newyorker--2020-07-02--What Can a Filmed Version of “Hamilton” Offer Us Now?

Monuments are toppling .
No , really , this time—heads , bodies , bases and all .
In the United States , monuments to the Confederacy , itself a failed monument to slavery , are being hog-tied and ejected by laboring protesters , or , more quietly , slated for removal and offsite preservation by local governments with the good sense to know a bandwagon when they see one .
But that ’ s not all .
Other icons of oppression and genocide have taken a tumble as well—including Christopher Columbus , much to the ire of certain Italian-Americans who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of their heritage .
The targets are both major and minor—or would-be minor , if they hadn ’ t been memorialized in stone—from George Washington to George Preston Marshall , the founder of the Washington Redskins .
Historical figures on the softer side of imperialism have been placed on notice , too .
Last week , in Golden Gate Park , in San Francisco , after dethroning the slaveholder ( and author of “ The Star-Spangled Banner ” ) Francis Scott Key and the Spanish missionary Junípero Serra , protesters took down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Even for some inclined to celebrate the tearing down of statues , this last one was a step too far .
“ People going after Grant probably just want to break things , ” Adam Serwer , of The Atlantic , tweeted .
As he and many others hastily reminded everyone , the Union general and eventual President had only owned , like , one slave ever .
So what about cultural monuments ?
In the summer of 2020 , a tale of America ’ s patrilineal derring-do set to song and dance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dose of HGTV programming that chased the 2008 financial crisis .
And yet , in May , Disney announced that it was moving up its release of the filmed version of “ Hamilton ” by more than a year , to July 3rd , on Disney+ , because , according to the company ’ s chairman , “ In light of the extraordinary challenges facing our world , this story about leadership , tenacity , hope , love and the power of people to unite against the forces of adversity is both relevant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearly five years since Lin-Manuel Miranda brought “ Hamilton ” to Broadway , after a run at the Public Theatre , and its retelling of American revolution , with emphasis on a nearly forgotten Founder , became a national phenomenon .
Its rise straddled two earlier reckonings with historical monuments—prompted by the massacre at a black church , in Charleston , South Carolina , and the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville , Virginia—but was buoyed by the optimism of the Obama Presidency , which was in its final stretch .
There was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which became an eleven-time Tony winner—Miranda ’ s dexterous score , Andy Blankenbuehler ’ s bellicose choreography , capital actors and dancers , many of whom are now household names .
In the initial wave of rave reviews and afterward , though , critical conversation could hardly get past the novelty of the show ’ s brown bodies and black music .
The terms of appraisal were set by those who could pay the pretty penny ( as much as eight hundred dollars per ticket ) for the privilege of determining for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sufficiently radical—a doomed metric for almost any artistic discipline , not least musical theatre .
Meanwhile , the rest of the country bopped along to the soundtrack , experiencing the production without the benefit of stagecraft .
But let ’ s talk about the stage— “ Hamilton ” is a musical , after all .
I live in Chicago , where we consume much of Broadway secondhand .
My first Aaron Burr was Wayne Brady , not Leslie Odom , Jr. : as in most places besides midtown Manhattan , the Loop ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voices heard on the cast-recorded album .
The “ Hamilton ” presented by Disney+ remedies that uncanny divide , reuniting the cast ’ s familiar voices with their corresponding faces .
This version being nominally a film , my biggest fear , as I heard the telltale drums on the expository opening track , “ Alexander Hamilton , ” was that the camera would greedily undermine the production as theatre .
( Thomas Kail , who directed the play , directs here as well . )
Closeup shots are abundant , and occasionally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , such as in the opening verse of “ Wait for It , ” sung by Odom , Jr. , who plays Burr with infinite melancholia .
Yet what a boon , in return , to behold so many furrowed brows and devilish side-eyes , or the spittle flying from Jonathan Groff ’ s mouth as he forms the affected consonants of King George III .
The heady chemistry of the cast is no secret , but the film ’ s closer-than-front-row perspective makes the viewer party to how smoothly the rapped , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about .
Still , aside from a mercifully rare bird ’ s-eye-view from the rafters , the show looks and feels like theatre .
Moving shots mimic the wandering but never lost eye of the alert spectator , who looks at what she is supposed to and when .
This means that viewers might catch minor revelations that I , for one , noticed only after multiple viewings : the chest full of Alexander and Eliza ’ s letters , which make a fateful return in the second act ; Mariah Reynolds ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wings during “ We Know , ” before retaking the stage wordlessly in “ Hurricane.
” Shots aren ’ t perfectly , and therefore distractingly , crafted ; if not for the world-class happenings onstage , the filming would have a homespun quality reminiscent of the footage captured by a tripod from the back of a high-school auditorium .
In the number “ Right Hand Man , ” in which George Washington ( Christopher Jackson ) offers Alexander the administrative role of a lifetime , the two men stand center stage and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as the lights slowly rise and the company creeps along the set ’ s scaffolding like an enormous spider .
It ’ s a fitting collaboration of stage and screen , which is to say that it lets the former do its work .
And if the exclusions of the camera strike you as dampening the romanticism of live theatre , it would do to consider that many of the people who watch “ Hamilton ” this way would otherwise never have seen it at all .
Those who are searching for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether for the first or the umpteenth time , will not find it any more easily here than in the play ’ s natural habitat .
To be invigorated by a righteous , multicultural patriotism or frustrated by it ?
It is true that a cast of color all done up in the master ’ s garb , articulating a humanism that never imagined them as part of it , won ’ t save the nation , and perhaps commits the error of assuming that an irredeemable nation can be saved .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world that birthed “ Hamilton , ” when all the statues were still intact , than it is now that a few of them are gone or buried .
If the ethos of “ Hamilton ” is less palatable now , in the burst-bubble aftermath of the Obama era , the souring can not be attributed to “ Hamilton , ” nor to the nation , only to individual changes of faith .
The greatest revelation of the new film is , perhaps , that “ Hamilton ” can be just a musical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a dull thing .
“ Hamilton ” comes alive for all the reasons we went to the theatre back when we still could : for delight , for awe , for expression and motif and—forgive me—for certified , sing-a-long-able tunes .
The show will retain these powers , come stage or come streaming .
Its optimism is not matched to the present moment ; among other things , the future of theatre is uncertain .
But “ Hamilton , ” unlike its cherished figures , holds itself up .

