newyorker--2020-03-26--The Coronavirus, Climate Change, and the Nature of Crisis

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Sign up to receive future installments .
An idea beloved of the technorati is that we are actually living not on the earth we seem to inhabit but in a simulation .
Elon Musk has said that it ’ s “ most likely ” the case , and Neil deGrasse Tyson has set the odds at fifty-fifty .
If so , we ’ ve clearly reached the point where whoever is supervising the action has handed the game over to a bored supervillain who is wildly pressing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
The name of this newsletter is The Climate Crisis , but for the moment the emphasis is going to be on the last of those words .
We need to understand how crises work , and , since I ’ ve been thinking about them for many years , I have a few thoughts to offer .
This week ’ s reflection has to do with time , which is a variable we seriously underappreciate .
We ’ re used to political debates that go on forever—when I was a high-school debater @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the year was “ That the federal government should establish a comprehensive program to regulate the health care system in the United States.
” We imagine that , if we don ’ t solve a political problem now , we ’ ll get around to it eventually .
Meanwhile , we ’ ll chip away at it—delaying a solution extends suffering along the way , but it doesn ’ t necessarily make a problem ultimately harder to solve .
Certain kinds of problems don ’ t work that way , however .
Physical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pertinent examples—are all about time .
And what ’ s striking to me is how similar these two examples are .
We know that the first cases of the coronavirus in South Korea and the United States emerged on January 20th and January 21st , respectively .
The Koreans responded immediately , rolling out a widespread testing regimen ; it was disruptive , but that nation “ flattened the curve ” and is now looking at the pandemic in the rear-view mirror .
In this country , we delayed ; the President didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growing , and was convinced that it would somehow “ go away ” by itself , maybe when the weather warmed .
So we wasted many weeks , during which time the virus gathered momentum .
Now we face an incredibly costly ( and far more disruptive ) effort to keep it from taking down our entire society .
Similarly , with climate change , we had effective warning in the late nineteen-eighties and early nineties .
At that time , we could have made somewhat disruptive efforts to cut carbon emissions by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it the South Korean approach .
But we didn ’ t , and nor did any other country , for the same reason : the oil companies didn ’ t want “ the numbers ” ( in this case , the profits ) to change .
So they promoted a farrago of lies intended to quiet people ’ s fears , and the climate crisis gathered momentum .
We ’ ve emitted more industrial carbon since 1988 than in all of prior human history , utterly failing to flatten the curve .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that outlines our dilemma the Keeling Curve , and it just keeps rising . )
As a result , we now have to act in far more disruptive ways .
This lesson about time has been very hard-earned , and we dare not forget it .
In the case of the virus , we need to keep moving with all speed to distance ourselves .
If you ’ re a city councillor or a mayor or a President , the correct answer to “ when ” is “ right now.
” ( Actually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in the case of climate , we need to start moving with all possible haste to transition away from fossil fuels .
Using the current round of corporate bailouts to advance green energy would make sense .
Let ’ s assume that we are in a game , but one that we can control .
Our goal has got to be not winning—what would that look like ?
—but simply to keep the clock running , preserving the chance to pass the action to the next generation .
Another variable , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warming , as I ’ ve argued before , is shrinking the size of the board on which we play the human game .
That may be most obvious along our coastlines , where the ever-more-rapidly-rising sea is suddenly shifting what had been a line constant throughout human history .
The shift has been just slow enough that it ’ s been hard to picture—which is why the work of the photographer Virginia Hanusik is so interesting .
You can see it here and here , and it ’ s worth staring at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and subtle .
How would you describe your work on waterlines ?
Where did it come from ?
My work really focusses on the coast as a liminal place , and the human engineering we ’ ve done to create a sense of permanence in spaces that were always meant to change .
I began centering my practice around these concepts when I moved to Louisiana , and worked with groups that were mitigating the impacts of rapid land loss in the state due to environmental degradation from the oil and gas industries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taming of the Mississippi River .
For the past couple of generations , the beachfront town has been the picture of ease and relaxation .
Was that always the case ?
What do you think it will feel like a few decades hence ?
The beach as a place of leisure is a constructed concept .
I think that ’ s an important component of my work : exploring what places we value over others and understanding what are the economic and political reasons that establish what a desirable landscape is .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beach as a real destination after World War Two , the rise of the automobile , and policies that encouraged development in flood zones .
Right now , I ’ m working on a project about climate adaptation along the Gulf Coast , and looking at how the history of flood-insurance policy drove home ownership in these flood-prone areas .
Once those policies account for the real risk that climate change imposes , those landscapes are going to look completely different , with many people unable to afford the high premiums—and that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to soften the blow .
I ’ m trying to capture how these larger paradigm shifts in how we think about land are realized in the built environment .
Your background is in architecture .
How should people who live near the coasts be preparing their neighborhoods for resilience ?
I think of resilience as equitable access to resources , and inhabiting space that ’ s symbiotic with the natural world .
We ’ re going to need a big ideological shift in how we value the coast , and people are going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make the best decisions for themselves and their families .
You can already see real-estate values changing in cities like Miami , where developers are buying properties farther inland and pricing out less affluent residents of the community .
We need policy to protect those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change .
The invaluable climate expert Kate Aronoff writes in The New Republic that , instead of bailing out the oil industry , it might make sense to nationalize it .
She writes , “ By taking fossil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re cheap to buy , the U.S. could ensure the country ’ s energy demands are met responsibly as it transitions to a net-zero emissions economy , without the need to appease those companies ’ shareholders.
” At current prices , you could snap up the top four oil producers in the United States for a mere three hundred billion dollars .

Subscribers to The Climate Crisis newsletter received this piece in their in-boxes. Sign up to receive future installments.
An idea beloved of the technorati is that we are actually living not on the earth we seem to inhabit but in a simulation. Elon Musk has said that it’s “most likely” the case, and Neil deGrasse Tyson has set the odds at fifty-fifty. If so, we’ve clearly reached the point where whoever is supervising the action has handed the game over to a bored supervillain who is wildly pressing buttons: Pandemics! Locusts! Firestorms!
The name of this newsletter is The Climate Crisis, but for the moment the emphasis is going to be on the last of those words. We need to understand how crises work, and, since I’ve been thinking about them for many years, I have a few thoughts to offer. This week’s reflection has to do with time, which is a variable we seriously underappreciate. We’re used to political debates that go on forever—when I was a high-school debater, in 1978, our topic for the year was “That the federal government should establish a comprehensive program to regulate the health care system in the United States.” We imagine that, if we don’t solve a political problem now, we’ll get around to it eventually. Meanwhile, we’ll chip away at it—delaying a solution extends suffering along the way, but it doesn’t necessarily make a problem ultimately harder to solve. Certain kinds of problems don’t work that way, however. Physical problems—climate change and the coronavirus being the pertinent examples—are all about time. And what’s striking to me is how similar these two examples are.
We know that the first cases of the coronavirus in South Korea and the United States emerged on January 20th and January 21st, respectively. The Koreans responded immediately, rolling out a widespread testing regimen; it was disruptive, but that nation “flattened the curve” and is now looking at the pandemic in the rear-view mirror. In this country, we delayed; the President didn’t want “the numbers” growing, and was convinced that it would somehow “go away” by itself, maybe when the weather warmed. So we wasted many weeks, during which time the virus gathered momentum. Now we face an incredibly costly (and far more disruptive) effort to keep it from taking down our entire society.
Similarly, with climate change, we had effective warning in the late nineteen-eighties and early nineties. At that time, we could have made somewhat disruptive efforts to cut carbon emissions by a per cent or two a year—call it the South Korean approach. But we didn’t, and nor did any other country, for the same reason: the oil companies didn’t want “the numbers” (in this case, the profits) to change. So they promoted a farrago of lies intended to quiet people’s fears, and the climate crisis gathered momentum. We’ve emitted more industrial carbon since 1988 than in all of prior human history, utterly failing to flatten the curve. (In fact, we call the diagram that outlines our dilemma the Keeling Curve, and it just keeps rising.) As a result, we now have to act in far more disruptive ways.
This lesson about time has been very hard-earned, and we dare not forget it. In the case of the virus, we need to keep moving with all speed to distance ourselves. If you’re a city councillor or a mayor or a President, the correct answer to “when” is “right now.” (Actually, “last month.”) And, in the case of climate, we need to start moving with all possible haste to transition away from fossil fuels. Using the current round of corporate bailouts to advance green energy would make sense.
Let’s assume that we are in a game, but one that we can control. Our goal has got to be not winning—what would that look like?—but simply to keep the clock running, preserving the chance to pass the action to the next generation.
Passing the Mic
Another variable, of course, is physical space. Global warming, as I’ve argued before, is shrinking the size of the board on which we play the human game. That may be most obvious along our coastlines, where the ever-more-rapidly-rising sea is suddenly shifting what had been a line constant throughout human history. The shift has been just slow enough that it’s been hard to picture—which is why the work of the photographer Virginia Hanusik is so interesting. You can see it here and here, and it’s worth staring at, because it’s both stark and subtle.
How would you describe your work on waterlines? Where did it come from?
My work really focusses on the coast as a liminal place, and the human engineering we’ve done to create a sense of permanence in spaces that were always meant to change. I began centering my practice around these concepts when I moved to Louisiana, and worked with groups that were mitigating the impacts of rapid land loss in the state due to environmental degradation from the oil and gas industries, sea-level rise, and the structural taming of the Mississippi River.
For the past couple of generations, the beachfront town has been the picture of ease and relaxation. Was that always the case? What do you think it will feel like a few decades hence?
The beach as a place of leisure is a constructed concept. I think that’s an important component of my work: exploring what places we value over others and understanding what are the economic and political reasons that establish what a desirable landscape is. In America, we started thinking about the beach as a real destination after World War Two, the rise of the automobile, and policies that encouraged development in flood zones.
Right now, I’m working on a project about climate adaptation along the Gulf Coast, and looking at how the history of flood-insurance policy drove home ownership in these flood-prone areas. Once those policies account for the real risk that climate change imposes, those landscapes are going to look completely different, with many people unable to afford the high premiums—and that’s a social-justice issue—if nothing is done to soften the blow. I’m trying to capture how these larger paradigm shifts in how we think about land are realized in the built environment.
Your background is in architecture. How should people who live near the coasts be preparing their neighborhoods for resilience?
I think of resilience as equitable access to resources, and inhabiting space that’s symbiotic with the natural world. We’re going to need a big ideological shift in how we value the coast, and people are going need to have the information and resources to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. You can already see real-estate values changing in cities like Miami, where developers are buying properties farther inland and pricing out less affluent residents of the community. We need policy to protect those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Climate School
The invaluable climate expert Kate Aronoff writes in The New Republic that, instead of bailing out the oil industry, it might make sense to nationalize it. She writes, “By taking fossil fuel companies under public ownership while they’re cheap to buy, the U.S. could ensure the country’s energy demands are met responsibly as it transitions to a net-zero emissions economy, without the need to appease those companies’ shareholders.” At current prices, you could snap up the top four oil producers in the United States for a mere three hundred billion dollars.


