newyorker--2020-02-24--The Lasting Influence of Mexico’s Great Muralists

The title of a thumpingly great show at the Whitney , “ Vida Americana : Mexican Muralists Remake American Art , 1925-1945 , ” picks an overdue art-historical fight .
The usual story of American art in those two decades revolves around young , often immigrant American aesthetes striving to absorb European modernism .
A triumphalist tale composed backward from its climax—the postwar success of Abstract Expressionism—it brushes aside the prevalence , in the Depression thirties , of politically themed figurative art : social realism , more or less , which became ideologically toxic with the onset of the Cold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mighty legacy of the time ’ s big three Mexican painters , Diego Rivera , José Clemente Orozco , and David Alfaro Siqueiros ?
As little as possible has seemed the rule , despite the seminal influence of Orozco and Siqueiros on the young Jackson Pollock .
Granted , there ’ s the problem of appreciating muralists in the absence of their murals .
( A mural is a picture that is identical with a wall , and a wall belongs to a building that , besides not being portable , has meanings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with some two hundred works by sixty artists and abundant documentary material , the Whitney curator Barbara Haskell reweaves the sense and the sensations of an era to bring it alive .
Start the story with Emiliano Zapata , the peasant leader from a village in the central state of Morelos , who was tricked into a military ambush and martyred in 1919 .
This was a year before the decade-long , staggeringly bloody Mexican Revolution , which had begun with an attempt to overthrow the dictatorial and oligarchic President Porfirio Díaz , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obregón .
( At least a million of the country ’ s fifteen million citizens lost their lives . )
The agrarian rebel Zapata became an iconic figure for a new order that was merging social reform with a celebration of folkways and traditions—in striking contrast to the urban-industrial character of the Russian Revolution .
( Shifting views of the Soviet Union regularly roiled the Mexican intelligentsia , many of whom welcomed the exiled Leon Trotsky to the capital , in 1937 , before some effectively condoned his murder by a Stalinist agent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ artist had a go at exalting Zapata for his deep rootedness in native soil as well as for his dashing militance .
Orozco ’ s “ Zapatistas ” ( 1931 ) lyricizes the rural force .
A “ Zapatistas ” made the following year , by Alfredo Ramos Martínez , conveys a lot with witty economy : a packed composition of overlapping sombreros affording incomplete glimpses of peasant faces and rifle barrels .
It radiates a sort of ecstatic menace .
Ramos Martínez , who immigrated to Los Angeles in 1930 , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who impress in the show ’ s opening sections .
The Italian-born photographer Tina Modotti , who journeyed the opposite way , from Los Angeles to Mexico , in 1923 , is represented with crisp images , including a still-life of a sickle , a loaded bandolier , and an ear of corn .
But the exhibition centers on the three leaders of the mural movement and their galvanizing effects north of the border .
The star , of course , is Rivera , whose panache in an epic style of sophisticated populism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he was given the newly founded Museum of Modern Art ’ s second monographic show ( the first was devoted to Matisse ) and created a remarkable suite of portable frescoes .
Among them were a magnificent portrayal of Zapata appropriating the white horse of a slain foe and “ The Uprising , ” in which a woman with a baby defends a worker from a sword-wielding soldier .
I once underrated that work , but this time it affected me with its cinematic immediacy .
Rivera keeps looking better in retrospect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his standing declined while that of his wife , Frida Kahlo , soared .
I prefer Kahlo myself , though by a narrower margin now .
The show includes only two works by her .
One jolts .
The self-portrait “ Me and My Parrots ” ( 1941 ) communicates a force of personhood beyond that of any of the hundreds of other faces on view here .
Rivera notoriously enchanted American financiers and industrialists , engaging in a dizzying dance of co-optation that extended to adulatory coverage in Forbes and peaked with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in the Detroit Institute of Arts , of a Ford plant in full-tilt operation .
This celebrity proved tricky for him at home , where Siqueiros , among others , denounced him as a sellout to class enemies .
Rivera countered by painting a head of Lenin into his grand mural suite for Rockefeller Center , in 1933 .
Ordered by Nelson Rockefeller to remove the Bolshevik , Rivera refused .
( Light verse by E. B .
White in this magazine had the mogul objecting , “ After all / It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it concluded , “ ‘ We ’ ll see if it is , ’ said Rivera.
” ) The work was destroyed in 1934 .
The same year , Rivera painted a new version , “ Man , Controller of the Universe , ” in Mexico City .
The Whitney show features a full-sized ( nearly sixteen feet high by thirty-seven and a half feet wide ) digital reproduction of the surviving mural , printed on a single sheet of vinyl glued to a wall .
I don ’ t know what to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of technical whoop-de-do .
Much as I empathize with Haskell ’ s yen for a pièce de résistance , I swear by the physical integrity of painting , here betrayed by a smooth-as-silk illusion .
Rivera inspired American painters to create tableaux of laboring or protesting workers ( police brutality figures often ) and of historical events and themes .
The work of the African-American artist Charles White is notable ; give an eye to his “ Progress of the American Negro : Five Great American Negroes ” ( 1939-40 ) , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Marian Anderson into a baroque panorama .
The show also includes ten temperas from Jacob Lawrence ’ s “ Migration Series , ” of 1940-41 : little pictures , narrating the northward exodus of Southern blacks , that reverberate with intense color , clenched design , and a quiet power of conviction that makes much other work here seem forced and fustian .
But America already had a prominent public artist : the ebullient neo-Mannerist Thomas Hart Benton , who hailed Rivera until he was alienated by his Marxism .
Benton ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a heaping side order of Hollywood .
His bravura series “ American Historical Epic ” ( 1924-27 ) has the virtue of featuring noble Indians along with the vice of casting them as perennial losers .
He could be callous .
But he was right on time for certain popular moods of the thirties—so much so that his reputation crashed soon thereafter .
He has come to be mentioned most often as a teacher of Jackson Pollock—a status that happens to be at the beating heart of the Whitney show .
The young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Siqueiros , who was at once the mural movement ’ s most adamant Stalinist ( in 1940 , he led a failed attempt , with machine guns , to assassinate Trotsky ) and its most experimental , indeed avant-garde , painter .
Pollock attended a workshop that Siqueiros conducted in New York , in 1936 , teaching innovative techniques : using non-paint materials , airbrushing , and , among other heterodox procedures , dripping and pouring .
Meanwhile , Pollock emulated Orozco ’ s dark , fierce , rhythmic Expressionism to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not quite—hard to distinguish from it .
Relatively neutral politically , Orozco favored mythological subjects in such explosively composed works as “ Prometheus , ” a mural at Pomona College , in California , which the Whitney represents , at about half scale , in another digital reproduction .
Juxtapositions of paintings by Orozco and Siqueiros with contemporaneous ones by Pollock amount to a riveting show within the show : a crucible in which the apolitical American found ways around the crushing authority of Picasso , Matisse , Miró , Mondrian , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Mexicans matched his volcanic temperament ; and the heft of their gestural forms showed him how to rival , while evading , the tinkered unities of Cubism .
I recommend comparing and contrasting the seething intensity of Pollock ’ s “ Composition with Flames ” ( 1936 ) with that of “ The Fire ” ( 1938 ) , by Orozco , and Siqueiros ’ s “ The Electric Forest ” ( 1939 ) .
“ Vida Americana ” valuably augments standard histories of modern art .
Without the Mexican precedents of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ development of Abstract Expressionism in general , and that of Pollock in particular , lacks crucial sense .
As for the politics , consider the persistently leftward tilt of American art culture ever since—a residual hankering , however sotto voce , to change the world .
♦

