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JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

15

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

39

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

Rebecca Mead on trigger warnings;


Egypts election; the De Niros; Broadway eggs;
James Surowiecki on industrial espionage.
DAVID Gilbert

46

HERES THE STORY

MARGARET Talbot

60

THE TEEN WHISPERER

John Green and his fans.


RAMONA AUSUBEL

70

YOU CAN FIND LOVE NOW

HARUKI Murakami

74

YESTERDAY

Karen Russell

92

THE BAD GRAFT

RACHEL KUSHNER
JOSHUA FERRIS
COLM TIBN
MIRANDA JULY
TOBIAS WOLFF

59
69
72
78
84

THE ADOLESCENTS
GOOD LEGS
STORIES
TV
BEAUTIFUL GIRL

Alison Bechdel
CHRIS Ware

88
90

MY OLD FLAME

SKETCHBOOKS
GRADUAL IMPACT
POSSESSION

BOOKS
CHRISTINE Smallwood

102
107

The Shelf: From LEQ to LES.


Briefly Noted

EMILY Nussbaum

108

High Maintenance, My Mad Fat Diary.

ANTHONY Lane

110

ON TELEVISION

THE CURRENT CINEMA

Maleficent, A Million Ways to Die in the West.

Continued on page 8
4

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

HEART-BOOK PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE

THE CRITICS

POEM
JAMES RICHARDSON

joost swarte

52

Essay on Wood

COVER

Love Stories

DRAWINGS Danny Shanahan, Michael Maslin, David Sipress, Benjamin Schwartz, Charles
Barsotti, Harry Bliss, Emily Flake, Liam Francis Walsh, Shannon Wheeler, Edward Steed, Roz
Chast SPOTS Simone Massoni

Rekindling an old romance. And you?


8

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

CONTRIBUTORS
david gilbert (heres the story, p. 46)

is the author of the novel & Sons,

which came out in paperback in May.


rachel kushner (the adolescents, p. 59)

has written two novels, The

Flamethrowers and Telex from Cuba.


joshua ferris (good legs, p. 69)

published his third novel, To Rise Again

at a Decent Hour, last month.


ramona ausubel (you can find love now, p. 70) is the author of A Guide

to Being Born and No One Is Here Except All of Us.


colm tIbn (stories, p. 72) will publish a new novel, Nora Webster, in October.
haruki murakami (yesterday, p. 74) has a new novel, Colorless Tsukuru
Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, coming out in August.
miranda july (tv, p. 78) is a writer, artist, and filmmaker living in Los Angeles.
Her novel, The First Bad Man, will be published in January.
tobias wolff (beautiful girl, p. 84) teaches at Stanford. His books include

Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories and the novel Old School.
alison bechdel (gradual impact, p. 88)

is the author of the memoirs Fun


Home and Are You My Mother? and the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For.

chris ware (possession, p. 90), the author of Building Stories, will be the
artist-in-residence at the East London Comics and Arts Festival on June 14th.
karen russell (the bad graft, p. 92), a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, published
a novella, Sleep Donation, in March. She is the author of two short-story collections and the novel Swamplandia!

T H E N E W YO R K E R D I G I TA L
W W W. N E W YO R K E R . C O M

D I G I TA L E D I T I O N

FICTION

COMMENT

MY OLD FLAME

FICTION

Ramona Ausubel,
David Gilbert, and
Karen Russell on
their stories.

Daily news analysis


from Hendrik
Hertzberg, Sarah
Stillman, and others.

Readings by
Joshua Ferris, Rachel
Kushner, Miranda July,
and Tobias Wolff.

David Gilbert reads


his new story.

PAGE-TURNER

PODCASTS

POETRY

On the Fiction
Podcast, Miranda
July reads a story
by Janet Frame.

Sasha Weiss talks to Joshua Rothman and


Cressida Leyshon about Karl Ove
Knausgaard. Plus, David Remnick and
Ryan Lizza on the Political Scene podcast.

James Richardson
reads his new
poem.

ARCHIVE

HUMOR

VIDEO

CARTOONS

Our complete
collection of issues,
back to 1925.

A Daily Cartoon
drawn by Mick
Stevens, and
Shouts & Murmurs.

Emily Nussbaum
on the Web
series High
Maintenance.

A gallery of bonus
humor from the
archive.

Access our digital edition for tablets and phones at the App Store, Amazon.com, Google Play, or Next Issue Media.

10

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

THE MAIL
MISTA
T KEN IDENTITY

Lizzie Widdicombe, in her piece about


the Manhattan Institutes Hamilton
Awards, quotes a number of Republican
politicians intent on promoting an image
of Alexander Hamilton as representing
an urban, Wall Street-friendly brand of
conservatism (The Talk of the Town,
May 26th). In researching my biography
of Hamilton, I discovered that, in many
battles with Jeffersonian foes, Hamilton
proved himself to be a liberal champion.
He advocated federal power against the
doctrine of states rights and favored an
expansive reading of the Constitution.
He promoted abolitionism and lent his
prestige to a school for Native Americans. He was the foremost agent of economic modernity against the slavocracy
of the South. When he founded Paterson, New Jersey, he espoused open immigration against the forces of nativism.
Even as his Jeffersonian opponents agitated for limited government, Hamilton
emerged as the chief architect of a robust
executive branch. The patron saint of the
Coast Guard and the Customs Service,
he made the first federal investments in
American infrastructure, showing the
creative uses of government and paving
the way for the Progressive Era and the
New Deal. In his own day Hamilton was
vilified for higher taxes and increased
government spendingscarcely the
forerunner of modern-day Republicanism, in either its Tea Party or establishment incarnations.
Ron Chernow
Brooklyn, N.Y.

1
FEAR AND REMEMBERING

Michael Specters article about the neuroscience of remembering revealed that


it has taken us more than a hundred years
to come full circle in our understanding
of memory (Partial Recall, May 19th).
It is fashionable to think of Freud as a
fantasist who was hopelessly unscientific
in his methods and conclusions, but, in
recent years, state-of-the-art neuroscientific research has begun to corroborate
many fundamental Freudian insights.

With his concepts of screen memories


and Nachtrglichkeitt (deferred action,
or afterwardness), Freud described
how memory is a palimpsest, a work of
constant reconstruction, and how subsequent experiences can alter both the content and the psychological import of previous memories. Almost ninety years
ago, in the landmark essay The Care of
the Patient, F. W. Peabody wrote, A
scientist is known, not by his technical
processes, but by his intellectual processes. It is time that we recognize Freud
as the scientist he was.
Dimitri Mellos
New York City

Daniela Schillers research, demonstrating that traumatic memories can become less painful or even be extinguished, reinforces observations made
long ago by psychotherapists. But the
discussion about the treatment of traumatic memories should not be limited
to cognitive behavioral methods. Exposure therapy is but new wine in old
bottles. For decades, therapists have
been helping patients suffering from
traumatic experiences to talk about, or
uncover, their memories as a way to ease
the emotional power and meaning of
the past. The act of remembering requires the construction of new meaning
within the context of a relational experiencea fact well appreciated by psychoanalytic theory. Survivors of trauma
frequently put themselves in situations
that remind them of the trauma they
suffered, and this typically has the effect
of solidifying the pain associated with
these memories. As the psychoanalyst
Hans Loewald wrote in 1960, it is by remembering and internalizing new
w experiences with the therapist that patients
can turn ghosts into ancestors.
Cathy Siebold
Cambridge, Mass.

t
Letters should be sent with the writers name,
address, and daytime phone number via e-mail
to themail@newyorker.com. Letters and Web
comments may be edited for length and clarity,
and may be published in any medium. We regret
that owing to the volume of correspondence
we cannot reply to every letter or return letters.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

11

GOINGS ON
ABOUT TOWN
J U N E 
2014

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No matter how popular Governors Island becomes, it always feels like a getaway. To arrive by ferry
from lower Manhattan or Brooklyn Bridge Parkis to retrace the watery journey of the Spanish, Italian,
and Dutch settlers who sailed New York Harbor centuries ago. This summer, the ferries run seven days a
week, which means more chances to swing in one of the islands fifty red hammocks, bike on its car-free
streets, or play on the mini-golf course created by local artists. There are plans to make Governors Island
accessible year-round, but for now it remains a seasonal pleasure, ending on Labor Day.

photog r a p h by Da n ie l A r n ol d

THE THEATRE
art | classical music
FOOD & DRINK | DANCE
movies | ABOVE & BEYOND
NIGHT LIFE

T TEATRE

Openings and Previews


Ayckbourn Ensemble
The centerpiece off Brits Offf Broadway is this
trio off comedies by Alan Ayckbourn, playing in
repertory: Arrivals and Departures (opens June 4),
Farcicals: A Double Bill off Frivolous Comedies
(opens June 10), and Time off My Life (opens
June 11). Ayckbourn directs the Stephen Joseph
Theatre productions. In previews. (59E59, at 59
E. 59th St. 212-279-4200.)
Carnival Kids
Lucas Kavner wrote this play, directed by Stephen
Brackett, in which an unemployed former rock
star moves in with his grown son, who is adopted.
Previews begin June 5. Opens June 9. (TBG, 312
W. 36th St. 212-868-4444.)
Clown Bar
Pipeline Theatre Company presents an encore of
this play by Adam Szymkowicz, with music and
lyrics by Adam Overett, in which a man returns
to his clowning life after his junkie brother is
found dead. Andrew Neisler directs. Saturdays
only. Previews begin June 14. (The Box, 189
Chrystie St. 800-838-3006.)
Fly by Night: A New Musical
Playwrights Horizons presents the New York
premire off a musical by Kim Rosenstock, Will
Connolly, and Michael Mitnick, set during the
Northeast blackout off 1965, in which a sandwichmaker meets a pair off sisters. Carolyn Cantor
directs. In previews. Opens June 11. (416 W. 42nd
St. 212-279-4200.)

Shakespeare in the Park begins its season with Much Ado About Nothing.

Marriage material
Lily Rabe once again finds love at the Delacorte.

, observed, are always marrying


down. Is Orlando truly worthy of Rosalind, with her panoptic wit? How does Viola
wind up with that ninny Orsino? Perhaps thats why playing a Shakespearean heroine
requires not just poise but a hint of sourness. For the past few years, Lily Rabe has been
Shakespeare in the Parks go-to interpreter of these sharp but compromising women,
having appeared as Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Rosalind in As You Like
It. Beginning June 3, she plays Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, directed
by Jack OBrien. Beneath Rabes alabaster beauty is a shrewd intelligence marked by
disillusionment, and a vulnerability that allows her characters to get swept off
ff their feet
despite themselves. Still, theres a pool of regret, even solitude, in matrimony. Rabe
knows that to be as brilliant as Rosalind or Portia means brooking disappointment,
which in Beatrice takes the form of sublime feistiness.
Im sure Balanchine felt this way when he found certain dancers, Oskar Eustis, the
artistic director of the Public Theatre, said recently of Rabe. But she wasnt hard to find.
Her father, the playwright David Rabe, made his name at the Public, and her mother
was the great stage and screen actress Jill Clayburgh, who died in 2010, as Rabe was in
previews of The Merchant of Venice. (Rabe memorably went back onstage the next
day.) Rabe is thirty-one, not much younger than her mother was in her star-making
turn in Paul Mazurskys 1978 film, An Unmarried Woman, and Eustis sees echoes of
Clayburgh in her daughters strange combination of strength and fragility. Like Kevin
Kline and Liev Schreiber, Rabe is one of the Delacortes homegrown talents, as is her
Benedick this summer, Hamish Linklater. As she gains more visibility on televisionin
her recurring role in American Horror Story and in the upcoming ABC series The
Whisperslets hope she keeps finding herself in Central Park, falling in love with
some dopey guy by moonlight.
Michael Schulman
16

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

Holler if Ya Hear Me
Todd Kreidler wrote this new musical, based
on the lyrics off Tupac Shakur, about life on the
streets. The cast includes Tonya Pinkins; Kenny
Leon directs. In previews. (Palace, Broadway at
47th St. 877-250-2929.)
Hot Season
Strange Sun Theatre presents a play by Evan
Mueller, in which a group off friends attempt
to escape a life-threatening epidemic by taking
shelter at a cabin in the woods. Kevin J. Kittle
directs. Previews begin June 13. Opens June 16.
(Black Box, 18 Bleecker St. 866-811-4111.)
The Lion
The composer and singer Benjamin Scheuer
wrote and performs this autobiographical musical,
about his coming off age. Sean Daniels directs,
for Manhattan Theatre Club. Previews begin
June 10. (City Center Stage II, 131 W. 55th St.
212-581-1212.)
Macbeth
Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branaghs staging of
the Shakespeare play stars Branagh as Macbeth
and Alex Kingston as Lady Macbeth, in their
New York stage dbuts. In previews. Opens June
5. (Park Avenue Armory, Park Ave. at 66th St.
212-933-5812.)
Much Ado About Nothing
Jack OBrien directs Lily Rabe, as Beatrice, and
Hamish Linklater, as Benedick, in the opening
play off the Publics free Shakespeare in the Park
season. In previews. Opens June 16. (Delacorte,
Central Park. Enter at 81st St. at Central Park
W. 212-967-7555.)
The Muscles in Our Toes
Labyrinth Theatre Company presents a dark
comedy by Stephen Belber, in which four friends
ILLUSTRATION BY SOPHIA FOSTER-DIMINO

Also Notable
Act One

Vivian Beaumont.
Through June 15.
After Midnight

Brooks Atkinson
Aladdin

New Amsterdam
All the Way

Neil Simon
American Hero

McGinn/Cazale.
Through June 15.
BeautifulThe Carole
King Musical

Stephen Sondheim
Bullets Over Broadway

St. James
Cabaret

Studio 54
Casa Valentina

Samuel J. Friedman
The City of Conversation

Mitzi E. Newhouse
The Cripple of Inishmaan

convene at their high-school reunion


and hatch a plan to rescue a friend
who was kidnapped by a radical political group. Anne Kauffman directs.
Previews begin June 14. (Bank Street
Theatre, 155 Bank St. 212-513-1080.)
Our New Girl
Gaye Taylor Upchurch directs the
U.S. premire of a play by Nancy
Harris, about a London woman with
a problematic son who receives a
mysterious visit from a professional
nanny. Mary McCann stars. In previews. Opens June 10. (Atlantic Stage
2, at 330 W. 16th St. 866-811-4111.)
The Village Bike
MCC presents this play by Penelope
Skinner, starring Greta Gerwig, Jason
Butler Harner, and Scott Shepherd,
about a pregnant woman who takes
her desires into her own hands when
she buys a used bike. Sam Gold
directs. In previews. Opens June 10.
(Lucille Lortel, 121 Christopher St.
212-352-3101.)

