newyorker--2020-12-10--An Old Friend Remembers David Dinkins

An Old Friend Remembers David Dinkins

If there is a photo of the former New York City mayor David Dinkins campaigning , or walking up or down the City Hall steps , it is a good bet that Arnie Segarra is in the picture , usually close on Dinkins ’ s heels .
He is the tall , slim man with a mop of dark hair , a jutting chin , and handsome face that looks like it may have taken a few punches .
He might be holding an umbrella over the mayor ’ s gray curls , or a thick clutch of briefing papers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Special Assistant to the Mayor .
These days , he would likely be referred to as a body man , the guy who makes sure his boss has what he needs , and who clears a path to make sure that there are no surprises .
Dinkins and Segarra first met in 1967 , when Segarra was working in City Hall as a community liaison for Mayor John Lindsay .
A colleague suggested that he should get to know Dinkins , a Howard and Brooklyn Law School graduate who was serving in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who is Puerto Rican and who started out as a community activist in East Harlem , said that he recognized a kindred spirit in Dinkins .
“ He understood this city .
He told me he wanted to work for the city as a whole , to be a voice for the unheard , the hidden figures , ” Segarra , who is seventy-eight , recalled last week from his apartment in the West Village , where he is riding out the pandemic .
That was the start of fifty-three years of friendship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who served a single term as New York City ’ s mayor , from 1990 to 1993 , died at age ninety-three .
New York ’ s first Black mayor was few people ’ s notion of a militant .
He was dapper and soft-spoken , courteous to a fault , a man whose mornings began with a round of tennis and whose evenings often included a black-tie event .
A former marine , he had a habit of greeting almost every man he encountered as “ buddy.
” The reforms that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , longer hours for libraries , schools , health clinics , and recreation centers—enhanced the quality of life for all New Yorkers .
But hostility from those who resented the presence of a Black man in the city ’ s top office remained an occupational hazard .
“ The hate messages would pour into City Hall , ” Segarra said .
“ He was always under that pressure , but he dealt with it with civility and compassion.
” Dinkins served for almost a decade as city clerk , a largely ceremonial post @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improve the circumstances of those denied equality .
In the early nineteen-eighties , Segarra said that he was visiting his friend at his office , in the Municipal Building , when Dinkins took a call .
“ He gets off the phone and says , ‘ Come on , we ’ re going up to Mount Sinai hospital.
’ ” At the hospital , Dinkins led Segarra down a corridor to a room where nurses were huddled outside .
Segarra recalled , “ They start telling Dave , ‘ Don ’ t go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You could get sick—you could die.
’ ” Dinkins was undeterred .
The patient and his male partner , Segarra recalled , had summoned Dinkins to marry them .
This was one of Dinkins ’ s chief powers as city clerk , and a ritual that he relished .
He proceeded to perform the ceremony at the patient ’ s bedside .
“ It wasn ’ t legal then , of course , ” Segarra said .
“ But he wanted to do it for them.
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Dinkins ’ s road to City Hall began with his election , in 1985 , as Borough President of Manhattan .
Segarra was one of his first hires .
Another key aide was a veteran labor organizer named Bill Lynch , who helped nudge the cautious Dinkins to consider a run for City Hall .
Jesse Jackson ’ s strong local showing in the 1988 Democratic Presidential primary helped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dinkins was in the midst of his mayoral primary campaign when the city was stunned by a murder .
On August 23rd , 1989 , a crowd of bat-wielding whites beat and shot to death a sixteen-year-old Black boy named Yusuf Hawkins , in the largely white neighborhood of Bensonhurst , Brooklyn .
In the wake of the killing , Dinkins went to the neighborhood to meet with civic leaders .
Segarra recalled , “ We are walking down the street and these folks are following us and shouting , “ Go back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Dave said , ‘ Don ’ t worry , I got this.
’ ” When they arrived at the spot where Dinkins was to speak , he turned to address his pursuers .
“ The first words out of his mouth are , ‘ I am going to be your mayor , too.
’ There was just this silence then.
” Dinkins ’ s pledge to salve the city ’ s racial wounds helped him triumph in the primary over the three-term incumbent , Ed Koch , who had stumbled badly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial strife and whose third term was plagued by a major municipal-corruption scandal .
In the general election , Dinkins narrowly defeated the Republican , Rudy Giuliani , who had risen to fame as the hard-charging federal prosecutor who convicted top figures in the scandal .
But , even as mayor , Dinkins was often met with racial animosity in the city ’ s white neighborhoods .
He had served for slightly more than a year in City Hall when , in March , 1991 , he went to Staten Island , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Giuliani , to march in the local St. Patrick ’ s Day parade .
A few parade-watchers greeted him warmly and offered embraces .
But Segarra recalled that there were also jeers and racial taunts .
“ There is this guy standing there holding a baby and he is yelling ‘ Nigger , go home , ’ ” Segarra said .
“ Dave walks over to the man .
‘ Say it to my face , ’ he told him .
The guy just stood there .
And Dave says , ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your child ?
’ ” “ When he wanted to be , he was one tough Marine , ” Segarra said .
“ When he had a certain look on his face , you just stopped.
” The public rarely glimpsed that side of Dinkins during his years in City Hall .
He was better known for his stoic reserve and a reluctance to raise his voice .
In a city that celebrated Koch-style brazenness , his tolerance was often interpreted as timidity or weakness .
That was especially true in the wake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which occurred after a car in the motorcade of the Lubavitcher rebbe , the leader of the neighborhood ’ s large Orthodox Jewish population , struck two Black children and killed one of them .
As Dinkins later acknowledged , police were too slow to respond ; a rabbinical student was stabbed to death during the riots , an incident that would come to define his mayoralty .
The closest the mayor came to a public display of outrage was in September , 1992 , when thousands of mostly white city police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at City Hall , to protest Dinkins ’ s efforts to allow civilians to review complaints of police misconduct .
Off-duty cops stopped traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge , rushed past barricades to seize the steps of City Hall , tossed racial slurs at a Black councilwoman , and held signs condemning the mayor .
“ Dinkins , we know your true color—yellowbellied , ” one read .
“ Dump the Washroom attendant , ” read another .
Giuliani spoke from a platform with police-union leaders and cheered on the crowd .
Dinkins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , were “ bullshit.
” Dinkins was away from City Hall during the mini-riot , but , upon his return , he was livid .
“ He was shaken .
His reaction was that it was just racist , ” Segarra recalled .
Still , Dinkins reached for terms that tempered his feelings .
The police protest , he told the press , was “ bordering on hooliganism.
” Giuliani , he said , was “ seizing upon a fragile circumstance in our city for his own political gain.
” The following year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for City Hall , crime was his main theme .
Race , however , often seemed to be his subtext .
“ No one group can have all their agenda , ” he said repeatedly on the campaign stump , an unsubtle suggestion that Dinkins favored Black New Yorkers .
Giuliani claimed that the mayor had tilted against the police , and had failed to punish criminals .
In fact , crime had started to fall for the first time in years in the city , thanks to Dinkins ’ s efforts to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ streets and his hiring of a capable new police commissioner named Ray Kelly .
The results were again close , but this time Giuliani was ahead by fifty-three thousand votes .
When the election was called , Segarra was with Dinkins in a crowded room at the Sheraton New York Hotel , on Seventh Avenue .
Reports had come in during the day that off-duty police officers had been present at some polls , warning voters that they risked deportation for voting illegally .
Some of those in the room urged Dinkins to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dinkins shook his head and said , “ No , I don ’ t want a divided city.
” The defeated mayor then went downstairs and urged his supporters to help Giuliani to be “ as good a mayor as he can be.
” It was time to move forward , he told them .
“ We have made history , ” he said .
“ Nothing can ever take that away from us .
”