Monuments are toppling. No, really, this time—heads, bodies, bases and all. In the United States, monuments to the Confederacy, itself a failed monument to slavery, are being hog-tied and ejected by laboring protesters, or, more quietly, slated for removal and offsite preservation by local governments with the good sense to know a bandwagon when they see one. But that’s not all. Other icons of oppression and genocide have taken a tumble as well—including Christopher Columbus, much to the ire of certain Italian-Americans who’ve celebrated his Genoan roots as part of their heritage. The targets are both major and minor—or would-be minor, if they hadn’t been memorialized in stone—from George Washington to George Preston Marshall, the founder of the Washington Redskins. Historical figures on the softer side of imperialism have been placed on notice, too. Last week, in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco, after dethroning the slaveholder (and author of “The Star-Spangled Banner”) Francis Scott Key and the Spanish missionary Junípero Serra, protesters took down a bust of Ulysses S. Grant. Even for some inclined to celebrate the tearing down of statues, this last one was a step too far. “People going after Grant probably just want to break things,” Adam Serwer, of The Atlantic, tweeted. As he and many others hastily reminded everyone, the Union general and eventual President had only owned, like, one slave ever.
So what about cultural monuments? In the summer of 2020, a tale of America’s patrilineal derring-do set to song and dance might seem as inopportune as the added dose of HGTV programming that chased the 2008 financial crisis. And yet, in May, Disney announced that it was moving up its release of the filmed version of “Hamilton” by more than a year, to July 3rd, on Disney+, because, according to the company’s chairman, “In light of the extraordinary challenges facing our world, this story about leadership, tenacity, hope, love and the power of people to unite against the forces of adversity is both relevant and impactful.”
It’s been nearly five years since Lin-Manuel Miranda brought “Hamilton” to Broadway, after a run at the Public Theatre, and its retelling of American revolution, with emphasis on a nearly forgotten Founder, became a national phenomenon. Its rise straddled two earlier reckonings with historical monuments—prompted by the massacre at a black church, in Charleston, South Carolina, and the violent white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—but was buoyed by the optimism of the Obama Presidency, which was in its final stretch. There was plenty to acclaim in “Hamilton”, which became an eleven-time Tony winner—Miranda’s dexterous score, Andy Blankenbuehler’s bellicose choreography, capital actors and dancers, many of whom are now household names. In the initial wave of rave reviews and afterward, though, critical conversation could hardly get past the novelty of the show’s brown bodies and black music. The terms of appraisal were set by those who could pay the pretty penny (as much as eight hundred dollars per ticket) for the privilege of determining for themselves whether or not the play was sufficiently radical—a doomed metric for almost any artistic discipline, not least musical theatre. Meanwhile, the rest of the country bopped along to the soundtrack, experiencing the production without the benefit of stagecraft.
But let’s talk about the stage—“Hamilton” is a musical, after all. I live in Chicago, where we consume much of Broadway secondhand. My first Aaron Burr was Wayne Brady, not Leslie Odom, Jr.: as in most places besides midtown Manhattan, the Loop’s productions almost never feature the same voices heard on the cast-recorded album. The “Hamilton” presented by Disney+ remedies that uncanny divide, reuniting the cast’s familiar voices with their corresponding faces. This version being nominally a film, my biggest fear, as I heard the telltale drums on the expository opening track, “Alexander Hamilton,” was that the camera would greedily undermine the production as theatre. (Thomas Kail, who directed the play, directs here as well.) Closeup shots are abundant, and occasionally undercut the loneliness of solitary figures onstage, such as in the opening verse of “Wait for It,” sung by Odom, Jr., who plays Burr with infinite melancholia. Yet what a boon, in return, to behold so many furrowed brows and devilish side-eyes, or the spittle flying from Jonathan Groff’s mouth as he forms the affected consonants of King George III. The heady chemistry of the cast is no secret, but the film’s closer-than-front-row perspective makes the viewer party to how smoothly the rapped, spoken, and sung lines are bandied about.
Still, aside from a mercifully rare bird’s-eye-view from the rafters, the show looks and feels like theatre. Moving shots mimic the wandering but never lost eye of the alert spectator, who looks at what she is supposed to and when. This means that viewers might catch minor revelations that I, for one, noticed only after multiple viewings: the chest full of Alexander and Eliza’s letters, which make a fateful return in the second act; Mariah Reynolds (Jasmine Cephas Jones) haunting Alexander from the wings during “We Know,” before retaking the stage wordlessly in “Hurricane.” Shots aren’t perfectly, and therefore distractingly, crafted; if not for the world-class happenings onstage, the filming would have a homespun quality reminiscent of the footage captured by a tripod from the back of a high-school auditorium. In the number “Right Hand Man,” in which George Washington (Christopher Jackson) offers Alexander the administrative role of a lifetime, the two men stand center stage and center frame, Washington extending his pen, as the lights slowly rise and the company creeps along the set’s scaffolding like an enormous spider. It’s a fitting collaboration of stage and screen, which is to say that it lets the former do its work. And if the exclusions of the camera strike you as dampening the romanticism of live theatre, it would do to consider that many of the people who watch “Hamilton” this way would otherwise never have seen it at all.
Those who are searching for political coherence in “Hamilton,” whether for the first or the umpteenth time, will not find it any more easily here than in the play’s natural habitat. To be invigorated by a righteous, multicultural patriotism or frustrated by it? It is true that a cast of color all done up in the master’s garb, articulating a humanism that never imagined them as part of it, won’t save the nation, and perhaps commits the error of assuming that an irredeemable nation can be saved. But this was no less true in the world that birthed “Hamilton,” when all the statues were still intact, than it is now that a few of them are gone or buried. If the ethos of “Hamilton” is less palatable now, in the burst-bubble aftermath of the Obama era, the souring cannot be attributed to “Hamilton,” nor to the nation, only to individual changes of faith.
The greatest revelation of the new film is, perhaps, that “Hamilton” can be just a musical. History for its own sake can be a dull thing. “Hamilton” comes alive for all the reasons we went to the theatre back when we still could: for delight, for awe, for expression and motif and—forgive me—for certified, sing-along-able tunes. The show will retain these powers, come stage or come streaming. Its optimism is not matched to the present moment; among other things, the future of theatre is uncertain. But “Hamilton,” unlike its cherished figures, holds itself up.


newyorker--2020-07-02--Putin Considering Not Running Trump for Reëlection

MOSCOW ( The Borowitz Report ) —Faced with “ deeply discouraging ” 2020 polls , Vladimir Putin is “ seriously considering ” not running Donald J. Trump for reëlection , according to Kremlin sources .
The Russian President had been holding out hope that Trump could somehow stop his precipitous slide in popularity , but a recent roundup of polls showing Joe Biden crushing him in several battleground states made Putin realize that “ his guy is a lost cause , ” one source said .
“ Putin has been talking about not running Trump for reëlection for months now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s finally ready to pull the rip cord , ” the source added .
According to Kremlin insiders , Putin is actively mulling a number of possible Republican replacements for Trump , including Representative Devin Nunes , Senator Mitch McConnell , and Senator Rand Paul , but he does not relish the idea of making the switch .
“ You have to understand , Putin has spent years training Trump to be so obedient , ” the source said .
“ It ’ s going to be hard breaking in a new one @ @

MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—Faced with “deeply discouraging” 2020 polls, Vladimir Putin is “seriously considering” not running Donald J. Trump for reëlection, according to Kremlin sources.
The Russian President had been holding out hope that Trump could somehow stop his precipitous slide in popularity, but a recent roundup of polls showing Joe Biden crushing him in several battleground states made Putin realize that “his guy is a lost cause,” one source said.
“Putin has been talking about not running Trump for reëlection for months now, but it looks like he’s finally ready to pull the rip cord,” the source added.
According to Kremlin insiders, Putin is actively mulling a number of possible Republican replacements for Trump, including Representative Devin Nunes, Senator Mitch McConnell, and Senator Rand Paul, but he does not relish the idea of making the switch.
“You have to understand, Putin has spent years training Trump to be so obedient,” the source said. “It’s going to be hard breaking in a new one.”


newyorker--2020-07-02--The Gay Marriages of a Nineteenth-Century Prison Ship

In 1842 , a court in Lancaster , England , convicted a young lawyer , George Baxter Grundy , of forging payment , and promptly sent him to serve a fifteen-year sentence in Bermuda , “ beyond the seas.
” The British Empire was expanding rapidly and was in desperate need of labor ; by the time Grundy arrived , thousands of prisoners had been sent to the island to fortify British defenses in North America , hauling and cutting limestone to support military operations .
It was a vicious system : the men , many of them colonial subjects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their homes , shipped thousands of miles away , and consigned to years of forced labor in a foreign land , all in service of empire-building .
( In one sense , the men in Bermuda might have considered themselves lucky—if they had been sent to the penal colony in Tasmania , they would have had little hope of ever returning home . )
Convicts lived on a handful of boats , called “ hulks , ” which were permanently moored in the naval harbor .
Each ship housed hundreds of men ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with fifty other inmates in a crowded cell .
The work was backbreaking , and the conditions brutal .
Shortly after Grundy ’ s arrival , yellow fever swept across the island , and he watched in terror as more than a hundred other prisoners died .
Grundy spent six and a half years in Bermuda ; when he returned home , to London , he summarized his experience , in a scathing complaint to the Colonial Office , as “ the most soul destroying and hellish ever devised by man.
” In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration with several counts of mismanagement : gross and inhumane punishments ; quartermasters and guards “ guilty of drunkenness , debauchery , blasphemy , and theft ” ; and the absence of religious and moral instruction for the convicts .
He asserted that the surgeon did not care for the sick under his charge , and that guards allowed convicts to work illegally in private businesses off the ship .
But the full force of his contempt was reserved for his fellow-prisoners .
Midway through his account , he apologized for what he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how , on the prison ships , sex between men was not only tolerated but conducted in plain sight .
“ I am prepared to prove that unnatural crimes and beastly actions are committed on board the Hulks daily , ” he wrote .
“ For some years Sir I have wished for the opportunity I now have of bringing to light the foul deeds of a Convict Hulk .
They are indeed Sir ‘ seminaries of crime.
’ ” Grundy recounted how , soon after arriving in Bermuda , he saw two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the middle of the day .
He instantly reported them to officials .
The men—Samuel Jones and Burnell Milford—were charged with “ being found in a position ‘ derogatory to the laws of God.
’ ” They were given twenty-four lashes each , and their pay was suspended .
“ Being a new prisoner at the time , I thought I should be generally supported , ” Grundy wrote .
“ But such was not the case.
” The convicts retaliated against him .
He was ostracized , and some of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sleep.
” He also felt unsafe among the prison guards—who , he claimed , did not like it that he had exposed the ship to criticism .
What happened between Jones and Milford , Grundy had learned , wasn ’ t an isolated incident : “ the abominable sin ” was practiced “ to such an extent , ” he wrote , that many of the convicts “ boast of it.
” He underscored , too , that this wasn ’ t just sex : the men would refer to their relationships as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , according to his account , that “ marriage ” was the rule rather than the exception : “ if they are not ‘ married ’ as they term it , it is out of the fashion.
” In his telling , at least a hundred men aboard the prison ships in Bermuda had same-sex partners whom they considered spouses .
Today , the official archive of gay marriage is still in its infancy : in the United States , June marked the fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court ’ s ruling in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ couples with the legal right to marry .
That decision , which followed the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.K. , in 2014 , was a breathtaking victory—recognition of a people and culture long unrecognized by the law .
But we would do well to remember , too , that queer people considered themselves married long before the state sanctioned it .
The convicts on Grundy ’ s ship—deprived of basic rights , exiled from their homeland , abused by the officials and guards of the prison administration—adopted the language of marriage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risked brutal punishment .
Historically , court documents—typically concerning criminal investigations into sodomy—offered the most detailed proof of the existence of queer people .
But , as the historian Charles Upchurch has argued , in “ Before Wilde : Sex Between Men in Britain ’ s Age of Reform , ” such records provide limited evidence .
During the Victorian era , punishment for sex between men would typically have taken place in the family , not the courts , since a public affair would have risked a family ’ s reputation—and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in prison would reduce household earnings .
Sex between men didn ’ t automatically mean permanent exile or public hanging ; most families could hush up such affairs long before the authorities were contacted .
The convicts on the Bermuda hulks , living far from their families , were no longer tethered to these customs .
They might have seen , too , how colonial officials took advantage of no longer living under familiar forms of social scrutiny and religious codes ; British soldiers and officials raped and enslaved women throughout the Caribbean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rules and mores that rarely found its way into the official records .
In the colonies , matters of sexuality were all but absent from the recorded bureaucracy .
Grundy ’ s letter , buried within a thick ledger of Colonial Office records in the British National Archives , is a rare exception .
Finding an official document that describes queer sex this early in the nineteenth century is highly unusual .
( It wasn ’ t until the end of the nineteenth century , when “ homosexual ” and “ heterosexual ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more written evidence of the existence of what we might call gay communities emerged . )
Historians have found examples of people using the terms “ marriage , ” “ husband , ” “ wife , ” and “ spouse ” to define queer relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries , and even earlier—Jen Manion , in her book “ Female Husbands : A Trans History , ” provides invaluable scholarship on the subject—but these were usually isolated cases .
In February , a researcher at Oxford announced that he had uncovered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ espousing tolerance of same-sex attraction .
That document articulated the attitude of one man ; Grundy ’ s letter describes in astonishing detail a robust culture of same-sex intimacy , involving dozens of men , that flourished for years .
Coercion , strikingly , is absent from Grundy ’ s account .
This does not mean that sexual violence did not take place on the hulks .
Without the voices of the other prisoners , it ’ s impossible to know definitively .
But what seems to enrage Grundy most is the mutual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The men aboard the hulks created an entire set of rituals and cultural values , with “ marriage ” not just a word used to justify sex but a term of devotion .
When older inmates were given the occasional opportunity to make extra money as shoemakers , cooks , and servants , they often spent their earnings on gifts for their partners .
The older men would “ strain every nerve to procure for [ their partners ] as many of the good things of this world ” as possible , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risks for them.
” Some men starved themselves so that their partners would “ have plenty , ” or saved up for “ canvas shoes ” to replace their partners ’ uncomfortable , prison-issued pairs .
They washed their younger partners ’ clothing and competed with one another to prove “ who can support and clothe his boy the best .
”