newyorker--2020-03-26--The Very First Wave

The Very First Wave

It ’ s a warm afternoon in the late-seventeenth-to-early-eighteenth century—and what luck !
I ’ m in a lovely meadow and who do I spy but a friend .
A companion across the grass !
Oh , how , in this short life span of mine , and given the relative paucity of people in my surrounding area , did I manage such a feat ?
!
“ Hello , friend !
” I yell , but not too loud as to be uncouth or startle the horses .
Hmm .
I receive no response , yet it is clearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make myself known .
I try again .
“ I said , ‘ HELLO , FRIEND IN THE MEDIUM-TO-FAR DISTANCE !
’ ” Ugh , she can not hear me .
Well , I am smiling , exposing the old mouth bones , as it were , but it seems unlikely that she can see that .
.
.
.
Maybe I will broadly gesture toward my smile ?
O.K.
, now she is observing , but appears confused .
Let me just move my hands wildly in front of my face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smile .
That should fix it .
You know what ?
I will just walk over .
No , no .
I don ’ t want to do that .
Then we would have to talk , and she is still upset about our previous , heated “ rats spread plague ” debate , and I do not want to engage in that conversation again .
In addition , she is quite far away and I do not have shoes .
Perhaps I should do a merry jig ?
No , that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Should I salute ?
No , too formal and militaristic .
Should I bow at the waist ?
Still far too formal .
Blow her a kiss ?
Too romantic , and I am unsure if that has been invented yet .
No , no , refocus .
She seemed to respond to the hand motions , so maybe I just ease up a notch .
Just sort of .
.
.
move my arm above my head .
Perhaps with some hand motion thrown in there , as well .
Yes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the wind .
Maybe even twist my wrist a little—because why not ?
Yes , that is it .
Much more casual and whimsical .
Like a jig for the arm !
Oh !
She has received my gesture , and greets it with a glorious smile !
And now she has replied to my ad-hoc gesture in kind !
Why , I feel closer to her , yet under no obligation to speak .
I can go about my day and she hers , us both having acknowledged our casual relationship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off to see about this Newton fellow .
I hear he has two whole pieces of curved glass and is putting on some kind of magic show .
What a day !

Photograph from Alamy
It’s a warm afternoon in the late-seventeenth-to-early-eighteenth century—and what luck! I’m in a lovely meadow and who do I spy but a friend. A companion across the grass! Oh, how, in this short life span of mine, and given the relative paucity of people in my surrounding area, did I manage such a feat?!
“Hello, friend!” I yell, but not too loud as to be uncouth or startle the horses.
Hmm. I receive no response, yet it is clearly my acquaintance, and I would like to make myself known. I try again. “I said, ‘HELLO, FRIEND IN THE MEDIUM-TO-FAR DISTANCE!’ ”
Ugh, she cannot hear me. Well, I am smiling, exposing the old mouth bones, as it were, but it seems unlikely that she can see that. . . . Maybe I will broadly gesture toward my smile? O.K., now she is observing, but appears confused. Let me just move my hands wildly in front of my face, as if I am erasing that smile. That should fix it.
You know what? I will just walk over. No, no. I don’t want to do that. Then we would have to talk, and she is still upset about our previous, heated “rats spread plague” debate, and I do not want to engage in that conversation again. In addition, she is quite far away and I do not have shoes.
Perhaps I should do a merry jig? No, that is idiotic. Why would I be jigging?
Should I salute? No, too formal and militaristic.
Should I bow at the waist? Still far too formal.
Blow her a kiss? Too romantic, and I am unsure if that has been invented yet.
No, no, refocus. She seemed to respond to the hand motions, so maybe I just ease up a notch. Just sort of . . . move my arm above my head. Perhaps with some hand motion thrown in there, as well. Yes, like a humble blade of grass in the wind. Maybe even twist my wrist a little—because why not? Yes, that is it. Much more casual and whimsical. Like a jig for the arm!
Oh! She has received my gesture, and greets it with a glorious smile! And now she has replied to my ad-hoc gesture in kind! Why, I feel closer to her, yet under no obligation to speak. I can go about my day and she hers, us both having acknowledged our casual relationship and current vicinity! Brilliant!
Now off to see about this Newton fellow. I hear he has two whole pieces of curved glass and is putting on some kind of magic show. What a day!


newyorker--2020-03-26--“The Glass Hotel” Is A Profound Study of Responsibility in Times of Crisis

