newyorker--2020-11-09--How to Read Sam Gilliam’s Formalism

How to Read Sam Gilliam’s Formalism

A powerful show of new work by the Washington , D.C. , artist Sam Gilliam , at Pace , is his first ever with a major New York dealer , despite past recognition of him at the city ’ s chief museums and , among other honors , his representation of the United States at the Venice Biennale of 1972 .
The commercial lacuna calls for an explanation .
Gilliam , who is still productive at the age of eighty-six , is a leading light of what is termed the Washington Color School of abstract painting , which came to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the doctrines of Clement Greenberg , who influenced a generation of D.C. artists , including the highly successful Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland .
The critic posited flatness and appeals to eyesight alone as the destiny of new painting , as preordained by modernism .
That was nuts , be it noted .
But the era was still smitten with myths of formal progress in art , and Greenberg ’ s proposition bore elegant fruit for a while .
Gilliam broke ranks with the movement—or extended it—in the mid-sixties , when he began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from walls and ceilings , creating undulant environments that drenched the eye in effulgent color .
( Dia : Beacon , in the Hudson Valley , has on view a magnificent example , “ Double Merge , ” from 1968 ; exploring it is peripatetic bliss . )
Gilliam ’ s qualified apostasy , with a nod to the space-altering aesthetics of Minimalism , was widely noticed but , taking place outside New York , proved poorly situated and timed .
Pop art , Minimalist sculpture and a proliferation of heterodox manners that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conceptual art were eclipsing anything to do with color-field painting—and often with painting at all—in the big town , and the Washington School could appear to be a provincial rear guard .
Even so , Gilliam ’ s breakthrough and subsequent achievements with his draping method should have loomed large in the moment ’ s hot and heavy discourse .
Why didn ’ t they ?
Gilliam is Black , which in the art world back then identified an American artist as a special case , so remorseless was the presumed whiteness of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ An inaudible asterisk long attended mentions of , for example , the sorely underrated , late New York abstractionist Jack Whitten . )
Gilliam ’ s reception was dogged by a double bind of unconscious condescension and compensatory indulgence—or so it seemed to me , over the years .
This was more than uncommonly distracting in his case .
Gilliam ’ s art seemed to make no clear point of his identity apart from the occasional title , such as “ Lady Day ” for a work in 1971 , that signalled his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ formalist from tip to toe , stalking meaning in nuances of format , color , texture , and the other technical givens of his medium : mainstream indeed , to ambitious art of the nineteen-sixties and , at intervals , ever since .
It ’ s possible to suspect reparative social justice in his renewed eminence , but really it ’ s a chance to abolish one remnant of double-entry accounting of white and minority artists .
Purgative , to this end , is a dazzlingly stylish essay in the Pace catalogue by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moten—a literary work of art in itself , ablaze with on-target wordplay—which teases out inconspicuous racial imprints on Gilliam , from the sight ( recalled by the artist ) of women ’ s washing billowing from clotheslines to the free-jazz innovations of Ornette Coleman and to tropes , in recent works , of African architecture and design .
Antically exaggerated , the focus pays off , for me , by illuminating a peculiar psychological intensity in even Gilliam ’ s most circumspect art : an air of taking nothing for granted and of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the face of felt or imagined resistance , a hint of playing for stakes beyond what ’ s visible .
The formalist credo—what you see is what you see—applies , but Moten proves that a racial audit frees up a general appreciation of Gilliam ’ s excellence .
It can ’ t explain the art ’ s self-critically disciplined integrity , skill , inventiveness , and abounding beauty .
But Moten ’ s audacity relaxes any lingering nervousness on the score of race by letting it rip , affirming Blackness as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American art , even or especially when it ’ s not overtly at issue .
Gilliam was born in Tupelo , Mississippi , the seventh child of a truck driver and a housewife .
The family soon moved to Louisville , Kentucky , where , having wanted to become a cartoonist since childhood , Gilliam plunged into art studies at the University of Louisville .
In 1962 , after returning from a two-year stint in the Army and earning an M.A .
in fine arts , he relocated to the capital .
His @ @ @ @ @ @ @ German Expressionism through Picasso and Braque to Louis and Noland .
He took to painting hard-edged stripes and geometric shapes , Washington Schoolishly dead flat .
Then he jettisoned concerns with style for a redefinition of what paintings could be and do .
His drapings enlist chance operations of pouring and flinging that gradually , as he less directed than monitored them , generate not so random instances of rhythmic snap and chromatic counterpoint .
( A watcher as much as a wielder of paint , Gilliam rang a fresh change on Jackson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Each viewer of the softly hanging canvases comes to a unique experience of their cumulative effects and then , if sticking around , discovers yet another .
Gilliam ’ s quest persisted when he discontinued draping canvases around 1980 and returned to the wall by way of intensively pigmented compositions in types of free-form style , categorized at the time as “ lyrical abstraction , ” often on constructed reliefs of angled and jutting planes—a bit in the manner of contemporaneous works by Frank Stella , but zestier .
Circles occurred , oddly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key success is formal , as an effect of obdurate density and jagged animation .
But Moten stays on the hunt for racial propensity .
He relates Gilliam ’ s affinity for circles to the title of a 1959 track from Ornette Coleman ’ s 1970 album “ The Art of the Improvisers ” : “ The Circle with a Hole in the Middle , ” which mundanely describes a vinyl record but resonates with hints of a flaw or a void .
( Moten upends the suggestion by titling his essay “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Middle.
” ) Gilliam has embraced the form in recent large wall-mounted wooden doughnut shapes that are dyed , rather than painted , in gorgeous hues .
One from this year is titled “ Black Mozart / ORNETTE.
” Also new are works on sheets , some more than six feet square , of washi , a Japanese paper made from fibres of the inner bark of the gampi tree , the mitsumata shrub , or the paper mulberry .
Repeatedly soaked in acrylics , allowed to dry , and then soaked again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much covered as replaced by slabs of solid monochrome , their surfaces varied , when you look closely , by traces of the artist ’ s manipulating hand .
These are blasts of pure chroma like nothing else I ’ ve ever seen : while meltingly beautiful , they are no more passive than the front ends of oncoming trucks .
The show ’ s main news is in sculpture : there are several small pyramids and one immense one , all raised slightly off the floor and built of innumerable horizontal sheets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of aluminum .
Gorgeously dyed in sumptuous color—bringing out and celebrating the textures of the wood grain—the blunt structures radiate like light sources .
Do they suggest late entries in the repertoire of Minimalism ?
They do , but with a sense of re-starting the aesthetic from scratch—getting it right , even , at long last .
The pieces play a role in another of the show ’ s revelations : a series of large ( up to twenty feet wide ) neo- or post- or , let ’ s say , para-color-field @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paint surfaces to incorporations of leftover pyramid sawdust .
Bevelled edges flirt with object-ness , making the works seem fat material presentations , protuberant from walls , rather than pictures .
But , as always with Gilliam , paint wins .
Thick grounds in white or black are crazed with specks , splotches , and occasional dragged strokes of varied color .
While you feel the weight of the wooden supports , your gaze loses itself in something like starry skies : dizzying impressions of infinite distance in tension with the dense grounds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of collaged and overpainted wooden squares .
Registering the jittery chromatic harmonies and occasional underlying structures—ghosts of geometry—takes time .
Seemingly decorative at first glance , the paintings turn inexhaustibly absorbing and exciting when contemplated .
Like everything else in this show of an artist who is old in years , they feel defiantly brand spanking new .
♦