Illustration from Shutterstock
In 1842, a court in Lancaster, England, convicted a young lawyer, George Baxter Grundy, of forging payment, and promptly sent him to serve a fifteen-year sentence in Bermuda, “beyond the seas.” The British Empire was expanding rapidly and was in desperate need of labor; by the time Grundy arrived, thousands of prisoners had been sent to the island to fortify British defenses in North America, hauling and cutting limestone to support military operations. It was a vicious system: the men, many of them colonial subjects from Ireland, had been torn from their homes, shipped thousands of miles away, and consigned to years of forced labor in a foreign land, all in service of empire-building. (In one sense, the men in Bermuda might have considered themselves lucky—if they had been sent to the penal colony in Tasmania, they would have had little hope of ever returning home.) Convicts lived on a handful of boats, called “hulks,” which were permanently moored in the naval harbor. Each ship housed hundreds of men; Grundy, like his fellow-convicts, lived with fifty other inmates in a crowded cell. The work was backbreaking, and the conditions brutal. Shortly after Grundy’s arrival, yellow fever swept across the island, and he watched in terror as more than a hundred other prisoners died. Grundy spent six and a half years in Bermuda; when he returned home, to London, he summarized his experience, in a scathing complaint to the Colonial Office, as “the most soul destroying and hellish ever devised by man.”
In his letter, Grundy charged the prison administration with several counts of mismanagement: gross and inhumane punishments; quartermasters and guards “guilty of drunkenness, debauchery, blasphemy, and theft”; and the absence of religious and moral instruction for the convicts. He asserted that the surgeon did not care for the sick under his charge, and that guards allowed convicts to work illegally in private businesses off the ship. But the full force of his contempt was reserved for his fellow-prisoners. Midway through his account, he apologized for what he was about to reveal, then described how, on the prison ships, sex between men was not only tolerated but conducted in plain sight. “I am prepared to prove that unnatural crimes and beastly actions are committed on board the Hulks daily,” he wrote. “For some years Sir I have wished for the opportunity I now have of bringing to light the foul deeds of a Convict Hulk. They are indeed Sir ‘seminaries of crime.’ ”
Grundy recounted how, soon after arriving in Bermuda, he saw two men engaged in “filthy action” in the middle of the day. He instantly reported them to officials. The men—Samuel Jones and Burnell Milford—were charged with “being found in a position ‘derogatory to the laws of God.’ ” They were given twenty-four lashes each, and their pay was suspended. “Being a new prisoner at the time, I thought I should be generally supported,” Grundy wrote. “But such was not the case.” The convicts retaliated against him. He was ostracized, and some of the men threatened to put him “to sleep.” He also felt unsafe among the prison guards—who, he claimed, did not like it that he had exposed the ship to criticism.
What happened between Jones and Milford, Grundy had learned, wasn’t an isolated incident: “the abominable sin” was practiced “to such an extent,” he wrote, that many of the convicts “boast of it.” He underscored, too, that this wasn’t just sex: the men would refer to their relationships as marriages. The practice became so commonplace, according to his account, that “marriage” was the rule rather than the exception: “if they are not ‘married’ as they term it, it is out of the fashion.” In his telling, at least a hundred men aboard the prison ships in Bermuda had same-sex partners whom they considered spouses.
Today, the official archive of gay marriage is still in its infancy: in the United States, June marked the fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which provided gay couples with the legal right to marry. That decision, which followed the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.K., in 2014, was a breathtaking victory—recognition of a people and culture long unrecognized by the law. But we would do well to remember, too, that queer people considered themselves married long before the state sanctioned it. The convicts on Grundy’s ship—deprived of basic rights, exiled from their homeland, abused by the officials and guards of the prison administration—adopted the language of marriage even when the mere act of sex risked brutal punishment.
Historically, court documents—typically concerning criminal investigations into sodomy—offered the most detailed proof of the existence of queer people. But, as the historian Charles Upchurch has argued, in “Before Wilde: Sex Between Men in Britain’s Age of Reform,” such records provide limited evidence. During the Victorian era, punishment for sex between men would typically have taken place in the family, not the courts, since a public affair would have risked a family’s reputation—and, besides, having a son or brother in prison would reduce household earnings. Sex between men didn’t automatically mean permanent exile or public hanging; most families could hush up such affairs long before the authorities were contacted.
The convicts on the Bermuda hulks, living far from their families, were no longer tethered to these customs. They might have seen, too, how colonial officials took advantage of no longer living under familiar forms of social scrutiny and religious codes; British soldiers and officials raped and enslaved women throughout the Caribbean, establishing a new set of unspoken rules and mores that rarely found its way into the official records. In the colonies, matters of sexuality were all but absent from the recorded bureaucracy.
Grundy’s letter, buried within a thick ledger of Colonial Office records in the British National Archives, is a rare exception. Finding an official document that describes queer sex this early in the nineteenth century is highly unusual. (It wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century, when “homosexual” and “heterosexual” were invented as medical categories, that more written evidence of the existence of what we might call gay communities emerged.) Historians have found examples of people using the terms “marriage,” “husband,” “wife,” and “spouse” to define queer relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and even earlier—Jen Manion, in her book “Female Husbands: A Trans History,” provides invaluable scholarship on the subject—but these were usually isolated cases. In February, a researcher at Oxford announced that he had uncovered a farmer’s diary from 1810 espousing tolerance of same-sex attraction. That document articulated the attitude of one man; Grundy’s letter describes in astonishing detail a robust culture of same-sex intimacy, involving dozens of men, that flourished for years.
Coercion, strikingly, is absent from Grundy’s account. This does not mean that sexual violence did not take place on the hulks. Without the voices of the other prisoners, it’s impossible to know definitively. But what seems to enrage Grundy most is the mutual consent of the men he describes. The men aboard the hulks created an entire set of rituals and cultural values, with “marriage” not just a word used to justify sex but a term of devotion. When older inmates were given the occasional opportunity to make extra money as shoemakers, cooks, and servants, they often spent their earnings on gifts for their partners. The older men would “strain every nerve to procure for [their partners] as many of the good things of this world” as possible, and they would “incur all sorts of risks for them.” Some men starved themselves so that their partners would “have plenty,” or saved up for “canvas shoes” to replace their partners’ uncomfortable, prison-issued pairs. They washed their younger partners’ clothing and competed with one another to prove “who can support and clothe his boy the best.”
The convicts’ story echoes that of other people in the early nineteenth century who borrowed the language of marriage to describe relationships that the government wouldn’t recognize officially. Enslaved people throughout the antebellum South defined themselves as married despite the fact that they were excluded from the legal institution of marriage. In her book “Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century,” Tera W. Hunter includes an account from Thomas Jones, a formerly enslaved man from North Carolina: “We called it and we considered it a true marriage, although we knew well that marriage was not permitted to the slaves as a secret right of the loving heart.”
Like the law, history relies on evidence in order to reconstruct the past. Without it, queer people, especially before the late nineteenth century, are mostly absent from the record, their lives rarely seen, their intimacies reduced to speculation. When investigators from the Colonial Office visited Bermuda to make an official inquiry into Grundy’s complaints, they couldn’t get anyone to corroborate his account—which is little surprise, given the punishment that would have followed for everyone involved. The allegations were dismissed. According to Grundy’s original letter, the authorities in Bermuda would have been loath to record what was happening on the hulks; silence was more convenient. “They didn’t seem to know anything about it,” he wrote. “But the truth is, they don’t wish to know.”
This wish not to know has rendered much of the story of queer sexuality invisible to historians. But, even with such a limited archive, it’s not difficult, when reading Grundy’s letter, to imagine how marriage might have conferred a sense of humanity and normality on the lives of the convicts, as a way to make meaning of the endless toil and to create a new world among those banished by society. One might even imagine their self-described marriages as assertions of a right to be included in an institution that wouldn’t accept them for nearly two centuries.