Not quite halfway through “ The Glass Hotel , ” a new novel by Emily St. John Mandel , a woman named Vincent takes stock of her existence .
“ She felt that by any rational measure she was living an extraordinary life , ” Mandel writes .
I read these words in self-quarantine , while watching my boyfriend remove five varieties of pasta from a grocery bag .
Join the club , I thought .
The coronavirus may have heightened our sense of living in an “ extraordinary ” moment , but current events—climate change , the President—have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is possible , then , to tear through Mandel ’ s fiction in a delirium of recognition .
( Her previous novel , “ Station Eleven , ” which was a finalist for the National Book Award , in 2014 , follows the survivors of a flu that wipes out ninety-nine per cent of humanity . )
Mandel ’ s gift is to weave realism out of extremity .
She plants her flag where the ordinary and the astonishing meet , where everyday people pause to wonder how , exactly , it came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of waking up in the wrong time line .
When Vincent , the woman in “ The Glass Hotel , ” marvels at the implausibility of her life , she is standing on a terrace , gazing out at the “ otherworldly blue ” of the Mediterranean .
She ’ s just arrived in Nice with her boyfriend , the financier Jonathan Alkaitis , whom she met on the lip of the wilderness , at a five-star hotel ( the splendid glass edifice of the title ) where she was working as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ fairy tale ” of luxury .
Its origins , though , are shadowed : the same night that Vincent and Alkaitis start talking , graffiti appears on a window in the hotel lobby , its message— “ why don ’ t you swallow broken glass ?
” —intended for Alkaitis .
He never sees it .
Vincent , however , does—along with her half brother Paul and a shipping executive named Leon Prevant .
Mandel fans will recognize Prevant from “ Station Eleven , ” where he runs the freight company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Other metafictional connections emerge : Prevant ’ s secretary in the previous book , Miranda , has an extended cameo in “ The Glass Hotel , ” as a successful C.E.O .
For some readers , this will be jarring and lovely at once : “ Station Eleven ” closes with Miranda dying in the pandemic that burns across the globe , annihilating most of humanity and rewinding civilization .
“ The Glass Hotel ” is spared that apocalypse .
It is as if the two novels were unspooling in parallel universes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the types of evils—fraud , drug addiction—that , until recently , would have struck a reader as “ more realistic.
” Indeed , the organizing trauma of “ The Glass Hotel , ” a ruinous Ponzi scheme , has a 2008 flavor .
Those affected include investors ( an artist with eroding health , Prevant and his wife , and a Saudi prince ) , the white-collar staff privy to the scheme ( who , wonderfully , narrate their downfall in sections titled “ The Office Chorus ” ) , and Alkaitis himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her partner ’ s ruse comes to light , Vincent switches tracks once more , enlisting as a cook on a cargo ship that belongs to Prevant ’ s old company .
The novel opens and closes with chapters titled “ Vincent in the Ocean , ” which are juddering , dreamlike , and told in an elliptical first person .
“ I am aware of a border but I can ’ t tell which side I ’ m on , ” the narrator says .
“ I am out of time— ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is to underscore the seemingly infinite paths a person might travel .
Vincent is not the only character to experience rebirth : her sojourn in what she thinks of as “ the kingdom of money ” corresponds to Prevant ’ s exile to “ shadowland ” —poverty—after his savings vanish .
“ We move through this world so lightly , ” Prevant ’ s wife remarks , having traded her house and retirement plans for an R.V .
The “ glass ” of Mandel ’ s title suggests the fragility of circumstance : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into alternative lives , and the tenuousness of our presence in any of them .
That she expresses this theme through plot ( characters thrown into radically new environments ) , structure ( story lines bleeding into one another ) , and referentiality ( members of the “ Station Eleven ” ensemble playing new roles ) is almost ironic .
She evokes contingency through its opposite : intention .
Mandel is not the first writer to observe that the world seems to hang in a delicate and improbable balance .
That a person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in a place she did not anticipate is the premise , for instance , of choose-your-own-adventure books .
( See also : “ Life After Life , ” by Kate Atkinson , which spins out multiple timelines for its hero . )
Mandel freshens these ideas by examining what they do to notions of responsibility .
It is fair to say that “ The Glass Hotel ” explores endlessly refracting options ; it is equally fair to say that the novel studies people ( well , men ) who flee the consequences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vincent ’ s half brother , drops out of university after he accidentally kills an acquaintance by giving him bad E. ) Throughout the novel , the possible becomes an ethical trapdoor .
Before he backdates a transaction , Oskar , an employee of Alkaitis ’ s , imagines “ a ghost version ” of events in which he “ closed the door to his office and called the FBI.
” The Ponzi scheme itself consists of an intricate edifice of trades that did not occur , but very plausibly could have .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ more susceptible characters are to visions of an alternative life , the less they care about causing harm .
What does crime matter if , in a parallel universe , one obeys the law ?
No surprise , then , that Alkaitis turns out to be the book ’ s most helpless fantasist .
Mandel titles his chapters “ The Counterlife , ” after the vivid daydreams that grip the broker during his hundred-and seventy-year prison sentence .
( “ Hallucinations is the wrong word , ” Alkaitis thinks , struggling to explain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s more like a creeping sense of unreality , a sense of collapsing borders.
” ) Sometimes , sitting in his cell , Alkaitis finds himself on a flight to Dubai , or in hospice with his first wife , Suzanne , or throwing a Frisbee to his brother in the twilight .
Sometimes , ghosts—the Saudi prince , who committed suicide , or a businesswoman who died of a heart attack—visit the jail yard .
The novel is lousy with phantoms .
A scene of Paul crouched in a doorway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Paul himself is constantly recoiling from apparitions of the man he killed .
Mandel theorizes death as an opportunity to traverse many lives , real and imagined— “ it seems I can move between memories like walking from one room to the next , ” a dying character muses—and yet these ghosts are also , possibly , manifestations of guilt .
What is a ghost but a hidden consequence made visible ?
If Alkaitis ’ s victims were insufficiently real to him when he stole their money , they acquire an eerie presence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in what it means to really see someone , to appreciate the existence of others .
In “ The Glass Hotel , ” invisibility is conferred to alleviate the inconvenience of caring .
Prevant construes poverty as “ a shadow country that in his previous life he ’ d only dimly perceived.
” A wealthy woman confides to Vincent that she no longer notices her bodyguard , and Vincent reflects that “ there was something appalling and also seductive in the idea.
” By contrast , it is quietly shocking , and almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friend , Alkaitis correctly pegs Vincent as an artist of self-adaptation .
In that moment , Alkaitis sees what other people can not .
The dangers of dwelling in counterfactuals , then , are the dangers of opportunity cost : actual men and women fall by the wayside .
This is a problem relevant to fiction itself , and , specifically , to fiction in moments of emergency .
And yet there is a suggestion , toward the end of “ The Glass Hotel , ” that frequent commerce with the dead ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the living .
A ghost ’ s intervention can renew one ’ s sense of responsibility .
Memories provide crucial guidance for the future .
Perhaps it is with this in mind that Mandel has constructed a fantasy for our temporary habitation .
Her story offers escape , but the kind that depends on and is inseparable from the world beyond it—not unlike the hotel of the title , which is triumphant and precarious at once , “ lit up , ” as Mandel writes , “ against the darkness of the @ @ @

In “The Glass Hotel,” Emily St. John Mandel underscores the seemingly infinite paths a person might travel. Photograph by Ismail Ferdous / Redux
Not quite halfway through “The Glass Hotel,” a new novel by Emily St. John Mandel, a woman named Vincent takes stock of her existence. “She felt that by any rational measure she was living an extraordinary life,” Mandel writes. I read these words in self-quarantine, while watching my boyfriend remove five varieties of pasta from a grocery bag. Join the club, I thought.
The coronavirus may have heightened our sense of living in an “extraordinary” moment, but current events—climate change, the President—have been stoking it for some time. It is possible, then, to tear through Mandel’s fiction in a delirium of recognition. (Her previous novel, “Station Eleven,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award, in 2014, follows the survivors of a flu that wipes out ninety-nine per cent of humanity.) Mandel’s gift is to weave realism out of extremity. She plants her flag where the ordinary and the astonishing meet, where everyday people pause to wonder how, exactly, it came to this. She is our bard of waking up in the wrong time line.
When Vincent, the woman in “The Glass Hotel,” marvels at the implausibility of her life, she is standing on a terrace, gazing out at the “otherworldly blue” of the Mediterranean. She’s just arrived in Nice with her boyfriend, the financier Jonathan Alkaitis, whom she met on the lip of the wilderness, at a five-star hotel (the splendid glass edifice of the title) where she was working as a bartender. The relationship plunges Vincent into a “fairy tale” of luxury. Its origins, though, are shadowed: the same night that Vincent and Alkaitis start talking, graffiti appears on a window in the hotel lobby, its message—“why don’t you swallow broken glass?”—intended for Alkaitis.
He never sees it. Vincent, however, does—along with her half brother Paul and a shipping executive named Leon Prevant. Mandel fans will recognize Prevant from “Station Eleven,” where he runs the freight company that inadvertently spreads the virus overseas. Other metafictional connections emerge: Prevant’s secretary in the previous book, Miranda, has an extended cameo in “The Glass Hotel,” as a successful C.E.O. For some readers, this will be jarring and lovely at once: “Station Eleven” closes with Miranda dying in the pandemic that burns across the globe, annihilating most of humanity and rewinding civilization. “The Glass Hotel” is spared that apocalypse. It is as if the two novels were unspooling in parallel universes, one unthinkable and the other beset by the types of evils—fraud, drug addiction—that, until recently, would have struck a reader as “more realistic.”
Indeed, the organizing trauma of “The Glass Hotel,” a ruinous Ponzi scheme, has a 2008 flavor. Those affected include investors (an artist with eroding health, Prevant and his wife, and a Saudi prince), the white-collar staff privy to the scheme (who, wonderfully, narrate their downfall in sections titled “The Office Chorus”), and Alkaitis himself, who orchestrates the crime. When her partner’s ruse comes to light, Vincent switches tracks once more, enlisting as a cook on a cargo ship that belongs to Prevant’s old company. The novel opens and closes with chapters titled “Vincent in the Ocean,” which are juddering, dreamlike, and told in an elliptical first person. “I am aware of a border but I can’t tell which side I’m on,” the narrator says. “I am out of time—”
One effect of Mandel’s book is to underscore the seemingly infinite paths a person might travel. Vincent is not the only character to experience rebirth: her sojourn in what she thinks of as “the kingdom of money” corresponds to Prevant’s exile to “shadowland”—poverty—after his savings vanish. “We move through this world so lightly,” Prevant’s wife remarks, having traded her house and retirement plans for an R.V. The “glass” of Mandel’s title suggests the fragility of circumstance: the ease with which we can slip into alternative lives, and the tenuousness of our presence in any of them. That she expresses this theme through plot (characters thrown into radically new environments), structure (story lines bleeding into one another), and referentiality (members of the “Station Eleven” ensemble playing new roles) is almost ironic. She evokes contingency through its opposite: intention.
Mandel is not the first writer to observe that the world seems to hang in a delicate and improbable balance. That a person can end up, apparently without effort, in a place she did not anticipate is the premise, for instance, of choose-your-own-adventure books. (See also: “Life After Life,” by Kate Atkinson, which spins out multiple timelines for its hero.) Mandel freshens these ideas by examining what they do to notions of responsibility. It is fair to say that “The Glass Hotel” explores endlessly refracting options; it is equally fair to say that the novel studies people (well, men) who flee the consequences of their actions. (Paul, Vincent’s half brother, drops out of university after he accidentally kills an acquaintance by giving him bad E.) Throughout the novel, the possible becomes an ethical trapdoor. Before he backdates a transaction, Oskar, an employee of Alkaitis’s, imagines “a ghost version” of events in which he “closed the door to his office and called the FBI.” The Ponzi scheme itself consists of an intricate edifice of trades that did not occur, but very plausibly could have. There is a sense that, the more susceptible characters are to visions of an alternative life, the less they care about causing harm. What does crime matter if, in a parallel universe, one obeys the law?
No surprise, then, that Alkaitis turns out to be the book’s most helpless fantasist. Mandel titles his chapters “The Counterlife,” after the vivid daydreams that grip the broker during his hundred-and seventy-year prison sentence. (“Hallucinations is the wrong word,” Alkaitis thinks, struggling to explain his problem to a doctor. “It’s more like a creeping sense of unreality, a sense of collapsing borders.”) Sometimes, sitting in his cell, Alkaitis finds himself on a flight to Dubai, or in hospice with his first wife, Suzanne, or throwing a Frisbee to his brother in the twilight. Sometimes, ghosts—the Saudi prince, who committed suicide, or a businesswoman who died of a heart attack—visit the jail yard. The novel is lousy with phantoms. A scene of Paul crouched in a doorway flashes into Vincent’s mind; Paul himself is constantly recoiling from apparitions of the man he killed. Mandel theorizes death as an opportunity to traverse many lives, real and imagined—“it seems I can move between memories like walking from one room to the next,” a dying character muses—and yet these ghosts are also, possibly, manifestations of guilt.
What is a ghost but a hidden consequence made visible? If Alkaitis’s victims were insufficiently real to him when he stole their money, they acquire an eerie presence after the fact. Mandel is interested in what it means to really see someone, to appreciate the existence of others. In “The Glass Hotel,” invisibility is conferred to alleviate the inconvenience of caring. Prevant construes poverty as “a shadow country that in his previous life he’d only dimly perceived.” A wealthy woman confides to Vincent that she no longer notices her bodyguard, and Vincent reflects that “there was something appalling and also seductive in the idea.” By contrast, it is quietly shocking, and almost sweet, when, speaking to a friend, Alkaitis correctly pegs Vincent as an artist of self-adaptation. In that moment, Alkaitis sees what other people cannot.
The dangers of dwelling in counterfactuals, then, are the dangers of opportunity cost: actual men and women fall by the wayside. This is a problem relevant to fiction itself, and, specifically, to fiction in moments of emergency. And yet there is a suggestion, toward the end of “The Glass Hotel,” that frequent commerce with the dead (or the imaginary) might reconnect us to the living. A ghost’s intervention can renew one’s sense of responsibility. Memories provide crucial guidance for the future. Perhaps it is with this in mind that Mandel has constructed a fantasy for our temporary habitation. Her story offers escape, but the kind that depends on and is inseparable from the world beyond it—not unlike the hotel of the title, which is triumphant and precarious at once, “lit up,” as Mandel writes, “against the darkness of the forest.”