Cort
Early Shaker Spirituals

Performing Garage.
Through June 15.
A Gentlemans Guide to
Love and Murder

Walter Kerr
Heathers: The Musical

New World Stages


Hedwig and the Angry
Inch

Belasco
Here Lies Love

Public
If/Then

Richard Rodgers
Just Jim Dale

Laura Pels
Lady Day at Emersons
Bar & Grill

Circle in the Square


Matilda the Musical

Shubert
Les Misrables

Imperial
Mothers and Sons

Golden
Motown: the Musical

Lunt-Fontanne
Of Mice and Men

Longacre
Once

Jacobs
A Raisin in the Sun

Ethel Barrymore.
Through June 15.
The Realistic Joneses

Lyceum
Rocky

Winter Garden
Too Much Sun

Vineyard
Violet

American Airlines Theatre


Wicked

Gershwin

18

When January Feels Like


Summer
Cori Thomas wrote this play, about
the effect that five Harlem residents
have on one another and the world
around them. Daniella Topol directs
the Ensemble Studio Theatre and Page
73 co-production. In previews. Opens
June 5. (Ensemble Studio Theatre,
549 W. 52nd St. 866-811-4111.)
When We Were Young and
Unafraid
Cherry Jones, Zoe Kazan, Cherise
Boothe, Patch Darragh, and Morgan
Saylor star in a new play by Sarah
Treem, in which a woman running a
womens shelter takes issue with the
influence that one of the residents
has over her teen-age daughter. Pam
MacKinnon directs the Manhattan
Theatre Club production. In previews.
Opens June 17. (City Center Stage I,
131 W. 55th St. 212-581-1212.)
The Who & the What
LCT3 presents a new play by Ayad
Akhtar, in which a young woman
clashes with her Muslim family over
the book she has written about women
and Islam. Kimberly Senior directs.
In previews. Opens June 16. (Claire
Tow, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200.)

3
Now Playing
The Anthem
Theres plenty of talent among
the thirteen cast members in this
unrelentingly high-camp adaptation
of the 1938 Ayn Rand novella. As
directed, choreographed, and designed by Rachel Klein, the musical
employs techno-rock singing, break
dancing, acrobatics, gymnastics, and
roller skating, among other theatrical disciplinessome of it pretty
impressivebut to what end? The
book, by Gary Morgenstein, which
is set, the program stipulates, many

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

centuries after the early 1980s, tells a


dull, jokey story about a totalitarian
state thats battled by a rebel army
of forest fugitives. The songs, by
Jonnie Rockwell and Erik Ransom,
are lyrically tortured and melodically challenged. The performers,
who include Jason Gotay (SpiderMan), Jenna Leigh Green (Sabrina,
the Teenage Witch), Remy Zaken
(Spring Awakening), and Randy
Jones (the Village People), have been
encouraged to emote with wide,
mindless smiles and melodramatic
scowls, but their enthusiasm is not
contagious. (Lynn Redgrave Theatre,
45 Bleecker St. 866-811-4111.)
Chalk Farm
This topical two-hander, part of Brits
Off Broadway, is a crme brle
of a playcrackling surface, gooey
center. Set amid the London riots
in the summer of 2011, it concerns
Maggie (Julia Taudevin) and Jamie
(Thomas Dennis), a mother and her
adolescent son. When the burning and
looting kick off, Jamie finds himself
drawn out into the streets, to this
huge crack in the world. The writers,
Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin, delve
into Jamies disenfranchisement and
Maggies class-consciousness, while the
director, Neil Bettles, of ThickSkin,
keeps the sets fifteen screens flickering
and the sound design shuddering, the
better to foment anxiety and unease.
Unfortunately, the script devolves into
a syrupy encomium to maternal love
and sacrifice. And yet a little of the
disquiet lingers in the final lines, as
Jamie considers the consequences of
his actions. I would do it again, he
muses. Why not? Best fucking day
of my life. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th St.
212-279-4200. Through June 8.)
The Essential Straight &
Narrow
The main action of this surreal comedy, co-written by the theatre group
the Mad Ones and directed by Lila
Neugebauer, takes place in a motel
room in New Mexico in the nineteenseventies, where three members of
an L.A.-based country-music band
(Joe Curnutte, Stephanie Wright
Thompson, and Michael Dalto) are
hanging out with a local drag queen
(Marc Bovino) and working through
unfinished business while waiting for
their bus to be repaired. Occasionally,
though, with a change in lighting, the
play becomes about something else
entirely: in the same motel room, a
young actress (Thompson), all by
herself, rehearses a scene from a
melodramatic cop show in which she
is first seduced, and then shot. Theres
some good acting and funny jokes in
this imaginative collaboration, but its
ultimately more playful than deep.
(New Ohio Theatre, 154 Christopher
St. 888-596-1027. Through June 14.)
In the Park
This monologue by the writer and
performer Edgar Oliver (respect-

fully directed by Randy Sharp) is


beautifuland enthralling in its
undisguised but never tedious selfabsorption, in its command of the
spoken word, and in its demand for
love. Its a love story about moments
and sensations: Oliver rhapsodizes
about rain and darkness and the sun
and the soul music that he hears at
a McDonalds where he sometimes
goes to write. He ends his meditation with a scene of shared human
emotion: one evening, as he is leaving
Prospect Park, a young black man
suggests that they get together. Oliver
has felt invisible for much of his
life, an invisibility that he relished:
it freed him to feel more like an
element than like a person. But now,
in the park, he has been noticed, as
a man. (Reviewed in our issue of
6/2/14.) (Axis Theatre, 1 Sheridan
Sq. 212-352-3101. Through June 7.)
The Killer
Michael Shannon stars in this 1959
parable play by Eugene Ionesco,
translated by Michael Feingold,
about a serial killer on the loose in
an otherwise utopian city. Darko
Tresnjak directs the Theatre for a
New Audience production. (Polonsky
Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland
Pl., Brooklyn. 866-811-4111.)
Nomads
Julia Jarcho wrote this play, inspired
by the work of Jane Bowles, about
two American women in the nineteenthirties who take separate paths.
Alice Reagan directs, for Incubator
Arts Project. (St. Marks Church
In-the-Bowery, Second Ave. at 10th
St. 212-352-3101. Through June 15.)
Sawbones / The Diamond
Eater
A peculiar exercise in narrative
medicine. The celebrated costume
designer Carrie Robbins has adapted
two of her late husbands short
stories for the stage. The first
concerns a Civil War-era doctor
and his African-American protg as
they amputate the legs of wounded
soldiers, Union and Confederate.
The second relates an ostensibly
true story of surgical ingenuity at
a Second World War concentration
camp. Unsurprisingly, each one-act
is beautifully apparelled, but neither
Robbins nor the director, Tazewell
Thompson, has worked out how to
equip them for the theatre. Both
pieces feature stilted passages in
which characters explain settings
and circumstances directly to the
audience. Still, these speeches are
perhaps preferable to the dramatic
sequences, which tend toward the
overwrought. (Theres a particularly
mortifying childbirth scene, though
the kidney transplant fares better.)
Both works present a steadfastly
heroic picture of medical men. If
only they could doctor plays, too.
(HERE, 145 Sixth Ave., near Spring
St. 212-352-3101. Through June 7.)

ART

Cold-pressed Conceptualism: Josh Klines sculpture Skittles (2014) satirizes the juice-cleanse craze, life-style brands, and aspirational marketing.

Parklife
, damn traffic today,
reads the new white-on-pink mural by Ed Ruscha, above the
High Line at Twenty-second Street. On a recent afternoon, the
text doubled as a caption for a live-action cartoon, as a man on a
scooter wove his way through a gaggle of tourists. Nearby, teenagers held up handwritten signs advertising free hugs and yelled,
Its emotional Tuesday! Performance art? No, students from the
neighborhoods Fashion Industries high school, blowing off steam.
It can be hard to distinguish whats art and whats not on the
High Line. Archeo, a new exhibition of eight outdoor sculptures
by seven young artists, organized by the parks nimble curator,
Cecilia Alemani, plays to the idea of the High Line as a latter-day
Readymade. Marcel Duchamp turned his bicycle wheel, snow
shovel, and bottle rack into art with scant alteration. But the
former elevated railway, once overgrown and abandoned, is now
so groomed and urban-chic that its a ready-made backdrop for
Instagram.
The sites history surfaces in one of the shows strongest works:
Marianne Vitales Common Crossings, five salvaged railroad
switches (they allow trains to change tracks), installed vertically.
Below Twenty-fifth Street, the steel totems stand sentry, strange
hybrids of Richard Serra and Easter Island. A few blocks south, in
another twist on the Readymade, Yngve Holen sets down a pair of
gleaming industrial washing-machine drums in a glib piece, titled
Sensitive 4 Detergent, that does little more than turn a patch of
the High Line into a hillbilly front yard.
Plop art is a derogatory term for public sculpture, coined in
20

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

the late nineteen-sixties to describe inert minimalism in corporate


plazas. In Archeo, Isabelle Cornaro is guilty of plopping. Her
God Boxes, above Gansevoort Street, are black monoliths
embellished with casts of stars and twisted ropethe effect is
Louise Nevelson lite. Gavin Kenyons gray, fur-flecked blob on a
polychrome base, at Thirtieth Street, is ironically titled Realism
Marching Triumphantly Into the City, and seems aimed at
deflating the grandiosity of classical monuments. A bulls-eye its not.
In the shade of a magnolia tree near Twenty-sixth Street, a
flesh-pink slab by Antoine Catala sidesteps inertia through a
combination of technical ingenuity and old-fashioned creepiness: a
curved green prosthesis on the front of the sculpture slowly expands
and contracts, as if breathing. A few yards to the south, Jessica
Jackson Hutchins has a homier take on the concept of sculptures as
bodies: her ceramic assemblage kicks back in a hammock, slung so
far under the walkway that its easy to miss.
Bodies at rest become the citys restless bodies in motion in Josh
Klines brilliant Skittles, near the Standard hotel. An illuminated
deli display case is stocked with rows of colorful drinks in ridiculous
flavorsWilliamsburg, Big Data, Nightlifemade from
surprising ingredients. (Condo blends coconut water, HDMI
cable, infant formula, turmeric, and yoga mats.) Think of Skittles
as Duchamps Bottle Rack, updated for the age of aspirational
marketing, when even a smoothie can be spun as a status symbol.
The case is locked and the bottles are beyond reach, but you can
press your nose to the glass.
Andrea K. Scott

TIMOTHY SCHNECK/FRIENDS OF THE HIGH LINE

Playing hide-and-seek at a sculpture show on the High Line.

Museums Short List


Metropolitan Museum

The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy:


British Art and Design.
Through Oct. 26.
Museum of Modern Art

Alibis: Sigmar Polke,


1963-2010. Through Aug. 3.
MOMA PS1

James Lee Byars:


1/2 an Autobiography.
Opens June 15.
Guggenheim Museum

Italian Futurism, 1909-1944:


Reconstructing the Universe.
Through Sept. 1.
Whitney Museum

American Legends: From


Calder to OKeeffe.
Through June 29.
Brooklyn Museum

Ai Weiwei: According to
What? Through Aug. 10.
American Museum of
Natural History

Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age


of Dinosaurs. Through Jan. 4.
Bronx Museum

Beyond the Supersquare.


Through Jan. 11.
Morgan Library & Museum

Marks of Genius: Treasures


from the Bodleian Library.
Opens June 6.
New Museum

Ragnar Kjartansson: Me, My


Mother, My Father, and I.
Through June 29.
Queens Museum

13 Most Wanted Men: Andy


Warhol and the 1964 Worlds
Fair. Through Sept. 7.
SCULPTURECENTER

Katrn Sigurdardttir.
Through July 27.
Studio Museum in Harlem

When the Stars Begin to Fall:


Imagination and the American
South. Through June 29.
Galleries Short List
Uptown

Lynda Barry
Baumgold
Through July 11.
Dawoud Bey
Boone
Through June 28.
Chelsea

Darren Bader
Kreps
Through June 21.
Mika Rottenberg
Rosen
Through June 14.
Downtown

Polly Apfelbaum
Clifton Benevento
Through Aug. 8.
Sarah Charlesworth
Maccarone
Through June 21.

22

Museums and Libraries


International Center of
Photography
Urbes Mutantes: Latin
American Photography
1944-2013
Although Mutant Cities, as
the shows title translates, is too
quirky and scattershot to be really
groundbreaking, it explores its
subject with real verve. In seven
decades worth of material, only
a few namesGraciela Iturbide,
Miguel Rio Branco, Enrique
Metinides, Gabriel Orozcoare
already familiar, so theres much
to discover. Organized by themes
(Nightlife,Identities,The Forgotten Ones), the show emphasizes
street work, pop culture, portraiture,
and social engagement, including
fascinating protest documentation.
Pictures by Barbara Brandli, Pablo
Ortiz Monasterio, Victor Robledo,
and Leon Ruiz whet the appetite
for more, and vitrines of posters
and publications add to the shows
gritty texture and savvy feel for
the histories of Latin America.
Through Sept. 7.
Frick Collection
The Poetry of Parmigianinos
Schiava Turca
Not a single American museum has
a portrait by the greatest Mannerist, so roll out the bunting for this
painting of a mysterious woman, on
loan from the Galleria Nazionale
di Parma: her cheeks are ruddy,
her shoulders are sloped, and her
elongated fingers daintily curve
around an ostrich-feather fan. The
sitter is unknown, but shes definitely
not a Turkish slave, as the title
has it. Her large headdress is not
a turban but a balzo, a Northern
Italian courtly luxury, to which shes
affixed a gold ornament depicting
Pegasus, the classical symbol of
poetic inspiration. (The fan may
offer a clue about her identity: the
sixteenth-century Italian word for
fan was piume, whose singular,
piuma, means pen, and some
scholars suggest that she may be
Veronica Gambara, a poet and
stateswoman who ruled the small
court of Correggio.) The painting
hangs alongside another, lesser Parmigianino, from a private collection,
augmented by a few portraits from
the Fricks stash, including Titians
depiction of the Venetian satirist
Pietro Aretino. Through July 20.

