newyorker--2020-02-01--Mourning Brexit with the Mayor of London

In the afternoon on Brexit Day , the date of the U.K. ’ s final , lurching departure from the E.U.
, the mayor of London ’ s office held an event at City Hall for European residents of the city .
The title was chipper : “ London is Open-supporting European Londoners through Brexit.
” “ The Mayor of London is determined to do everything he can to support European Londoners through the Brexit process , ” promotional material on the mayor ’ s Web site read .
“ The UK may be leaving the EU on Friday 31st @ @ @ @ @ @ @ European city , open to the world.
” ( Buns ’ n ’ Brexit , an informational event hosted by ScandiKitchen , a Scandinavian grocery outlet , would take place the following day . )
At City Hall , immigration lawyers would be on hand to offer free advice on the E.U .
Settlement Scheme , through which the estimated three million Europeans living in the U.K. can apply for settled status .
Families were welcome .
Tea and sweets would be served .
“ There will also be emotional support services available @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in London , Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party prepared for a celebration in Parliament Square at 11 P.M. , the hour of Britain ’ s departure , which would feature , they promised in the weeks leading up to the event , “ fireworks , bands , and comedians.
” ( As it later transpired , owing to local bylaws and poor planning , there were no fireworks , bands , or comedians . )
A countdown clock was projected onto No .
10 Downing Street , Prime Minister Boris Johnson ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ melted down and recast after the last almost-Brexit , was unveiled , bearing the phrase “ Peace , prosperity and friendship with all nations , ” to immediate mockery on Twitter .
( Philip Pullman , the author , tweeted , “ The Brexit 50p coin is missing an oxford comma and should be boycotted by all literate people.
” ) Still , Union Jack flags went up all around Westminster .
There was fervent hope in some quarters , in the weeks leading up to the departure , that Big Ben , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , would ring out to mark the occasion .
“ I frankly think that , around the world , at that moment at 11 P.M. , if Big Ben doesn ’ t strike , our country looks like a joke , ” Farage said on the radio earlier this month .
But Big Ben hasn ’ t been well—it ’ s covered in scaffolding—and the estimated cost for taxpayers to get it to cough up a few wheezy bongs was five hundred thousand pounds .
Encouraged by Johnson , a busy crowdfunding campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the government was forced to admit that it could not accept public donations for the clock .
Undeterred , some called for churches across the U.K. to ring out instead , a request met without much enthusiasm by clergymen , one of whom called it “ pretty tacky ” on BBC Radio 4 .
They settled , finally , on a recording of Big Ben ’ s chimes .
At the entrance to City Hall , a spherical glass building not far from Tower Bridge , a line of worried-looking Europeans stretched around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prepare for “ airport-style security ” inside .
A woman with red lipstick and a French accent ahead of me said she supposed the organizers didn ’ t count on so many people coming .
Through a metal detector and down a ramp decorated with flags from E.U .
countries , Bella Kosmala , who helped plan the night in conjunction with the mayor ’ s office , was holding a yellow rose , a symbol of friendship .
“ We organized this event today as a place for people to come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Parliament Square .
We wanted it to be a bit of a sanctuary for people who want to mark the day together , ” she told me .
She wasn ’ t expecting the turnout .
“ It was going to be a very low-key , come-together event .
Clearly Londoners wanted to come here.
” At a booth near the center of the room , Maria Llorente was handing out flyers related to two European activist groups , Settled and the3million .
“ Our main goal right now is to make sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ process , ” she told me , referring to the E.U .
Settlement Scheme .
“ It ’ s relatively straightforward for eighty per cent of people , ” but she was worried about the elderly and about residents who don ’ t speak English .
Like many Europeans in the U.K. , she also wanted hard proof of her right to remain .
“ We anticipate that if we don ’ t have a document we can show an employer , or a landlord , or a bank , we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she said .
Nearby , several lawyers wearing navy T-shirts that read “ How to stay in the UK ?
” were dispensing advice at rapid-fire pace .
“ You get questions about , ‘ Well , what evidence do I need ?
’ You get questions about , ‘ Well , I ’ ve just arrived , what do I need to do ?
’ ” Victoria Welsh , a lawyer and volunteering solicitor , told me .
Across the room , Emmy van Deurzen , the founder of Emotional Support Service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which provides free counselling , was also answering questions .
Van Deurzen is Dutch but has lived in London for four decades .
“ We saw that a lot of E.U .
citizens were becoming depressed and very anxious , ” she told me .
She started E.S.S.E .
“ to help them get things off their chest , ” and to “ help them realize they ’ re still the person they were before ” Brexit , she said .
“ Sometimes we get these emotional problems because of things that are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is about us .
It ’ s basically mental-health issues that are state created.
” She added , “ We take an existential approach.
” People seemed to be craving such an approach .
Over by the snacks table , Daniel Nucinkis , a mathematics teaching fellow at Imperial College London , got the last piece of tiramisu .
( They were also serving Belgian waffles , French macarons , and Nordic cinnamon buns . )
What brought him out tonight ?
“ Sadness , ” he said .
“ Being together with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is German but has lived in London for thirty-six years , and has British citizenship .
He was wearing a starred E.U .
T-shirt under his sweater .
He had waited with his wife , Brita , a professor of mathematics at the University of London , for forty-five minutes to get into the event .
Barbara Wilson had come in solidarity with her friend Sylvia Hoenig , an Italian citizen who has lived in the U.K. for the past five years .
“ We ’ ve known each other a long time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come , she said , “ to reassure myself that things won ’ t be as scary as I think they will be.
” She had spoken with a lawyer , who talked her through the process .
Wilson added , “ I knew Sylvia was feeling anxious , and there was this event , so I said , ‘ Shall I come , too ?
’ ” It was nearing the event ’ s final hour and Sadiq Khan , the mayor , had not yet spoken .
A crowd had gathered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set up for him .
Outside , a line of people were still waiting to get in .
Finally , Khan took the stage .
He called the referendum result “ incredibly difficult to stomach ” and spoke of the “ enormous influence of European citizens on our city.
” “ My message to the E.U .
Londoners here , and the more than one million E.U .
citizens who call our city their home , is this : You ’ re Londoners .
You ’ re valued , respected , loved , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will always be welcome.
” The crowd burst into applause .
Near a “ Conversation Booth ” at the back papered with posters ( “ How do you feel about the future ?
” ; “ What is your message for the mayor ?
” ) , Lucie Uwarow was chatting with her friend Joanna Bucur .
“ I feel very sad , it ’ s quite heartbreaking , ” Uwarow told me .
She was wearing an E.U .
sweatshirt .
“ Today it just really hit me .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believed in.
” Uwarow is Belgian , and Bucur is Romanian .
They both want to stay in London .
“ At the end of the day , it ’ s sadder for Brits than for Europeans , ” Uwarow said , “ because they are the ones isolating themselves.
” They had just finished filling in cards that read “ I am a Londoner because .
.
.
” Organizers were posting them , collage-like , on a nearby wall .
“ I wrote , ‘ I ’ m a Londoner because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ” Uwarow said .
“ I said , ‘ I ’ m a Londoner because I put vinegar on my chips , ’ ” Bucur said .