A powerful show of new work by the Washington, D.C., artist Sam Gilliam, at Pace, is his first ever with a major New York dealer, despite past recognition of him at the city’s chief museums and, among other honors, his representation of the United States at the Venice Biennale of 1972. The commercial lacuna calls for an explanation. Gilliam, who is still productive at the age of eighty-six, is a leading light of what is termed the Washington Color School of abstract painting, which came to public attention around 1960 in thrall to the doctrines of Clement Greenberg, who influenced a generation of D.C. artists, including the highly successful Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. The critic posited flatness and appeals to eyesight alone as the destiny of new painting, as preordained by modernism. That was nuts, be it noted. But the era was still smitten with myths of formal progress in art, and Greenberg’s proposition bore elegant fruit for a while. Gilliam broke ranks with the movement—or extended it—in the mid-sixties, when he began draping vast unstretched paint-stained and -spattered canvases from walls and ceilings, creating undulant environments that drenched the eye in effulgent color. (Dia:Beacon, in the Hudson Valley, has on view a magnificent example, “Double Merge,” from 1968; exploring it is peripatetic bliss.)
“Blue 96″ Disc,” from 2020. Art work by Sam Gilliam / © Sam Gilliam / ARS. Photograph by D'Angelo Lovell Williams for The New Yorker
Gilliam’s qualified apostasy, with a nod to the space-altering aesthetics of Minimalism, was widely noticed but, taking place outside New York, proved poorly situated and timed. Pop art, Minimalist sculpture and a proliferation of heterodox manners that came to be called post-Minimalism, and conceptual art were eclipsing anything to do with color-field painting—and often with painting at all—in the big town, and the Washington School could appear to be a provincial rear guard. Even so, Gilliam’s breakthrough and subsequent achievements with his draping method should have loomed large in the moment’s hot and heavy discourse. Why didn’t they?
“For John Lewis,” from 2020. Art work by Sam Gilliam / © Sam Gilliam / ARS. Photograph by D'Angelo Lovell Williams for The New Yorker
Gilliam is Black, which in the art world back then identified an American artist as a special case, so remorseless was the presumed whiteness of “mainstream” Western culture. (An inaudible asterisk long attended mentions of, for example, the sorely underrated, late New York abstractionist Jack Whitten.) Gilliam’s reception was dogged by a double bind of unconscious condescension and compensatory indulgence—or so it seemed to me, over the years. This was more than uncommonly distracting in his case. Gilliam’s art seemed to make no clear point of his identity apart from the occasional title, such as “Lady Day” for a work in 1971, that signalled his cultural background. He is temperamentally a formalist from tip to toe, stalking meaning in nuances of format, color, texture, and the other technical givens of his medium: mainstream indeed, to ambitious art of the nineteen-sixties and, at intervals, ever since. It’s possible to suspect reparative social justice in his renewed eminence, but really it’s a chance to abolish one remnant of double-entry accounting of white and minority artists.
New works from 2020. Art work by Sam Gilliam / © Sam Gilliam / ARS. Photograph by D'Angelo Lovell Williams for The New Yorker
Purgative, to this end, is a dazzlingly stylish essay in the Pace catalogue by the extraordinary Black scholar and poet Fred Moten—a literary work of art in itself, ablaze with on-target wordplay—which teases out inconspicuous racial imprints on Gilliam, from the sight (recalled by the artist) of women’s washing billowing from clotheslines to the free-jazz innovations of Ornette Coleman and to tropes, in recent works, of African architecture and design. Antically exaggerated, the focus pays off, for me, by illuminating a peculiar psychological intensity in even Gilliam’s most circumspect art: an air of taking nothing for granted and of having things to prove, an asperity in the face of felt or imagined resistance, a hint of playing for stakes beyond what’s visible. The formalist credo—what you see is what you see—applies, but Moten proves that a racial audit frees up a general appreciation of Gilliam’s excellence. It can’t explain the art’s self-critically disciplined integrity, skill, inventiveness, and abounding beauty. But Moten’s audacity relaxes any lingering nervousness on the score of race by letting it rip, affirming Blackness as a regular feature, or quality, in American art, even or especially when it’s not overtly at issue.
Gilliam was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, the seventh child of a truck driver and a housewife. The family soon moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where, having wanted to become a cartoonist since childhood, Gilliam plunged into art studies at the University of Louisville. In 1962, after returning from a two-year stint in the Army and earning an M.A. in fine arts, he relocated to the capital. His enthusiasms ranged across modern art, from German Expressionism through Picasso and Braque to Louis and Noland. He took to painting hard-edged stripes and geometric shapes, Washington Schoolishly dead flat. Then he jettisoned concerns with style for a redefinition of what paintings could be and do. His drapings enlist chance operations of pouring and flinging that gradually, as he less directed than monitored them, generate not so random instances of rhythmic snap and chromatic counterpoint. (A watcher as much as a wielder of paint, Gilliam rang a fresh change on Jackson Pollock’s drip technique.) Each viewer of the softly hanging canvases comes to a unique experience of their cumulative effects and then, if sticking around, discovers yet another.
Gilliam’s quest persisted when he discontinued draping canvases around 1980 and returned to the wall by way of intensively pigmented compositions in types of free-form style, categorized at the time as “lyrical abstraction,” often on constructed reliefs of angled and jutting planes—a bit in the manner of contemporaneous works by Frank Stella, but zestier. Circles occurred, oddly portentous. Again, the works’ key success is formal, as an effect of obdurate density and jagged animation. But Moten stays on the hunt for racial propensity. He relates Gilliam’s affinity for circles to the title of a 1959 track from Ornette Coleman’s 1970 album “The Art of the Improvisers”: “The Circle with a Hole in the Middle,” which mundanely describes a vinyl record but resonates with hints of a flaw or a void. (Moten upends the suggestion by titling his essay “The Circle with a Whole in the Middle.”) Gilliam has embraced the form in recent large wall-mounted wooden doughnut shapes that are dyed, rather than painted, in gorgeous hues. One from this year is titled “Black Mozart / ORNETTE.” Also new are works on sheets, some more than six feet square, of washi, a Japanese paper made from fibres of the inner bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub, or the paper mulberry. Repeatedly soaked in acrylics, allowed to dry, and then soaked again, the sheets end up not so much covered as replaced by slabs of solid monochrome, their surfaces varied, when you look closely, by traces of the artist’s manipulating hand. These are blasts of pure chroma like nothing else I’ve ever seen: while meltingly beautiful, they are no more passive than the front ends of oncoming trucks.
The show’s main news is in sculpture: there are several small pyramids and one immense one, all raised slightly off the floor and built of innumerable horizontal sheets of laminated plywood with regularly spaced bands of aluminum. Gorgeously dyed in sumptuous color—bringing out and celebrating the textures of the wood grain—the blunt structures radiate like light sources. Do they suggest late entries in the repertoire of Minimalism? They do, but with a sense of re-starting the aesthetic from scratch—getting it right, even, at long last. The pieces play a role in another of the show’s revelations: a series of large (up to twenty feet wide) neo- or post- or, let’s say, para-color-field paintings that owe the ruggedness of their paint surfaces to incorporations of leftover pyramid sawdust. Bevelled edges flirt with object-ness, making the works seem fat material presentations, protuberant from walls, rather than pictures. But, as always with Gilliam, paint wins. Thick grounds in white or black are crazed with specks, splotches, and occasional dragged strokes of varied color. While you feel the weight of the wooden supports, your gaze loses itself in something like starry skies: dizzying impressions of infinite distance in tension with the dense grounds, which are complicated by tiny bits of collaged and overpainted wooden squares. Registering the jittery chromatic harmonies and occasional underlying structures—ghosts of geometry—takes time. Seemingly decorative at first glance, the paintings turn inexhaustibly absorbing and exciting when contemplated. Like everything else in this show of an artist who is old in years, they feel defiantly brand spanking new. ♦


newyorker--2020-11-09--After Years of Protests Every Wednesday, L.A. Activists Welcome a New D.A.

Helen Jones—a Black woman , whose son , John Horton , died in the custody of the L.A. County Sheriff ’ s Department , in 2009—and Baba Akili , a veteran organizer and Black Lives Matter leader , stood outside the Hall of Justice , in downtown Los Angeles .
They have been there every Wednesday for three years , protesting , along with other activists and families of people killed by the police at grocery stores ; in malls ; on bicycles ; while in the midst of mental-health crises .
To the protesters , the building is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sheriff ’ s department , which is responsible for many of those deaths , and the office of District Attorney Jackie Lacey , who has been cautious about charging law-enforcement officers .
The day after the election , the street was the site of celebration .
Lacey had been voted out .
“ Day One , she ’ s been in bed with law enforcement , ” Jones said .
“ We thought , She ’ s a woman .
She ’ s a mother .
She ’ s a Black woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knows better than her ?
It was exactly the opposite.
” Lacey , who opposed numerous pieces of criminal-justice-reform legislation and sent twenty-two people of color to death row , reportedly raised seven million dollars , mostly from police and deputy unions .
Her opponent , George Gascón , who is Cuban-American and a former L.A.P.D .
officer—he also served as police chief in San Francisco and , later , as the city ’ s D.A.—ran on a platform of decarceration and decreasing police funding .
He outraised Lacey nearly two to one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Black Lives Matter L.A. , arrived , in a B.L.M .
T-shirt and beaded cowrie-shell earrings .
What looked like military planes passed overhead ; L.A.P.D .
and sheriff ’ s-department helicopters buzzed back and forth ; the streets were blocked by parked police S.U.V.s , lights flashing .
Abdullah looked serene .
“ We have been demanding for years that Jackie Lacey be accountable to the constituency that elected her , especially Black folks , ” she said .
“ She continues to run and duck and hide and refuses to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primary , Abdullah led a bus full of protesters to Lacey ’ s house .
“ We headed out to the deep valley , where she lives , and set up chairs on the public sidewalk in front of her house .
We prayed , we poured libations , we did a land acknowledgment , and then we walked to her front door and invited her to join us.
” When the door opened , Abdullah said , it was Lacey ’ s husband , a retired investigative auditor for the District Attorney @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at her chest .
“ He says , ‘ I will shoot you , I don ’ t care who you are.
’ He had his finger on the trigger.
” ( In August , the state attorney general ’ s office filed assault charges against Lacey ’ s husband , to which he pleaded not guilty , and Abdullah recently filed a civil claim . )
Los Angeles is the most populous county in the country ; the city of L.A. is among the world ’ s largest jailers .
A progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the criminal-justice-reform movement .
The crowd was giddy with victory .
“ Bye , ” one protester had written , in eyeliner , underneath one eye .
“ Byeee Jackie ” read a banner stretched between two protesters .
On the flatbed stage of the organizers ’ truck , “ Fuck Donald Trump ” played from a set of speakers .
Next to the speakers was a suitcase with a sign on it saying “ Pack Your Shit Up Bitch.
” A security announcement : Avoid “ undisciplined factions that have come to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cops in the crowd .
Akili pointed out a parked police van .
“ I have never seen them that close , ” he said .
He is seventy-two , was wearing a “ # byeJackie2020 ” T-shirt , and had a glitter tattoo of a black-and-gold fist on his arm .
He recalled , as a child , hearing his parents talk about the murder of Emmett Till .
He was happy about Gascón ’ s win , but wary .
“ We have no illusions , ” he said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set up , designed , and implemented to punish , and in America if you set up an institution like that it will always punish Black people more and more severely.
” He went on , “ There ’ s been at least nine murders , mostly by the sheriffs , since George Floyd .
Control the threat and suppress the danger , that ’ s what they ’ re trained to do .
We are seen as a threat and a danger .
The difference now is at least whoever occupies that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be expecting some accountability.
” On the other side of the Hall of Justice , the sheriff ’ s department had amassed a huge concentration of trucks and deputies in riot gear .
They said they were there to protect the building .
A legal observer in a neon-green hat and a face mask approached with a notebook , asking questions .
“ I can ’ t hear you !
” one deputy shouted three times , until he went away .
More legal observers gathered on a street corner , watching as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men with buzz cuts approached purposefully .
“ Here come some more undercovers , ” one of the observers said .
“ You can tell by the body language , build , their whole demeanor.
” A reporter tried to follow them , but , conspicuous as they had seemed a moment before , they disappeared into the crowd .
♦

