newyorker--2020-02-10--The In-Your-Face Paintings of Peter Saul

Surprisingly , the timeliest as well as the rudest painting show of this winter , opening at the New Museum , happens to be the first New York museum survey ever of the American aesthetic rapscallion Peter Saul .
The earliest of the works date from the early sixties , when Saul , who ’ s from San Francisco , was a bohemian-dreaming expatriate in Paris : blowsy pastiches of Abstract Expressionist brushwork and proto-Pop imagery .
Recognition so delayed bemuses almost as much as a reminder of the artist ’ s current age : eighty-five , which seems impossible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , often with contorted figures engaged in ( and quite enjoying ) intricate violence ; caricatures of politicians from Nixon to Trump that come off as much fond as fierce ; and cheeky travesties of classic paintings by Rembrandt , Picasso , and de Kooning—suggest the gall of an adolescent allowed to run amok .
It takes time to become aware of how well Saul paints , with lyrically kinetic , intertwined forms and an improbable approximation of chiaroscuro , managed with neon-toned Day-Glo acrylics .
He sneaks whispery formal nuances into works @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as that of a steel garbage can being kicked downstairs .
Not everyone takes the time .
Saul ’ s effrontery has long driven fastidious souls from galleries , including me years ago .
Now I see him as part of a story of art and culture that has been unspooling since the nineteen-fifties ; one in which , formerly a pariah , he seems ever more a paladin .
Saul , who now lives in upstate New York , was the only child of an oil executive and a federal-government secretary who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A nursemaid saw to much of his upbringing .
He was packed off at ten to a rigid boarding school in Canada , where beatings were frequent and he was assumed , based on his last name , to be Jewish .
Only after six years of enduring abuse as the school ’ s rare “ kike ” did he learn that he wasn ’ t .
( Saul says that his name may be derived from his father ’ s ancestral home , in England : the village of Saul , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feels both inconceivable and revelatory , considering the mixture of aggressive absurdity and armor-plated defiance with which Saul , after studying at the California School of Fine Arts and at Washington University School of Fine Arts , in St. Louis , entered into a tough-love romance with modern painting .
He was already primed for affront by a love of hellacious comic books , such as the standout series , from the forties and early fifties , “ Crime Does Not Pay.
” Those books were so gruesome that threats from Congress forced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1954 instituted the Comics Code Authority .
Saul thrilled , too , to figurative painters who had fallen from fashion in New York as abstraction became well-nigh obligatory : Salvador Dali , Thomas Hart Benton , Paul Cadmus , George Tooker .
Saul says that when he was five years old he was deeply affected by a reproduction of Cadmus ’ s rhapsody of human ugliness , “ Coney Island ” ( 1934 ) .
In it , a wobbling pyramid of gross bathers pose for a snapshot .
Others writhe or sprawl @ @ @ @ @ @ @ junk yard , though with the homoerotic garnish of one good-looking young man in the background .
Tyro ambition pointed Saul toward Europe , where he spent eight years in England , the Netherlands , Paris , and Rome .
He took to painting jam-packed brushy images of consumer goods , body parts , and ( inspired by his discovery of Mad , in 1957 or so ) lampooned comic characters , including Superman and Donald Duck , who tend to meet awful fates on his canvases .
( Only oldsters like me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young minds , of the early Mad ’ s scorched-earth hilarity . )
Art historians have striven to categorize those works by their affinity to Expressionism , Surrealism , and English Pop art , but , as with everything Saul , including his drive-by relation to funk and psychedelia in San Francisco , in the hippie sixties , the links don ’ t hold .
( He turned down overtures from R. Crumb and other cartoonists to collaborate in the underground-comics movement of the time . )
His adamant individualism is keyed precisely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manners of anyone else .
Especially futile are comparisons to the New York Pop of Warhol and Lichtenstein , who tempered the shock of vernacular images with modernist formal cool—far more in tune with the sang-froid of minimalism than was initially noticed .
Saul brought heat , with goofball and/or monstrous , teeming imagery that makes sensation a means and an end in itself .
His pictures mount furious assaults on the eye , leaving you with indescribable ( art critics aren ’ t supposed to say that , but I give up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another .
Where Emanuel Leutze carefully arrayed the constituent parts of “ Washington Crossing the Delaware , ” his 1851 commemoration of American valor , Saul ’ s 1995 parody keeps the elements more or less in place—but mostly , vertiginously , less .
That boat is doomed .
Compared with him , Lichtenstein is Ingres .
Saul came to function as an exterminator of the kind of refined sensibility that separated the sophisticates from the yahoos in haut-bourgeois twentieth-century America .
Maybe think of him as a yahoo ’ s yahoo , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saul tends toward a policy of not so much getting mad about anything in particular as of getting even across the board .
In 1996 , he made a topical exception with “ Art Critic Suicide , ” which is not in the show but has been reproduced here at my request .
It features me and the conservative critic Hilton Kramer ( 1928-2012 ) as Siamese twins gravely blowing our brains out with bullets whose wandering malice isn ’ t sated by plugging us only once .
Saul tells me that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may have had to do with how paintings of his in the 1995 Whitney Biennial were received .
I was amused at being paired with a writer who was so much an intellectual antagonist of mine that you ’ d have been unlikely to encounter us sharing the same city street , let alone what amounts to a history painting .
At any rate , I was taking hot lead for belonging to a New York critical establishment that had condescended to the wrong guy .
The timeliness of the New Museum ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ First , there ’ s an air of canonical dignity that hasn ’ t exactly been earned but has irresistibly descended .
Decades of aesthetic , social , and political democratizing have collapsed the redoubts of consensus good taste .
( If you think Rembrandt is a better painter than , say , Richard Prince , as I certainly do , be ready to make the case . )
Second , young painters are on board .
The various returns to ( or re-volcanic-eruptions of ) figurative image-making in current art make Saul @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thesaurus for engaging the mind through corporeal mimesis .
( Never mind the heart , though .
Saul ’ s emotional tone , with no exception that occurs to me , is a polar vortex . )
Finally , we may have here a test of political correctness .
Although the show ’ s selection of works is ecumenically misanthropic , it admits wildly stereotypical renderings of African-Americans , Asians , and women—defensible , if they are , by being so far over the top of any detectable attitude as to self-destruct .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ spleen is default leftist—he was America ’ s most graphically anti-Vietnam War painter , as witness the storming pageant of American-soldier depravity that is “ Saigon ” ( 1967 ) —but with an antic panache that gainsays righteousness .
“ Crucifixion of Angela Davis ” ( 1973 ) , in which the activist is stuck with knives and sports a halo , might equally be seen as tweaking the left ’ s deification of Davis as protesting her persecution .
Either way , or neither , sheer visual impact seems to be Saul @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an ever-seething personal rage that finds release and takes refuge in double-down buffoonery .
He is like one of Dostoyevsky ’ s irrepressible fomenters of chaos .
Is moral equivocation for art ’ s sake O.K.
?
The temerity is echt Saul , who , whatever you choose to think of him , definitely disagrees with you .
Is raw intensity a malady or a purgative ?
Does it kill or cure ?
♦