3
GalleriesUptown
Anna Maria Maiolino
After emigrating to Brazil during
the years of military dictatorship,
the Italian-born sculptor and draftswoman found her voice in intricate,
almost obsessive geometric abstractions. Now a woman whom the
dictatorship tortured is President,
and Maiolino, at seventy-two, is
doing the most visceral work of

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

her career. Small metal towers with


suspended ceramic forms, some still
bearing her fingerprints, are as elegiac
as anything by Louise Bourgeois;
gouged slabs of meringue-like plaster
or eroded blocks of cement translate
bodily processes or environmental
destruction into volatile form. Some
unexpectedly punk videos, featuring extreme closeups of Maiolino,
complete the portrait of an artist at
once private and confident. Through
June 21. (Hauser & Wirth, 32 E. 69th
St. 212-794-4970.)

3
GalleriesChelsea
Mark Cohen
Working on the streets of his
coal-blackened home town, WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania, Cohen makes
rude, alarming, and often hilarious
photographs that could almost be
mistaken for drunken snapshots.
The pictures are radically cropped,
lopping off heads and feet and
zeroing in on grimy knees, gesturing hands, and a bare midriff. The
hectic mood of this terrific show of
color and black-and-white images
is broken only by a few back-alley
landscapes and still-lifes of debris on
the ground, including a gum wrapper
that has the uncanny presence of
a tiny Claes Oldenburg sculpture.
Through June 20. (Danziger, 527
W. 23rd St. 212-629-6778.)
Rebecca Horn
The veteran German artist is best
known for performances and wearable
objects that she called body extensions, but lately Horn has turned
to lyrical, subtly kinetic sculptures
that mix natural and mechanical
materials. They incorporate branches
and volcanic stone and only slowly
reveal their motorized elements,
such as a pair of little gold sticks
that move up and down like a
praying mantis. Marcel Duchamps
Montgolfire, one of the best works
here, replicates one of the masters
spinning squiggles with two rotating
mirrors. As they turn, the light they
reflect onto the white gallery walls
transmutes from a circle to an oval
and then, thrillingly, to a glowing
hot-air balloon. Through June 21.
(Sean Kelly, 475 Tenth Ave., at 36th
St. 212-239-1181.)
Jorinde Voigt
The swooping lines in this Berlinbased artists intricate, large-scale
drawings seem at first to have
some scientific significance. On
closer inspection, however, the
drawings resolve into a hermetic,
highly personal disquisition on the
history of love in Western Europe,
with annotations borrowed from
the writings of the prolific German sociologist Niklas Luhmann.
Peculiar, sometimes breathtaking
forms, from a gold-and-red double
helix to floating clouds and virus-like
spiky balls, are ringed by obsessive

glosses on what Voigt, following


Luhmann, calls the codification
of intimacy. You wont make out
every detail, but her superb drawings are far more than the sum of
their sometimes inscrutable parts.
Through June 21. (Nolan, 527 W. 29th
St. 212-925-6190.)

3
GalleriesDowntown
Liz Deschenes
Conceptually elegant and rigorously
minimal, Descheness new installation frames the gallerys empty
space with what appear to be two
pairs of V-shaped steel bars, facing
each other across the room. But
what looks like smudged, striated
metal is actually the glossy surface
of a seven-foot-high silver-toned
photogram, which was exposed
to moonlight in the course of a
night. There are no images here,
only phenomenafugitive traces of
atmosphere brushing up against a
sensitive surface. Balancing subtleties
of process and perception, Deschenes
continues to pare her work down
to an alluring but elusive essence.
Through June 25. (Abreu, 36 Orchard
St. 212-995-1774.)
Bill Jenkins
This young Brooklyn-based artist
has stuffed the gallerys bay windows with reflective foil, shaped
the material in one corner into
a funnel, and attached the stem
to a snaking duct that, so he tells
us, is mirrored on the inside. The
duct lets out in a basin inside a
dark room, and indeed a faint
reflection of daylight illuminates
the floor, but only just. Jenkins
wittily recycles emblems of sixties
art history (the foil is a Warhol
motif, the duct borrowed from the
minimalist Charlotte Posenenske)
for his act of institutional critique.
But the point seems to be that his
jerry-rigged apparatus is unreliable,
as if to acknowledge that art can
redirect the worlds energy only so
much. Through June 22. (Gitlen,
122 Norfolk St. 212-274-0761.)
Jason Loebs
This young artist, already a standout in group shows at the Swiss
Institute and Artists Space, seduces
with three monochrome canvases
covered with thermal grease in
lieu of paint: the surfaces are a
sunlight-gobbling black. There
are also three readymades of
heat-emitting carbon film, curved
into sculptures, and half a dozen
chunks of mineral orequartz
from Pakistan, azurite from China,
siderite from Arkansasto which
Loebs has applied the iridescent
ink used in banknotes to prevent
forgery. Hes the rare artist whose
use of unorthodox materials feels
necessary rather than tentative.
Through June 29. (Essex Street,
114 Eldridge St. 917-263-1001.)

cLASSical MUSIC

culture desk

Michael Schulman recaps the


best and the worst of the Tony
Awards, hosted by Hugh Jackman on
June 8. Plus, read reviews of Tonynominated shows.

Opera
Opera Orchestra of New York:
Roberto Devereux
The indomitable Eve Queler returns to Carnegie Hall to lead a
concert performance of Donizettis
bel-canto scorcher, loosely based on
the supposed, ill-starred love affair
between Queen Elizabeth I and her
favorite courtier, the Earl of Essex.
Stephen Costello, a prominent young
American tenor, takes the title role,
with Mariella Devia as Elizabeth.
(212-247-7800. June 5 at 7:30.)
Opera Cabal: ATTHIS
New Yorks always impressive American Contemporary Music Ensemble
joins the Chicago-based group in a
visit to an iconic Gotham venue,
the Kitchen; the main subject is
the music of Georg Friedrich Haas,
the admired Austrian modernist
composer, whose first season as a
Columbia professor is capped by a
performance of this work, a monodrama based on texts by Sappho.
Three short pieces by Marcos Balter,
who joins the faculty at Montclair
State University this fall, complete
the program. (512 W. 19th St. 212255-5793. June 12-13 at 8.)
Chelsea Opera:
The Tender Land
Coplands affecting opera of life
on the American prairie during the
Depression was always a little too
intimate for the full opera-house
treatment; it reached perfection,
however, in the widely performed

of note
Chelsea Music Festival

The uniquely wide-ranging festivalof new music, old music,


and food and drinkreturns for another year, under the joint
direction of the conductor Ken-David Masur and his wife, the
pianist Melinda Lee Masur. With the World Cup soon upon us,
this year has a German-Brazilian theme; the acclaimed composer
Alexandre Lunsqui, born in So Paulo, is in residence, with
the first of several events (a catered gala) featuring a worldpremire piece, as well as music by Villa-Lobos, C. P. E. Bach,
Augusta Read Thomas, and Richard Strauss. (Canoe Studios,
601 W. 26th St. chelseamusicfestival.org. June 6 at 7:30. Through
June 14.)
Music Mountain: Emerson String Quartet

This admirable festival, devoted to the art of the string quartet,


starts off its eighty-fifth season in high style: an unexpected visit
from the Emerson String Quartet, which, with its new cellist,
Paul Watkins, is concertizing widely. Its program is dark-hued:
Haydns Quartet in G Minor, Op. 20, No. 3; Mendelssohns
impassioned Quartet in F Minor, Op. 80; and Schuberts
monumental Death and the Maiden, the Quartet No. 14 in
D Minor. (Falls Village, Conn. 860-824-7126. June 7 at 6:30.)
24

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

chamber version, sensitively made by


the conductor Murry Sidlin, in 1987.
Chelsea, one of the citys essential
new companies, now takes it on,
with Joanie Brittingham in the role
of Laurie; Samuel McCoy conducts.
(St. Peters Episcopal Church, 346
W. 20th St. chelseaopera.org. June
13 at 7 and June 14 at 4.)

3
Orchestras and Choruses
Riverside Symphony
To close its thirty-third season,
George Rothmans intrepid orchestra
offers a program infused with the
spirit of elegant classicismmusic
by Nielsen, Prokofiev (the lyrical
and urbane Violin Concerto No. 2
in G Minor, with the young soloist
Haik Kazazyan), and Bizet (the
Symphony in C Major). The wild
card is the tone poem Turner, an
homage to the artist by the composer
Marius Constant. (Alice Tully Hall.
riversidesymphony.org. June 4 at 8.)
NY Phil Biennial
The last few days of Alan Gilberts
inaugural festival are packed with
high-profile events. Gilbert himself
conducts the first of two programs
with the orchestra, which welcomes
the violinist Midori as its guest;
shell be out front in the New York
premire of DoReMi, a concerto
by the distinguished Hungarian
composer-conductor Peter Etvs.
The concerts conclude with the
world-premire performances of the
Symphony No. 4 by the orchestras
current composer-in-residence,
Christopher Rouse; they open with a
piece by a yet-to-be-determined young
American composer, whose music
will be selected in a private reading
of six works by the Philharmonic
on June 3. (June 5 at 7:30 and June
7 at 8.)The Philharmonics final
concert begins with another piece
selected through the orchestras June
3 readings, and continues with two
eminent New York premires. The
first is Instances, one of the last
works by the late Elliott Carter; the
second is Reflections on Narcissus,
a cello concerto (with the magnetic
Alisa Weilerstein) by the German
composer Matthias Pintscher, who
conducts. (June 6 at 8.) (Avery
Fisher Hall. 212-875-5656. For tickets
and a full schedule of events, see
nyphil.org.)
The Beethoven Piano
Concertos: A Philharmonic
Festival
Alan Gilbert and the Philharmonic
are wrapping up their season in

the right way, with a series that


incorporates pieces by two superb
young American composers (each
a beneficiary of the Marie-Jose
Kravis Prize for New Music) into
concerts featuring the commanding
Yefim Bronfman. The center of the
first program belongs to Anthony
Cheung, who will enjoy the world
premire of his work Lyra; it is
bookended by Bronfmans performances of Beethovens Concertos No. 1 in C Major and No. 4 in
G Major. (Avery Fisher Hall. 212875-5656. June 11-12 at 7:30 and
June 13-14 at 8.)

3
Recitals
Transvocality: Music by
Mario Davidovsky
The music of this enduring Argentinean-American composer, ferociously
modernist but slyly expressive, is the
focus of the latest concert by the
excellent group Counter)Induction;
its musicians (including the violinist Miranda Cuckson) celebrate
the composers eightieth-birthday
year by performing such works as
Festino, the Duo Capriccioso, and
the Quartetto No. 4. (SubCulture,
45 Bleecker St. subculturenewyork.
com. June 7 at 8.)
Prism Quartet:
Heritage/Evolution
Prism, one of Americas finest saxophone quartets for three decades,
has been collaborating lately with
several renowned guest players in
a series of concerts in New York
and Philadelphia. In the final program, the group is joined by the
jazz saxophonists Dave Liebman
and Greg Osby in world-premire
performances of their own music.
(Symphony Space, Broadway at
95th St. symphonyspace.org. June
12 at 7:30.)
Early Music Festival: NYC
With the citys historical-performance
community now up to an international
level, its time to celebrate. This
new festival, co-directed by Donald
Meineke and Jolle Greenleaf, offers a
week of performances (most of which
are free) by ensembles both small
and large, each making a jubilant
sound. One of the first concerts is
given by the acclaimed vocal quartet
New York Polyphony, who will sing
Palestrinas seminal Missa Papae
Marcelli (along with music by
Andrew Smith) at the Church of
St. Jean Baptiste. (Lexington Ave.
at 76th St. emfnyc.org. June 13 at
7:30. Through June 19.)

FOOD &
DRINK
BAR TAB bohemian hall & beer
garden

Tables for Two

tavern on the green


Central Park West at 67th St. (212-877-8684)

, of renovations, Tavern on the Green reopened with


a bang, and this magazine ran a Talk of the Town story describing the two-and-ahalf-million-dollar, stop-at-nothing, one-thousand-seat-capacity update of the 1934
sheepfold turned restaurant. On the menu: New Zealand wild boar with gingered apples
and lingonberries ($9.50) and pizza ($2.50), prepared by fourteen French chefs. In
the brand-new, glass-walled Crystal Room: seven-foot-tall Baccarat chandeliers from
Indian palaces, a molded-plaster ceiling in light mint green, birthday-candle pink, and
telegraph-blank yellow, and a fantasy mural with flowers, birds, and butterflies. On
opening day, Mayor Abe Beame dipped into the worlds largest ice-cream sundae (7,250
pounds of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry Sealtest), drank a toast from a nine-litre
bottle of champagne that had crossed the Atlantic in a first-class Air France seat, and,
with a sword, cut into a sixteen-foot-long cake model of Central Park.
After an uncertain interlude following a bankruptcy in 2009, the phoenix has risen
again, under new management and with considerably less fanfare. On a recent evening, a
couple at the oval-shaped mahogany barcrowned by a gilded mobile of flying horses
didnt bother to hide their disappointment, complaining about the prices (Twenty-six
dollars for four slices of salmon, ya kiddin me?) and eulogizing: Remember the older
place? It was amazing. But nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of Ryan, a young
grad student from Queens, who was feeling lucky to be moonlighting as a server in the
former Crystal Room, now sparer and mostly white. The opportunity to resurrect a
landmark at twenty-four years old . . . He trailed off dreamily, before explaining that the
menu was divided by heat source into three categoriesThe Hearth, The Grill, and
The Planchaand that the hearth made a very intimate situation for a lamb shank.
That formidable bone-in hunk of meat, which comes with creamed chard, pickled
raisins, and roasted cauliflower, appeared on many tables, calling to mind the Disneyland
turkey legfitting, given the Taverns theme-park overtone, complete with gift shop
and doorman in jodhpurs and top hat. Like most things on the menu, the lamb sounds
better than it looks or tastes and costs more than it should. A Serrano ham, cave-aged
Gruyre, and sage sandwich amounts to a tiny, eighteen-dollar grilled cheese, and the
warm local squid salad is not so much a salad as it is a single squid. Of course, the
food is beside the point, and, judging from the restaurants past reputation, it might be
better now than ever before. Still, its a letdown to discover that the brownie sundae is
the worlds dinkiest, consisting of a grainy brownie, a single scoop of salted-caramel ice
cream, and a paint swipe of chocolate sauce. Mayor Beame had it good.
Hannah Goldfield
Open weekdays for lunch and dinner and weekends for brunch and dinner. Entres $24-$56.