The title of a thumpingly great show at the Whitney, “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945,” picks an overdue art-historical fight. The usual story of American art in those two decades revolves around young, often immigrant American aesthetes striving to absorb European modernism. A triumphalist tale composed backward from its climax—the postwar success of Abstract Expressionism—it brushes aside the prevalence, in the Depression thirties, of politically themed figurative art: social realism, more or less, which became ideologically toxic with the onset of the Cold War. What to do with the mighty legacy of the time’s big three Mexican painters, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros? As little as possible has seemed the rule, despite the seminal influence of Orozco and Siqueiros on the young Jackson Pollock. Granted, there’s the problem of appreciating muralists in the absence of their murals. (A mural is a picture that is identical with a wall, and a wall belongs to a building that, besides not being portable, has meanings of its own.) But, with some two hundred works by sixty artists and abundant documentary material, the Whitney curator Barbara Haskell reweaves the sense and the sensations of an era to bring it alive.
“The Driller (Mural, Rikers Island, New York),” by Harold Lehman, from 1937. Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum / © Estate of Harold Lehman
Start the story with Emiliano Zapata, the peasant leader from a village in the central state of Morelos, who was tricked into a military ambush and martyred in 1919. This was a year before the decade-long, staggeringly bloody Mexican Revolution, which had begun with an attempt to overthrow the dictatorial and oligarchic President Porfirio Díaz, finally culminated in the election of Álvaro Obregón. (At least a million of the country’s fifteen million citizens lost their lives.) The agrarian rebel Zapata became an iconic figure for a new order that was merging social reform with a celebration of folkways and traditions—in striking contrast to the urban-industrial character of the Russian Revolution. (Shifting views of the Soviet Union regularly roiled the Mexican intelligentsia, many of whom welcomed the exiled Leon Trotsky to the capital, in 1937, before some effectively condoned his murder by a Stalinist agent, in 1940.) Nearly every artist had a go at exalting Zapata for his deep rootedness in native soil as well as for his dashing militance. Orozco’s “Zapatistas” (1931) lyricizes the rural force. A “Zapatistas” made the following year, by Alfredo Ramos Martínez, conveys a lot with witty economy: a packed composition of overlapping sombreros affording incomplete glimpses of peasant faces and rifle barrels. It radiates a sort of ecstatic menace.
Ramos Martínez, who immigrated to Los Angeles in 1930, is one of a number of lesser-known artists who impress in the show’s opening sections. The Italian-born photographer Tina Modotti, who journeyed the opposite way, from Los Angeles to Mexico, in 1923, is represented with crisp images, including a still-life of a sickle, a loaded bandolier, and an ear of corn. But the exhibition centers on the three leaders of the mural movement and their galvanizing effects north of the border. The star, of course, is Rivera, whose panache in an epic style of sophisticated populism won him world fame. In 1931, he was given the newly founded Museum of Modern Art’s second monographic show (the first was devoted to Matisse) and created a remarkable suite of portable frescoes. Among them were a magnificent portrayal of Zapata appropriating the white horse of a slain foe and “The Uprising,” in which a woman with a baby defends a worker from a sword-wielding soldier. I once underrated that work, but this time it affected me with its cinematic immediacy. Rivera keeps looking better in retrospect, after a long period in which his standing declined while that of his wife, Frida Kahlo, soared. I prefer Kahlo myself, though by a narrower margin now. The show includes only two works by her. One jolts. The self-portrait “Me and My Parrots” (1941) communicates a force of personhood beyond that of any of the hundreds of other faces on view here.
“Barricade,” by José Clemente Orozco, from 1931. Courtesy MOMA / © ARS, New York
Rivera notoriously enchanted American financiers and industrialists, engaging in a dizzying dance of co-optation that extended to adulatory coverage in Forbes and peaked with his masterpiece murals, completed in 1933, in the Detroit Institute of Arts, of a Ford plant in full-tilt operation. This celebrity proved tricky for him at home, where Siqueiros, among others, denounced him as a sellout to class enemies. Rivera countered by painting a head of Lenin into his grand mural suite for Rockefeller Center, in 1933. Ordered by Nelson Rockefeller to remove the Bolshevik, Rivera refused. (Light verse by E. B. White in this magazine had the mogul objecting, “After all / It’s my wall,” before it concluded, “ ‘We’ll see if it is,’ said Rivera.”) The work was destroyed in 1934. The same year, Rivera painted a new version, “Man, Controller of the Universe,” in Mexico City. The Whitney show features a full-sized (nearly sixteen feet high by thirty-seven and a half feet wide) digital reproduction of the surviving mural, printed on a single sheet of vinyl glued to a wall. I don’t know what to make of that except as an instance of technical whoop-de-do. Much as I empathize with Haskell’s yen for a pièce de résistance, I swear by the physical integrity of painting, here betrayed by a smooth-as-silk illusion.
Rivera inspired American painters to create tableaux of laboring or protesting workers (police brutality figures often) and of historical events and themes. The work of the African-American artist Charles White is notable; give an eye to his “Progress of the American Negro: Five Great American Negroes” (1939-40), which works such heroes as Booker T. Washington and Marian Anderson into a baroque panorama. The show also includes ten temperas from Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series,” of 1940-41: little pictures, narrating the northward exodus of Southern blacks, that reverberate with intense color, clenched design, and a quiet power of conviction that makes much other work here seem forced and fustian.
But America already had a prominent public artist: the ebullient neo-Mannerist Thomas Hart Benton, who hailed Rivera until he was alienated by his Marxism. Benton’s output might be termed liberal-nationalist with a heaping side order of Hollywood. His bravura series “American Historical Epic” (1924-27) has the virtue of featuring noble Indians along with the vice of casting them as perennial losers. He could be callous. But he was right on time for certain popular moods of the thirties—so much so that his reputation crashed soon thereafter. He has come to be mentioned most often as a teacher of Jackson Pollock—a status that happens to be at the beating heart of the Whitney show.
“The Uprising,” by Diego Rivera, from 1931. Courtesy collection of Vicky and Marcos Micha Levy; © 2020 Banco de México Rivera Kahlo Museums Trust / ARS. Reproduction authorized by El Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, 2020
The young Pollock was a student, too, of Siqueiros, who was at once the mural movement’s most adamant Stalinist (in 1940, he led a failed attempt, with machine guns, to assassinate Trotsky) and its most experimental, indeed avant-garde, painter. Pollock attended a workshop that Siqueiros conducted in New York, in 1936, teaching innovative techniques: using non-paint materials, airbrushing, and, among other heterodox procedures, dripping and pouring. Meanwhile, Pollock emulated Orozco’s dark, fierce, rhythmic Expressionism to the point of making works that are almost—but not quite—hard to distinguish from it. Relatively neutral politically, Orozco favored mythological subjects in such explosively composed works as “Prometheus,” a mural at Pomona College, in California, which the Whitney represents, at about half scale, in another digital reproduction. Juxtapositions of paintings by Orozco and Siqueiros with contemporaneous ones by Pollock amount to a riveting show within the show: a crucible in which the apolitical American found ways around the crushing authority of Picasso, Matisse, Miró, Mondrian, and other European paragons. The vehemence of the Mexicans matched his volcanic temperament; and the heft of their gestural forms showed him how to rival, while evading, the tinkered unities of Cubism. I recommend comparing and contrasting the seething intensity of Pollock’s “Composition with Flames” (1936) with that of “The Fire” (1938), by Orozco, and Siqueiros’s “The Electric Forest” (1939).
“Vida Americana” valuably augments standard histories of modern art. Without the Mexican precedents of amplified scale and passionate vigor, the development of Abstract Expressionism in general, and that of Pollock in particular, lacks crucial sense. As for the politics, consider the persistently leftward tilt of American art culture ever since—a residual hankering, however sotto voce, to change the world. ♦


newyorker--2020-02-24--How Autumn de Wilde Made “Emma” So Edible

One recent afternoon , not long before the première of “ Emma , ” the first feature film by Autumn de Wilde , the Los Angeles-based director and photographer visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art , in New York .
De Wilde , who is six feet two , wore a plum-colored Borsalino fedora ( “ I was re-upping my hats , and Bill Nighy helped me ” ) , a high-collared pink blouse , a dark A-line jacket , a mango Prada Galleria bag , navy trousers , pink socks , and black oxford shoes .
She carried an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I decided not to hide it anymore ” ) and resembled an amused Edwardian flâneur .
“ My style icons are two people : Oscar Wilde and Paddington Bear , ” she said .
She has a special memory of the Met : her five-year-old daughter , asleep— “ She was like a long noodle ” —on a bench in front of Jackson Pollock ’ s “ Autumn Rhythm ( Number 30 ) , ” the billboard-size action painting from 1950 .
“ She looked so amazing , ” de Wilde @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to take pictures.
” Arrow de Wilde , now twenty , is the lead singer in a band called Starcrawler , and six feet three : a very long noodle .
De Wilde later re-created the Pollock nap image in a photo shoot , with Elijah Wood wearing Rodarte pajamas .
“ We only got in trouble when he tried to take his shoes off , ” she said .
“ Emma , ” with a screenplay adapted from Jane Austen by the novelist Eleanor Catton , comes out at a particular moment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and creators are reimagining classic girls ’ stories ( “ Little Women ” ) and biographies ( “ Dickinson ” ) , and playing up the boldness and independence of their heroines in ways that feel new .
De Wilde ’ s artful whimsy—evidenced in her short films for Prada , photographs for Rodarte , and album covers for Jenny Lewis , Beck , the White Stripes , Childish Gambino , and Elliott Smith , among others—makes Austen ’ s familiar tale of youthful meddling in Regency England look pleasingly strange .
De @ @ @ @ @ @ @ color , ” she said .
The film opens in a hothouse bursting with orange and pink flowers ; Mrs. Goddard ’ s boarding-school girls move in a flock , à la “ Madeline ” or “ The Handmaid ’ s Tale , ” wearing red capes and pale bonnets ; the pink-and-green décor of Hartfield , Emma ’ s home , evokes a layer cake frosted with buttercream .
“ I wanted it to be like a pastry shop , ” de Wilde said .
“ I told all my departments , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ” Amid these trappings , the humans themselves can look almost plain .
De Wilde headed toward the Met ’ s classical sculptures .
“ In my fashion research for ‘ Emma , ’ I was fascinated by the change in women ’ s fashion in the Regency period—from corseted hourglass hoopskirts to , basically , nightgowns , ” she said.
“ The aristocracy was raping Italy and Greece of their sculptures and bringing them back to England ; it seems so obviously inspired by them.
” She charged past Pacific Island @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) and continued , “ For the first time , men could see the shape of a woman ’ s body under her dress—the shape of her butt when the wind blew.
” She made a curved-rump gesture .
In the sunlit atrium of the Greek and Roman Sculpture Court , de Wilde admired the ancient statues ’ Austenian features : Empire waists , tight ringlets , soft arms , muscled languor .
Austen ’ s novel , whose heroine is not only handsome , clever , and rich but a spirited busybody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ so much about Emma observing things inside her head ” ; Austen ’ s appreciation of absurdity makes her fun to adapt .
“ Life is bizarre , ” de Wilde went on .
She did a double take .
“ Like this.
” Behind her , two teen-age girls were messing with a cell phone near an armless statue .
“ She ’ s taking a Boomerang of his broken penis , ” she said .
Forging on , de Wilde saw Austenian details everywhere .
Passing an exhibition called “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the whirring of gears , she was drawn to a clock that resembled a gold-leaf , steampunk R2-D2 .
“ This is fucking incredible !
” she said .
A small boy looked up at her .
“ The sound of clocks is in every room in ‘ Emma , ’ ” she went on .
“ Emma ’ s life is orderly , beautiful , and ornate .
But the clock ’ s not working anymore , in her life.
” De Wilde grew up in the arts : her father @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and her mother , Mary , regularly took her to museums .
As a kid , de Wilde was prone to “ museum fatigue , ” she said , “ because I didn ’ t realize how over-observant my brain was .
So I used to play this game where I would memorize color combinations that I liked : lavender , citrine , dark green , rose.
” She gestured at a nearby painting .
“ Would you remember that her headband was red ?
But that red is fucking amazing !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spectrum , and it ’ s attractive to our eyes.
” She pressed on to the European galleries .
Gérôme ’ s “ Pygmalion and Galatea , ” circa 1890 , was a “ big inspiration , ” she said .
“ I have muses.
” She cited “ Emma ” ’ s stars .
“ Anya Taylor-Joy is a muse , Mia Goth is a muse , Johnny Flynn is a muse.
” She looked again .
“ Of course , this is a man , so he ’ s making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1831 David d ’ Angers bust of a woman with her hair styled in egg-shaped buns , she said , “ Mrs .
Elton !
, ” and took a picture .
Male nudes brought to mind Merchant-Ivory ’ s “ A Room with a View , ” from 1985 , which she had the “ Emma ” cast watch .
“ The pond scene ” —frolicking , whooping , bouncing— “ is a pivotal moment in my life , ” de Wilde said .
“ And it told so much about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the women.
” They also screened “ Bringing Up Baby ” : “ I like to show a rebellious woman by making everyone around her not rebellious.
” As she said this , she was standing in front of Gustave Courbet ’ s “ Woman with a Parrot , ” from 1866—a female nude , splayed on a sheet in delicious repose , her wavy hair spread out , her hand extended in welcome to a vivid green bird .
“ This is how I felt this morning , ” de Wilde said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emoji for today.
” ♦