In the afternoon on Brexit Day, the date of the U.K.’s final, lurching departure from the E.U., the mayor of London’s office held an event at City Hall for European residents of the city. The title was chipper: “London is Open-supporting European Londoners through Brexit.” “The Mayor of London is determined to do everything he can to support European Londoners through the Brexit process,” promotional material on the mayor’s Web site read. “The UK may be leaving the EU on Friday 31st January but London will remain a global European city, open to the world.” (Buns ’n’ Brexit, an informational event hosted by ScandiKitchen, a Scandinavian grocery outlet, would take place the following day.) At City Hall, immigration lawyers would be on hand to offer free advice on the E.U. Settlement Scheme, through which the estimated three million Europeans living in the U.K. can apply for settled status. Families were welcome. Tea and sweets would be served. “There will also be emotional support services available,” the listing read.
Elsewhere in London, Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party prepared for a celebration in Parliament Square at 11 P.M., the hour of Britain’s departure, which would feature, they promised in the weeks leading up to the event, “fireworks, bands, and comedians.” (As it later transpired, owing to local bylaws and poor planning, there were no fireworks, bands, or comedians.) A countdown clock was projected onto No. 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s residence. A commemorative coin, melted down and recast after the last almost-Brexit, was unveiled, bearing the phrase “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations,” to immediate mockery on Twitter. (Philip Pullman, the author, tweeted, “The Brexit 50p coin is missing an oxford comma and should be boycotted by all literate people.”) Still, Union Jack flags went up all around Westminster.
There was fervent hope in some quarters, in the weeks leading up to the departure, that Big Ben, that patient, patriotic symbol of Britain, would ring out to mark the occasion. “I frankly think that, around the world, at that moment at 11 P.M., if Big Ben doesn’t strike, our country looks like a joke,” Farage said on the radio earlier this month. But Big Ben hasn’t been well—it’s covered in scaffolding—and the estimated cost for taxpayers to get it to cough up a few wheezy bongs was five hundred thousand pounds. Encouraged by Johnson, a busy crowdfunding campaign raised almost half that amount, until the government was forced to admit that it could not accept public donations for the clock. Undeterred, some called for churches across the U.K. to ring out instead, a request met without much enthusiasm by clergymen, one of whom called it “pretty tacky” on BBC Radio 4. They settled, finally, on a recording of Big Ben’s chimes.
At the entrance to City Hall, a spherical glass building not far from Tower Bridge, a line of worried-looking Europeans stretched around the corner. Event organizers asked everyone to prepare for “airport-style security” inside. A woman with red lipstick and a French accent ahead of me said she supposed the organizers didn’t count on so many people coming. Through a metal detector and down a ramp decorated with flags from E.U. countries, Bella Kosmala, who helped plan the night in conjunction with the mayor’s office, was holding a yellow rose, a symbol of friendship. “We organized this event today as a place for people to come away from the hustle and bustle of Parliament Square. We wanted it to be a bit of a sanctuary for people who want to mark the day together,” she told me. She wasn’t expecting the turnout. “It was going to be a very low-key, come-together event. Clearly Londoners wanted to come here.”
At a booth near the center of the room, Maria Llorente was handing out flyers related to two European activist groups, Settled and the3million. “Our main goal right now is to make sure no one is left behind with this process,” she told me, referring to the E.U. Settlement Scheme. “It’s relatively straightforward for eighty per cent of people,” but she was worried about the elderly and about residents who don’t speak English. Like many Europeans in the U.K., she also wanted hard proof of her right to remain. “We anticipate that if we don’t have a document we can show an employer, or a landlord, or a bank, we’re going to be discriminated against,” she said.
Nearby, several lawyers wearing navy T-shirts that read “How to stay in the UK?” were dispensing advice at rapid-fire pace. “You get questions about, ‘Well, what evidence do I need?’ You get questions about, ‘Well, I’ve just arrived, what do I need to do?’ ” Victoria Welsh, a lawyer and volunteering solicitor, told me. Across the room, Emmy van Deurzen, the founder of Emotional Support Service for Europeans (E.S.S.E.), which provides free counselling, was also answering questions. Van Deurzen is Dutch but has lived in London for four decades. “We saw that a lot of E.U. citizens were becoming depressed and very anxious,” she told me. She started E.S.S.E. “to help them get things off their chest,” and to “help them realize they’re still the person they were before” Brexit, she said. “Sometimes we get these emotional problems because of things that are happening around us rather than something that is about us. It’s basically mental-health issues that are state created.” She added, “We take an existential approach.”
People seemed to be craving such an approach. Over by the snacks table, Daniel Nucinkis, a mathematics teaching fellow at Imperial College London, got the last piece of tiramisu. (They were also serving Belgian waffles, French macarons, and Nordic cinnamon buns.) What brought him out tonight? “Sadness,” he said. “Being together with people and being less sad.” Nucinkis is German but has lived in London for thirty-six years, and has British citizenship. He was wearing a starred E.U. T-shirt under his sweater. He had waited with his wife, Brita, a professor of mathematics at the University of London, for forty-five minutes to get into the event.
“It’s like group therapy,” Brita said.
Barbara Wilson had come in solidarity with her friend Sylvia Hoenig, an Italian citizen who has lived in the U.K. for the past five years. “We’ve known each other a long time,” Wilson said.
“Since primary school!” Hoenig explained.
Hoenig had come, she said, “to reassure myself that things won’t be as scary as I think they will be.” She had spoken with a lawyer, who talked her through the process. Wilson added, “I knew Sylvia was feeling anxious, and there was this event, so I said, ‘Shall I come, too?’ ”
It was nearing the event’s final hour and Sadiq Khan, the mayor, had not yet spoken. A crowd had gathered in front of a lectern and microphone set up for him. Outside, a line of people were still waiting to get in. Finally, Khan took the stage. He called the referendum result “incredibly difficult to stomach” and spoke of the “enormous influence of European citizens on our city.” “My message to the E.U. Londoners here, and the more than one million E.U. citizens who call our city their home, is this: You’re Londoners. You’re valued, respected, loved, and adored. You belong here and will always be welcome.” The crowd burst into applause.
Near a “Conversation Booth” at the back papered with posters (“How do you feel about the future?”; “What is your message for the mayor?”), Lucie Uwarow was chatting with her friend Joanna Bucur. “I feel very sad, it’s quite heartbreaking,” Uwarow told me. She was wearing an E.U. sweatshirt. “Today it just really hit me. It’s the end of a project we really believed in.”
Uwarow is Belgian, and Bucur is Romanian. They both want to stay in London. “At the end of the day, it’s sadder for Brits than for Europeans,” Uwarow said, “because they are the ones isolating themselves.” They had just finished filling in cards that read “I am a Londoner because . . .” Organizers were posting them, collage-like, on a nearby wall.
“I wrote, ‘I’m a Londoner because home is where the heart is,’ ” Uwarow said.
“I said, ‘I’m a Londoner because I put vinegar on my chips,’ ” Bucur said.


newyorker--2020-02-01--A Fantasy Author Describes a Character Getting Physically Stronger Despite Having No Idea How That W

A Fantasy Author Describes a Character Getting Physically Stronger Despite Having No Idea How That Would Feel

With each passing day , Lukas could feel his muscles growing tighter , like coiled snakes .
But not actually like snakes , because they weren ’ t moving on their own .
“ Muscles don ’ t move on their own , ” Lukas said to himself .
“ Or do they ?
” They didn ’ t .
It was like he had dead snakes in his arms .
The stones were heavy , but , after a week in the mines , Lukas could lift one without breaking a sweat .
Then , after two weeks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sweat .
This continued at a rate of one additional stone per week until he never sweated again , except sometimes for aesthetic reasons .
His muscles rippled across his back .
It didn ’ t feel weird , like a spasm .
It felt like a normal thing .
This is what muscles are supposed to do , Lukas thought .
They ripple .
Lukas was strong .
So strong that he could have moved a printer from the front door to the office without dropping it and needing to order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abs now .
He could feel each one protruding from his stomach , like a big , flat stomach toe .
He wiggled his smallest ab with pleasure .
The more he worked , the more his arms and legs burned .
But then , eventually , the burning stopped , because he had basically levelled up .
Or maybe the burning continued , but being strong makes you less vulnerable to pain , so it just didn ’ t bother him that much ?
No one could know for sure .
Mining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he toiled away , Lukas could feel his growth hormones activating , stimulating the uptake and incorporation of amino acids into protein , which synthesized into cells , causing hypertrophy .
Mmm , he thought .
Hypertrophy .
Lukas heard a young woman screaming from the top of a tower .
He knew that , no matter how difficult it was , he had to save her .
He raced up the stairs .
It turned out to be no problem at all , because he was so physically fit—in fact , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the damsel said as Lukas entered her chambers .
“ Did you just walk up all those stairs ?
You don ’ t even seem winded.
” “ Yes , ” Lukas replied .
“ I did.
” She put her small hand on one of his enormous , bulging quadriceps .
“ You know there ’ s an elevator , right ?
” Lukas continued not to be in any type of physical distress .
“ Don ’ t care , ” he said , his lungs functioning .
Lukas started to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strong .
People were looking at him strangely .
“ I should tone my muscles down , ” he said to himself , chucking a boulder over his head with his dead-snake arms .
“ Whatever that means.
” Lukas was so strong that he could have punched his dumb editor who kept telling him that his descriptions of human physiology were weird and wrong .
But he didn ’ t , because he was the bigger man , literally as well as figuratively .
“ So what if you do CrossFit , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his muscles rippling normally at the same time .
“ I do MinesFit.
” He resolved to think of a better insult later .
Lukas could feel his brain cells begin to deteriorate .
“ It ’ s just as I always suspected , ” he said to himself .
“ There ’ s a negative correlation between physical strength and brain strength .
I was right to remain weak for as long as I did.
” His mind slipped further .
“ I hope there ’ s someone out there who has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he whispered .

With each passing day, Lukas could feel his muscles growing tighter, like coiled snakes. But not actually like snakes, because they weren’t moving on their own. “Muscles don’t move on their own,” Lukas said to himself. “Or do they?” They didn’t. It was like he had dead snakes in his arms.
The stones were heavy, but, after a week in the mines, Lukas could lift one without breaking a sweat. Then, after two weeks, he could lift two stones without breaking a sweat. This continued at a rate of one additional stone per week until he never sweated again, except sometimes for aesthetic reasons.
His muscles rippled across his back. It didn’t feel weird, like a spasm. It felt like a normal thing. This is what muscles are supposed to do, Lukas thought. They ripple.
Lukas was strong. So strong that he could have moved a printer from the front door to the office without dropping it and needing to order a new printer online.
Lukas had abs now. He could feel each one protruding from his stomach, like a big, flat stomach toe. He wiggled his smallest ab with pleasure.
The more he worked, the more his arms and legs burned. But then, eventually, the burning stopped, because he had basically levelled up. Or maybe the burning continued, but being strong makes you less vulnerable to pain, so it just didn’t bother him that much? No one could know for sure.
Mining was hard work. But, as he toiled away, Lukas could feel his growth hormones activating, stimulating the uptake and incorporation of amino acids into protein, which synthesized into cells, causing hypertrophy. Mmm, he thought. Hypertrophy.
Lukas heard a young woman screaming from the top of a tower. He knew that, no matter how difficult it was, he had to save her. He raced up the stairs. It turned out to be no problem at all, because he was so physically fit—in fact, he enjoyed it. “Wow,” the damsel said as Lukas entered her chambers. “Did you just walk up all those stairs? You don’t even seem winded.” “Yes,” Lukas replied. “I did.” She put her small hand on one of his enormous, bulging quadriceps. “You know there’s an elevator, right?” Lukas continued not to be in any type of physical distress. “Don’t care,” he said, his lungs functioning.
Lukas started to feel like maybe he was getting too strong. People were looking at him strangely. “I should tone my muscles down,” he said to himself, chucking a boulder over his head with his dead-snake arms. “Whatever that means.”
Lukas was so strong that he could have punched his dumb editor who kept telling him that his descriptions of human physiology were weird and wrong. But he didn’t, because he was the bigger man, literally as well as figuratively. “So what if you do CrossFit, David?” Lukas said, all his muscles rippling normally at the same time. “I do MinesFit.” He resolved to think of a better insult later.
Lukas could feel his brain cells begin to deteriorate. “It’s just as I always suspected,” he said to himself. “There’s a negative correlation between physical strength and brain strength. I was right to remain weak for as long as I did.” His mind slipped further. “I hope there’s someone out there who has retained enough intelligence to tell my story,” he whispered.


