselled corn , and drove a laundry truck for a company run by John C. Reilly ’ s dad .
( The two actors didn ’ t realize the connection until they played a father and son , in “ Step Brothers.
” ) “ We figured we ’ d be here a year , maybe two , ” Jenkins recalled .
Instead , he became a Trinity company member .
For a time , he commuted to New York for auditions .
“ That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a four-and-a-half-hour train ride , if you were lucky , ” he said , bringing to mind Biden ’ s Amtrak years in the Senate .
“ I would go for an audition , and I ’ d have two lines , like , ‘ Freeze !
It ’ s the police !
’ And I ’ d leave.
” From Sharon ’ s Volvo , he pointed out low-key landmarks : the Providence Art Club , the first Baptist church in America .
He didn ’ t begin his movie career until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Woody Allen ’ s doctor in “ Hannah and Her Sisters ” and a newspaper editor in “ The Witches of Eastwick.
” This month , he appears in Andrew Cohn ’ s “ The Last Shift , ” as an aging fast-food worker , and in Miranda July ’ s “ Kajillionaire , ” as the patriarch of a family of small-time scammers .
( “ They ’ re just awful at it , ” he said .
“ They can ’ t make two nickels.
” ) He wore a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grown for an upcoming Guillermo del Toro film , “ Nightmare Alley.
” Production shut down in mid-March , but he had two days of shooting left , so he ’ d been stuck with the beard during the whole pandemic .
“ I can ’ t wait to shave it off , ” he said , a sentiment for which Sharon expressed approval .
In quarantine , Jenkins has been playing ( socially distanced ) golf and puttering at home .
“ It ’ s like the movie ‘ Marty ’ : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tonight ?
’ ‘ I don ’ t know , what do you feel like doing tonight ?
’ ” he said .
“ Yesterday was our fifty-first anniversary , and we drove down to Narragansett .
There ’ s a place called Aunt Carrie ’ s , but if you ’ re from Rhode Island it ’ s Ahnt Carrie ’ s .
It ’ s this great seafood restaurant— ” “ When you say ‘ seafood , ’ it sounds fancy , ” Sharon said .
“ It ’ s chowder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sit indoors , because all the windows are open and the sea breeze is blowing , ” Jenkins continued .
The beard has made him all the more anonymous , even in Rhode Island ; sometimes , to Sharon ’ s dismay , he can ’ t even get them a table at a restaurant .
“ When Tom McCarthy cast me in ‘ The Visitor , ’ he said , ‘ I want somebody who could walk down the streets of New York and not have people stop.
’ As soon as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by and went , ‘ Hey !
Love your work !
’ ” He laughed .
“ It ’ s pretty civilized .
I ’ m just a guy who ’ s an actor who lives in Providence.
” ♦

Richard Jenkins Illustration by João Fazenda
Rhode Island and Delaware are the tiniest states, but they’ve had big claims to fame lately. Delaware, of course, has Joe Biden, who’s been campaigning from his home, in Wilmington. And Rhode Island managed to upstage all the other states during the virtual roll call at the Democratic National Convention, thanks to a mysterious man in black holding up a plate of calamari. The Calamari Ninja, as some people called him—he’s John Bordieri, the executive chef of Iggy’s Boardwalk Lobster and Clam Bar, in Warwick—may now be the most famous person living in Rhode Island. His competition, not counting natives who’ve moved away (Viola Davis, the Farrelly brothers) or celebrities with vacation homes there (Taylor Swift, Jay Leno), includes the character actor Richard Jenkins, who has lived in the state for the past fifty years.
“I am not the most famous person in Rhode Island, by far,” Jenkins said the other day, as he and his wife, Sharon, took a drive around Providence. He named the former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci and the former U.S. senator Claiborne Pell (both deceased) and the pro golfers Billy Andrade and Brad Faxon (eh). From behind the wheel, Sharon brought up the actor turned alt-right troll James Woods, who has several houses in Rhode Island. “Is it me?” Jenkins asked himself. “That’s a depressing thought.”
Jenkins, who is seventy-three, with the unassuming air of an assistant bank manager, is famous in a very Rhode Island way: he’s appeared in more than eighty films, but, even with two Oscar nominations, for “The Visitor” and “The Shape of Water,” and an Emmy win, for “Olive Kitteridge,” he tends to slip under people’s radars. “They say, ‘What have I seen you in?’ You go, ‘I have no idea what you’ve seen,’ ” Jenkins said. “I had a woman tap me on the shoulder on an airplane and say, ‘Have you ever been on “The Bob Newhart Show”? Because you look just like him.’ I turned around and said, ‘Are you asking me if I am Bob Newhart, or are you saying you have to look like him to be on his show?’ ”
The couple moved to Providence in 1970, when Jenkins got an apprenticeship at the Trinity Repertory Company. Back then, he said, Providence was a “burned-out mill town.” He grew up in DeKalb, Illinois, the son of a dentist. Before starting his acting career, he made pizzas, detasselled corn, and drove a laundry truck for a company run by John C. Reilly’s dad. (The two actors didn’t realize the connection until they played a father and son, in “Step Brothers.”) “We figured we’d be here a year, maybe two,” Jenkins recalled. Instead, he became a Trinity company member. For a time, he commuted to New York for auditions. “That was back when the Amtrak was about a four-and-a-half-hour train ride, if you were lucky,” he said, bringing to mind Biden’s Amtrak years in the Senate. “I would go for an audition, and I’d have two lines, like, ‘Freeze! It’s the police!’ And I’d leave.”
From Sharon’s Volvo, he pointed out low-key landmarks: the Providence Art Club, the first Baptist church in America. He didn’t begin his movie career until well into his thirties, with roles including Woody Allen’s doctor in “Hannah and Her Sisters” and a newspaper editor in “The Witches of Eastwick.”
This month, he appears in Andrew Cohn’s “The Last Shift,” as an aging fast-food worker, and in Miranda July’s “Kajillionaire,” as the patriarch of a family of small-time scammers. (“They’re just awful at it,” he said. “They can’t make two nickels.”) He wore a bushy beard, which he’d grown for an upcoming Guillermo del Toro film, “Nightmare Alley.” Production shut down in mid-March, but he had two days of shooting left, so he’d been stuck with the beard during the whole pandemic. “I can’t wait to shave it off,” he said, a sentiment for which Sharon expressed approval.
In quarantine, Jenkins has been playing (socially distanced) golf and puttering at home. “It’s like the movie ‘Marty’: ‘What do you feel like doing tonight?’ ‘I don’t know, what do you feel like doing tonight?’ ” he said. “Yesterday was our fifty-first anniversary, and we drove down to Narragansett. There’s a place called Aunt Carrie’s, but if you’re from Rhode Island it’s Ahnt Carrie’s. It’s this great seafood restaurant—”
“When you say ‘seafood,’ it sounds fancy,” Sharon said. “It’s chowder and clam cakes.”
“You can sit indoors, because all the windows are open and the sea breeze is blowing,” Jenkins continued. The beard has made him all the more anonymous, even in Rhode Island; sometimes, to Sharon’s dismay, he can’t even get them a table at a restaurant. “When Tom McCarthy cast me in ‘The Visitor,’ he said, ‘I want somebody who could walk down the streets of New York and not have people stop.’ As soon as he said that, a guy walked by and went, ‘Hey! Love your work!’ ” He laughed. “It’s pretty civilized. I’m just a guy who’s an actor who lives in Providence.” ♦