One recent afternoon, not long before the première of “Emma,” the first feature film by Autumn de Wilde, the Los Angeles-based director and photographer visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. De Wilde, who is six feet two, wore a plum-colored Borsalino fedora (“I was re-upping my hats, and Bill Nighy helped me”), a high-collared pink blouse, a dark A-line jacket, a mango Prada Galleria bag, navy trousers, pink socks, and black oxford shoes. She carried an elegant cane (“I have arthritis, and I decided not to hide it anymore”) and resembled an amused Edwardian flâneur. “My style icons are two people: Oscar Wilde and Paddington Bear,” she said.
She has a special memory of the Met: her five-year-old daughter, asleep—“She was like a long noodle”—on a bench in front of Jackson Pollock’s “Autumn Rhythm (Number 30),” the billboard-size action painting from 1950. “She looked so amazing,” de Wilde said. “People started gathering around to take pictures.” Arrow de Wilde, now twenty, is the lead singer in a band called Starcrawler, and six feet three: a very long noodle. De Wilde later re-created the Pollock nap image in a photo shoot, with Elijah Wood wearing Rodarte pajamas.
“We only got in trouble when he tried to take his shoes off,” she said.
“Emma,” with a screenplay adapted from Jane Austen by the novelist Eleanor Catton, comes out at a particular moment, when a number of female directors and creators are reimagining classic girls’ stories (“Little Women”) and biographies (“Dickinson”), and playing up the boldness and independence of their heroines in ways that feel new. De Wilde’s artful whimsy—evidenced in her short films for Prada, photographs for Rodarte, and album covers for Jenny Lewis, Beck, the White Stripes, Childish Gambino, and Elliott Smith, among others—makes Austen’s familiar tale of youthful meddling in Regency England look pleasingly strange.
De Wilde likes to “tell stories with color,” she said. The film opens in a hothouse bursting with orange and pink flowers; Mrs. Goddard’s boarding-school girls move in a flock, à la “Madeline” or “The Handmaid’s Tale,” wearing red capes and pale bonnets; the pink-and-green décor of Hartfield, Emma’s home, evokes a layer cake frosted with buttercream. “I wanted it to be like a pastry shop,” de Wilde said. “I told all my departments, ‘The colors need to feel edible.’ ” Amid these trappings, the humans themselves can look almost plain.
De Wilde headed toward the Met’s classical sculptures. “In my fashion research for ‘Emma,’ I was fascinated by the change in women’s fashion in the Regency period—from corseted hourglass hoopskirts to, basically, nightgowns,” she said.“The aristocracy was raping Italy and Greece of their sculptures and bringing them back to England; it seems so obviously inspired by them.” She charged past Pacific Island bis poles (“Incredible!”) and continued, “For the first time, men could see the shape of a woman’s body under her dress—the shape of her butt when the wind blew.” She made a curved-rump gesture. In the sunlit atrium of the Greek and Roman Sculpture Court, de Wilde admired the ancient statues’ Austenian features: Empire waists, tight ringlets, soft arms, muscled languor.
Austen’s novel, whose heroine is not only handsome, clever, and rich but a spirited busybody, is, de Wilde said, “so much about Emma observing things inside her head”; Austen’s appreciation of absurdity makes her fun to adapt. “Life is bizarre,” de Wilde went on. She did a double take. “Like this.” Behind her, two teen-age girls were messing with a cell phone near an armless statue. “She’s taking a Boomerang of his broken penis,” she said.
Forging on, de Wilde saw Austenian details everywhere. Passing an exhibition called “Making Marvels,” loud with ticking and the whirring of gears, she was drawn to a clock that resembled a gold-leaf, steampunk R2-D2. “This is fucking incredible!” she said. A small boy looked up at her. “The sound of clocks is in every room in ‘Emma,’ ” she went on. “Emma’s life is orderly, beautiful, and ornate. But the clock’s not working anymore, in her life.”
De Wilde grew up in the arts: her father is the sixties-counterculture photographer Jerry de Wilde, and her mother, Mary, regularly took her to museums. As a kid, de Wilde was prone to “museum fatigue,” she said, “because I didn’t realize how over-observant my brain was. So I used to play this game where I would memorize color combinations that I liked: lavender, citrine, dark green, rose.” She gestured at a nearby painting. “Would you remember that her headband was red? But that red is fucking amazing! Green is on the opposite end of the spectrum, and it’s attractive to our eyes.”
She pressed on to the European galleries. Gérôme’s “Pygmalion and Galatea,” circa 1890, was a “big inspiration,” she said. “I have muses.” She cited “Emma” ’s stars. “Anya Taylor-Joy is a muse, Mia Goth is a muse, Johnny Flynn is a muse.” She looked again. “Of course, this is a man, so he’s making out with his muse.” Passing an 1831 David d’Angers bust of a woman with her hair styled in egg-shaped buns, she said, “Mrs. Elton!,” and took a picture. Male nudes brought to mind Merchant-Ivory’s “A Room with a View,” from 1985, which she had the “Emma” cast watch. “The pond scene”—frolicking, whooping, bouncing—“is a pivotal moment in my life,” de Wilde said. “And it told so much about the freedom they desire—the men as well as the women.” They also screened “Bringing Up Baby”: “I like to show a rebellious woman by making everyone around her not rebellious.”
As she said this, she was standing in front of Gustave Courbet’s “Woman with a Parrot,” from 1866—a female nude, splayed on a sheet in delicious repose, her wavy hair spread out, her hand extended in welcome to a vivid green bird. “This is how I felt this morning,” de Wilde said, smiling. “This is my emoji for today.” ♦


newyorker--2020-02-24--“Kid Positive,” by Adam Levin

“Kid Positive,” by Adam Levin

My parents were worried , and I wanted a dog , so I offered them a deal : I ’ d put an end to my sisters ’ nocturnal enuresis once and for all if we could get a dog .
“ You think you ’ re clever , ” my father said .
“ He knows that even if he fails we won ’ t have the heart to take the dog away—you won ’ t have the heart to.
” “ He does know , ” my mother said .
“ He ’ s smart.
” “ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my father told me .
“ You get them to quit wetting themselves , and then you get a dog .
You ’ ve got one week.
” That night , after bedtime , while my parents watched television down in the family room , I sneaked into my sisters ’ room .
They slept on beds with rails on the side , and I squatted in the corner where their heads would have met if it weren ’ t for the rails , and said their names , and said , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ In just a few days , ” I said .
“ But you can ’ t tell Mom and Dad I told you .
If you tell them I told you , then we don ’ t get a dog.
” The following morning , their diapers were wet .
That night , after bedtime , I woke them again .
“ We didn ’ t get the dog , ” Paula said .
“ It won ’ t be for a few more days , ” I said , “ but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you napped .
It ’ s even better than I thought .
Furrier , smaller .
We might not get it , though .
Dad was angry you wet your diapers .
He ’ s really sick of that .
He told Mom no dog if you wet them again .
Either of you.
” “ Forever , ” I said .
“ Or we ’ ll never get a dog , and it ’ ll be your fault.
” “ It ’ s O.K.
, Pauly , ” Rachel said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to get up when we have to pee.
” For the next four nights , neither sister had an accident .
We visited a breeder and bought a Pomeranian .
My mother named her Puffy , which mostly stuck .
Sometimes , though , we just called her the Puff .
The Puff was very cute , but the Puff wouldn ’ t house-train , which was not very cute , and got less and less cute .
After three months , we brought in a specialist .
The specialist said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we had to show the Puff the accident .
If the accident was liquid , we had to bring the Puff ’ s carrier cage within inches of the accident and lock the Puff inside the cage for an hour .
If the accident was solid , we had to put the accident in the cage and lock the Puff inside for an hour .
He was a behaviorist , the specialist , and so am I .
When I talk about behaviorism , some people feel attacked .
They think I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think they ’ re puppets , when what I ’ m trying to tell them is that they think they ’ re puppets .
Perhaps I ’ ve gotten off track .
It ’ s hard to say .
Anyway , the specialist was not a particularly good behaviorist—he was artless in both senses of the word , completely uncharming , had a weak sense of narrative—and I , back then , was not yet a behaviorist , none of us were , we all believed in our own free will , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too cruel to follow , and none of us followed them .
After some weeks , the Puff still wasn ’ t house-trained , and so we returned the Puff to the breeder .
I don ’ t think we got a refund .
I think that ’ s what all the yelling was about .
Four years later , it was 1987 , and , on the school bus , I told the Puffy anecdote to Ronald Stanton , who was new at school and smelled .
I told it mostly the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the behaviorist stuff , and instead of saying , “ I don ’ t think we got a refund .
I think that ’ s what all the yelling was about , ” I said , “ Isn ’ t that totally hilarious ?
” “ You made the end up , ” Tommy Esposito , a kid a grade above me with an oily nose , said .
He sat across the aisle from us , and he ’ d eavesdropped .
“ Or if you didn ’ t make up the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then you made up the beginning .
The whole thing is way too pat and ironic .
It ’ s like one of those O. Henry stories , but shittier , because there isn ’ t even a moral about how people should be .
And if you really had a dog and you had to get rid of it , you would have cried like a baby , ’ cause that ’ s the kind of person you are.
” “ You fat-ass greaseball , ” Ronald said to Tommy .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anyway ?
” This took me by surprise .
I didn ’ t understand the re-triangulation .
I still don ’ t understand it .
“ You ’ re trash , ” Tommy said to Ronald .
“ And you smell.
” “ I smell like your sister ’ s hairy pussy , ” Ronald said .
There was something almost cute about the way that Giles Crowley , when you shoved him , said , “ Hum.
” I was the first kid at school to appreciate this , and I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hall between classes , shove him at a backstop or a post during gym , and I ’ d shove him at drinking fountains , occupied and un- .
I never shoved him at girls , because that was for friends , but I didn ’ t shove him into urinals , either—that was for enemies .
One outdoor recess at the start of eighth grade , I came up from behind him and shoved him at nothing .
He stumbled forward three steps , instead of just one , and said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ balance .
I got behind him again and shoved him harder .
“ Hum-um-um-um , ” he said , stumbling forward four steps .
Then some others nearby started shoving Giles , and Giles started running .
We chased him around for the remainder of recess .
Five of us at first , then ten , then twenty , some of us his friends .
He wasn ’ t very fast .
The unspoken idea was to be the one to throw the shove that produced the hum with the longest string of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that first day was six .
I was the one who made it happen .
I made it happen twice , then shoved even harder in pursuit of seven hums , but Giles fell to his knees after humming just once .
The second day , no one got higher than five , and I started thinking six itself was the goal .
I started thinking that to get above six would be a matter of fortune rather than finesse .
Seven or eight would be a grand slam , but six was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you could reasonably aim for .
Had you asked me if I thought Giles Crowley had feelings , I would probably have told you that I had feelings , because that would have addressed what I would have thought you were secretly trying to get at with your question , and I ’ d have wanted you to know that I was smarter than you .
On what would otherwise have been the third day of the game , a thunderstorm struck and we had indoor recess .
Someone said something about beating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fortune and finesse , my grand-slam-versus-homer idea , and then someone else said I had it all wrong , that batting orders were designed to increase the likelihood that a grand slam might happen , that that ’ s why you put the sluggers fourth in the lineup , behind the three guys with the highest batting averages—to increase the chances of loading the bases prior to a homer .
In other words , sure , seven hums might be less of a homer than it was a grand slam , but that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t worth strategizing about : there were things you could do .
I conceded the point to the kid who was making it—beyond the basic rules , I knew little about baseball—and this opened up the conversation to all manner of hypotheses on how to increase the likelihood of seven-humming Giles .
There were those of us who thought it was a matter of the kind of ground on which he stood , a simple question of grass versus asphalt .
Others thought it was more about the points of contact—two palms to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a palm to each shoulder to keep him moving straight , maybe even just one palm low on the spine so he ’ d buckle as he stumbled .
Still others believed it was more Giles-dependent—how rigid he was at the moment of impact , the angles at which his feet were pointed , whether he ’ d eaten his Flintstones that morning .
The fourth day , recess was back outside , but shoving Giles was no longer fun .
This may have been because we ’ d acknowledged aloud and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or at least had seemed to have been , a telepathic understanding of the game ’ s strange goal , and thus robbed the game of all , or most , of its magic .
Then again , it may have been because of how Giles , as we rushed through the exit to find him in the field , was standing just a few feet outside the door , as if he was giving us a chance to catch up .