newyorker--2020-02-01--“It’s a Worldwide Problem”: How North American and Australian Firefighters Work Together

In December , Jeff Austin , an air-attack officer with the British Columbia Wildfire Service who has spent forty-one years on the fire line , was at his farm , in British Columbia ’ s Cariboo region , when he learned that Australia had officially requested help from North America to fight its bushfires .
There ’ d been a cold snap in Cariboo ; temperatures reached more than thirty below zero .
Austin would have to ask a neighbor to care for his cattle , but he made up his mind instantly : he was heading Down Under .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ had suffered two back-to-back record fire seasons , and “ the Aussies came out both years and helped me and an incident-management team immensely , ” he said .
“ It was an obligation to return the favor.
” Chuck Russell , a regional fire-management officer for the U.S. National Park Service , was at home , in Anchorage , Alaska , at the time .
There , it was twenty below .
Russell has more than twenty-five years of firefighting experience , and he also has five kids , the youngest of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sat with his family to talk things over .
He ’ d never been to Australia , and it wasn ’ t ideal to be away from the kids over the holidays .
But he ’ d seen the horrific footage on TV of large swaths of Australia ’ s bushland burning .
He signed up to deploy , with his family ’ s blessing .
Americans and Australians have been unofficially sharing firefighting resources since the nineteen-fifties , Beth Lund , an assistant director of fire operations for the U.S. Forest Service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to help , told me .
But it wasn ’ t until the early two-thousands that the partnership was codified .
In 2000 , the American wildfire season was especially disastrous , and the U.S. requested urgent assistance from five hundred fire-management personnel in Australia , New Zealand , Canada , and Mexico .
Formal agreements were arranged , and , in the decade that followed , exchanges between North and South became fairly regular .
Then , three years ago , the government agencies with front-line responsibility for wildfires in Australia , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a wildland fire-management agreement to facilitate resource-sharing on a national level .
( The U.S. has similar agreements with Canada and Mexico . )
Thanks to that agreement , a hundred and thirty-eight Australians and New Zealanders were deployed to help the U.S. in 2018 , during severe fires in California and the Pacific Northwest .
Now Australia needs help in return .
Since the middle of December , four waves of North American firefighters have come to Australia , serving on rotations of thirty-eight days or more ; there are currently around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country in an official capacity to fight the fires .
It is the largest-ever contingent of North Americans sent to assist Australian firefighting efforts .
( It ’ s also the first time a contingent has been sent to New South Wales , the state that has been hardest hit this season . )
They are filling specialist roles in everything from aviation supervision to logistics to fire-behavior analysis , and , in the most recent deployment , North Americans are also staffing several firefighting crews .
Just under five hundred North @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Austin and Russell headed over at the start of January .
When they arrived at Sydney Airport with dozens of their North American colleagues , they were surprised by a spontaneous standing ovation from Australians milling about in the arrivals hall .
They have been welcomed every day since , Russell said , by Australian communities in shock and despair at one of the worst bushfire seasons in the country ’ s recorded history : more than twenty-seven million acres burned , at least thirty-one lives lost , thousands of properties destroyed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And the Australian summer isn ’ t over yet .
In the first couple of days after Russell arrived in Australia , he told me , he was a little confused by the accent , and some of the local jargon .
“ I thought they were calling us fairies , ” he said .
“ ‘ How are all you American fairies doing ?
’ ” He soon realized they were saying “ fireys , ” the affectionate Australian term for firefighters .
Bird Dog aircraft here are called “ spotters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” wildfires are “ bushfires.
” Fire engines are called appliances .
“ But that makes us think of fridges and freezers , ” Austin , the Canadian , said .
Austin has been on duty as an air-attack supervisor in Merimbula , on the southern coast of New South Wales , spending much of his time in a fixed-wing spotter , directing the aerial attacks of foam- or gel-injected water dropped from helicopter buckets and skimmer aircraft .
At daily 9 A.M. tactical briefings , he ’ s had a quiet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accents of Aussies , Kiwis , Americans , and Canadians , all speaking English to one another , sometimes unintelligibly .
He welcomes the camaraderie , and not just because it makes the daily work more pleasant .
“ It feels pretty special , because its time has come , ” he said .
“ It ’ s a worldwide problem in forested areas we ’ re facing , and we have to face it together.
” Accents and terminology aside , another adjustment for the Canadians , in particular , is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who works as a fire-management technician in Ontario , was headed to fight one of three huge fires near Mudgee , in rural New South Wales , when I spoke with him .
He was working with an American , Tony DeMasters , on the fireground , coördinating a backburn from a controlled line with local crews .
Back home , he said , there was lots of water : lakes , rivers , streams , ponds .
But Mudgee is in a severely drought-affected area , and most of the rivers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The firefighters had to pull water from the limited supply available in farm dams—which livestock also depend on for drinking water—and they were doing a lot more backburning .
Without large reserves of water , Australian firefighters are used to getting up close and personal with fire , employing hand-tools and bulldozers to build containment lines .
“ The Aussies are a little bit more .
.
.
crazy , ” one American told me .
“ We ’ re prepared to get closer to the fire front ” because of the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country , ” Barry James , who works for Forest Fire Management Victoria , said .
Aggressive initial attacks in remote-area fire zones are an Australian specialty , one that many North Americans are now witnessing firsthand .
Australians who ’ ve made the reverse trip described a similarly steep yet rewarding learning curve .
James , who has been firefighting for twenty-two years , went to Canada in 2015 , then twice went to California , in 2017 and 2018 , to fight the largest-ever Californian fire , the Mendocino Complex .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ were Australians at the camp , he said , “ families were standing outside the fence , offering us food ” with “ signs made up , welcoming the Aussies.
” ) In Canada , he was struck by how differently pine forests burn than Australian eucalypts .
Pine fires are wind-driven ; if there ’ s no wind , they go to the ground and burn the pine needles , at a somewhat slower pace .
In Australia , and in parts of California , highly combustible eucalyptus forests have fire fuel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bark and the canopy—fire moves through all those levels explosively , driven by fuel more than by wind .
In California , he said , firefighters used a huge variety of pumps and hoses—and he came back to Australia with new hydraulics expertise , which he used to source more effective hosing equipment .
It was useful , he said , in fighting a fire in his district in Victoria this summer .
Cheryl Steer , a superintendent at Fire and Rescue New South Wales who has been firefighting for twenty-four years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to fight the Cougar Creek fire , in Washington State .
( “ I ’ ve never felt so welcome anytime in my life , to be honest , ” she said . )
When she arrived , the fire was coming down the valley toward the townships around Entiat , and she and a colleague were put in charge of the U.S. firefighters already there , “ to strategically place them and make sure we didn ’ t lose any houses and structures in that valley.
” They succeeded in this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lost .
Steer described it as a highlight of her career .
( Also , she said , she saw the most “ amazing forests , ” and one night , near the firefighting camp , she watched as a bear and her two cubs splashed in the river by moonlight . )