Surprisingly, the timeliest as well as the rudest painting show of this winter, opening at the New Museum, happens to be the first New York museum survey ever of the American aesthetic rapscallion Peter Saul. The earliest of the works date from the early sixties, when Saul, who’s from San Francisco, was a bohemian-dreaming expatriate in Paris: blowsy pastiches of Abstract Expressionist brushwork and proto-Pop imagery. Recognition so delayed bemuses almost as much as a reminder of the artist’s current age: eighty-five, which seems impossible. Saul’s cartoony style—raucously grotesque, often with contorted figures engaged in (and quite enjoying) intricate violence; caricatures of politicians from Nixon to Trump that come off as much fond as fierce; and cheeky travesties of classic paintings by Rembrandt, Picasso, and de Kooning—suggest the gall of an adolescent allowed to run amok. It takes time to become aware of how well Saul paints, with lyrically kinetic, intertwined forms and an improbable approximation of chiaroscuro, managed with neon-toned Day-Glo acrylics. He sneaks whispery formal nuances into works whose predominant effect may be as subtle as that of a steel garbage can being kicked downstairs. Not everyone takes the time. Saul’s effrontery has long driven fastidious souls from galleries, including me years ago. Now I see him as part of a story of art and culture that has been unspooling since the nineteen-fifties; one in which, formerly a pariah, he seems ever more a paladin.
“Bush at Abu Ghraib,” from 2006. Courtesy Hall Collection
Saul, who now lives in upstate New York, was the only child of an oil executive and a federal-government secretary who appeared to take little interest in him. A nursemaid saw to much of his upbringing. He was packed off at ten to a rigid boarding school in Canada, where beatings were frequent and he was assumed, based on his last name, to be Jewish. Only after six years of enduring abuse as the school’s rare “kike” did he learn that he wasn’t. (Saul says that his name may be derived from his father’s ancestral home, in England: the village of Saul, in Gloucestershire.) That strange tale feels both inconceivable and revelatory, considering the mixture of aggressive absurdity and armor-plated defiance with which Saul, after studying at the California School of Fine Arts and at Washington University School of Fine Arts, in St. Louis, entered into a tough-love romance with modern painting. He was already primed for affront by a love of hellacious comic books, such as the standout series, from the forties and early fifties, “Crime Does Not Pay.” Those books were so gruesome that threats from Congress forced self-censorship on the industry, which in 1954 instituted the Comics Code Authority. Saul thrilled, too, to figurative painters who had fallen from fashion in New York as abstraction became well-nigh obligatory: Salvador Dali, Thomas Hart Benton, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker. Saul says that when he was five years old he was deeply affected by a reproduction of Cadmus’s rhapsody of human ugliness, “Coney Island” (1934). In it, a wobbling pyramid of gross bathers pose for a snapshot. Others writhe or sprawl, contributing to a sort of carnal junk yard, though with the homoerotic garnish of one good-looking young man in the background.
Tyro ambition pointed Saul toward Europe, where he spent eight years in England, the Netherlands, Paris, and Rome. He took to painting jam-packed brushy images of consumer goods, body parts, and (inspired by his discovery of Mad, in 1957 or so) lampooned comic characters, including Superman and Donald Duck, who tend to meet awful fates on his canvases. (Only oldsters like me will remember the revolutionary effect, on young minds, of the early Mad’s scorched-earth hilarity.) Art historians have striven to categorize those works by their affinity to Expressionism, Surrealism, and English Pop art, but, as with everything Saul, including his drive-by relation to funk and psychedelia in San Francisco, in the hippie sixties, the links don’t hold. (He turned down overtures from R. Crumb and other cartoonists to collaborate in the underground-comics movement of the time.) His adamant individualism is keyed precisely to his rejection of similitude to the manners of anyone else.
“Superman and Superdog in Jail,” from 1963. Courtesy Collection KAWS
Especially futile are comparisons to the New York Pop of Warhol and Lichtenstein, who tempered the shock of vernacular images with modernist formal cool—far more in tune with the sang-froid of minimalism than was initially noticed. Saul brought heat, with goofball and/or monstrous, teeming imagery that makes sensation a means and an end in itself. His pictures mount furious assaults on the eye, leaving you with indescribable (art critics aren’t supposed to say that, but I give up) choreographies of one damned thing after another. Where Emanuel Leutze carefully arrayed the constituent parts of “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” his 1851 commemoration of American valor, Saul’s 1995 parody keeps the elements more or less in place—but mostly, vertiginously, less. That boat is doomed. Compared with him, Lichtenstein is Ingres. Saul came to function as an exterminator of the kind of refined sensibility that separated the sophisticates from the yahoos in haut-bourgeois twentieth-century America. Maybe think of him as a yahoo’s yahoo, by design.
As a malcontent, Saul tends toward a policy of not so much getting mad about anything in particular as of getting even across the board. In 1996, he made a topical exception with “Art Critic Suicide,” which is not in the show but has been reproduced here at my request. It features me and the conservative critic Hilton Kramer (1928-2012) as Siamese twins gravely blowing our brains out with bullets whose wandering malice isn’t sated by plugging us only once. Saul tells me that he forgets the proximate motive, but it may have had to do with how paintings of his in the 1995 Whitney Biennial were received. I was amused at being paired with a writer who was so much an intellectual antagonist of mine that you’d have been unlikely to encounter us sharing the same city street, let alone what amounts to a history painting. At any rate, I was taking hot lead for belonging to a New York critical establishment that had condescended to the wrong guy.
“Washington Crossing the Delaware,” from 1975. Courtesy Collection KAWS
The timeliness of the New Museum’s show strikes me as threefold. First, there’s an air of canonical dignity that hasn’t exactly been earned but has irresistibly descended. Decades of aesthetic, social, and political democratizing have collapsed the redoubts of consensus good taste. (If you think Rembrandt is a better painter than, say, Richard Prince, as I certainly do, be ready to make the case.) Second, young painters are on board. The various returns to (or re-volcanic-eruptions of) figurative image-making in current art make Saul’s multifarious tropes a handy visual thesaurus for engaging the mind through corporeal mimesis. (Never mind the heart, though. Saul’s emotional tone, with no exception that occurs to me, is a polar vortex.)
Finally, we may have here a test of political correctness. Although the show’s selection of works is ecumenically misanthropic, it admits wildly stereotypical renderings of African-Americans, Asians, and women—defensible, if they are, by being so far over the top of any detectable attitude as to self-destruct. Where apparent, Saul’s satirical spleen is default leftist—he was America’s most graphically anti-Vietnam War painter, as witness the storming pageant of American-soldier depravity that is “Saigon” (1967)—but with an antic panache that gainsays righteousness. “Crucifixion of Angela Davis” (1973), in which the activist is stuck with knives and sports a halo, might equally be seen as tweaking the left’s deification of Davis as protesting her persecution. Either way, or neither, sheer visual impact seems to be Saul’s aim, in service to an ever-seething personal rage that finds release and takes refuge in double-down buffoonery. He is like one of Dostoyevsky’s irrepressible fomenters of chaos. Is moral equivocation for art’s sake O.K.? The temerity is echt Saul, who, whatever you choose to think of him, definitely disagrees with you. Is raw intensity a malady or a purgative? Does it kill or cure? ♦


newyorker--2020-02-10--“With the Beatles” by Haruki Murakami

“With the Beatles” by Haruki Murakami

What I find strange about growing old isn ’ t that I ’ ve got older .
Not that the youthful me from the past has , without my realizing it , aged .
What catches me off guard is , rather , how people from the same generation as me have become elderly , how all the pretty , vivacious girls I used to know are now old enough to have a couple of grandkids .
It ’ s a little disconcerting—sad , even .
Though I never feel sad at the fact that I have similarly aged .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the girls I knew growing old is that it forces me to admit , all over again , that my youthful dreams are gone forever .
The death of a dream can be , in a way , sadder than that of a living being .
There ’ s one girl—a woman who used to be a girl , I mean—whom I remember well .
I don ’ t know her name , though .
And , naturally , I don ’ t know where she is now or what she ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about her is that she went to the same high school as I did , and was in the same year ( since the badge on her shirt was the same color as mine ) , and that she really liked the Beatles .
This was in 1964 , at the height of Beatlemania .
It was early autumn .
The new school semester had begun and things were starting to fall into a routine again .
She was hurrying down the long , dim hallway of the old school building , her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other person there .
She was clutching an LP to her chest as if it were something precious .
The LP “ With the Beatles.
” The one with the striking black-and-white photograph of the four Beatles in half shadow .
For some reason , I ’ m not sure why , I have a clear memory that it was the original , British version of the album , not the American or the Japanese version .
She was a beautiful girl .
At least , to me then , she looked gorgeous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but she had long black hair , slim legs , and a lovely fragrance .
( That could be a false memory , I don ’ t know .
Maybe she didn ’ t give off any scent at all .
But that ’ s what I remember , as if , when she passed , an enchanting , alluring fragrance wafted in my direction . )
She had me under her spell—that beautiful , nameless girl clutching “ With the Beatles ” to her chest .
My heart started to pound , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was as if all sound had ceased , as if I ’ d sunk to the bottom of a pool .
All I could hear was a bell ringing faintly , deep in my ears .
As if someone were desperately trying to send me a vital message .
All this took only ten or fifteen seconds .
It was over before I knew it , and the critical message contained there , like the core of all dreams , disappeared .
A dimly lit hallway in a high school , a beautiful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ swirling , “ With the Beatles.
” That was the only time I saw that girl .
In the two years between then and my graduation , we never once crossed paths again .
Which is pretty strange if you think about it .
The high school I attended was a fairly large public school at the top of a hill in Kobe , with about six hundred and fifty students in each grade .
( We were the so-called baby-boomer generation , so there were a lot of us . )
Not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I didn ’ t know the names or recognize the vast majority of the kids in the school .
But , still , since I went to school almost every day , and often used that hallway , it struck me as almost outrageous that I never once saw that beautiful girl again .
I looked for her every time I used that hallway .
Had she vanished , like smoke ?
Or , on that early-autumn afternoon , had I seen not a real person but a vision of some kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my mind at the instant that we passed each other , to the point where even if I actually saw her again I wouldn ’ t recognize her ?
( I think the last possibility is the most likely . )
Later , I got to know a few women , and went out with them .
And every time I met a new woman it felt as though I were unconsciously longing to relive that dazzling moment I ’ d experienced in a dim school hallway back in the fall of 1964 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my heart , the breathless feeling in my chest , the bell ringing gently in my ears .
Sometimes I was able to recapture this feeling , at other times not .
And other times I managed to grab hold of it , only to let it slip through my fingers .
In any event , the emotions that surged when this happened came to serve as a kind of gauge I used to measure the intensity of my yearning .
When I couldn ’ t get that sensation in the real world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of those feelings awaken inside me .
In this way , memory became one of my most valued emotional tools , a means of survival , even .
Like a warm kitten , softly curled inside an oversized coat pocket , fast asleep .
On to the Beatles .
A year before I saw that girl was when the Beatles first became wildly popular .
By April of 1964 , they ’ d captured the top five spots on the American singles charts .
Pop music had never seen anything like it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( 1 ) “ Can ’ t Buy Me Love ” ; ( 2 ) “ Twist and Shout ” ; ( 3 ) “ She Loves You ” ; ( 4 ) “ I Want to Hold Your Hand ” ; ( 5 ) “ Please Please Me.
” The single “ Can ’ t Buy Me Love ” alone had more than two million preorders , making it double platinum before the actual record went on sale .
The Beatles were , of course , also hugely popular in Japan .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ d hear one of their songs .
I liked their songs myself and knew all their hits .
Ask me to sing them and I could .
At home when I was studying ( or pretending to study ) , most of the time I had the radio blasting away .
But , truth be told , I was never a fervent Beatles fan .
I never actively sought out their songs .
For me , it was passive listening , pop music flowing out of the tiny speakers of my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and out the other , barely registering .
Background music for my adolescence .
Musical wallpaper .
In high school and in college , I didn ’ t buy a single Beatles record .
I was much more into jazz and classical music , and that was what I listened to when I wanted to focus on music .
I saved up to buy jazz records , requested tunes by Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk at jazz bars , and went to classical-music concerts .
This might seem strange , but it wasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mid-thirties that I sat down and listened to “ With the Beatles ” from beginning to end .
Despite the fact that the image of the girl carrying that LP in the hallway of our high school had never left me , for the longest time I didn ’ t feel like actually giving it a listen .
I wasn ’ t particularly interested in knowing what sort of music was etched into the grooves of the vinyl disk she had clutched so tightly to her chest .