“It’s the last time, can you believe it?” “This is our last one. What are they going to do on Wednesdays without us?”
Helen Jones—a Black woman, whose son, John Horton, died in the custody of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, in 2009—and Baba Akili, a veteran organizer and Black Lives Matter leader, stood outside the Hall of Justice, in downtown Los Angeles. They have been there every Wednesday for three years, protesting, along with other activists and families of people killed by the police at grocery stores; in malls; on bicycles; while in the midst of mental-health crises. To the protesters, the building is the Hall of Injustice: the headquarters of the sheriff’s department, which is responsible for many of those deaths, and the office of District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who has been cautious about charging law-enforcement officers. The day after the election, the street was the site of celebration. Lacey had been voted out.
“Day One, she’s been in bed with law enforcement,” Jones said. “We thought, She’s a woman. She’s a mother. She’s a Black woman. She understands our plight. Who knows better than her? It was exactly the opposite.” Lacey, who opposed numerous pieces of criminal-justice-reform legislation and sent twenty-two people of color to death row, reportedly raised seven million dollars, mostly from police and deputy unions. Her opponent, George Gascón, who is Cuban-American and a former L.A.P.D. officer—he also served as police chief in San Francisco and, later, as the city’s D.A.—ran on a platform of decarceration and decreasing police funding. He outraised Lacey nearly two to one.
Dr. Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter L.A., arrived, in a B.L.M. T-shirt and beaded cowrie-shell earrings. What looked like military planes passed overhead; L.A.P.D. and sheriff’s-department helicopters buzzed back and forth; the streets were blocked by parked police S.U.V.s, lights flashing. Abdullah looked serene. “We have been demanding for years that Jackie Lacey be accountable to the constituency that elected her, especially Black folks,” she said. “She continues to run and duck and hide and refuses to meet with us.” Right before the primary, Abdullah led a bus full of protesters to Lacey’s house. “We headed out to the deep valley, where she lives, and set up chairs on the public sidewalk in front of her house. We prayed, we poured libations, we did a land acknowledgment, and then we walked to her front door and invited her to join us.” When the door opened, Abdullah said, it was Lacey’s husband, a retired investigative auditor for the District Attorney’s office, pointing a gun at her chest. “He says, ‘I will shoot you, I don’t care who you are.’ He had his finger on the trigger.” (In August, the state attorney general’s office filed assault charges against Lacey’s husband, to which he pleaded not guilty, and Abdullah recently filed a civil claim.)
“I thought working from Hell would be temporary.” Cartoon by P. C. Vey Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Los Angeles is the most populous county in the country; the city of L.A. is among the world’s largest jailers. A progressive district attorney would be a triumph for the criminal-justice-reform movement. The crowd was giddy with victory. “Bye,” one protester had written, in eyeliner, underneath one eye. “Byeee Jackie” read a banner stretched between two protesters. On the flatbed stage of the organizers’ truck, “Fuck Donald Trump” played from a set of speakers. Next to the speakers was a suitcase with a sign on it saying “Pack Your Shit Up Bitch.” A security announcement: Avoid “undisciplined factions that have come to disrupt.” And be aware of undercover cops in the crowd.
Akili pointed out a parked police van. “I have never seen them that close,” he said. He is seventy-two, was wearing a “#byeJackie2020” T-shirt, and had a glitter tattoo of a black-and-gold fist on his arm. He recalled, as a child, hearing his parents talk about the murder of Emmett Till. He was happy about Gascón’s win, but wary. “We have no illusions,” he said. “He is in an institution that is set up, designed, and implemented to punish, and in America if you set up an institution like that it will always punish Black people more and more severely.” He went on, “There’s been at least nine murders, mostly by the sheriffs, since George Floyd. Control the threat and suppress the danger, that’s what they’re trained to do. We are seen as a threat and a danger. The difference now is at least whoever occupies that office knows that we are going to be expecting some accountability.”
On the other side of the Hall of Justice, the sheriff’s department had amassed a huge concentration of trucks and deputies in riot gear. They said they were there to protect the building. A legal observer in a neon-green hat and a face mask approached with a notebook, asking questions. “I can’t hear you!” one deputy shouted three times, until he went away. More legal observers gathered on a street corner, watching as people joined the event. Two beefy men with buzz cuts approached purposefully. “Here come some more undercovers,” one of the observers said. “You can tell by the body language, build, their whole demeanor.” A reporter tried to follow them, but, conspicuous as they had seemed a moment before, they disappeared into the crowd. ♦


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You , the reader , submit your @ @ @ @ @ three finalists , and you vote for your favorite .
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Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit your caption here, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Anyone age thirteen or older can enter or vote. To read the complete rules, click here.
Marisa Acocella Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop


newyorker--2020-11-09--Nate Cohn Explains What the Polls Got Wrong

I recently spoke by phone with Nate Cohn , a domestic correspondent at the New York Times who spearheaded the newspaper ’ s polling this cycle .
( Full disclosure : Cohn and I worked together at The New Republic , and are close friends . )
During our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed how the pandemic affected polling , the role of data in election coverage , and the Times ’ contentious “ election needle.
” What was the biggest surprise to you when the results came in , or as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote .
The swing towards Trump in Hispanic areas across the country is extraordinary .
It was hinted at in the preëlection polls .
The polls always showed the President faring better among nonwhite , and particularly Hispanic , voters than he did four years ago , but the magnitude of the shift was way beyond expectations .
We learned that early in the night in Miami-Dade County , where no one had the President doing as well as he did .
And it has proven true , as far as I can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among Latino voters , to varying degrees .
It ’ s true down-ballot .
It ’ s not like this was just about the President .
And I think it ’ s a huge and important political story .
And the second thing that really surprised me is the white , rural , Midwestern vote .
The preëlection polls said that Joe Biden was doing much better than Hillary Clinton was four years ago among white voters without a degree .
And those gains simply did not materialize .
The results looked quite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rural America , and there were many areas where Donald Trump did better in white working-class areas than he did in 2016 .
Because the definition of “ Hispanic ” seems to change from poll to poll , and because exit polls are unreliable , I had trouble finding the exact numbers for what percentage of Hispanic voters Trump won in 2016 and what percentage he won this time .
What is your sense of the size of that change across the country ?
I think it could easily be a double-digit swing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I have not crunched these numbers conclusively , and it ’ s still too early to do that .
But that would be my initial gut sense , yes .
The most obvious reason for this , I would assume , is the education divide in our politics manifesting itself across racial lines .
Do you have a different theory ?
I think that ’ s right .
And I think this was not an election on immigration .
Immigration was a major theme of the 2016 election , from Donald Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Presidency all the way to the policy proposal to build a wall .
The President ’ s position on immigration and his attitude toward Mexican-Americans were a central theme of that campaign .
And I would say that it has not been a central theme of this Presidency , and it was certainly not a central theme of the 2020 campaign .
So it makes sense to me that if we stop talking immigration and Hispanic voters start assessing the President without that in mind , that they might begin to shift in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similar white voters , but four years later .
That strikes me as a possibility .
And it would also perhaps suggest that it was more Hispanic men than Hispanic women , correct ?
There is a lot of preëlection survey data that suggests that the Hispanic gender gap got very , very large in this election .
It ’ s interesting you said that it wasn ’ t a big theme of the campaign or his Presidency .
It feels to me like it was a big theme of this Presidency , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If you were to choose a year that was dominated by immigration during his Presidency , what year would that be ?
I think 2018 .
Family separation and then the caravan .
Yeah .
I think that ’ s right .
I think there was a period in late 2018 where immigration was at the forefront of our politics .
I would absolutely say that was untrue of 2020 , and I think it was also untrue of a lot of the Trump Administration .
And I would say that immigration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In a lot of preëlection polling , Trump was running ahead of Republican Senate candidates .
But Republicans seemed to do better than Trump in the generic House vote , and in some of these Senate races .
Why do you think that was ?
I don ’ t know why that turned out to be the case .
I think one of the most interesting parts of the polling error this year is that it was greater down-ballot than it was as at the top of the ticket , and in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so while a lot of our explanation for what went wrong in 2016 was searching for things that were mainly about the President , I ’ m not sure that the pollsters would be right to suppose that this year ’ s polling error is unique or specific to the President .
In 2016 , the national polls were off a couple points , and then Midwestern polls , especially polls that didn ’ t weight by education , were off more .
This year with your polling for the New York Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of misses .
And these were the polls that really took weighting by education seriously and took a lot of steps after 2016 to fix errors , and in your case nailed the 2018 midterms .
Do you know what happened this time ?
I don ’ t .
I can offer you some theories .
But , before I say that , I do want to agree that this was a much bigger polling miss , in important ways , than in 2016 .
It was a bigger polling miss @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bigger polling miss for the industry ’ s most prominent and pricey survey houses .
The state polling error will be just as bad , even though , as you mentioned , many state pollsters took steps to increase the number of white voters without a degree in their surveys .
And state polls look a lot like they did in 2016 .
But , if the state polls are just as bad as they were in 2016 , despite steps that we know improved the President ’ s standing in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confidence—and I know this was true in our data—that the underlying survey data has to be worse than it was in 2016 .
Or , if you prefer , if all the pollsters were using the 2016 methodology , the polls would have been far worse this year than they were in 2016 .
And that is really interesting .
As I said , I can list a bunch of theories for you .
Yeah .
What are your theories ?
Well , the key framing is what ’ s changed since 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now than they were then ?
So one possibility is that it ’ s four more years of Trump , and that as American politics grew more and more defined along the lines of your attitudes about the President , and as old political allegiances sort of fell away , that non-response bias in polling became more and more correlated with Presidential vote choice .
Another possibility is that “ the resistance ” is what broke the polls .
Think of all of the political engagement on the left , the millions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ossoff in 2017 or to help Jamie Harrison in 2020 .
This portrays a tremendous increase in the level of political participation on the part of progressives .
We know that politically engaged voters are more likely to respond to surveys .
And so it may be that as the Trump Presidency has totally energized the Democratic base , it has also led those same kinds of voters to increase their propensity to respond to political surveys .
Another possibility is the high turnout this year .
We in the polling world have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling easier , because we think of turnout as something that ’ s an additional variable that the polls have to get right beyond just taking a nice sample of the population .
This year , though , we have this huge increase in turnout , and most people have supposed that it was good for Joe Biden .
Maybe it was good for Joe Biden .
But I think we also have to be open to the idea that it was not good for Joe Biden .
In Florida , where we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Day , I can tell you with certainty that the electorate was more Republican than it was in 2016 , more than our polls projected , no matter your likely voter methodology .
That may be true elsewhere in the country .
I don ’ t know .
It may not be .
We just don ’ t have that data yet .