newyorker--2020-03-26--Helen, Help Me: Advice on Coronavirus-Quarantine Cooking and Other Quandaries

If you have quarantine cooking questions for Helen , send them to themail @ newyorker.com with the subject line “ Helen Help Me.
” I ’ m a college student who mostly has existed off of Trader Joe ’ s frozen meals , but I ’ m isolated with my friend who can really cook .
I have cooked one meal by myself for her , and cooked a few meals with her , but she ’ s been doing the heavy lifting .
I ’ m trying to make sure that I ’ m not being a mooch .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ make cooking equitable in our apartment ?
—Siri C. , Brooklyn , New York If you don ’ t want to cook , or if your roommate prefers to do more cooking than you do , why force an unnecessary equity when you can pull your weight in other ways ?
For instance , take an hour ( or a couple of hours ) to write up an inventory of your pantry , fridge , and freezer—noting expiration dates—so that your roommate knows exactly what ingredients she has on hand .
If she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , be ready with real answers—don ’ t leave her to do all the work of choosing how to feed you .
If you ’ re healthy , offer to be the one who makes the weekly grocery run .
Make sure you ’ re kicking in at least half of all the food costs , and maybe cover a little more than your share of the booze and other staples .
( On that note , learning to make a killer cocktail is a lot easier than learning how to make a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward insuring the good will of one ’ s friends and neighbors . )
Most of all , take a few minutes to talk to her directly about this unevenness in your skills and labor .
Let her know that you see it , let her know that you want to find ways to pitch in , and make sure she knows that you don ’ t expect her to churn out high-effort meals every day .
Last but not least , I ’ m assuming that when she cooks you clean , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the one cooking , you ’ re doing all the dishes , and cleaning the counters , too .
What is the best potato-soup recipe for filling the chasm of existential dread where my chest cavity once existed , and can I make it in a Crock-Pot ?
—Evan R. , Portland , Oregon I know of exactly two potato soups that don ’ t instantaneously fill me with a soul-deadening sense of boredom ( which I know , from experience , is a condition that compounds existential dread ) .
So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you absolutely have to , and if you have the materials on hand to make it great .
The first soup , luxuriously simple and absolutely absurd : use an abundance of meat bones and scraps—especially turkey or duck , if you have them—to make a stock , then turn that into a double stock , and then ( bear with me here ) a triple stock .
When you have a quart or two of the densest , richest , meatiest stock in the world , scrub and dice two pounds of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yukon golds ) and add them to the stock .
Simmer the potatoes until they ’ re soft , then use an immersion blender to purée the whole thing , or purée it in small batches in a blender .
( It ’ s hot , be careful ! )
Stir in a full cup of heavy cream , a generous blizzard of salt , about twenty grinder rounds of black pepper , and a pinch of cayenne .
If you have chives or scallions to top it off , go for it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you don ’ t ; this obscenely rich liquid velvet stands alone .
The second soup , if you ’ re a normal person who doesn ’ t have ten to fifteen pounds of poultry scraps in your freezer , operates on a similar principle .
Start the whole thing off by sautéeing as much chopped onion and garlic as you can manage in a huge hunk of butter , plus a tablespoon or so of curry paste , or a savory masala blend if you have one that you like .
Then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whole thing in regular chicken or veggie stock ( or water with a splash of soy sauce and a splash of wine ) .
At the end , stir in the cream .
( You can ’ t skip this step , I ’ m sorry ; the secret of any good potato soup is that it ’ s actually heavy-cream soup with some potatoes in it . )
Add salt , pepper , and something with a bit of heat , like cayenne , Aleppo pepper , or a dash of hot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very end , add a few fistfuls of shredded cheese—any kind , though sharp cheddar is best .
You can make pretty much any soup in a Crock-Pot .
Just don ’ t add the cream ( or anything that comes after ) until the very end .
My family loves bread .
All the bread in stores is gone .
I do not have a bread machine .
I do not have a stand mixer .
I just want to make some good , simple white bread that doesn ’ t involve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focaccia , because I want something I can slice for toast and sandwiches .
Bonus points if I can toss it together with the kids in the morning , or throw the ingredients together and let it rise in the fridge overnight .
I tried to make no-knead bread a few months ago , and it came out all flat and terrible .
—Anne A. , Manhattan , New York If no-knead didn ’ t work out for you last time , one of two things is to blame .
One , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Most official recipes for no-knead bread ask you to first combine the indicated quantities of flour , salt , and yeast in a medium bowl , and then add 1⅓ cups of cool water .
Do me a favor and don ’ t do that .
Instead , put 1⅓ cups of warm water ( about 95-100 degrees Fahrenheit , or the same temperature as the inside of your wrist ) in that medium bowl , and sprinkle the yeast on top .
( Do this even if you ’ re using instant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dud but , in my experience , still sometimes is . )
Wait three minutes , maybe five : the bowl of yeasty water should now be foamy .
If not , you ’ ve got a yeast problem .
If your yeast is good , and your dough rises glorious as the dawn , but the bread still emerges from your oven in a flat , depressing disc , it might be that you ’ re baking it in a pot that ’ s too large .
Serious physical kneading develops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what gives bread its structural integrity ; the long rising time in no-knead recipes accomplishes the same thing , but not to the same degree—hence the need for a relatively narrow , high-walled Dutch oven , which slows the outward spread of the dough once it hits the heat of the oven .
If your pot is wider than eleven inches , you ’ re likely to end up with something closer to a Frisbee than a proud , domed loaf .
If it ’ s still not working after these fixes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m not a superstitious person , but there are some people for whom beautiful loaves of bread just don ’ t like to work .
In that case , maybe reconsider your opposition to focaccia .