“I know I’m real because I know I think?”
“Yes.”
“How do I know I think?” I said.
“Because you can hear yourself think,” she said.
“That’s it?” I said. “That’s the only way?”
“Why are you making that face?” she said. “Eat your cereal. It’s getting lumpy.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“How do I know that you think?” I said. “I can’t hear you think.”
“I’m telling you I do.”
“But I can’t hear you doing it.”
“You can hear me talk,” she said. “What I’m saying is the sound of what I’m thinking.”
“How do I know that?”
“Because I’m telling you.”
“That doesn’t mean . . . that doesn’t make sense.”
“Calm down,” she said.
“I can hear the puppet talk.”
“Calm down,” she said.
“I can hear the puppet talk and the puppet isn’t thinking!”
“I’m not a puppet, Adam. I’m real.”
“I can’t hear you think!”
“Baby, come on, calm down,” she said, and hugged me close. I don’t know what happened next. I assume I calmed down, but I don’t remember.
THE RABBITS, 1982
I discovered a rabbit hole in our yard. I looked inside and I saw a baby rabbit. I watched it blink its eyes and wanted it.
I’d been told by my mother never to touch a baby rabbit or the hole it lived in, because the rabbit’s mother would smell me, fear predators, and never return. I didn’t want the baby rabbit to die, so instead of touching it I lied to my mother. I told my mother I’d touched the rabbit, and as I lied I imagined I had touched the rabbit, insuring its abandonment and infantile death, and I began to cry.
My mother, in order to calm me down, and because she liked rabbits, said we could try to save the baby rabbit, and she put on some yellow rubber gloves from by the sink and removed a yellow bucket from under the sink. We went outside to the rabbit hole together.
She reached into the hole and removed the rabbit. It sat in her hand. It was smaller than my sister Rachel’s foot.
As my mom set the rabbit in the bottom of the bucket, I saw shiny eyes in the hole and told her. She reached into the hole and removed a second rabbit, which she put in the bucket, next to the first. I looked in the hole and saw more shiny eyes. My mother reached in and removed a third rabbit. This continued to happen until we had eleven rabbits in a bucket, all of them shaking.
•
My father came home from work and saw the bucket. He didn’t like it. He chewed his lip and dragged his feet.
The rabbits needed milk, but we didn’t know that. We gave them carrots, because of Bugs Bunny. We gave them lettuce, because lettuce went with carrots. They needed warmth, because they weren’t getting milk, but they may have had rabies, so we couldn’t hold them.
•
By morning, two of the eleven were alive. One was sniffing at the lettuce, like things might work out if only he knew how to get it inside him. The other one kept trying to bury her face in the pile of her siblings’ corpses for warmth.
My mother called a pet shop for advice. The owner told her to bring him the rabbits, both the dead and the living, that they’d make good food for some of the snakes. He said this over speakerphone—speakerphone was new then, at least in houses, and we used ours a lot, because the novelty excited us—and my mom hung up on him.
“We will not,” she told me, “feed the rabbits to snakes.”
We took a drive along the road that ran beside the forest preserve, the two living rabbits in the bucket in my lap, the nine dead ones in a large brown bag at my feet. My mom pulled the car over. She said, “I’ll keep a lookout.”
I left the bag of dead rabbits in the ditch beside the road, then ran to the tree line, bucket in hand. I heaved the two living rabbits as deeply into the forest as I could, and whispered, “Be strong,” or maybe “Good luck,” and ran back to the car, and asked to go to McDonald’s.
CONSONANT trouble, 1983
When I changed my mind about which sister belonged to me, they’d been speaking in sentences for a couple of months, and, for a while after that, neither one had been able to say her “R”s or “L”s—they turned them into “W”s. But then Paula figured out how to speak correctly, whereas Rachel got worse, and I determined she was faking.
Adults found her cute for the way she’d say her own name, “Waychoo,” and so she held on to it. That’s what I thought. And I thought she was milking it, hamming it up. I thought she was manipulative. Still, Rachel was mine, so I pushed the thoughts down.
Except then I saw Paula cry on the driveway. She’d fallen down and scraped her knee and the tears bubbled over her lower lashes. My mom was inside with Rachel, getting juices.
“My knee,” Paula said. “Adam. My knee.”
“It’s no big deal,” I said. “It just stings. Soon it won’t.”
“O.K.,” she said. “Thank you.” She wiped her eyes with her sleeves and stopped crying.
TURTLE AND SENSEI, 1984
Mergatroid was the perfect name for the turtle at the pet store, and I knew that instantly, but by the time my mother asked me what I wanted to name it we were in the car on our way to McDonald’s and, on top of having just been given a pet, I was minutes away from apple pie in a box. I was so excited that I lost my grasp on the name. I knew that an “R” was near a “T” and a “D,” and I tried to combine the sounds in various ways to get to the name, except all I was able to come up with was Gertrude, which didn’t feel right, but I was sick of trying and failing to remember, so I told my mom “Gertrude,” and my mom said she loved that name and repeated it.
It sounded even worse than when I’d said it, only now my mom loved it, and I hated to disappoint my mom, so I said I loved it, too, and the turtle’s name was Gertrude and I liked Gertrude less than I had in the store.
I liked her less at McDonald’s than I had in the car, and less at home than I had at McDonald’s. She was boring and smelled and required that you wash your hands after touching her—every single time—because she might be carrying salmonella. She didn’t move much, either, and was scared of everything. You’d throw a book at the wall to the left of her tank and she’d hide in her shell, but it took too long to be truly funny.
When Gertrude started sneezing a couple weeks later, though, I got sad. I didn’t want her to be sick.
Or I wanted to be the kid with the sick turtle who cared—same difference.
I called for my mom. “Watch,” I said.
Gertrude sneezed.
“Oh,” my mom said.
She called up a vet, not on speakerphone. I knew the vet must have told her that Gertrude would die soon, but when my mom said the vet said that sometimes turtles aren’t made for houses, and that you can’t tell whether a turtle is made for a house until you’ve taken it into a house, and if it’s not made for a house then it should be released into the wild where it can have a good long life, I pretended to believe her.
We put Gertrude in the bucket from under the sink and took her to the man-made pond by the school. I crouched in the cattails while my mother watched. I removed Gertrude from the bucket, and set her on the ground. I knew I was supposed to say something childlike and hopeful. I said, “Gertrude, everything’s going to be great now. You’re not made for houses. You’re made for this pond. You will meet another turtle and fall in love with that turtle and you will lay some eggs, and turtle babies will hatch from them. You’ll be their mommy!”
I broke off some cattails and, on the way home, I bashed them on the sidewalk, one at a time, and watched them explode into small clouds of fluff. I asked my mom if we could go to McDonald’s and she said we could not—her friend Miriam was coming over with her sons and we would play in the yard and maybe have ice cream. Hearing “Miriam,” I remembered “Mergatroid.” I remembered that was the turtle’s real name, and suddenly I loved her, the turtle, little Mergatroid, and started to cry, and my mom thought that I was crying about McDonald’s, and she told me that crying wouldn’t get me any fucking closer to fucking McDonald’s, and this made me cry more, but I couldn’t explain. I couldn’t tell her that the turtle’s real name was Mergatroid, or that I knew Mergatroid was going to die of starvation if her illness didn’t kill her, or that not being able to tell her these things was keeping us apart. I hated a liar.
“I want some chicken mcfucking nuggets!” I shouted.
“I can do my taxes or my laundry—it’s unreasonable to expect me to do both.” Cartoon by Liz Montague Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
•
“Karate is about respect for ourselves, our bodies, and one another, as well as the natural world that surrounds us everywhere we go in the universe,” Sensei Johnson said, at the after-school karate demonstration in the gym. He made a thinking face and adjusted his gi. “Protection is a form of respect,” he continued. “Some consider it the highest form of respect.” Then he used his heel, his palm, and his elbow to split some stacks of plywood that were laid across cinder blocks.