Last week, Joe Biden was elected the forty-sixth President of the United States, defeating Donald Trump by what is likely to be several percentage points nationwide. The margins in crucial swing states, however, were closer than polling averages suggested that they would be. Though Biden won the three Midwest battlegrounds—Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—where Trump eked out victories in 2016, and the former Vice-President is likely to emerge victorious in other previously red states such as Georgia and Arizona, major networks took several days to call the election results, and what looked like a landslide for much of the campaign ended in another scramble for electors.
I recently spoke by phone with Nate Cohn, a domestic correspondent at the New York Times who spearheaded the newspaper’s polling this cycle. (Full disclosure: Cohn and I worked together at The New Republic, and are close friends.) During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how the pandemic affected polling, the role of data in election coverage, and the Times’ contentious “election needle.”
What was the biggest surprise to you when the results came in, or as they have come in?
The Hispanic vote. The swing towards Trump in Hispanic areas across the country is extraordinary. It was hinted at in the preëlection polls. The polls always showed the President faring better among nonwhite, and particularly Hispanic, voters than he did four years ago, but the magnitude of the shift was way beyond expectations. We learned that early in the night in Miami-Dade County, where no one had the President doing as well as he did. And it has proven true, as far as I can tell, basically everywhere in the country among Latino voters, to varying degrees. It’s true down-ballot. It’s not like this was just about the President. And I think it’s a huge and important political story.
And the second thing that really surprised me is the white, rural, Midwestern vote. The preëlection polls said that Joe Biden was doing much better than Hillary Clinton was four years ago among white voters without a degree. And those gains simply did not materialize. The results looked quite a bit like 2016 across most of rural America, and there were many areas where Donald Trump did better in white working-class areas than he did in 2016.
Because the definition of “Hispanic” seems to change from poll to poll, and because exit polls are unreliable, I had trouble finding the exact numbers for what percentage of Hispanic voters Trump won in 2016 and what percentage he won this time. What is your sense of the size of that change across the country?
I think it could easily be a double-digit swing in the President’s direction. I have not crunched these numbers conclusively, and it’s still too early to do that. But that would be my initial gut sense, yes.
The most obvious reason for this, I would assume, is the education divide in our politics manifesting itself across racial lines. Do you have a different theory?
I think that’s right. And I think this was not an election on immigration. Immigration was a major theme of the 2016 election, from Donald Trump’s announcement that he was seeking the Presidency all the way to the policy proposal to build a wall. The President’s position on immigration and his attitude toward Mexican-Americans were a central theme of that campaign. And I would say that it has not been a central theme of this Presidency, and it was certainly not a central theme of the 2020 campaign. So it makes sense to me that if we stop talking immigration and Hispanic voters start assessing the President without that in mind, that they might begin to shift in ways that are fairly similar to demographically similar white voters, but four years later. That strikes me as a possibility.
And it would also perhaps suggest that it was more Hispanic men than Hispanic women, correct?
There is a lot of preëlection survey data that suggests that the Hispanic gender gap got very, very large in this election.
It’s interesting you said that it wasn’t a big theme of the campaign or his Presidency. It feels to me like it was a big theme of this Presidency, but not so much the reëlection campaign.
If you were to choose a year that was dominated by immigration during his Presidency, what year would that be?
I think 2018. Family separation and then the caravan.
Yeah. I think that’s right. I think there was a period in late 2018 where immigration was at the forefront of our politics. I would absolutely say that was untrue of 2020, and I think it was also untrue of a lot of the Trump Administration. And I would say that immigration was always near the top in 2016.
In a lot of preëlection polling, Trump was running ahead of Republican Senate candidates. But Republicans seemed to do better than Trump in the generic House vote, and in some of these Senate races. Why do you think that was?
I don’t know why that turned out to be the case. I think one of the most interesting parts of the polling error this year is that it was greater down-ballot than it was as at the top of the ticket, and in 2016 it was the opposite. And so while a lot of our explanation for what went wrong in 2016 was searching for things that were mainly about the President, I’m not sure that the pollsters would be right to suppose that this year’s polling error is unique or specific to the President.
In 2016, the national polls were off a couple points, and then Midwestern polls, especially polls that didn’t weight by education, were off more. This year with your polling for the New York Times, with other polling, there were a lot of misses. And these were the polls that really took weighting by education seriously and took a lot of steps after 2016 to fix errors, and in your case nailed the 2018 midterms. Do you know what happened this time?
I don’t. I can offer you some theories.
Yeah, please.
But, before I say that, I do want to agree that this was a much bigger polling miss, in important ways, than in 2016. It was a bigger polling miss in the national surveys. It was a bigger polling miss for the industry’s most prominent and pricey survey houses. The state polling error will be just as bad, even though, as you mentioned, many state pollsters took steps to increase the number of white voters without a degree in their surveys. And state polls look a lot like they did in 2016.
But, if the state polls are just as bad as they were in 2016, despite steps that we know improved the President’s standing in the surveys, we can say with total confidence—and I know this was true in our data—that the underlying survey data has to be worse than it was in 2016. Or, if you prefer, if all the pollsters were using the 2016 methodology, the polls would have been far worse this year than they were in 2016. And that is really interesting. As I said, I can list a bunch of theories for you.


newyorker--2020-11-09--The Trump Administration’s Chaotic Attack on the Undocumented

Donald Trump launched his Presidential campaign on the issue of immigration , and after his Inauguration , arrests by Immigration @ @ @ @ @ .
David Remnick talks with the staff writer Jonathan Blitzer , who has been covering @ @ @ @ @ all along .
“ The Trump Administration got smarter over the last four years , @ @ @ @ @ Rather than the “ high drama ” of executive orders , they began implementing rules @ @ @ @ @ departments that are much harder to undo .
Blitzer explains that the cumulative impact fundamentally @ @ @ @ @ about immigration .

Download a transcript.|||
Photograph by Guillermo Arias / AFP / Getty
Donald Trump launched his Presidential campaign on the issue of immigration, and after his Inauguration, arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement increased sharply. David Remnick talks with the staff writer Jonathan Blitzer, who has been covering Trump’s immigration policy all along. “The Trump Administration got smarter over the last four years,” he tells Remnick. Rather than the “high drama” of executive orders, they began implementing rules and regulatory changes across multiple departments that are much harder to undo. Blitzer explains that the cumulative impact fundamentally alters how the government thinks about immigration.


newyorker--2020-11-09--Keys and Cheats for Watching Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet”

Watch a bootleg filmed with a handheld camera by someone in a movie theater .
If you watch a handheld-cam bootleg of “ Tenet , ” pay careful attention to the head of the man in the lower left-hand corner of the screen .
You ’ ll notice that he performs a bobbing motion once every forty-five minutes .
That ’ s forty-five minutes exactly .
Keep track of this .
It will pay off later .
This is a beginner ’ s cheat , but jolly full of goodies , in my humble opinion .
You ’ ll notice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ word “ tenet ” is both spelled and pronounced the same backward as it is forward .
How can this be ?
It ’ s in the letters , my friends .
Also , the characters who previously spoke in sexy British accents will now speak in doggie voices .
Watch from the inside out .
Start in the middle , watch until the end , then rewind back to the middle of the film , and watch backward , to the beginning .
You ’ ll notice that the iconic backward bullets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s bodies into the chambers of guns , now fly in wee little circles , triangles , and hearts .
Track those shapes with a water-soluble marker on your television screen and you ’ ll observe something special .
This is a spoiler-free zone , so I won ’ t elaborate , but if you ’ ve been waiting for a shoe to drop , post-Epstein-suicide , you may want to sit down .
Turn the sound all the way down and put on “ Dark Side of the Moon.
” No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
My daughters also enjoy playing their Mitski albums .
Then we can all watch “ Tenet ” together .
Remember that gentleman who couldn ’ t keep his head still in your bootleg version of “ Tenet ” ?
HE ’ S RIGHT BEHIND YOU AHHHHHHHH !
!
!
!
!
!

Watch a bootleg filmed with a handheld camera by someone in a movie theatre.
If you watch a handheld-cam bootleg of “Tenet,” pay careful attention to the head of the man in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. You’ll notice that he performs a bobbing motion once every forty-five minutes. That’s forty-five minutes exactly. Keep track of this. It will pay off later.
Watch it backward.
This is a beginner’s cheat, but jolly full of goodies, in my humble opinion. You’ll notice, for one thing, that the word “tenet” is both spelled and pronounced the same backward as it is forward. How can this be? It’s in the letters, my friends. Also, the characters who previously spoke in sexy British accents will now speak in doggie voices.
Watch from the inside out.
Start in the middle, watch until the end, then rewind back to the middle of the film, and watch backward, to the beginning. You’ll notice that the iconic backward bullets, instead of flying from inside people’s bodies into the chambers of guns, now fly in wee little circles, triangles, and hearts. Track those shapes with a water-soluble marker on your television screen and you’ll observe something special. This is a spoiler-free zone, so I won’t elaborate, but if you’ve been waiting for a shoe to drop, post-Epstein-suicide, you may want to sit down.
Turn the sound all the way down and put on “Dark Side of the Moon.”
No reason—it’s just a good album. My daughters also enjoy playing their Mitski albums. Then we can all watch “Tenet” together.
Back to the bootleg!
Remember that gentleman who couldn’t keep his head still in your bootleg version of “Tenet”? HE’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!


newyorker--2020-11-09--Richard Burr Furious That Senators Were Not Given Advance Notice to Buy Pfizer Stock

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Senator Richard Burr , Republican of North Carolina , said on Monday he was furious that senators were given “ no advance notice whatsoever ” to buy stock in the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer .
After Pfizer ’ s stock price surged , following news of its promising coronavirus vaccine , a visibly irate Burr held an impromptu press conference to express his outrage at having been “ totally blindsided.
” “ When I ran for the United States Senate , I did so with the clear understanding that , if elected , I would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ value , ” the senator said .
“ I feel like , today , that trust has been profoundly betrayed.
” Burr said there was “ absolutely no excuse ” for advance news of Pfizer ’ s vaccine trials being withheld from him .
“ I know the excuses that I ’ m going to hear , ” Burr said .
“ Yes , we ’ ve been distracted by the election .
Yes , we ’ ve been distracted by the economic crisis .
But , heavens to Betsy , this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, said on Monday he was furious that senators were given “no advance notice whatsoever” to buy stock in the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.
After Pfizer’s stock price surged, following news of its promising coronavirus vaccine, a visibly irate Burr held an impromptu press conference to express his outrage at having been “totally blindsided.”
“When I ran for the United States Senate, I did so with the clear understanding that, if elected, I would receive stock tips of the highest possible value,” the senator said. “I feel like, today, that trust has been profoundly betrayed.”
Burr said there was “absolutely no excuse” for advance news of Pfizer’s vaccine trials being withheld from him.
“I know the excuses that I’m going to hear,” Burr said. “Yes, we’ve been distracted by the election. Yes, we’ve been distracted by the economic crisis. But, heavens to Betsy, this is my portfolio we’re talking about.”