newyorker--2020-09-14--The Many Faces of Ethan Hawke

The Many Faces of Ethan Hawke

On a chilly November morning last year , the sunlight a ribbon of gold on the rolling Virginia hills , Ethan Hawke , who would turn forty-nine the next day , ambled into a replica of Harpers Ferry in 1859 .
An armory and four short streets had been constructed on the grounds of State Farm , a prison property outside Richmond .
Hawke , already in full makeup and sporting a long , shaggy beard , was playing the flinty abolitionist John Brown , in “ The Good Lord Bird , ” a seven-part Showtime series adapted from James @ @ @ @ @ @ @ novel .
( The show , which premières October 4th , is the first project that Hawke has produced , co-created , with Mark Richard , and starred in . )
For his next scene , he was preparing to reënact Brown ’ s famous raid on the United States arsenal .
Brown was hanged for this botched act of terrorism—an attempt to arm slaves and start a revolt—but it proved to be a tipping point , eighteen months later , for the start of the Civil War .
Hawke was at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show , but his connection with Brown ’ s story had begun a few years earlier , in 2015 , as he drove to the set of Antoine Fuqua ’ s remake of “ The Magnificent Seven , ” near Baton Rouge .
In that film , Hawke played a Confederate soldier who didn ’ t want to fight anymore .
In the scene he was shooting that day , a U.S. marshal ( played by Denzel Washington ) would say , “ The war is over , ” and Hawke ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s never over .
It just keeps going on and on.
” As Hawke ran through the scene in his mind , his car radio broadcast news of a legislative battle in South Carolina over the right to fly the Confederate flag in front of the statehouse .
It struck him that the Civil War was , indeed , not over , an insight that coincided with one of the directors of photography asking him if he ’ d read the novel “ The Good Lord Bird.
” Studying Hawke , with his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and slicked-back brindle hair , the D.P .
added , “ Read the book—you ’ d make a great John Brown.
” Hawke read the novel on set and couldn ’ t stop laughing .
The picaresque saga , which is told more in the style of Redd Foxx than of Toni Morrison , addresses the barbarism of slavery through the faux-naïf eyes of Little Onion , a formerly enslaved boy disguised as a girl , who becomes witness to Brown ’ s rebellion .
McBride ’ s impish tone is as incendiary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humor highlights the surreal horror of slavery and the courage needed to survive it .
Here is a Black American novelist writing about the nation ’ s greatest wound in an irreverent way that is “ very dangerous in the current atmosphere , ” Hawke said .
On the other hand , he went on , “ if you ’ re trying to teach people , or yell at them , you rarely change their mind .
Humor can really effect change—it ’ s the greatest illuminator.
” Hawke , in his book @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2015 ) —written for the instruction of his children—styles himself as a medieval knight searching for the holy grail of higher being .
“ A knight does not stop at each victory , ” he advises .
“ He pushes on to risk a more significant failure.
” John Brown similarly saw himself as a warrior for moral justice , and his righteous ideals make him a profoundly fascinating character for Hawke .
“ There is a mistaken idea that he was trying to save Black folks , ” Hawke told me .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Seen through the eyes of a serious Christian , Black people didn ’ t need saving .
The affluent white communities were the ones living in sin .
Harpers Ferry was the great American trumpet sound.
” He went on , “ If people said , ‘ Don ’ t you feel bad you got your own sons killed ?
, ’ he ’ d say , ‘ Someday , this country will be ashamed of slavery , and I ’ ll never be ashamed of my boys.
’ I just loved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I don ’ t know how to wrestle with the violence of it , because I ’ m not a violent person .
But I admire his ethics and his ferocity.
” He added , “ John Brown ’ s a lightning rod .
He forces the question of violence versus nonviolence , like Malcolm X.
That ’ s why we avoid talking about him .
He fans the flames of white guilt.
” On the set in Virginia , Hawke ran through his lines , sitting on a barrel by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ house , where Brown ’ s ragtag army of eighteen held off about two hundred and forty militiamen and U.S. marines for thirty-six hours .
Because McBride ’ s novel is narrated entirely by Onion , Hawke had to invent his own voice for Brown .
Channelling the stentorian delivery of his Texan grandfather , a nabob of local politics who spoke in paragraphs , Hawke found both a sound and a subtext for Brown , who , he decided , was always in dialogue with his Maker .
That morning , Hawke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ planned to improvise on camera , as a way of circumventing studio interference—a technique he learned from watching Denzel Washington , when they co-starred in the 2001 film “ Training Day.
” “ If they see the words in the script , they get scared and note you to death , ” Hawke told me .
“ If you just improvise it , they think they are brilliant for hiring you.
” As he rehearsed , he could see his breath .
“ Might we , Lord , as your humble servants , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and pull slavery down on top of us ?
If so , Lord , grant me the strength of Samson , ” he intoned .
By the time he had the speech formed , a hundred or so extras had filed onto the set with guns and horses .
It was time to go to work .
He thought about the fact that he was the first person to put John Brown ’ s full story on film .
As he told me later , “ I couldn ’ t believe that this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ untouched in cinema and that my heroes hadn ’ t already played this part .
Jason Robards ?
Chris Plummer ?
Orson Welles ?
How did Paul Newman not get this part ?
I felt like the luckiest actor in America.
” Hawke ’ s mother ’ s family in Abilene , Texas—he was born in Austin—were Yellow Dog Democrats .
His maternal grandfather , Howard Green , co-owned and managed the Abilene Blue Sox , a farm club for the Brooklyn Dodgers , and was one of the men who wanted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hawke ’ s mother , Leslie , whom he calls “ a wannabe Eleanor Roosevelt , ” juggled her work with social action , teaching at an inner-city school , joining the Peace Corps at forty-eight , and founding the Alex Fund , a charity that helps provide education for poor children in Romania .
As a teen-ager , Hawke himself volunteered , under the auspices of the Episcopal Church , in Haiti , during the early days of the AIDS epidemic , and in Appalachia .
When he was in high school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his mother took in two Ethiopian students ; one of them , who went on to study computer science , was picked up by police for walking in Hawke ’ s suburban neighborhood .
“ That was a huge wake-up call for me , ” Hawke said .
“ He got stopped by the cops constantly .
I never did .
I could have had a bag of marijuana in my pocket .
All he ever had in his pocket was a calculator .
”