newyorker--2020-07-03--Camp Chickasaw Online: Your Daily Schedule

Here at Camp Chickasaw , we like to wake up to a rhythmic cheer .
In the absence of ten preteen children in a neighboring cabin screaming “ Rise and shine !
, ” we encourage you to set your phone ’ s alarm to “ bird sounds.
” Nothing beats that bleary-eyed morning trek through the woods to shower in your bathing suit with twenty-five other children and a large volume of daddy longlegs .
To facilitate this beloved ritual remotely , we suggest that your parent or guardian hose you down in the yard with cold water .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Flagpole for “ Taps ” By “ gather ’ round the flagpole , ” we mean click the Zoom link we just e-mailed you .
And by “ morning ‘ Taps ’ ” we mean look in the chat for a GIF of a duck getting stuck in a trumpet .
It ’ s really funny .
Your parent or guardian will scramble seven eggs with absolutely no taste .
( See Zoom chat for “ Tasteless Eggs ” recipe . )
Add as much ketchup as you want—this is camp !
To @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hall , we encourage you and your sibling to scream camp songs at the top of your lungs .
( See Zoom chat for words to “ Boom Chicka Boom.
” ) Proceed to your first activity with all your new best friends .
Again , to clarify , by “ proceed , ” we mean to stay in the same chair you ’ ve been in for the past hour , and by “ your new best friends , ” we mean the blurry squares on your computer that may or may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If your stomach doesn ’ t hurt yet , eat two Snickers bars in rapid succession .
If you don ’ t have access to that beautiful and elusive colored friendship-bracelet thread you ’ ve never seen sold in stores , you can use old rubber bands .
Just put them around your wrist and—voilà !
Friends forever !
We know your bathing suit is still wet from your morning shower—we think it ’ s important that the rest of you is wet again as soon as possible .
In the absence of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pool or a large bucket with more cold hose water and shiver in it for as long as possible .
Then wrap yourself in a towel and give yourself a scratch tattoo while you wait for the other children to finish their merriment .
Your parent or guardian will cook five hot dogs that you should eat in less than ten minutes .
Wash them down with a colorful drink .
( See Zoom chat for “ Bug Juice ” recipe .
Hint : it ’ s just sugar , red food coloring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) Get in bed with another Snickers bar and a king-size bag of Peanut M & Ms .
Write a letter to your parent or guardian in the next room and report how much fun you ’ re having at camp and/or how friendless , terrified , and cold you are .
See the Zoom chat for a link to a virtual game site .
We really aren ’ t sure how this works and are hoping you kids can figure it out .
We ’ re really trying here .
Since you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choose to use your free time to take the swim test , which will entitle you to gloating rights and even more swim time .
In the absence of space to tread water or swim laps , the swim test will consist of standing on one leg while very cold .
You may also use your free time to gossip about other children via private chat , change your virtual background , put peanut butter and spiders in your sibling ’ s bed , practice your dance routine for the talent show , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Your parent or guardian will cook a pound of plain spaghetti .
Fight your sibling for the parmesan .
( See Zoom chat for words to “ Down by the Bay.
” ) Since you haven ’ t made any friends yet and probably everyone thinks you ’ re a weirdo loner , this is your big opportunity to show them all that you ’ re talented and cool .
Put on culottes , a sparkly tankini top , and oversized sunglasses and sit anxiously in your bedroom through an hour and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s your turn , make sure your laptop ’ s camera is well angled and perform the two counts-of-eight you remember from last summer ’ s hip-hop dance class with Ms. Allison over and over to the entirety of Janet Jackson ’ s “ Nasty.
” You are a star .
Gather ’ round the campfire/GIF we just added to the chat of Elmo juggling flames .
You can “ roast ” marshmallows in your toaster oven , or just spoon white sugar directly into your mouth .
Today ’ s question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the first thing you look forward to doing when this nightmare is over ?
Once everyone has shared/cried publicly , see Zoom chat for words to “ The Circle Game.
” Bond over all you have in common with those sweet , blurry faces .
In the quiet and dark of your bedroom , reflect on all the new friends and memories you ’ re making .
There will only be [ unknown number ] more days like this .
Don ’ t forget to savor every moment .

Photograph by Ellinnur Bakarudin / Shutterstock
8 A.M. Good Morning, Campers!
Here at Camp Chickasaw, we like to wake up to a rhythmic cheer. In the absence of ten preteen children in a neighboring cabin screaming “Rise and shine!,” we encourage you to set your phone’s alarm to “bird sounds.”
Nothing beats that bleary-eyed morning trek through the woods to shower in your bathing suit with twenty-five other children and a large volume of daddy longlegs. To facilitate this beloved ritual remotely, we suggest that your parent or guardian hose you down in the yard with cold water.
9 A.M. Gather ’Round the Flagpole for “Taps”
By “gather ’round the flagpole,” we mean click the Zoom link we just e-mailed you. And by “morning ‘Taps’ ” we mean look in the chat for a GIF of a duck getting stuck in a trumpet. It’s really funny.
9:15 A.M. Breakfast
Your parent or guardian will scramble seven eggs with absolutely no taste. (See Zoom chat for “Tasteless Eggs” recipe.) Add as much ketchup as you want—this is camp! To simulate the deafening roar of a mess hall, we encourage you and your sibling to scream camp songs at the top of your lungs. (See Zoom chat for words to “Boom Chicka Boom.”)
10 A.M. Cabin Activity 1: Friendship-Bracelet Braiding
Proceed to your first activity with all your new best friends. Again, to clarify, by “proceed,” we mean to stay in the same chair you’ve been in for the past hour, and by “your new best friends,” we mean the blurry squares on your computer that may or may not contain children’s faces. If your stomach doesn’t hurt yet, eat two Snickers bars in rapid succession. If you don’t have access to that beautiful and elusive colored friendship-bracelet thread you’ve never seen sold in stores, you can use old rubber bands. Just put them around your wrist and—voilà! Friends forever!
11 A.M. Cabin Activity 2: Swimming
We know your bathing suit is still wet from your morning shower—we think it’s important that the rest of you is wet again as soon as possible. In the absence of a lake, fill an inflatable kiddie pool or a large bucket with more cold hose water and shiver in it for as long as possible. Then wrap yourself in a towel and give yourself a scratch tattoo while you wait for the other children to finish their merriment.
12 P.M. Lunch
Your parent or guardian will cook five hot dogs that you should eat in less than ten minutes. Wash them down with a colorful drink. (See Zoom chat for “Bug Juice” recipe. Hint: it’s just sugar, red food coloring, water, and more sugar.)
1 P.M. Siesta
Get in bed with another Snickers bar and a king-size bag of Peanut M&Ms. Write a letter to your parent or guardian in the next room and report how much fun you’re having at camp and/or how friendless, terrified, and cold you are.
2 P.M. Cabin Activity 3: Capture the Flag
See the Zoom chat for a link to a virtual game site. We really aren’t sure how this works and are hoping you kids can figure it out.
3 P.M. Cabin Activity 4: More Swimming!
We’re really trying here.
4 P.M. Free Time
Since you’re already wet, you may choose to use your free time to take the swim test, which will entitle you to gloating rights and even more swim time. In the absence of space to tread water or swim laps, the swim test will consist of standing on one leg while very cold.
You may also use your free time to gossip about other children via private chat, change your virtual background, put peanut butter and spiders in your sibling’s bed, practice your dance routine for the talent show, or cry alone in a tree/closet.
6 P.M. Dinner
Your parent or guardian will cook a pound of plain spaghetti. Fight your sibling for the parmesan. (See Zoom chat for words to “Down by the Bay.”)
7 P.M. Special Activity: Talent Show
Since you haven’t made any friends yet and probably everyone thinks you’re a weirdo loner, this is your big opportunity to show them all that you’re talented and cool. Put on culottes, a sparkly tankini top, and oversized sunglasses and sit anxiously in your bedroom through an hour and a half of violin solos. When it’s your turn, make sure your laptop’s camera is well angled and perform the two counts-of-eight you remember from last summer’s hip-hop dance class with Ms. Allison over and over to the entirety of Janet Jackson’s “Nasty.” You are a star.
9 P.M. Cabin Fireside
Gather ’round the campfire/GIF we just added to the chat of Elmo juggling flames. You can “roast” marshmallows in your toaster oven, or just spoon white sugar directly into your mouth. Today’s question for the group is: What’s the first thing you look forward to doing when this nightmare is over? Once everyone has shared/cried publicly, see Zoom chat for words to “The Circle Game.” Bond over all you have in common with those sweet, blurry faces.
10 P.M. Lights Out
In the quiet and dark of your bedroom, reflect on all the new friends and memories you’re making. There will only be [unknown number] more days like this. Don’t forget to savor every moment.