newyorker--2020-11-09--Fauci Excited to Have Someone to Talk To

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Dr .
Anthony Fauci is excited to have someone to talk to , Fauci @ @ @ @ @ of having no one to talk to , Fauci said , the idea of saying @ @ @ @ @ hear it is “ a real kick.
” “ It ’ s been a little @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I ’ ve been doing a lot of journaling.
” “ Sometimes , @ @ @ @ @ talking to my dog , ” he added .
“ I think my poor dog @ @ @ @ @ my voice .
I ’ ve been driving him a little bit nutso.
” Reflecting @ @ @ @ @ to talk to , Fauci observed , “ It wasn ’ t a walk in @ @ @ @ @ , “ I don ’ t know how Scott Atlas is gon na deal with @ @ @

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Dr. Anthony Fauci is excited to have someone to talk to, Fauci has confirmed.
After months of having no one to talk to, Fauci said, the idea of saying something and having another person hear it is “a real kick.”
“It’s been a little lonely,” Fauci said. “I’ve been doing a lot of journaling.”
“Sometimes, I’ve found myself talking to my dog,” he added. “I think my poor dog has gotten sick of hearing my voice. I’ve been driving him a little bit nutso.”
Reflecting on his months without anyone to talk to, Fauci observed, “It wasn’t a walk in the park.” He added, “I don’t know how Scott Atlas is gonna deal with it.”


newyorker--2020-11-09--The Undying Voice of Diane di Prima

The Undying Voice of Diane di Prima

In my twenties , I joined a small group of Bay Area artists for a lunch celebrating the birthday of the legendary Beat poet Michael McClure , who passed earlier this year .
I grew up in California , the daughter of two artists , in the presence of the McClures of the world : men who had helped reshape American culture , like the poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Hirschman , or artists , actors , and musicians like Ed Ruscha , George Herms , Dennis Hopper , and Neil Young .
Many of these men would be at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was one person I was especially nervous and excited to meet : a woman named Diane di Prima .
Di Prima , who died on October 25th , at the age of eighty-six , was a revolutionary feminist poet who was on the front lines of the shifts in art and culture that took place in the fifties , sixties , and seventies .
She fought for queer rights , trans rights , and women ’ s rights long before clothing lines and hashtags began to flood political movements .
For six decades @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the female body , how it should look , weigh , and be desired .
She was , to my eye , the real sexual liberator of the sixties—a woman who wrote dangerously , lived wildly , and loved daringly , right up to her very last breath .
At McClure ’ s party , I was , to my surprise , seated directly across from di Prima , and the force of her presence caused me to fidget with my napkin and fumble my words .
Wild gray hair coiled on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she tapped a butter knife on the table to a rhythm only she could hear .
She stared at me and smiled .
I had read all of her many books by this time , and could quote whole sections of some of her most beloved work : the epic poem “ Loba , ” which she revised and completed in the course of decades , or her collection “ Revolutionary Letters , ” from 1971 , in which she sketched in verse the contours of resistance .
( “ I have just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she writes in the poem “ Revolutionary Letter # 1.
” ) Tap , tap , tap went the butter knife .
“ Hello , ” she said to me , “ I ’ m Diane.
” I said hello back , and we sat there together , in a room full of tables , flanked by mostly famous men and the women who loved them .
“ I didn ’ t think I ’ d be sitting at this table , ” I finally conjured , still awed at being placed directly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Diane smiled and said , “ There will always be a seat for us here , my dear.
” Diane di Prima knew firsthand what it was like to make a seat for herself at tables that had no space for women like her—women who challenged the system , and who thrived in the act .
She was always in coalition with such women , and you can hear echoes of her work in the “ fight the patriarchy ” slogans of modern feminism .
She was born to an Italian-American household @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the women in her mother ’ s family to understand that men are just “ a luxury , ” not a necessity for women ’ s survival .
To survive in this world as a woman , she learned , was to live in a state of insurgency , and to make peace with that fact .
When she was young , in Manhattan , Diane became a fundamental part of the Beat movement , corresponded with Ezra Pound , made magazines with Amiri Baraka ( then LeRoi Jones ) , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dressed , created , and loved .
She saw herself as a weapon to be deployed—no , detonated—against her oppressors .
She wrote about the equality of the sexes .
She wrote about women as wolves , women as predators , as hunters , as villains .
She wrote about fat women , queer women , androgynous women , disobedient women , women as Gods , as birds , as the wind .
After McClure ’ s birthday party , Diane and I kept in touch .
We began sending each other letters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frequently .
Growing up , I had only ever dreamed of living life like she had lived it : as a multi-hyphenate artist who writes what she wants and is taken seriously for it , and whose creativity is driven by a moral energy of the political and spiritual .
I yearned to have a life that felt as authentic and free as Diane ’ s seemed , and , in forging a friendship with her , my life did feel much closer to that .
Over the years , and especially in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ propel my own existential growth .
So much of the woman I am today is because of the woman Diane once was .
Toward the end of Diane ’ s life , I would visit her and her partner , the artist and healer Sheppard Powell , whenever I was in San Francisco .
We would eat dumplings at a local restaurant she loved ; when her health began to decline , I helped organize fund-raisers to ease the weight of her medical bills .
I watched as donations poured in from all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who had been forever changed by her work .
Inside her home , books on alchemy , Buddhism , magic , poetry , and Western spiritual traditions sprouted up out of the floorboards in stacks .
Whenever I would leave , she would give me what she called “ a feather ” —a small piece of torn-off paper , marked with a line of poetry , that she had written and left to land somewhere in the house .
When I heard that Diane had passed away , I called her home @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her voice on the answering machine , even though the message had been the same for years .
Hearing it reminded me of the last time I saw her , when I brought my one-year-old daughter , Marlow , over to her house and watched as she rolled around on Diane ’ s bed .
Diane read to her , played with her toes , and showered little feathers of poetry down over her body like snow .
“ Here ’ s a short poem , ” the outgoing message said .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and I wept into my phone as it rattled against my ear .
“ Let the hand shake , ” Diane ’ s voice said , as though saying it for the first time , as though the language between us , between all women , was always speaking .
“ The line is a living thing .
”

The feminist poet Diane di Prima saw herself as a weapon to be deployed against her oppressors. Photograph by Chris Felver / Getty
In my twenties, I joined a small group of Bay Area artists for a lunch celebrating the birthday of the legendary Beat poet Michael McClure, who passed earlier this year. I grew up in California, the daughter of two artists, in the presence of the McClures of the world: men who had helped reshape American culture, like the poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Hirschman, or artists, actors, and musicians like Ed Ruscha, George Herms, Dennis Hopper, and Neil Young. Many of these men would be at McClure’s party, but there was one person I was especially nervous and excited to meet: a woman named Diane di Prima. Di Prima, who died on October 25th, at the age of eighty-six, was a revolutionary feminist poet who was on the front lines of the shifts in art and culture that took place in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. She fought for queer rights, trans rights, and women’s rights long before clothing lines and hashtags began to flood political movements. For six decades, her writing confronted the traditional stereotypes of the female body, how it should look, weigh, and be desired. She was, to my eye, the real sexual liberator of the sixties—a woman who wrote dangerously, lived wildly, and loved daringly, right up to her very last breath.
At McClure’s party, I was, to my surprise, seated directly across from di Prima, and the force of her presence caused me to fidget with my napkin and fumble my words. Wild gray hair coiled on her head like a snake, and she tapped a butter knife on the table to a rhythm only she could hear. She stared at me and smiled. I had read all of her many books by this time, and could quote whole sections of some of her most beloved work: the epic poem “Loba,” which she revised and completed in the course of decades, or her collection “Revolutionary Letters,” from 1971, in which she sketched in verse the contours of resistance. (“I have just realized the stakes are myself,” she writes in the poem “Revolutionary Letter #1.”) Tap, tap, tap went the butter knife. “Hello,” she said to me, “I’m Diane.” I said hello back, and we sat there together, in a room full of tables, flanked by mostly famous men and the women who loved them. “I didn’t think I’d be sitting at this table,” I finally conjured, still awed at being placed directly across from one of my literary heroes. Diane smiled and said, “There will always be a seat for us here, my dear.”
Diane di Prima knew firsthand what it was like to make a seat for herself at tables that had no space for women like her—women who challenged the system, and who thrived in the act. She was always in coalition with such women, and you can hear echoes of her work in the “fight the patriarchy” slogans of modern feminism. She was born to an Italian-American household, in Brooklyn, and was raised by the women in her mother’s family to understand that men are just “a luxury,” not a necessity for women’s survival. To survive in this world as a woman, she learned, was to live in a state of insurgency, and to make peace with that fact. When she was young, in Manhattan, Diane became a fundamental part of the Beat movement, corresponded with Ezra Pound, made magazines with Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones), and rejected the traditional ways in which women dressed, created, and loved. She saw herself as a weapon to be deployed—no, detonated—against her oppressors. She wrote about the equality of the sexes. She wrote about women as wolves, women as predators, as hunters, as villains. She wrote about fat women, queer women, androgynous women, disobedient women, women as Gods, as birds, as the wind.
After McClure’s birthday party, Diane and I kept in touch. We began sending each other letters and poems and talking on the phone frequently. Growing up, I had only ever dreamed of living life like she had lived it: as a multi-hyphenate artist who writes what she wants and is taken seriously for it, and whose creativity is driven by a moral energy of the political and spiritual. I yearned to have a life that felt as authentic and free as Diane’s seemed, and, in forging a friendship with her, my life did feel much closer to that. Over the years, and especially in my early thirties, her support helped propel my own existential growth. So much of the woman I am today is because of the woman Diane once was.
Toward the end of Diane’s life, I would visit her and her partner, the artist and healer Sheppard Powell, whenever I was in San Francisco. We would eat dumplings at a local restaurant she loved; when her health began to decline, I helped organize fund-raisers to ease the weight of her medical bills. I watched as donations poured in from all over the world, with notes from people who had been forever changed by her work. Inside her home, books on alchemy, Buddhism, magic, poetry, and Western spiritual traditions sprouted up out of the floorboards in stacks. Whenever I would leave, she would give me what she called “a feather”—a small piece of torn-off paper, marked with a line of poetry, that she had written and left to land somewhere in the house.
When I heard that Diane had passed away, I called her home and was jarred by the sound of her voice on the answering machine, even though the message had been the same for years. Hearing it reminded me of the last time I saw her, when I brought my one-year-old daughter, Marlow, over to her house and watched as she rolled around on Diane’s bed. Diane read to her, played with her toes, and showered little feathers of poetry down over her body like snow. “Here’s a short poem,” the outgoing message said. The sound of it made me cry, and I wept into my phone as it rattled against my ear. “Let the hand shake,” Diane’s voice said, as though saying it for the first time, as though the language between us, between all women, was always speaking. “The line is a living thing.”