In December, Jeff Austin, an air-attack officer with the British Columbia Wildfire Service who has spent forty-one years on the fire line, was at his farm, in British Columbia’s Cariboo region, when he learned that Australia had officially requested help from North America to fight its bushfires. There’d been a cold snap in Cariboo; temperatures reached more than thirty below zero. Austin would have to ask a neighbor to care for his cattle, but he made up his mind instantly: he was heading Down Under. In 2017 and 2018, British Columbia had suffered two back-to-back record fire seasons, and “the Aussies came out both years and helped me and an incident-management team immensely,” he said. “It was an obligation to return the favor.”
Chuck Russell, a regional fire-management officer for the U.S. National Park Service, was at home, in Anchorage, Alaska, at the time. There, it was twenty below. Russell has more than twenty-five years of firefighting experience, and he also has five kids, the youngest of whom is three years old. He sat with his family to talk things over. He’d never been to Australia, and it wasn’t ideal to be away from the kids over the holidays. But he’d seen the horrific footage on TV of large swaths of Australia’s bushland burning. He signed up to deploy, with his family’s blessing.
Americans and Australians have been unofficially sharing firefighting resources since the nineteen-fifties, Beth Lund, an assistant director of fire operations for the U.S. Forest Service, who has also come to Australia to help, told me. But it wasn’t until the early two-thousands that the partnership was codified. In 2000, the American wildfire season was especially disastrous, and the U.S. requested urgent assistance from five hundred fire-management personnel in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Mexico. Formal agreements were arranged, and, in the decade that followed, exchanges between North and South became fairly regular. Then, three years ago, the government agencies with front-line responsibility for wildfires in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. signed a wildland fire-management agreement to facilitate resource-sharing on a national level. (The U.S. has similar agreements with Canada and Mexico.) Thanks to that agreement, a hundred and thirty-eight Australians and New Zealanders were deployed to help the U.S. in 2018, during severe fires in California and the Pacific Northwest. Now Australia needs help in return.
Since the middle of December, four waves of North American firefighters have come to Australia, serving on rotations of thirty-eight days or more; there are currently around two hundred and forty-two North Americans in the country in an official capacity to fight the fires. It is the largest-ever contingent of North Americans sent to assist Australian firefighting efforts. (It’s also the first time a contingent has been sent to New South Wales, the state that has been hardest hit this season.) They are filling specialist roles in everything from aviation supervision to logistics to fire-behavior analysis, and, in the most recent deployment, North Americans are also staffing several firefighting crews. Just under five hundred North Americans have been deployed in all.
Austin and Russell headed over at the start of January. When they arrived at Sydney Airport with dozens of their North American colleagues, they were surprised by a spontaneous standing ovation from Australians milling about in the arrivals hall. They have been welcomed every day since, Russell said, by Australian communities in shock and despair at one of the worst bushfire seasons in the country’s recorded history: more than twenty-seven million acres burned, at least thirty-one lives lost, thousands of properties destroyed, and hundreds of millions of animals killed. And the Australian summer isn’t over yet.
In the first couple of days after Russell arrived in Australia, he told me, he was a little confused by the accent, and some of the local jargon. “I thought they were calling us fairies,” he said. “ ‘How are all you American fairies doing?’ ” He soon realized they were saying “fireys,” the affectionate Australian term for firefighters. Bird Dog aircraft here are called “spotters,” fire lines are “firegrounds,” wildfires are “bushfires.” Fire engines are called appliances. “But that makes us think of fridges and freezers,” Austin, the Canadian, said. Austin has been on duty as an air-attack supervisor in Merimbula, on the southern coast of New South Wales, spending much of his time in a fixed-wing spotter, directing the aerial attacks of foam- or gel-injected water dropped from helicopter buckets and skimmer aircraft. At daily 9 A.M. tactical briefings, he’s had a quiet laugh to himself to hear the varied accents of Aussies, Kiwis, Americans, and Canadians, all speaking English to one another, sometimes unintelligibly. He welcomes the camaraderie, and not just because it makes the daily work more pleasant. “It feels pretty special, because its time has come,” he said. “It’s a worldwide problem in forested areas we’re facing, and we have to face it together.”
Accents and terminology aside, another adjustment for the Canadians, in particular, is the lack of water resources. Jamie Gaunt, who works as a fire-management technician in Ontario, was headed to fight one of three huge fires near Mudgee, in rural New South Wales, when I spoke with him. He was working with an American, Tony DeMasters, on the fireground, coördinating a backburn from a controlled line with local crews. Back home, he said, there was lots of water: lakes, rivers, streams, ponds. But Mudgee is in a severely drought-affected area, and most of the rivers are “pretty well dried up.” The firefighters had to pull water from the limited supply available in farm dams—which livestock also depend on for drinking water—and they were doing a lot more backburning. Without large reserves of water, Australian firefighters are used to getting up close and personal with fire, employing hand-tools and bulldozers to build containment lines. “The Aussies are a little bit more . . . crazy,” one American told me.
“We’re prepared to get closer to the fire front” because of the “history and landscape and geography of our country,” Barry James, who works for Forest Fire Management Victoria, said. Aggressive initial attacks in remote-area fire zones are an Australian specialty, one that many North Americans are now witnessing firsthand. Australians who’ve made the reverse trip described a similarly steep yet rewarding learning curve. James, who has been firefighting for twenty-two years, went to Canada in 2015, then twice went to California, in 2017 and 2018, to fight the largest-ever Californian fire, the Mendocino Complex. (When locals found out that there were Australians at the camp, he said, “families were standing outside the fence, offering us food” with “signs made up, welcoming the Aussies.”) In Canada, he was struck by how differently pine forests burn than Australian eucalypts. Pine fires are wind-driven; if there’s no wind, they go to the ground and burn the pine needles, at a somewhat slower pace. In Australia, and in parts of California, highly combustible eucalyptus forests have fire fuel on the ground, and also in the bark and the canopy—fire moves through all those levels explosively, driven by fuel more than by wind. In California, he said, firefighters used a huge variety of pumps and hoses—and he came back to Australia with new hydraulics expertise, which he used to source more effective hosing equipment. It was useful, he said, in fighting a fire in his district in Victoria this summer.
Cheryl Steer, a superintendent at Fire and Rescue New South Wales who has been firefighting for twenty-four years, deployed to the U.S. in 2018, to fight the Cougar Creek fire, in Washington State. (“I’ve never felt so welcome anytime in my life, to be honest,” she said.) When she arrived, the fire was coming down the valley toward the townships around Entiat, and she and a colleague were put in charge of the U.S. firefighters already there, “to strategically place them and make sure we didn’t lose any houses and structures in that valley.” They succeeded in this task: no properties or structures were lost. Steer described it as a highlight of her career. (Also, she said, she saw the most “amazing forests,” and one night, near the firefighting camp, she watched as a bear and her two cubs splashed in the river by moonlight.)
Working in a different role on that same fire, as a task force leader, Steer encountered for the first time the phenomenon of an underground fire, which travels through the tree roots and can flare up in another location. “I was on a fire crew on a mountainside in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “We were preparing water supplies so the tankers would have somewhere to fill up if they needed. One of the members of the crew said, ‘I can hear fire.’ We looked around, couldn’t see smoke. He said, ‘I can hear something.’ We moved around, found this spot where the fire had come up from underneath and was burning in this location where we didn’t even realize.” Not long after she returned home to Australia, there was a fire on reclaimed land that had been used industrially, and it was burning underground; Steer wasn’t present for the incident, but she worked on the after-action review, and it confirmed that her newly acquired mode of analysis would be useful at home.
All the firefighters I spoke to said that it had been no trouble to assume their roles and get down to work in a new country. The incident command system used to fight fires is standardized in all of these countries, and firefighting personnel around the world have the same training in responding to the three vectors of any wildfire: fuel, topography, and weather. In contrast to North America, however, the large majority of wildfire fighters in Australia are volunteers—a system that evolved, over time, on account of the unpredictability of bushfires and the vastness of the bush landscape, plus a strong culture of local volunteerism. (Australian cities have professional fire brigades.) These volunteers are highly trained, and they’re under the jurisdiction of the state government, which means that they can commandeer resources as needed. But none of them is paid, and, during the past months, many have taken weeks of leave from their regular jobs to defend their communities. The North American firefighters found it staggering that more than seventy thousand Australians in the state of New South Wales alone had volunteered to fight fires this season—it’s the largest volunteer fire service in the world. “It’s mind-boggling, on a scope we can’t comprehend,” Austin said.
The volunteer nature of the firefighting forces is also what makes the North American help so crucial: the Australian locals are exhausted, or “flogged,” in local parlance. People in specialist roles, such as aviation, are especially quickly drained; they need fresh replacements with a depth of experience to step in, so that they can take much-needed breaks, spend time with their families, and get back to their day jobs for a bit. “We’re here for the sprint,” Russell said. “The Aussies are here for the marathon.”
The sharing of personnel and resources between nations with opposite fire seasons—with the nation in need footing the bill—is not only compassionate but efficient. Recently, though, the shoulders of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere fire seasons have widened, to the point where they are beginning to overlap. This record-breaking fire season in New South Wales began in the winter of 2019, overlapping with the peak of the U.S. and Canadian summer fire seasons. Usually, in Alaska, Russell said, there are “weather events that slow down or end our fire season” by mid-July, “and then we go and help the Lower Forty-eight states. But last year that didn’t happen.” Instead, the fires burned into the first couple of weeks of September. One Alaskan megafire burned for an unprecedented hundred and twenty days.
“Megafire” is an American term for a fire that is huge in size, unusual in behavior, and resistant to control. The term has been widely adopted by Australian bushfire officials and media to describe the scale and complexity of this season’s fires, with some so massive they created their own weather patterns. Megafires, and those ever-widening fire-season shoulders, are part of the awful unfolding script of climate change.
“Traditionally, we’ve been able to share resources between the U.S. and Australia, including helicopters and planes,” Ben Shepherd, who works for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, told me. But, if fires in California begin “marching into autumn and winter,” then those resources will be “held in the States to cover them.” Last year, New South Wales became the first state in Australia to purchase a large air tanker to be kept here on the ground all year round, in response to the lengthening fire season. “We talk about fire year,” Shawna Legarza, a U.S. Forest Service fire director who was in Australia in January, told me. “We don’t say season anymore.”
On January 23rd, a C-130 Hercules aircraft tanker that was dropping retardant on the Good Good fire in southern New South Wales crashed, killing the three crew on board, all of them Americans: Ian H. McBeth, Paul C. Hudson, and Rick A. DeMorgan, Jr. The air tanker was owned and operated by a Canadian company, Coulson Aviation, and was normally based in California. McBeth, Hudson, and DeMorgan were private contractors with Coulson, but they had worked closely with the official American firefighting personnel deployed in Australia and had carried out more than a hundred and forty aerial firefighting missions here since the start of December. After their deaths, flags throughout the state, and two on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, flew at half-staff. An official state memorial service will be held in late February, in Sydney, to pay tribute to the three men and their families, and their names will be inscribed on the Emergency Services Memorial Wall in the Australian capital of Canberra.
Firefighters of all nationalities often describe themselves as being part of a global family. “It’s a really small world in the wildland-fire community—folks from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere,” Tony DeMasters, who works for the U.S. Forest Service in Idaho, said to me, on speaker phone, while driving back out to the fireground near Mudgee. This is DeMasters’s thirty-second season as a fire planner. “We all try to be a public servant to the landscape,” he said. “It’s very humbling . . . when you can do that international exchange back and forth across the continents to help each other, try to do good on the land.”