newyorker--2020-07-03--To the World, We’re Now America the Racist and Pitiful

The real saga of the Statue of Liberty—the symbolic face of America around the world , and the backdrop of New York ’ s dazzling Fourth of July fireworks show—is an obscure piece of U.S. history .
It had nothing to do with immigration .
The telltale clue is the chain under Lady Liberty ’ s feet : she is stomping on it .
“ In the early sketches , she was also holding chains in her hand , ” Edward Berenson , a professor of history at New York University , told me last week .
The shackles were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ date of America ’ s independence .
But the shattered chain under her feet remained .
The statue was the brainchild of Edouard de Laboulaye , a prominent French expert on the U.S. Constitution who also headed the French Anti-Slavery Society .
After the Civil War , in 1865 , he wanted to commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S. , enshrined in the new Thirteenth Amendment , which , in theory , reaffirmed the ideals of freedom—this time for all people—first embodied in the Declaration of Independence .
The now famous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your poor , your huddled masses yearning to breathe free , ” from a poem by Emma Lazarus—wasn ’ t added until 1903 , Berenson noted .
The poem had been donated as part of a literary auction to raise funds for the statue ’ s pedestal .
France donated the statue ; the Americans had to raise the funds to pay for its pedestal .
Long after Lazarus ’ s death , a friend lobbied to have the poem engraved on a plaque and added to the base .
It has since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meaning that Laboulaye never intended .
One has to wonder what Laboulaye would think of America today , amid one of the country ’ s gravest periods of racial turmoil since the Civil War .
Last month , a poll by Ipsos found that an overwhelming majority of people in fourteen countries , on six continents , support the protests that erupted across the United States after the murder of George Floyd .
Russia , the fifteenth country in the survey , was the only place where a minority—about a third—backed the demonstrators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s anniversary—our two hundred and forty-fourth—much of the world believes that the country is racist , battered and bruised .
“ Europe has long been suspicious—even jealous—of the way America has been able to pursue national wealth and power despite its deep social inequities , ” Robin Niblett , the director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs , also known as Chatham House , in London , told me .
“ When you take the Acela and pass through the poorest areas of Baltimore , you can ’ t believe you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States .
There ’ s always been this sense of an underlying flaw in the U.S. system that it was getting away with—that somehow America was keeping just one step ahead of the grim reaper.
” The flaw , he said , is reflected in the American obsession with the stock market as the barometer of national health—economically , politically , socially .
The reaction to Floyd ’ s murder exposed the deep injustices in the American economic model , as well as in the police and judicial systems , Niblett said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ longer so envious .
The Trump Administration ’ s ineptitude in handling the COVID-19 crisis , as well as the President ’ s disdain for longstanding allies and international treaties , have compounded the damage to America ’ s image .
A second poll , released last week by the European Council on Foreign Relations , reported that public perceptions of the United States are increasingly negative in virtually all of the European nations surveyed .
In France , the country that backed the American Revolution and later donated the Statue of Liberty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polled said that their opinion of the U.S. has “ worsened a lot.
” The proportion of respondents who still view America as a key ally is “ vanishingly small ” —as low as six per cent in Italy .
America ’ s standing worldwide has sunk before , although usually over foreign-policy decisions , such as the invasion of Iraq , in 2003 .
The mood globally feels different now , Richard Burkholder , who was the director of Gallup ’ s international polling for decades , told me .
Criticism is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The United States was once a beacon , ” he said .
“ I don ’ t see people looking up to us as they did before.
” Fintan O ’ Toole , a columnist for the Irish Times , was blunter .
“ Over more than two centuries , the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world : love and hatred , fear and hope , envy and contempt , awe and anger , ” he wrote , in April .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ has never been directed towards the US until now : pity.
” Negative polls , however , don ’ t capture the depth of anguish among people who long believed in American ideals , however imperfectly they were implemented in the past .
Antoinette Sithole ’ s little brother , Hector Pieterson , was the George Floyd of South Africa .
On June 16 , 1976 , I was in Soweto , then the black township outside Johannesburg , when the first mass uprising against apartheid began .
The white minority government had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taught in Afrikaans , the language of white settlers .
Black children poured out of schools in protest .
Police opened fire .
Hector , who was thirteen , was the first to die .
The picture of a teen-ager carrying Hector ’ s limp body , Antoinette screaming at his side , made the front pages of newspapers worldwide—and eventually onto the walls of the United Nations .
The memorial to the uprising—which eventually led to Nelson Mandela ’ s freedom , fourteen years later—is the Hector Pieterson Museum , in Soweto @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I have stayed in touch .
Her firstborn is named for her brother .
“ You know everyone in South Africa , including me , thought the United States is the country where one can live better and be comfortable—a dreamland , ” she told me .
But America has recently turned into “ a bully , ” she said , adding , “ I am wondering , why do they dwell so much on color ?
Being black , it ’ s a threat to them .
Why ?
George Floyd was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” Black and white go together “ like hands , ” she said .
“ How can you separate people ?
The one hand needs the other.
” Discrimination in the twenty-first century in the United States is the same as apartheid in South Africa was in the twentieth , she said .
Both represent evil .
Abdulkarim Soroush was an Iranian revolutionary who soured on the Islamic Republic .
I met him at Tehran University , after he became the father of the country ’ s reform movement , in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Martin Luther of Islam because—like the catalyst for the Protestant Reformation , in the sixteenth century—he challenged the absolutist beliefs and abusive practices of a faith .
Soroush , a British-educated philosopher , infuriated Iran ’ s theocratic rulers by arguing that individual freedoms preceded religious belief .
“ The first pillar is this : To be a true believer , one must be free , ” he told me , in 1995 .
“ To become a believer under pressure or coercion will not be true belief .
And this freedom is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months after that discussion , I was at the Jefferson Memorial , in Washington , D.C. , and saw four quotes on its walls .
I took photos and carried them back to Iran on my next visit .
I laid the four pictures out on Soroush ’ s oak desk .
One of them read “ Almighty God hath created the mind free .
All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens .
.
.
are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion.
” Soroush @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his wire-rimmed glasses .
“ Exactly , ” he pronounced .