26

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

PHOTOGRAPH BY TRUJILLOPAUMIER

ILLUSTRATION BY MATTHEW HOLLISTER

29-19 24th Ave., Astoria (718-274-4925)


Its not very good, a waitress said,
one balmy Sunday, of the Bohemians
house brew, Rhapsody, an unfiltered
wheat Pilsner. Guess Im just one of
those honest people! The Bohemian
is also just that kind of place: a man
offered a stranger bites of his goopy
potato salad; another fellow, in a
lime-green tank top, yelled Come
join us! to the stranger, as she fled
the potato-pusher. The self-professed
oldest beer garden in New York
Citytree-shaded picnic tables,
populous smoking sectionand the
adjoining cedar barrooms are owned
by the Bohemian Citizens Benevolent
Society of Astoria, which opened
as a social club in 1910. Some of the
superior beers now on tap are the
citrusy Franziskaner Weissbier and
the White Aphro, which has strong
lavender notes, as servers warn men
who order it. The hefty snacks remain
mostly Czech and Slovakutopenec,
palacinka, smazakbut the crowd has
grown more diverse. Spanish speakers
in sundresses deemed Tel Aviv like,
the spot. Other ladies debated the
merits of Armenian baklava versus
Greek. Vying for best-represented
minority were Mets fans and toddlers;
the latter swarmed a stage that hosts
polka performances. Finally, a patron
was allowed to sample the Rhapsody.
It tastes like Busch Light, the drinker
said, before tossing out another
comparison, to a different liquid, of a
similar hue.
Emma Allen

DANCE
GOINGS ON, ONLINE

See our Web site for details


about Bill Frisell, who is leading
an exploration of the electric
guitar in America, and an
appearance by the saxophoneheavy Microscopic Septet.

FRONT ROW

Richard Brody surveys MOMAs


retrospective of films made by
the studio MK2 and its founder,
Marin Karmitz.

New York City Ballet


George Balanchines A Midsummer
Nights Dream (1962), the perfect
prologue to summer, returns in the
companys final week at Lincoln Center. What makes thisBalanchines
first wholly original story ballet, set
to Mendelssohns witty scoresuch
a delight? Could it be the swarms of
children from the company school
swirling across the stage as gossamerwinged fireflies, or the quicksilver
scherzo for Oberon, king of the fairies,
in which his feet seem to barely touch
the ground? (This solo was created
for Edward Villella, who had two of
the fastest feet around.) Then, there
is the ballets tight construction,
with its compressed first act, which
leaves room in the second half for a
series of divertissements, including
one of Balanchines most limpid pas
de deux. (David H. Koch, Lincoln
Center. 212-496-0600. June 4-5 at
7:30, June 6 at 8, June 7 at 2 and 8,
and June 8 at 3.)
American Ballet Theatre
This season, the company replaces
its intermittently compelling production of Cinderella with Frederick
Ashtons gem, created in 1948 for the
Royal Ballet. Ashton responded to
Prokofievs sweeping and occasionally
prickly score by creating a ballet that
is both riotously funnythe ugly
stepsisters are played, pantomime
style, by menand an example of the
highest classical refinement. Some of
the ballets most striking moments
are the simplest, as when the heroine
enters the ballroom, slowly floating
down a long staircase on pointe.
Ashtons Cinderella receives its
company premire on June 9, with
the delicate Hee Seo in the role of
Cinderella and the tall, elegant Cory
Stearns as her prince. Another promising cast pairs Gillian Murphya
particularly lush dancerwith the
even more princely David Hallberg.

of note Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre

For the second year in a row, the beloved troupe offers a short
spring season at Lincoln Center, where it projects marvellously
from the big stage. The premire is The Pleasure of the
Lesson, by Robert Moses, a San Francisco choreographer
whose ambitious ideas can escape his structural control. The
repertory pieces on three of the four programs (the fourth is
a dud) exhibit an impressive historical and stylistic range, from
the balletic futurism of Wayne McGregors Chroma to Awassa
Astrige, a 1932 curio for a man in ostrich feathers. A selection of
Ailey dances to Duke Ellington comes right in the middle. (David
H. Koch, Lincoln Center. 212-496-0600. June 11 at 7, June 12 and
June 17 at 7:30, June 13 at 8, June 14 at 2 and 8, and June 15 at 3
and 7:30. Through June 22.)
28

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

Before that, the company presents


eight performances of Kenneth MacMillans Manon, a real bodice-ripper,
set to a compilation of Massenet
orchestral music.June 2-3 and June
5-6 at 7:30, June 4 at 2 and 7:30, and
June 7 at 2 and 8: Manon.June
9-10 and June 12-13 at 7:30, June 11
at 2 and 7:30, and June 14 at 2 and
8: Cinderella. (Metropolitan Opera
House, Lincoln Center. 212-362-6000.
Through July 5.)
Ronald K. Brown/Evidence
As a choreographer, Brown has many
strengthsintensity within ease,
rhythmic persuasionbut structural
variety isnt one of them. So its regrettable that the brilliant jazz pianist
Jason Moran, who composed music
for this premire, offered a suite,
Browns go-to form. The subject of
The Subtle One, the manifestation
of spiritual grace, is also well-trod
ground for him. But Browns repetitions outshine most choreographers
novelties, especially when embodied
by his superb dancers, who are joined
by the Alvin Ailey superstar Matthew
Rushing in the second program.
(Joyce Theatre, 175 Eighth Ave., at
19th St. 212-242-0800. June 3-4 at
7:30, June 5-6 at 8, June 7 at 2 and
8, and June 8 at 2 and 7:30.)
Platform 2014: Diary of an
Image
Diary of an Image, the centerpiece
of Danspace Projects four-week focus
on DD Dorvillier, is a solo for the
choreographer. Or, at least, shes the
only person dancing in the work,
which was made in collaboration
with the composer Zeena Parkins,
the lighting designer Thomas Dunn,
and the set designer Olivier Vadrot.
Using borrowed heel-and-toe steps as
a kind of indecipherable Morse code,
Dorvillier works as much with sound
as with image. (St. Marks Church
In-the-Bowery, Second Ave. at 10th
St. 866-811-4111. June 6-7 and June
12-14 at 8.)
ZviDance
The veteran choreographer Zvi Gotheiner can make vigorous, charged
dances that get under your skin. But
hes also fond of the-way-we-live-now
gimmicks. In Zoom, from 2010,
he invited the audience to e-mail
suggestions for choreography during the show and to take pictures
with their phones. His new piece,
Surveillance, features live video
of dancers and spectators, and Scott
Killians sound design incorporates
recorded conversations between
audience members captured during the show. Watch what you say.
(New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th
St. 212-924-0077. June 11-13 at 7:30
and June 14 at 2 and 7:30.)
Cedar Lake Contemporary
Ballet
Founded ten years ago by a Walmart
heiress, the company is an indubi-

table success; each year, it presents


high-energy seasons of new works
by the hottest names in European
contemporary dance. Adjectives
like full-throttle, edgy, and indefatigable apply. (If some of the
repertory tends to blend together,
that says more about the state of
contemporary ballet than about the
company.) To mark its first decade,
the troupe appears at BAM for the
first time, with three programs of
recent hits. On Program A, Orbo
Novo, by the Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, is an
evening-length exploration, through
dance and text, of Jill Bolte Taylors
surprising account of her sensations
while suffering a stroke. Program
B is anchored by Violet Kid, a
militaristic, dystopian take on group
dynamics, by the U.K.-based Israeli
choreographer Hofesh Shechter.
Perhaps the most interesting work of
the lot, Crystal Pites Grace Engine
(on Program C), is constructed
as a series of enigmatic vignettes
that reveal the surreality buried
in everyday life. (BAMs Howard
Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette
Ave., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. June
11-14 at 7:30.)
Ballet Tech / Kids Dance
Ballet Tech is an extraordinary institution: a free elementary school,
serving grades four through eight,
with a focus on academics and
dance. Admission to the academy,
which was founded more than three
decades ago by the choreographer
Eliot Feld, is based wholly on merit.
At the Joyce, these talented pupils
perform a mixed bill of three works
by Feld: his clever Stair Dance,
based on a series of minutely evolving
patterns; the hoedown-like Apple
Pie, set to lively music by Bela
Fleck; and KYDZNY, a new work
created especially for the occasion
to music by the Brooklyn-based
Raya Brass Band. Try to catch the
June 12 performance, when the
band plays live. (175 Eighth Ave.,
at 19th St. 212-242-0800. June 12
at 8, June 13 at 7, June 14 at 2 and
7, and June 15 at 2.)
Rioult
To celebrate his companys twentieth anniversary, Pascal Rioult,
whose established choreographic
skills certainly include borrowing, owns up to his influences by
programming works by some of his
mentors. Thus, Martha Grahams
El Penitente (1940) and May
ODonnells Suspension (1943),
though theyre in an antiquated style
thats difficult for contemporary
dancers to pull off, have a chance
to overshadow his bland Views of
the Fleeting World (2008). The
second program features a Rioult
premire set to Tchaikovsky. (Joyce
Theatre, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th
St. 212-242-0800. June 17 at 7:30.
Through June 22.)

MOVIES
smart alec
Alec Guinnesss centenary, celebrated at
Film Forum.

of Alec Guinnesss
birth fell, without fanfare, on April 2nd.
He would not have lamented the lack of
trumpets. His life had begun with a blank,
the space for his fathers name left unfilled
on his birth certificate, and, to judge by the
titles of his memoir and journals (Blessings
in Disguise, My Name Escapes Me),
he never lost his taste for a vanishing act.
Alone among the great performers, he
resolved a paradox: how to be a star without
being the center of attentionor, at least,
while giving no sign that you crave such a
prominent spot. When Laurence Olivier
played King Lear onstage, in 1946, it was
Guinness, pattering around him as the
Fool, with a mime-white face, and with his
lines shorn to a bald minimum, who stuck
in the minds eye. They also shine who only
stand and serve.
Nonetheless, as though by accident,
Guinness grew into a heroor, rather,
into one of lifes supporting players who
had heroism thrust upon him, whether
he liked it or not. He oozed or scampered
through one Ealing comedy after another,
making The Lavender Hill Mob and
The Man in the White Suit in a single
year, 1951, and British moviegoers,
canvassed for their favorites, kept putting
Guinness on the list. Cool at times,
even remote, he gave them something
to warm to. Shifting shape, he remained
unmistakable; who knew that chameleons
possessed so robust a soul? Where Peter
Sellerswho worshipped Guinness, and
scrutinized him avidly when they worked
on The Ladykillers (1955)would
spend himself in a fury of impersonation,
Guinness gave no hint of a hollow core.
He found a still point in the turning world.
30

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

Late but loyal, Film Forum is running


a Guinness series, from June 13 to July 3.
Most of the obvious candidates are there,
including Kind Hearts and Coronets,
of which nobody could tire, and the six
movies that he made with David Lean.
(So fair and fresh does he seem as Herbert
Pocket, in Leans Great Expectations,
from 1946, that its hard to remember
that Guinness was already over thirty, and
that he had commanded a Royal Navy
landing craft in the invasion of Sicily. He
was tougher and more seasoned than he
looked.) Embedded in the retrospective are
semiprecious gems: The Mudlark (1950),
in which Guinness, relishing the role of
Disraeli, holds the House of Commons in
his practiced palm, and The Scapegoat
(1959), adapted by Gore Vidal from a
Daphne du Maurier story. Guinness fails
to mention the film in his memoir, but
Vidal, in his own memoir, Palimpsest,

recalls it all too well, not least Guinnesss


attitude toward the author: Alec, a very
literary man, was not only patiently tactful
but treated her with all the skill of a slightly
edgy psychiatrist soothing a potential
werewolf at dusk.
Certainly, few actors have been more
expert at the smoothing of feathers, or had
more of a knack for the mot juste. Invited
to comment on a seedy German night
club, in the miniseries Smileys People,
Guinness replies, It was very artistic,
with the faintest of pauses before the final
word. Gather all the trades and talents
that he displayed onscreen, and you end
up with the most curious of amalgams:
prince, priest, bank clerk, shrink, dictator,
Jedi, vacuum-cleaner salesman, thinker,
sailor, soldier, spy. Much was revealed
in the serious games that Alec Guinness
played. More remains unknown.
Anthony Lane
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Now Playing
Belle
This rousing historical fantasia,
which is loosely based on a true
story, uses Jane Austens novels as
a template. In the late eighteenth
century, two beautiful half cousins,
Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon)
and Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu
Mbatha-Raw), live together as loving friends under the protection of
their uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom
Wilkinson), the Chief Justice of
England. Dido, who is the daughter
of a British sea captain and his
African slave mistress, becomes an
heiress. In different circumstances,
this elegant young woman might
have been someone elses property,
but shes now capable of conferring
property of her own on cash-poor
aristocratic suitors. Not much is
known about the historical Dido,
and the British filmmakersthe
director, Amma Asante, and the
screenwriter, Misan Sagayconcoct
a liberationist fiction in which Dido
becomes conscious of herself as a
black woman after listening to the
fiery anti-slavery rhetoric of a parsons
son (Sam Reid), who falls in love
with her. Dido goes on to influence
the British abolitionist movement.
Factually, the movie is probably a
fraud, but its crisply entertaining,
and Mbatha-Raw, born in Oxford
and acting since she was a child,
delivers her increasingly confident
lines with tremulous emotion and,
finally, radiant authority.David
Denby (Reviewed in our issue of
5/19/14.) (In limited release.)
Blended
Two suburban single parents (Adam
Sandler and Drew Barrymore) meet
on a disastrous blind date and vow not
to meet again, but their paths cross
at a resort, where their childrenhis
three girls, her two boysbring them
together. The corn of the setup is
sweetened by the stars easygoing
chemistry. Sandler, a live-action Fred
Flintstone with a wry garlic drawl,
lends heart and humor to the secular
Jewish Everyman, and Barrymore
earnest, febrile, breathlesshints at
real pain beneath a perky veneer. But
the details are an embarrassment: the
resort is in South Africa, referred to
almost always only as Africa, and
its black staff members engage in
the sort of obsequious glad-handing,
often involving song and dance, that
harks back to grotesquely racist stereotypes, which pass unquestioned
and seemingly unnoticed. (The many
nonwhite patrons of the resort are
just part of the dcor.) For that matter, the plot, with Sandler playing
sports dad to an athletically frustrated
boy and Barrymore restyling one
of the motherless girls, rests on
equally retrograde gender models.
These blundering dogmas come
off, doubtless unintentionally, as an
incisive critique of the heart-catching
sentiment of family life. Directed