If there is a photo of the former New York City mayor David Dinkins campaigning, or walking up or down the City Hall steps, it is a good bet that Arnie Segarra is in the picture, usually close on Dinkins’s heels. He is the tall, slim man with a mop of dark hair, a jutting chin, and handsome face that looks like it may have taken a few punches. He might be holding an umbrella over the mayor’s gray curls, or a thick clutch of briefing papers. Segarra’s formal title was Special Assistant to the Mayor. These days, he would likely be referred to as a body man, the guy who makes sure his boss has what he needs, and who clears a path to make sure that there are no surprises.
Dinkins and Segarra first met in 1967, when Segarra was working in City Hall as a community liaison for Mayor John Lindsay. A colleague suggested that he should get to know Dinkins, a Howard and Brooklyn Law School graduate who was serving in the New York State Assembly. Segarra, who is Puerto Rican and who started out as a community activist in East Harlem, said that he recognized a kindred spirit in Dinkins. “He understood this city. He told me he wanted to work for the city as a whole, to be a voice for the unheard, the hidden figures,” Segarra, who is seventy-eight, recalled last week from his apartment in the West Village, where he is riding out the pandemic. That was the start of fifty-three years of friendship, which ended last month when Dinkins, who served a single term as New York City’s mayor, from 1990 to 1993, died at age ninety-three.
New York’s first Black mayor was few people’s notion of a militant. He was dapper and soft-spoken, courteous to a fault, a man whose mornings began with a round of tennis and whose evenings often included a black-tie event. A former marine, he had a habit of greeting almost every man he encountered as “buddy.” The reforms that Dinkins put in place—housing for the homeless, longer hours for libraries, schools, health clinics, and recreation centers—enhanced the quality of life for all New Yorkers. But hostility from those who resented the presence of a Black man in the city’s top office remained an occupational hazard. “The hate messages would pour into City Hall,” Segarra said. “He was always under that pressure, but he dealt with it with civility and compassion.”
Dinkins served for almost a decade as city clerk, a largely ceremonial post but one that still provided opportunities to improve the circumstances of those denied equality. In the early nineteen-eighties, Segarra said that he was visiting his friend at his office, in the Municipal Building, when Dinkins took a call. “He gets off the phone and says, ‘Come on, we’re going up to Mount Sinai hospital.’ ” At the hospital, Dinkins led Segarra down a corridor to a room where nurses were huddled outside. Segarra recalled, “They start telling Dave, ‘Don’t go in there, this patient has AIDS. You could get sick—you could die.’ ” Dinkins was undeterred. The patient and his male partner, Segarra recalled, had summoned Dinkins to marry them. This was one of Dinkins’s chief powers as city clerk, and a ritual that he relished. He proceeded to perform the ceremony at the patient’s bedside. “It wasn’t legal then, of course,” Segarra said. “But he wanted to do it for them.”
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Arnie Segarra said, of his former boss, “He understood this city.” Dinkins died, in November, at age ninety-three. Photograph by Steve Mack / Alamy
Dinkins’s road to City Hall began with his election, in 1985, as Borough President of Manhattan. Segarra was one of his first hires. Another key aide was a veteran labor organizer named Bill Lynch, who helped nudge the cautious Dinkins to consider a run for City Hall. Jesse Jackson’s strong local showing in the 1988 Democratic Presidential primary helped him decide to take the plunge.
Dinkins was in the midst of his mayoral primary campaign when the city was stunned by a murder. On August 23rd, 1989, a crowd of bat-wielding whites beat and shot to death a sixteen-year-old Black boy named Yusuf Hawkins, in the largely white neighborhood of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. In the wake of the killing, Dinkins went to the neighborhood to meet with civic leaders. Segarra recalled, “We are walking down the street and these folks are following us and shouting, “Go back to Africa.’ ” Segarra grew nervous. “Dave said, ‘Don’t worry, I got this.’ ” When they arrived at the spot where Dinkins was to speak, he turned to address his pursuers. “The first words out of his mouth are, ‘I am going to be your mayor, too.’ There was just this silence then.”
Dinkins’s pledge to salve the city’s racial wounds helped him triumph in the primary over the three-term incumbent, Ed Koch, who had stumbled badly in responding to the city’s racial strife and whose third term was plagued by a major municipal-corruption scandal. In the general election, Dinkins narrowly defeated the Republican, Rudy Giuliani, who had risen to fame as the hard-charging federal prosecutor who convicted top figures in the scandal.
But, even as mayor, Dinkins was often met with racial animosity in the city’s white neighborhoods. He had served for slightly more than a year in City Hall when, in March, 1991, he went to Staten Island, a largely white borough that had voted overwhelmingly for Giuliani, to march in the local St. Patrick’s Day parade. A few parade-watchers greeted him warmly and offered embraces. But Segarra recalled that there were also jeers and racial taunts. “There is this guy standing there holding a baby and he is yelling ‘Nigger, go home,’ ” Segarra said. “Dave walks over to the man. ‘Say it to my face,’ he told him. The guy just stood there. And Dave says, ‘How can you say that while holding your child?’ ”
“When he wanted to be, he was one tough Marine,” Segarra said. “When he had a certain look on his face, you just stopped.”
The public rarely glimpsed that side of Dinkins during his years in City Hall. He was better known for his stoic reserve and a reluctance to raise his voice. In a city that celebrated Koch-style brazenness, his tolerance was often interpreted as timidity or weakness. That was especially true in the wake of the Crown Heights riots of 1991, which occurred after a car in the motorcade of the Lubavitcher rebbe, the leader of the neighborhood’s large Orthodox Jewish population, struck two Black children and killed one of them. As Dinkins later acknowledged, police were too slow to respond; a rabbinical student was stabbed to death during the riots, an incident that would come to define his mayoralty.
The closest the mayor came to a public display of outrage was in September, 1992, when thousands of mostly white city police officers held a raucous and beer-fuelled rally at City Hall, to protest Dinkins’s efforts to allow civilians to review complaints of police misconduct. Off-duty cops stopped traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, rushed past barricades to seize the steps of City Hall, tossed racial slurs at a Black councilwoman, and held signs condemning the mayor. “Dinkins, we know your true color—yellowbellied,” one read. “Dump the Washroom attendant,” read another. Giuliani spoke from a platform with police-union leaders and cheered on the crowd. Dinkins’s police-reform efforts, he shouted, were “bullshit.”


newyorker--2020-12-11--Twelve Surprising Ways to Use Cauliflower

Not the way you ’ re thinking .
Cauliflower crusts are gross .
Instead , cut six cups of cauliflower florets , steam them in the microwave , and use the resulting mulch to barter with your neighbors for cash .
When you ’ ve managed to accumulate twenty dollars , order a pizza for delivery .
The housing market is very volatile .
Rather than falling victim to a rental scam , consider compressing several tons of cauliflower heads into bricks .
Stack the bricks on top of one another , using thin layers of “ grout ” ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cauliflower ) to hold everything together .
When you ’ ve got four walls and a roof , move right in !
Times are tough .
Why not top your cauliflower with a jaunty beret ?
Pour a small glass of wine for your cruciferous pal—a thimble should work , scale-wise—and really dig into the nuances of what you ’ ve been going through .
4 .
Toss it in the trash .
Just for two seconds , to teach it a lesson .
Then simply remove , rinse off any coffee grounds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ written .
Bear with us—this one ’ s a weekend project .
You know those people who take the appearance of Jesus ’ face on a slice of toast as a call to evangelize ?
Do that , but with your cauliflower .
Using a paring knife , slice the silhouette of your face into the cauliflower ’ s flat bottom side .
When you ’ re passing it around to convince others of your divine right to lead , pretend it appeared there naturally .
The rest should take care of itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out the most delicious part of the cauliflower .
Hang on to that bag !
Melt that sucker down in a saucepan and enjoy a nice soup .
7 .
Apologize for what you did to its parents .
Suck it up and say you ’ re sorry .
8 .
Smoosh it up into a hundred-per-cent biodegradable rug .
You live in a house made from cauliflower bricks , so it ’ s a perfect match .
Grab your favorite artisanal hot sauce , flour , paprika , and a couple heads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ car .
Drive due north until you see the exit sign for BUFFALO , NEW YORK .
Don ’ t take it .
Instead , keep driving until you hit the Canadian border .
Keep on driving !
You ’ re looking for a graveyard .
You ’ ll know it when you see it .
Pull over .
In a large metal bowl , dredge your cauliflower in batter , then fry it in a portable vat of hot oil .
Use your heel to grind exactly one piece of Buffalo cauliflower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , inventor of the Buffalo wing , to show him once and for all that his treat can be vegan , too !
Replace your own brain with a head of cauliflower and get to know what life is like from its perspective .
Attempt to chop it up in a contained and tidy manner on a recently cleaned countertop .
12 .
Ask it on a date .
You ’ ve been through so much together .
Why not build on this shared history and take things a step further ?
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out there , but a faint heart never won a fair vegetable .
And , if all goes well , you ’ ll have lots of fun stories to tell your grandkids .

1. Make a pizza.
Not the way you’re thinking. Cauliflower crusts are gross. Instead, cut six cups of cauliflower florets, steam them in the microwave, and use the resulting mulch to barter with your neighbors for cash. When you’ve managed to accumulate twenty dollars, order a pizza for delivery.
2. Build a house.
The housing market is very volatile. Rather than falling victim to a rental scam, consider compressing several tons of cauliflower heads into bricks. Stack the bricks on top of one another, using thin layers of “grout” (that’s what we call liquefied cauliflower) to hold everything together. When you’ve got four walls and a roof, move right in!
3. Embrace companionship.
Times are tough. Why not top your cauliflower with a jaunty beret? Pour a small glass of wine for your cruciferous pal—a thimble should work, scale-wise—and really dig into the nuances of what you’ve been going through.
4. Toss it in the trash.
Just for two seconds, to teach it a lesson. Then simply remove, rinse off any coffee grounds, and proceed with your recipe as written.
5. Start a sex cult.
Bear with us—this one’s a weekend project. You know those people who take the appearance of Jesus’ face on a slice of toast as a call to evangelize? Do that, but with your cauliflower. Using a paring knife, slice the silhouette of your face into the cauliflower’s flat bottom side. When you’re passing it around to convince others of your divine right to lead, pretend it appeared there naturally. The rest should take care of itself.
6. Take a zero-waste approach.
Little-known fact: people often throw out the most delicious part of the cauliflower. Hang on to that bag! Melt that sucker down in a saucepan and enjoy a nice soup.
7. Apologize for what you did to its parents.
Suck it up and say you’re sorry.
8. Smoosh it up into a hundred-per-cent biodegradable rug.
You live in a house made from cauliflower bricks, so it’s a perfect match.
9. Make Buffalo cauliflower.
Grab your favorite artisanal hot sauce, flour, paprika, and a couple heads of cauliflower, and get into your car. Drive due north until you see the exit sign for BUFFALO, NEW YORK. Don’t take it. Instead, keep driving until you hit the Canadian border. Keep on driving! You’re looking for a graveyard. You’ll know it when you see it. Pull over. In a large metal bowl, dredge your cauliflower in batter, then fry it in a portable vat of hot oil. Use your heel to grind exactly one piece of Buffalo cauliflower into the grave site of Buff Buffalo, inventor of the Buffalo wing, to show him once and for all that his treat can be vegan, too!
10. Get a caulibotomy.
Replace your own brain with a head of cauliflower and get to know what life is like from its perspective.
11. Redecorate your kitchen.
Attempt to chop it up in a contained and tidy manner on a recently cleaned countertop.
12. Ask it on a date.
You’ve been through so much together. Why not build on this shared history and take things a step further? It’s always scary to put yourself out there, but a faint heart never won a fair vegetable. And, if all goes well, you’ll have lots of fun stories to tell your grandkids.