newyorker--2020-02-01--Justin Bieber’s “Seasons,” and the Promise of the Celebrity Tell-All

There is something both thrilling and reassuring in following the story of a star who rises , falls , and then rises anew .
It ’ s a narrative template recognizable to even the most casual viewer of documentary shows such as VH1 ’ s “ Behind the Music ” or the E !
network ’ s “ True Hollywood Story.
” Just last week , both Taylor Swift and Jessica Simpson—Swift in her new feature-length documentary , “ Miss Americana , ” and Simpson in her new memoir , “ Open Book ” —revealed their struggles with , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eating disorder in the case of the former , an addiction to alcohol and pills in the case of the latter .
( In the movie , Swift confesses that when she was starving herself , she thought it was normal “ to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show , or in the middle of it.
” Simpson writes , “ I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills.
” ) As viewers and readers and listeners , we voraciously consume these stories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too , can suffer , despite , or sometimes even because of , the very fact of their celebrity , and thus to learn how universal some difficulties are .
One celebrity who has experienced both a rapid rise to stratospheric fame and the pitfalls that this type of trajectory often entails is Justin Bieber .
The native of small-town Canada became an international pop superstar not long after he was discovered on YouTube , in 2008 , by the talent manager Scooter Braun , when the singer was just a young teen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a high , clear voice .
As he has matured in years , Bieber has behaved badly , in the manner of a spoiled teen , and has also tangled with the law ; more recently , there have been rumors of drug use and struggles with depression .
Bieber confirmed these rumors last year in an Instagram post , in which he also alluded to the fact that he has had a fraught attitude toward the women in his life .
( On Sunday , in an interview with NPR , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Selena Gomez , alleged that he had emotionally abused her during their off-and-on relationship .
Bieber did not respond to NPR ’ s request for comment . )
In 2017 , Bieber cancelled the final fourteen dates of a sixteen-month world tour in support of his fourth album , “ Purpose , ” marking the beginning of a hiatus from album-making and touring , which was also punctuated , to the surprise of fans , by a sudden marriage to the model Hailey Baldwin .
When cancelling the tour dates , Bieber ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” an explanation whose nebulousness further added to the public ’ s general confusion .
Though social media has allowed for more direct access to celebrities in the past decade , a central characteristic of the relationship between so-called civilians and the famous is that the former will never know nearly as much as they would like to about the latter .
When we follow the story of a celebrity like Bieber , we non-celebrities engage in a kind of Kremlinology , piecing together the meagre elements available to us : a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Instagram posts , a smattering of acne in paparazzi photos .
The new ten-part YouTube series “ Seasons ” —which follows Bieber through the second half of 2019 , as he records his forthcoming album , “ Changes ” —at first promises to change that .
The first episode begins abruptly with a wildly cheering “ Ellen ” audience , in November , 2015 , responding to Bieber ’ s announcement that he is about to embark on the “ Purpose ” tour .
Fans ’ shrieks then serve as the soundtrack for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the tour : we see Bieber floating in a glass cube over audiences in Seattle , Tel Aviv , Arnhem , Atlanta , Dubai , Helsinki , Houston ; Bieber gyrating onstage as a curtain of indoor rain pours down on him and a score of backup dancers ; Bieber , back on “ Ellen , ” promoting the tour midway through its run ; Bieber trying to sing over a shrieking concert crowd , and then saying , “ When you guys are screaming , it ’ s hard for me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his sweat-slicked platinum locks pushed back by a white bandana , his prone body captured on the screens of multiple iPhones held aloft by audience members .
Something , it is clear , isn ’ t right .
The series turns to a slew of clips with responses to the tour ’ s cancellation .
“ All we know is that he ’ s ‘ going through a lot , ’ that ’ s it , ” an air-quoting young woman , apparently a fan , says in a street interview .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ King offers , “ People think he ’ s having issues , seems to be falling into another dark place.
” Then the screen goes dark and a title card appears : “ Two years later.
” Now , presumably , we will lay aside our inadequate attempts at deduction ; “ Seasons ” is here to sort things out .
Part of the pleasure and relief of the fallen-and-risen-again celebrity narrative is its legibility .
We are told , from the horse ’ s mouth , that bad has ended , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Seasons ” has all of the trappings of this kind of tell-all .
Bieber has starred in two previous documentaries , 2011 ’ s “ Never Say Never ” and 2013 ’ s “ Believe , ” both big-ticket , feature-length affairs directed by Jon M. Chu .
( “ Never Say Never ” was , even , a 3-D production . )
They recorded in glossy detail two of Bieber ’ s earlier tours , complete with the type of screaming-fan clips that the opening sequence of “ Seasons ” dispenses with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most of the series ( or at least the four advance episodes I was provided with ) , the footage is , for the most part , self-consciously low-tech , its iPhone-style aesthetic meant to convey a gritty intimacy .
The fact that “ Seasons ” is airing on YouTube , where Bieber began his career , is significant ; each episode hovers around an extremely brief ten minutes , seeming to echo the immediacy of the star ’ s early amateur videos , while simultaneously courting quick-fix , phone-first Gen Z viewers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see Bieber taking his wife on a trip back to his home town , visiting the steps on a downtown building where he busked as a child , and the lower-middle-class apartment building where he spent the first ten years of his life .
“ She makes everything better , ” Bieber says of Hailey , and one senses that there is real affection between the two , and that much of Hailey ’ s life is spent making sure Bieber ’ s is stable .
“ I ’ m here to cheer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hailey , who is wearing a gold nameplate necklace that reads “ Wifey , ” says in a talking-head interview .
The couple , who are usually dressed in oversized , matching Drew House sweatshirts ( Bieber ’ s own clothing brand ) , seem to almost always be together .
“ I sleep great now that Justin is married and that she ’ s around , ” Allison Kaye , the president of Scooter Braun ’ s company , says .
At one point , Hailey says seriously , “ He came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really dark times , ” and suggests that this is why “ he has a story to tell.
” But what are these dark times ?
What is this story ?
It isn ’ t exactly clear .
For most of the first four episodes of “ Seasons , ” we see Bieber recording songs for “ Changes ” —which , as he revealed on Tuesday , from his usual place on Ellen ’ s couch , will drop on Valentine ’ s Day .
The would-be hits are revealed in snippets in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whet the public ’ s appetite .
Anyone who has followed Bieber ’ s career from its start knows that he is a phenomenal natural talent , and the most joyful moments of the docuseries are the ones that show him in the studio , practicing his craft .
But it also seems as if these moments are hard-won , and under threat of a dark cloud—Drugs ?
Depression ?
Illness ?
Tabloid or fan attention ?
—that might engulf them .