newyorker--2020-11-09--Cori Bush, a Nurse and Activist, Becomes the First Black Woman to Represent Missouri in Congress

Cori Bush can lay claim to more than one professional title .
She is Pastor Cori Bush , having founded a church in her native St. Louis , about a decade ago .
She is also Cori Bush , registered nurse .
And now she is Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush .
Her victory , a romp in Missouri ’ s First Congressional District that saw her win by sixty percentage points , was foretold by the August Democratic primary , when Bush , running as a progressive in the anti-sclerotic mode of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley , defeated Lacy Clay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a local African-American political dynasty , Clay has represented the district since 2001 , having succeeded his father , Bill , who was first elected in 1968 .
Bush , forty-four , isn ’ t just new blood .
She will be both the first Black woman and likely the first nurse to represent Missouri in Congress .
( Sending clergy to Washington , D.C. , is old hat for the Show-Me State . )
Despite its blue tilt , Bush ’ s district contains multitudes .
It includes the St. Louis Cardinals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s upscale Central West End neighborhood , home to Mark and Patricia McCloskey .
They are the couple who became famous this summer—and earned a speaking spot at the Republican National Convention—for waving guns at Black Lives Matter marchers while dressed like models in the most ill-conceived Talbots catalogue ever .
Among the marchers that day was Bush ; her district also includes Ferguson , where the B.L.M .
movement was galvanized , in 2014 , following the killing of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer .
Those protests are what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as the daughter of a politician , she had sworn she would never do .
Her father , Errol Bush , is an alderman and a former mayor of Northwoods , a small city in St. Louis County .
“ With all the negativity and all the corruption around , with everything he had to fight , I was , like , Why would you sign up for this ?
” she recalled over the phone , two days after her own election .
The gravity of what happened in Ferguson had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did her anger .
“ That afternoon , I was scrolling on Facebook , seeing this picture of this person laying on the ground , ” she said of the August day when Brown was shot at least six times .
Police then left his body in the street for four hours , on a hot afternoon .
“ I kept seeing the picture and just not thinking it was real , ” she said .
Finally , “ I ’ m , like , O.K.
, let me click on this and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next evening , she drove to Ferguson , where a second night of demonstrations had begun .
“ I just drove around , stayed in my car , and just watched what was going on .
Then , the next day , I actually got out .
It was the fact that the thing didn ’ t go away , that it was gaining steam.
” Looting had begun ; a building had burned .
“ There were thousands of people in the street , with a lot of violence happening .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this situation .
I was , like , You ’ re a nurse , you can be a medic .
You ’ re clergy , you can go out and pray with people.
” Through the mental-health clinic where she worked , she helped set up a crisis-response team .
“ We pitched a tent just a few feet from where Michael Brown ’ s body had laid on the ground , to do grief-and-trauma work.
” Her group partnered with others to provide food , diapers , and financial assistance to people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bush ’ s account , she grew up inured to racist treatment from cops .
“ I never really questioned it , ” she said.
“ I saw countless friends abused by the police , harassed by the police , profiled by the police , in different parts of town .
As a child , my father was pulled over by the police so many times , I used to think that he was a horrible driver , and I would get so upset , like , ‘ Why won ’ t you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on , “ I didn ’ t think hard on the question of Is this O.K .
or not ?
Is this right ?
Because you ’ re taught in school that the police are right.
” Her impulse as a girl was to blame herself for two instances when , she said , officers sexually harassed her .
“ It was , like , O.K.
, well , maybe I ’ m doing something wrong .
Maybe this skirt isn ’ t the right skirt .
That was the mind-set at that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a preacher and a nurse ’ s backbone , Bush became a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement .
Urged on by fellow-activists who wanted to see more Black women in the Senate , she ran in 2016 , when Roy Blunt , the Republican incumbent , was up for reëlection ; she came in a distant second in the primary .
In 2018 , she set her sights on Lacy Clay , losing again .
But this year , buoyed by the surge of B.L.M .
activism , and despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what was likely Covid-19 , which sent her to the hospital twice , Bush broke through .
She said she ’ s not concerned about the way that many Republicans have treated Congress ’ s young progressive women of color as punching bags—Ocasio-Cortez , for instance , who campaigned for Bush during the 2018 primary .
“ I have been dealing with anger from the right wing , from extremists , from white supremacists , since 2014 , and I ’ ve learned the best ways for me to deal with it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways is to shrug it off and laugh , as she did when Mark McCloskey called her a “ Marxist revolutionary ” at the Republican Convention .
“ If they couldn ’ t scare me in the scariest time , which was Ferguson before everybody started to get used to protests , when all of that was new , am I bothered by what they ’ ll try to do to me now ?
Not at all.
” ♦

Cori Bush Illustration by João Fazenda
Cori Bush can lay claim to more than one professional title. She is Pastor Cori Bush, having founded a church in her native St. Louis, about a decade ago. She is also Cori Bush, registered nurse. And now she is Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush. Her victory, a romp in Missouri’s First Congressional District that saw her win by sixty percentage points, was foretold by the August Democratic primary, when Bush, running as a progressive in the anti-sclerotic mode of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, defeated Lacy Clay, the incumbent. A member of a local African-American political dynasty, Clay has represented the district since 2001, having succeeded his father, Bill, who was first elected in 1968. Bush, forty-four, isn’t just new blood. She will be both the first Black woman and likely the first nurse to represent Missouri in Congress. (Sending clergy to Washington, D.C., is old hat for the Show-Me State.)
Despite its blue tilt, Bush’s district contains multitudes. It includes the St. Louis Cardinals, Anheuser-Busch headquarters, and the city’s upscale Central West End neighborhood, home to Mark and Patricia McCloskey. They are the couple who became famous this summer—and earned a speaking spot at the Republican National Convention—for waving guns at Black Lives Matter marchers while dressed like models in the most ill-conceived Talbots catalogue ever. Among the marchers that day was Bush; her district also includes Ferguson, where the B.L.M. movement was galvanized, in 2014, following the killing of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer. Those protests are what propelled Bush into running for office—something that, as the daughter of a politician, she had sworn she would never do. Her father, Errol Bush, is an alderman and a former mayor of Northwoods, a small city in St. Louis County. “With all the negativity and all the corruption around, with everything he had to fight, I was, like, Why would you sign up for this?” she recalled over the phone, two days after her own election.
The gravity of what happened in Ferguson had dawned on her only gradually, as did her anger. “That afternoon, I was scrolling on Facebook, seeing this picture of this person laying on the ground,” she said of the August day when Brown was shot at least six times. Police then left his body in the street for four hours, on a hot afternoon. “I kept seeing the picture and just not thinking it was real,” she said. Finally, “I’m, like, O.K., let me click on this and see what this is about.” The next evening, she drove to Ferguson, where a second night of demonstrations had begun. “I just drove around, stayed in my car, and just watched what was going on. Then, the next day, I actually got out. It was the fact that the thing didn’t go away, that it was gaining steam.” Looting had begun; a building had burned. “There were thousands of people in the street, with a lot of violence happening. I felt like I could offer something to this situation. I was, like, You’re a nurse, you can be a medic. You’re clergy, you can go out and pray with people.”
Through the mental-health clinic where she worked, she helped set up a crisis-response team. “We pitched a tent just a few feet from where Michael Brown’s body had laid on the ground, to do grief-and-trauma work.” Her group partnered with others to provide food, diapers, and financial assistance to people whose lives had been disrupted.
By Bush’s account, she grew up inured to racist treatment from cops. “I never really questioned it,” she said.“I saw countless friends abused by the police, harassed by the police, profiled by the police, in different parts of town. As a child, my father was pulled over by the police so many times, I used to think that he was a horrible driver, and I would get so upset, like, ‘Why won’t you drive right?’ ” She went on, “I didn’t think hard on the question of Is this O.K. or not? Is this right? Because you’re taught in school that the police are right.” Her impulse as a girl was to blame herself for two instances when, she said, officers sexually harassed her. “It was, like, O.K., well, maybe I’m doing something wrong. Maybe this skirt isn’t the right skirt. That was the mind-set at that time.”
With the speech-making skills of a preacher and a nurse’s backbone, Bush became a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. Urged on by fellow-activists who wanted to see more Black women in the Senate, she ran in 2016, when Roy Blunt, the Republican incumbent, was up for reëlection; she came in a distant second in the primary. In 2018, she set her sights on Lacy Clay, losing again. But this year, buoyed by the surge of B.L.M. activism, and despite being slowed by a nasty case of what was likely Covid-19, which sent her to the hospital twice, Bush broke through.
She said she’s not concerned about the way that many Republicans have treated Congress’s young progressive women of color as punching bags—Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, who campaigned for Bush during the 2018 primary. “I have been dealing with anger from the right wing, from extremists, from white supremacists, since 2014, and I’ve learned the best ways for me to deal with it,” Bush said. One of those ways is to shrug it off and laugh, as she did when Mark McCloskey called her a “Marxist revolutionary” at the Republican Convention. “If they couldn’t scare me in the scariest time, which was Ferguson before everybody started to get used to protests, when all of that was new, am I bothered by what they’ll try to do to me now? Not at all.” ♦