On a chilly November morning last year, the sunlight a ribbon of gold on the rolling Virginia hills, Ethan Hawke, who would turn forty-nine the next day, ambled into a replica of Harpers Ferry in 1859. An armory and four short streets had been constructed on the grounds of State Farm, a prison property outside Richmond. Hawke, already in full makeup and sporting a long, shaggy beard, was playing the flinty abolitionist John Brown, in “The Good Lord Bird,” a seven-part Showtime series adapted from James McBride’s 2013 National Book Award-winning novel. (The show, which premières October 4th, is the first project that Hawke has produced, co-created, with Mark Richard, and starred in.) For his next scene, he was preparing to reënact Brown’s famous raid on the United States arsenal. Brown was hanged for this botched act of terrorism—an attempt to arm slaves and start a revolt—but it proved to be a tipping point, eighteen months later, for the start of the Civil War.
Hawke was at the end of a six-month shoot on the show, but his connection with Brown’s story had begun a few years earlier, in 2015, as he drove to the set of Antoine Fuqua’s remake of “The Magnificent Seven,” near Baton Rouge. In that film, Hawke played a Confederate soldier who didn’t want to fight anymore. In the scene he was shooting that day, a U.S. marshal (played by Denzel Washington) would say, “The war is over,” and Hawke’s character would reply, “It’s never over. It just keeps going on and on.” As Hawke ran through the scene in his mind, his car radio broadcast news of a legislative battle in South Carolina over the right to fly the Confederate flag in front of the statehouse. It struck him that the Civil War was, indeed, not over, an insight that coincided with one of the directors of photography asking him if he’d read the novel “The Good Lord Bird.” Studying Hawke, with his piercing blue eyes, angular chin, and slicked-back brindle hair, the D.P. added, “Read the book—you’d make a great John Brown.”
Hawke read the novel on set and couldn’t stop laughing. The picaresque saga, which is told more in the style of Redd Foxx than of Toni Morrison, addresses the barbarism of slavery through the faux-naïf eyes of Little Onion, a formerly enslaved boy disguised as a girl, who becomes witness to Brown’s rebellion. McBride’s impish tone is as incendiary as his subject, precisely because the humor highlights the surreal horror of slavery and the courage needed to survive it. Here is a Black American novelist writing about the nation’s greatest wound in an irreverent way that is “very dangerous in the current atmosphere,” Hawke said. On the other hand, he went on, “if you’re trying to teach people, or yell at them, you rarely change their mind. Humor can really effect change—it’s the greatest illuminator.”
Hawke, in his book “Rules for a Knight” (2015)—written for the instruction of his children—styles himself as a medieval knight searching for the holy grail of higher being. “A knight does not stop at each victory,” he advises. “He pushes on to risk a more significant failure.” John Brown similarly saw himself as a warrior for moral justice, and his righteous ideals make him a profoundly fascinating character for Hawke. “There is a mistaken idea that he was trying to save Black folks,” Hawke told me. “He was trying to save us. Seen through the eyes of a serious Christian, Black people didn’t need saving. The affluent white communities were the ones living in sin. Harpers Ferry was the great American trumpet sound.” He went on, “If people said, ‘Don’t you feel bad you got your own sons killed?,’ he’d say, ‘Someday, this country will be ashamed of slavery, and I’ll never be ashamed of my boys.’ I just loved that. I found it very inspiring. I don’t know how to wrestle with the violence of it, because I’m not a violent person. But I admire his ethics and his ferocity.” He added, “John Brown’s a lightning rod. He forces the question of violence versus nonviolence, like Malcolm X. That’s why we avoid talking about him. He fans the flames of white guilt.”
On the set in Virginia, Hawke ran through his lines, sitting on a barrel by the gates of the re-created Harpers Ferry engine house, where Brown’s ragtag army of eighteen held off about two hundred and forty militiamen and U.S. marines for thirty-six hours. Because McBride’s novel is narrated entirely by Onion, Hawke had to invent his own voice for Brown. Channelling the stentorian delivery of his Texan grandfather, a nabob of local politics who spoke in paragraphs, Hawke found both a sound and a subtext for Brown, who, he decided, was always in dialogue with his Maker. That morning, Hawke was working up a prayer that he planned to improvise on camera, as a way of circumventing studio interference—a technique he learned from watching Denzel Washington, when they co-starred in the 2001 film “Training Day.” “If they see the words in the script, they get scared and note you to death,” Hawke told me. “If you just improvise it, they think they are brilliant for hiring you.” As he rehearsed, he could see his breath. “Might we, Lord, as your humble servants, grab the beams of this engine house and pull slavery down on top of us? If so, Lord, grant me the strength of Samson,” he intoned.
By the time he had the speech formed, a hundred or so extras had filed onto the set with guns and horses. It was time to go to work. He thought about the fact that he was the first person to put John Brown’s full story on film. As he told me later, “I couldn’t believe that this moment of American history had been relatively untouched in cinema and that my heroes hadn’t already played this part. Jason Robards? Chris Plummer? Orson Welles? How did Paul Newman not get this part? I felt like the luckiest actor in America.”
Hawke’s mother’s family in Abilene, Texas—he was born in Austin—were Yellow Dog Democrats. His maternal grandfather, Howard Green, co-owned and managed the Abilene Blue Sox, a farm club for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and was one of the men who wanted to have Jackie Robinson on the team. Hawke’s mother, Leslie, whom he calls “a wannabe Eleanor Roosevelt,” juggled her work with social action, teaching at an inner-city school, joining the Peace Corps at forty-eight, and founding the Alex Fund, a charity that helps provide education for poor children in Romania. As a teen-ager, Hawke himself volunteered, under the auspices of the Episcopal Church, in Haiti, during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, and in Appalachia. When he was in high school, in Princeton, New Jersey, his mother took in two Ethiopian students; one of them, who went on to study computer science, was picked up by police for walking in Hawke’s suburban neighborhood. “That was a huge wake-up call for me,” Hawke said. “He got stopped by the cops constantly. I never did. I could have had a bag of marijuana in my pocket. All he ever had in his pocket was a calculator.”