The new YouTube docuseries “Seasons” faces pressure to offer answers to fans’ lingering questions about the superstar. Photograph Courtesy SB Projects
There is something both thrilling and reassuring in following the story of a star who rises, falls, and then rises anew. It’s a narrative template recognizable to even the most casual viewer of documentary shows such as VH1’s “Behind the Music” or the E! network’s “True Hollywood Story.” Just last week, both Taylor Swift and Jessica Simpson—Swift in her new feature-length documentary, “Miss Americana,” and Simpson in her new memoir, “Open Book”—revealed their struggles with, and triumphs over, personal demons: an eating disorder in the case of the former, an addiction to alcohol and pills in the case of the latter. (In the movie, Swift confesses that when she was starving herself, she thought it was normal “to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it.” Simpson writes, “I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills.”) As viewers and readers and listeners, we voraciously consume these stories, pleased to realize that stars, too, can suffer, despite, or sometimes even because of, the very fact of their celebrity, and thus to learn how universal some difficulties are.
One celebrity who has experienced both a rapid rise to stratospheric fame and the pitfalls that this type of trajectory often entails is Justin Bieber. The native of small-town Canada became an international pop superstar not long after he was discovered on YouTube, in 2008, by the talent manager Scooter Braun, when the singer was just a young teen with a fluffy cap of shiny hair and a high, clear voice. As he has matured in years, Bieber has behaved badly, in the manner of a spoiled teen, and has also tangled with the law; more recently, there have been rumors of drug use and struggles with depression. Bieber confirmed these rumors last year in an Instagram post, in which he also alluded to the fact that he has had a fraught attitude toward the women in his life. (On Sunday, in an interview with NPR, one of his ex-girlfriends, the singer Selena Gomez, alleged that he had emotionally abused her during their off-and-on relationship. Bieber did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.)
In 2017, Bieber cancelled the final fourteen dates of a sixteen-month world tour in support of his fourth album, “Purpose,” marking the beginning of a hiatus from album-making and touring, which was also punctuated, to the surprise of fans, by a sudden marriage to the model Hailey Baldwin. When cancelling the tour dates, Bieber’s team cited only “unforeseen circumstances,” an explanation whose nebulousness further added to the public’s general confusion. Though social media has allowed for more direct access to celebrities in the past decade, a central characteristic of the relationship between so-called civilians and the famous is that the former will never know nearly as much as they would like to about the latter. When we follow the story of a celebrity like Bieber, we non-celebrities engage in a kind of Kremlinology, piecing together the meagre elements available to us: a D.U.I.-arrest record, a handful of confessional Instagram posts, a smattering of acne in paparazzi photos.
The new ten-part YouTube series “Seasons”—which follows Bieber through the second half of 2019, as he records his forthcoming album, “Changes”—at first promises to change that. The first episode begins abruptly with a wildly cheering “Ellen” audience, in November, 2015, responding to Bieber’s announcement that he is about to embark on the “Purpose” tour. Fans’ shrieks then serve as the soundtrack for a whirlwind montage of the ensuing months of the tour: we see Bieber floating in a glass cube over audiences in Seattle, Tel Aviv, Arnhem, Atlanta, Dubai, Helsinki, Houston; Bieber gyrating onstage as a curtain of indoor rain pours down on him and a score of backup dancers; Bieber, back on “Ellen,” promoting the tour midway through its run; Bieber trying to sing over a shrieking concert crowd, and then saying, “When you guys are screaming, it’s hard for me”; Bieber lying on a stage, his sweat-slicked platinum locks pushed back by a white bandanna, his prone body captured on the screens of multiple iPhones held aloft by audience members. Something, it is clear, isn’t right. The series turns to a slew of clips with responses to the tour’s cancellation. “All we know is that he’s ‘going through a lot,’ that’s it,” an air-quoting young woman, apparently a fan, says in a street interview. On a CBS morning show, Gayle King offers, “People think he’s having issues, seems to be falling into another dark place.” Then the screen goes dark and a title card appears: “Two years later.” Now, presumably, we will lay aside our inadequate attempts at deduction; “Seasons” is here to sort things out.
Part of the pleasure and relief of the fallen-and-risen-again celebrity narrative is its legibility. We are told, from the horse’s mouth, that bad has ended, and that good is now transpiring. “Seasons” has all of the trappings of this kind of tell-all. Bieber has starred in two previous documentaries, 2011’s “Never Say Never” and 2013’s “Believe,” both big-ticket, feature-length affairs directed by Jon M. Chu. (“Never Say Never” was, even, a 3-D production.) They recorded in glossy detail two of Bieber’s earlier tours, complete with the type of screaming-fan clips that the opening sequence of “Seasons” dispenses with within its first two minutes. For most of the series (or at least the four advance episodes I was provided with), the footage is, for the most part, self-consciously low-tech, its iPhone-style aesthetic meant to convey a gritty intimacy. The fact that “Seasons” is airing on YouTube, where Bieber began his career, is significant; each episode hovers around an extremely brief ten minutes, seeming to echo the immediacy of the star’s early amateur videos, while simultaneously courting quick-fix, phone-first Gen Z viewers.
In the first episode, we see Bieber taking his wife on a trip back to his home town, visiting the steps on a downtown building where he busked as a child, and the lower-middle-class apartment building where he spent the first ten years of his life. “She makes everything better,” Bieber says of Hailey, and one senses that there is real affection between the two, and that much of Hailey’s life is spent making sure Bieber’s is stable. “I’m here to cheer him on and support him,” Hailey, who is wearing a gold nameplate necklace that reads “Wifey,” says in a talking-head interview. The couple, who are usually dressed in oversized, matching Drew House sweatshirts (Bieber’s own clothing brand), seem to almost always be together. “I sleep great now that Justin is married and that she’s around,” Allison Kaye, the president of Scooter Braun’s company, says. At one point, Hailey says seriously, “He came out on the other side of some really dark times,” and suggests that this is why “he has a story to tell.”
But what are these dark times? What is this story? It isn’t exactly clear. For most of the first four episodes of “Seasons,” we see Bieber recording songs for “Changes”—which, as he revealed on Tuesday, from his usual place on Ellen’s couch, will drop on Valentine’s Day. The would-be hits are revealed in snippets in these studio scenes, as if to whet the public’s appetite. Anyone who has followed Bieber’s career from its start knows that he is a phenomenal natural talent, and the most joyful moments of the docuseries are the ones that show him in the studio, practicing his craft. But it also seems as if these moments are hard-won, and under threat of a dark cloud—Drugs? Depression? Illness? Tabloid or fan attention?—that might engulf them.
For celebrities, there is a constant trade-off between privacy and an audience’s attention, adoration, and purchasing power. “Seasons” is meant to promote Bieber’s new album, so there is pressure on the series to offer answers to viewers’ lingering questions about the singer, and that pressure is felt: one senses that a concerted attempt has been made to give these answers as perfunctorily as possible. Earlier in January, on his Instagram account, Bieber shared that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease and also with chronic mono, explaining that this, and not drugs, has caused him to look unwell. In his post, Bieber promised, “These things will be explained further in a docu series I’m putting on YouTube shortly.. you can learn all that I’ve been battling and OVERCOMING!!” This revelation has not yet been addressed in the episodes that I’ve watched, and, to judge from the tone of the series so far, I have doubts about how much further the explanations will go. In the end, “Seasons” feels like, more than anything, a proof of life of an exceedingly fragile individual. Bieber’s constant nearness to some sort of collapse remains a kind of ghostly spectre in the series, glanced at but never named, and addressed only to be wished away.


newyorker--2020-02-01--David Rabe Reads “The Other Side of the Street,”by John Updike

David Rabe joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “ The Other Side of the Street , ” by John @ @ @ @ @ a 1991 issue of the magazine .
Rabe , a fiction writer , playwright , @ @ @ @ @ author of more than a dozen plays , including the Tony Award-winning “ Sticks and @ @ @ @ @ the Boom Boom Room , ” and “ Hurlyburly.
” He received the PEN/Laura Pels @ @ @ @ @ for Master American Dramatist in 2014 .
His novels include “ Recital of the Dog @ @ @ @ @ the Road at Night .
”

Audio available Listen to this story
Photograph by Joe Kohen / Getty
David Rabe joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Other Side of the Street,” by John Updike, which appeared in a 1991 issue of the magazine. Rabe, a fiction writer, playwright, and screenwriter, is the author of more than a dozen plays, including the Tony Award-winning “Sticks and Bones,” “In the Boom Boom Room,” and “Hurlyburly.” He received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for Master American Dramatist in 2014. His novels include “Recital of the Dog” and “Girl by the Road at Night.”


newyorker--2020-02-01--Trump’s Impeachment and the Degrading of Presidential Accountability

The sordid truth of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump is that it will end with the Senate Majority Leader , Mitch McConnell , doing him a favor : delivering the votes , with little regard for the facts .
That is sadly appropriate , because Trump ’ s favors—the ones he covets , the ones he demands—and the terms on which he extracts them , remain the trial ’ s most contested issue .
The House managers cited Trump ’ s statement to President Volodymyr Zelensky , of Ukraine , in their phone call on July 25 , 2019— @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us a favor though ” —as the crux of a corrupt scheme .
Trump ’ s lawyers countered that he was talking not about his “ personal interests ” but about America ’ s .
In their trial brief , they argued that Trump “ frequently uses variations of the phrase ‘ do us a favor , ’ ” and cited examples .
“ Do me a favor , ” he said he ’ d asked Europe .
“ Would you buy a lot of soybeans , right now ?
” “ Do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ d asked North Korea .
“ You ’ ve got this missile engine testing site .
.
.
.
Can you close it up ?
” The lawyers could have added Trump ’ s claim that , before choosing Alexander Acosta to be his Secretary of Labor , he ’ d worried that he was related to the CNN reporter Jim Acosta , so he told his staff , “ Do me a favor—go back and check the family tree.
” But , of course , what Trump was asking from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ livelihoods , or arms control , or even genealogical information .
He wanted dirt on a political opponent and was willing to hold up military aid for an ally in order to get it .
Trump ’ s core belief seems to have been that Ukraine , by receiving aid from America , incurred a debt that should be paid to him personally .
That equation works only if , as Adam Schiff , the lead House manager , put it on Wednesday , “ you view your interests as synonymous with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump does .
He has no conception of where he ends and the country begins .
Nor , apparently , do his lawyers , most notably Alan Dershowitz .
“ Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest—and mostly you ’ re right !
” Dershowitz told the senators .
And so , “ if a President did something that he believes will help him get elected , in the public interest , that can not be the kind of quid pro quo that results in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pseudo-intellectual scaffold for Trump ’ s self-delusion .
Somewhere in there is the distorted echo of a real argument .
A President should at least consider the electoral effect of what he does , not because his continued tenure is so important but because the opinions of citizens are .
They are the ones who have to fight the wars and bear the burdens .
Voters can be wrong , but even then they can still be helpful in discerning the public interest .
That is the basis of democratic accountability .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ election process itself .
In response , Senator Angus King , Independent of Maine , asked if a President could extort an Israeli Prime Minister into charging the President ’ s opponent with anti-Semitism .
In fact , by Dershowitz ’ s logic , a President could not only seek foreign assistance in a campaign ; he could unleash any number of investigations into his political opponents , declare spurious emergencies to prevent their parties ’ political gatherings , engage in surveillance , or take measures to limit access to polling stations—suppressing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Dershowitz was arguing that , as Schiff said on Thursday , if the President believes that a deal is in his political interest , “ then it doesn ’ t matter how corrupt that quid pro quo is.
” Schiff was not exaggerating when he called this argument “ a descent into constitutional madness.
” It may even prove more pernicious than the simple fact of Trump ’ s acquittal—which was preordained , given the Republican majority ’ s fealty to him—because the standard it sets for Presidential accountability is so degraded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense teams playing a video of Dershowitz ’ s presentation at a future impeachment trial , in an effort to exonerate another rogue President—perhaps one who has hung a portrait of Trump in the Oval Office .
One thing that Republican senators might do , as they so flagrantly fail their country , is to clearly say that Dershowitz ’ s reasons for acquittal are not theirs .
The first article of impeachment charged Trump with abuse of power in his dealings with Ukraine , and even a few Republicans , such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ managers had proved that case .
( Alexander added that , nonetheless , the President ’ s actions didn ’ t warrant impeachment . )
The case for the second article , charging Trump with obstruction of Congress for denying it witnesses and documents , was more complicated .
Here , the Trump team ’ s arguments were at least in the realm of constitutional reality , however hypocritically they were offered .
The House managers couldn ’ t quite shake the opinion held by many that they should have fought the President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court , even if it took time .
( Indeed , because Trump ’ s arguments are so extreme and untenable , the House Democrats had been on a winning path in the lower courts . )
At the same time , the managers hammered home the point that the senators had the power to expose the full story by calling witnesses—which they chose , in a vote on Friday , to toss aside .
In doing so , they may have set a precedent that will further limit future Senates in constraining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abundantly clear that this President has played petty games with momentous matters of war and peace .
Unable to exonerate Trump , his lawyers resorted to making an appeal to blind triumphalism .
Eric Herschmann , one of the members of Trump ’ s team most prone to go off on political tangents—he used up a lot of time attacking President Obama—reeled off a series of economic statistics and approval ratings and told the senators , “ If all that is solely , solely , in their words , for his personal and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best interest of the American people , then I say , God bless him .
Keep doing it !
” It was as if those figures added up to a paid-in-full purchase of impunity .
Trump , for his part , will undoubtedly see an acquittal as further license for abuse .
Earlier in the week , Trump had held a rally in Wildwood , New Jersey , expressly to thank the now Republican congressman Jeff Van Drew for having left the Democratic Party over what Trump called the “ impeachment hoax.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Drew— “ really a brave man , what he did was incredible ” —and to throw out the Democratic “ clowns.
” Perhaps the Republican senators , as they trudged toward casting their vote , were making a calculation about how Trump might return the favor with one for them , or their party , or their country .
Or maybe they , too , can no longer tell the difference .
♦