newyorker--2020-11-09--“The Undoing” Is Empty Life-style Porn

“The Undoing” Is Empty Life-style Porn

Like “ Big Little Lies , ” with which it shares David E. Kelley as creator , “ The Undoing ” has great fun telegraphing the signifiers of wealth .
The former show , set in the casual luxury of Monterey , was full of crackling fire pits , double-height living rooms , and rustic decks overlooking expanses of pristine shoreline .
Here , we get full-bore Upper East Side resplendence , where cashmere-clad , preternaturally smooth-complexioned women convene in marble-and-gilt rooms so laden with precious objets that they could double as the Met ’ s Wrightsman Galleries .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ solicit money for the school ’ s diversity efforts , to cover tuition for students who are neither rich nor white .
The mother of one such student has joined the planning committee .
Her name is Elena Alves , and , although she is played by the Italian actress Matilda De Angelis , the show uses establishing shots of Elena ’ s apartment in Spanish Harlem to suggest that her character is Latina .
Elena has ostensibly come to the meeting to help , but the awkwardness her presence arouses suggests these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dickens once called “ telescopic philanthropy , ” the kind of benevolence that , tinged by racism and classism , works best from a safe distance .
In the scene ’ s climax , the ladies are both horrified and titillated when Elena drops her top to begin nursing her infant daughter at the table , like a sensual Madonna .
“ Spectacular breasts , ” Grace ’ s friend Sylvia ( Lily Rabe ) says later , snickering .
“ The Undoing ” is not subtle , which at first I didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hit the exact pleasure center between mild critique and life-style porn .
Grace is a successful therapist and the daughter of a leonine billionaire ( Donald Sutherland ) ; her husband , Jonathan ( Hugh Grant ) , is a pediatric oncologist who has been featured in New York magazine ’ s “ Best Doctors ” issue .
As I began watching , the show seemed well positioned to skewer its subjects while allowing the viewer to revel in the flashier aspects of their lives—a “ Primates of Park Avenue ” for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But , much like the appearance of a soothsaying gypsy in a Victorian novel , the mysterious Elena , with her provocative air and accented English , portends the switch from light satire to melodrama .
At the fund-raiser—just after a glass of water has been auctioned off for a thousand dollars , as a show of the parents ’ commitment to the cause—Elena decides to go home early .
The next morning , she is found dead , bludgeoned by a hammer in her studio .
( She is , apparently , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abstract , as does almost everything else about the character . )
Jonathan is arrested ; it turns out that he was having an affair with Elena , who might have become obsessed with him after he treated her older child for cancer , and circumstantial evidence has made him the main suspect in the case .
He is also unable to afford a lawyer—he emptied his coffers while wooing Elena .
“ Your husband is a bit of a dick , ” Jonathan ’ s public defender tells Grace , suggesting that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he is no killer .
Could Jonathan be guilty ?
He is presented in the pilot episode not as a psychopath , or even as a dick , but as an irresistibly crinkly-eyed , slightly roguish man who cajoles Grace into sex by saying things like “ Make an Englishman happy.
” He is , in other words , a Hugh Grant character .
But his affair and his potentially murderous impulses are reminiscent of one Grant character in particular—the charming , conspiring politician Jeremy Thorpe in 2018 ’ s “ A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as if you ’ ve seen a lot of these characters—and plot points , and framing devices—recently .
“ The Undoing , ” though conceived as a whodunnit , is much less interested in Elena and her killer than it is in Grace ’ s internal landscape .
The show is the latest in a long tradition devoted to examining the shadowy psychic crevices of high-strung , upper-class white women , calling back to the Lifetime movie , and to steamy eighties and nineties dramas such as “ Basic Instinct , ” “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and “ Fatal Attraction.
” ( A friend who works as a development executive told me that such content is known in industry parlance as “ Adrian Lyne and wine , ” after the director of the last movie . )
Some of the most recent TV efforts , glossy things starring A-list actresses , include the Amy Adams-led “ Sharp Objects ” ( which , like “ The Undoing , ” has a gruesome act of violence at its core ) and the Naomi Watts vehicle “ Gypsy ” ( which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year came “ Little Fires Everywhere , ” starring Reese Witherspoon , three years after the aforementioned “ Big Little Lies , ” which , as in a game of prestige-TV musical chairs , stars not only Witherspoon but Kidman as well .
All of these shows evince an ongoing negotiation between the sociopolitical and the operatically psychological .
But “ Little Fires Everywhere ” —a show in which the life of a wealthy white mom becomes intertwined with that of a working-class artist of color—at least makes an attempt to contend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and class that it raises .
In “ The Undoing , ” such questions are made irrelevant by the decision to kill Elena off almost immediately .
One is left wondering why the show bothered to introduce her at all .
David E. Kelley ’ s most notable early success was that landmark of post-feminism “ Ally McBeal , ” the late-nineties network dramedy that focussed on the spectacle of a woman dithering between mating and career within the stage set of the modern workplace .
In comparison , Grace , even though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ largely post-work .
Part of the pleasure of shows like “ The Undoing ” is their characters ’ relative financial freedom , which allows them the time to do things such as plan a fund-raiser or , perhaps , a murder .
Dressed in jewel-toned velvets , with her long auburn ringlets streaming down her back , Grace has the look of a Pre-Raphaelite heroine , wandering the city streets in a daze , her cape-like coat flapping , the muddled , soft-focus haze of the show ’ s cinematography reflecting her tortured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the show ’ s third episode , the hunky detective investigating Elena ’ s murder ( Édgar Ramírez ) provides evidence that Grace might be involved in the crime—a possibility that appears to come as a surprise to Grace herself , and that hints at the limits of the therapist ’ s self-knowledge .
This mystery , however , stretches wearyingly along the show ’ s course , turning from a suspenseful device to something that suggests Grace ’ s characterological thinness .
Who is this woman ?
Kidman ’ s character in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , was also an enigma , but the actress played the role with such restraint that Celeste ’ s opacity felt deliberate .
As Grace , Kidman seems , at times , unsure of her own character ’ s intentions , shifting from blithe merriment to imperious boss-lady outbursts to turned-up-to-eleven distress .
Beset by hazy visions of events that she might or might not have actually seen—Elena and Jonathan making passionate love , Jonathan joshingly caring for one of his young cancer patients , Elena attacked with a hammer—Grace ’ s mind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than a repository of televisual clichés .
In these moments , the camera closes in tightly on Kidman ’ s lovely eyes , as if the answer can be found in their cloudy depths .
It can not .
♦

In an early scene of the HBO drama “The Undoing,” Grace Fraser, played by Nicole Kidman, arrives at the palatial Manhattan apartment of one of the other mothers from her son’s private school. She is there to take part in a planning session for a school fund-raiser, a meeting that devolves into a bitch sesh quicker than anyone can say “classic eight.” “Did you see the David Hockneys?” one woman asks, referring to the home of apparently even-richer school parents, where the fund-raiser is set to take place. “Two of them, on facing walls in the dining room,” another mom answers, as a uniformed maid serves tea.
Like “Big Little Lies,” with which it shares David E. Kelley as creator, “The Undoing” has great fun telegraphing the signifiers of wealth. The former show, set in the casual luxury of Monterey, was full of crackling fire pits, double-height living rooms, and rustic decks overlooking expanses of pristine shoreline. Here, we get full-bore Upper East Side resplendence, where cashmere-clad, preternaturally smooth-complexioned women convene in marble-and-gilt rooms so laden with precious objets that they could double as the Met’s Wrightsman Galleries.
The fund-raiser these women are working on will solicit money for the school’s diversity efforts, to cover tuition for students who are neither rich nor white. The mother of one such student has joined the planning committee. Her name is Elena Alves, and, although she is played by the Italian actress Matilda De Angelis, the show uses establishing shots of Elena’s apartment in Spanish Harlem to suggest that her character is Latina. Elena has ostensibly come to the meeting to help, but the awkwardness her presence arouses suggests these rich white mothers’ allegiance to what Dickens once called “telescopic philanthropy,” the kind of benevolence that, tinged by racism and classism, works best from a safe distance. In the scene’s climax, the ladies are both horrified and titillated when Elena drops her top to begin nursing her infant daughter at the table, like a sensual Madonna. “Spectacular breasts,” Grace’s friend Sylvia (Lily Rabe) says later, snickering.
“The Undoing” is not subtle, which at first I didn’t mind. The pilot episode hit the exact pleasure center between mild critique and life-style porn. Grace is a successful therapist and the daughter of a leonine billionaire (Donald Sutherland); her husband, Jonathan (Hugh Grant), is a pediatric oncologist who has been featured in New York magazine’s “Best Doctors” issue. As I began watching, the show seemed well positioned to skewer its subjects while allowing the viewer to revel in the flashier aspects of their lives—a “Primates of Park Avenue” for the city’s eleventh-hour pre-pandemic moment.
But, much like the appearance of a soothsaying gypsy in a Victorian novel, the mysterious Elena, with her provocative air and accented English, portends the switch from light satire to melodrama. At the fund-raiser—just after a glass of water has been auctioned off for a thousand dollars, as a show of the parents’ commitment to the cause—Elena decides to go home early. The next morning, she is found dead, bludgeoned by a hammer in her studio. (She is, apparently, an artist, though this detail remains abstract, as does almost everything else about the character.) Jonathan is arrested; it turns out that he was having an affair with Elena, who might have become obsessed with him after he treated her older child for cancer, and circumstantial evidence has made him the main suspect in the case. He is also unable to afford a lawyer—he emptied his coffers while wooing Elena. “Your husband is a bit of a dick,” Jonathan’s public defender tells Grace, suggesting that, although his client might be bad, he is no killer.
Could Jonathan be guilty? He is presented in the pilot episode not as a psychopath, or even as a dick, but as an irresistibly crinkly-eyed, slightly roguish man who cajoles Grace into sex by saying things like “Make an Englishman happy.” He is, in other words, a Hugh Grant character. But his affair and his potentially murderous impulses are reminiscent of one Grant character in particular—the charming, conspiring politician Jeremy Thorpe in 2018’s “A Very English Scandal.”
It may feel as if you’ve seen a lot of these characters—and plot points, and framing devices—recently. “The Undoing,” though conceived as a whodunnit, is much less interested in Elena and her killer than it is in Grace’s internal landscape. The show is the latest in a long tradition devoted to examining the shadowy psychic crevices of high-strung, upper-class white women, calling back to the Lifetime movie, and to steamy eighties and nineties dramas such as “Basic Instinct,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” and “Fatal Attraction.” (A friend who works as a development executive told me that such content is known in industry parlance as “Adrian Lyne and wine,” after the director of the last movie.)
Some of the most recent TV efforts, glossy things starring A-list actresses, include the Amy Adams-led “Sharp Objects” (which, like “The Undoing,” has a gruesome act of violence at its core) and the Naomi Watts vehicle “Gypsy” (which features a therapist protagonist). Earlier this year came “Little Fires Everywhere,” starring Reese Witherspoon, three years after the aforementioned “Big Little Lies,” which, as in a game of prestige-TV musical chairs, stars not only Witherspoon but Kidman as well. All of these shows evince an ongoing negotiation between the sociopolitical and the operatically psychological. But “Little Fires Everywhere”—a show in which the life of a wealthy white mom becomes intertwined with that of a working-class artist of color—at least makes an attempt to contend with some of the questions of race and class that it raises. In “The Undoing,” such questions are made irrelevant by the decision to kill Elena off almost immediately. One is left wondering why the show bothered to introduce her at all.
David E. Kelley’s most notable early success was that landmark of post-feminism “Ally McBeal,” the late-nineties network dramedy that focussed on the spectacle of a woman dithering between mating and career within the stage set of the modern workplace. In comparison, Grace, even though she is an accomplished therapist, seems largely post-work. Part of the pleasure of shows like “The Undoing” is their characters’ relative financial freedom, which allows them the time to do things such as plan a fund-raiser or, perhaps, a murder.
Dressed in jewel-toned velvets, with her long auburn ringlets streaming down her back, Grace has the look of a Pre-Raphaelite heroine, wandering the city streets in a daze, her cape-like coat flapping, the muddled, soft-focus haze of the show’s cinematography reflecting her tortured mental state. In a cliffhanger in the show’s third episode, the hunky detective investigating Elena’s murder (Édgar Ramírez) provides evidence that Grace might be involved in the crime—a possibility that appears to come as a surprise to Grace herself, and that hints at the limits of the therapist’s self-knowledge. This mystery, however, stretches wearyingly along the show’s course, turning from a suspenseful device to something that suggests Grace’s characterological thinness.
Who is this woman? Kidman’s character in “Big Little Lies,” Celeste, was also an enigma, but the actress played the role with such restraint that Celeste’s opacity felt deliberate. As Grace, Kidman seems, at times, unsure of her own character’s intentions, shifting from blithe merriment to imperious boss-lady outbursts to turned-up-to-eleven distress. Beset by hazy visions of events that she might or might not have actually seen—Elena and Jonathan making passionate love, Jonathan joshingly caring for one of his young cancer patients, Elena attacked with a hammer—Grace’s mind seems less a site of internal conflict than a repository of televisual clichés. In these moments, the camera closes in tightly on Kidman’s lovely eyes, as if the answer can be found in their cloudy depths. It cannot. ♦