What I find strange about growing old isn’t that I’ve got older. Not that the youthful me from the past has, without my realizing it, aged. What catches me off guard is, rather, how people from the same generation as me have become elderly, how all the pretty, vivacious girls I used to know are now old enough to have a couple of grandkids. It’s a little disconcerting—sad, even. Though I never feel sad at the fact that I have similarly aged.
I think what makes me feel sad about the girls I knew growing old is that it forces me to admit, all over again, that my youthful dreams are gone forever. The death of a dream can be, in a way, sadder than that of a living being.
There’s one girl—a woman who used to be a girl, I mean—whom I remember well. I don’t know her name, though. And, naturally, I don’t know where she is now or what she’s doing. What I do know about her is that she went to the same high school as I did, and was in the same year (since the badge on her shirt was the same color as mine), and that she really liked the Beatles.
This was in 1964, at the height of Beatlemania. It was early autumn. The new school semester had begun and things were starting to fall into a routine again. She was hurrying down the long, dim hallway of the old school building, her skirt fluttering. I was the only other person there. She was clutching an LP to her chest as if it were something precious. The LP “With the Beatles.” The one with the striking black-and-white photograph of the four Beatles in half shadow. For some reason, I’m not sure why, I have a clear memory that it was the original, British version of the album, not the American or the Japanese version.
She was a beautiful girl. At least, to me then, she looked gorgeous. She wasn’t tall, but she had long black hair, slim legs, and a lovely fragrance. (That could be a false memory, I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t give off any scent at all. But that’s what I remember, as if, when she passed, an enchanting, alluring fragrance wafted in my direction.) She had me under her spell—that beautiful, nameless girl clutching “With the Beatles” to her chest.
My heart started to pound, I gasped for breath, and it was as if all sound had ceased, as if I’d sunk to the bottom of a pool. All I could hear was a bell ringing faintly, deep in my ears. As if someone were desperately trying to send me a vital message. All this took only ten or fifteen seconds. It was over before I knew it, and the critical message contained there, like the core of all dreams, disappeared.
A dimly lit hallway in a high school, a beautiful girl, the hem of her skirt swirling, “With the Beatles.”
That was the only time I saw that girl. In the two years between then and my graduation, we never once crossed paths again. Which is pretty strange if you think about it. The high school I attended was a fairly large public school at the top of a hill in Kobe, with about six hundred and fifty students in each grade. (We were the so-called baby-boomer generation, so there were a lot of us.) Not everyone knew one another. In fact, I didn’t know the names or recognize the vast majority of the kids in the school. But, still, since I went to school almost every day, and often used that hallway, it struck me as almost outrageous that I never once saw that beautiful girl again. I looked for her every time I used that hallway.
Had she vanished, like smoke? Or, on that early-autumn afternoon, had I seen not a real person but a vision of some kind? Perhaps I had idealized her in my mind at the instant that we passed each other, to the point where even if I actually saw her again I wouldn’t recognize her? (I think the last possibility is the most likely.)
Later, I got to know a few women, and went out with them. And every time I met a new woman it felt as though I were unconsciously longing to relive that dazzling moment I’d experienced in a dim school hallway back in the fall of 1964. That silent, insistent thrill in my heart, the breathless feeling in my chest, the bell ringing gently in my ears.
Sometimes I was able to recapture this feeling, at other times not. And other times I managed to grab hold of it, only to let it slip through my fingers. In any event, the emotions that surged when this happened came to serve as a kind of gauge I used to measure the intensity of my yearning.
When I couldn’t get that sensation in the real world, I would quietly let my memory of those feelings awaken inside me. In this way, memory became one of my most valued emotional tools, a means of survival, even. Like a warm kitten, softly curled inside an oversized coat pocket, fast asleep.
On to the Beatles.
A year before I saw that girl was when the Beatles first became wildly popular. By April of 1964, they’d captured the top five spots on the American singles charts. Pop music had never seen anything like it. These were the five hit songs: (1) “Can’t Buy Me Love”; (2) “Twist and Shout”; (3) “She Loves You”; (4) “I Want to Hold Your Hand”; (5) “Please Please Me.” The single “Can’t Buy Me Love” alone had more than two million preorders, making it double platinum before the actual record went on sale.
The Beatles were, of course, also hugely popular in Japan. Turn on the radio and chances were you’d hear one of their songs. I liked their songs myself and knew all their hits. Ask me to sing them and I could. At home when I was studying (or pretending to study), most of the time I had the radio blasting away. But, truth be told, I was never a fervent Beatles fan. I never actively sought out their songs. For me, it was passive listening, pop music flowing out of the tiny speakers of my Panasonic transistor radio, in one ear and out the other, barely registering. Background music for my adolescence. Musical wallpaper.
In high school and in college, I didn’t buy a single Beatles record. I was much more into jazz and classical music, and that was what I listened to when I wanted to focus on music. I saved up to buy jazz records, requested tunes by Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk at jazz bars, and went to classical-music concerts.
This might seem strange, but it wasn’t until I was in my mid-thirties that I sat down and listened to “With the Beatles” from beginning to end. Despite the fact that the image of the girl carrying that LP in the hallway of our high school had never left me, for the longest time I didn’t feel like actually giving it a listen. I wasn’t particularly interested in knowing what sort of music was etched into the grooves of the vinyl disk she had clutched so tightly to her chest.
When I was in my mid-thirties, well past childhood and adolescence, my first impression of the album was that it wasn’t that great, or at least not the kind of music to take your breath away. Of the fourteen tracks on the album, six were covers of other artists’ works. The covers of the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman” and Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” were well done, and impress me even when I listen to them now, but, still, they were cover versions. And of the eight original songs, apart from Paul’s “All My Loving,” none were amazing. There were no hit singles, and to my ears the Beatles’ first album, “Please Please Me,” recorded basically in one take, was far more vibrant and compelling. Even so, likely thanks to Beatles fans’ unquenchable desire for new songs, this second album débuted in the No. 1 spot in the U.K., a position it held for twenty-one weeks. (In the U.S., the title of the album was changed to “Meet the Beatles,” and included some different tracks, though the cover design stayed almost the same.)
What pulled me in was the vision of that girl clutching the album as if it were something priceless. Take away the photograph on the album cover and the scene might not have bewitched me as it did. There was the music, for sure. But there was something else, something far bigger. And, in an instant, that tableau was etched in my heart—a kind of spiritual landscape that could be found only there, at a set age, in a set place, and at a set moment in time.
For me, the major event of the following year, 1965, wasn’t President Johnson ordering the bombing of North Vietnam and the escalation of the war, or the discovery of a new species of wildcat on the island of Iriomote, but the fact that I acquired a girlfriend. She had been in the same class as me in freshman year, but it wasn’t until sophomore year that we started going out.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m not good-looking and was never a star athlete, and my grades in school were less than stellar. My singing left something to be desired, too, and I didn’t have a way with words. When I was in school, and in the years after that, I never once had girls flocking around me. That’s one of the few things I can say with certainty in this uncertain life. Still, there always seemed to be a girl around who was, for whatever reason, attracted to me. I have no clue why, but I was able to enjoy some pleasant, intimate times with those girls. I got to be good friends with some of them, and occasionally took it to the next level. The girl I’m talking about here was one of these—the first girl I had a really close relationship with.
This first girlfriend of mine was petite and charming. That summer, I went on dates with her once a week. One afternoon I kissed her small yet full lips and touched her breasts through her bra. She was wearing a sleeveless white dress and her hair had a citrusy shampoo scent.
She had almost no interest in the Beatles. She wasn’t into jazz, either. What she liked to listen to was more mellow music, what you might call middle-class music—the Mantovani Orchestra, Percy Faith, Roger Williams, Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, and the like. (At the time, “middle class” wasn’t a derogatory term at all.) There were piles of such records at her house—what nowadays is classified as easy listening.
That afternoon, she put a record on the turntable in her living room—her family had a large, impressive stereo system—and we sat on the big, comfy sofa and kissed. Her family had gone out somewhere and it was just the two of us. Truthfully, in a situation like that I didn’t really care what sort of music was playing.
What I remember about the summer of 1965 was her white dress, the citrusy scent of her shampoo, the formidable feel of her wire bra (a bra back then was more like a fortress than like an item of underwear), and the elegant performance of Max Steiner’s “Theme from ‘A Summer Place’ ” by the Percy Faith Orchestra. Even now, whenever I hear “Theme from ‘A Summer Place,’ ” that sofa comes to mind.
Incidentally, several years later—1968, as I recall, around the same time that Robert Kennedy was assassinated—the man who had been our homeroom teacher when we were in the same class hanged himself from the lintel in his house. He’d taught social studies. An ideological impasse was said to be the cause of his suicide.