newyorker--2020-12-11--Cartoon Saloon and the New Golden Age of Animation

The animator Tomm Moore first learned of these myths as a teen-ager in Kilkenny , in the early nineties .
He belonged to a program called Young Irish Film Makers , and one day he overheard two of the group ’ s adult facilitators recounting the old tales .
Moore had joined the club because he wanted to make animated movies ; as a child , he had squirrelled away acetate sheets that his father , an engineer , brought home from work , and used them to paint cels with superheroes of his own devising .
His partner in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stewart , who also shared Moore ’ s passion for animal rights—a somewhat eccentric preoccupation , back then , for two Irish boys .
Moore had felt strongly about the matter ever since his uncle , a farmer , asked him to pick out a chicken he liked , and he realized , belatedly , that he had selected not a pet but that evening ’ s dinner .
Thirty years later , Moore and Stewart are the co-directors of “ Wolfwalkers , ” the fourth feature from Cartoon Saloon , an independent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his home town , in 1999 .
Kilkenny is technically a city—I was born and raised there , and I am more or less obliged to fight you if you refer to it as a town .
But it was given that status by King James I , four centuries ago ; it ’ s home to fewer than thirty thousand people .
Cartoon Saloon used to screen works in progress in a theatre at the high school Moore went to , and he would sometimes walk behind the stage and see where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wall when he was fifteen .
That theatre is also where he met his wife , Liselott Olofsson , a schoolteacher and a ceramic artist .
Now forty-three , Moore is a soft-spoken man whose serious and thoughtful manner is periodically disrupted by a gentle laugh .
“ I grew up thinking it would be terribly tragic if I stayed in Kilkenny my whole life , ” he told me this past spring , over Zoom .
That success rather than stasis has kept him there is not an irony he tends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it lost on him .
Cartoon Saloon produces movies using essentially the same techniques that he practiced on his father ’ s acetate sheets as a child .
This approach sets it apart in the animation world , which has gone almost entirely digital .
But Moore believes that computer graphics are subject to a built-in obsolescence .
“ Computer animation is moving so fast that ‘ Toy Story ’ looks really ropy now , ” he said .
“ Whereas there are hand-drawn films from the nineteen-forties that still stand up .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And that ’ s because its language is the language of painting and illustration , rather than the language of the latest technology.
” The hero of “ Wolfwalkers ” is a young girl named Robyn Goodfellowe , whose father , a wolf hunter , has brought her from England to Kilkenny at the height of Cromwell ’ s campaign .
One night , she sneaks into the forest , where she meets a wild girl named Mebh .
Mebh is a wolfwalker—a shape-shifter , like the lycanthropes of local legend .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with artful sketchiness or geometric rigidity , according to the figures ’ proximity to nature or to political power .
There ’ s a woodcut look to the Kilkenny backgrounds , which have a flatness typical of Moore ’ s style , while the forest is full of circles and swoops ; when the wolfwalkers roam , their visions have a dreamy fluidity , as of a world delineated by scent more than by sight .
“ Wolfwalkers ” is the culmination of a loose trilogy of films rooted in Irish history and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s first feature , “ The Secret of Kells.
” After the movie had its virtual première , at the Toronto Film Festival , in September , Variety proclaimed it “ another stunning artwork for the ages.
” Thanks to my children , who are seven and two , I have invested , at a conservative estimate , several hundred hours watching the latest animated films from the big studios .
Computer animation predominates , as does an algorithmic adherence to story mechanics that betrays an unwillingness to risk , even momentarily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s attention .
Although these movies are expensive to produce , they have become one of Hollywood ’ s most profitable genres : the animation industry is now valued at more than two hundred and fifty billion dollars .
But this growth—and , especially , the advent of the big streaming services , with bags of cash and a nearly bottomless need for new things to stream—has also created space for more idiosyncratic operations .
“ Wolfwalkers , ” which began its coronavirus-curtailed theatrical run in November , has recently arrived on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mark the end of one phase for the studio , and perhaps the beginning of another .
It offers an alternative vision of what popular art for children might be .
There was a time , around the middle of the last century , when Disney was the only studio in the English-speaking world that regularly produced feature-length animated films .
After Walt Disney died , in 1966 , the studio ’ s animation division entered a period of decline ; in the late seventies , one of its animators , a Mormon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to start his own firm , eventually called Sullivan Bluth Studios .
Bluth wanted to spark a renaissance in hand-drawn animation .
In the mid-eighties , while working on the movie “ An American Tail , ” about a mouse who leaves a Russian shtetl for New York City , he began to move his studio to Dublin , lured by fiscal enticements from the Irish government .
That film was a hit , and so was his next , “ The Land Before Time , ” from 1988 , about the trials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Moore and Stewart wrangled an invitation to Bluth ’ s studio , thanks to a friend whose aunt worked there .
“ We imagined it being Willy Wonka ’ s factory , ” Moore said .
“ But it seemed that Don Bluth was the only one there with a creative job , and that for everyone else it was this really industrial process.
” Bluth needed a steady stream of talent for his Dublin offices , and so he helped set up an animation course at Ballyfermot Senior College , at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working-class suburb of the city .
Moore enrolled in 1995 .
He was seventeen , and Olofsson , who was still in school , had just become pregnant with their son , Ben .
At Ballyfermot , Moore met Paul Young and Nora Twomey , who became co-founders of Cartoon Saloon .
( Two other founders , Aiden Harte and Ross Murray , childhood friends of Moore ’ s , have since left the studio . )
Young , an irrepressible extrovert from the west of Ireland , had studied fine art in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , scraping together a living as an illustrator and a street caricaturist .
Twomey was quieter , and slightly older .
She had dropped out of school at fifteen , after her father died , and taken a job at a frozen-food processing plant , watching diced carrots and peas scroll past like a looping background in an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon , inventing stories to pass the time .
When the trio met , Sullivan Bluth was winding up its business after a string of box-office disappointments .
The renaissance Bluth envisaged had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the new competition , made a series of hits , including “ Beauty and the Beast , ” “ Aladdin , ” and “ The Lion King.
” Disney also began working with the computer-animation firm Pixar .
The two companies jointly released “ Toy Story , ” the world ’ s first fully computer-animated feature film , in the fall of Moore ’ s freshman year .
“ Nearly everyone in my class ended up going into computer animation , ” Moore told me .
“ I wanted to be a classical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Disney movies.
” He and his friends soon found other inspirations , too .
Hayao Miyazaki ’ s Studio Ghibli , in Tokyo , had begun to achieve global renown , with its classically animated masterworks that drew on Shinto-inflected ideas about the oneness of nature .
Another hero was the Canadian maverick Richard Williams , who labored for thirty years on a lavish fantasia called “ The Thief and the Cobbler , ” about a thirteenth-century Arab folk hero .
The movie employed radically flattened perspectives inspired by Persian miniature paintings .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warner Bros. , which had agreed to finance the film , took it away from Williams in 1992 , the same year that “ Aladdin ” —which borrowed liberally from Williams ’ s unfinished picture—had its première .
Moore got hold of a rough cut , on VHS , and was awestruck .
He and Harte had been trying since their teens to craft a story around the Book of Kells , an illuminated manuscript of the Gospels from the eighth or ninth century , which is considered one of the great works @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Disney released “ Mulan , ” based on a Chinese legend , and Moore decided that they had better make their Irish feature before Disney beat them to it .
He moved back to Kilkenny with Olofsson after graduation .
The director of Young Irish Film Makers offered him space in the group ’ s offices , and helped him secure a government grant , allowing him to bring more than a dozen other Ballyfermot graduates with him .
“ We made it part of a personal manifesto that we were going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me .
The studio ’ s first productions were short films directed by Twomey , one based on an Inuit myth , and one , in Irish , about a boy whose head is on backward .
Its long-term project was what became “ The Secret of Kells.
” At the time , I was at college in Dublin , but I often returned to Kilkenny on weekends .
My friends and I drank in a modestly artsy pub that the animators also frequented ; I heard that they were working on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moore ’ s name was often invoked , and I imagined him as an aloof , quixotic figure who ’ d somehow dragooned these talented young people into a mad scheme—a feature-length cartoon about , of all things , medieval monks making an illuminated manuscript .
When I mentioned this recently to Moore , he explained that he hadn ’ t been reclusive ; he ’ d just been raising a small child .
Also , he said , although starting an animation studio in Kilkenny may have seemed like a wild undertaking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe move , ” too : “ Even though the things I was doing seemed really ambitious , I was also just continuing things I had done as a teen-ager.
” “ The Secret of Kells , ” which came out in 2009 , was co-directed by Moore and Twomey .
Stewart served as the art director .
( Harte left the project to focus on “ Skunk Fu !
, ” a TV show about a kung-fu-fighting skunk , which ran for one season in 2007 . )
The film centers on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives in the abbey at Kells and yearns for a life of creativity and freedom .
Brendan spends his days at a scriptorium , learning from a master illuminator , Brother Aidan , and gathering materials for ink in a nearby forest .
Brendan ’ s uncle Cellach is the abbot ; his tall , rigid form evokes a monastic tower .
Cellach has become monomaniacal about protecting the monastery from Vikings by building a vast wall around its perimeter .
He and Brother Aidan—long-haired , with sharp , witty features—are proxies for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uncertainty and darkness : the abbot wants to preserve civilization with a wall , while the illuminator is determined to enact it with pen and ink .
“ It is very self-reflexive , ” Moore confessed .
The forest surrounding the monastery is rendered as a kind of sprawling art work—whorled mists , curlicued branches , spiralling wasps—which echoes the nested and interlocking volutions of the Book of Kells .