The real saga of the Statue of Liberty—the symbolic face of America around the world, and the backdrop of New York’s dazzling Fourth of July fireworks show—is an obscure piece of U.S. history. It had nothing to do with immigration. The telltale clue is the chain under Lady Liberty’s feet: she is stomping on it. “In the early sketches, she was also holding chains in her hand,” Edward Berenson, a professor of history at New York University, told me last week. The shackles were later replaced with a tablet noting the date of America’s independence. But the shattered chain under her feet remained.
The statue was the brainchild of Edouard de Laboulaye, a prominent French expert on the U.S. Constitution who also headed the French Anti-Slavery Society. After the Civil War, in 1865, he wanted to commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S., enshrined in the new Thirteenth Amendment, which, in theory, reaffirmed the ideals of freedom—this time for all people—first embodied in the Declaration of Independence. The now famous line “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” from a poem by Emma Lazarus, wasn’t added until 1903, Berenson noted. The poem had been donated as part of a literary auction to raise funds for the statue’s pedestal. France donated the statue; the Americans had to raise the funds to pay for its pedestal. Long after Lazarus’s death, a friend lobbied to have the poem engraved on a plaque and added to the base. It has since associated the Statue of Liberty with a meaning that Laboulaye never intended.
One has to wonder what Laboulaye would think of America today, amid one of the country’s gravest periods of racial turmoil since the Civil War. Last month, a poll by Ipsos found that an overwhelming majority of people in fourteen countries, on six continents, support the protests that erupted across the United States after the murder of George Floyd. Russia, the fifteenth country in the survey, was the only place where a minority—about a third—backed the demonstrators.
On the eve of America’s anniversary—our two hundred and forty-fourth—much of the world believes that the country is racist, battered, and bruised. “Europe has long been suspicious—even jealous—of the way America has been able to pursue national wealth and power despite its deep social inequities,” Robin Niblett, the director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, in London, told me. “When you take the Acela and pass through the poorest areas of Baltimore, you can’t believe you’re looking at part of the United States. There’s always been this sense of an underlying flaw in the U.S. system that it was getting away with—that somehow America was keeping just one step ahead of the Grim Reaper.”
The flaw, he said, is reflected in the American obsession with the stock market as the barometer of national health—economically, politically, socially. The reaction to Floyd’s murder exposed the deep injustices in the American economic model, as well as in the police and judicial systems, Niblett said. Europeans, he added, are no longer so envious.
The Trump Administration’s ineptitude in handling the COVID-19 crisis, as well as the President’s disdain for longstanding allies and international treaties, have compounded the damage to America’s image. A second poll, released last week by the European Council on Foreign Relations, reported that public perceptions of the United States are increasingly negative in virtually all of the European nations surveyed. In France, the country that backed the American Revolution and later donated the Statue of Liberty, forty-six per cent of the people polled said that their opinion of the U.S. has “worsened a lot.” The proportion of respondents who still view America as a key ally is “vanishingly small”—as low as six per cent, in Italy.
America’s standing worldwide has sunk before, although usually over foreign-policy decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The mood globally feels different now, Richard Burkholder, who was the director of Gallup’s international polling for decades, told me. Criticism is now focussed on American practices at home. “The United States was once a beacon,” he said. “I don’t see people looking up to us as they did before.” Fintan O’Toole, a columnist for the Irish Times, was blunter. “Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger,” he wrote, in April. “But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.”
Negative polls, however, don’t capture the depth of anguish among people who long believed in American ideals, however imperfectly they were implemented in the past. Antoinette Sithole’s little brother, Hector Pieterson, was the George Floyd of South Africa. On June 16, 1976, I was in Soweto, then the black township outside Johannesburg, when the first mass uprising against apartheid began. The white minority government had just announced that children would henceforth be taught in Afrikaans, the language of white settlers. Black children poured out of schools in protest. Police opened fire. Hector, who was thirteen, was the first to die. The picture of a teen-ager carrying Hector’s limp body, Antoinette screaming at his side, made the front pages of newspapers worldwide—and eventually onto the walls of the United Nations. The memorial to the uprising—which eventually led to Nelson Mandela’s freedom, fourteen years later—is the Hector Pieterson Museum, in Soweto. Over the decades, Antoinette and I have stayed in touch. Her firstborn is named for her brother.
“You know everyone in South Africa, including me, thought the United States is the country where one can live better and be comfortable—a dreamland,” she told me. But America has recently turned into “a bully,” she said, adding, “I am wondering, why do they dwell so much on color? Being black, it’s a threat to them. Why? George Floyd was killed like a beast. For what?” Black and white go together “like hands,” she said. “How can you separate people? The one hand needs the other.” Discrimination in the twenty-first century in the United States is the same as apartheid in South Africa was in the twentieth, she said. Both represent evil.
Abdulkarim Soroush was an Iranian revolutionary who soured on the Islamic Republic. I met him at Tehran University, after he became the father of the country’s reform movement, in the nineteen-nineties. Soroush was known as the Martin Luther of Islam because—like the catalyst for the Protestant Reformation, in the sixteenth century—he challenged the absolutist beliefs and abusive practices of a faith. Soroush, a British-educated philosopher, infuriated Iran’s theocratic rulers by arguing that individual freedoms preceded religious belief. “The first pillar is this: To be a true believer, one must be free,” he told me, in 1995. “To become a believer under pressure or coercion will not be true belief. And this freedom is the basis of democracy.” A few months after that discussion, I was at the Jefferson Memorial, in Washington, D.C., and saw four quotes on its walls. I took photos and carried them back to Iran on my next visit. I laid the four pictures out on Soroush’s oak desk. One of them read, “Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens . . . are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion.” Soroush read each one, then took off his wire-rimmed glasses. “Exactly,” he pronounced.
Soroush subsequently wrote about the need to separate mosque and state. He argued that the Supreme Leader could not be above the law—or possess powers to override the President, veto legislation, overturn judicial verdicts, or disqualify candidates from running for office. Soroush was increasingly harassed and threatened. In 2000, he fled to the West. He did teaching or research stints at Harvard, Princeton, Georgetown, Stanford, Columbia, and the Library of Congress. He is now an American citizen and lives in California. One of his sons works for Microsoft in Seattle.
“My life here has been a happy experience. I have the freedom to think and write and lecture—all the things denied to me in my own country,” he told me last week. But he is haunted by current events in his new home. America formerly demonstrated an ability to absorb big changes—a hallmark of democracy, he said. “The United States, after the black movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., became a different country. If it had happened in another place, it could have caused a revolution, but here the system could absorb it.” To the outside world, America appeared to be a place to find justice and fairness. “But nowadays, I see a different face,” he said. “Something is going badly wrong in this country.”
America today is a capitalist democracy more than a liberal democracy, Soroush said: “Capital is the tyrant here.” Even justice—“the pounding heart of democracy”—has become expensive, he added. “I greatly fear that this may be lost—due to racism, and capitalist democracy and the justice system becoming weaker for the poor. Heaven forbid, if that happens, America would not be the aspiration of anyone in the world.”
The sorry state of America’s political and physical health ripples across the globe. The United States, long the bedrock of the Western alliance, is less inspirational today—and perhaps will be even less so tomorrow. “The United States has traditionally had an ability to reinvent itself,” Mark Leonard, the co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told me. “The brutality of the American political system—where entire élites get kicked out whenever there is a change of party at the top—has historically led to resilience. What you see now are structural problems much more difficult to solve.” He added that inequality is so “deeply baked”—in education, property and the economy, job opportunities, gerrymandering of voting districts, policing and justice, and the media—that America is now a “toxic brew” of problems. “That means there’s not much bandwidth in America for thinking about anything other than its culture wars,” he said.
This Fourth of July holiday is one of the most humbling in our history. Even at the height of world wars or the Great Depression, America inspired. But, today, the United States is destroying the moral authority it once had. There will still be fireworks. And the Statue of Liberty still towers over New York Harbor. But it is harder today to convince others that Americans embrace—or practice—the ideals that Lady Liberty represents.


newyorker--2020-07-03--Daily Cartoon: Friday, July 3rd

Daily Cartoon: Friday, July 3rd

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newyorker--2020-07-03--Hasan Minaj, Kenan Thompson, and Laura Marling Walk Into a Festival

The 2019 New Yorker Festival was the twentieth edition of the annual event—and it was particularly star-studded .
This program @ @ @ @ @ from that weekend : Kenan Thompson , the longest-running cast member on “ Saturday Night @ @ @ @ @ , the “ Daily Show ” veteran whose Netflix show , “ Patriot Act , @ @ @ @ @ and a Peabody Award ; and the British folk singer Laura Marling , who talks @ @ @ @ @ Los Angeles .
Hasan Minhaj on Being His Ancestors ’ Wildest Dreams The comedian discusses @ @ @ @ @ , and telling Ellen DeGeneres how to pronounce his name .
In seventeen years on @ @ @ @ @ has seen the cast diversify and adapt to “ these woke times.
” The British @ @ @ @ @ to a lot of Joni Mitchell growing up , and she went to California to @ @ @ @

Illustration by Golden Cosmos; Source Photograph by Rodin Eckenroth / FilmMagic / Getty
The 2019 New Yorker Festival was the twentieth edition of the annual event—and it was particularly star-studded. This program features three of the highlights from that weekend: Kenan Thompson, the longest-running cast member on “Saturday Night Live”; Hasan Minhaj, the “Daily Show” veteran whose Netflix show, “Patriot Act,” won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award; and the British folksinger Laura Marling, who talks about finding her voice in Los Angeles.
Hasan Minhaj on Being His Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams
The comedian discusses fatherhood, testifying before Congress, and telling Ellen DeGeneres how to pronounce his name.
Kenan Thompson, “S.N.L.” ’s Longest-Running Cast Member
In seventeen years on the program, the performer has seen the cast diversify and adapt to “these woke times.”
Laura Marling, a Briton in Los Angeles
The British folksinger Laura Marling listened to a lot of Joni Mitchell growing up, and she went to California to find herself musically.


newyorker--2020-07-03--What to Stream: “Top of the Heap,” a Tale of a Black Cop in Seventies D.C., Is a Crucial Work of Afr

What to Stream: “Top of the Heap,” a Tale of a Black Cop in Seventies D.C., Is a Crucial Work of Afrofuturism