newyorker--2020-11-10--An Honest Maid-of-Honor Speech at a Pandemic Wedding

When Jenna first asked me to be her maid of honor , I was shocked , because there ’ s a highly contagious disease going around which makes travelling and gathering in large groups potentially lethal activities .
But who cares , right ?
I mean , I care .
We should all care , because not caring is how the virus spread in the first place .
Ha ha !
But today is about you , Jenna , not science .
Obviously .
I ’ ve known Jenna for fourteen years , so I had no choice but to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up together .
We went through puberty and our hair-crimping phase together .
In fact , this is crazy , but Jenna actually gave me chicken pox as a kid .
Yeah !
She had it and didn ’ t stay home .
So .
.
.
some things never change .
I love you , girl .
I ’ d do anything for you .
Which is why I defied every C.D.C .
guideline and got on a plane for six hours .
Southwest , too , so I ’ d better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for two weeks at the Red Roof Inn for you , and was so preoccupied with not getting COVID-19 that I wasn ’ t even stressed about the cockroaches , the lukewarm shower , or the bullet-shaped hole in the plexiglass reception window .
Not a big deal , but you should name your first child after me .
Of course , I tried to tell Jenna to postpone this—we all did , you know ?
But , if Jenna ’ s one thing , it ’ s stubborn .
When she sets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does everything in her power to make it happen .
Even at the cost of other people ’ s well-being .
For example , right now—it ’ s not cold outside , but here we are at an indoor wedding , because it matches the bride ’ s “ Pinterest aesthetic.
” And that ’ s what ’ s really important : Gothic architecture as the backdrop in your photos .
Not some lame virus !
Don ’ t think I forgot about you , Mark .
Other people do all the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nice guy !
Almost all of our interactions have been .
.
.
things that happened !
Mark is great .
He loves driving and listening to music and stopping at red lights .
Most of the time we ’ ve spent together has been you picking me up at the airport .
You are very good at that .
And you know what they say : someone who picks you up at the airport is—everyone say it with me—husband material !
Yes !
They say that !
We just said that !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ me that you love Jenna .
You ’ d do anything for her , even risk the lives of all your friends and family .
Who knew that “ till death do us part ” could be so literal , or so immediate ?
I ’ m so glad you ’ re getting married and—oh , your grandparents are coughing .
Great , that ’ s great .
Just like the salmon—great .
When Jenna revealed that Mark had proposed to her , it definitely came as a surprise .
The group chat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wasn ’ t it ?
’ Cause y ’ all were on the verge of consciously uncoupling .
But , hey , all good couples fight all the time—that ’ s healthy !
And , of course , the best way to deal with the uncertainty of a tense relationship further strained by seven straight months of quarantine in a studio apartment is by ramping it up and tying the knot in front of a lot of people .
Some would say way too many people .
There are more people here than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are so many people here that we could democratically elect a mayor and establish a new town .
So let ’ s raise a single-use glass in a toast to the bride and groom !
I ’ m very excited to celebrate this momentous event with you , though I will not be having a slice of the cake or joining in the dancing .
My Lyft is actually outside .
I wish you both a long and healthy life .
I also wish that for myself , which is why I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last thing—everyone please sign the guest book .
It ’ s a gift for the happy couple and will be used for contact-tracing purposes .

Dear friends, family, and grandparents—whom I’m surprised to see here. Wow, and you’re not wearing masks. Bold choice! We are irresponsibly gathered here today to celebrate the love between Jenna and Mark.
When Jenna first asked me to be her maid of honor, I was shocked, because there’s a highly contagious disease going around which makes travelling and gathering in large groups potentially lethal activities. But who cares, right? I mean, I care. We should all care, because not caring is how the virus spread in the first place. Ha ha! But today is about you, Jenna, not science. Obviously.
I’ve known Jenna for fourteen years, so I had no choice but to say yes. Jenna and I grew up together. We went through puberty and our hair-crimping phase together. In fact, this is crazy, but Jenna actually gave me chicken pox as a kid. Yeah! She had it and didn’t stay home. So . . . some things never change.
I love you, girl. I’d do anything for you. Which is why I defied every C.D.C. guideline and got on a plane for six hours. Southwest, too, so I’d better be in your will! I self-quarantined for two weeks at the Red Roof Inn for you, and was so preoccupied with not getting COVID-19 that I wasn’t even stressed about the cockroaches, the lukewarm shower, or the bullet-shaped hole in the plexiglass reception window. Not a big deal, but you should name your first child after me.
Of course, I tried to tell Jenna to postpone this—we all did, you know? But, if Jenna’s one thing, it’s stubborn. When she sets her sights on a goal, she does everything in her power to make it happen. Even at the cost of other people’s well-being.
For example, right now—it’s not cold outside, but here we are at an indoor wedding, because it matches the bride’s “Pinterest aesthetic.” And that’s what’s really important: Gothic architecture as the backdrop in your photos. Not some lame virus!
Don’t think I forgot about you, Mark. Other people do all the time, but not me. What a nice guy! Almost all of our interactions have been . . . things that happened! Mark is great. He loves driving and listening to music and stopping at red lights. Most of the time we’ve spent together has been you picking me up at the airport. You are very good at that. And you know what they say: someone who picks you up at the airport is—everyone say it with me—husband material! Yes! They say that! We just said that!
Mark, it’s clear to me that you love Jenna. You’d do anything for her, even risk the lives of all your friends and family. Who knew that “till death do us part” could be so literal, or so immediate? I’m so glad you’re getting married and—oh, your grandparents are coughing. Great, that’s great. Just like the salmon—great.
When Jenna revealed that Mark had proposed to her, it definitely came as a surprise. The group chat was silent for a few hours, wasn’t it? ’Cause y’all were on the verge of consciously uncoupling. But, hey, all good couples fight all the time—that’s healthy!
And, of course, the best way to deal with the uncertainty of a tense relationship further strained by seven straight months of quarantine in a studio apartment is by ramping it up and tying the knot in front of a lot of people. Some would say way too many people. There are more people here than in all of North Dakota. There are so many people here that we could democratically elect a mayor and establish a new town.
So let’s raise a single-use glass in a toast to the bride and groom! I’m very excited to celebrate this momentous event with you, though I will not be having a slice of the cake or joining in the dancing. My Lyft is actually outside. I wish you both a long and healthy life. I also wish that for myself, which is why I’m leaving.
Oh, and one last thing—everyone please sign the guest book. It’s a gift for the happy couple and will be used for contact-tracing purposes.


newyorker--2020-11-10--Rebecca Curtis Reads “Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit”

Rebecca Curtis reads her story from the November 16 , 2020 , issue of the magazine .
Curtis is the @ @ @ @ @ “ Twenty Grand : And Other Tales of Love and Money ” and a winner @ @ @ @ @ Writers ’ Award for Fiction .

Photograph by Andrea Artz
Rebecca Curtis reads her story from the November 16, 2020, issue of the magazine. Curtis is the author of the story collection “Twenty Grand: And Other Tales of Love and Money” and a winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for Fiction.