newyorker--2020-02-10--The Original Bernie Bro Drums Up Expat Votes

Next month , American expatriates all over the world will vote in the Democrats Abroad primary , which awards delegates to the Democratic National Convention .
In 2016 , Bernie Sanders won the expat vote handily , snapping up nine delegates to Hillary Clinton ’ s four .
At that year ’ s convention , in Philadelphia , the last delegate to cast his vote for Bernie was also the candidate ’ s brother , Larry Sanders , who has lived in England for the past five decades .
He travelled back home to pledge his support .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my vote for Bernie Sanders , ” Larry announced , choking up , and using the nickname for his little brother , whom he usually calls Bernard .
“ In the back of my mind , I knew it was such a long shot , ” Larry said , last week , of his brother ’ s prospects in 2016 .
“ His whole weakness amongst people of color was obvious .
He hoped to shift it , but it was going to be very difficult.
” Larry was sitting in his kitchen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cardigan , gray slacks , and socks under his sandals .
He is six years older than Bernie .
( The two look similar and sound almost the same , but Larry ’ s hair is gray . )
Larry is also a socialist politician ; for eight years , until he retired , in 2013 , he represented East Oxford as a county councillor for the Green Party , which , in 2016 , appointed him its health spokesperson .
Larry lives on a quiet side street by the Kidneys , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s city center .
Apple and quince trees grow in his back yard , dropping fruit at the foot of a slide that he installed for his grandchildren .
Larry was headed to London the next day , to host an event on behalf of his brother ’ s campaign .
“ The situation is much different now , ” he said .
“ His odds of winning are so much better.
” He had printed out several articles to review , including an op-ed from the Boston Globe praising the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan .
The house was strewn with campaign paraphernalia : a “ Join-the-Action ” figure , a sticker depicting Bernie as a character from “ Sesame Street , ” and a poster bearing his slogan , “ Not Me .
Us.
” In the living room were flyers for next month ’ s Democrats Abroad primary .
( Americans can participate if they abstain from sending in state absentee ballots . )
“ I had no idea this existed until four years ago , ” Larry said .
Before 2016 , he hadn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States , in the sixties , when he followed his first wife abroad .
The Sanders brothers grew up in Brooklyn in the forties and fifties , playing stickball and attending Dodgers games when they could afford it .
( A bleacher seat cost sixty cents . )
When Bernie was in high school , he ran for student-body president on a platform that promised to raise scholarship funds for orphans of the Korean War .
“ He finished third , out of three , ” Larry said .
But his policy was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his brother as a bit of a workaholic .
The last time Bernie visited England was a couple of years ago , to promote a book .
He wasn ’ t interested in touring Oxford ’ s historic sites .
When Larry took him to Blenheim Palace , Bernie remarked on the plight of the workers who had built it .
“ The buildings , they didn ’ t impress him , ” Larry said .
“ He was impressed by the number of people who must have slogged their guts out digging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wish was to see the track on Iffley Road where , in 1954 , Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile .
“ Bernard was amazed by that , ” Larry said , adding that his brother was a star on the James Madison High School track-and-field team .
“ Four-thirty-seven , ” Larry said , citing Bernie ’ s mile time .
As a child , Bernie was known for blurting out , at school , details about the family “ that we would prefer not to be public , ” Larry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that you really had to tell the truth .
I had to have a long talk with him—it ’ s right not to lie , but you do not have to tell the truth all the time.
” This honesty , Larry suggested , has both fortified his brother ’ s support and stoked his opposition : “ He lost elections .
He didn ’ t give up .
He took abuse.
” Of Trump , Larry added , “ Bernard will bash him.
” The brothers are still close .
They used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks , but the rigors of the campaign have reduced their communication mainly to e-mails .
In a recent message to Bernie , Larry mentioned an upcoming campaign event in France .
“ I told him that , because of him , I had to go to Paris , ” Larry said .
“ ‘ See how much I do !
’ ” The next evening , in London , Larry ’ s Bernie event was sold out .
A hundred people gathered in the basement of a trade-union headquarters .
Some wore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Abroad.
” The results from the Iowa caucuses were supposed to have been reported that morning , but technical problems had delayed the announcement .
Larry chalked it up to “ cock-up , rather than conspiracy.
” In a gentle voice , he reminded the audience members of their voting power .
“ We are like a small state , ” he said of the Democrats Abroad primary , which , in 2016 , elected one delegate fewer than Wyoming .
Of the D.N.C .
Convention , he said , “ I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and bad things—but it is going to be nip and tuck.
” He plans to attend again this year .
“ Bernard is not a big crier , ” he said .
“ But I am.
” ♦