There ’ s a dismayingly long list of active filmmakers who , to date , have made only one , great dramatic feature , including Billy Woodberry , Wendell B. Harris , Jr. , Julie Dash , Zeinabu irene Davis , and Rachel Amodeo .
It ’ s infuriating but unsurprising , given the prejudices at every level of the film industry , that the first four filmmakers on the list are black and the last three are women .
To that list should be joined another name , Christopher St. John , whose one and only fiction feature , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was released in 1972 .
( It ’ s streaming on Tubi and Amazon . )
I was tipped off to it on Twitter this week , and it ’ s a major discovery—a genre-twisting tale that couches psychological and political furies in spectacularly bold imaginative flourishes .
St. John , who is black , is the film ’ s producer , writer , director , and star .
In the lead role , as a Washington , D.C. , police officer named George Lattimer , he gives himself the film ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” —as part of his own parodically majestic introduction : in this opening scene , hard-hatted construction workers are attacking hippies amid the slop of an industrial mud puddle as George and other officers struggle to separate the combatants .
George ’ s self-aggrandizing sense of heroism is swiftly mocked and knocked out of him when he ’ s thrown to the ground and a protester hits him in the face with a urine-filled water balloon .
The immense emotional intricacy of the scene , and its chaotic violence , sets the tone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unhappily married to Vi ( Florence St. Peter ) , a stay-at-home mother who ’ s frustrated by his detachment from family life , and he is having an affair with a night-club singer ( Paula Kelly ) .
Vi accuses George of “ playing the big cop , ” punctuating the insult with the N-word—and George ’ s place in the city ’ s black community is at the crux of the movie .
By choice , George works the graveyard shift , with his partner Bobby ( Leonard Kuras ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s warmheartedly cantankerous and casually corrupt ( shaking down a strip-club owner , stealing cash from drug dealers ) .
George , for his part , won ’ t take dirty money .
He ’ s professionally ambitious despite knowing that his quest for promotion to sergeant is being thwarted by his white captain ( John Alderson ) and by the department at large .
When he conducts a drug bust , the two suspects , who are also black , taunt him .
( One calls him “ Mr .
Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ film ’ s most extraordinary scenes , set on a city bus , a confrontation with a black passenger who threatens the driver leads to George being mistakenly stopped by a white officer , who , as George is visibly aware , is looking for a pretext to shoot him .
George is tainted and tormented by the violence that ’ s an inextricable part of police life .
His form of corruption isn ’ t venal , as Bobby ’ s is ; it ’ s brutal .
With his badge , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any goddam thing I want , ” which means grievously beating up a drug dealer and throwing his weight around in a night club where he starts a fight that involves nothing amusing or playful—it ’ s frighteningly brutal , with the gouging of eyes , kidney punches , and kicks to the body that lead to physical and psychic damage .
The gratifications of violence also traumatize and exhaust him , all the more so with his awareness that what he ’ s doing , as a black man who is part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white-run country , is merely “ to fight the Man ’ s war.
” His long-range concern , which weighs on him daily , is whether to stay on the force ; his immediate emotional crisis , however , is focussed on the recent death of his mother and his conflict over whether to attend the funeral , in his home town of Waltersville , in rural Alabama .
George ’ s vast ambition—and his sense of self-worth , however frustrated by professional conflicts and domestic pressures—plays out in his elaborate fantasy life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extensive sequences that are centered on George ’ s Walter Mitty-like absorption in his imagined counterlife as an astronaut training for a mission to the moon .
This lunar-fantasy subplot begins with George , in a space-training jumpsuit , signing in to the NASA training-room log book ( titled “ Top of the Heap ” ) , and it progresses to an elaborate , giddy moon walk , replete with such oddities as the planting of an upside-down flag , Bobby tossing a hot dog onto the lunar surface after being unable to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and George stumbling into a crater .
It also involves sardonically distorted and politically pointed versions of the space program ’ s publicity machine—a press conference where George describes his training as “ isolation , like waiting at the mailbox for your welfare check ” ; a police pursuit of him in a parking lot where he ’ s wearing his space suit and helmet ; an anti-violence speech that he gives in front of an American flag festooned with a skull and crossbones ; a hectic ticker-tape parade in Waltersville ; and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and extravagant outer-space elements and their earthly phantasmagoria turn “ Top of the Heap ” into a crucial work of Afrofuturism—and , just as in the work of Sun Ra , whose assertions that “ Space Is the Place ” acutely suggest the failings of Earth for black people , St. John ’ s visionary depictions of George ’ s NASA fantasies evoke radical rejections of the few paths that are open to George in his terrestrial life .
Their cartoonish but deadly-earnest whimsy is tangled up with the other aspects of George @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones ( the movie is filled with George ’ s symbolically zany soft-core fantasies , as well as some muscular sexual gymnastics ) and a sequence set in Waltersville , one of the most haunting instances of cinematic Surrealism I ’ ve seen in a while .
He finds the town ’ s streets deserted , demands respect for having walked on the moon ( a brick wall with a giant Western Union telegram is involved ) , and achieves a mystical , metaphysical reunion with his late mother by way of sinuously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Richard A. Kelley ) , set to a varied and catchy jazz-centric score by the trombonist and composer J. J. Johnson .
No less than in the films of Alain Resnais , “ Top of the Heap ” also brings its protagonist ’ s inner life to the screen by way of ingenious , nearly subliminal flashes of memory ( the editor is Michael Pozen ) that break through the surface of the action to depict the depths of a mind in torment .
The opening water-balloon humiliation recurs when he sees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the seat of her pants ; Bobby ’ s talk of money troubles reminds him of Vi ’ s own complaints about his meagre earnings ; and , as he talks with Vi about quitting the force , images of the racist insults and violent confrontations that he endures riffle through his mind like a deck of cards .
St. John also graces the film with a fine-grained range of idiosyncratic and resonant behavioral touches .
George ’ s girlfriend ( her name is never spoken ) mellifluously echoes , to her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bitter recriminations .
A retired officer named Tim ( played by Patrick McVey with a hard-bitten folksiness that fuses Jimmy Stewart and Jim Backus ) delivers poignant reflections on old age : I ’ m “ so damn lonely I can hear my teeth decay.
” An aggrieved cabdriver ( Allen Garfield ) apologizes for a violent outburst with unabated violence .
A strange moon-walk rehearsal pivots on a secretary ’ s missing pencil , and George is surprised to find , in the family kitchen , a jar of Tang .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paranoid echo of Nixonian obsession ( with the impersonator Richard M. Dixon in a small but memorable role ) .