In the seventeenth century, after wolves were hunted to extinction in most of the British Isles, Ireland was sometimes referred to as Wolf-Land. The implication, perhaps, was that it needed to be tamed. In 1649, Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army invaded Ireland on behalf of the Commonwealth of England, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Irish people. The Army also appointed professional hunters to cull the country’s wolves. Cromwell’s men captured the walled city of Kilkenny, which was surrounded by forests full of wolves and was home to as many superstitions about them. One myth held that certain natives of the region could transform into wolves, roaming the land while their ordinary bodies lay in a kind of trance. If they were injured in the course of this lupine marauding, the wounds would appear on their human flesh. The meat of their animal prey could be found in their teeth.
The animator Tomm Moore first learned of these myths as a teen-ager in Kilkenny, in the early nineties. He belonged to a program called Young Irish Film Makers, and one day he overheard two of the group’s adult facilitators recounting the old tales. Moore had joined the club because he wanted to make animated movies; as a child, he had squirrelled away acetate sheets that his father, an engineer, brought home from work, and used them to paint cels with superheroes of his own devising. His partner in this enthusiasm was a schoolmate named Ross Stewart, who also shared Moore’s passion for animal rights—a somewhat eccentric preoccupation, back then, for two Irish boys. Moore had felt strongly about the matter ever since his uncle, a farmer, asked him to pick out a chicken he liked, and he realized, belatedly, that he had selected not a pet but that evening’s dinner.
Thirty years later, Moore and Stewart are the co-directors of “Wolfwalkers,” the fourth feature from Cartoon Saloon, an independent animation studio that Moore co-founded, in his home town, in 1999. Kilkenny is technically a city—I was born and raised there, and I am more or less obliged to fight you if you refer to it as a town. But it was given that status by King James I, four centuries ago; it’s home to fewer than thirty thousand people. Cartoon Saloon used to screen works in progress in a theatre at the high school Moore went to, and he would sometimes walk behind the stage and see where he’d written his name on the wall when he was fifteen. That theatre is also where he met his wife, Liselott Olofsson, a schoolteacher and a ceramic artist.
Now forty-three, Moore is a soft-spoken man whose serious and thoughtful manner is periodically disrupted by a gentle laugh. “I grew up thinking it would be terribly tragic if I stayed in Kilkenny my whole life,” he told me this past spring, over Zoom. That success rather than stasis has kept him there is not an irony he tends to dwell on, but neither is it lost on him. Cartoon Saloon produces movies using essentially the same techniques that he practiced on his father’s acetate sheets as a child. This approach sets it apart in the animation world, which has gone almost entirely digital. But Moore believes that computer graphics are subject to a built-in obsolescence. “Computer animation is moving so fast that ‘Toy Story’ looks really ropy now,” he said. “Whereas there are hand-drawn films from the nineteen-forties that still stand up. ‘Bambi’ still looks really timeless. And that’s because its language is the language of painting and illustration, rather than the language of the latest technology.”
“We made it part of a personal manifesto that we were going to reinvent hand drawing,” the Cartoon Saloon co-founder Tomm Moore said. Still courtesy Cartoon Saloon and Abrams Books
The hero of “Wolfwalkers” is a young girl named Robyn Goodfellowe, whose father, a wolf hunter, has brought her from England to Kilkenny at the height of Cromwell’s campaign. One night, she sneaks into the forest, where she meets a wild girl named Mebh. Mebh is a wolfwalker—a shape-shifter, like the lycanthropes of local legend. The character designs are expressionistic, rendered with artful sketchiness or geometric rigidity, according to the figures’ proximity to nature or to political power. There’s a woodcut look to the Kilkenny backgrounds, which have a flatness typical of Moore’s style, while the forest is full of circles and swoops; when the wolfwalkers roam, their visions have a dreamy fluidity, as of a world delineated by scent more than by sight. “Wolfwalkers” is the culmination of a loose trilogy of films rooted in Irish history and folklore, which began with the studio’s first feature, “The Secret of Kells.” After the movie had its virtual première, at the Toronto Film Festival, in September, Variety proclaimed it “another stunning artwork for the ages.”
Thanks to my children, who are seven and two, I have invested, at a conservative estimate, several hundred hours watching the latest animated films from the big studios. Computer animation predominates, as does an algorithmic adherence to story mechanics that betrays an unwillingness to risk, even momentarily, the dilation of a young viewer’s attention. Although these movies are expensive to produce, they have become one of Hollywood’s most profitable genres: the animation industry is now valued at more than two hundred and fifty billion dollars. But this growth—and, especially, the advent of the big streaming services, with bags of cash and a nearly bottomless need for new things to stream—has also created space for more idiosyncratic operations. “Wolfwalkers,” which began its coronavirus-curtailed theatrical run in November, has recently arrived on Apple TV+. The film appears to mark the end of one phase for the studio, and perhaps the beginning of another. It offers an alternative vision of what popular art for children might be.
There was a time, around the middle of the last century, when Disney was the only studio in the English-speaking world that regularly produced feature-length animated films. After Walt Disney died, in 1966, the studio’s animation division entered a period of decline; in the late seventies, one of its animators, a Mormon from Texas named Don Bluth, left to start his own firm, eventually called Sullivan Bluth Studios. Bluth wanted to spark a renaissance in hand-drawn animation. In the mid-eighties, while working on the movie “An American Tail,” about a mouse who leaves a Russian shtetl for New York City, he began to move his studio to Dublin, lured by fiscal enticements from the Irish government. That film was a hit, and so was his next, “The Land Before Time,” from 1988, about the trials of a young apatosaurus. As teen-agers, Moore and Stewart wrangled an invitation to Bluth’s studio, thanks to a friend whose aunt worked there. “We imagined it being Willy Wonka’s factory,” Moore said. “But it seemed that Don Bluth was the only one there with a creative job, and that for everyone else it was this really industrial process.”
Bluth needed a steady stream of talent for his Dublin offices, and so he helped set up an animation course at Ballyfermot Senior College, at that time a vocational school in a working-class suburb of the city. Moore enrolled in 1995. He was seventeen, and Olofsson, who was still in school, had just become pregnant with their son, Ben. At Ballyfermot, Moore met Paul Young and Nora Twomey, who became co-founders of Cartoon Saloon. (Two other founders, Aiden Harte and Ross Murray, childhood friends of Moore’s, have since left the studio.) Young, an irrepressible extrovert from the west of Ireland, had studied fine art in Belfast, then travelled for a bit, scraping together a living as an illustrator and a street caricaturist. Twomey was quieter, and slightly older. She had dropped out of school at fifteen, after her father died, and taken a job at a frozen-food processing plant, watching diced carrots and peas scroll past like a looping background in an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon, inventing stories to pass the time.
When the trio met, Sullivan Bluth was winding up its business after a string of box-office disappointments. The renaissance Bluth envisaged had occurred—at Disney, which, spurred by the new competition, made a series of hits, including “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “The Lion King.” Disney also began working with the computer-animation firm Pixar. The two companies jointly released “Toy Story,” the world’s first fully computer-animated feature film, in the fall of Moore’s freshman year.
“Nearly everyone in my class ended up going into computer animation,” Moore told me. “I wanted to be a classical animator in the way of the old Disney movies.” He and his friends soon found other inspirations, too. Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli, in Tokyo, had begun to achieve global renown, with its classically animated masterworks that drew on Shinto-inflected ideas about the oneness of nature. Another hero was the Canadian maverick Richard Williams, who labored for thirty years on a lavish fantasia called “The Thief and the Cobbler,” about a thirteenth-century Arab folk hero. The movie employed radically flattened perspectives inspired by Persian miniature paintings. It never got a proper release: Warner Bros., which had agreed to finance the film, took it away from Williams in 1992, the same year that “Aladdin”—which borrowed liberally from Williams’s unfinished picture—had its première. Moore got hold of a rough cut, on VHS, and was awestruck. He and Harte had been trying since their teens to craft a story around the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the Gospels from the eighth or ninth century, which is considered one of the great works of Celtic art. In 1998, Disney released “Mulan,” based on a Chinese legend, and Moore decided that they had better make their Irish feature before Disney beat them to it.
He moved back to Kilkenny with Olofsson after graduation. The director of Young Irish Film Makers offered him space in the group’s offices, and helped him secure a government grant, allowing him to bring more than a dozen other Ballyfermot graduates with him. “We made it part of a personal manifesto that we were going to reinvent hand drawing,” Moore told me. The studio’s first productions were short films directed by Twomey, one based on an Inuit myth, and one, in Irish, about a boy whose head is on backward. Its long-term project was what became “The Secret of Kells.”
At the time, I was at college in Dublin, but I often returned to Kilkenny on weekends. My friends and I drank in a modestly artsy pub that the animators also frequented; I heard that they were working on a movie about the Book of Kells. Moore’s name was often invoked, and I imagined him as an aloof, quixotic figure who’d somehow dragooned these talented young people into a mad scheme—a feature-length cartoon about, of all things, medieval monks making an illuminated manuscript. When I mentioned this recently to Moore, he explained that he hadn’t been reclusive; he’d just been raising a small child. Also, he said, although starting an animation studio in Kilkenny may have seemed like a wild undertaking, it was “kind of a safe move,” too: “Even though the things I was doing seemed really ambitious, I was also just continuing things I had done as a teen-ager.”
Cartoon Saloon’s first feature, “The Secret of Kells,” is an adventure story that also stages an argument about art in times of uncertainty and darkness. Stills courtesy Cartoon Saloon
“The Secret of Kells,” which came out in 2009, was co-directed by Moore and Twomey. Stewart served as the art director. (Harte left the project to focus on “Skunk Fu!,” a TV show about a kung-fu-fighting skunk, which ran for one season in 2007.) The film centers on a red-headed boy named Brendan, who lives in the abbey at Kells and yearns for a life of creativity and freedom. Brendan spends his days at a scriptorium, learning from a master illuminator, Brother Aidan, and gathering materials for ink in a nearby forest. Brendan’s uncle Cellach is the abbot; his tall, rigid form evokes a monastic tower. Cellach has become monomaniacal about protecting the monastery from Vikings by building a vast wall around its perimeter. He and Brother Aidan—long-haired, with sharp, witty features—are proxies for an argument about art in times of uncertainty and darkness: the abbot wants to preserve civilization with a wall, while the illuminator is determined to enact it with pen and ink. “It is very self-reflexive,” Moore confessed. The forest surrounding the monastery is rendered as a kind of sprawling art work—whorled mists, curlicued branches, spiralling wasps—which echoes the nested and interlocking volutions of the Book of Kells.


newyorker--2020-12-11--The High-Wattage Holiday Lights of Dyker Heights

The tree at Rockefeller Center may have its own prime-time special , but for seasonal spectacle it ’ s hard @ @ @ @ @ of Dyker Heights ( pictured ) .
Since the mid-nineteen-eighties , the residents of this @ @ @ @ @ their homes into high-wattage displays between Thanksgiving and the New Year .
( The event @ @ @ @ @ Christmas in New York City that it ’ s the theme of a holiday window @ @ @ @ @ year . )
Optimal viewing is between dusk and 9 P.M .

The tree at Rockefeller Center may have its own prime-time special, but for seasonal spectacle it’s hard to compete with the lights of Dyker Heights (pictured). Since the mid-nineteen-eighties, the residents of this Brooklyn neighborhood have been turning their homes into high-wattage displays between Thanksgiving and the New Year. (The event has become so synonymous with Christmas in New York City that it’s the theme of a holiday window at Saks Fifth Avenue this year.) Optimal viewing is between dusk and 9 P.M.


newyorker--2020-12-11--Obsession-Worthy Tacos at Yellow Rose

Obsession-Worthy Tacos at Yellow Rose

“ Texas is a state of mind .
Texas is an obsession , ” John Steinbeck wrote in “ Travels with Charley : In Search of America , ” his 1962 book .
Then he doubled down : “ But I think it is more than that .
It is a mystique closely approximating a religion.
” Consider me , at least , a worshipper at the altar of Yellow Rose , a Texas-themed pop-up turned restaurant in the East Village .
Obsession , indeed , is what led me to commit , the other day , to an entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made Sonoran-style flour tortillas , each folded around one of four fillings and wrapped tightly in foil , containers of a tomatillo-and-poblano salsa verde tucked beside them .
I recommend all of the fillings , without reservation : impossibly plump shreds of chicken cooked in salsa verde ; a saucy carne guisada ( a.k.a .
beef stew ) , featuring pink-fleshed , melt-in-your-mouth morsels of chuck ; cubes of fried potato dyed neon with a purée of tomato , onion , and pepper .
But my runaway favorite is arguably the least exciting-sounding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cult bean purveyor Rancho Gordo ) topped with coarsely shredded Cheddar cheese , impeccably seasoned and cooked to the ideal consistency to let the texture of the tortillas sing .
Do I even want to know what ’ s in the tortillas ?
They left me so gobsmacked—thick , chewy , a little stretchy , salty , charred , ever so slightly powdery to the touch—that I think I ’ d rather not ; to peek behind the curtain is to risk dissolving the allure .
The shelves of dry goods in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hint .
( Yellow Rose , which opened in November where the restaurant Feast was , in partnership with Feast ’ s owners , is counter service only for now , with outdoor seating ; behind the swinging saloon-style doors , you ’ ll catch a glimpse of what will one day be the bar and dining room . )
Among jars of mesquite honey and bags of Bandera Rosa coffee beans , roasted in San Antonio—and next to a fully functioning , and free , vintage Pac-Man arcade machine—are sacks of stone-ground @ @ @ @ @ @ @ near Austin .
I ’ ve observed the finicky standards to which Texan transplants to New York tend to hold local restaurants claiming to represent their state .
It ’ s hard to imagine better ambassadors than Yellow Rose ’ s proprietors , Dave and Krystiana Rizo , a married couple who moved to the city from San Antonio four years ago—but they ’ re far from staunch traditionalists .
For their “ Texas sheet cake , ” a gloriously moist chocolate sponge is layered with a thick , tangy crème-fraîche chocolate frosting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pawnee pecans , flaky sea salt , and Frankies olive oil .
If anyone , native Texan or not , takes issue with it , I ’ ll gladly finish his portion .
The same goes for the brilliantly conceived masa snickerdoodles , zingy with lime zest , and for the queso , which happens to be vegan , made with cashew cheese , potato , and guajillo chilies .
( Before Yellow Rose , Dave cooked at Superiority Burger . )
Some may argue that this renders the queso inauthentic , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ realistically modern—and absolutely delicious , besides , even reheated in the microwave .
I would cross a frozen tundra for a couple of those bean-and-cheese tacos , not to mention brave the hubbub of Third Avenue on a frigid day .
You can heat them up at home , too , though it may not be necessary : hours after I drove my pizza box home to Brooklyn , even after storing it in my refrigerator , the foil was still somehow slightly warm to the touch .
Especially paired with a kit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a bottle filled with a blend of roasted tomatoes , peppers , and pickled jalapeños , and a few tablespoons of a house-made Tajín-like seasoning ( containing dried guajillo and salt , among other ingredients ) , for coating the rim of a glass—they felt like the makings of a party , even if there were only two guests .
( Tacos $ 4- $ 6 , other dishes $ 5- $ 12 . )
♦

“Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession,” John Steinbeck wrote in “Travels with Charley: In Search of America,” his 1962 book. Then he doubled down: “But I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion.” Consider me, at least, a worshipper at the altar of Yellow Rose, a Texas-themed pop-up turned restaurant in the East Village. Obsession, indeed, is what led me to commit, the other day, to an entire Pizza Box of Tacos: twelve freshly made Sonoran-style flour tortillas, each folded around one of four fillings and wrapped tightly in foil, containers of a tomatillo-and-poblano salsa verde tucked beside them.
I recommend all of the fillings, without reservation: impossibly plump shreds of chicken cooked in salsa verde; a saucy carne guisada (a.k.a. beef stew), featuring pink-fleshed, melt-in-your-mouth morsels of chuck; cubes of fried potato dyed neon with a purée of tomato, onion, and pepper. But my runaway favorite is arguably the least exciting-sounding: refried pinto beans (from the cult bean purveyor Rancho Gordo) topped with coarsely shredded Cheddar cheese, impeccably seasoned and cooked to the ideal consistency to let the texture of the tortillas sing.
Iced hibiscus tea with lime. Photograph by Bubi Canal for The New Yorker
Do I even want to know what’s in the tortillas? They left me so gobsmacked—thick, chewy, a little stretchy, salty, charred, ever so slightly powdery to the touch—that I think I’d rather not; to peek behind the curtain is to risk dissolving the allure. The shelves of dry goods in the restaurant’s small anteroom offer a hint. (Yellow Rose, which opened in November where the restaurant Feast was, in partnership with Feast’s owners, is counter service only for now, with outdoor seating; behind the swinging saloon-style doors, you’ll catch a glimpse of what will one day be the bar and dining room.) Among jars of mesquite honey and bags of Bandera Rosa coffee beans, roasted in San Antonio—and next to a fully functioning, and free, vintage Pac-Man arcade machine—are sacks of stone-ground flour from Barton Springs Mill, based near Austin.
I’ve observed the finicky standards to which Texan transplants to New York tend to hold local restaurants claiming to represent their state. It’s hard to imagine better ambassadors than Yellow Rose’s proprietors, Dave and Krystiana Rizo, a married couple who moved to the city from San Antonio four years ago—but they’re far from staunch traditionalists. For their “Texas sheet cake,” a gloriously moist chocolate sponge is layered with a thick, tangy crème-fraîche chocolate frosting and finished with lightly candied, crackly Pawnee pecans, flaky sea salt, and Frankies olive oil. If anyone, native Texan or not, takes issue with it, I’ll gladly finish his portion.
Bean-and-cheese tacos, featuring refried pintos and shredded Cheddar in Sonoran-style flour tortillas. Photograph by Bubi Canal for The New Yorker
The same goes for the brilliantly conceived masa snickerdoodles, zingy with lime zest, and for the queso, which happens to be vegan, made with cashew cheese, potato, and guajillo chilies. (Before Yellow Rose, Dave cooked at Superiority Burger.) Some may argue that this renders the queso inauthentic, even sacrilegious. To me, it seems realistically modern—and absolutely delicious, besides, even reheated in the microwave.
I would cross a frozen tundra for a couple of those bean-and-cheese tacos, not to mention brave the hubbub of Third Avenue on a frigid day. You can heat them up at home, too, though it may not be necessary: hours after I drove my pizza box home to Brooklyn, even after storing it in my refrigerator, the foil was still somehow slightly warm to the touch. Especially paired with a kit for making micheladas—a six-pack of Lone Star, a bottle filled with a blend of roasted tomatoes, peppers, and pickled jalapeños, and a few tablespoons of a house-made Tajín-like seasoning (containing dried guajillo and salt, among other ingredients), for coating the rim of a glass—they felt like the makings of a party, even if there were only two guests. (Tacos $4-$6, other dishes $5-$12.) ♦


newyorker--2020-12-11--Just Give Your People Small Comforts: A 2020 Holiday Gift Guide

I used to dread buying holiday gifts , even though I desperately love to shop and I consider gifting , at its most purposeful , to be both an art form and a love language .
I should , in theory , enjoy any excuse to paw through racks—or , in the case of this bizarro year , click through tab after tab of wares until I am thirty pages deep into an Etsy search for vintage milk-glass drinkware .
But there is something about the twinkliest season and its mandatory merriment that seems to weigh down the task of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transmit an entire calendar year ’ s worth of bottled-up sentiment while also serving as a bona fide elicitor of oohs and ahs ( or , at least , moving the receiver to fake these noises ) .
For years , the thought of holiday shopping always made me feel a bit ( ever ) green around the gills .
Then 2020 happened , and everything went sidewise : plans , hopes , livelihoods , gatherings .
My own family will be opening our presents over Zoom this year , but we will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ food pantries and relief groups in one another ’ s names ) .
If there are any silver linings to this limited , lonely holiday season , one may be the chance to pause , to reflect , to stop the gifting frenzy that leads thousands of people each year to panic-purchase whiskey stones which will rattle around like loose marbles at the bottom of the freezer for decades to come .
Let go of the pressure .
Let go of the idea that December is somehow different from any other month—because , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ December this year probably looks a lot like November and October did .
This time , don ’ t overthink the gifts .
( Even if we wanted to , how many of us even have brainpower left ? )
Things have been hard enough .
Creature comforts are paramount .
Few people are wearing hard pants anymore .
Just give your loved ones things that they can use now to add small pleasures during a challenging time .
Without further ado , and without overthinking it , here are some ideas for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a long-running joke about scented candles and other smelly home goods being the go-to gifts for cousins and co-workers you don ’ t know too well , or a last-minute present you pull out of a storage closet ( see “ S.N.L.
” ’ s “ Christmas Candle ” sketch ) , but this is not that .
These papers ( $ 24 for a pack of twenty-four ) , from Ponsont , are sensual , rich , and deeply decadent .
They come in two scents : Le Patch ( patchouli , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , vanilla ) , which smells like the inside of a cigar lounge crossed with a Gilded Age grande dame , and Rosa Rossa ( rose otto , honey , labdanum absolute , frankincense , sandalwood ) , which is like red rose petals dipped in butter and somehow , also , like the inside of an ancient church .
Burning Ponsont papers versus sparking up a generic incense stick from the local hippie emporium is the difference between wearing silk and polyester ; each little strip of paper—which you fold up like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and let smolder—makes the indoors feel luxurious and anointed .
The only problem is that these are made in small batches , in Kansas , and sell out almost immediately every time they are back in stock .
( As of this writing , they are still available , and the company will roll out new batches throughout the month . )
I am an all-or-nothing person when it comes to coffee temperature .
Piping hot , it is the elixir of the gods ; lukewarm , it is gross and unpalatable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know that there are people out there who love nothing more than a cup of tepid bodega coffee that they nurse all day and allow to go cold before they swill the last drop .
But those people are not my people , and we will never understand each other across the great divide .
My people are the ones who feel compelled to get up every twenty minutes to nuke their coffee , yet again .
If this is you , or someone you know , I have great news : technology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , my mother-in-law gave me the Ember Mug² ( $ 129.95 ) , a sleek minimalist vaisselle that charges with a coaster using a standard wall plug-in , connects to your phone via Bluetooth , and keeps the liquid inside at whatever temperature you choose ( up to a hundred and forty-five degrees ) .
I think it was intended to be a kind of gag gift ( insomuch as the very concept of a “ smart mug ” has a slightly hilarious “ Brave Little Toaster ” vibe to it ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ has brought me daily pleasure this year , when basically every morning I find myself sitting at my home desk , with only coffee or tea refills to mark the time .
For a long time , socks as gifts got a bad reputation .
( I remember , as a child of the nineties , there was a kind of running threat that , if you misbehaved , all you would get that year would be socks . )
But in 2020 , when so many people are puttering around their own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sort of hallowed status .
Socks also fulfill two crucial gifting criteria : nobody ever has enough , and nobody really wants to buy them for themselves .
You could get someone a gift box of Bombas ( and Bombas are great ! )
, but if there was ever a time to sock-splurge , it ’ s this month , this year .
Have you ever worn cashmere socks ?
Your feet feel like they are being personally hugged by a goat .
There are Brother Vellies ’ s Cloud Socks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cotton-tube varietal that comes in a rainbow of colors and has a distinctly eighties cool-mall-girl vibe to it , and Wol Hide House Socks ( $ 78 ) , made of nubbly brushed alpaca yarn .
I am also partial to Le Bon Shoppe ’ s cashmere-blend Grandpa Socks ( $ 18 ) , which come in muted nineteen-seventies-kitchen colors and keep the entire calf warm .
My cardinal rule for buying someone holiday socks is this : forgo novelty .
The pizza-print socks can wait .
This is the time for luscious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well be an unofficial spokeswoman for Nuts.com , which I have pushed on friends this year like I am selling Amway .
I do this out of nothing but sheer enthusiasm for the offerings of the Web site , where you can find a bulk bag of dried lentils for under five dollars , every spice and nut and dried fruit under the sun , plus dozens of varieties of trail mix .
At the beginning of the pandemic , Nuts.com was the only place that I could reliably find raw beans and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really stressful weeks in April , when the sirens wailed throughout the city , I lived on Chocolate Monkey Trail Mix ( $ 6.99 per pound ) , which I told myself had nutritional value because it contains whole dried bananas ( dusted in cocoa powder ) .
My favorite section of the site is the one devoted to chocolate-dipped fruit , and I ’ m partial , especially , to the candied orange slices ( $ 10.99 for an eight-ounce bag ) , which combine the gooey , honeyed tang of syrup-soaked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chocolate .
You could gift a bag and keep another for yourself .
Before the pandemic , the New York Public Library was one of my favorite places to work in the city , and since it closed to the public ( with the exception of a low-contact lending system ) I ’ ve found myself homesick for the hushed fustiness of the library ’ s reading rooms , where each carrel is outfitted with a solid , old-school banker lamp .
Of course , there are many newfangled , minimalist table lamps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Store even sells an updated , transparent version of this classic style , for $ 185 ) , but there is such a pleasing weight to a classic Emeralite model ( or an Emeralite-inspired knockoff , as the original banker ’ s lamps from 1909 are now rare antiques ) .
The opaque green glass provides a suffused , milky glow , and there is something so satisfying about pulling a chain to turn the light on .
This lamp feels like sharpened pencils and fresh notebooks .
I am sharing this mass-produced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ works in a pinch , but I would also encourage you to trawl eBay and Etsy for vintage versions like this one ( $ 125.25 ) , which has a brass base .
Whenever I turn mine on , I feel that it is time to focus , to clear my head , to move more thoughtfully from one hour to the next .