Larry Sanders Illustration by João Fazenda
Next month, American expatriates all over the world will vote in the Democrats Abroad primary, which awards delegates to the Democratic National Convention. In 2016, Bernie Sanders won the expat vote handily, snapping up nine delegates to Hillary Clinton’s four. At that year’s convention, in Philadelphia, the last delegate to cast his vote for Bernie was also the candidate’s brother, Larry Sanders, who has lived in England for the past five decades. He travelled back home to pledge his support. “It is with enormous pride that I cast my vote for Bernie Sanders,” Larry announced, choking up, and using the nickname for his little brother, whom he usually calls Bernard.
“In the back of my mind, I knew it was such a long shot,” Larry said, last week, of his brother’s prospects in 2016. “His whole weakness amongst people of color was obvious. He hoped to shift it, but it was going to be very difficult.” Larry was sitting in his kitchen, in Oxford, wearing a navy cardigan, gray slacks, and socks under his sandals. He is six years older than Bernie. (The two look similar and sound almost the same, but Larry’s hair is gray.) Larry is also a socialist politician; for eight years, until he retired, in 2013, he represented East Oxford as a county councillor for the Green Party, which, in 2016, appointed him its health spokesperson.
Larry lives on a quiet side street by the Kidneys, a nature reserve about a mile from Oxford’s city center. Apple and quince trees grow in his back yard, dropping fruit at the foot of a slide that he installed for his grandchildren. Larry was headed to London the next day, to host an event on behalf of his brother’s campaign. “The situation is much different now,” he said. “His odds of winning are so much better.” He had printed out several articles to review, including an op-ed from the Boston Globe praising the “realism” of Bernie’s climate plan. The house was strewn with campaign paraphernalia: a “Join-the-Action” figure, a sticker depicting Bernie as a character from “Sesame Street,” and a poster bearing his slogan, “Not Me. Us.” In the living room were flyers for next month’s Democrats Abroad primary. (Americans can participate if they abstain from sending in state absentee ballots.) “I had no idea this existed until four years ago,” Larry said. Before 2016, he hadn’t voted since leaving the United States, in the sixties, when he followed his first wife abroad.
The Sanders brothers grew up in Brooklyn in the forties and fifties, playing stickball and attending Dodgers games when they could afford it. (A bleacher seat cost sixty cents.) When Bernie was in high school, he ran for student-body president on a platform that promised to raise scholarship funds for orphans of the Korean War. “He finished third, out of three,” Larry said. But his policy was adopted by the school.
Larry describes his brother as a bit of a workaholic. The last time Bernie visited England was a couple of years ago, to promote a book. He wasn’t interested in touring Oxford’s historic sites. When Larry took him to Blenheim Palace, Bernie remarked on the plight of the workers who had built it. “The buildings, they didn’t impress him,” Larry said. “He was impressed by the number of people who must have slogged their guts out digging the pool.” Bernie’s only wish was to see the track on Iffley Road where, in 1954, Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile. “Bernard was amazed by that,” Larry said, adding that his brother was a star on the James Madison High School track-and-field team. “Four-thirty-seven,” Larry said, citing Bernie’s mile time.
As a child, Bernie was known for blurting out, at school, details about the family “that we would prefer not to be public,” Larry said. “He had the idea that you really had to tell the truth. I had to have a long talk with him—it’s right not to lie, but you do not have to tell the truth all the time.” This honesty, Larry suggested, has both fortified his brother’s support and stoked his opposition: “He lost elections. He didn’t give up. He took abuse.” Of Trump, Larry added, “Bernard will bash him.”
The brothers are still close. They used to speak on the phone every two weeks, but the rigors of the campaign have reduced their communication mainly to e-mails. In a recent message to Bernie, Larry mentioned an upcoming campaign event in France. “I told him that, because of him, I had to go to Paris,” Larry said. “ ‘See how much I do!’ ”
The next evening, in London, Larry’s Bernie event was sold out. A hundred people gathered in the basement of a trade-union headquarters. Some wore T-shirts with the slogan “Our Revolution Abroad.” The results from the Iowa caucuses were supposed to have been reported that morning, but technical problems had delayed the announcement. Larry chalked it up to “cock-up, rather than conspiracy.” In a gentle voice, he reminded the audience members of their voting power. “We are like a small state,” he said of the Democrats Abroad primary, which, in 2016, elected one delegate fewer than Wyoming. Of the D.N.C. Convention, he said, “I think things will happen on the floor—good things and bad things—but it is going to be nip and tuck.” He plans to attend again this year. “Bernard is not a big crier,” he said. “But I am.” ♦


newyorker--2020-02-10--Slide Show: New Yorker Cartoons February 17 & 24, 2020

“ Now that you are a woman , I want you to have this sweater that was given to me @ @ @ @ @ was always cold .
It was given to her by her mom , who was @ @ @ @ @ it from her mom , who never knew warmth in her life .
”

“Now that you are a woman, I want you to have this sweater that was given to me by my mom, who was always cold. It was given to her by her mom, who was always cold. She got it from her mom, who never knew warmth in her life.”
Cartoon by Madeline Horwath


newyorker--2020-02-10--Was Jeanne Calment the Oldest Person Who Ever Lived—or a Fraud?

People in France remember the summer of 1997 for the deaths of Princess Diana , Mother Teresa , and Jeanne Calment .
The first became a household name by marrying into royalty ; the second , by caring for the world ’ s sick and poor .
Jeanne Calment , however , was an accidental icon , her celebrity the result of a form of passivity .
For a hundred and twenty-two years , five months , and fourteen days , Calment managed not to die .
She was born at home on the Rue du Roure , in Arles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever held .
That February morning , in 1875 , lavender smoke commingled with the cold in the tight streets of La Roquette , a traditional neighborhood of fishermen and the maritime trades .
Plastic , tea bags , public trash cans , and the zipper had yet to come into the world .
The life expectancy for a French woman was forty-five .
Approximately one billion five hundred million people walked the planet , and Calment would outlive them all .
Later in life , Calment claimed to have known Vincent van @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encounter with him in 1888 .
“ Van Gogh was very ugly .
Ugly like a louse , ” she once remembered .
“ We called him le dingo.
” According to one anecdote , van Gogh came into her family ’ s drygoods store , on Rue Gambetta , wanting to buy canvas .
Calment sometimes said that her father waited on him .
Her father , however , was a shipbuilder ; the store actually belonged to her husband ’ s family .
Another time Calment recalled , “ My husband @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to you my wife.
’ ” This recollection was also blurred : Calment , an adolescent in 1888 , didn ’ t marry for another eight years .
She had known her husband , Fernand Calment , her entire life .
Their paternal grandfathers were brothers , and their paternal grandmothers were sisters , making Jeanne and Fernand double second cousins .
They had a daughter , Yvonne , in 1898 .
Jeanne never worked , but led a busy life of recreational pursuits , including tennis , roller-skating , and stalking wild @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apartments above the family store .
Jeanne appeared occasionally , cutting an imperious figure .
“ Madame Calment wanted to impose her taste on me , ” a woman later said , remembering a girlhood errand to buy fabric .
“ Stubborn , I stuck with my choice , replying in a tone that didn ’ t please her .
I haven ’ t forgotten the pair of slaps.
” In 1934 , Yvonne died of complications from tuberculosis , leaving behind a husband , Colonel Joseph Billot , and a seven-year-old son @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care of the boy as though he were their own .
In 1942 , some friends of the Calments invited the couple to their country house .
During the visit , Fernand gorged on cherries , while Jeanne had one or two .
The cherries were tainted with chemicals , and , within a few months , Jeanne was a widow .
Two years later , women got the vote in France .
The Eiffel Tower was just past fifty .
Calment was sixty-seven , with nearly half her life in front of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s husband , she and her son-in-law , Joseph , shared an apartment .
Freddy , an otolaryngologist , lived nearby with his wife .
In 1963 , Calment lost her last intimates .
That January , Joseph died after a long illness .
In August , Freddy was killed in a car accident .
Calment coped by never staying still .
In the decades that followed , her staccato footfall was as integral to Arles as the sound of the mistral , the rattling Provençal wind .
One biographer wrote , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lady ’ who dashed all over town , who went down the steps of St. Trophime church like a kid.
” The ground floor of the Calments ’ limestone building is now occupied by a supermarket .
On a recent winter morning , the current owner showed me around the third floor , above where Calment lived .
It was easy to imagine her waking each day , shuffling down a hallway of white tiles with red Occitan crosses , warming herself in front of a fireplace with an ornately carved walnut mantelpiece @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to let in the southern light .
On the roof , a faded sign glowed in the sunshine : MAISON CALMENT .
When Calment was ninety-four , in 1969 , her notary bought her apartment .
The purchase was made under the French en viager system , in which the buyer agrees to make regular payments on a property that the seller continues to live in .
In such an arrangement , the buyer essentially wagers on how quickly the seller will die .
The Calment apartment proved to be an epically terrible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ died , in 1995 , he ’ d spent nearly two hundred thousand dollars , more than twice the value of the place , without ever taking occupancy .
As Calment approached her hundredth year , she was still riding her bicycle .
Just before her birthday , the mayor of Arles offered to organize a celebration .
Calment declined , calling the mayor un rouge , a Communist .
Not long after , thinking better of her manners , she went to see him at the town hall .
“ In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he later said .
“ I didn ’ t spot a centenarian .
In fact , she was right in front of my eyes .
A little woman in a gray suit , wearing a hat with a fine veil .
I noticed her heeled shoes and seamed stockings .
Very elegant , she seemed twenty years younger.
” At a hundred and ten , Calment was still living alone , in the Rue Gambetta apartment , where she had never bothered to install a modern heating system .
One day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to unfreeze the boiler with the flame of a candle , starting a small fire .
She agreed to move to a local retirement home , the Maison du Lac , until the weather improved .
She ended up staying , and , in 1988 , at a hundred and twelve , was briefly recognized as the “ doyenne of humanity , ” the oldest person in the world .
Soon afterward , the title was given to a Florida woman three months her elder , who had spent seventy-five years in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ post-typhoid psychosis , ” a disease that doctors no longer believed existed .
After the woman died , at a hundred and sixteen , in 1991 , Calment became the oldest person ever known to have lived .
A team of three researchers who spent several years validating Calment ’ s age—Victor Lèbre , her personal doctor ; Michel Allard , a gerontologist ; and Jean-Marie Robine , a demographer—described her as a “ tough cookie.
” At the Maison du Lac , she maintained a rigid schedule , rising at six-forty-five , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and listening to classical music on her Walkman .
She proudly told Paris Match that her breasts remained as firm as “ two little apples.
” At night , she insisted that her bed be turned down , as though she were a guest in a hotel .
Behind her back , the nurses called her la commandante .
She quit smoking at a hundred and seventeen , but never gave up having a nightly glass of port .
The longer Calment lived , the more famous she became .
On Grandmother ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offered her a kilo of chocolate .
“ I want a ton !
” Calment replied .
Several weeks later , two trucks showed up .
Even the validators were dazzled by their subject .
They recorded hours of conversations with her , excerpts of which they later published in a book , “ Les 120 Ans de Jeanne Calment.
” Occasionally , she ’ d use a word so antiquated ( like mahonne , a kind of round-bottomed barge that her father had built ) that the validators had to look it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state of excitation of an Egyptologist who , while walking through an unexplored labyrinth of a pyramid , discovers an unknown room filled with treasures , ” they wrote .
Calment lived through twenty French Presidents and survived periods of terrorism that no one even recalled .
She died on August 4 , 1997 , of unspecified causes .
She was buried in her family ’ s tomb , where she rested in peace until early last year .