While shooting “Training Day,” Hawke spent four months riding around Watts, listening to Washington talk about race in America and about Malcolm X (whom Washington had played in Spike Lee’s 1992 bio-pic); for Hawke, it was “a powerful education.” When he and his wife, Ryan Shawhughes, met with McBride, in January, 2016, to discuss turning “The Good Lord Bird” into a limited series, McBride could tell that Hawke knew the territory. “There’s dynamics of this whole race question that we could burn a lot of ink talking about,” McBride told me. “Ultimately, that would have been a waste of time. Ethan really understood what John Brown represented.” Hawke told McBride, “I’m not Brad Pitt. I can’t afford to option this novel for the money that it deserves.” But they made a handshake deal that allowed Hawke a year to come up with an adaptation. If McBride liked the script, they’d look for someone to buy it. “Basically, he gave me permission to write it for free,” Hawke said.
One afternoon in May, 2017, Hawke rode his bicycle from his town house in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, to New Brown Memorial Baptist Church, near the Red Hook housing projects, where McBride oversees the children’s music program. He was going to pick up McBride’s notes on a rough draft of his script. Hawke wandered into the vestibule of the church. “Are you the guy who’s come to fix the air-conditioning?” the church treasurer asked. At that moment, McBride appeared and identified Hawke. “Last time a white guy was here was to fix the A.C.,” the treasurer said.
“You must get this all the time, but I have a great idea for how to strike him out.” Cartoon by Jason Adam Katzenstein Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
“Ethan looked like a white guy who just happens to be looking for a Coors beer,” McBride said. But he also saw a lot of John Brown in him. In the decades since Hawke made his name as a shy, baby-faced teen-ager in “Dead Poets Society” (1989), his face has become craggy, and he has achieved a full-blown, happy maturity as a rough-edged, raucous actor. “Brown had a gleam in his eye,” McBride said. “Part of him was just completely untamed. When he sat down with people, he was almost harnessing this madness within him. You get a little of that with Ethan. His antennae are always out, grabbing, catching every little bit of information. He’s an outsider. It’s not like he’s attempting to do it. It’s just that he’s at a different radio station. He’s operating on his own frequency.”
Throughout his career, Hawke has consistently challenged himself to grow. He has appeared in more than eighty movies, predominantly independent films interspersed with Hollywood money-makers. He has directed four films, written three novels, and co-founded a theatre company. In the process, Hawke has been nominated for four Academy Awards (including two for Best Adapted Screenplay) and a Tony, for his performance, in Tom Stoppard’s trilogy “The Coast of Utopia,” as Mikhail Bakunin, the revolutionary Russian anarchist, whose bowwow personality resurfaces in the fulminations of Hawke’s John Brown. The range of Hawke’s roles—a romantic charmer (in the “Before” trilogy), a drug-addled Chet Baker (in “Born to Be Blue”), a guilt-ridden suicidal priest (in “First Reformed”), to name just a few—is also a reflection of his expansive empathy. “Acting, at its best, is like music,” he said. “You have to get inside your character’s song.”
Hawke’s shape-shifting has its origins in his powerful desire to engage his first audience: his parents. Leslie was eighteen when he was born; his father, Jim, was twenty. They’d met in high school in Texas and moved east after college. Hawke was four when they divorced, a breakup that sent Jim back to Texas, while Leslie and Ethan made their way to Vermont and, later, to Princeton. Alternating between parents, Hawke also alternated between personalities. For his mother, who put “a super-high value on intellectual pursuits,” he said, he “played up the artistic, literary, conscientious political thinker.” During his reunions with his much missed father, who became an insurance actuary and was a humble, conservative, deeply religious man, Hawke “affected a Southern accent,” minded his manners, talked football, and was “a lot more religious.” “I loved him so much,” Hawke said. “I wanted him to like me. I was aware that I was performing for him. I hated myself for it.” After a visit when he was sixteen, Hawke, arriving back at Newark Airport, stripped off his shirt and exited the plane bare-chested. “I can’t find myself,” he told his mother. “I can’t find me.” Recalling the incident, he added, “As I grew older, I realized that both personalities were just aspects of myself. I became very aware of the ability to shape your personality and do it honestly.”
“Ethan was so extraordinarily accommodating,” Leslie said. “He never asked for anything except your undivided attention.” Hawke’s protean energy was a kind of antidote to the anxiety of abandonment. Dissimulation was a family practice. “My mother and I were always pretending,” he wrote in an autobiographical novel, “The Hottest State.” “I was pretending to be a Texan, and she was pretending she wasn’t.” Hawke dubbed Leslie “the Lost Princess of Abilene.” “She didn’t seem to fit in anywhere,” he said. He, by contrast, became expert at fitting in: “Football team, church youth group, Black kids, white kids, graphic-novel-reading geeks, theatre nerds, punk-rock girls, Deadheads—I was a good bullshit artist. I also didn’t judge anybody.”
The skills that acting requires—empathy, imagination, charm, surrender—were habits that Hawke developed from being with Leslie, for whom he was both son and companion. In a very real sense, he was dreamed up by his mother. As she shuttled him up and down the East Coast, bouncing between jobs—from department-store buyer to waitress to, finally, college-textbook editor—she threw herself into the task of making sure that his life was exceptional. “Patti Smith stole my life,” Leslie joked to Hawke when he was a boy; she projected her own creative aspirations onto him. “I expected him to be better than most people, to accomplish more,” she said. She chose his name, she told him, “because it would look good on a book jacket.” Leslie supplied her son with music to listen to and books to read (including James Baldwin’s essays, Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” and Thomas Merton’s “New Seeds of Contemplation”). When Hawke was four, she took him to see Ingmar Bergman’s subtitled “Scenes from a Marriage.” (He couldn’t yet read.) The film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was his fifth-birthday treat. Leslie read Pauline Kael’s reviews in The New Yorker to him after such outings.