newyorker--2020-02-24--Big Tech Is Testing You

Big Tech Is Testing You

Dr. John Haygarth knew that there was something suspicious about Perkins ’ s Metallic Tractors .
He ’ d heard all the theories about the newly patented medical device—about the way flesh reacted to metal , about noxious electrical fluids being expelled from the body .
He ’ d heard that people plagued by rheumatism , pleurisy , and toothache swore the instrument offered them miraculous relief .
Even George Washington was said to own a set .
But Haygarth , a physician who had pioneered a method of preventing smallpox , sensed a sham .
He set out to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1799 , and the Perkins tractors were already an international phenomenon .
The device consisted of a pair of metallic rods—rounded on one end and tapering , at the other , to a point .
Its inventor , Elisha Perkins , insisted that gently stroking each tractor over the affected area in alternation would draw off the electricity and provide relief .
Thousands of sets were sold , for twenty-five dollars each .
People were even said to have auctioned off their horses just to get hold of a pair .
And , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be bloodletting , leeches , and purging , you could see the appeal .
Haygarth had a pair of dummy tractors created , carved carefully from wood and painted to resemble the originals .
They were to be used on five unsuspecting patients at Bath General Hospital , in England , each suffering from chronic rheumatism .
Using the lightest of touches , the fakes were drawn over the affected areas , with remarkable results .
Four of the five patients declared that their pain was relieved .
One reported a tingling sensation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regained the ability to walk .
The following day , Haygarth repeated his test using the true metallic tractors , with the same results .
Other physicians soon followed his lead , using increasingly elaborate fakes of their own : nails , pencils , even old tobacco pipes in place of the tractors .
Each brought the truth more clearly into focus : the tractors were no better than make-believe .
This humble experiment wasn ’ t the only one of its kind .
By the start of the nineteenth century , experimentation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ changes in science .
The Royal Society of London , the scientific academy of which Haygarth was an elected fellow , began insisting that all claims needed to be verified and reproduced before they could be accepted as scientific fact .
A shakeup was under way .
Astronomy had split off from astrology .
Chemistry had become disentangled from alchemy .
The motto of the society neatly encapsulated the new spirit of inquiry : Nullius in Verba .
Translation : “ Take nobody ’ s word for it.
” Physics , chemistry , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But now , driven by experimentation , a further transformation is in the air .
That ’ s the argument of “ The Power of Experiments ” ( M.I.T . )
, by Michael Luca and Max H. Bazerman , both professors at the Harvard Business School .
When it comes to driving our decisions in a world of data , they say , “ the age of experiments is only beginning.
” In fact , if you ’ ve recently used Facebook , browsed Netflix , or run a Google search , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experiment of some kind .
Google alone ran fifteen thousand of them in 2018 , involving countless unsuspecting Internet users .
“ We don ’ t want high-level executives discussing whether a blue background or a yellow background will lead to more ad clicks , ” Hal Varian , Google ’ s chief economist , tells the authors .
“ Why debate this point , since we can simply run an experiment to find out ?
” Luca and Bazerman focus on a new breed of large-scale social experiments , the power of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public sector .
As they note , governments have used experiments to find better ways to get their citizens to pay taxes on time , say , or to donate organs after death .
N.G.O.s have successfully deployed experiments in developing countries to test the effects of everything from tampons to textbooks .
The impact of a simple experiment can be dramatic , particularly in monetary terms .
A few years ago , if you searched for eBay on Google , the top two results would take you directly to the auction site @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one was produced organically by the Google algorithm ; the first was an advertisement , paid for by eBay and meant to pop up whenever its name appeared as a keyword in someone ’ s search .
Steve Tadelis , a professor of economics at the University of California , Berkeley , was spending a year at eBay at the time , and was suspicious about the value of placing such ads .
Wouldn ’ t people get to eBay anyway if they were searching for it , without the sponsored results ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , eBay ’ s marketing group defended the millions of dollars spent on the ads each year , noting that many people who clicked on them ended up buying things on eBay .
An experiment was in order .
By turning Google ads on and off , Tadelis and his research team tracked the traffic coming to their site and discovered that—as Tadelis had suspected—much of the money eBay had been shelling out was wasted .
The marketing team had an exaggerated notion of how valuable those ads were : without the sponsored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the free organic links instead .
The company could ( and did ) save itself millions .
There ’ s an important point in all of this : instead of going by our possibly unreliable intuition , we can , in a range of cases , know for sure whether an intervention has an effect by running a trial and collecting the evidence .
It ’ s a step that Esther Duflo , who shared a Nobel Prize in Economics for her work using experiments to study how global poverty can be alleviated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Without gathering and analyzing the evidence , she has said , “ we are not any better than the medieval doctors and their leeches.
” The most reliable way to test an intervention is by using a type of experiment known as a “ randomized controlled trial ” ( R.C.T. )
.
You randomly assign subjects to groups and then treat each group differently .
One group will receive the intervention , while another , the “ control ” group , will not .
Control here is key .
The aim is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possible , to constrain as many variables as you can manage , because if the only thing allowed to change freely is the intervention itself you can study its true effect .
In the tech world , the “ intervention ” might simply be a different Web-page layout or a new pricing plan .
Here , the usual term is “ A/B testing , ” but the objective is the same : to create some basis for comparison .
Such studies tell you whether something works , though not why .
Haygarth ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trial by modern standards , but he nonetheless proved the power of experimenting : by directly comparing the experiences of patients on the day they got treated with the tractors with their experiences on the day they were treated with the fakes , he could show that the tractors were duds .
The second set of observations served as a kind of control group .
Without a properly randomized control group , there is no real way to measure whether something is working .
Take the case of the Scared Straight program , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at-risk kids from choosing a life of crime .
The theory seemed sound .
By taking young offenders on organized visits to prison and allowing them to meet murderers and armed robbers , they ’ d see the terrifying consequences of breaking the law , and be less likely to do so themselves in the future .

Dr. John Haygarth knew that there was something suspicious about Perkins’s Metallic Tractors. He’d heard all the theories about the newly patented medical device—about the way flesh reacted to metal, about noxious electrical fluids being expelled from the body. He’d heard that people plagued by rheumatism, pleurisy, and toothache swore the instrument offered them miraculous relief. Even George Washington was said to own a set. But Haygarth, a physician who had pioneered a method of preventing smallpox, sensed a sham. He set out to find the evidence.
The year was 1799, and the Perkins tractors were already an international phenomenon. The device consisted of a pair of metallic rods—rounded on one end and tapering, at the other, to a point. Its inventor, Elisha Perkins, insisted that gently stroking each tractor over the affected area in alternation would draw off the electricity and provide relief. Thousands of sets were sold, for twenty-five dollars each. People were even said to have auctioned off their horses just to get hold of a pair. And, in an era when your alternatives might be bloodletting, leeches, and purging, you could see the appeal.
Haygarth had a pair of dummy tractors created, carved carefully from wood and painted to resemble the originals. They were to be used on five unsuspecting patients at Bath General Hospital, in England, each suffering from chronic rheumatism. Using the lightest of touches, the fakes were drawn over the affected areas, with remarkable results. Four of the five patients declared that their pain was relieved. One reported a tingling sensation that lasted for two hours. Another regained the ability to walk.
The following day, Haygarth repeated his test using the true metallic tractors, with the same results. Other physicians soon followed his lead, using increasingly elaborate fakes of their own: nails, pencils, even old tobacco pipes in place of the tractors. Each brought the truth more clearly into focus: the tractors were no better than make-believe.
This humble experiment wasn’t the only one of its kind. By the start of the nineteenth century, experimentation had already driven two centuries of significant changes in science. The Royal Society of London, the scientific academy of which Haygarth was an elected fellow, began insisting that all claims needed to be verified and reproduced before they could be accepted as scientific fact. A shakeup was under way. Astronomy had split off from astrology. Chemistry had become disentangled from alchemy. The motto of the society neatly encapsulated the new spirit of inquiry: Nullius in Verba. Translation: “Take nobody’s word for it.”
Physics, chemistry, and medicine have had their revolution. But now, driven by experimentation, a further transformation is in the air. That’s the argument of “The Power of Experiments” (M.I.T.), by Michael Luca and Max H. Bazerman, both professors at the Harvard Business School. When it comes to driving our decisions in a world of data, they say, “the age of experiments is only beginning.”
In fact, if you’ve recently used Facebook, browsed Netflix, or run a Google search, you have almost certainly participated in an experiment of some kind. Google alone ran fifteen thousand of them in 2018, involving countless unsuspecting Internet users. “We don’t want high-level executives discussing whether a blue background or a yellow background will lead to more ad clicks,” Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, tells the authors. “Why debate this point, since we can simply run an experiment to find out?”
Luca and Bazerman focus on a new breed of large-scale social experiments, the power of which has already been demonstrated in the public sector. As they note, governments have used experiments to find better ways to get their citizens to pay taxes on time, say, or to donate organs after death. N.G.O.s have successfully deployed experiments in developing countries to test the effects of everything from tampons to textbooks. The impact of a simple experiment can be dramatic, particularly in monetary terms.
A few years ago, if you searched for eBay on Google, the top two results would take you directly to the auction site’s home page. The second one was produced organically by the Google algorithm; the first was an advertisement, paid for by eBay and meant to pop up whenever its name appeared as a keyword in someone’s search.
Steve Tadelis, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, was spending a year at eBay at the time, and was suspicious about the value of placing such ads. Wouldn’t people get to eBay anyway if they were searching for it, without the sponsored results? But, as Luca and Bazerman recount, eBay’s marketing group defended the millions of dollars spent on the ads each year, noting that many people who clicked on them ended up buying things on eBay.
An experiment was in order. By turning Google ads on and off, Tadelis and his research team tracked the traffic coming to their site and discovered that—as Tadelis had suspected—much of the money eBay had been shelling out was wasted. The marketing team had an exaggerated notion of how valuable those ads were: without the sponsored result, searchers would simply click on the free organic links instead. The company could (and did) save itself millions.
There’s an important point in all of this: instead of going by our possibly unreliable intuition, we can, in a range of cases, know for sure whether an intervention has an effect by running a trial and collecting the evidence. It’s a step that Esther Duflo, who shared a Nobel Prize in Economics for her work using experiments to study how global poverty can be alleviated, makes a particularly strong case for. Without gathering and analyzing the evidence, she has said, “we are not any better than the medieval doctors and their leeches.”
The most reliable way to test an intervention is by using a type of experiment known as a “randomized controlled trial” (R.C.T.). You randomly assign subjects to groups and then treat each group differently. One group will receive the intervention, while another, the “control” group, will not. Control here is key. The aim is to make the groups as similar as possible, to constrain as many variables as you can manage, because if the only thing allowed to change freely is the intervention itself you can study its true effect. In the tech world, the “intervention” might simply be a different Web-page layout or a new pricing plan. Here, the usual term is “A/B testing,” but the objective is the same: to create some basis for comparison.
Such studies tell you whether something works, though not why. Haygarth’s experiment wasn’t a randomized trial by modern standards, but he nonetheless proved the power of experimenting: by directly comparing the experiences of patients on the day they got treated with the tractors with their experiences on the day they were treated with the fakes, he could show that the tractors were duds. The second set of observations served as a kind of control group.