The passage of time often quells controversy, but, in the Calment case, it only unsettled the dust. As the world’s population continued to grow, the cohort of people living to the age of a hundred and twenty-two did not. More than two decades after Calment’s death, her record still stood, making her a more conspicuous outlier with every year that went by. Either she had lived longer than any human being ever or she had executed an audacious fraud. As one observer wrote, “Both are highly unlikely life stories but one is true.” In “Les 120 Ans de Jeanne Calment,” her validators had reproduced the only picture known to exist of the two Calment women as adults. In it, Yvonne appears to be sitting on a windowsill. Jeanne stands to her left, behind a table, looking down at a basket of flowers and a wrapped gift. The women are both wearing white shirts and dark sweaters. Accompanying the photograph was a tantalizing caption: “Jeanne and Yvonne, her daughter. Which one is which?”
On December 19, 2018, Nikolay Zak posted a preprint—in academia, a draft of a paper that hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed—to ResearchGate, a social network for scientists. It began with a quote from Genesis (“Then the LORD said, ‘My spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years’ ”), and reiterated in somewhat more decorous language the case that he and Novoselov had made to Komsomolskaya Pravda, adding some new details. On one page, Zak would perform complicated mathematical equations; on the next, he’d cite Wikipedia or the Daily Mail. At times, his logic leaped into the realm of pure speculation. “Being in the nursing home and not being able to destroy the documents herself, Jeanne resorted to the help of a distant relative,” he wrote, referring to Calment’s decision to burn most of her personal papers. “Most likely, it was a result of cold calculation and acute necessity instead of an emotional act.”
Zak’s paper, though unconventional, was enticing. The A.F.P., France’s wire service, picked it up, and, on New Year’s Eve, articles about the controversy appeared in a number of newspapers. Soon the Calment story had become an “affaire,” an appellation that, in France, describes a dramatic episode while more or less guaranteeing its escalation. France 2, the national television broadcaster, devoted a prime-time special to the “enigma of Jeanne Calment,” and Le Monde examined the “crazy hypothesis of two Russian researchers,” citing experts who likened the Russians’ methods to those of “fake news.”
The case might have remained largely the concern of gerontologists and the French had Aubrey de Grey not got involved. The posh, wild-bearded panjandrum of the anti-aging movement, de Grey was born in London in 1963. After a career in artificial intelligence, he began studying biology, earning a Ph.D. from Cambridge at the age of thirty-seven. Now, as the chief science officer of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Mountain View, California, he is attempting to develop medical therapies that will reverse aging. He claims that there are human beings alive right now who could live more than a thousand years.
Species such as sea anemones and hydras show no signs of senescence, and many researchers believe that aging is not inevitable. As Tom Kirkwood, the gerontologist, has written, “Ageing comes about through the gradual build-up of unrepaired faults in the cells and tissues of our bodies as we live our lives, not as a result of some active mechanism for death and destruction.” In recent years, the desire of Silicon Valley moguls to acquire the one thing you can’t buy has kicked off a sort of space race for “life extension.” The PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has donated at least five million dollars to de Grey’s projects. De Grey himself contributed another thirteen million in 2011, after receiving an inheritance from his mother. A certain eccentricity has only added to his aura. “De Grey relaxes by hoisting a pint in his local pub and occasionally picnicking nude with his considerably older wife,” the L.A. Times noted, in a review of a 2014 documentary called “The Immortalists.”
De Grey is the editor-in-chief of Rejuvenation Research, a biogerontology journal, which, in February, 2019, published an article by Zak, “Evidence That Jeanne Calment Died in 1934—Not 1997.” The article was based on his preprint, with some changes and new conjectures. Notably, Zak contended that photographs of Yvonne showed the presence of a fibroma—a fleshy bump—on the tip of her nose, which matched with one in a picture of Calment as an old woman. “Interestingly, it is absent from later photos, indicating that it was removed,” he wrote, to account for pictures of Calment as an even older woman with no such fibroma. Earlier, Zak had raised the possibility of exhuming Calment’s body; now he proposed another way to examine her DNA. Calment had reportedly given a blood sample to researchers as part of the Chronos Project, a pioneering survey of more than a thousand French centenarians, conducted in the nineteen-nineties by the Fondation Jean Dausset-CEPH, a renowned genetic-research center. Zak asserted “that biological material from the person who died in 1997” was likely still in storage.
S. Jay Olshansky, a gerontologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told me, “I did not find the paper to be of a very high quality. If I were the editor, I would not have accepted it.” Many readers were confounded: why had de Grey decided to bestow the imprimatur of academic respectability on Zak’s work? Outlandish conspiracy theories proliferated. Was de Grey, an “international adjunct professor” at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, somehow in league with the Russians? Was it Big Pharma? Was it Putin? Or was there a plot involving the Lifeboat Foundation, a techno-survivalist organization to which de Grey and Zak both belonged, which had been infiltrated by Russian spies? “These are bad guys, playing nasty games,” Robert Young, a consultant for Guinness World Records and a director of the Gerontology Research Group, which maintains a database of supercentenarians, told me. “This is a manufactured controversy—we don’t even consider the case to be disputed.”
Calment’s validators suddenly had to defend work that they’d done twenty-five years earlier. One of them, Victor Lèbre, had died. Michel Allard, the gerontologist, had retired and was living in a village in central France. When I spoke with him, he seemed mildly amused by the whole thing. He’d initially been open to the possibility of fraud, but he’d dug up his files and concluded that the idea was ridiculous. “I tried to construct a scenario, but can you imagine that someone would do all that?” he said. “At a certain point, we need to be reasonable.” As for the DNA, he said, “It’s not in my fridge.”
The third validator, Jean-Marie Robine, was a director at INSERM, France’s national health-research institute. He took the Russians’ attacks on his reputation seriously. “It’s nonsense, and not only is it nonsense but it was a hostile approach and not a scientific approach,” he told me, of Zak’s Rejuvenation Research paper. “Why did they launch this operation like kamikazes? Why did they throw down sixty weak arguments?” Robine did not think Putin or the K.G.B. was involved. De Grey, he believed, wanted access to Calment’s blood, which was said to be stored in a refrigerated biobank at the Fondation Dausset.
Claudine Serena was a little girl when she saw Jeanne Calment one day near her school. Her mother had just arrived for pickup. “What do you know, here comes Mother Calment,” she said, as a slender, fast-walking figure proceeded down the street. Serena’s family wasn’t fond of the local haute bourgeoisie. “My grandfather was a Communist, and Jeanne didn’t like Communists, because she accused them of the Russian Revolution,” Serena explained. Like Calment, her grandfather lived almost his entire life in Arles. “He would have known the difference between her and her daughter,” Serena said. “And if he’d had the slightest suspicion he would have denounced her.”
“Some call it jury tampering. I call it destiny.” Cartoon by P. C. Vey Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
We were sitting in the courtyard of a café in Arles, with Cécile Pellegrini, another native Arlésienne. They were both members of a Facebook group called Contre Enquête sur l’Enquête Jeanne Calment (Counter-Investigation of the Jeanne Calment Investigation), which was using the collective talents of more than a thousand ordinary people to try to clear Calment’s name. Neither Serena nor Pellegrini could quite believe what they’d got into. Serena was retired from the Maison du Lac retirement home, where she’d worked as a caregiver for fifteen years, ten of them looking after Calment. “She had these small eyes, with an incisive look,” she recalled. “Very condescending, ‘ma fille,’ et cetera.” She added, “I didn’t like her, so I’m impartial.” Pellegrini, a social worker, normally spent her time online posting pictures of her four cats. Now both were devoting hours a day to detective work and sparring with Zak. (Gamely, they’d allowed him to join the Facebook group.)
“C’est du James Bond,” Serena said.
I asked why they’d got involved.
“In spite of it all, this stung me,” Serena said. “We’re not idiots. What’s insulting is that Zak doesn’t believe us.”
“As if we were hiding a secret villain,” Pellegrini said.
“He lives behind his computer on the other side of the world,” Serena added.
Arles has a huddled, electric energy. For millennia, the Rhône was its lifeblood, but the city faces inward, as though it were too vain to acknowledge its benefactor. Plant a flower in Arles, hit a Roman relic with your shovel. The mistral might blow the teeth out of your mouth. The designer Christian Lacroix, who was born there, wrote of a sombre palette: “the funereal blue of cypresses,” the “sky baked white.” Van Gogh painted the city in violet, cobalt, gold, and chartreuse. As Lacroix put it, “It’s not so much Arles that gave its colors to van Gogh but van Gogh who gave Arles its colors.” Serena mentioned that her great-grandmother slept sitting upright in a chair, so as to preserve her traditional Arlésienne coif.
Zak argued that the people of Arles were too close to the Calment case to be rational. But the counter-investigators were mounting a meticulous defense. They started off by toppling Zak’s theory about the Calments’ financial motive. One of the group’s best researchers, a telecommunications engineer named François Robin-Champigneul, showed that, in 1934, inheritance taxes for the family would likely have amounted to six per cent of Jeanne’s assets, which totalled around two hundred and fifty thousand francs. This was a rate that they surely could have managed, particularly given—et voilà!—the group’s discovery that Jeanne had inherited a minor fortune from her father, in 1926.