I used to dread buying holiday gifts, even though I desperately love to shop and I consider gifting, at its most purposeful, to be both an art form and a love language. I should, in theory, enjoy any excuse to paw through racks—or, in the case of this bizarro year, click through tab after tab of wares until I am thirty pages deep into an Etsy search for vintage milk-glass drinkware. But there is something about the twinkliest season and its mandatory merriment that seems to weigh down the task of choosing presents. Each gift must somehow transmit an entire calendar year’s worth of bottled-up sentiment while also serving as a bona-fide elicitor of oohs and ahs (or, at least, moving the receiver to fake these noises). For years, the thought of holiday shopping always made me feel a bit (ever)green around the gills.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
Then 2020 happened, and everything went sidewise: plans, hopes, livelihoods, gatherings. My own family will be opening our presents over Zoom this year, but we will be gifting sparingly (and donating to food pantries and relief groups in one another’s names). If there are any silver linings to this limited, lonely holiday season, one may be the chance to pause, to reflect, to stop the gifting frenzy that leads thousands of people each year to panic-purchase whiskey stones which will rattle around like loose marbles at the bottom of the freezer for decades to come. Let go of the pressure. Let go of the idea that December is somehow different from any other month—because, let’s face it, your December this year probably looks a lot like November and October did. This time, don’t overthink the gifts. (Even if we wanted to, how many of us even have brainpower left?) Things have been hard enough. Creature comforts are paramount. Few people are wearing hard pants anymore. Just give your loved ones things that they can use now to add small pleasures during a challenging time. Without further ado, and without overthinking it, here are some ideas for those types of things.
The Cadillac of Incense Papers
There is a long-running joke about scented candles and other smelly home goods being the go-to gifts for cousins and co-workers you don’t know too well, or a last-minute present you pull out of a storage closet (see “S.N.L.” ’s “Christmas Candle” sketch), but this is not that. These papers ($24 for a pack of twenty-four), from Ponsont, are sensual, rich, and deeply decadent. They come in two scents: Le Patch (patchouli, benzoin, cedar, tonka, rose, vanilla), which smells like the inside of a cigar lounge crossed with a Gilded Age grande dame, and Rosa Rossa (rose otto, honey, labdanum absolute, frankincense, sandalwood), which is like red rose petals dipped in butter and somehow, also, like the inside of an ancient church. Burning Ponsont papers versus sparking up a generic incense stick from the local hippie emporium is the difference between wearing silk and polyester; each little strip of paper—which you fold up like an accordion, light, blow out, and let smolder—makes the indoors feel luxurious and anointed. The only problem is that these are made in small batches, in Kansas, and sell out almost immediately every time they are back in stock. (As of this writing, they are still available, and the company will roll out new batches throughout the month.)
A Mug for the Hot-Coffee Hard-Liners
I am an all-or-nothing person when it comes to coffee temperature. Piping hot, it is the elixir of the gods; lukewarm, it is gross and unpalatable, meaty and borderline nauseating. I know that there are people out there who love nothing more than a cup of tepid bodega coffee that they nurse all day and allow to go cold before they swill the last drop. But those people are not my people, and we will never understand one another across the great divide. My people are the ones who feel compelled to get up every twenty minutes to nuke their coffee, yet again. If this is you, or someone you know, I have great news: technology is on our side. Last year, my mother-in-law gave me the Ember Mug² ($129.95), a sleek minimalist vaisselle that charges with a coaster using a standard wall plug-in, connects to your phone via Bluetooth, and keeps the liquid inside at whatever temperature you choose (up to a hundred and forty-five degrees). I think it was intended to be a kind of gag gift (insomuch as the very concept of a “smart mug” has a slightly hilarious “Brave Little Toaster” vibe to it). But she unwittingly gave me something that has brought me daily pleasure this year, when basically every morning I find myself sitting at my home desk, with only coffee or tea refills to mark the time.
A Sock Splurge
Photograph by Kirstin Sinclair / Getty
For a long time, socks as gifts got a bad reputation. (I remember, as a child of the nineties, there was a kind of running threat that, if you misbehaved, all you would get that year would be socks.) But in 2020, when so many people are puttering around their own hallways sans shoes, socks have achieved a sort of hallowed status. Socks also fulfill two crucial gifting criteria: nobody ever has enough, and nobody really wants to buy them for themselves. You could get someone a gift box of Bombas (and Bombas are great!), but if there was ever a time to sock-splurge, it’s this month, this year. Have you ever worn cashmere socks? Your feet feel like they are being personally hugged by a goat. There are Brother Vellies’s Cloud Socks ($35), a super-soft cotton-tube varietal that comes in a rainbow of colors and has a distinctly eighties cool-mall-girl vibe to it, and Wol Hide House Socks ($78), made of nubbly brushed alpaca yarn. I am also partial to Le Bon Shoppe’s cashmere-blend Grandpa Socks ($18), which come in muted nineteen-seventies-kitchen colors and keep the entire calf warm. My cardinal rule for buying someone holiday socks is this: forgo novelty. The pizza-print socks can wait. This is the time for luscious, butter-smooth heel-swaddling.
The Wonders of Nuts.com
I might as well be an unofficial spokeswoman for Nuts.com, which I have pushed on friends this year like I am selling Amway. I do this out of nothing but sheer enthusiasm for the offerings of the Web site, where you can find a bulk bag of dried lentils for under five dollars, every spice and nut and dried fruit under the sun, plus dozens of varieties of trail mix. At the beginning of the pandemic, Nuts.com was the only place that I could reliably find raw beans and good olive oil, and during the really stressful weeks in April, when the sirens wailed throughout the city, I lived on Chocolate Monkey Trail Mix ($6.99 per pound), which I told myself had nutritional value because it contains whole dried bananas (dusted in cocoa powder). My favorite section of the site is the one devoted to chocolate-dipped fruit, and I’m partial, especially, to the candied orange slices ($10.99 for an eight-ounce bag), which combine the gooey, honeyed tang of syrup-soaked citrus with the bitter snap of dark chocolate. You could gift a bag and keep another for yourself.


newyorker--2020-12-11--Planned Alcoholism in “Another Round” and Weaponized Camp in “The Prom”