newyorker--2020-02-24--A Murder Trial in Reverse

A Murder Trial in Reverse

There were nearly seventeen hundred murders in New York City in 1987 .
One of the first occurred about ten minutes after the ball dropped in Times Square , when a group of young people mugged a seventy-one-year-old French tourist named Jean Casse , on West Fifty-second Street , outside Ben Benson ’ s Steak House .
One young man punched the victim , and one or more rifled through his pockets .
Casse fell , hitting his head on the sidewalk .
He died ten hours later , at a hospital .
The New York City Police Department quickly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it “ desperately ” needed “ witnesses of the incident to come forward.
” Officers were instructed to ask anyone arrested for robbery if he had information about the murder .
On the afternoon of January 2nd , the police caught four young people mugging a man on West Forty-seventh Street .
The group included James Walker , a sixteen-year-old from Brooklyn .
While in police custody , Walker told a detective that earlier that day he had run into an acquaintance named “ Smokey , ” who had said that he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Manhattan on New Year ’ s Eve .
Walker went on to identify Eric Smokes and David Warren , two best friends who lived in one of Brooklyn ’ s poorest neighborhoods , East New York .
Smokes was nineteen , and Warren was sixteen .
They ’ d each had a minor run-in with the law : Smokes had been arrested and fined for shoplifting , and Warren had been arrested for a mugging .
( Warren ’ s case was later dismissed . )
On January 3rd , Smokes and Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both said that they had gone to Times Square with friends on New Year ’ s Eve ; a few hundred thousand people had packed the streets .
Smokes and Warren had ended up on West Forty-eighth Street , outside the Latin Quarter , a night club popular with teen-agers .
Warren recalled , “ We didn ’ t have the funds for that , so we stood around for a little while ” before heading south .
Smokes said that , around West Thirty-eighth Street , he “ saw some people fighting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” When the bullet hit , feathers flew out of the man ’ s jacket .
Both Smokes and Warren said repeatedly that they had not gone north of Forty-eighth Street .
According to the police report of Smokes ’ s interrogation , “ Mr .
Smokes states he did not see any old man get mugged.
” The police released Smokes and Warren , but arrested them five days later .
Smokes watched from the back seat of a police cruiser as detectives brought his friend out of high school in handcuffs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got to his school , the reality of it really hit , ” Smokes told me .
“ He looked at me as a big brother , and I looked at him as my little brother , and there was nothing I could do to help my little brother.
” He added , “ I couldn ’ t comfort him in no way except to say that we ’ re in this together.
” They were sent to Rikers Island , where they were placed in separate housing units .
“ They took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Warren told me .
“ It was like a dream that I just couldn ’ t wake up from.
” Six months passed , and prosecutors offered Warren various plea deals : if he testified against Smokes , he would receive a very short prison sentence .
Warren refused .
He explained , “ I ’ m not going to say he did something I know he didn ’ t do.
” That summer , Smokes and Warren were tried for murder in New York State Supreme Court , in Manhattan .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Warren of trying to rob him .
The prosecution ’ s star witness was James Walker , who had signed a coöperation agreement with the Manhattan D.A.
’ s office ; prosecutors promised that if he testified “ truthfully ” they would not send him to prison for the January 2nd mugging .
Walker testified that he had committed robberies with Smokes and Warren in the past , and repeated his claim that Smokes had told him that he had “ caught a body.
” Smokes and Warren insisted that these claims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on four other young men , who claimed that they had seen Smokes and Warren at the crime scene .
Smokes knew one of them , but the others , he said , were strangers .
The daily papers had covered the Casse murder , which may have exacerbated tensions in the courtroom .
The jury , before delivering its verdict , sent a message to the judge , saying , “ We would like the Court to know that we did not come to a decision lightly but with great emotional turmoil.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of second-degree murder .
After the trial ended , Warren , in a state of disbelief , remained in his seat .
“ I had to tap him and say , ‘ Come on , ’ ” Smokes told me .
“ It didn ’ t register that he was found guilty.
” The judge , Clifford A. Scott , was known as one of the toughest judges in the city , and had embraced the nickname Maximum Scott .
He sentenced Smokes to twenty-five years to life in prison and Warren to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hearing , Smokes declared , “ I have been framed !
” In 2005 , when Eric Smokes had been in prison in upstate New York for eighteen years , he received a letter from James Walker .
When Smokes saw the name on the envelope , he said , he thought “ it might be a pipe bomb or something.
” But the letter was an apology .
“ I was basically giving the police & DA what they wanted after I heard what they was looking for , ” Walker wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ strung out on crack ” and “ not thinking straight.
” Smokes , with assistance from a friend in prison , drafted a memo on his case and sent it , with copies of Walker ’ s letter , to every lawyer and legal clinic he thought could help .
Two years after Smokes had been sent to prison , the Manhattan D.A.
’ s office had charged five teen-agers in connection with the rape of a jogger in Central Park ; in 2002 , they were exonerated after a serial rapist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s memo stated , “ Like the suspects in the Central Park Case , David and Eric ’ s arrest resulted from police investigation conducted under public and political pressure to hold someone responsible.
” No lawyer agreed to take his case .
In 2007 , Warren returned to Brooklyn .
Four years later , Smokes was released .
“ When I came home , I said , ‘ I got to do something , ’ ” he told me .
“ I can ’ t stand by idly and just accept the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crime I didn ’ t do.
” He eventually found two attorneys , Craig Phemister and James Henning , who were willing to take on the case pro bono .
The lawyers tracked down Walker and other people who had spoken to the police during the 1987 investigation , including Kevin Burns and Robert Anthony , two of the men who said they ’ d been at the crime scene .
Burns , Anthony , and Walker all signed affidavits saying that they had given false testimony under pressure from law enforcement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Henning met with prosecutors in the Conviction Integrity Program of the Manhattan D.A.
’ s office .
The District Attorney , Cyrus Vance , Jr. , had established the program , in 2010 , to prevent wrongful convictions and to investigate claims of innocence .
Henning , a recent law-school graduate , explained why he believed his clients had been wrongly convicted .
The prosecutors from the Conviction Integrity Program , he later recalled , seemed “ guarded and defensive.
” One of them had sent him a police report that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked for other documents the prosecutors refused to share them .
“ The fact that they didn ’ t want to give me anything , but they wanted everything from me , it put up red flags for me , ” Henning said .