by Frank Coraci.Richard Brody (In


wide release.)
Cold in July
Strictly for connoisseurs of violent
genre pulp. In East Texas, in 1989,
an ordinary guy with a mullet
(Michael C. Hall) kills an intruder
in his house, only to find himself
caught up in a miasma of revenge,
police corruption, Mafia-made snuff
films, and vigilantism. The story,
an adaptation by the director, Jim
Mickle, and the co-writer, Nick
Damici, of a cult novel by Joe R.
Lansdale, isnt credible for a minute, but Mickle has an undeniable
talent for sustained and terrifying
scenes of stalking and violence. The
blood flows plentifully. With Sam
Shepard, now somewhat gaunt, as
a hard-souled, taciturn ex-con, and
Don Johnson, as an amiably fearless
private eye; they are both excellent.
The talented Vinessa Shaw, as the
heros wife, is badly underused.
Shot in upstate New York.D.D.
(In limited release.)
The Double
This pseudo-expressionist folly, based
on the early Dostoyevsky novella,
features a general atmosphere of
looming paranoia and characters
walking down endless corridors,
accompanied by vague howls. Yet its
worth seeing for Jesse Eisenbergs
amusing dual portrayal of a weakwilled office worker, Simon James,
and his malicious doppelgnger,
James Simon, who shows up at the
office (some kind of steampunk
data center) and aces out Simon
at work and in bed. With Wallace
Shawn, as a domineering boss, and
Mia Wasikowska, as a dreamy love
object. Written by the British comic
Richard Ayoade and Avi Korine, and
directed by Ayoade.D.D. (6/2/14)
(In limited release.)

day; Costas ritual of mourning, on


both sides of the camera, fulfills
the familys cinematic dreams with
a self-dramatizing flair.R.B. (In
limited release.)
Godzilla
The beast is back. Contractually
obliged to rise from the waves at
irregular intervals, and with no
visible improvement to either his
temper or his complexion, he surfaces
once more in Gareth Edwardss
movie. The story ranges from 1999
to the present day, and from the
Philippines to San Francisco, with
enjoyably manic excursions to Japan,
Hawaii, Las Vegas, and other centers
of interest along the way. In case
the monster gets lonely or bored,
Edwards provides him with rival
behemoths, one of whom even sports
a pair of ponderous wings, like the
worlds most inelegant dragonfly.
In terms of geopolitical fallout, the
film gives off a weaker signal than
Edwardss Monsters (2010), which
was infinitely cheaper, more patient,
and more febrile with anxiety. Still, as
the skies darken, in the second half,
the action acquires a grim grandeur,
and Edwards seems happiest in the
company of the inhuman, with all the
little people brushed aside.Anthony
Lane (5/26/14) (In wide release.)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
This elegiac 2003 comedy, by the
Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang,
is a requiem for a movie theatre.
He dramatizes the closing of Taipeis
cavernous Fu-Ho Grand Theatre
and its final screening, of King Hus
martial-arts classic Dragon Inn.
The show attracts only a handful of
patrons, including a puckish Japanese
tourist (Mitamura Kiyonobu) whose
command of his bewildered gaze
could be borrowed from Jacques

Opening
Burning Bush

A miniseries, directed by
Agnieszka Holland, about
the aftermath of the
Soviet Unions invasion of
Czechoslovakia, in 1968. In
Czech. Opening June 11.
(Film Forum.)
Edge of Tomorrow

Tom Cruise stars in this


science-fiction thriller, as a
soldier who is caught in a
time loop on the day of his
death. Directed by Doug
Liman; co-starring Emily
Blunt. Opening June 6. (In
wide release.)
The Fault in Our Stars

A drama, based on the


novel by John Green, about
two teen-agers (Shailene
Woodley and Ansel Elgort)
who begin a romance after
meeting in a cancer support
group. Directed by Josh
Boone; co-starring Nat Wolff,
Laura Dern, and Willem
Dafoe. Opening June 6. (In
wide release.)
Heli

Amat Escalante directed


this drama, about a Mexican
factory worker whose placid
family life is disrupted by
drug dealers. In Spanish.
Opening June 13. (In limited
release.)
Hellion

A drama, directed by Kat


Candler, about a troubled
Texas teen-ager who hopes
to reunite with his father.
Opening June 13. (In limited
release.)
Obvious Child

Reviewed in Now Playing.


Opening June 6. (In limited
release.)

of note The Best Years of Our Lives


Elena
This personal documentary by the
Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa
unfolds a story of grief and thwarted
promise with expressive urgency
and thoughtful restraint. Its subject
is the directors older sister, Elena
Andrade, who, as a teen-ager in the
familys home town of Belo Horizonte, exhibited prodigious talent as
an actress and went to New York to
pursue a movie career. She soon came
home disappointed, but returned to
Manhattanwith the seven-year-old
Petra and their mother in towto
study. There, she was engulfed by
clinical depression, which drove her
to self-destruction. Using archival
footage of Elena in performance,
home videos shot by Elena herself,
and interviews with family members
and others, Costa restores her sister
to the world of art, to the scene of
her love and torment. Their parents
backstoryfusing cultural and political
ambition with the currents of historybrings the action to the present

William Wylers intimate epic, from 1946about three soldiers


returning from the Second World War to their families in a small
Midwestern cityprofoundly and sensitively balances the private
demons of scarred veterans and the press of public policies that
leave their mark on daily life. Al Stevenson (Fredric March), a
prosperous banker and paterfamilias, resumes his warm domestic
life with a jaundiced view of country-club presumptions and a hint
of a drinking problem. Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), a high-ranking
bombardier with recurring nightmares, returns to straitened
circumstances and a troubled marriageand falls in love with
Als grown daughter, Peggy (Teresa Wright). The third veteran,
Homer Parrish, is played by a non-actor, Harold Russell, who, like
the character, lost his hands in military service. Though adept with
his prostheses, Homer, feeling diminished and dependent, breaks
his engagement to the girl next door (Cathy ODonnell). From
lending practices to postwar Red-baiting, liberalized education
to the fear of nuclear war, Wyler, working with a script by
Robert E. Sherwood, captures the sense of history being written
on the fly, of momentous shifts in mind-sets and expectations.
In the movies nearly three-hour span, the chrysalis of an old
world seems to crack open and a fragile new one begins to
emerge; a deep and tender romanticism arises from the exposed
vulnerabilities.Richard Brody (Film Forum; June 6-12.)
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

31

One Day Pina Asked . . .

Reviewed in Now Playing.


Opening June 6. (Film Society
of Lincoln Center.)
Ping Pong Summer

Reviewed in Now Playing.


Opening June 6. (In limited
release.)
The Rover

A post-apocalyptic thriller,
about a combat veteran who
hunts a car thief across the
Australian outback. Directed by
David Michd; starring Robert
Pattinson, Guy Pearce, and
Scoot McNairy. Opening June
13. (In limited release.)
22 Jump Street

A comedy sequel, starring


Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill
as police officers who conduct
an investigation in the guise
of college students. Directed
by Phil Lord and Christopher
Miller; co-starring Dave Franco
and Peter Stormare. Opening
June 13. (In wide release.)
Revivals and Festivals

Titles in bold are reviewed.


Anthology Film Archives

The films of Charlie Chaplin.


June 14 at 2: Program 1,
including Easy Street
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The Circus (1928).
BAM Cinmatek

The films of King Hu. June 7


at 2 and 7: The Love Eterne
 (%";X7P]WbXP]V9d]T&Pc
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Inn (1966).

Tati, and several men who seem


interested solely in homosexual
pickups (a long single-take scene
at a long row of urinals is a masterwork of understated, exquisitely
choreographed humor). The petty
disturbances that beset the traveller
during his cinematic pilgrimage are
matched by the laborious rounds
of the theatres manager (Chen
Shiang-chyi), a disabled woman
who trudges through corridors and
back rooms to fulfill her mundane
duties. Her attention is absorbed by
a strange cinematic objecta pink
steamed bunbut shes the focus of
a mercurial scene of virtuoso editing,
when she makes her way behind the
screen and is seemingly irradiated by
the heroic images that are on their
way out. A scene in which two aged
patrons are revealed to be two of the
martial-arts stars has the intimate
grandeur of a grizzled Wild West
fadeout. In Mandarin.R.B. (BAM
Cinmatek; June 14.)
Half a Life
This fascinating first-person essay
film, from 1982, illuminates Frances
political upheavals in the late sixties
and measures their bitter impact
on the private lives of the most
committed activists. The director,
Romain Goupil, was one of those
activists, a leader of recruitment in
high schools for the Trotskyist group
Revolutionary Communist Youth.
The son of a film technician, Goupil
was also an adolescent filmmaker
who, with his friends, made exuberant
and playful movies that increasingly
took on a political toneas Goupil
says, When I wasnt addressing the
crowd, I would film it. Central to
his autobiographical sketch is the
story of his best friend, Michel
Recanati, a gifted and bold fellowactivist, who killed himself in 1978,
at the age of thirty, after tracing a
path similar to Goupils ownfrom
the limitless hopes of May 68 to
their frustrating aftermath, and from
street skirmishes and mass rallies
to violent revolutionary schemes

of note We Are the Best!

There just arent enough films about teen-age girl punk bands
made by left-wing feminist Swedish Christian males. All the
more reason, therefore, to welcome this new contribution from
Lukas Moodysson. Adapted from the graphic novel by his wife,
Coco Moodysson, and set in Stockholm, in 1982, the film tells
the tale of Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and her friend Klara (Mira
Grosin), who feel cut adrift from their contemporaries and their
elders alike. With nothing better to do, they start a two-woman
band, which soon swells to three with the arrival of Hedvig
(Liv LeMoyne)devout and square, but the only one of them
who can actually play an instrument. Moodysson returns to
the zone that he plotted so acutely in Show Me Love (1998)
P]SC^VTcWTa!*cWXb\^eXTXb\^aTaPdR^dbQdcWXb
ability to chart the pressures and pleasures of young lives as
they approach the limits of childhood is as fresh as ever. His
rebels may not have much of a cause, let alone talent, but their
haircuts speak louder than words. In Swedish.Anthony Lane
(In limited release.)
32

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

(involving the formation of a small


private army). With his evocative
archival footage and his scathing,
self-deprecating reminiscences,
Goupil rescues historys secret
fault lines and secret heroes from
oblivion.R.B. (MOMA; June 6.)
The Immigrant
James Grays dramatization of an
obscure corner of Americas immigration story is a revelation of
lost time. Ewa Cybulska (Marion
Cotillard), arriving from Poland,
in 1921, falls into the hands of one
Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix), a
Lower East Side entrepreneur who
puts on tawdry burlesque shows and
pimps out the women performers
on the side. Alternating between
politeness and menace, and adding
an odd kind of strangled adoration,
he forces Ewa into prostitution.
The physical look of the movie is
astonishing. The great cinematographer Darius Khondji shoots Brunos
apartment, the streets, the theatre,
the women in a bathhouse or Central
Park with a subdued color palette.
The undernourished tones suggest
the desperate yearning for status
that remains always out of reach.
The heart of the movie is Brunos
tormented pursuit of Ewas love.
Phoenix, who has a gift for playing
confounded men, caught between
aggression and chagrin, gives perhaps the largest performance of his
career; the beautiful Cotillard is less
interesting, hampered by Grays
conception of Ewa as a superior
victim, a woman who sleeps with men
for money but remains spiritually
immaculate. With Jeremy Renner as
a magiciana lightweight charmer
who tries to attract Ewa. The late
Ric Menello worked with Gray on
the screenplay.D.D. (5/19/14) (In
limited release.)
Korengal
Sebastian Junger has made a kind
of addendum and sequel to Restrepo, his 2010 documentary
about an Army infantry platoon
assigned to the Korengal Valley, in
a remote and mountainous corner
of Afghanistan, in 2007 and 2008.
As in the earlier film, terror and
boredom fill the mens days. Junger
and his filmmaking partner, the late
Tim Hetherington, go out on patrol
with the soldiers, experiencing live
fire again and again; they catch the
fear and exhilaration of battle, as
well as the mens vagueness about
what, exactly, they are doing in
Afghanistan. As a record of the war,
the two films are imperishable. A
number of the soldiers, interviewed
after their deployment is over, say
that no relationship at home could
equal the devotion that they felt to
one another, and that they would
gladly go back to Afghanistan for
the adrenaline high of combat.
The film was self-financed; Junger
raised money for its distribution

on Kickstarter.D.D. (In limited


release.)
Little Caesar
Edward G. Robinsons performance
in this 1931 crime drama, as Caesar
Enrico Bandello, a small-time hood
who dreams of the big time and
crashes the Chicago rackets, sets
the tone for the vulgar preening
and sneering pugnacity of the
tough-talking Hollywood mobster,
and Mervyn LeRoys cold, efficient
directionless a result of his own
artistry than of the constraints of
the first years of sound recording
imposes a static rigor on the action
and the diction which rises to the
grandeur of a sculptural, granitic
force. The terse, epigrammatic
narrative offers every hardboiled
clich in its nave, original form,
from the gangster who falls in
love (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) and
wants to go straight and the Mob
boss (Stanley Fields) who goes soft
(Sam, you can dish it out, but
youre gettin so you cant take it
no more!) to the laconically sarcastic Irish police officer (Thomas
Jackson), the prodigal gangland
banquet, and the operatic death
throes. The psychosexual subtexts
of later gangster movies are there,
too, as when Little Caesar draws
his slight, furtive cohort Otero
(George E. Stone) onto his bed
for a meaningful tte--tte.R.B.
(IFC Center; June 6-8.)
Night Moves
Three conspirators (Jesse Eisenberg,
Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard)
living in a valley in southern Oregon
decide to blow up a local dam as a
protest against the use of water for
such luxuries as golf courses and
the disruption of salmon life for
the production of electricity. The
director, Kelly Reichardt, who wrote
the screenplay with Jon Raymond,
hasnt worked out how sentiment
leads to terrorism, and its a hole in
the movie, which is glumly objective
in tone. Were meant simply to accept the trio as American outlaws,
resentful, half-educated, nihilistic,
and in way over their heads. What
interests Reichardt is the physical
realization of how the act is done;
her feeling for the weight and the
palpability of the world, and for
continuity within sequences, has
become masterly. Oregons natural
magnificence (photographed with
sombre beauty by Chris Blauvelt)
adds to our ambivalence toward the
threethey are both protectors and
violators of the environment, both
righteous and criminal.D.D. (6/2/14)
(In limited release.)
Obvious Child
Obvious is the word. The comic
actress Jenny Slate soldiers through
the superficial and mechanical tale
of Donna Stern, a young comedian
who sinks into a sluggish downward