If you have quarantine cooking questions for Helen, send them to themail@newyorker.com with the subject line “Helen, Help Me.”
I’m a college student who mostly has existed off of Trader Joe’s frozen meals, but I’m isolated with my friend who can really cook. I have cooked one meal by myself for her, and cooked a few meals with her, but she’s been doing the heavy lifting. I’m trying to make sure that I’m not being a mooch. What’s a good way to make cooking equitable in our apartment? —Siri C., Brooklyn, New York
If you don’t want to cook, or if your roommate prefers to do more cooking than you do, why force an unnecessary equity when you can pull your weight in other ways? For instance, take an hour (or a couple of hours) to write up an inventory of your pantry, fridge, and freezer—noting expiration dates—so that your roommate knows exactly what ingredients she has on hand. If she asks you what you want to eat, be ready with real answers—don’t leave her to do all the work of choosing how to feed you. If you’re healthy, offer to be the one who makes the weekly grocery run. Make sure you’re kicking in at least half of all the food costs, and maybe cover a little more than your share of the booze and other staples. (On that note, learning to make a killer cocktail is a lot easier than learning how to make a paella, and goes a long way toward insuring the good will of one’s friends and neighbors.) Most of all, take a few minutes to talk to her directly about this unevenness in your skills and labor. Let her know that you see it, let her know that you want to find ways to pitch in, and make sure she knows that you don’t expect her to churn out high-effort meals every day.
Last but not least, I’m assuming that when she cooks you clean, right? If you’re not the one cooking, you’re doing all the dishes, and cleaning the counters, too.
What is the best potato-soup recipe for filling the chasm of existential dread where my chest cavity once existed, and can I make it in a Crock-Pot? —Evan R., Portland, Oregon
I know of exactly two potato soups that don’t instantaneously fill me with a soul-deadening sense of boredom (which I know, from experience, is a condition that compounds existential dread). So, please, only make potato soup if you absolutely have to, and if you have the materials on hand to make it great.
The first soup, luxuriously simple and absolutely absurd: use an abundance of meat bones and scraps—especially turkey or duck, if you have them—to make a stock, then turn that into a double stock, and then (bear with me here) a triple stock. When you have a quart or two of the densest, richest, meatiest stock in the world, scrub and dice two pounds of potatoes (for soups, I prefer Yukon golds) and add them to the stock. Simmer the potatoes until they’re soft, then use an immersion blender to purée the whole thing, or purée it in small batches in a blender. (It’s hot, be careful!) Stir in a full cup of heavy cream, a generous blizzard of salt, about twenty grinder rounds of black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. If you have chives or scallions to top it off, go for it, but don’t worry if you don’t; this obscenely rich liquid velvet stands alone.
The second soup, if you’re a normal person who doesn’t have ten to fifteen pounds of poultry scraps in your freezer, operates on a similar principle. Start the whole thing off by sautéeing as much chopped onion and garlic as you can manage in a huge hunk of butter, plus a tablespoon or so of curry paste, or a savory masala blend if you have one that you like. Then add your diced potatoes and simmer the whole thing in regular chicken or veggie stock (or water with a splash of soy sauce and a splash of wine). At the end, stir in the cream. (You can’t skip this step, I’m sorry; the secret of any good potato soup is that it’s actually heavy-cream soup with some potatoes in it.) Add salt, pepper, and something with a bit of heat, like cayenne, Aleppo pepper, or a dash of hot sauce, and then, at the very end, add a few fistfuls of shredded cheese—any kind, though sharp cheddar is best.
You can make pretty much any soup in a Crock-Pot. Just don’t add the cream (or anything that comes after) until the very end.
My family loves bread. All the bread in stores is gone. I do not have a bread machine. I do not have a stand mixer. I just want to make some good, simple white bread that doesn’t involve becoming obsessed with a sourdough starter—but not focaccia, because I want something I can slice for toast and sandwiches. Bonus points if I can toss it together with the kids in the morning, or throw the ingredients together and let it rise in the fridge overnight. I tried to make no-knead bread a few months ago, and it came out all flat and terrible. —Anne A., Manhattan, New York


newyorker--2020-03-26--How Do You Shelter in Place When You Don’t Have a Home?

On the morning of Friday , March 13th , Mary Beth Appel and Johanna Berrigan , two health-care workers who run a free clinic in North Philadelphia , were preparing for the morning rush .
Their clients are experiencing homelessness , and sleep in abandoned buildings , shelters , or on the street nearby .
“ We see the same things that an urgent-care clinic does , ” Appel , a sixty-year-old nurse practitioner , told me .
The most common ailments included colds , wounds , chronic illnesses , and some frostbite .
Today , though , they were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I fully expect we ’ ll both get it .
Don ’ t you ?
” Appel asked Berrigan , a sixty-four-year-old physician assistant .
The women were seated on the first floor of the clinic , a converted row house , discussing how to contain infection among their clients .
“ The protocol now , if you feel sick , is go home and isolate , ” Berrigan said .
“ Where are our people going to go ?
We ’ re going to isolate them under a tree in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of two or three in the country that are part of the Catholic Worker Movement , a loose-knit social-justice organization started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin , in 1933 .
Appel and Berrigan had been running the clinic for almost twenty-nine years , and had treated patients through the AIDS crisis , the crack epidemic , and , more recently , widespread addiction to opioids .
They were well-acquainted with the difficulties of meeting human needs during a crisis : Berrigan travelled to Iraq , in the nineties and early two-thousands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sanctions on its people , and helped provide care in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated the island in 2010 .
Still , they had never seen anything like the coronavirus .
When I arrived , Appel had just spoken to a fellow Catholic Worker , in New York , to ask for advice on how to pray for the protection of their patients .
“ I was looking for the patron saint of spit , ” she told me , only half joking .
“ There is one for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Philadelphia , there were still fewer than two dozen confirmed cases of COVID-19 , and it had yet to manifest among the homeless population .
In the early days of the pandemic , the homeless were surprisingly insulated from the disease , because they weren ’ t travelling internationally .
“ It ’ s unlikely that our community has been abroad in the past few weeks , ” Berrigan said .
The virus seemed most likely to reach them through contact with middle-class people in public places , including with college students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For this community , service providers and librarians are vectors , ” Appel said .
But , once the virus became more widespread , Appel and Berrigan knew that cases among the homeless would increase rapidly .
The women had received little guidance on how to care for homeless patients , and some of the advice seemed nonsensical .
At a recent meeting with health professionals , they ’ d been told to take sick homeless people to the E.R .
“ for testing.
” “ It ’ s ridiculous , ” Berrigan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t have tests.
” ( Today , tests are available , but in limited circumstances . )
In the absence of formal protocols , they had been improvising ; they had bought a box of rubber gloves and some face masks , though they knew these would offer little protection .
In addition to their practical questions , Appel and Berrigan were confronting ethical ones .
The clinic was vital to the lives of its clients : people came for medical services , as well as to make phone calls , borrow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ American Pastoral ” and “ Atlas Shrugged ” ) , take showers , and use the bathroom .
But , though only about a dozen people were inside the row house at any time , there was a danger that the virus would pass between clients there .
“ What ’ s our responsibility—to be here or not to be here ?
” Berrigan asked Appel .
“ What gives the least risk ?
” In the late morning , Appel opened the doors to the clinic .
Outside , half a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the stairs .
Arnetta Ferguson , a fifty-four-year-old homeless woman with auburn hair , came in for the first shower .
“ I ’ ve been out there since 7 A.M. , ” she told me .
She disappeared into the shower stall , and , after her bath , she sat with me in the center ’ s former dental clinic .
( The dentist had stopped coming some months earlier . )
Ferguson told me that she had been living on the street for around thirty years , since she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Her children often called and visited the clinic asking to see her , but she didn ’ t want to go home while still in the throes of addiction .
“ I don ’ t want my family to see me , ” she said .
“ I ’ m trying to be a functional addict.
” Most often , Ferguson slept on a bed of cardboard , under a corrugated-metal awning , a few hundred feet from the clinic .
“ Those are my boxes , ” she said , pointing out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that she had leaned against a utility pole .
“ I prefer to sleep outside .
Shelters treat you like shit.
” She also knew that , in the close quarters of shelters , there was additional risk of exposure to COVID-19 .
The street felt safer .
Ferguson worried that she was at greater risk of contracting the virus because she slept in a public place , ate in communal settings , and wasn ’ t able to wash frequently .
Still , she wasn ’ t sure how she could mitigate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not preparing for it , ” she said .
“ What do I do ?
” She had heard that the most important precaution she could take would be to find a way to isolate herself , and Appel and Berrigan were encouraging her to do all she could to get off the street .
“ They ’ re my best friends , ” she said .
Over the years , she had occasionally managed to find a room for short periods , but she always left .
In her purse , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and number of a man who , she thought , might have a room that she could rent cheaply .
She called several times , but couldn ’ t get through .
Eventually , she gave up and went next door to the St. Francis Inn , a soup kitchen that is run by Catholic nuns and friars and has served meals three hundred and sixty-five days a year , without fail , since 1979 .
Usually , the friars served the food like a dine-in restaurant , as a sign of respect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though , the meals were grab-and-go , and yellow caution tape blocked off the garden .