Illustration by João Fazenda
The sordid truth of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump is that it will end with the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, doing him a favor: delivering the votes, with little regard for the facts. That is sadly appropriate, because Trump’s favors—the ones he covets, the ones he demands—and the terms on which he extracts them, remain the trial’s most contested issue. The House managers cited Trump’s statement to President Volodymyr Zelensky, of Ukraine, in their phone call on July 25, 2019—“I would like you to do us a favor though”—as the crux of a corrupt scheme. Trump’s lawyers countered that he was talking not about his “personal interests” but about America’s. In their trial brief, they argued that Trump “frequently uses variations of the phrase ‘do us a favor,’ ” and cited examples. “Do me a favor,” he said he’d asked Europe. “Would you buy a lot of soybeans, right now?” “Do me a favor,” he said he’d asked North Korea. “You’ve got this missile engine testing site. . . . Can you close it up?” The lawyers could have added Trump’s claim that, before choosing Alexander Acosta to be his Secretary of Labor, he’d worried that he was related to the CNN reporter Jim Acosta, so he told his staff, “Do me a favor—go back and check the family tree.”
But, of course, what Trump was asking from Ukraine wasn’t about soybean farmers’ livelihoods, or arms control, or even genealogical information. He wanted dirt on a political opponent and was willing to hold up military aid for an ally in order to get it. Trump’s core belief seems to have been that Ukraine, by receiving aid from America, incurred a debt that should be paid to him personally. That equation works only if, as Adam Schiff, the lead House manager, put it on Wednesday, “you view your interests as synonymous with the nation’s interests.” And Trump does. He has no conception of where he ends and the country begins.
Nor, apparently, do his lawyers, most notably Alan Dershowitz. “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest—and mostly you’re right!” Dershowitz told the senators. And so, “if a President did something that he believes will help him get elected, in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.” With that, Dershowitz provided a pseudo-intellectual scaffold for Trump’s self-delusion.
Somewhere in there is the distorted echo of a real argument. A President should at least consider the electoral effect of what he does, not because his continued tenure is so important but because the opinions of citizens are. They are the ones who have to fight the wars and bear the burdens. Voters can be wrong, but even then they can still be helpful in discerning the public interest. That is the basis of democratic accountability. But Dershowitz was talking about manipulating the election process itself. In response, Senator Angus King, Independent of Maine, asked if a President could extort an Israeli Prime Minister into charging the President’s opponent with anti-Semitism. In fact, by Dershowitz’s logic, a President could not only seek foreign assistance in a campaign; he could unleash any number of investigations into his political opponents, declare spurious emergencies to prevent their parties’ political gatherings, engage in surveillance, or take measures to limit access to polling stations—suppressing, rather than amplifying, voters’ voices.
Dershowitz was arguing that, as Schiff said on Thursday, if the President believes that a deal is in his political interest, “then it doesn’t matter how corrupt that quid pro quo is.” Schiff was not exaggerating when he called this argument “a descent into constitutional madness.” It may even prove more pernicious than the simple fact of Trump’s acquittal—which was preordained, given the Republican majority’s fealty to him—because the standard it sets for Presidential accountability is so degraded. It’s easy to imagine defense teams playing a video of Dershowitz’s presentation at a future impeachment trial, in an effort to exonerate another rogue President—perhaps one who has hung a portrait of Trump in the Oval Office. One thing that Republican senators might do, as they so flagrantly fail their country, is to clearly say that Dershowitz’s reasons for acquittal are not theirs.
The first article of impeachment charged Trump with abuse of power in his dealings with Ukraine, and even a few Republicans, such as Senator Lamar Alexander, conceded that the managers had proved that case. (Alexander added that, nonetheless, the President’s actions didn’t warrant impeachment.) The case for the second article, charging Trump with obstruction of Congress for denying it witnesses and documents, was more complicated. Here, the Trump team’s arguments were at least in the realm of constitutional reality, however hypocritically they were offered. The House managers couldn’t quite shake the opinion held by many that they should have fought the President’s defiance of their subpoenas in court, even if it took time. (Indeed, because Trump’s arguments are so extreme and untenable, the House Democrats had been on a winning path in the lower courts.)
At the same time, the managers hammered home the point that the senators had the power to expose the full story by calling witnesses—which they chose, in a vote on Friday, to toss aside. In doing so, they may have set a precedent that will further limit future Senates in constraining Presidents. The managers also made it abundantly clear that this President has played petty games with momentous matters of war and peace.
Unable to exonerate Trump, his lawyers resorted to making an appeal to blind triumphalism. Eric Herschmann, one of the members of Trump’s team most prone to go off on political tangents—he used up a lot of time attacking President Obama—reeled off a series of economic statistics and approval ratings and told the senators, “If all that is solely, solely, in their words, for his personal and political gain, and not in the best interest of the American people, then I say, God bless him. Keep doing it!” It was as if those figures added up to a paid-in-full purchase of impunity. Trump, for his part, will undoubtedly see an acquittal as further license for abuse.
Earlier in the week, Trump had held a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, expressly to thank the now Republican congressman Jeff Van Drew for having left the Democratic Party over what Trump called the “impeachment hoax.” He exhorted the crowd to reëlect Van Drew—“really a brave man, what he did was incredible”—and to throw out the Democratic “clowns.” Perhaps the Republican senators, as they trudged toward casting their vote, were making a calculation about how Trump might return the favor with one for them, or their party, or their country. Or maybe they, too, can no longer tell the difference. ♦