There were nearly seventeen hundred murders in New York City in 1987. One of the first occurred about ten minutes after the ball dropped in Times Square, when a group of young people mugged a seventy-one-year-old French tourist named Jean Casse, on West Fifty-second Street, outside Ben Benson’s Steak House. One young man punched the victim, and one or more rifled through his pockets. Casse fell, hitting his head on the sidewalk. He died ten hours later, at a hospital.
The New York City Police Department quickly set up a hotline and announced that it “desperately” needed “witnesses of the incident to come forward.” Officers were instructed to ask anyone arrested for robbery if he had information about the murder. On the afternoon of January 2nd, the police caught four young people mugging a man on West Forty-seventh Street. The group included James Walker, a sixteen-year-old from Brooklyn. While in police custody, Walker told a detective that earlier that day he had run into an acquaintance named “Smokey,” who had said that he’d “caught a body” in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve.
Walker went on to identify Eric Smokes and David Warren, two best friends who lived in one of Brooklyn’s poorest neighborhoods, East New York. Smokes was nineteen, and Warren was sixteen. They’d each had a minor run-in with the law: Smokes had been arrested and fined for shoplifting, and Warren had been arrested for a mugging. (Warren’s case was later dismissed.)
On January 3rd, Smokes and Warren were questioned separately by detectives, and both said that they had gone to Times Square with friends on New Year’s Eve; a few hundred thousand people had packed the streets. Smokes and Warren had ended up on West Forty-eighth Street, outside the Latin Quarter, a night club popular with teen-agers. Warren recalled, “We didn’t have the funds for that, so we stood around for a little while” before heading south. Smokes said that, around West Thirty-eighth Street, he “saw some people fighting and saw some guy that got shot.” When the bullet hit, feathers flew out of the man’s jacket. Both Smokes and Warren said repeatedly that they had not gone north of Forty-eighth Street. According to the police report of Smokes’s interrogation, “Mr. Smokes states he did not see any old man get mugged.”
The police released Smokes and Warren, but arrested them five days later. Smokes watched from the back seat of a police cruiser as detectives brought his friend out of high school in handcuffs. “From the point that we got to his school, the reality of it really hit,” Smokes told me. “He looked at me as a big brother, and I looked at him as my little brother, and there was nothing I could do to help my little brother.” He added, “I couldn’t comfort him in no way except to say that we’re in this together.”
They were sent to Rikers Island, where they were placed in separate housing units. “They took me from high school to jail,” Warren told me. “It was like a dream that I just couldn’t wake up from.” Six months passed, and prosecutors offered Warren various plea deals: if he testified against Smokes, he would receive a very short prison sentence. Warren refused. He explained, “I’m not going to say he did something I know he didn’t do.”
That summer, Smokes and Warren were tried for murder in New York State Supreme Court, in Manhattan. Prosecutors accused Smokes of punching Jean Casse and Warren of trying to rob him. The prosecution’s star witness was James Walker, who had signed a coöperation agreement with the Manhattan D.A.’s office; prosecutors promised that if he testified “truthfully” they would not send him to prison for the January 2nd mugging. Walker testified that he had committed robberies with Smokes and Warren in the past, and repeated his claim that Smokes had told him that he had “caught a body.” Smokes and Warren insisted that these claims were untrue. But prosecutors also relied on four other young men, who claimed that they had seen Smokes and Warren at the crime scene. Smokes knew one of them, but the others, he said, were strangers.
The daily papers had covered the Casse murder, which may have exacerbated tensions in the courtroom. The jury, before delivering its verdict, sent a message to the judge, saying, “We would like the Court to know that we did not come to a decision lightly but with great emotional turmoil.” They voted to convict both teen-agers of second-degree murder. After the trial ended, Warren, in a state of disbelief, remained in his seat. “I had to tap him and say, ‘Come on,’ ” Smokes told me. “It didn’t register that he was found guilty.”
The judge, Clifford A. Scott, was known as one of the toughest judges in the city, and had embraced the nickname Maximum Scott. He sentenced Smokes to twenty-five years to life in prison and Warren to fifteen to life. At their sentencing hearing, Smokes declared, “I have been framed!”
In 2005, when Eric Smokes had been in prison in upstate New York for eighteen years, he received a letter from James Walker. When Smokes saw the name on the envelope, he said, he thought “it might be a pipe bomb or something.” But the letter was an apology. “I was basically giving the police & DA what they wanted after I heard what they was looking for,” Walker wrote. He added that he had been “strung out on crack” and “not thinking straight.” Smokes, with assistance from a friend in prison, drafted a memo on his case and sent it, with copies of Walker’s letter, to every lawyer and legal clinic he thought could help. Two years after Smokes had been sent to prison, the Manhattan D.A.’s office had charged five teen-agers in connection with the rape of a jogger in Central Park; in 2002, they were exonerated after a serial rapist confessed to the crime. Smokes’s memo stated, “Like the suspects in the Central Park Case, David and Eric’s arrest resulted from police investigation conducted under public and political pressure to hold someone responsible.” No lawyer agreed to take his case.
In 2007, Warren returned to Brooklyn. Four years later, Smokes was released. “When I came home, I said, ‘I got to do something,’ ” he told me. “I can’t stand by idly and just accept the fact that I did twenty-five years for a crime I didn’t do.” He eventually found two attorneys, Craig Phemister and James Henning, who were willing to take on the case pro bono. The lawyers tracked down Walker and other people who had spoken to the police during the 1987 investigation, including Kevin Burns and Robert Anthony, two of the men who said they’d been at the crime scene. Burns, Anthony, and Walker all signed affidavits saying that they had given false testimony under pressure from law enforcement.
In February, 2017, Phemister and Henning met with prosecutors in the Conviction Integrity Program of the Manhattan D.A.’s office. The District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr., had established the program, in 2010, to prevent wrongful convictions and to investigate claims of innocence. Henning, a recent law-school graduate, explained why he believed his clients had been wrongly convicted. The prosecutors from the Conviction Integrity Program, he later recalled, seemed “guarded and defensive.” One of them had sent him a police report that he’d requested, but when he asked for other documents the prosecutors refused to share them. “The fact that they didn’t want to give me anything, but they wanted everything from me, it put up red flags for me,” Henning said.
Henning reviewed the Conviction Integrity Program’s record: it had moved to vacate few convictions. He also learned that one of the two prosecutors who had worked to convict Smokes and Warren was still in the D.A.’s office. In order to share evidence with prosecutors, Henning needed to have a high level of trust in them. If Vance’s Conviction Integrity Program reinvestigated the case and ultimately decided not to vacate Smokes’s and Warren’s convictions, Henning wrote in a letter to the office, “we will be forced to resort to litigation after having provided your office with all of our evidence ahead of time.” Henning decided that his clients would be better off seeking justice in the courts.
In the summer of 2017, Henning filed a motion in New York State Supreme Court, asking a judge to hold a hearing on the evidence. The D.A.’s office consented to this. In a recent statement, Vance’s office said, “We gave careful consideration to these renewed claims of innocence when they were presented to us several years ago. After further review, we determined these claims needed to be evaluated by a Judge.” (Vance and others from his office declined to be interviewed for this story.)
“Any bag that can hold all my things becomes too heavy to carry.” Cartoon by Amy Hwang Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
In the hearing, Smokes and Warren would be presumed guilty until proven innocent; the onus would be on them to prove the assertions laid out in their motion. Persuading a judge to vacate a murder conviction is extraordinarily difficult, and for Smokes and Warren it promised to be especially challenging. There was no DNA evidence, and James Walker would not be able to testify on their behalf—not long after Henning had filed his motion, Walker died, of gunshot wounds. In the course of the following year, Smokes and Warren’s hearing turned into a contentious battle that at times seemed to put the criminal-justice system itself on trial, revealing disturbing tactics employed by law enforcement during New York City’s high-crime years, and also highlighting the perils of asking the Manhattan D.A.’s office to investigate itself.
On the morning of November 14, 2018, Smokes and Warren walked into the courthouse at 111 Centre Street, in Manhattan. Smokes was fifty-one years old, and Warren was forty-eight. Both men were heavyset, with tired eyes; Smokes, who had knee and hip problems, walked with a limp. Despite many years in separate prisons, the two had remained close friends, trading letters each month. Smokes said, of their shared predicament, “It’s a marriage for us—it’s a hell of a bond.” Since coming home, Smokes had worked in construction, and Warren did asbestos removal. Both were married to the women they had been dating at the time of their arrests.
Around ten o’clock, Judge Stephen Antignani entered the courtroom and zipped up his black robe. Smokes and Warren sat with their lawyers. Henning was clean-shaven, with short hair and a crisp suit. Phemister had left the case, but Pierre Sussman—a veteran attorney who had helped overturn six murder convictions in the past six years—had taken his place. Christine Keenan, a longtime prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.’s office, sat at a table by herself, her straight brown hair hanging partway down her back. The jury box was empty. Judge Antignani, a former prosecutor, would decide alone whether the convictions should stand. Smokes and Warren were about to live out the fantasy of anyone who has imagined challenging a conviction after being incarcerated. The people who had sent them to prison would now have to endure their own cross-examinations.


newyorker--2020-02-24--Huey Lewis Hooks One

Huey Lewis Hooks One

Midtown Manhattan , 5:30 a.m. , Huey Lewis riding shotgun .
Lewis may be many things—eighties hit machine , MTV eyeworm , entertainer for hire—but he ’ s nothing if not a fisherman .
So when he passed through town in October , ahead of the release of a new album ( his first in ten years , and likely his last , because , since recording it , with his band , the News , he has basically , as a result of a rare disease , lost his hearing , and therefore his ability to sing in key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slay some stripers .
He ’ d never fished New York City .
So he signed on with Captain Frank Crescitelli , of Fin Chaser Charters .
Meetup was a Staten Island marina , at first light .
Lewis had some urban angling experience .
“ When I was a kid , I had a little El Toro , ” he said .
“ Like , an eight-foot sailboat .
I lived in Strawberry Point , in Marin County .
And I would sail around San Francisco Bay and take my spin rod @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and come back with three huge striped bass , no sweat.
” The ear affliction , called Ménière ’ s , comes and goes .
Some weeks he ’ s O.K.
, some days he can hardly hear the phone ring .
This was , so far , at least before sunup , a good day .
“ But I can ’ t book a show when I don ’ t know if I ’ ll be deaf.
” Now sixty-nine , Lewis lives on a ranch in Montana , with several trout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guess that he was born in New York City and spent his first years in Ohio .
But he ’ s mostly a Bay Area kid .
His father , a radiologist , and his mother , an artist who escaped Poland in 1939 , divorced soon after they got to California , in 1955 .
His mother ’ s parents , who also fled Poland , had died by suicide together , in Lawrence , Massachusetts .
“ It was a ‘ House of Sand and Fog ’ thing , ” Lewis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became a hippie , basically .
She started hanging out at the No Name Bar in Sausalito , which was affiliated with Ferlinghetti , Lenny Bruce , and the City Lights crowd .
She took up with a Beat poet named Lew Welch .
That was my living room when I was a teen-ager .
Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg sitting around drinking wine and smoking dope and reading poems.
” To get him clear of all this , Lewis ’ s father sent him to boarding school in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Lewis said .
He bummed around Europe for a year , with a harmonica , then bailed on college , returned to the Bay , and , a dozen years and a bunch of bands later , emerged as a Reagan-era rock star .
“ It ’ s hip to be square , ” he sang .
And maybe it was .
In Great Kills Harbor , Captain Frank , a solidly built Staten Island lifer with a handlebar mustache and a lit cigar , was waiting aboard a spiffy outboard loaded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the difference between a fishing guide and a large pizza ?
” he said .
“ The pizza can feed a family of four.
” The boat had a clear tank teeming with bunker—live bait—but Lewis is a fly fisherman , and before long he was standing in the bow , casting a shrimplike pattern on a sinking line to some weakfish that Crescitelli had espied on his fish-finder .
“ I ’ ve never fished for fish on a screen before , ” Lewis said .
He looked trim in fishing pants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Allbirds .
He kept his balance in the chop .
“ There are more weakfishing world records within two miles of here than anywhere in the world , ” Crescitelli said .
“ So let me get this straight—we got a chance at a world record ?
” Lewis said .
Not today .
The weakfishing was weak , and Crescitelli gunned it out into the bay .
Sun rising , Verrazzano towers gleaming .
Crescitelli pulled up in a roiling stretch of water , which , he explained , was the outflow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Smell that sweet smell ?
” he said .
“ This is where the bait ’ s at .
Thing is , they changed the formula .
It ’ s not fishing as good as it used to.
” “ Fishing is never as good as it ’ s going to be or as it was , ” Lewis said .
“ There , ” Crescitelli said , pointing at his screen .
“ That ’ s a shit ton of fish right there.
” Lewis cast and stripped , cast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ north to Hoffmann Island , where sick immigrants were quarantined a century ago .
“ A guy made three porno movies here in the seventies .
Used to be buildings there.
” “ Huh , ” Lewis said , pitching his line toward some old pilings : no dice .
“ That ’ s good casting , Huey .
Don ’ t be so hard on yourself.
” To the south was another island , with a smokestack and some ruins .
“ This was the crematorium , ” Crescitelli said .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could , and Lewis worked the eddy line off the jetty .
“ Huey , you ’ re right in the spot .
C ’ mon , just one striper !
” “ Never seen that , I got ta say , ” Crescitelli said .
“ It ’ s better than not fishing , ” Lewis said .
He held up the flounder , grinning , secure in the knowledge that a photo of him with such a meagre specimen would not in any way diminish his standing in the world .
@