newyorker--2020-09-14--Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s Music for a Future That Never Came

In the early nineteen-eighties , Beverly Glenn-Copeland was living in a quiet part of Ontario famous for its scenic hills and lakes .
He heard about the advent of the personal computer and , owing to a fascination with “ Star Trek ” and science-fiction futurism , became instantly intrigued .
He bought one , even though he had no idea how to use it .
Initially , he just walked around with his computer cradled in his arms , hoping that its secrets would reveal themselves .
For the next few years , Glenn-Copeland ’ s free time was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and teaching himself how to use his computer to make music .
He later recalled that his creative community consisted of trees , bears , and rabbits— “ the natural world , that was my companion.
” He slept only a few hours a night , kept awake by the conviction that his computer could help him produce sounds that had never been heard before .
Glenn-Copeland , who is a transgender man , was born Beverly in Philadelphia in 1944 .
( He goes by Glenn , but he retained his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His family was middle class and Quaker , and many of the struggles faced by African-Americans seemed abstract to him as a child .
His father would sit at the piano for hours a day playing Bach , Chopin , and Mozart , and Glenn-Copeland began learning the German lieder style of singing .
He briefly studied with the opera singer Eleanor Steber .
Occasionally , his mother would sing him Negro spirituals .
Glenn-Copeland enrolled at McGill University , in Montreal , in 1961 , becoming one of its first Black students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as female .
After he was ostracized for being in an openly lesbian relationship , he dropped out and became a folk musician .
In the late sixties and early seventies , he recorded a couple of bluesy folk albums that call to mind Joni Mitchell or Odetta , full of the kind of searching , heartbroken songs that one learns to write by listening to other people ’ s searching , heartbroken songs .
Often , they sound as if Glenn-Copeland were trying to fit his operatic range into a narrow band @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the mirror in search of a reason / But the ice upon your eyelids only reminds you of the season / I don ’ t despair / Tomorrow may bring roses , ” he sings .
At first , his vocals are restrained and quivering .
But then he lets loose , soaring above the strummed guitars and forlorn pianos .
By the time Glenn-Copeland began teaching himself how to use a computer , he was working in children ’ s television , writing songs for “ Sesame Street ” and performing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Dressup.
” He had become immersed in Buddhism and its traditions .
The music he was making was spacious and unpredictable , nothing like his work from the seventies .
Some songs resembled techno anthems slowed to a crawl ; others seemed like furtive experiments in rendering the sound of a trickling stream with a synthesizer .
Instead of paeans to a lover , there were odes to higher powers and changing seasons , lyrics about spiritual rebirth and the great outdoors .
“ Ever New ” slowly builds , a series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , until Glenn-Copeland finally begins singing : “ Welcome the child / Whose hand I hold / Welcome to you both young and old / We are ever new.
” He made two hundred cassette copies of an album called “ Keyboard Fantasies.
” And then , befitting his life philosophy , Glenn-Copeland moved on to the next thing .
More snow .
There ’ s a history of electronic music that replaces the sweaty communion of the dance floor with self-discovery and alternative forms of consciousness .
Glenn-Copeland has described himself as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ignorant of what ’ s going on outside his house .
“ Keyboard Fantasies ” was rediscovered in 2015 by a Japanese record collector , who bought Glenn-Copeland ’ s remaining stock and sold it to people around the world .
The following year , the album was reissued by the Toronto record label Invisible City Editions .
Part of the appeal of Glenn-Copeland ’ s recordings from the eighties is the way in which they speak to our desire for a future that never came .
“ Keyboard Fantasies ” is like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on electronic music .
As “ Sunset Village ” opens , Glenn-Copeland sounds as though he ’ s still feeling his way around the keyboard , showing a slight hesitancy as he taps a pattern of low notes .
But a simple , gorgeous synth melody weaves into the mixture , and he begins singing with a kind of serene calm : “ Let it go / Let it go now / It ’ s O.K.
” Where his folk recordings felt anguished and stormy , here the vocals are sonorous and slow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Computers are capable of producing sounds that might never end , and it often seems as if Glenn-Copeland wanted to see how long he could sustain his vocals and stay inside the moment .
“ Transmissions , ” released this month by Transgressive Records , is a compilation spanning Glenn-Copeland ’ s career .
Curiously , it ’ s not sequenced chronologically , so it offers a sense of restless , ever-shifting moods rather than a single line of artistic progression .
Plaintive folk tunes from the early seventies and eighties and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from “ Primal Prayer , ” an album released in 2004 under the pseudonym Phynix , which was full of sampled breakbeats and dramatic , operatic refrains .
“ My mother says to me / Enjoy your life , ” Glenn-Copeland sings on “ La Vita , ” which sounds like a homemade version of early-nineties world-beat dance music .
In the mid-nineties , Glenn-Copeland was introduced to the term “ transgender , ” which eventually gave him a language for understanding himself .
Glenn-Copeland began publicly identifying as trans in 2002 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ about relationships or heartbreak .
Instead , the autobiographical nature of his music comes through in its exploration of textures , moods , and memory .
“ Transmissions ” features a new song called “ River Dreams , ” built around a downcast bass line echoed by piano .
Here , Glenn-Copeland seems to chant , almost as though uttering an incantation , in an unfamiliar language .
There ’ s also a live recording from 2018 of the spiritual “ Deep River , ” calling to mind the music of his youth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sing-along , encouraging the audience to scat with him , and then thanking them for helping him out .
In August , Glenn-Copeland released “ Live at Le Guess Who ?
, ” made during a Dutch music festival , which includes the recording of “ Deep River.
” On “ Colour of Anyhow , ” his voice is weathered and grainy as he unspools that older folk tune into a delicate jazz ballad .
Throughout the concert , Glenn-Copeland is joyful and giddy , joking about how he ’ s so chatty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time to play only a few songs .
Glenn-Copeland ’ s exposure in the past few years , and his experiences as a seventysomething on tour for the first time , were documented by the filmmaker Posy Dixon in the 2019 film “ Keyboard Fantasies : The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story.
” One member of Indigo Rising , his young touring band , marvels at his desire to spend so much time with them , grinding away on the road .
It looked as if 2020 would be the first year of Glenn-Copeland ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a musician .
But the pandemic resulted in a string of cancelled tour dates , which he and his wife had been counting on for income .
Their daughter and her partner launched a crowdfunding effort that helped them avoid homelessness .
Throughout Dixon ’ s film , Glenn-Copeland exudes an infectious mirth , like a person out of step with these grim times .
He spent decades working in obscurity without realizing that that ’ s what it was .
Obscurity suggests an awareness of the outside world and its desires .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ was making music for a generation of listeners who had yet to be born .
In the documentary , he is excited to eat takeout on the sidewalk and to listen to his band tell stories about night clubs and new music .
He is thrilled to be interviewed on someone ’ s Internet radio show .
Everything is delightful and unprecedented .
He wasn ’ t waiting for all this to happen—the recognition , the new records , the tours .
But he was waiting for us .
♦