newyorker--2020-01-31--The Hollywood Story of Upton Sinclair and William Fox

Disney , having engulfed the movie division of Fox , is renaming its acquisition : 20th Century Fox will now be called 20th Century Studios .
It ’ s hard to blame Disney ’ s executives for disconnecting the studio ’ s productions from the Murdoch-run company that spun it off , though it ’ s unfortunate that the move involves eliminating the reference to William Fox , when it ’ s precisely as the founder of a great studio that he entered history .
( It would be especially appalling if Disney rewrote history and replaced the title cards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acquired . )
William Fox ’ s story is no less extraordinary than the roster of films that he produced .
His career was brief—he started as a movie-theatre owner in 1904 , began producing films around 1915 , and left the industry in 1930 .
In those fifteen years , he fostered the careers of several great directors , such as John Ford ( who made dozens of silent films under Fox ’ s aegis in the nineteen-teens and twenties , such as “ Just Pals , ” “ The Iron Horse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” as well as a batch of talking pictures in that medium ’ s early days ) and Frank Borzage ( such films as “ Lazy Bones ” and “ Seventh Heaven ” ) .
Fox launched the careers of Howard Hawks ( with such silent films as “ Fig Leaves ” and “ A Girl in Every Port ” ) and John Wayne ( in Raoul Walsh ’ s “ The Big Trail ” ) ; he produced the primordial New York gangster feature , Walsh ’ s “ The Regeneration , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revelatory German director F. W. Murnau to Hollywood for a series of films that includes “ Sunrise , ” which inevitably ranks high on critics ’ lists ( including my own ) of the best films ever made .
But , in 1930 , Fox was ousted from the company that bore his name ; a few years later , under new management , it was merged with Twentieth Century Pictures , and it has continued to make movies without him ever since .
He died in obscurity in 1952 .
Fox ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ illuminating detail in a well-researched biography by Vanda Krefft , “ The Man Who Made the Movies , ” from 2017 .
But there ’ s another book that tells his story—a book from 1933—that told it first , and that does so in an idiosyncratic , radically modern form .
It was written by one of the most famous and politically confrontational novelists of the time , Upton Sinclair—best known for “ The Jungle , ” a fictionalized exposé of the filthy and exploitative conditions of Chicago stockyards .
The book , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” is a three-hundred-and-seventy-seven-page tome based principally on thirty-six days of interviews that Sinclair did with Fox , recorded by two stenographers and yielding—as the author says in his prologue—seven hundred and fifty-eight pages of typescript .
( The book is readily available online . )
“ Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox ” is a sort of documentary film in book form—and its author knew it and built that idea into the text itself .
He subtitled the book “ A Feature Picture of Wall Street and High Finance in Twenty-nine Reels with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ table of contents calls the book ’ s chapters “ reels.
” ( The book evokes a form of documentary that , oddly , didn ’ t exist at the time , the interview-film : no studio , in the early years of talking pictures , made movies centered on journalistic interviews done on its soundstages . )
It ’ s a vividly peculiar book , one that ranges from the passionately engaging to the pathologically obsessive .
Parts of it I would defy anyone but a historian to read at all , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s to read with pleasure .
Sinclair , of course , was one of the original muckraking authors , and he proudly lays claim to that motive in his prologue : just as he had revealed the underbelly of the meatpacking business in “ The Jungle , ” he sought , with the help of Fox , to reveal the squalid corruption of American finance and politics as seen in the big-business takedown of the Fox corporation .
Sinclair was a Socialist ( who ’ d run for governor of California on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and he bares his motives throughout the book .
What ’ s more , he was so motivated to divulge the story that he did so on his own dime , self-publishing the book and vowing to funnel any profits into providing libraries with sets of his own works .
Fox sought out the novelist to tell his story ; Sinclair had no intention of fictionalizing it but decided to write a “ fact story , ” which would be based on Fox ’ s narration as well as accompanying documents—in effect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subject ’ s first-person , directly quoted speaking voice .
The irony of that premise is rooted in the cause of Fox ’ s problem , which Sinclair cites up front : the great shakeup in the movie industry that resulted from the transition from silent to talking pictures , and the major financial consequences of that technological advance .
The book ’ s twenty-nine “ reels ” run from Fox ’ s birth , in Hungary , in 1879 , through his childhood as a hustling Jewish kid growing up in tenements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where he arrived in infancy with his parents .
His entrepreneurial nature was revealed early on , when , at the age of ten , he hired a group of children to sell candy on commission in Central Park .
He dropped out of school at eleven and worked as a fabric cutter , had a short career as a comic actor , and opened his own fabric business .
( Sinclair savors the practical details and odd anecdotes emerging from these various professions . )
Around the turn of the twentieth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , featuring coin amusements—and , in 1903 , opened one of his own , in Brooklyn , and , soon thereafter , turned the upstairs rooms into a movie theatre .
He then opened more theatres , and , in 1915 , he began producing movies that he showed in his own chain of theatres .
By the nineteen-twenties , Fox had extended his theatre chain nationwide and distributed his films internationally , too .
Technology is at the story ’ s center : early in his career , he successfully challenged , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who were stifling movie exhibition and production by demanding enormous fees ; facing competition from radio , starting in 1921 , Fox “ began to watch the experiments being tried with talking pictures ” and invested heavily in developing the new format .
In 1928 , he anticipated the rise of television and responded by making theatres with huge , ninety-foot-wide screens ( in effect , IMAX ) and producing movies in the 70-mm .
format that were meant to be shown on that scale ( such as “ The Big Trail ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he had already sealed his fate .
First , the rise of talking pictures required a major investment , both in the retooling of studios for production and in the installation of new equipment for theatres .
Second , Fox sensed that the international market would be greatly diminished by talking pictures ( he didn ’ t foresee dubbing ) and , to compensate for the anticipated loss , he planned to buy out Loews , the movie-theatre company that also owned M-G-M .
He wanted to cut duplicate staff and facilities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
To do so , he needed to borrow fifty million dollars from an investment bank .
Meanwhile , Fox had to have his deal cleared by the federal government on antitrust grounds , which is how Herbert Hoover comes into the picture .
Fox was a Republican ( in national elections , but , he said , a Democrat locally in New York ) and had been crucial to engineering Hoover ’ s nomination in 1928 .
Irony of ironies , Fox says that he told a banker and Hoover supporter to @ @ @

William Fox with his wife and daughter. Photograph from Bettmann / Getty
Disney, having engulfed the movie division of Fox, is renaming its acquisition: 20th Century Fox will now be called 20th Century Studios. It’s hard to blame Disney’s executives for disconnecting the studio’s productions from the Murdoch-run company that spun it off, though it’s unfortunate that the move involves eliminating the reference to William Fox, when it’s precisely as the founder of a great studio that he entered history. (It would be especially appalling if Disney rewrote history and replaced the title cards on the older Fox movies that it acquired.)
William Fox’s story is no less extraordinary than the roster of films that he produced. His career was brief—he started as a movie-theatre owner in 1904, began producing films around 1915, and left the industry in 1930. In those fifteen years, he fostered the careers of several great directors, such as John Ford (who made dozens of silent films under Fox’s aegis in the nineteen-teens and twenties, such as “Just Pals,” “The Iron Horse,” and “Four Sons,” as well as a batch of talking pictures in that medium’s early days) and Frank Borzage (such films as “Lazy Bones” and “Seventh Heaven”). Fox launched the careers of Howard Hawks (with such silent films as “Fig Leaves” and “A Girl in Every Port”) and John Wayne (in Raoul Walsh’s “The Big Trail”); he produced the primordial New York gangster feature, Walsh’s “The Regeneration,” from 1915; he brought the revelatory German director F. W. Murnau to Hollywood for a series of films that includes “Sunrise,” which inevitably ranks high on critics’ lists (including my own) of the best films ever made. But, in 1930, Fox was ousted from the company that bore his name; a few years later, under new management, it was merged with Twentieth Century Pictures, and it has continued to make movies without him ever since. He died in obscurity in 1952.
Fox’s rise and fall is related in illuminating detail in a well-researched biography by Vanda Krefft, “The Man Who Made the Movies,” from 2017. But there’s another book that tells his story—a book from 1933—that told it first, and that does so in an idiosyncratic, radically modern form. It was written by one of the most famous and politically confrontational novelists of the time, Upton Sinclair—best known for “The Jungle,” a fictionalized exposé of the filthy and exploitative conditions of Chicago stockyards. The book, “Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox,” is a three-hundred-and-seventy-seven-page tome based principally on thirty-six days of interviews that Sinclair did with Fox, recorded by two stenographers and yielding—as the author says in his prologue—seven hundred and fifty-eight pages of typescript. (The book is readily available online.)
“Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox” is a sort of documentary film in book form—and its author knew it and built that idea into the text itself. He subtitled the book “A Feature Picture of Wall Street and High Finance in Twenty-nine Reels with Prologue and Epilogue,” and its table of contents calls the book’s chapters “reels.” (The book evokes a form of documentary that, oddly, didn’t exist at the time, the interview-film: no studio, in the early years of talking pictures, made movies centered on journalistic interviews done on its soundstages.) It’s a vividly peculiar book, one that ranges from the passionately engaging to the pathologically obsessive. Parts of it I would defy anyone but a historian to read at all, or anyone but a relative of Fox’s to read with pleasure.
Sinclair, of course, was one of the original muckraking authors, and he proudly lays claim to that motive in his prologue: just as he had revealed the underbelly of the meatpacking business in “The Jungle,” he sought, with the help of Fox, to reveal the squalid corruption of American finance and politics as seen in the big-business takedown of the Fox corporation. Sinclair was a Socialist (who’d run for governor of California on that ticket in 1926 and 1930), and he bares his motives throughout the book. What’s more, he was so motivated to divulge the story that he did so on his own dime, self-publishing the book and vowing to funnel any profits into providing libraries with sets of his own works.
Fox sought out the novelist to tell his story; Sinclair had no intention of fictionalizing it but decided to write a “fact story,” which would be based on Fox’s narration as well as accompanying documents—in effect, a literary documentary dominated by its subject’s first-person, directly quoted speaking voice. The irony of that premise is rooted in the cause of Fox’s problem, which Sinclair cites up front: the great shakeup in the movie industry that resulted from the transition from silent to talking pictures, and the major financial consequences of that technological advance.
The book’s twenty-nine “reels” run from Fox’s birth, in Hungary, in 1879, through his childhood as a hustling Jewish kid growing up in tenements on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where he arrived in infancy with his parents. His entrepreneurial nature was revealed early on, when, at the age of ten, he hired a group of children to sell candy on commission in Central Park. He dropped out of school at eleven and worked as a fabric cutter, had a short career as a comic actor, and opened his own fabric business. (Sinclair savors the practical details and odd anecdotes emerging from these various professions.) Around the turn of the twentieth century, he saw an Automat—an arcade, featuring coin amusements—and, in 1903, opened one of his own, in Brooklyn, and, soon thereafter, turned the upstairs rooms into a movie theatre. He then opened more theatres, and, in 1915, he began producing movies that he showed in his own chain of theatres. By the nineteen-twenties, Fox had extended his theatre chain nationwide and distributed his films internationally, too.
Technology is at the story’s center: early in his career, he successfully challenged, on antitrust grounds, film-equipment patent holders who were stifling movie exhibition and production by demanding enormous fees; facing competition from radio, starting in 1921, Fox “began to watch the experiments being tried with talking pictures” and invested heavily in developing the new format. In 1928, he anticipated the rise of television and responded by making theatres with huge, ninety-foot-wide screens (in effect, IMAX) and producing movies in the 70-mm. format that were meant to be shown on that scale (such as “The Big Trail”).
But, by that time, he had already sealed his fate. First, the rise of talking pictures required a major investment, both in the retooling of studios for production and in the installation of new equipment for theatres. Second, Fox sensed that the international market would be greatly diminished by talking pictures (he didn’t foresee dubbing) and, to compensate for the anticipated loss, he planned to buy out Loews, the movie-theatre company that also owned M-G-M. He wanted to cut duplicate staff and facilities, increasing his production and his profits. To do so, he needed to borrow fifty million dollars from an investment bank.