On the morning of Friday, March 13th, Mary Beth Appel and Johanna Berrigan, two health-care workers who run a free clinic in North Philadelphia, were preparing for the morning rush. Their clients are experiencing homelessness, and sleep in abandoned buildings, shelters, or on the street nearby. “We see the same things that an urgent-care clinic does,” Appel, a sixty-year-old nurse practitioner, told me. The most common ailments included colds, wounds, chronic illnesses, and some frostbite. Today, though, they were bracing for the arrival of COVID-19. “I fully expect we’ll both get it. Don’t you?” Appel asked Berrigan, a sixty-four-year-old physician assistant. The women were seated on the first floor of the clinic, a converted row house, discussing how to contain infection among their clients. “The protocol now, if you feel sick, is go home and isolate,” Berrigan said. “Where are our people going to go? We’re going to isolate them under a tree in the park?”
The health-care clinic is one of two or three in the country that are part of the Catholic Worker Movement, a loose-knit social-justice organization started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, in 1933. Appel and Berrigan had been running the clinic for almost twenty-nine years, and had treated patients through the AIDS crisis, the crack epidemic, and, more recently, widespread addiction to opioids. They were well-acquainted with the difficulties of meeting human needs during a crisis: Berrigan travelled to Iraq, in the nineties and early two-thousands, to document the impact of economic sanctions on its people, and helped provide care in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated the island in 2010. Still, they had never seen anything like the coronavirus. When I arrived, Appel had just spoken to a fellow Catholic Worker, in New York, to ask for advice on how to pray for the protection of their patients. “I was looking for the patron saint of spit,” she told me, only half joking. “There is one for bed bugs.”
At the time, in Philadelphia, there were still fewer than two dozen confirmed cases of COVID-19, and it had yet to manifest among the homeless population. In the early days of the pandemic, the homeless were surprisingly insulated from the disease, because they weren’t travelling internationally. “It’s unlikely that our community has been abroad in the past few weeks,” Berrigan said. The virus seemed most likely to reach them through contact with middle-class people in public places, including with college students who volunteered at soup kitchens. “For this community, service providers and librarians are vectors,” Appel said. But, once the virus became more widespread, Appel and Berrigan knew that cases among the homeless would increase rapidly.
The women had received little guidance on how to care for homeless patients, and some of the advice seemed nonsensical. At a recent meeting with health professionals, they’d been told to take sick homeless people to the E.R. “for testing.” “It’s ridiculous,” Berrigan said. “We know they don’t have tests.” (Today, tests are available, but in limited circumstances.) In the absence of formal protocols, they had been improvising; they had bought a box of rubber gloves and some face masks, though they knew these would offer little protection. In addition to their practical questions, Appel and Berrigan were confronting ethical ones. The clinic was vital to the lives of its clients: people came for medical services, as well as to make phone calls, borrow books (the shelf included copies of “American Pastoral” and “Atlas Shrugged”), take showers, and use the bathroom. But, though only about a dozen people were inside the row house at any time, there was a danger that the virus would pass between clients there. “What’s our responsibility—to be here or not to be here?” Berrigan asked Appel. “What gives the least risk?”
Mary Beth Appel greets clients waiting to take showers at the Catholic Worker Free Clinic.
In the late morning, Appel opened the doors to the clinic. Outside, half a dozen people were waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Arnetta Ferguson, a fifty-four-year-old homeless woman with auburn hair, came in for the first shower. “I’ve been out there since 7 A.M.,” she told me. She disappeared into the shower stall, and, after her bath, she sat with me in the center’s former dental clinic. (The dentist had stopped coming some months earlier.) Ferguson told me that she had been living on the street for around thirty years, since she became addicted to crack and alcohol. Her children often called and visited the clinic asking to see her, but she didn’t want to go home while still in the throes of addiction. “I don’t want my family to see me,” she said. “I’m trying to be a functional addict.” Most often, Ferguson slept on a bed of cardboard, under a corrugated-metal awning, a few hundred feet from the clinic. “Those are my boxes,” she said, pointing out the window to two pieces of cardboard that she had leaned against a utility pole. “I prefer to sleep outside. Shelters treat you like shit.” She also knew that, in the close quarters of shelters, there was additional risk of exposure to COVID-19. The street felt safer.
Ferguson worried that she was at greater risk of contracting the virus because she slept in a public place, ate in communal settings, and wasn’t able to wash frequently. Still, she wasn’t sure how she could mitigate the dangers. “I’m not preparing for it,” she said. “What do I do?” She had heard that the most important precaution she could take would be to find a way to isolate herself, and Appel and Berrigan were encouraging her to do all she could to get off the street. “They’re my best friends,” she said. Over the years, she had occasionally managed to find a room for short periods, but she always left. In her purse, she had a crumpled paper with the name and number of a man who, she thought, might have a room that she could rent cheaply. She called several times, but couldn’t get through. Eventually, she gave up and went next door to the St. Francis Inn, a soup kitchen that is run by Catholic nuns and friars and has served meals three hundred and sixty-five days a year, without fail, since 1979. Usually, the friars served the food like a dine-in restaurant, as a sign of respect to their clients; that day, though, the meals were grab-and-go, and yellow caution tape blocked off the garden.


newyorker--2020-04-17--Woodrow Wilson’s Case of the Flu, and How Pandemics Change History

On the evening of April 3 , 1919 , in Paris , President Woodrow Wilson began to cough ; he soon took to bed , feverish and unable to move .
He had contracted what had become known as the Spanish flu , the President ’ s physician wrote confidentially to the White House , and it had made Wilson “ violently sick.
” By then , the influenza had rampaged around the world for more than a year and was on its way to killing at least twenty million people , including at least six hundred thousand Americans .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ negotiations following the end of the First World War , which sought to shape the postwar global order and settle the status of the defeated Germany .
He became ill at a decisive moment , making the virus an insidious actor in one of the twentieth century ’ s most consequential episodes of great-power diplomacy .
How does a pandemic alter history ?
To capture the scale of lives lost and economies shattered , and the national mobilizations often required , it has become common to compare the catastrophe to a war against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the preferred metaphor of Donald Trump , a self-pronounced “ wartime President , ” and also of many other national leaders who are struggling forward in these days of COVID-19 .
Yet , among other shortcomings , war metaphors fail to capture the natural and intimate character of a severe and contagious illness , and how its effect on individual behavior can often be subtle and difficult to measure .
In the days before Wilson was stricken , he had argued heatedly with the French Prime Minister , Georges Clemenceau , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , about the price , in territory and reparations , that Germany should be made to pay as the aggressor in the war .
Wilson thought that the Allies should go easy on Germany ’ s nascent postwar republic and prioritize his idealistic , ahead-of-its-time project , the League of Nations , and the enlightened principles of self-determination among peoples which he promoted .
But France had twice endured German occupation during the previous half century , and Clemenceau sought what the French public saw as a just and prudent resolution : tens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , plus buffer zones on the country ’ s eastern frontier , including the occupation by French troops of the German Rhineland .
By April , Wilson and Clemenceau had argued themselves into a mutually aggravating deadlock .
When Clemenceau learned that Wilson was ill , he asked Lloyd George , “ Do you know his doctor ?
Couldn ’ t you get round him and bribe him ?
” Wilson , sequestered during his recovery in the Hôtel du Prince Murat , an elegant town house in the Eighth Arrondissement , soon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He became obsessed with “ funny things , ” as an aide put it .
He grew fixated on the furniture in the house and came to believe that he was surrounded by French spies .
“ We could but surmise that something queer was happening in his mind , ” Irwin Hoover , the President ’ s chief usher , said .
“ One thing is certain : he was never the same after this little spell of sickness.
” Hoover ’ s remarks are recounted by the historian John Barry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his magnificent narrative of the pandemic of 1918 and 1919 .
Barry points out that Wilson ’ s reported disorientation can be a complication of severe influenza .
During the second week of April , an exhausted Wilson gave up most of the demands that he had been pressing Clemenceau to meet .
The President accepted the demilitarization of the Rhineland and its occupation by France for at least fifteen years , along with an open-ended process for calculating Germany ’ s reparations bill .
In the judgment of Margaret MacMillan , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Months That Changed the World , ” an authoritative account of the postwar negotiations , Clemenceau suddenly found himself with “ the best possible deal for France.
” Infamously , the achievement was a Pyrrhic one .
The Treaty of Versailles , signed on June 28 , 1919 , and which ratified Wilson ’ s concessions , proved to be a settlement so harsh and onerous to Germans that it became a provocative cause of revived German nationalism during the nineteen-twenties and thirties , and , eventually , a rallying cause of Adolf @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether Wilson might have been a more forceful and stubborn negotiator in Paris if he hadn ’ t contracted the flu , and whether , therefore , the history of the twenties and thirties in Europe might have turned out differently .
He is appropriately skeptical of such counterfactual speculations ; we can not know what might have happened if Wilson had remained healthy and vigorous , only “ what did happen , ” as he writes .
“ Influenza did strike Wilson .
Influenza did weaken him physically .
.
.
.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ negotiations.
” Nazism ’ s triumph over Germany was caused by much more than the blowback from the Versailles Treaty , yet there can be little doubt that the treaty ’ s punishing terms , including the highly visible French occupation of German territory , did help Hitler to mobilize and narrate German grievances .
Lloyd George , who had opposed , in particular , the French occupation , later concluded in a memoir that the “ odious accompaniments of such an occupation of German towns .
.
.
had much to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Germany , which finds its expression in Nazism.
” Wilson recovered from the influenza , but suffered a severe stroke six months later , and was incapacitated through the remainder of his Presidency .
He should be remembered as a thoroughgoing failure as a pandemic-time President .
In addition to the debacle of Versailles , he never once spoke publicly about the flu as it decimated the United States .
He was so narrow-mindedly focussed on the American war mobilization that he generated “ a kind of furious intolerance ” for any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me , and he suppressed dissent in the United States in ways that “ went beyond anything seen in the McCarthy period or any other time.
” He added , “ Much like Trump , he did not tolerate criticism from friend or foe .
Even if a friend evidenced any distance from him , he exiled that person .
All this makes Wilson ’ s complete silence on the pandemic understandable in only one context : he would do nothing to distract him or the nation from the war effort .
His @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and nothing else.
” It was unfortunate that Wilson fell so ill in Paris ; we can easily forgive his frailty in the run-up to Versailles , but not his record of prolonged indifference , before then , to public suffering at home among the citizens who elected him , or the racist convictions that led him to support institutionalized segregation .
For now , it seems hard to judge which presents the greater record of Presidential failure during a pandemic : Wilson ’ s silence or Trump ’ s bombast , self-contradiction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partly just bad luck that the two worst pandemics to strike the United States in the past hundred years coincide with the terms of two Presidents so plainly unprepared for their responsibilities .
Yet it bears reflection that , even a century ago , as is so obvious today , the country requires a President at least as knowledgeable about and committed to sound science and public health as to diplomacy and national defense .
• How to practice social distancing , from responding to a sick housemate to the pros and cons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus behaves inside of a patient .
• Can survivors help cure the disease and rescue the economy ?
• The long crusade of Dr. Anthony Fauci , the infectious-disease expert pinned between Donald Trump and the American people .
• The success of Hong Kong and Singapore in stemming the spread holds lessons for how to contain it in the United States .
• The coronavirus is likely to spread for more than a year before a vaccine is widely available .
• With each new virus , we have scrambled for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ antivirals to combat the next global crisis ?
• How pandemics have propelled public-health innovations , prefigured revolutions , and redrawn maps .
• What to read , watch , cook , and listen to under coronavirus quarantine .