newyorker--2020-02-10--“Elvis Week,” by Caki Wilkinson

“Elvis Week,” by Caki Wilkinson

We go to Graceland for the vigil , Hope in the same fuchsia tube dress she wore to our uncle @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s O.K .
this time around , nobody hissing about what ’ s @ @ @ @ @ in August , 99 at dusk , the dew point making people ’ s hair @ @ @ @ @ little candles from their cardboard cuffs , and mine keeps going out , Hope leaning @ @ @ @ @ .
There are as many Elvises as Elvis fans , old and not so old @ @ @ @ @ , rolling strollers , luggage , oxygen tanks ; so many stick-on sideburns ; so @ @ @ @ @ I don ’ t know it yet , but Hope ’ s blurred out on @ @ @ @ @ buy buttons with the lightning logo : Taking Care of Business in a Flash .
@ @ @ @ @ ukulele , strolling up and down the line along the gates and nodding solemnly , @ @ @ @ @ .
Hope says , Can you imagine being loved this much ?

Audio: Read by the author.
We go to Graceland for the vigil, Hope in the same fuchsia tube dress she wore to our uncle’s funeral, but it’s O.K. this time around, nobody hissing about what’s appropriate, not in Memphis in August, 99 at dusk, the dew point making people’s hair deranged. We clutch our little candles from their cardboard cuffs, and mine keeps going out, Hope leaning over to help relight it. There are as many Elvises as Elvis fans, old and not so old and from the farthest reaches, rolling strollers, luggage, oxygen tanks; so many stick-on sideburns; so many ways to sweat. I don’t know it yet, but Hope’s blurred out on pills again. We both buy buttons with the lightning logo: Taking Care of Business in a Flash. One too-tall Elvis strums a ukulele, strolling up and down the line along the gates and nodding solemnly, the crowd just slightly hushed. Hope says, Can you imagine being loved this much?


newyorker--2020-02-10--Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Briefly Noted Book Reviews

Love Unknown , by Thomas Travisano ( Viking ) .
This literary biography of Elizabeth Bishop underscores the aptness of her epitaph : “ All the untidy activity continues , / awful but cheerful.
” Bishop ’ s poems , which Robert Lowell called “ unrhetorical , cool , and beautifully thought out , ” belie the turbulence that marked her life .
The outlines of that life are well known : her father ’ s early death , her mother ’ s mental illness , her drinking , her sojourns in Key West with her lover Louise Crane and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( Intending to visit Brazil for a few weeks , Bishop stayed for nearly fifteen years , a decision partly prompted by the gift of a blue-eyed toucan , which she named Uncle Sam . )
But the accounts are parsed with particular insight by Travisano , a Bishop specialist , who assiduously traces the influence of the life on the work .
Usual Cruelty , by Alec Karakatsanis ( New Press ) .
Every day , some half a million people are kept in jail merely because they can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ author of this passionately argued book points out , this reality contravenes constitutional law yet is almost taken for granted by the legal profession .
To challenge judicial practices that are “ simultaneously illegal and the norm , ” he founded an organization that has sued abusive judges and jailers in more than a dozen states .
Here , Karakatsanis sets out the moral and political philosophy that drives his work—that criminal law , and the manner in which it is selectively enforced , is a reflection of “ power , racial bias @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is radical : a post-carceral society , in which imprisonment is “ a narrowly tailored remedy of last resort.
” The Black Cathedral , by Marcial Gala , translated from the Spanish by Anna Kushner ( Farrar , Straus & Giroux ) .
Set in Cuba , this novel follows a black evangelical family ’ s effort to build “ the temple of end times ” in “ a neighborhood of forgotten black people and desperate white people.
” A futuristic , stained-glass-windowed building is planned , but a series of murders halts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ town cursed .
By telling the story from the perspectives of various people in the community , Gala achieves an oral-history-like effect , producing a profound , and often humorous , meditation on how desires—religious , sexual , financial—clash in a small-town environment .
This Is Happiness , by Niall Williams ( Bloomsbury ) .
This elegiac novel is as unhurried as its setting : Faha , a village in western Ireland , “ unchanged since creation ” until , in the late fifties , electricity arrives .
The narrator , now elderly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come from Dublin as a teen-ager , to live with his grandparents after the death of his mother , he conceived a hopeless passion for three sisters .
“ We spend most of our lives guarding against washes of feeling , I ’ m guarding no more , ” he promises .
The novel ’ s description of a lost rural life style , and the gaps between a young man ’ s romantic expectations and the inescapable letdown of reality , is comic and poignant in equal measure .

Love Unknown, by Thomas Travisano (Viking). This literary biography of Elizabeth Bishop underscores the aptness of her epitaph: “All the untidy activity continues, / awful but cheerful.” Bishop’s poems, which Robert Lowell called “unrhetorical, cool, and beautifully thought out,” belie the turbulence that marked her life. The outlines of that life are well known: her father’s early death, her mother’s mental illness, her drinking, her sojourns in Key West with her lover Louise Crane and in Brazil with Lota de Macedo Soares. (Intending to visit Brazil for a few weeks, Bishop stayed for nearly fifteen years, a decision partly prompted by the gift of a blue-eyed toucan, which she named Uncle Sam.) But the accounts are parsed with particular insight by Travisano, a Bishop specialist, who assiduously traces the influence of the life on the work.
Usual Cruelty, by Alec Karakatsanis (New Press). Every day, some half a million people are kept in jail merely because they can’t afford to post bail. As the author of this passionately argued book points out, this reality contravenes constitutional law yet is almost taken for granted by the legal profession. To challenge judicial practices that are “simultaneously illegal and the norm,” he founded an organization that has sued abusive judges and jailers in more than a dozen states. Here, Karakatsanis sets out the moral and political philosophy that drives his work—that criminal law, and the manner in which it is selectively enforced, is a reflection of “power, racial bias, and economic self-interest.” His vision is radical: a post-carceral society, in which imprisonment is “a narrowly tailored remedy of last resort.”
The Black Cathedral, by Marcial Gala, translated from the Spanish by Anna Kushner (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Set in Cuba, this novel follows a black evangelical family’s effort to build “the temple of end times” in “a neighborhood of forgotten black people and desperate white people.” A futuristic, stained-glass-windowed building is planned, but a series of murders halts construction and leaves the site and the town cursed. By telling the story from the perspectives of various people in the community, Gala achieves an oral-history-like effect, producing a profound, and often humorous, meditation on how desires—religious, sexual, financial—clash in a small-town environment.
This Is Happiness, by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury). This elegiac novel is as unhurried as its setting: Faha, a village in western Ireland, “unchanged since creation” until, in the late fifties, electricity arrives. The narrator, now elderly, reminisces about that time; having come from Dublin as a teen-ager, to live with his grandparents after the death of his mother, he conceived a hopeless passion for three sisters. “We spend most of our lives guarding against washes of feeling, I’m guarding no more,” he promises. The novel’s description of a lost rural life style, and the gaps between a young man’s romantic expectations and the inescapable letdown of reality, is comic and poignant in equal measure.