Huey Lewis Illustration by João Fazenda
Midtown Manhattan, 5:30 a.m., Huey Lewis riding shotgun. Lewis may be many things—eighties hit machine, MTV eyeworm, entertainer for hire—but he’s nothing if not a fisherman. So when he passed through town in October, ahead of the release of a new album (his first in ten years, and likely his last, because, since recording it, with his band, the News, he has basically, as a result of a rare disease, lost his hearing, and therefore his ability to sing in key), he wanted to try to slay some stripers. He’d never fished New York City. So he signed on with Captain Frank Crescitelli, of Fin Chaser Charters. Meetup was a Staten Island marina, at first light.
Lewis had some urban angling experience. “When I was a kid, I had a little El Toro,” he said. “Like, an eight-foot sailboat. I lived in Strawberry Point, in Marin County. And I would sail around San Francisco Bay and take my spin rod along with a couple of Rapala lures and come back with three huge striped bass, no sweat.”
The ear affliction, called Ménière’s, comes and goes. Some weeks he’s O.K., some days he can hardly hear the phone ring. This was, so far, at least before sunup, a good day. “But I can’t book a show when I don’t know if I’ll be deaf.”
Now sixty-nine, Lewis lives on a ranch in Montana, with several trout streams nearby. You wouldn’t guess that he was born in New York City and spent his first years in Ohio. But he’s mostly a Bay Area kid. His father, a radiologist, and his mother, an artist who escaped Poland in 1939, divorced soon after they got to California, in 1955. His mother’s parents, who also fled Poland, had died by suicide together, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. “It was a ‘House of Sand and Fog’ thing,” Lewis said. “And so my mother became a hippie, basically. She started hanging out at the No Name Bar in Sausalito, which was affiliated with Ferlinghetti, Lenny Bruce, and the City Lights crowd. She took up with a Beat poet named Lew Welch. That was my living room when I was a teen-ager. Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg sitting around drinking wine and smoking dope and reading poems.” To get him clear of all this, Lewis’s father sent him to boarding school in New Jersey. “I hated it,” Lewis said. He bummed around Europe for a year, with a harmonica, then bailed on college, returned to the Bay, and, a dozen years and a bunch of bands later, emerged as a Reagan-era rock star. “It’s hip to be square,” he sang. And maybe it was.
In Great Kills Harbor, Captain Frank, a solidly built Staten Island lifer with a handlebar mustache and a lit cigar, was waiting aboard a spiffy outboard loaded with electronics. “What’s the difference between a fishing guide and a large pizza?” he said. “The pizza can feed a family of four.” The boat had a clear tank teeming with bunker—live bait—but Lewis is a fly fisherman, and before long he was standing in the bow, casting a shrimplike pattern on a sinking line to some weakfish that Crescitelli had espied on his fish-finder. “I’ve never fished for fish on a screen before,” Lewis said. He looked trim in fishing pants, a blue pullover, and black Allbirds. He kept his balance in the chop.
“There are more weakfishing world records within two miles of here than anywhere in the world,” Crescitelli said.
“So let me get this straight—we got a chance at a world record?” Lewis said.
Not today. The weakfishing was weak, and Crescitelli gunned it out into the bay. Sun rising, Verrazzano towers gleaming. Crescitelli pulled up in a roiling stretch of water, which, he explained, was the outflow from a sewage-treatment plant a mile away. “Smell that sweet smell?” he said. “This is where the bait’s at. Thing is, they changed the formula. It’s not fishing as good as it used to.”
“Fishing is never as good as it’s going to be or as it was,” Lewis said.
“There,” Crescitelli said, pointing at his screen. “That’s a shit ton of fish right there.” Lewis cast and stripped, cast and stripped: nothing. Crescitelli steered north to Hoffmann Island, where sick immigrants were quarantined a century ago. “A guy made three porno movies here in the seventies. Used to be buildings there.”
“Huh,” Lewis said, pitching his line toward some old pilings: no dice.
“That’s good casting, Huey. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
To the south was another island, with a smokestack and some ruins. “This was the crematorium,” Crescitelli said. He drifted the boat as close as he could, and Lewis worked the eddy line off the jetty. “Huey, you’re right in the spot. C’mon, just one striper!”
Bang. Lewis’s rod tip bent. A striper? No. A flounder. A flounder! On a fly?
“Never seen that, I gotta say,” Crescitelli said.
“It’s better than not fishing,” Lewis said.
He held up the flounder, grinning, secure in the knowledge that a photo of him with such a meagre specimen would not in any way diminish his standing in the world. ♦


The Mail

Masha Gessen , in an explanation of why some say that Pete Buttigieg is “ not gay enough , ” mirrors the regressive positions Gessen usually rails against ( “ The Queer Opposition to Pete Buttigieg , Explained , ” newyorker.com/gessen-on-buttigieg , February 12th ) .
As a temperamentally conservative white Christian man , Buttigieg is as palatable as gay people get—a fact that makes this moment in queer history anticlimactic for the nonwhite , non-cisgender , non-male individuals who don ’ t relate to the queerness that America is most comfortable with .
But the milquetoast quality of Buttigieg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way he emphasizes his blandness in exchange for political acceptance , shouldn ’ t make him a target of accusations that he ’ s not gay in the way that people would like him to be .
Gessen blames him for projecting an image that panders to skittish heterosexuals , instead of criticizing our political system , which is so concerned with the emotional equilibrium of the white cis-het majority that such pandering has become a prerequisite .
The Time magazine cover photo of Buttigieg and his husband is disturbing not because of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ touching , ” but because such obsequious posturing is still necessary for maintaining one ’ s safety in America .
The Cost of Tidying Up I was excited to read Jia Tolentino ’ s analysis of the new literature of minimalist decluttering , but I would have liked to know more about where all the unwanted objects should go ( Books , February 3rd ) .
More often than not , the trash bags we ’ re instructed to tote triumphantly out of our homes end up in a landfill ; thrift stores @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the dump .
And it ’ s difficult to stomach literature about the wealthy streamlining their closets in pursuit of spiritual clarity when many people survive with much less .
Minimalism , it would seem , is only a design aesthetic for those able to choose it .
Charles Bethea , in his piece about the controversy over Colin O ’ Brady ’ s status as the first to cross Antarctica alone and unassisted , astutely observes that the feats of modern polar explorers are generally just “ a little bit different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many very , very hard things that have been done before ” ( “ The Polar Explorer Colin O ’ Brady and the Problem with ‘ Firsts , ’ ” newyorker.com/bethea-on-antarctica , February 14th ) .
Although this is generally true , it is not , as Bethea mentions , the issue at the heart of the debate over O ’ Brady , whom the world ’ s preëminent polar explorers have accused of misrepresenting the significance of his accomplishment .
No one had previously skied O ’ Brady ’ s route not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the explorer Eric Larsen has put it , “ no one thought it was worthwhile , in the sense of being anything record-breaking ” : the final three hundred and sixty-six miles of O ’ Brady ’ s route followed a frozen road used to haul supplies to the research base at the South Pole—a road that is regularly groomed by snowcats and marked every quarter of a mile with flagged posts .
The use of this road , Larsen correctly states , makes any claim that O ’ Brady made an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Letters should be sent with the writer ’ s name , address , and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail @ newyorker.com .
Letters may be edited for length and clarity , and may be published in any medium .
We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

Fifty Shades of Gay
Masha Gessen, in an explanation of why some say that Pete Buttigieg is “not gay enough,” mirrors the regressive positions Gessen usually rails against (“The Queer Opposition to Pete Buttigieg, Explained,” newyorker.com/gessen-on-buttigieg, February 12th). As a temperamentally conservative white Christian man, Buttigieg is as palatable as gay people get—a fact that makes this moment in queer history anticlimactic for the nonwhite, non-cisgender, non-male individuals who don’t relate to the queerness that America is most comfortable with. But the milquetoast quality of Buttigieg’s gay identity, and the way he emphasizes his blandness in exchange for political acceptance, shouldn’t make him a target of accusations that he’s not gay in the way that people would like him to be. Gessen blames him for projecting an image that panders to skittish heterosexuals, instead of criticizing our political system, which is so concerned with the emotional equilibrium of the white cis-het majority that such pandering has become a prerequisite. The Time magazine cover photo of Buttigieg and his husband is disturbing not because of what Gessen calls their “awkwardly minimal touching,” but because such obsequious posturing is still necessary for maintaining one’s safety in America.
Anna Morrissey
Marlboro, Vt.
The Cost of Tidying Up
I was excited to read Jia Tolentino’s analysis of the new literature of minimalist decluttering, but I would have liked to know more about where all the unwanted objects should go (Books, February 3rd). More often than not, the trash bags we’re instructed to tote triumphantly out of our homes end up in a landfill; thrift stores send a large proportion of their donations to the dump. And it’s difficult to stomach literature about the wealthy streamlining their closets in pursuit of spiritual clarity when many people survive with much less. Minimalism, it would seem, is only a design aesthetic for those able to choose it.
Linni Kral
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Pole Vaulting
Charles Bethea, in his piece about the controversy over Colin O’Brady’s status as the first to cross Antarctica alone and unassisted, astutely observes that the feats of modern polar explorers are generally just “a little bit different and a little bit harder than the many very, very hard things that have been done before” (“The Polar Explorer Colin O’Brady and the Problem with ‘Firsts,’ ” newyorker.com/bethea-on-antarctica, February 14th). Although this is generally true, it is not, as Bethea mentions, the issue at the heart of the debate over O’Brady, whom the world’s preëminent polar explorers have accused of misrepresenting the significance of his accomplishment. No one had previously skied O’Brady’s route not because it was impossible but because, as the explorer Eric Larsen has put it, “no one thought it was worthwhile, in the sense of being anything record-breaking”: the final three hundred and sixty-six miles of O’Brady’s route followed a frozen road used to haul supplies to the research base at the South Pole—a road that is regularly groomed by snowcats and marked every quarter of a mile with flagged posts. The use of this road, Larsen correctly states, makes any claim that O’Brady made an unassisted solo crossing “an outright lie.”
Jon Krakauer
Boulder, Colo.
•
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.