The latest film from the Danish director Thomas Vinterberg , “ Another Round , ” marks the second occasion on which he has teamed up with his countryman Mads Mikkelsen .
In “ The Hunt ” ( 2012 ) , Mikkelsen played a kindergarten teacher who is wrongly accused of being a pedophile .
In the new movie , he plays Martin , a high-school history teacher who is accused , correctly , of being an alcoholic .
Note that both protagonists ( it ’ s hard to call them heroes ) are in positions of civic responsibility , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ answer to the kings and overlords whose precipitate falls were formerly the stuff of tragedy .
In each case , the result is at once compelling and difficult to watch .
Martin , for example , is discovered , in the early morning , sleeping outside a neighbor ’ s house , with his keys in his hand and a livid cut on his brow .
He is retrieved by his son Jonas ( Magnus Sjørup ) , and what ’ s shocking is how unshocked the boy looks ; this must have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Martin tries to explain .
“ Well , I got a little drunk yesterday , ” he says .
“ But , Dad , ” Jonas replies , “ you ’ ve been drunk for a while , haven ’ t you ?
” There are two unusual things about Martin ’ s drinking .
First , it ’ s not a passive condition into which he has slumped ; it ’ s a plan .
Second , it ’ s a joint effort .
Keeping him company are three of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , a sports coach , who goes to soccer practice with a plastic bottle of liquor , as if it were Gatorade ; Peter ( Lars Ranthe ) , a music lover , who verses his pupils in patriotic songs , while grabbing a quick swig behind their backs ; and Nikolaj ( Magnus Millang ) , who teaches psychology , asking his class , “ Why do we behave , experience , and react as we do ?
” An excellent question , and one response , apparently floated by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ born with too little alcohol in their veins .
So that ’ s it .
We have a duty to repair the deficit , and , to this end , Nikolaj , Peter , Tommy , and Martin resolve to keep themselves topped up , while collating evidence of “ verbal , motor , and psycho-rhetorical effects.
” No booze after 8 P.M. , or on weekends , but otherwise let it flow .
To begin with , the scheme goes swimmingly .
At school , after making a pit stop in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treats his admiring students to a master class on Churchill , Roosevelt , and the art of leadership .
“ I haven ’ t felt this good in ages , ” he tells his fellow-lushes , and , like gamblers on a hot streak , they raise the stakes .
Up goes their daily intake .
You can see where the film is heading , and , sure enough , the comedy of excess—profoundly unfunny to those who are bruised by it , like Martin ’ s wife , Anika ( Maria Bonnevie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after a Rabelaisian binge , makes it to the bedroom , and tries , in vain , to use a baby monitor as a Breathalyzer ; Peter , for his part , advises a fretful pupil to soothe his nerves with a drink before an oral exam .
Mind you , this being Denmark , the subject of the test is Kierkegaard , so Peter may have a point .
The four leading men are all too convincing , not least when they lark about in the park like small boys , yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ film .
Is it really an ensemble piece , or do we want it to revolve around Martin ?
Is he not the story ’ s lonely heart ?
The issue arises early on , at a lavish dinner for Nikolaj ’ s fortieth birthday , where the quartet of friends progresses—if that is the word—from champagne , to vodka , to a fine 2011 Burgundy .
Martin , who is driving , opts for a soda , but Peter cajoles him to hit the hard stuff , and Nikolaj argues that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poised and musical and open.
” We follow Martin ’ s expression as he listens—distracted and half amused , with a spectre of a smile .
When he gives in and samples the vodka , then drains a glass of the wine in a single quaff , you see tears , unshed , befogging his gaze , as if he were moved by a sudden memory .
Or maybe the alcohol went straight to his eyes .
Either way , as he slowly mists over , his features illuminated in the soft-shadowed room @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into his trance .
Now that Jack Palance is dead , does any living star have a face more distinctive than Mikkelsen ’ s ?
It seems carved rather than molded , with hints of both the delicate and the incisive .
He broke through as a villain , in “ Casino Royale ” ( 2006 ) , scrutinizing 007 at the poker table , but you can imagine him as a penitent , or as the leader of a cult , and his handsomeness is of the secretive , non-open variety that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The Hunt ” grew so taut , and why , in “ Another Round , ” as Martin dives ever deeper into the drink , and as it renders him unbeautiful , you can ’ t help asking what sorrows , or what smoldering disappointments , this man is seeking to douse .
As he remarks to his pupils , “ The world is never as you expect.
” Audiences in 1945 were equally curious , I ’ d guess , about Don Birnam , the sozzled character in Billy Wilder ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ film certainly touched a chord , winning the Academy Award for Best Picture , and its triumph suggested that Don was not an exception .
His plight was practically a rule , and I thought of him during “ Another Round ” as Anika sighs over Martin ’ s carousing and says , “ This entire country drinks like maniacs anyway.
” The movie ’ s original title was “ Druk ” —a splendidly percussive Danish noun , our nearest equivalent being “ bender , ” so why dampen it into “ Another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pub-heavy dullness ?
( Vinterberg has suffered this belittling before .
In 1998 , “ Festen , ” his fiercest film , became “ The Celebration ” for American viewers . )
All in all , however , this is one of the director ’ s most absorbing works .
It soaks you up , and its melancholy ( a shot of Martin , say , eating cereal on his own , in the semi-dark ) is somehow less disturbing than its sprees .
Hence the book-ends : scenes of revelling students , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lake , knocking back beers as they go , and bring it to a conclusion , after graduating , by parading in trucks festooned with greenery .
Whether such hoopla counts as a happy ending or as a reckless lie—whether the kids should be granted their fun , or whether the next generation of inebriates is already in training for its own destruction—is open to debate .
As for Martin , he is greeted with delirium by the graduates , beside a harbor , and retorts by exploding into a dance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dancer , and it shows .
Martin has just had a fortifying drink with his pals , and now , inspired , he springs and curvets , ominously close to the water ’ s edge , jumping for something worse than joy .
There are oodles of self-mockery here , yet never quite enough , and the plot is a rum affair .
Two stage troupers from New York , Dee Dee Allen ( Meryl Streep ) and Barry Glickman ( James Corden ) , are mortified when their new show , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after opening night .
Informed that the fault lay not with the production but with the rampancy of their egos , they decide to burnish their moral reputations by finding a cause to support .
A friend of theirs , Angie Dickinson ( Nicole Kidman ) , learns , via Twitter , about a student named Emma Nolan ( Jo Ellen Pellman ) , out in the hinterland , who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom .
Rather than indulge her heathen wishes , the school ’ s PTA has cancelled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is that Dee Dee , Barry , Angie , and another resting performer , Trent Oliver ( Andrew Rannells ) , travel to Indiana—boo , hiss—to save the day , or the magical night .
“ We are liberals from Broadway !
” they exclaim .
According to Susan Sontag , in an influential essay from 1964 , “ It goes without saying that the Camp sensibility is disengaged , depoliticized—or at least apolitical.
” Not anymore .
“ The Prom ” uses camp very determinedly as a weapon , designed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the big routines retain the crisp and fevered stomp , weirdly bereft of grace , that was the house style of Murphy ’ s “ Glee , ” the purpose of them , as enacted by Dee Dee and her posse of urban outsiders , is to demonstrate to any recalcitrant hicks the error of their non-inclusive ways .
Nothing that I ’ ve witnessed onscreen in 2020 is more bizarre than a sequence in a shopping mall , where Trent , by means of song and dance , not only berates the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but specifically targets their Christian faith ; by the end of the number , he has successfully converted them to his secular vision of love .
It ’ s possible both to agree entirely with the movie ’ s politics and , at the same time , to feel that you ’ re being strangled by a rainbow , and we should thank the Lord that “ The Prom ” wasn ’ t released before the election .
I can think of some states , not just Indiana , where wavering voters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s remorseless plea for tolerance , might have swung in the opposite direction .
♦

The latest film from the Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, “Another Round,” marks the second occasion on which he has teamed up with his countryman Mads Mikkelsen. In “The Hunt” (2012), Mikkelsen played a kindergarten teacher who is wrongly accused of being a pedophile. In the new movie, he plays Martin, a high-school history teacher who is accused, correctly, of being an alcoholic. Note that both protagonists (it’s hard to call them heroes) are in positions of civic responsibility, from which they slide: our two-bit modern answer to the kings and overlords whose precipitate falls were formerly the stuff of tragedy. In each case, the result is at once compelling and difficult to watch. Martin, for example, is discovered, in the early morning, sleeping outside a neighbor’s house, with his keys in his hand and a livid cut on his brow. He is retrieved by his son Jonas (Magnus Sjørup), and what’s shocking is how unshocked the boy looks; this must have happened before. Later, at dinner, Martin tries to explain. “Well, I got a little drunk yesterday,” he says. “But, Dad,” Jonas replies, “you’ve been drunk for a while, haven’t you?”
There are two unusual things about Martin’s drinking. First, it’s not a passive condition into which he has slumped; it’s a plan. Second, it’s a joint effort. Keeping him company are three of his colleagues: Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), a sports coach, who goes to soccer practice with a plastic bottle of liquor, as if it were Gatorade; Peter (Lars Ranthe), a music lover, who verses his pupils in patriotic songs, while grabbing a quick swig behind their backs; and Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), who teaches psychology, asking his class, “Why do we behave, experience, and react as we do?” An excellent question, and one response, apparently floated by a Norwegian philosopher, is that humans are born with too little alcohol in their veins. So that’s it. We have a duty to repair the deficit, and, to this end, Nikolaj, Peter, Tommy, and Martin resolve to keep themselves topped up, while collating evidence of “verbal, motor, and psycho-rhetorical effects.” No booze after 8 P.M., or on weekends, but otherwise let it flow.
To begin with, the scheme goes swimmingly. At school, after making a pit stop in the bathroom to refuel with Smirnoff, Martin treats his admiring students to a master class on Churchill, Roosevelt, and the art of leadership. “I haven’t felt this good in ages,” he tells his fellow-lushes, and, like gamblers on a hot streak, they raise the stakes. Up goes their daily intake. You can see where the film is heading, and, sure enough, the comedy of excess—profoundly unfunny to those who are bruised by it, like Martin’s wife, Anika (Maria Bonnevie)—kicks in. Nikolaj crawls home after a Rabelaisian binge, makes it to the bedroom, and tries, in vain, to use a baby monitor as a Breathalyzer; Peter, for his part, advises a fretful pupil to soothe his nerves with a drink before an oral exam. Mind you, this being Denmark, the subject of the test is Kierkegaard, so Peter may have a point.
The four leading men are all too convincing, not least when they lark about in the park like small boys, yet that virtue creates a problem for the film. Is it really an ensemble piece, or do we want it to revolve around Martin? Is he not the story’s lonely heart? The issue arises early on, at a lavish dinner for Nikolaj’s fortieth birthday, where the quartet of friends progresses—if that is the word—from champagne, to vodka, to a fine 2011 Burgundy. Martin, who is driving, opts for a soda, but Peter cajoles him to hit the hard stuff, and Nikolaj argues that it makes a person “more relaxed and poised and musical and open.” We follow Martin’s expression as he listens—distracted and half amused, with a spectre of a smile. When he gives in and samples the vodka, then drains a glass of the wine in a single quaff, you see tears, unshed, befogging his gaze, as if he were moved by a sudden memory. Or maybe the alcohol went straight to his eyes. Either way, as he slowly mists over, his features illuminated in the soft-shadowed room, you stare at him and enter into his trance.
Now that Jack Palance is dead, does any living star have a face more distinctive than Mikkelsen’s? It seems carved rather than molded, with hints of both the delicate and the incisive. He broke through as a villain, in “Casino Royale” (2006), scrutinizing 007 at the poker table, but you can imagine him as a penitent, or as the leader of a cult, and his handsomeness is of the secretive, non-open variety that invites suspicion. That’s why “The Hunt” grew so taut, and why, in “Another Round,” as Martin dives ever deeper into the drink, and as it renders him unbeautiful, you can’t help asking what sorrows, or what smoldering disappointments, this man is seeking to douse. As he remarks to his pupils, “The world is never as you expect.”
Audiences in 1945 were equally curious, I’d guess, about Don Birnam, the sozzled character in Billy Wilder’s “The Lost Weekend.” That film certainly touched a chord, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, and its triumph suggested that Don was not an exception. His plight was practically a rule, and I thought of him during “Another Round” as Anika sighs over Martin’s carousing and says, “This entire country drinks like maniacs anyway.” The movie’s original title was “Druk”—a splendidly percussive Danish noun, our nearest equivalent being “bender,” so why dampen it into “Another Round,” with its hearty and pub-heavy dullness? (Vinterberg has suffered this belittling before. In 1998, “Festen,” his fiercest film, became “The Celebration” for American viewers.)
All in all, however, this is one of the director’s most absorbing works. It soaks you up, and its melancholy (a shot of Martin, say, eating cereal on his own, in the semi-dark) is somehow less disturbing than its sprees. Hence the book-ends: scenes of revelling students, who begin the movie by racing around a lake, knocking back beers as they go, and bring it to a conclusion, after graduating, by parading in trucks festooned with greenery. Whether such hoopla counts as a happy ending or as a reckless lie—whether the kids should be granted their fun, or whether the next generation of inebriates is already in training for its own destruction—is open to debate. As for Martin, he is greeted with delirium by the graduates, beside a harbor, and retorts by exploding into a dance. In his youth, Mikkelsen trained as a dancer, and it shows. Martin has just had a fortifying drink with his pals, and now, inspired, he springs and curvets, ominously close to the water’s edge, jumping for something worse than joy.
How much alcohol you should insert into your bloodstream before attempting to watch “The Prom,” the new Ryan Murphy film, is not easy to gauge. It may well be most amenable to the completely blotto. I made the grave mistake of seeing it sober, and there were moments when I simply lost my courage and had to look away, as some people do during the tooth-drilling scene in “Marathon Man.”
There are oodles of self-mockery here, yet never quite enough, and the plot is a rum affair. Two stage troupers from New York, Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) and Barry Glickman (James Corden), are mortified when their new show, a musical about Eleanor Roosevelt, shuts after opening night. Informed that the fault lay not with the production but with the rampancy of their egos, they decide to burnish their moral reputations by finding a cause to support. A friend of theirs, Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman), learns, via Twitter, about a student named Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman), out in the hinterland, who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom. Rather than indulge her heathen wishes, the school’s PTA has cancelled the whole event. Horrors! So it is that Dee Dee, Barry, Angie, and another resting performer, Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannells), travel to Indiana—boo, hiss—to save the day, or the magical night. “We are liberals from Broadway!” they exclaim.
According to Susan Sontag, in an influential essay from 1964, “It goes without saying that the Camp sensibility is disengaged, depoliticized—or at least apolitical.” Not anymore. “The Prom” uses camp very determinedly as a weapon, designed to inflict maximum correction and complaint. Although the big routines retain the crisp and fevered stomp, weirdly bereft of grace, that was the house style of Murphy’s “Glee,” the purpose of them, as enacted by Dee Dee and her posse of urban outsiders, is to demonstrate to any recalcitrant hicks the error of their non-inclusive ways. Nothing that I’ve witnessed onscreen in 2020 is more bizarre than a sequence in a shopping mall, where Trent, by means of song and dance, not only berates the senior squares from Emma’s school but specifically targets their Christian faith; by the end of the number, he has successfully converted them to his secular vision of love. It’s possible both to agree entirely with the movie’s politics and, at the same time, to feel that you’re being strangled by a rainbow, and we should thank the Lord that “The Prom” wasn’t released before the election. I can think of some states, not just Indiana, where wavering voters, disgruntled rather than wowed by the film’s remorseless plea for tolerance, might have swung in the opposite direction. ♦