In revival. June 6-12 (call


for showtimes): The Best
Years of Our Lives. 0[TR
Guinness 100. June 13-14 at
12:45, 3, 5:10, 7:30, and 9:50:
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DVD OF THE WEEK

A video discussion of Peter


Bogdanovichs Daisy Miller,
from 1974, in our digital edition.
34

spiral after losing her boyfriend


and her day job at an independent
bookstore. She meets her Mr.
Nice GuyMax (Jake Lacy), her
mothers business-school student,
who seems too mild for her. They
sleep together, she gets pregnant, she
decides to have an abortion, and he
gets to wear his ordinary decency as
a badge of nobility. The director and
screenwriter, Gillian Robespierre,
brings no substance to the chitchat
and no complexity to the characters, the plot, the issues, the New
York settings, or the images. Even
the engagingly idiosyncratic Gaby
Hoffmann, as Donnas best friend,
is limited to an amiable blandness.
The entire production exudes selfcongratulatory complacency with
its blue-state high-fiving.R.B. (In
limited release.)
One Day Pina Asked . . .
Starting from the modest premise of
documenting several months of Pina
Bauschs performances and rehearsals
in the summer of 1983, the director
Chantal Akerman realized one of the
greatest of all syntheses of dance and
cinema. She films the performers with
a poised camera; her incisive angles
and smooth pan shots emphasize
the dances visual counterpoint and
overlapping rhythms. In Bauschs
stagings, as in Akermans dramas,
ordinary gestures are emphasized
and formalized into dances, and
Akerman films Bauschs dancers as
she films the actors in such movies
as Jeanne Dielman and Toute une
Nuit. Observing the dancers behind
the scenes and in their dressing
rooms as they dress, smoke, apply
makeup, and sing, Akerman reveals
their preparations and meditations
to be continuous with their public
performances; her interviews with
members of Bauschs company are
echoed in their dancing. If Bauschs
choreography no longer existed, Akermans films could be excerpted to
convey something of its essenceand
Bausch herself, serenely avowing her
poetic aspirations, becomes one of
Akermans characters. In German
and French.R.B. (Film Society
of Lincoln Center.)
Ping Pong Summer
The director Michael Tullys wan
and sentimental period drama, set
in Ocean City, Maryland, in the
summer of 1985, feels like a hardedged filmmakers self-conscious
embrace of his gentler side. The
story concerns Rad Miracle (Marcello
Conte), a thirteen-year-old suburban
boy, nave and geeky, whose seaside
family vacation is filled with promise
and menace. Theres a new friend, a
similarly callow boy from Baltimore; a
flirtatious and relatively sophisticated
girl; and two big, arrogant, and aggressive rich kids who make Rads
life miserable. The center of the
action is a game room; the game of
choice is Ping-Pong; and Rad, whos

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

no whiz, challenges one of the hot


shots to a showdown. Fortunately,
our hero has a ringer in his corner:
an unpopular neighbor (played by
Susan Sarandon) who is a former
table-tennis champion. Tully seems
filled with yearning for the happy
side to the story and dwells fleetingly on his heros struggles and
humiliations; neither the problems
nor their resolutions have any weight.
A few sardonic shots suggest an
eye for corny absurdities, but the
director indulges in more than a
few of his own making.R.B. (In
limited release.)
Princess Yang Kwei-fei
The Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchis 1955 adaptation of a ninthcentury Chinese poem, about a
Tang-dynasty emperor who sacrificed
his reign for the love of a woman
who was forced to sacrifice her life,
is a grand pageant of tragic conflict
between three kinds of powererotic,
artistic, and political. At the start, the
emperor, a musician and composer,
an effete connoisseur of nature and
culture, is in inconsolable mourning for his late wife and rejects all
feminine attentions. But an ambitious general, hoping to curry favor
with the ruler, finds and grooms an
attractive young kitchen servant and
presents her to the emperor as the
noblewoman of the title. A star is
born: the emperor is enticed by her
simple, graceful spontaneity, but
the sumptuous refinements with
which he soon surrounds her and
her family spark an uprising by the
tax-burdened populace. Mizoguchis
incisive sense of historical analysis
is equalled by his exaltation of love
and his recognition of the disproportionate price that women pay for
pleasure and position. As injustice
begets injustice and a corrupt regime
besmirches beauty, Mizoguchi gives
his lovers the last laugh, in one of
the most jubilantly derisive endings in the history of cinema. In
Japanese.R.B. (Museum of the
Moving Image; June 6.)
The Wind Will Carry Us
Abbas Kiarostamis quietly ecstatic
comedy, from 1999, is set in a
Kurdish mountainside village where
Behzad (Behzad Dourani), a director
from Tehran, arrives with his crew
to film the unusual local funeral
rite. Unfortunately for them, the
moribund woman for whom the
services are planned is in no rush to
pass on, and Behzad is stuck there
for weeks with little to do but talk
with the villagers. Kiarostami films
the encounters and the landscapes
with a patient, painterly tenderness,
but his modest methods conceal vast
political goals. He nudges the Iranian
regimes limits on expression as Hollywood directors tweaked the Hays
Codehis realism packs symbols to
express the forbidden. Kiarostamis
main subject is sex, which he evokes

in sly touches worthy of Lubitsch


and Hawks, alluding to the official
abuse of religion and the natural
force of desire; when a cynical elderly
married woman refers to her night
work, it becomes clear why the
entire film takes place in daylight.
The title alone, from a love lyric by
the pre-revolutionary poet Forugh
Farrokhzad that Behzad recites,
suggests the irrepressible beauty of
playtime. In Farsi and Kurdish.R.B.
(IFC Center.)
Words and Pictures
Clive Owen, looking scruffy and
wearing a terrible pair of glasses,
is an alcoholic and self-destructive
English teacher at an lite school.
Juliette Binoche is a well-known
painter, hampered by rheumatoid
arthritis, who teaches art. They both
make speecheshe, for the primacy
of language; she, for the glory and
truthfulness of painting. Their rivalry,
which emerges in public as well as
in classrooms, lifts their students
out of the doldrums. This rather
sententious romantic comedy might
have sunk under its pretensions
were it not for the stars. Owen is
noisy and freewheeling (playing an
American seems to have liberated
him), and Binoche is tough as
nails. The French star paints with
a huge brush thats suspended from
pulleys; her fervent strokes are the
best thing in the movie. All the art
work shown is actually hers, and its
impressive. Gerald Di Pego wrote
the fearfully overexplicit script.
Fred Schepisi directed, with heavy
emphasis on the obvious.D.D. (In
limited release.)
X-Men: Days of Future Past
The seventh film in this unkillable
franchise combines apocalyptic doom,
the usual advocacy for people who
are different, and a fair amount of
wit. As Earth lies in ruins, Logan
(Hugh Jackman) goes back to the
Nixon era to prevent the evil professor Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage)
from developing the superweapons
that have destroyed almost all
mutants and taken a lot of humans
down with them. Logan encounters
the younger selves of Professor X
(James McAvoy), who needs a good
talking-to; the inexorable Magneto
(Michael Fassbender); and the
hotheaded Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence, who looks awesome in blue).
At one point, Lawrence takes over
Richard Nixons body, improving
his appearance somewhat. Theres
much flaming annihilation, but
the 3-D effects are mostly playful:
people fly through enclosures and
go deep into the frame; bullets drift
slowly toward us. With Ellen Page,
as Kitty, who has magic hands; the
roguish Evan Peters, as Quicksilver;
and the usual gangIan McKellen,
Patrick Stewart, Nicholas Hoult,
and Halle Berry. Directed by Bryan
Singer.D.D. (In wide release.)

4E4A4CC

Film Forum

ABOVE
BEYOND
Northside Festival
With new high-rise condominiums,
music venues, and chain stores seeming
to turn up daily, North Brooklyn has
become a highly desirable place to
live. As the area has developed, so has
this annual South by Southwest-type
festival, which was started in 2009 by
the folks who produce The L Magazine
and Brooklyn Magazine. The musical
acts include the singer-songwriter
Sharon Van Etten and bands like Fuck
Buttons, War on Drugs, the Dead
Milkmen, and Beirut. More than fifty
films will be screened, in categories
that include a D.I.Y. competition and
New York and Brooklyn premires.
The Innovation Conference presents
speakers from Internet game-changers
such as BuzzFeed, Etsy, and Vimeo,
as well as a jobs fair, which might
come in handy for Millennials who
are liable to be swiftly priced out of
the neighborhood. (northsidefestival.
com. June 12-19.)

Auctions and Antiques


Fifty years after the British Invasion, a
cache of whimsical line drawings and
poems by John Lennonthe basis
for two books, In His Own Write
and A Spaniard in the Worksare
to be auctioned off at Sothebys on
June 4. The pen illustrations, which
include Boy with Six Birds, later
used as the cover illustration for
Lennons single Free as a Bird, are
from the collection of the prominent
British publisher Tom Maschler, who
went on to create the Booker Prize.
Sturdy sales of antiquities and Old
Masters follow, along with a small
Contemporary Curated offering on
June 12, which draws from two private
collections of contemporary art. The
most valuable lot of the week, however,
is a small, oddly shaped stamp, to be
sold in solitary splendor on June 17:
the 1856 British Guiana one-cent
black-on-magenta. The extremely
rare specimen was discovered in 1873

by a Guianan schoolboy, and was then


purchased by a count, sold off to help
pay Germanys war reparations, and
eventually acquired by John du Pont
(a reclusive heir who died in prison
after murdering an Olympic wrestler),
whose estate is now putting it up for
auction. (York Ave. at 72nd St. 212606-7000.)In its final push before the
summer lull, Christies holds a flurry
of sales, beginning with an auction of
Old Master paintings (June 4) whose

star lot is a genre scene by the Dutch


master Caspar Netscher, Woman
Feeding a Parrot. The houses sale
of antiquities (June 5) features works
from ancient Rome and Greece, as well
as from Egypt and the Near East; the
sale is followed by one of furniture and
bric-a-brac (June 9), containing ornate
French and Italian pieces, and one of
jewelry (June 10), offering the usual
diamond parures. (20 Rockefeller Plaza,
at 49th St. 212-636-2000.)

Readings and Talks


Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Norwegian writer is in town. On June 4 at 7:30, he talks about his work
with the novelist Nicole Krauss at the Community Bookstore, in Park Slope,
Brooklyn. (143 Seventh Ave. 718-783-3075.) On June 5 at 6, he celebrates
the U.S. publication of the English translation of the third book in his My
Struggle series at McNally Jackson Books, where James Wood will moderate a dialogue between him and Zadie Smith. (52 Prince St. 212-274-1160.)
On June 6 at 7, he sits down with the novelist Jeffrey Eugenides at the New
York Public Library. (Fifth Ave. at 42nd St. nypl.org/live.)
Lunch Poems
Frank OHaras famed collection was first published in 1964, and, to mark
the fiftieth anniversary, City Lights is printing a special edition. At the
Poetry Project, Justin Vivian Bond, Hettie Jones, Edmund Berrigan, and
dozens of other writers will read all of the poems. (St. Marks Church
In-the-Bowery, Second Ave. at 10th St. poetryproject.org. June 11 at 8.)
Dan Barber
The chef discusses his new book, The Third Plate: Field Notes on the
Future of Food, with the radio host Ira Glass. (92nd Street Y, Lexington
Ave. at 92nd St. 212-314-5500. June 11 at 8.)