In the early nineteen-eighties, Beverly Glenn-Copeland was living in a quiet part of Ontario famous for its scenic hills and lakes. He heard about the advent of the personal computer and, owing to a fascination with “Star Trek” and science-fiction futurism, became instantly intrigued. He bought one, even though he had no idea how to use it. Initially, he just walked around with his computer cradled in his arms, hoping that its secrets would reveal themselves.
For the next few years, Glenn-Copeland’s free time was spent shovelling snow, feeding his family, and teaching himself how to use his computer to make music. He later recalled that his creative community consisted of trees, bears, and rabbits—“the natural world, that was my companion.” He slept only a few hours a night, kept awake by the conviction that his computer could help him produce sounds that had never been heard before.
Glenn-Copeland, who is a transgender man, was born Beverly in Philadelphia in 1944. (He goes by Glenn, but he retained his birth name after his transition.) His family was middle class and Quaker, and many of the struggles faced by African-Americans seemed abstract to him as a child. His father would sit at the piano for hours a day playing Bach, Chopin, and Mozart, and Glenn-Copeland began learning the German lieder style of singing. He briefly studied with the opera singer Eleanor Steber. Occasionally, his mother would sing him Negro spirituals.
Glenn-Copeland enrolled at McGill University, in Montreal, in 1961, becoming one of its first Black students. At the time, he identified as female. After he was ostracized for being in an openly lesbian relationship, he dropped out and became a folk musician. In the late sixties and early seventies, he recorded a couple of bluesy folk albums that call to mind Joni Mitchell or Odetta, full of the kind of searching, heartbroken songs that one learns to write by listening to other people’s searching, heartbroken songs. Often, they sound as if Glenn-Copeland were trying to fit his operatic range into a narrow band of sentimentality. “So you run to the mirror in search of a reason / But the ice upon your eyelids only reminds you of the season / I don’t despair / Tomorrow may bring roses,” he sings. At first, his vocals are restrained and quivering. But then he lets loose, soaring above the strummed guitars and forlorn pianos.
By the time Glenn-Copeland began teaching himself how to use a computer, he was working in children’s television, writing songs for “Sesame Street” and performing on a Canadian program called “Mr. Dressup.” He had become immersed in Buddhism and its traditions. The music he was making was spacious and unpredictable, nothing like his work from the seventies. Some songs resembled techno anthems slowed to a crawl; others seemed like furtive experiments in rendering the sound of a trickling stream with a synthesizer. Instead of paeans to a lover, there were odes to higher powers and changing seasons, lyrics about spiritual rebirth and the great outdoors. “Ever New” slowly builds, a series of synth lines layering on one another, until Glenn-Copeland finally begins singing: “Welcome the child / Whose hand I hold / Welcome to you both young and old / We are ever new.” He made two hundred cassette copies of an album called “Keyboard Fantasies.” And then, befitting his life philosophy, Glenn-Copeland moved on to the next thing. More snow.
There’s a history of electronic music that replaces the sweaty communion of the dance floor with self-discovery and alternative forms of consciousness. Glenn-Copeland has described himself as a “musical monk,” largely ignorant of what’s going on outside his house. “Keyboard Fantasies” was rediscovered in 2015 by a Japanese record collector, who bought Glenn-Copeland’s remaining stock and sold it to people around the world. The following year, the album was reissued by the Toronto record label Invisible City Editions.
Part of the appeal of Glenn-Copeland’s recordings from the eighties is the way in which they speak to our desire for a future that never came. “Keyboard Fantasies” is like an outsider artist’s enchanted take on electronic music. As “Sunset Village” opens, Glenn-Copeland sounds as though he’s still feeling his way around the keyboard, showing a slight hesitancy as he taps a pattern of low notes. But a simple, gorgeous synth melody weaves into the mixture, and he begins singing with a kind of serene calm: “Let it go / Let it go now / It’s O.K.” Where his folk recordings felt anguished and stormy, here the vocals are sonorous and slow, merging with mellow waves and pulses. Computers are capable of producing sounds that might never end, and it often seems as if Glenn-Copeland wanted to see how long he could sustain his vocals and stay inside the moment.
“Transmissions,” released this month by Transgressive Records, is a compilation spanning Glenn-Copeland’s career. Curiously, it’s not sequenced chronologically, so it offers a sense of restless, ever-shifting moods rather than a single line of artistic progression. Plaintive folk tunes from the early seventies and eighties and experiments in ambient pastoralism sit alongside tracks from “Primal Prayer,” an album released in 2004 under the pseudonym Phynix, which was full of sampled breakbeats and dramatic, operatic refrains. “My mother says to me / Enjoy your life,” Glenn-Copeland sings on “La Vita,” which sounds like a homemade version of early-nineties world-beat dance music.
In the mid-nineties, Glenn-Copeland was introduced to the term “transgender,” which eventually gave him a language for understanding himself. Glenn-Copeland began publicly identifying as trans in 2002. He had long since stopped writing songs about relationships or heartbreak. Instead, the autobiographical nature of his music comes through in its exploration of textures, moods, and memory. “Transmissions” features a new song called “River Dreams,” built around a downcast bass line echoed by piano. Here, Glenn-Copeland seems to chant, almost as though uttering an incantation, in an unfamiliar language. There’s also a live recording from 2018 of the spiritual “Deep River,” calling to mind the music of his youth. He turns it into a joyous sing-along, encouraging the audience to scat with him, and then thanking them for helping him out.
In August, Glenn-Copeland released “Live at Le Guess Who?,” made during a Dutch music festival, which includes the recording of “Deep River.” On “Colour of Anyhow,” his voice is weathered and grainy as he unspools that older folk tune into a delicate jazz ballad. Throughout the concert, Glenn-Copeland is joyful and giddy, joking about how he’s so chatty when onstage that the band might have time to play only a few songs.
Glenn-Copeland’s exposure in the past few years, and his experiences as a seventysomething on tour for the first time, were documented by the filmmaker Posy Dixon in the 2019 film “Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story.” One member of Indigo Rising, his young touring band, marvels at his desire to spend so much time with them, grinding away on the road. It looked as if 2020 would be the first year of Glenn-Copeland’s life that he made money as a musician. But the pandemic resulted in a string of cancelled tour dates, which he and his wife had been counting on for income. Their daughter and her partner launched a crowdfunding effort that helped them avoid homelessness.
Throughout Dixon’s film, Glenn-Copeland exudes an infectious mirth, like a person out of step with these grim times. He spent decades working in obscurity without realizing that that’s what it was. Obscurity suggests an awareness of the outside world and its desires. Only now does Glenn-Copeland understand that he was making music for a generation of listeners who had yet to be born. In the documentary, he is excited to eat takeout on the sidewalk and to listen to his band tell stories about night clubs and new music. He is thrilled to be interviewed on someone’s Internet radio show. Everything is delightful and unprecedented. He wasn’t waiting for all this to happen—the recognition, the new records, the tours. But he was waiting for us. ♦