On the evening of April 3, 1919, in Paris, President Woodrow Wilson began to cough; he soon took to bed, feverish and unable to move. He had contracted what had become known as the Spanish flu, the President’s physician wrote confidentially to the White House, and it had made Wilson “violently sick.” By then, the influenza had rampaged around the world for more than a year and was on its way to killing at least twenty million people, including at least six hundred thousand Americans. Wilson was in Paris for the treaty negotiations following the end of the First World War, which sought to shape the postwar global order and settle the status of the defeated Germany. He became ill at a decisive moment, making the virus an insidious actor in one of the twentieth century’s most consequential episodes of great-power diplomacy.
How does a pandemic alter history? To capture the scale of lives lost and economies shattered, and the national mobilizations often required, it has become common to compare the catastrophe to a war against an “invisible enemy.” This is the preferred metaphor of Donald Trump, a self-pronounced “wartime President,” and also of many other national leaders who are struggling forward in these days of COVID-19. Yet, among other shortcomings, war metaphors fail to capture the natural and intimate character of a severe and contagious illness, and how its effect on individual behavior can often be subtle and difficult to measure.
In the days before Wilson was stricken, he had argued heatedly with the French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau, and the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, about the price, in territory and reparations, that Germany should be made to pay as the aggressor in the war. Wilson thought that the Allies should go easy on Germany’s nascent postwar republic and prioritize his idealistic, ahead-of-its-time project, the League of Nations, and the enlightened principles of self-determination among peoples which he promoted. But France had twice endured German occupation during the previous half century, and Clemenceau sought what the French public saw as a just and prudent resolution: tens of billions of dollars to rebuild France, plus buffer zones on the country’s eastern frontier, including the occupation by French troops of the German Rhineland.
By April, Wilson and Clemenceau had argued themselves into a mutually aggravating deadlock. When Clemenceau learned that Wilson was ill, he asked Lloyd George, “Do you know his doctor? Couldn’t you get round him and bribe him?”
Wilson, sequestered during his recovery in the Hôtel du Prince Murat, an elegant town house in the Eighth Arrondissement, soon appeared changed by his bout with flu. He became obsessed with “funny things,” as an aide put it. He grew fixated on the furniture in the house and came to believe that he was surrounded by French spies. “We could but surmise that something queer was happening in his mind,” Irwin Hoover, the President’s chief usher, said. “One thing is certain: he was never the same after this little spell of sickness.” Hoover’s remarks are recounted by the historian John Barry in “The Great Influenza,” his magnificent narrative of the pandemic of 1918 and 1919. Barry points out that Wilson’s reported disorientation can be a complication of severe influenza.
During the second week of April, an exhausted Wilson gave up most of the demands that he had been pressing Clemenceau to meet. The President accepted the demilitarization of the Rhineland and its occupation by France for at least fifteen years, along with an open-ended process for calculating Germany’s reparations bill. In the judgment of Margaret MacMillan, the author of “Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World,” an authoritative account of the postwar negotiations, Clemenceau suddenly found himself with “the best possible deal for France.” Infamously, the achievement was a Pyrrhic one. The Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, and which ratified Wilson’s concessions, proved to be a settlement so harsh and onerous to Germans that it became a provocative cause of revived German nationalism during the nineteen-twenties and thirties, and, eventually, a rallying cause of Adolf Hitler.
Barry considers in his book whether Wilson might have been a more forceful and stubborn negotiator in Paris if he hadn’t contracted the flu, and whether, therefore, the history of the twenties and thirties in Europe might have turned out differently. He is appropriately skeptical of such counterfactual speculations; we cannot know what might have happened if Wilson had remained healthy and vigorous, only “what did happen,” as he writes. “Influenza did strike Wilson. Influenza did weaken him physically. . . . precisely at the most crucial point of negotiations.” Nazism’s triumph over Germany was caused by much more than the blowback from the Versailles Treaty, yet there can be little doubt that the treaty’s punishing terms, including the highly visible French occupation of German territory, did help Hitler to mobilize and narrate German grievances. Lloyd George, who had opposed, in particular, the French occupation, later concluded in a memoir that the “odious accompaniments of such an occupation of German towns . . . had much to do with the fierce outbreak of patriotic sentiment in Germany, which finds its expression in Nazism.”
Wilson recovered from the influenza, but suffered a severe stroke six months later, and was incapacitated through the remainder of his Presidency. He should be remembered as a thoroughgoing failure as a pandemic-time President. In addition to the debacle of Versailles, he never once spoke publicly about the flu as it decimated the United States. He was so narrow-mindedly focussed on the American war mobilization that he generated “a kind of furious intolerance” for any other subject of governance, Barry told me, and he suppressed dissent in the United States in ways that “went beyond anything seen in the McCarthy period or any other time.” He added, “Much like Trump, he did not tolerate criticism from friend or foe. Even if a friend evidenced any distance from him, he exiled that person. All this makes Wilson’s complete silence on the pandemic understandable in only one context: he would do nothing to distract him or the nation from the war effort. His focus was absolute—there was the war, and nothing else.”
It was unfortunate that Wilson fell so ill in Paris; we can easily forgive his frailty in the run-up to Versailles, but not his record of prolonged indifference, before then, to public suffering at home among the citizens who elected him, or the racist convictions that led him to support institutionalized segregation. For now, it seems hard to judge which presents the greater record of Presidential failure during a pandemic: Wilson’s silence or Trump’s bombast, self-contradiction, and self-promotion. It may be partly just bad luck that the two worst pandemics to strike the United States in the past hundred years coincide with the terms of two Presidents so plainly unprepared for their responsibilities. Yet it bears reflection that, even a century ago, as is so obvious today, the country requires a President at least as knowledgeable about and committed to sound science and public health as to diplomacy and national defense.
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-04-16--What to Stream: Twenty-Three Short Films (and TV Commercials!) of Unusual Artistry