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

35

NIGHT LFE
Rock and Pop
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead complicated
lives; its advisable to check in advance to confrm
engagements.
Damon Albarn
After making a huge splash in the mid-nineties
as the front man off Blur, a standard-bearer for
golden-age Britpop, Albarn went on to create,
among many other projects, the innovative virtual
band Gorillaz, which worked with such real-life
collaborators as Lou Reed and Bobby Womack.
(In 2012, he co-produced Womacks first record
in nearly twenty years, The Bravest Man in the
Universe.) On his own, Albarn has matured into
a fascinating songwriter who embeds personal
lyrics in an ever-expanding musical palette. His
dbut solo album, Everyday Robots, has strings,
Eastern harmonies, and African accents, and
includes songs about Albarns ongoing journey,
whether musicological, biographical, or spiritual.
(Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Pl. 212-777-6800. June 8.)
Dig Deeper
The monthly soul-music series celebrates its sixth
anniversary with Sugar Pie DeSanto, backed by
the Brooklyn Rhythm Band, which will perform
an opening set. DeSanto, a Brooklyn native who

is seventy-eight, is a fervent vocalist whose singing


career goes back to the mid-fifties and includes stints
with Johnny Otis and James Brown and R. & B.
chart singles for Chess. Shes played New York City
only twice beforeonce forty-five years ago, when
she was at the Apollo, and three years ago, when
she opened for Lee Fields, at a Dig Deeper New
Years Eve show, where she danced with audience
members and did somersaults onstage. (Littlefield,
622 Degraw St., between Third and Fourth Aves.,
Brooklyn. littlefieldnyc.com. June 14.)
Governors Ball Music Festival
This festival began in 2011, as a one-day event
on Governors Island with a relatively under-theradar lineup that featured acts like Das Racist,
Girl Talk, and Neon Indian. It was such a success
that its programmers were emboldened to think
bigger; the following year, it expanded to two
days and moved to Randalls Island, where Beck,
Kid Cudi, and Fiona Apple headlined. Last year,
it was up to three days, with Kanye West, Kings
off Leon, Kendrick Lamar, and many other acts.
This years slate is even more ambitious, with
pop-music luminaries from all genres, including
OutKast, Vampire Weekend, the Strokes, TV on
the Radio, Neko Case, Interpol, and Spoon, to
name but a few. As in any good festival, highlights

vary according to personal taste, but two acts that


merit mention are veterans who are touring to
promote innovative new records: Jack White,
whose new solo album, Lazaretto, moves between
thunderous guitar-happy crunch and introspective
ballads; and Damon Albarn, whose contemplative,
melancholy, and brilliantly world-weary Everyday
Robots is a far cry from his ebullient work with
Blur. (Randalls Island, East River and Harlem
River. governorsballmusicfestival.com. June 6-8.)
Janelle Mone
Mone, a hardworking singer-songwriter who grew
up in Kansas City, moved to Atlanta, and entered the
orbits of OutKast and then Sean Combs, emerged
in 2010 with an acclaimed dbut album, The
ArchAndroid, which combined elements of science
fiction, classical composition, and old-fashioned
soul singing. Her follow-up release, The Electric
Lady, came out last fall and includes contributions
from Solange Knowles, Erykah Badu, Esperanza
Spalding, and Prince. Mones songs exist at the
rare intersection of conceptual daring and satisfying
traditionalism. Shes the thinking persons funk star,
and she opens the Celebrate Brooklyn! season on
June 4. (Prospect Park Bandshell, Prospect Park
W. at 9th St. bricartsmedia.org.)
The Notwist
Formed in 1989 in the Bavarian town of Weilheim,
this act has developed the habit of taking its time
between albums, often writing and rewriting
tracks, then recording and re-recording them.
Its members preoccupation with precision is
not just a function of their being German; they
are experimenting with a delicate balance, fusing
traditional rock methods with elements of abstract
electronica and forging pop songs that are as
warmly melodic as they are coldly computerized.
The outfits eighth studio album, Close to the
Glass, their dbut on Sub Pop Records, comes
six years after its last, well-received effort, The
Devil, You + Me. (Webster Hall, 125 E. 11th St.
ticketmaster.com. June 9.)
Dale Watson
Watson, a veteran of the Grand Ole Opry, has little
truck with whats been coming out of Nashville in
the past few decades, and has come up with his
own name for the music he plays: Ameripolitan.
With a voice as deep as his white pompadour is
high, Watson keeps the sounds of the honky-tonk
country-and-Western scene alive (both musically
and financiallyhe owns a couple of old clubs in
Texas where the music is played). Hes also a creative ad-libber: a feature of his regular gigs at the
Continental, in his home base of Austin, is to take
suggestions for titles and keys from the audience and
compose a tune on the fly. Thats how I Lie When
I Drink came to be writtenonstage. His most
recent album, El Rancho Azul, includes the first
studio recording off the funny and catchy song. (Hill
Country Live, 30 W. 26th St. 212-255-4544. June 5.)

The Governors Ball Music Festival brings OutKast and dozens of other acts to Randalls Island.
36

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

Jazz and Standards


Blue Note Jazz Festival
The summer gathering is in full swing this week,
drawing musicians from across the jazz and pop
spectrum. A selection follows. June 6-8: The classical
composer and conductor Andr Previn, who was
a jazz pianist earlier in his career, and the noted
bassist Christian McBride perform duets for the
first time, at the Blue Note. June 7: The favorite
sons of East L.A., Los Lobos, hit the Highline
Ballroom. June 7: The Brazilian master Sergio
Mendes serenades fans at the B. B. King Blues
Club & Grill. June 9: Dee Dee Bridgewater,
ILLUSTRATION BY CUN SHI

Jonathan Batiste, and guests perform a benefit


for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, at the
Kaye Playhouse. June 12: The Jamaican pianist
Monty Alexander celebrates his seventieth birthday at the B. B. King club. June 13: Questlove
and Bobby McFerrin get their freak on at Town
Hall. June 14-15: The First Lady of Soul, Aretha
Franklin, performs in a suitably grand setting,
Radio City Music Hall. (For more information,
visit bluenotejazzfestival.com. Through June 30.)
Celebrate Ornette
At the tail end of the nineteen-fifties, the saxophonist, composer, and visionary Ornette Coleman
brought free jazz into our midst, and in the ensuing
years his notions of unfettered musical expression
have significantly touched artists of many stripes.
The great man himself wont be playing at this
tribute, but others will be on hand to pay him
homage, among them Colemans son, the drummer
Denardo Coleman, members of Ornettes bands,
and a host of attendees from wide-ranging genres,
including Patti Smith, Henry Threadgill, Laurie
Anderson, Bruce Hornsby, Joe Lovano, Flea,
Bill Laswell, and Afrika Bambaataa. (Celebrate
Brooklyn!, Prospect Park Bandshell, Prospect
Park W. at 9th St. bricartsmedia.org. June 12.)
Anat Cohen
The accomplished Israeli-born clarinettist and
saxophonist personifies the multicultural and
pan-stylistic eclecticism that are hallmarks of the
contemporary-jazz scene: she is comfortable flitting
from Middle Eastern strains to Brazilian choro to
swing, bebop, and modal idioms. The drummer
Matt Wilson and the bassist Martin Wind will
be Cohens support team, and special guests are
promised. (Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Ave.
S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037. June 10-15.)
Billy Hart Quartet
The veteran drummer Hart, the pianist Ethan
Iverson, of the Bad Plus, the bassist Ben Street,
and the accomplished saxophonist Mark Turner
have collaborated on one of the most persuasive
recordings of the year so far, One Is the Other,
which shows that the foursome, which has played
together for the better part of a decade, is achieving
its potential. The groups original compositions
are intriguing, and the musicians take on Rodgers
and Hammersteins Some Enchanted Evening
is a thing of true beauty. (Village Vanguard, 178
Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037. June 3-8.)
Jazz Age Lawn Party
Michael Arenella and his Dreamland Orchestra,
who perform nineteen-twenties dance music as if
the last ninety years had never happened (judging
by the attire of some attendees, you might believe
it), present a Gatsby-era gathering on Governors
Island. There will be dance lessons, a Charleston
contest, a display of antique gramophones, and a
pie-baking contest. (For more information, visit
jazzagelawnparty.com. June 14-15 and Aug. 16-17.)
Vision Festival
Now in its nineteenth year, this resilient festival
maintains a sharp focus on free jazz. This years
lifetime-achievement honoree is the seventyfive-year-old saxophonist and pianist Charles
Gayle, an intrepid and soulfully expressive
artist. Other stalwarts who will appear include
Peter Brtzmann, James (Blood) Ulmer, Kidd
Jordan, Mary Halvorson, and Matthew Shipp.
The gathering concludes with a tribute to the
trumpeter Roy Campbell, Jr., who died in January.
(Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn. artsforart.
org. June 11-15.)
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

37

THE TALK OF THE TOWN


COMMENT
LITERATURE AND LIFE

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL

nless you spend much time sitting in a college classroom


or browsing through certain precincts of the Internet,
its possible that you had not heard of trigger warnings until
a few weeks ago, when they made an appearance in the
Times. The newspaper explained that the term refers to
premptive alerts, issued by a professor or an institution at
the request of students, indicating that material presented in
class might be sufficiently graphic to spark symptoms of
post-traumatic-stress disorder.
The term seems to have originated in online feminist forums, where trigger warnings have for some years been used to
flag discussions of rape or other sexual violence. The Times
piece, which was skeptically titled Warning: The Literary
Canon Could Make Students Squirm, suggested that trigger
warnings are moving from the online fringes to the classroom,
and might be more broadly applied to highlight in advance the
distress or offense that a work of literature might cause. Huckleberry Finn would come with a warning for those who have
experienced racism; The Merchant of Venice would have an
anti-Semitism warning attached. The call from students for
trigger warnings was spreading on campuses such as Oberlin,
where a proposal was drafted that would advise professors to
be aware of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism,
ableism, and other issues of privilege and
oppression in devising their syllabi; and
Rutgers, where a student argued in the
campus newspaper that trigger warnings
would contribute to preserving the classroom as a safe space for students.
Online discussion of trigger warnings
has sometimes been guardedly sympathetic, sometimes critical. Jessica Valenti
has noted on The Nations Web site that
potential triggers for trauma are so manifold as to be beyond the possibility of
cataloguing: There is no trigger warning for living your life. Some have suggested that a professors ability to teach
would be compromised should it be-

come commonplace for The Great Gatsby to bear a trigger


warning alerting readers to misogyny and gore within its pages.
Others have worried that trigger-warning advocates, in seeking to protect the vulnerable, run the risk of disempowering
them instead. Bending the world to accommodate our personal frailties does not help us overcome them, Jenny Jarvie
wrote on The New Republics online site.
Jarvies piece, like many others on the subject, cited the
University of California, Santa Barbara, as a campus where
champions of trigger warnings have made significant progress. Earlier this year, students at U.C.S.B. agreed upon a
resolution recommending that such warnings be issued in
instances where classroom materials might touch upon rape,
sexual assault, abuse, self-injurious behavior, suicide, graphic
violence, pornography, kidnapping, and graphic descriptions of gore. The resolution was brought by a literature
student who said that, as a past victim of sexual violence, she
had been shocked when a teacher showed a movie in class
which depicted rape, without giving advance notice of the content. The student hoped to spare others the possibility of
experiencing a post-traumatic-stress reaction.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, the University of California, Santa Barbara, was back in the headlines, in an unfolding story that grotesquely echoed the
language of that resolution. Six members of its undergraduate bodytwo
women and four menwere slaughtered by Elliot Rodger, aged twentytwo, who then reportedly turned one
of his weapons, a semi-automatic handgun, on himself. He had warned of
his impending rampage in a video,
which he posted on YouTube. In it, he
coolly announced his motives for what
he termed a Day of Retribution. He
wanted to exact revenge upon every
spoiled, stuck up, blonde slut who had
rejected him, and the men they had embraced instead. He had also written
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

39

what he referred to as a manifesto, more than a hundred thousand words long, which outlined an intention to commit atrocities far beyond those he actually accomplished.
Rodgers free-floating loathing was not limited to women
racist hatred also runs through the manifestoand his utterances make it clear that he had lost all grip on reality. Nonetheless, it quickly emerged that many women recognized his
words as only more extreme versions of everyday violations. On
Twitter, the hashtag #YesAllWomen was embraced as a vehicle for drawing attention to the pervasiveness of sexualized
violence against women, through rape, harassment, or other
forms of misogyny. Why do I have to alter the way I dress,
when you can alter the way you behave? one wrote. Another
added, Because what men fear most about going to prison is
what women fear most about walking down the sidewalk. A
third offered, Because my little sister is no longer allowed to
wear tank tops to school. Its hot outside. Stop sexualizing 11
year old girls. Within days of the killings, there were more
than a million such contributions.
If U.C.S.B. found itself, a few weeks ago, cast in the popular consciousness as a center of dubious cultural progress
a convenient representative of the latest frontier in sociopolitical activism, just as Antioch College, with its sexualconsent code, was twenty years agothe university, in the
MINYA POSTCARD
ELECTION DAY

n Egypt, where physical markers


often tell you something about a persons beliefs, an outsider inevitably engages in the act of profiling through appearance. Race hardly matters, and even
class is secondary; instead, you look for
the hijab and the niqab, the beard and
the prayer bruise on the forehead. And
so, on May 26th, the first day of the
Presidential election, it was possible to
walk into a womens polling station at
the Commercial High School in Minya,
a city in Upper Egypt, and make a quick
assessment of the hundred and eighty
women who had lined up to vote. More
than a third had uncovered heads, which
in a conservative town could mean only
one thing: Christians were voting in
high numbers. Not one woman wore a
niqab, which suggested something else:
many devout Muslims were boycotting
the election. Across Egypt, turnout was
so low that the authorities extended the
voting period by a day.
Down the street, a small shop was run