newyorker--2020-12-11--A Lost Orson Welles TV Pilot That’s As Groundbreaking as “Citizen Kane”

The project that Orson Welles planned to film , in 1939 , before turning his attention to “ Citizen Kane ” was a mystery called “ Smiler with a Knife , ” about a fascist plot to take over the United States .
For his co-star , Welles wanted a young actress named Lucille Ball , but the studio turned her down .
A decade and a half later , Welles was severely struggling to sustain a career ; forty-one years old , he was famous as an actor but his directing career had been thwarted by producers ’ unwanted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ box-office results .
Ball had become a TV star and mogul , both starring in and producing ( with her then husband , Desi Arnaz ) “ I Love Lucy , ” which was on the air from 1951 to 1957 and made her both famous and very , very rich .
When Welles ’ s Hollywood career was nearly nonexistent , he turned to television , and Ball and Arnaz , who by that time had the power and the money , turned a share of both over to Welles for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one episode of the resulting project was ever filmed , the pilot , titled “ The Fountain of Youth ” ( it ’ s streaming on YouTube ) , and it ’ s as artistically original for television as “ Citizen Kane ” was for the movies , and—at least in part—for a very similar reason .
The pulp-fiction plot , based on a short story by John Collier and set in New York in the nineteen-twenties , concerns a middle-aged scientist named Humphrey Baxter ( Dan Tobin ) who falls in love @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Coates ( Joi Lansing ) .
When he leaves town for three years of study in Vienna , she leaves him for a muscular tennis star , Alan Brody ( Rick Jason ) .
When Humphrey returns to New York and finds himself dumped , he relies on the product of his research—a vial of an anti-aging potion , the titular fountain—to get his revenge .
The story is both pleasantly seamy and inconsequential , as pat and flimsy as a mad-science soap opera .
Its psychological dimensions are infinitesimal ; its social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ makes of the story is—or , rather , should have been—a template for what the art of television could have become .
Welles , the storyteller , is our narrator—he ’ s onscreen frequently , in closeups , throughout the twenty-seven-minute show , his presence punctuating the action and pushing it ahead .
That action—also filmed largely in closeups of the actors—is conjured more from cinematic magic than from staged performance .
Many scenes in “ The Fountain of Youth ” are sketched through the rapid montage of still photos ; the sets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of places rather than a depiction of them , with special effects—morphing and gliding photographic backdrops , conspicuously unrealistic rear-screen projections , that lend a phantasmagorical mood to the tale ’ s lurid and macabre twists .
What ’ s more , Welles uses tricks of lighting—blackout effects on his face and those of the actors—to shift them from venue to venue in the span of a heartbeat , and other brightenings and dimmings to shift attention from the action to a single object and back .
He enhances his spider-like grasp on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the actors intermittently lip-synch their dialogue as he delivers it in his own voice-over .
In a climactic sequence , dramatizing the panic of aging as a threat to an actress ’ s career and a woman ’ s romance , his rhetorical flair and visual imagination coalesce in a hallucinatory mirror trick that he narrates in a labyrinthine thicket of Poe-like poetry .
What links “ The Fountain of Youth ” to “ Citizen Kane ” is the use of special effects .
The historian Robert Carringer has established that , despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ realism , about half of “ Kane ” involved special effects , many of them shot in the editing room with an optical printer ( an obsession of Welles ’ s ) .
It wouldn ’ t be absurd to think of “ Kane ” as a blend of live action and animation .
In “ The Fountain of Youth , ” probably eighty or ninety per cent of shots feature effects and make them obvious .
In his foray into TV , Welles foregrounded , defiantly flaunted , exulted in visual artifice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As Simon Callow reports in the third volume of his biography of Welles , “ One-Man Band , ” the TV show attracted no sponsors , and the series wasn ’ t picked up .
The pilot was broadcast two years later , in 1958 ; it garnered rave reviews for its innovative methods , and even won a Peabody Award .
But by that time , the door of American network television had closed to Welles as a showrunner—but not as a celebrity .
In subsequent years , he remade his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a talk-show guest and a paid spokesperson in commercials , instead of as the most original and inspiring American director of his time , or , rather , ever .
• Ian Crouch recounts the best jokes of the year .
• Sheldon Pearce on the albums that helped him navigate a lost plague year .
• New Yorker writers on the best books they read this year .
• Amanda Petrusich counts down the best music .

The project that Orson Welles planned to film, in 1939, before turning his attention to “Citizen Kane” was a mystery called “Smiler with a Knife,” about a fascist plot to take over the United States. For his co-star, Welles wanted a young actress named Lucille Ball, but the studio turned her down. A decade and a half later, Welles was severely struggling to sustain a career; forty-one years old, he was famous as an actor but his directing career had been thwarted by producers’ unwanted recuts of his films and by poor box-office results. Ball had become a TV star and mogul, both starring in and producing (with her then husband, Desi Arnaz) “I Love Lucy,” which was on the air from 1951 to 1957 and made her both famous and very, very rich. When Welles’s Hollywood career was nearly nonexistent, he turned to television, and Ball and Arnaz, who by that time had the power and the money, turned a share of both over to Welles for his effort to establish himself there.
Only one episode of the resulting project was ever filmed, the pilot, titled “The Fountain of Youth” (it’s streaming on YouTube), and it’s as artistically original for television as “Citizen Kane” was for the movies, and—at least in part—for a very similar reason. The pulp-fiction plot, based on a short story by John Collier and set in New York in the nineteen-twenties, concerns a middle-aged scientist named Humphrey Baxter (Dan Tobin) who falls in love with a twenty-three-year-old burlesque dancer, Caroline Coates (Joi Lansing). When he leaves town for three years of study in Vienna, she leaves him for a muscular tennis star, Alan Brody (Rick Jason). When Humphrey returns to New York and finds himself dumped, he relies on the product of his research—a vial of an anti-aging potion, the titular fountain—to get his revenge. The story is both pleasantly seamy and inconsequential, as pat and flimsy as a mad-science soap opera. Its psychological dimensions are infinitesimal; its social context is nonexistent. But what Welles makes of the story is—or, rather, should have been—a template for what the art of television could have become.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
Welles, the storyteller, is our narrator—he’s onscreen frequently, in closeups, throughout the twenty-seven-minute show, his presence punctuating the action and pushing it ahead. That action—also filmed largely in closeups of the actors—is conjured more from cinematic magic than from staged performance. Many scenes in “The Fountain of Youth” are sketched through the rapid montage of still photos; the sets are minimal and bare, a suggestion of places rather than a depiction of them, with special effects—morphing and gliding photographic backdrops, conspicuously unrealistic rear-screen projections, that lend a phantasmagorical mood to the tale’s lurid and macabre twists.
What’s more, Welles uses tricks of lighting—blackout effects on his face and those of the actors—to shift them from venue to venue in the span of a heartbeat, and other brightenings and dimmings to shift attention from the action to a single object and back. He enhances his spider-like grasp on the viewer’s attention by having the actors intermittently lip-synch their dialogue as he delivers it in his own voice-over. In a climactic sequence, dramatizing the panic of aging as a threat to an actress’s career and a woman’s romance, his rhetorical flair and visual imagination coalesce in a hallucinatory mirror trick that he narrates in a labyrinthine thicket of Poe-like poetry.
What links “The Fountain of Youth” to “Citizen Kane” is the use of special effects. The historian Robert Carringer has established that, despite the film’s appearance of photographic realism, about half of “Kane” involved special effects, many of them shot in the editing room with an optical printer (an obsession of Welles’s). It wouldn’t be absurd to think of “Kane” as a blend of live action and animation. In “The Fountain of Youth,” probably eighty or ninety per cent of shots feature effects and make them obvious. In his foray into TV, Welles foregrounded, defiantly flaunted, exulted in visual artifice and confected fantasy—and he paid the price.
As Simon Callow reports in the third volume of his biography of Welles, “One-Man Band,” the TV show attracted no sponsors, and the series wasn’t picked up. The pilot was broadcast two years later, in 1958; it garnered rave reviews for its innovative methods, and even won a Peabody Award. But by that time, the door of American network television had closed to Welles as a showrunner—but not as a celebrity. In subsequent years, he remade his name for a new generation, as a talk-show guest and a paid spokesperson in commercials, instead of as the most original and inspiring American director of his time, or, rather, ever.
2020 in Review