In the beginning , all movies were short—the fiction and documentary films being shown in theatres were under a minute long , and grew to around three or four minutes at the turn of the twentieth century .
After the development of the feature film , in the nineteen-teens , the short became secondary , usually made by secondary filmmakers , or by great ones on their way up , like aspiring novelists who start out writing short stories .
In France , the format is more prominent : a short-film industry ( and , at times , the art @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by means of a law , passed in 1940 , that mandated the screening of a short film before each feature ; even after the law expired , the tradition continued .
Here and worldwide , in recent years , independent filmmakers , working with scant budgets , have used short films like sketch pads , to compress big ideas into symbolic packages .
At their best , short films display an artistry that can stand alongside that of feature filmmaking .
Yet the most common form of short filmmaking , at least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been commercials , and , I confess , I like them—for reasons that carry me back to adolescence , to a time when I had little interest in movies except as a social activity on Saturday nights .
The dominance of contemporary Hollywood and the absence of international classics where I grew up didn ’ t help : the movies I saw seemed impersonal , crushed by the heavy hand of commercial considerations , nothing like the books and the music that I revered .
I soon enough learned that there was more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the wider world of film—but , to this day , I sense that even many great filmmakers are constrained by the established cinematic forms that they ’ ve inherited , even from directors on whom they were imposed .
With commercials , the equation is reversed : the impositions , the obligations , the bullshit factor is so obvious , so far out front , that their aesthetic merits—when there are any—fly free with a giddy purity and a naïve poignancy .
“ Condolences ” : The director Ying Liang , now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the official response to a deadly bus accident in western China with a controlled and calm fluidity , which renders the latent violence of daily life—reflecting the ruthless rule and the cavalier indifference of the authorities—all the more conspicuous and disturbing .
The film embodies Ying ’ s apocalyptic imagination , a constant in his career—his view of Chinese lives on the edge of sudden disaster .
“ Gala ” : Poise and swing , tawdry yearnings and delicate sentiments , hearty sociability and awkward alienation—the French director Jean-Daniel Pollet ’ s whirl @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regal owner , and his inhibited handyman is a tender , exquisite , bouncy , majestic comedy .
“ My Last Film ” : One of the great movie events of 2019 was Zia Anger ’ s movie-based live performance ( realized on a computer screen , projected on a movie screen ) , “ My First Film , ” which is a sort of detailed and self-questioning quasi-documentary extension of this furious and uproarious short , from 2015 .
“ Feet—Fun—and Fancy ” : Johnny Hudgins , a black American actor who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time ( including the great Bert Williams ) , performed mainly in blackface , here displays artistry—of dance , comedy , and lyrical expression—that ought to have made him a Hollywood star ; his absence only highlights the thinness and inadequacy of the vaunted era of studio preëminence .
( Born in 1896 , he ’ d have been in his prime amid the rise of talking films and musicals . )
“ Emergency Ward ” : Leo Hurwitz ’ s 1952 documentary , filmed at St. Vincent ’ s Hospital , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the literal sense—it makes use of a newly developed system for recording sound along with images , and the result is startlingly immediate and intimate .
“ The Great American Soup !
” : Ann Miller , one of the emblematic musical stars of both Hollywood and Broadway , lends her artistry to a soup commercial , from 1970 , that gleefully and lovingly parodies the inventions and conventions of both fields , while adding some whiz-bang stagecraft of its own ( the director is Stan Freberg , working with the Oscar-winning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Me the Terrible ” : The American director Josephine Decker is one of the most original filmmakers in the world ; though this short film , from 2012 , didn ’ t quite suggest the path or the style that her features would take , it clearly demonstrated the vast and free imagination , the passionately empathetic subjectivity , that characterizes them .
It ’ s one of the few movies about children that maintains the spirit of play along with the grave earnestness that goes with it ; as soon as I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , through her work , the world of cinema was about to get much larger .
Ingmar Bergman ’ s Soap Commercials ( one and two ) : Not only did Ingmar Bergman make commercials , he did so when his feature-film career was already in full swing , in the early nineteen-fifties .
These two , for a brand of soap called Bris , are delirious delights .
They ’ re in Swedish , unsubtitled , but it doesn ’ t matter ; in the first , bacteria are personified in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Seal ” ( and every time the word “ bakterien ” is hammered onto the soundtrack by the speaker , the comedic effect is irresistible ) ; it concludes with a masterstroke of stagecraft .
The second is a domestic comedy that feels like a distillation of the Bergman bourgeoisie , filled with stock characters and romance , directed with deft whimsy and frame-breaking audacity .
“ Univitellin ” : Terence Nance ’ s romantic drama of international scope , from 2016 , contains worlds ; it ’ s a story of young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and tragedy , filmed with a cinematic rapture that renders its painful emotions almost tactile .
“ The Battle of Michigan Avenue ” : The police violence against protesters during the Democratic National Convention , in Chicago , in August , 1968 , was filmed by a crew who happened upon the events—while on a break from filming a commercial .
What they filmed is horrific ; it feels less like a battle than like history breaking open beneath everyone ’ s feet , from the protesters to the convention delegates to @ @ @ @ @ @ @

In the beginning, all movies were short—the fiction and documentary films being shown in theatres were under a minute long, and grew to around three or four minutes at the turn of the twentieth century. After the development of the feature film, in the nineteen-teens, the short became secondary, usually made by secondary filmmakers, or by great ones on their way up, like aspiring novelists who start out writing short stories. In France, the format is more prominent: a short-film industry (and, at times, the art that goes with it) was launched by means of a law, passed in 1940, that mandated the screening of a short film before each feature; even after the law expired, the tradition continued. Here and worldwide, in recent years, independent filmmakers, working with scant budgets, have used short films like sketch pads, to compress big ideas into symbolic packages. At their best, short films display an artistry that can stand alongside that of feature filmmaking.
Yet the most common form of short filmmaking, at least since the rise of television, has been commercials, and, I confess, I like them—for reasons that carry me back to adolescence, to a time when I had little interest in movies except as a social activity on Saturday nights. The dominance of contemporary Hollywood and the absence of international classics where I grew up didn’t help: the movies I saw seemed impersonal, crushed by the heavy hand of commercial considerations, nothing like the books and the music that I revered. I soon enough learned that there was more out there, both in Hollywood and in the wider world of film—but, to this day, I sense that even many great filmmakers are constrained by the established cinematic forms that they’ve inherited, even from directors on whom they were imposed. With commercials, the equation is reversed: the impositions, the obligations, the bullshit factor is so obvious, so far out front, that their aesthetic merits—when there are any—fly free with a giddy purity and a naïve poignancy.
“Condolences”: The director Ying Liang, now in exile, films this dramatization of the official response to a deadly bus accident in western China with a controlled and calm fluidity, which renders the latent violence of daily life—reflecting the ruthless rule and the cavalier indifference of the authorities—all the more conspicuous and disturbing. The film embodies Ying’s apocalyptic imagination, a constant in his career—his view of Chinese lives on the edge of sudden disaster.
From “Gala.”
“Gala”: Poise and swing, tawdry yearnings and delicate sentiments, hearty sociability and awkward alienation—the French director Jean-Daniel Pollet’s whirl around a thrumming dance hall, its regal owner, and his inhibited handyman is a tender, exquisite, bouncy, majestic comedy.
“My Last Film”: One of the great movie events of 2019 was Zia Anger’s movie-based live performance (realized on a computer screen, projected on a movie screen), “My First Film,” which is a sort of detailed and self-questioning quasi-documentary extension of this furious and uproarious short, from 2015.
“Feet—Fun—and Fancy”: Johnny Hudgins, a black American actor who, like other black vaudevillians of the time (including the great Bert Williams), performed mainly in blackface, here displays artistry—of dance, comedy, and lyrical expression—that ought to have made him a Hollywood star; his absence only highlights the thinness and inadequacy of the vaunted era of studio preëminence. (Born in 1896, he’d have been in his prime amid the rise of talking films and musicals.)
“Emergency Ward”: Leo Hurwitz’s 1952 documentary, filmed at St. Vincent’s Hospital, in Greenwich Village, is an experimental film in the literal sense—it makes use of a newly developed system for recording sound along with images, and the result is startlingly immediate and intimate.
“The Great American Soup!”: Ann Miller, one of the emblematic musical stars of both Hollywood and Broadway, lends her artistry to a soup commercial, from 1970, that gleefully and lovingly parodies the inventions and conventions of both fields, while adding some whiz-bang stagecraft of its own (the director is Stan Freberg, working with the Oscar-winning cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp).
“Me the Terrible”: The American director Josephine Decker is one of the most original filmmakers in the world; though this short film, from 2012, didn’t quite suggest the path or the style that her features would take, it clearly demonstrated the vast and free imagination, the passionately empathetic subjectivity, that characterizes them. It’s one of the few movies about children that maintains the spirit of play along with the grave earnestness that goes with it; as soon as I saw the film, I knew instantly that, through her work, the world of cinema was about to get much larger.
Ingmar Bergman’s Soap Commercials (one and two): Not only did Ingmar Bergman make commercials, he did so when his feature-film career was already in full swing, in the early nineteen-fifties. These two, for a brand of soap called Bris, are delirious delights. They’re in Swedish, unsubtitled, but it doesn’t matter; in the first, bacteria are personified in figures whose profiles anticipate “The Seventh Seal” (and every time the word “bakterien” is hammered onto the soundtrack by the speaker, the comedic effect is irresistible); it concludes with a masterstroke of stagecraft. The second is a domestic comedy that feels like a distillation of the Bergman bourgeoisie, filled with stock characters and romance, directed with deft whimsy and frame-breaking audacity.
“Univitellin”: Terence Nance’s romantic drama of international scope, from 2016, contains worlds; it’s a story of young love, family, city, nature, and tragedy, filmed with a cinematic rapture that renders its painful emotions almost tactile.
“The Battle of Michigan Avenue”: The police violence against protesters during the Democratic National Convention, in Chicago, in August, 1968, was filmed by a crew who happened upon the events—while on a break from filming a commercial. What they filmed is horrific; it feels less like a battle than like history breaking open beneath everyone’s feet, from the protesters to the convention delegates to the politicians to the filmmakers themselves.