newyorker--2020-09-14--“Remedy,” by Bob Hicok

“Remedy,” by Bob Hicok

In deciding what I am , I ’ ve ruled out cat , vulture , shoe , a sadist who tortures people to death in a Syrian hospital , a president who separates families at the border , a handful of purple irises at the beginning of the path to heaven .
Is there memory in the shade of a tree of a lynching fifty years ago , when I was nine ?
And do I love that tree ?
Love the sinner , not the sin .
Forgive the electricity , not the singeing of genitals .
The more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I plan to be tall grass in a field .
Until then I ’ ll tell my wife I love her in Toronto and Blacksburg and bed , in pajamas and bluejeans and song , in theory and fact and dream .
I will not gouge a man ’ s eye out , I promise , yet the eye is out , the man is dead , and the geese I ’ m listening to have no idea that we ’ re as wild as the coyotes that would tear them apart .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not choose to be human .
If given a choice how to be human , I ’ d say like a glass of water .
While I have no answers to the questions I don ’ t know to ask , I can love my wife in Detroit , in general , in detail , in vain , in spite , in depth , in the shallow light of the moon , in contrast to hating myself , in sympathy and in stealth , in time as a ghost and right now as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a transplant , tell the shivering and recycled heart it is loved .
I assume so , but I ’ ve never asked a heart on its second time around , Were you christened , were you blessed , are you worth all this trouble ?

In deciding what I am, I’ve ruled out cat, vulture, shoe,
a sadist who tortures people to death in a Syrian hospital,
a president who separates families at the border,
a handful of purple irises at the beginning of the path
to heaven. Is there memory in the shade of a tree
of a lynching fifty years ago, when I was nine? And do I love
that tree? Love the sinner, not the sin. Forgive the electricity,
not the singeing of genitals. The more I know about human nature
the more I plan to be tall grass in a field. Until then
I’ll tell my wife I love her in Toronto and Blacksburg and bed,
in pajamas and bluejeans and song, in theory and fact and dream.
I will not gouge a man’s eye out, I promise, yet the eye is out,
the man is dead, and the geese I’m listening to have no idea
that we’re as wild as the coyotes that would tear them apart.
If given a choice I’d not choose to be human. If given a choice
how to be human, I’d say like a glass of water. While I have
no answers to the questions I don’t know to ask, I can love my wife
in Detroit, in general, in detail, in vain, in spite, in depth,
in the shallow light of the moon, in contrast to hating myself,
in sympathy and in stealth, in time as a ghost and right now
as a poet wondering if surgeons, during a transplant,
tell the shivering and recycled heart it is loved. I assume so,
but I’ve never asked a heart on its second time around,
Were you christened, were you blessed, are you worth
all this trouble?