newyorker--2020-02-10--Sex, Drugs, and the New Minibar

Sex, Drugs, and the New Minibar

Is there room for champagne and chocolate when the planet is burning ?
One recent Tuesday , fifty hospitality and marketing professionals gathered in a suite at the Greenwich Hotel to hear the findings of a report put together by the London-based boutique-hotel booking service Mr & Mrs Smith and a consulting firm called the Future Laboratory .
The subject : the future of romantic travel .
“ No one needs another report that ’ s about the next hotel that might be on the moon or Mars , ” James Lohan said .
He had been a night-club promoter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in 2003 , with his wife , Tamara , who used to run a matchmaking service .
The name of Mr & Mrs Smith , which began as a hotel guidebook , is a reference to a time when unmarried couples had to sign hotel registers with an alias .
“ We ’ re celebrating the great British dirty weekend , ” James said .
“ A celebration of going away with someone you love—in wedlock , out of wedlock !
We ’ re not worried about who you are , what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book , one of our reviewers went away as part of a throuple , ” Tamara said .
“ Too many guides are a bit worthy or a bit too worried , ” James said .
He wore silver boots and a blue velvet blazer .
As guests sat in front of a big screen , the Lohans summarized the changes in the boutique-hotel sphere over the past two decades .
Décor : less froufrou .
Bedding : less itchy .
Bathrooms : “ No more drying soaps in small dispensers , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Malin & Goats , or Goetz , or however you say it.
” In the unexpected-guest category : “ Airbnb obviously turned up , ” he said , “ which was a shock to all of us , that you could charge people money to sleep on your floor.
” He introduced Chris Sanderson , of the Future Laboratory , which interviewed experts in travel and related fields ( marijuana , sex ) to come up with its findings , summarized in a forty-seven-page report .
In a teal blazer and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new term for the nascent decade— “ the Transformative Twenties.
” He rattled off potential trends , such as the Enlarge Your Paris Project ( “ You have to be careful how you say that , ” he joked ) , which seeks to connect travellers to lesser-known locales .
He predicted a lot of connecting .
“ Flexecutives ” may connect over “ peakends ” —Thursday-to-Monday holidays bookended by telecommuting .
Guests can expect hotels to connect them with opportunities to volunteer , to ingest CBD , or to participate in threesomes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the candlelit dinner and hello to biometrically responsive room lighting , ” Sanderson said .
“ Increasingly , the aphrodisiac won ’ t be in the oyster , it ’ s maybe in the way the oyster ’ s been collected.
” There were slides touting a new travel vocabulary : “ nuptial nomadism , ” “ polycule peregrinations , ” “ self-romance , ” and “ buddymoons , where we celebrate love between same-sex relationships , but not as you imagine them , because this is about straight mates with their gay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Or what about a ‘ brotopian break ’ ?
” The discussion adjourned for drinks .
“ Some of it is obvious , ” Rebecca Soloff , from Six Senses hotels , said .
“ People want nontoxic , they want organic , they want local , they want raw materials.
” She went on , “ But sexual wellness becoming a thirty-two-billion-dollar industry ?
” —a statistic from the presentation— “ that ’ s not something I was expecting.
” Experts who contributed to the report took questions .
“ Do you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mind-set ?
” a woman asked .
“ Or are Americans more open to talking about sex and cannabis and all these other wonderful things ?
” “ I see a lot of customers from all over the world who might be coming from a more conservative environment , ” Eva Goicochea , the founder of Maude , a line of sex products , said .
“ Statistically speaking , people over thirty-five are having way more sex than people under thirty-five , which is great , ” Goicochea said .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is for everyone , like food is for everybody.
” “ One of the fastest-growing demographics of cannabis consumers is fifty-five and up , ” Verena von Pfetten , a founder of the cannabis-media company Gossamer , said .
“ It ’ s not about getting fucked up .
It can be to eat Chinese food and watch Netflix , ” she added , “ but maybe it ’ s also a turndown service with a sleep tincture , or a massage with CBD oil.
” Near a table displaying bottles of Maude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
of the edibles company 1906 , described his wares .
“ We have a product for sleep , and we have a product for sex , ” he said .
“ Imagine , in your minibar , you had a ‘ Love ’ chocolate and a ‘ Midnight ’ chocolate .
Those are the two things we want when we ’ re in a hotel room : either sex or a good night ’ s sleep.
” ♦

Is there room for champagne and chocolate when the planet is burning? One recent Tuesday, fifty hospitality and marketing professionals gathered in a suite at the Greenwich Hotel to hear the findings of a report put together by the London-based boutique-hotel booking service Mr & Mrs Smith and a consulting firm called the Future Laboratory. The subject: the future of romantic travel.
“No one needs another report that’s about the next hotel that might be on the moon or Mars,” James Lohan said. He had been a night-club promoter before he founded Mr & Mrs Smith, in 2003, with his wife, Tamara, who used to run a matchmaking service.
“Or robots,” Tamara added. She wore a dress with a swirly black-and-white print.
The name of Mr & Mrs Smith, which began as a hotel guidebook, is a reference to a time when unmarried couples had to sign hotel registers with an alias. “We’re celebrating the great British dirty weekend,” James said. “A celebration of going away with someone you love—in wedlock, out of wedlock! We’re not worried about who you are, what you are.”
“In the first book, one of our reviewers went away as part of a throuple,” Tamara said.
“Too many guides are a bit worthy or a bit too worried,” James said. He wore silver boots and a blue velvet blazer.
As guests sat in front of a big screen, the Lohans summarized the changes in the boutique-hotel sphere over the past two decades. Décor: less froufrou. Bedding: less itchy. Bathrooms: “No more drying soaps in small dispensers,” James said. Instead, “Aesop and Malin & Goats, or Goetz, or however you say it.” In the unexpected-guest category: “Airbnb obviously turned up,” he said, “which was a shock to all of us, that you could charge people money to sleep on your floor.”
He introduced Chris Sanderson, of the Future Laboratory, which interviewed experts in travel and related fields (marijuana, sex) to come up with its findings, summarized in a forty-seven-page report. In a teal blazer and a blue pocket square, Sanderson advanced a new term for the nascent decade—“the Transformative Twenties.” He rattled off potential trends, such as the Enlarge Your Paris Project (“You have to be careful how you say that,” he joked), which seeks to connect travellers to lesser-known locales. He predicted a lot of connecting. “Flexecutives” may connect over “peakends”—Thursday-to-Monday holidays bookended by telecommuting. Guests can expect hotels to connect them with opportunities to volunteer, to ingest CBD, or to participate in threesomes.
“Now that you are a woman, I want you to have this sweater that was given to me by my mom, who was always cold. It was given to her by her mom, who was always cold. She got it from her mom, who never knew warmth in her life.” Cartoon by Madeline Horwath Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
“Maybe we say goodbye to the candlelit dinner and hello to biometrically responsive room lighting,” Sanderson said. “Increasingly, the aphrodisiac won’t be in the oyster, it’s maybe in the way the oyster’s been collected.” There were slides touting a new travel vocabulary: “nuptial nomadism,” “polycule peregrinations,” “self-romance,” and “buddymoons, where we celebrate love between same-sex relationships, but not as you imagine them, because this is about straight mates with their gay friends,” Sanderson said. “Or what about a ‘brotopian break’?”
The discussion adjourned for drinks. “Some of it is obvious,” Rebecca Soloff, from Six Senses hotels, said. “People want nontoxic, they want organic, they want local, they want raw materials.” She went on, “But sexual wellness becoming a thirty-two-billion-dollar industry?”—a statistic from the presentation—“that’s not something I was expecting.”
Experts who contributed to the report took questions. “Do you see this whole theory as a global mind-set?” a woman asked. “Or are Americans more open to talking about sex and cannabis and all these other wonderful things?”
“I see a lot of customers from all over the world who might be coming from a more conservative environment,” Eva Goicochea, the founder of Maude, a line of sex products, said.
“Age range?” another woman asked.
“Statistically speaking, people over thirty-five are having way more sex than people under thirty-five, which is great,” Goicochea said. “We’ve sort of said that sex is for everyone, like food is for everybody.”
“One of the fastest-growing demographics of cannabis consumers is fifty-five and up,” Verena von Pfetten, a founder of the cannabis-media company Gossamer, said. “It’s not about getting fucked up. It can be to eat Chinese food and watch Netflix,” she added, “but maybe it’s also a turndown service with a sleep tincture, or a massage with CBD oil.”
Near a table displaying bottles of Maude lubricant, Peter Barsoom, the C.E.O. of the edibles company 1906, described his wares. “We have a product for sleep, and we have a product for sex,” he said. “Imagine, in your minibar, you had a ‘Love’ chocolate and a ‘Midnight’ chocolate. Those are the two things we want when we’re in a hotel room: either sex or a good night’s sleep.” ♦