There’s a dismayingly long list of active filmmakers who, to date, have made only one, great dramatic feature, including Billy Woodberry, Wendell B. Harris, Jr., Julie Dash, Zeinabu irene Davis, and Rachel Amodeo. It’s infuriating but unsurprising, given the prejudices at every level of the film industry, that the first four filmmakers on the list are black and the last three are women. To that list should be joined another name, Christopher St. John, whose one and only fiction feature, “Top of the Heap,” was released in 1972. (It’s streaming on Tubi and Amazon.) I was tipped off to it on Twitter this week, and it’s a major discovery—a genre-twisting tale that couches psychological and political furies in spectacularly bold imaginative flourishes.
St. John, who is black, is the film’s producer, writer, director, and star. In the lead role, as a Washington, D.C., police officer named George Lattimer, he gives himself the film’s first line of dialogue—“Bullshit!”—as part of his own parodically majestic introduction: in this opening scene, hard-hatted construction workers are attacking hippies amid the slop of an industrial mud puddle as George and other officers struggle to separate the combatants. George’s self-aggrandizing sense of heroism is swiftly mocked and knocked out of him when he’s thrown to the ground and a protester hits him in the face with a urine-filled water balloon. The immense emotional intricacy of the scene, and its chaotic violence, sets the tone for the entire movie.
George is unhappily married to Vi (Florence St. Peter), a stay-at-home mother who’s frustrated by his detachment from family life, and he is having an affair with a night-club singer (Paula Kelly). Vi accuses George of “playing the big cop,” punctuating the insult with the N-word—and George’s place in the city’s black community is at the crux of the movie. By choice, George works the graveyard shift, with his partner Bobby (Leonard Kuras), who’s white, and who’s warmheartedly cantankerous and casually corrupt (shaking down a strip-club owner, stealing cash from drug dealers). George, for his part, won’t take dirty money. He’s professionally ambitious despite knowing that his quest for promotion to sergeant is being thwarted by his white captain (John Alderson) and by the department at large. When he conducts a drug bust, the two suspects, who are also black, taunt him. (One calls him “Mr. Black Pig.”) In one of the film’s most extraordinary scenes, set on a city bus, a confrontation with a black passenger who threatens the driver leads to George being mistakenly stopped by a white officer, who, as George is visibly aware, is looking for a pretext to shoot him.
George is tainted and tormented by the violence that’s an inextricable part of police life. His form of corruption isn’t venal, as Bobby’s is; it’s brutal. With his badge, George says, “I can do any goddam thing I want,” which means grievously beating up a drug dealer and throwing his weight around in a night club where he starts a fight that involves nothing amusing or playful—it’s frighteningly brutal, with the gouging of eyes, kidney punches, and kicks to the body that lead to physical and psychic damage. The gratifications of violence also traumatize and exhaust him, all the more so with his awareness that what he’s doing, as a black man who is part of a mainly white force and a white-run country, is merely “to fight the Man’s war.” His long-range concern, which weighs on him daily, is whether to stay on the force; his immediate emotional crisis, however, is focussed on the recent death of his mother and his conflict over whether to attend the funeral, in his home town of Waltersville, in rural Alabama.
George’s vast ambition—and his sense of self-worth, however frustrated by professional conflicts and domestic pressures—plays out in his elaborate fantasy life, which St. John dramatizes in astoundingly extensive sequences that are centered on George’s Walter Mitty-like absorption in his imagined counterlife as an astronaut training for a mission to the moon. This lunar-fantasy subplot begins with George, in a space-training jumpsuit, signing in to the NASA training-room log book (titled “Top of the Heap”), and it progresses to an elaborate, giddy moon walk, replete with such oddities as the planting of an upside-down flag, Bobby tossing a hot dog onto the lunar surface after being unable to eat it because of his helmet, and George stumbling into a crater. It also involves sardonically distorted and politically pointed versions of the space program’s publicity machine—a press conference where George describes his training as “isolation, like waiting at the mailbox for your welfare check”; a police pursuit of him in a parking lot where he’s wearing his space suit and helmet; an anti-violence speech that he gives in front of an American flag festooned with a skull and crossbones; a hectic ticker-tape parade in Waltersville; and a mock-apocalyptic lunar self-sacrifice.
These extended and extravagant outer-space elements and their earthly phantasmagoria turn “Top of the Heap” into a crucial work of Afrofuturism—and, just as in the work of Sun Ra, whose assertions that “Space Is the Place” acutely suggest the failings of Earth for black people, St. John’s visionary depictions of George’s NASA fantasies evoke radical rejections of the few paths that are open to George in his terrestrial life. Their cartoonish but deadly-earnest whimsy is tangled up with the other aspects of George’s imaginary life, including erotic ones (the movie is filled with George’s symbolically zany soft-core fantasies, as well as some muscular sexual gymnastics) and a sequence set in Waltersville, one of the most haunting instances of cinematic Surrealism I’ve seen in a while. He finds the town’s streets deserted, demands respect for having walked on the moon (a brick wall with a giant Western Union telegram is involved), and achieves a mystical, metaphysical reunion with his late mother by way of sinuously gliding images (thanks to the cinematographer, Richard A. Kelley), set to a varied and catchy jazz-centric score by the trombonist and composer J. J. Johnson.
No less than in the films of Alain Resnais, “Top of the Heap” also brings its protagonist’s inner life to the screen by way of ingenious, nearly subliminal flashes of memory (the editor is Michael Pozen) that break through the surface of the action to depict the depths of a mind in torment. The opening water-balloon humiliation recurs when he sees a hippie-styled woman with an American flag on the seat of her pants; Bobby’s talk of money troubles reminds him of Vi’s own complaints about his meagre earnings; and, as he talks with Vi about quitting the force, images of the racist insults and violent confrontations that he endures riffle through his mind like a deck of cards.
St. John also graces the film with a fine-grained range of idiosyncratic and resonant behavioral touches. George’s girlfriend (her name is never spoken) mellifluously echoes, to her own guitar accompaniment, George’s bitter recriminations. A retired officer named Tim (played by Patrick McVey with a hard-bitten folksiness that fuses Jimmy Stewart and Jim Backus) delivers poignant reflections on old age: I’m “so damn lonely I can hear my teeth decay.” An aggrieved cabdriver (Allen Garfield) apologizes for a violent outburst with unabated violence. A strange moon-walk rehearsal pivots on a secretary’s missing pencil, and George is surprised to find, in the family kitchen, a jar of Tang. There’s also a weirdly apt, paranoid echo of Nixonian obsession (with the impersonator Richard M. Dixon in a small but memorable role).
In short, the teeming artistic inventiveness, emotional frenzy, and political critique that St. John brings to what could have been a conventional genre story should have catapulted him to the forefront of filmmaking. “Top of the Heap” did screen at the Berlin Film Festival and was a nominee for the grand prize (which Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “The Canterbury Tales” won). It was reviewed in the Times respectfully but unenthusiastically, and not at all in The New Yorker. In 2013, the programmer Floyd Webb told Ben Sachs, in the Chicago Reader, what happened next, when St. John faced a dispute with two writers claiming credit: “The Writers Guild shut the film down, took away its right to be distributed. They never took [St. John] to court, but the film was shut down—and basically, Chris was shut down as a filmmaker. Now he was known in Hollywood as a troublemaker because he had done all the wrong things.” Hollywood in the nineteen-seventies was filled with white male directors who stirred up maelstroms of trouble and yet were exalted—and financed. For St. John, it was one strike and you’re out; he hasn’t directed another dramatic feature to date.


newyorker--2020-07-04--Other Jobs That Need Term Limits

Other Jobs That Need Term Limits

Term limits inspire much debate , but , as we ask ourselves whether certain elected positions ought only to be held for a predetermined number of years , we should also consider whether other careers could benefit from a hard out .
Man ’ s Best Friend : Dogs are the purest creatures in the universe , and they have been held down by men for too long .
Let someone else carry the burden for once—like Komodo dragons .
They have a lot of toxically masculine energy anyway .
My Girlfriends : I just don ’ t like breakups @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Hinge before we even meet seems like a great way to save everyone from hurt feelings and to help me avoid ever growing up , committing , or taking responsibility for my actions .
Cuckoo Clocks : Give those birds a rest , honey !
Not only do they never get a break , but they have to be wacky every hour on the hour .
Talk about emotional labor !
My Hairdresser : No one should know all of my secrets forever .
Parents : Mine say that they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what they actually mean is that they ’ re just burnt out .
Tech C.E.O.s : What if they just stepped down at the end of four years , instead of waiting for a barrage of scandals and harassment charges ?
The status quo needs to be “ disrupted , ” to borrow a phrase , which I do hate myself for doing .
Plus , get some new brains in there and our iPhones might have batteries that last longer than forty-five seconds .
British Royalty : Harry and Meghan had the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing that , just without all the ostracism and racism .
Although that might defeat the whole purpose of royalty .
.
.
.
New York City Mayors : Yes , they already have term limits , but we also need a plan in place to keep them occupied with harmless activities after they step down—too much idle time has proved disastrous .
The Supreme Court : This is actually a well-researched position , and the fate of the world might depend on it .
Kind of like the cuckoo-clock thing .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ content we got out of having two popes .
Imagine if we had a new Pope each year !
“ Twelve Angry Popes.
” “ Vatican ’ s 8.
” “ Three Popes and a Pope.
” Popes should be like Santas—one in every mall , seasonally .
President of the United States : There are , of course , term limits for this , but I can ’ t help but feel that some people might need to be reminded .
God : It ’ s a well-known fact that the culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down .
And there ’ s no shortage of qualified demigods ( Greta Thunberg , Laura Dern , Beyoncé , etc . )
who could turn this whole universe around if they were just given a chance to lead .
Underwear : Rather than having to ask myself how many holes is too many holes , I ’ d prefer that new pairs came with a definitive expiration date .

Term limits inspire much debate, but, as we ask ourselves whether certain elected positions ought only to be held for a predetermined number of years, we should also consider whether other careers could benefit from a hard out.
Man’s Best Friend: Dogs are the purest creatures in the universe, and they have been held down by men for too long. Let someone else carry the burden for once—like Komodo dragons. They have a lot of toxically masculine energy anyway.
My Girlfriends: I just don’t like breakups. Setting a firm relationship end date on Hinge before we even meet seems like a great way to save everyone from hurt feelings and to help me avoid ever growing up, committing, or taking responsibility for my actions.
Cuckoo Clocks: Give those birds a rest, honey! Not only do they never get a break, but they have to be wacky every hour on the hour. Talk about emotional labor!
My Hairdresser: No one should know all of my secrets forever.
Parents: Mine say that they’re “disappointed,” but I think what they actually mean is that they’re just burnt out.
Tech C.E.O.s: What if they just stepped down at the end of four years, instead of waiting for a barrage of scandals and harassment charges? The status quo needs to be “disrupted,” to borrow a phrase, which I do hate myself for doing. Plus, get some new brains in there and our iPhones might have batteries that last longer than forty-five seconds.
British Royalty: Harry and Meghan had the right idea! Let’s keep doing that, just without all the ostracism and racism. Although that might defeat the whole purpose of royalty. . . .
New York City Mayors: Yes, they already have term limits, but we also need a plan in place to keep them occupied with harmless activities after they step down—too much idle time has proved disastrous.
The Supreme Court: This is actually a well-researched position, and the fate of the world might depend on it. Kind of like the cuckoo-clock thing.
The Pope: We saw how much great content we got out of having two popes. Imagine if we had a new Pope each year! “Twelve Angry Popes.” “Vatican’s 8.” “Three Popes and a Pope.” Popes should be like Santas—one in every mall, seasonally.
President of the United States: There are, of course, term limits for this, but I can’t help but feel that some people might need to be reminded.
God: It’s a well-known fact that the culture in any organization comes from the top down. And there’s no shortage of qualified demigods (Greta Thunberg, Laura Dern, Beyoncé, etc.) who could turn this whole universe around if they were just given a chance to lead.
Underwear: Rather than having to ask myself how many holes is too many holes, I’d prefer that new pairs came with a definitive expiration date.