newyorker--2020-09-14--One-Star Yelp Reviews of Heaven

One-Star Yelp Reviews of Heaven

I dunno .
I heard a lot about this place , and everyone seems to love it , but the clouds are too soft—you could break an ankle if you had bones—and , granted , the peach cobbler ( which everyone raves about ) is perfect , but how much peach cobbler can you eat , really ?
Smaller than I imagined .
Also bigger than I imagined .
Let me preface this by saying , I love God .
I mean , God ’ s perfect .
And IMHO that ’ s what makes Heaven so disappointing .
Because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You know ?
What could be better than that ?
Nothing .
Of course .
So , yeah , big letdown .
Could use a lot more sensitivity with the intake procedures .
Everyone ’ s , like , “ We ’ re all so happy , we ’ re bathed in God ’ s grace for eternity , tra-la-la.
” I just died , man .
Have a little compassion .
I would be giving this place five stars except for one angel who was really rude to me .
My harp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , “ Whatever sound you make here , it ’ s perfect.
” I told him that it was my harp and I should know when it needs new strings , and then he said ( this really killed me , no pun intended ) , “ Nothing need ever be new again .
It ’ s all new forever.
” With a big smile on his face .
Can you believe the nerve ?
So condescending and disrespectful .
I feel kinda bad about the one star , but I guess @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and when I got here I took one look at the clouds and the angels and everyone in white gowns and thought , “ Really ?
” It ’ s such a cliché .
At first , it was a total rush hanging out with my idols , shvitzing with Churchill , playing foosball with Shakespeare , etc .
But then they started getting on my nerves .
Einstein has this nervous tic where he says “ Ja ?
” at the end of every sentence , and Jesus often sits quietly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even when I know he knows the answers during Trivia Night .
Much more impressive in books and on TV , that ’ s for sure .
I ’ m only giving one star because no stars is not an option .
Right from the start , it seemed really unorganized .
I worked my entire life in event planning , and , trust me , they could all do with some additional training .
When I arrived , they just showed me in , no registration or anything , and it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to figure out eternity .
I went up to one angel and said , “ So what do we do here ?
, ” and she said , “ Whatever you want , ” which is really no answer at all when you think about it .
Not a fan of the pearly-white color scheme .
I thought the whole point of this place was to be together with your dead loved ones , but when I got here my dead loved ones were busy hanging out with Shakespeare and Churchill and Tallulah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better so that families stay together and don ’ t have to compete with every famous dead person who ever lived .
And God .
I really wish I could give this a five-star rating , but my experience here is complicated .
The place itself is controversial ( we ’ d heard all kinds of weird stuff about who got in and who went to Hell instead ) , though honestly it doesn ’ t feel like an “ honor ” or whatever to be here .
It feels completely natural—which I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shouldn ’ t it feel weirder ?
Since it ’ s an exclusionary afterlife that I ’ m guessing some pretty decent souls have been left out of ?
During life , I fought against exclusive policies and clubs and secret societies , and it seems like this is the mother of them all .
What a farce !
I ’ m a churchgoing Christian who prayed every day of her adult life , then I get here and find the place overrun with seemingly anyone who didn ’ t kill a million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Pol Pot—you ’ re not welcome here .
But apparently for everyone else it ’ s “ Come on in !
” Yesterday , I saw Al Goldstein .
Ugh .
Really , really boring .
Trust me : no one wants to feel good all the time .
Prefer the mix of experiences at the other place , to be honest .
If you haven ’ t checked it out , you definitely should .
Down there , you call the shots instead of just being one of God ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ re already on your way .
And please .
.
.
write a review .
♦

“Too much steel.” —A one-star Yelp review of the Eiffel Tower.
I dunno. I heard a lot about this place, and everyone seems to love it, but the clouds are too soft—you could break an ankle if you had bones—and, granted, the peach cobbler (which everyone raves about) is perfect, but how much peach cobbler can you eat, really?
Smaller than I imagined. Also bigger than I imagined.
Let me preface this by saying, I love God. I mean, God’s perfect. And IMHO that’s what makes Heaven so disappointing. Because you think, like, God. You know? What could be better than that? Nothing. Of course. So, yeah, big letdown.
Could use a lot more sensitivity with the intake procedures. Everyone’s, like, “We’re all so happy, we’re bathed in God’s grace for eternity, tra-la-la.” I just died, man. Have a little compassion.
I would be giving this place five stars except for one angel who was really rude to me. My harp needed to be restrung, but he said, “Whatever sound you make here, it’s perfect.” I told him that it was my harp and I should know when it needs new strings, and then he said (this really killed me, no pun intended), “Nothing need ever be new again. It’s all new forever.” With a big smile on his face. Can you believe the nerve? So condescending and disrespectful.
I really wanted condor wings.
I feel kinda bad about the one star, but I guess it was just way overhyped to me, and when I got here I took one look at the clouds and the angels and everyone in white gowns and thought, “Really?” It’s such a cliché.
At first, it was a total rush hanging out with my idols, shvitzing with Churchill, playing foosball with Shakespeare, etc. But then they started getting on my nerves. Einstein has this nervous tic where he says “Ja?” at the end of every sentence, and Jesus often sits quietly for hours, not saying anything, even when I know he knows the answers during Trivia Night. Much more impressive in books and on TV, that’s for sure.
I’m only giving one star because no stars is not an option. Right from the start, it seemed really unorganized. I worked my entire life in event planning, and, trust me, they could all do with some additional training. When I arrived, they just showed me in, no registration or anything, and it was like I was left on my own to figure out eternity. I went up to one angel and said, “So what do we do here?,” and she said, “Whatever you want,” which is really no answer at all when you think about it.
Not a fan of the pearly-white color scheme.
I thought the whole point of this place was to be together with your dead loved ones, but when I got here my dead loved ones were busy hanging out with Shakespeare and Churchill and Tallulah Bankhead. They should really organize it better so that families stay together and don’t have to compete with every famous dead person who ever lived. And God.
I really wish I could give this a five-star rating, but my experience here is complicated. The place itself is controversial (we’d heard all kinds of weird stuff about who got in and who went to Hell instead), though honestly it doesn’t feel like an “honor” or whatever to be here. It feels completely natural—which I think is part of the problem. Shouldn’t it feel weirder? Since it’s an exclusionary afterlife that I’m guessing some pretty decent souls have been left out of? During life, I fought against exclusive policies and clubs and secret societies, and it seems like this is the mother of them all.
Scary for kids.
What a farce! I’m a churchgoing Christian who prayed every day of her adult life, then I get here and find the place overrun with seemingly anyone who didn’t kill a million people. Sorry, Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot—you’re not welcome here. But apparently for everyone else it’s “Come on in!” Yesterday, I saw Al Goldstein. Ugh.
Really, really boring. Trust me: no one wants to feel good all the time. Prefer the mix of experiences at the other place, to be honest. If you haven’t checked it out, you definitely should. Down there, you call the shots instead of just being one of God’s happy tools. Tempted? Then you’re already on your way. And please . . . write a review. ♦