40

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

aftermath of its own violent trauma, now holds the unsought


honor of being the origin site of what is indubitably a powerful act of consciousness-raising. It is hard to read through
a fraction of the #YesAllWomen posts without feeling
shaken, whether by the relief of recognition or by the shock
of ignorance dispelled. (If one is old enough to have participated in student-led Take Back the Night marches three
decades ago, it is also impossible to read the posts without
drawing the demoralizing conclusion that the night remains
in hostile possession.)
The trigger-warning debate may, by comparison, seem esoteric; but both it and #YesAllWomen express a larger cultural preoccupation with achieving safety, and a fear of living
in its absence. The hope that safety might be found, as in a
therapists office, in a classroom where literature is being
taught is in direct contradiction to one purpose of literature,
which is to give expression through art to difficult and
discomfiting ideas, and thereby to enlarge the readers experience and comprehension. The classroom can never be an
entirely safe space, nor, probably, should it be. But its difficult
to fault those who hope that it might be, when the outside
world constantly proves itself pervasively hostile, as well as,
on occasion, horrifically violent.
Rebecca Mead

by two men with bushy beards, prayer


bruises, and clean hands. Today, that was
another markerevery voter had his
finger stained with purple ink. We voted
five times already, the older of the
bearded men said, referring to the various
elections and referendums that have been
held since the revolution of 2011. And
the results of those votes were thrown in
the garbage. So why do it again?
This was Egypts first national election
since July 3rd of last year, when Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood
leader who had been democratically
elected as President, was forcibly removed by the military after nationwide
protests against his rule. (The coup was
led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was now
in the process of winning the Presidency.)
In August, two Cairo sit-ins held by
Morsi supporters were violently dispersed
by security forces, who killed hundreds of
mostly unarmed protesters. In response,
people rioted across Egypt, with the
worst violence taking place in the Minya
region. Angry mobs burned Christian
churches, attacked police stations, and
looted a museum. More than forty people died. Earlier this year, a Minya court
sentenced to death more than twelve
hundred people who had been accused of
rioting. A number of those sentences
have since been commuted to life impris-

onment, but little evidence was put forward, and most of the accused were not
even present at the trials.
Minya is often described as a Brotherhood town. In truth, many residents
seem to have shifted their loyalties to Sisi,
in the hope of stability. Even the Islamists, while united in opposition to the
new regime, are not entirely supportive of
the Brothers. At the shop, the older of the
bearded men said that he had been reluctant to vote for Morsi in 2012, when his
opponent had been Ahmed Shafiq, a former head of the air force.
A plague or a cancer, which do you
want? he said. As a group, the Muslim
Brotherhood has a tendency to be arrogant and exclude others.
He was a former member of the
Gamaa al-Islamiyya, an Islamist organization that engaged in terrorism until
1997; a few years later, it renounced violence. The group is influential in Minya,
where its not uncommon for locals to
point out, with a sort of twisted civic
pride, that the gunman who assassinated
President Anwar Sadat, in 1981, was a
Minya native. The man at the shop said
hed spent a total of seventeen years in
prison. You know how they treated people in prison, he said. Look at this
He lifted the hem of his galabiya.
In Egypt, most physical markers are

intended for display, but there was something intimate about the man tugging at
his gown. Each ankle was encircled by a
rubbery band of scar tissue. This was
from being hung upside down, he said.
After twenty years, you can still see the
marks. He pointed to his companion:
Hes the same. In silence, the other man
lifted his galabiya: more white rings
around the ankles.
The older man was asked how he had
felt when Sadat was shot.
I was young and enthusiastic, so I was
happy, he said. But I felt different later.
When we saw the repercussions, we realized that the target wasnt achieved. He
explained that Sadats successor, Hosni
Mubarak, had been just as repressive.
With Sisi coming into office, he believed
that the only solution was patience. People are committed to peacefulness, he
said. Look, there were twelve hundred
death sentences here, and theres been no
reaction. Have you seen any violence?
Given the repressive climate of the
past nine months, there has been surprisingly little violence in Egypt, where
communities have settled into a kind
of dtente. In Minya, the police rarely
patrol Abu Hilal, a neighborhood that
is home to many Islamists. The government didnt open polling stations there,
notifying residents that they could vote
elsewhere in the city. The theory seemed
to be that since many people were boycotting the election, there was no reason
to create a target by opening a local poll.
The man at the shop was asked if he
had ever done anything violent during his
years with the Gamaa al-Islamiyya. In
terms of actually participating in violence,
no, he said. But maybe I helped arrange

a situation, or hosted somebody who was


going to do something.
Was it wrong to use violence?
Theres a difference between wrong
and useless, he said, with a smile. The
violence was simply useless.
Peter Hessler

1
THE ARTISTIC LIFE
FATHERS AND SONS

hen Robert De Niro was young,


his father would ask to paint him,
but he wouldnt pose. I wish I had,
De Niro said recently, but I didnt have
the patience. You gotta sit still. Much
later, the actor felt he was too acquiescent
when his father neglected the prostate
cancer that killed him, in 1993. Bookended by regrets, De Niro, now seventy,
sat in Robert De Niro, Sr.,s studio in
SoHo. Save for installing shades beneath
the skylights, hed preserved the loft as it
was: red dial phone on a pillar; shirts in
dry-cleaning bags; birdcage lacking only
the parrot, Demetreus.
De Niro slipped his glasses on to peer
at the canvases against the far brick
wallwomen reclining, dab and confident, fit companions to the images from
Ingres, Poussin, Courbet, and Delacroix
that his father had tacked up for inspiration. To me, hes a great artist, he said.
He nodded at a melancholy pastel, Girl
with Red Turban: Such color, simplicity, and the girl has something. . . . I wish
I had listened more to my father so I

I aint cookin nuthinthats my pork-andbeans-scented candle you smell.

could speak more carefully about his


work. De Niro communicates best with
his limber lips and torso, marking time in
conversation as if waiting for a translator.
So is that a mirror one of the women is
holding? Could be. A drumstick? Possibly, he said, staring it down. Possibly.
His father, a dead ringer for his son
in all but fierceness of profile, was funny
and light on his feet, a man who adored
masks and Paris and Greta Garbos
face. But De Niro didnt see much of
him after his parents separated, when he
was two. (The elder De Niro confided
to his journals, but not to the world, that
he was gay.) His mother, Virginia Admiral, was also a well-known artist, but
she put down her brushes to raise her
son. My father would always say, Tell
your mother to paint more, shes a wonderful artist, blah- blah-blah, De Niro
said, making a face. I prefer my fathers
work. When De Niro, Sr., showed at
Peggy Guggenheims gallery, in 1945,
the critic Clement Greenberg wrote that
he possessed originality and an iron
control of the plastic elements such as is
rarely seen in our time. Yet as his peers
turned to abstraction, and then to deadpan contemplation of popular culture,
he became increasingly figurative, bitter, and poor. And it was his son who
got famous.
Born on the wrong continent in the
wrong century, the painter moved to
France in 1960, but found himself out of
step there, too. When De Niro visited
him in Paris five years later, he recalled,
My father was in a rut. I brought him
and his paintings around to galleries on
the Left Bank, and, well, the people were
nice, but thats not the way you do it,
showing up unsolicited. So I made him
come back to America, I almost pushed
him on a plane. . . . After that, I would
help him out, financially, and I put his
paintings in the Tribeca Grill, Locanda
Verde, Nobu, Nobu in Japan, the Greenwich Hotelhis business ventures. My
father did the menu for the Tribeca Grill,
and the coasters for the Greenwich
Hotel, and he hung the paintings himselfhe was very particular. And Ive
never changed it.
De Niro helped make a documentary, Remembering the Artist, Robert
De Niro, Sr., that will air on HBO next
week, coinciding with a catalogue of
his fathers work and a gallery show in

Chelsea, with prices ranging up to two


hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The
more expensive they are, the better theyre
going to be protected, because they become an asset, he said. They get good
homes, if you will. However, he added,
I did the documentary, just like I kept
the studio, for my childrenhe has six.
I wanted them to see what their grand-

Robert De Niro
father did. And? He made a temporizing face. What are they going to do,
jump up and down? But it registers.
Asked if he watched over his father as
a father might, tears sprang to his eyes.
Sure, he said. I had to take care of him.
Hed say, Artists are often not recognized
in their lifetime, so he would expect me
to do this. But it wont affect his reputation, which is about timing, luck, the peculiar taste of the art world. And then you
must also have talent. De Niro checked
the nearest canvas, a canary-yellow farmhouse lit by the sun, and seemed reassured. In any case, this is all here, and its
great, and its not going anywhere.
Tad Friend

1
THE BOARDS
HUMPTY DUMPTY

mong the trends on Broadway this


season: musicals about sixties girl
rockers (Janis Joplin, Carole King); bravura performances by men in drag (Neil
Patrick Harris, Mark Rylance); and raw

eggs. In Rocky, the title character


downs a glass of them. In Cabaret, Michelle Williams, as Sally Bowles, mixes
them with Worcestershire saucea
prairie oysterand drinks them for
breakfast. And then theres The Cripple of Inishmaan, Martin McDonaghs
black comedy about life in the Aran Islands in 1934. The play, starring Daniel
Radcliffe, has been nominated for six
Tony awards, but it also holds the record
for Most Eggs Sacrificed in the Name of
Art: thirty-six per show.
Not long ago, the cast gathered in a
rehearsal room on Forty-second Street
to work out the logistics. Radcliffe, who
plays a disfigured teen-ager known as
Cripple Billy, was just leaving. Sarah
Greene and Conor MacNeill, who play
a squabbling brother and sister, stayed
behind. Both are Irish, and both appeared in the plays West End incarnation. New to the production, and to
egg smashing, were their understudies,
Helen Cespedes (Boston) and Josh Salt
(Menomonie, Wisconsin). MacNeill
and Salt changed into white shirts and
sweatpants as stagehands laid down a
tarp. Is there a shower in this building?
MacNeill asked.
Michael Grandage, the director, eyed
the bowl of white eggs onstage and worried aloud that they looked out of period.
We arent going to have white eggs, are
we, eventually? he said.
No, theyre going to be brown, from
FreshDirect, the stage manager, Peter
Wolf, said. (The grocer is providing eggs
that have passed their sell-by date.)
Greene, who has a slim face and
sharp eyes, palmed an egg. Theyre cold,
which means its hard to break them,
she said. She gave pointers to the understudies: when smashing an egg on your
scene partners head, make sure the yolk
doesnt get in his eyes. Never keep them
in the fridge.
Also, we dont know what American
eggs might be like, Grandage said.
They may have harder shells. He was
reminded of the Edwina Currie incident
of 1988, when Britains junior health
minister resigned after telling reporters
that most of the egg production in this
country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella, outraging farmers and causing
a nosedive in British egg sales. I think
weve become slightly obsessed as a nation with eggs since, Grandage said.

Greene and MacNeill ran through


the scene. Their characters, Helen and
Bartley, are in Inishmaans only general
store, discussing Cripple Billys sudden
disappearance. (He has escaped to Hollywood.) Helens casual sadism toward
her brother escalates, until she reaches
over and breaks an egg on his head.
When Greene did it, the yolk dribbled
down MacNeills curly red hair.
That egg doesnt quite behave like
were used to, does it? Grandage said. He
shrugged. It doesnt matter. We cant
train our eggs. The scene continued:
HELEN: Do you want to play England
versus Ireland?
BARTLEY: I dont know how to play England versus Ireland.
HELEN: Stand here and close your eyes.
Youll be Ireland.

With that, Greene smashed three


more eggs on MacNeills head. MacNeill looked down at his torso, now
drenched in yolk, and said, Theyre very
yellow, arent they? The actors skipped
the end of the scene, in which Bartley
smashes the remaining eggs with a mallet. Instead, Grandage subbed in Cespedes, the understudy. You just have to
follow through with it, Greene advised
her. Once your hand is flat on his head,
then you move on to the next one.
Cespedes ran through the scene with
MacNeill. That was good egg technique, Grandage said, as stagehands
towelled off MacNeill and sent him to
the bathroom with a bottle of shampoo.
Its really satisfying! Cespedes said.
Greene scrubbed the floor with towels on her feet (I have been known to
slip) and ran the scene with Salt. Unlike
MacNeill, who is diminutive, Salt is
taller than Greene, so she had to adjust
her aim. Afterward, Salt stood with sopping hair and asked Grandage a character question: How angry is Bartley about
getting egg-pegged?
Its more resignation than fury,
Grandage said.
MacNeill, who had come back fully
rinsed, added, I think the fury is, like,
when you know you cant win, it makes
you even angrier.
Its interesting you never try pegging
her, Grandage said, as the stagehands
mopped up the floor for the day.
Greene, leaning on the set, grinned
mischievously: Id like to see him try.
Michael Schulman
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

43

ast month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that


the United States was charging members of the Chinese
military with economic espionage. Stealing trade secrets from
American companies, he said, enabled China to illegally sabotage foreign competitors and propel its own companies to success in the international marketplace. The United States should
know. Thats pretty much how we got our start as a manufacturing power, too.
The United States emerged as the worlds industrial leader
by illicitly appropriating mechanical and scientific innovations
from Europe, the historian Doron Ben-Atar observes in his
book Trade Secrets. Throughout the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American industrial spies roamed
the British Isles, seeking not just new machines but skilled workers who could run
and maintain those machines. One of
these artisans was Samuel Slater, often
called the father of the American industrial revolution. He emigrated here in
1789, posing as a farmhand and bringing
with him an intimate knowledge of the
Arkwright spinning frames that had transformed textile production in England, and
he set up the first water-powered textile
mill in the U.S. Two decades later, the
American businessman Francis Cabot
Lowell talked his way into a number of
British mills, and memorized the plans to
the Cartwright power loom. When he returned home, he built his own version of the loom, and became
the most successful industrialist of his time.
The American government often encouraged such piracy.
Alexander Hamilton, in his 1791 Report on Manufactures,
called on the country to reward those who brought us improvements and secrets of extraordinary value from elsewhere. State
governments financed the importation of smuggled machines.
And although federal patents were supposed to be granted only
to people who came up with original inventions, Ben-Atar
shows that, in practice, Americans were receiving patents for
technology pirated from abroad.
Piracy was a big deal even in those days. Great Britain had
strict laws against the export of machines, and banned skilled
workers from emigrating. Artisans who flouted the ban could
lose their property and be convicted of treason. The efforts of
Thomas Digges, Americas most effective industrial spy, got him
repeatedly jailed by the Britsand praised by George Washington for his activity and zeal. Not that the British didnt have a
long history of piracy themselves. In 1719, in Derby, Thomas
Lombe set up whats sometimes called the first factory in the
44

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

United Kingdom, after his half brother made illicit diagrams of


an Italian silk mill. (Lombe was later knighted.) And in the nineteenth century Britains East India Company, in one of the most
successful acts of industrial espionage ever, sent a botanist to
China, where he stole both the technique for processing tea
leaves (which is surprisingly complex) and a vast collection of tea
plants. That allowed the British to grow tea in India, breaking
Chinas stranglehold on the market.
These days, of course, things have changed. The United
States is the worlds biggest advocate for enforcing stringent intellectual-property rules, which it insists are necessary for economic growth. Yet, as our own history suggests, the economic
impact of technology piracy isnt straightforward. On the one
hand, patents and trade secrets can provide an incentive for people to innovate. If you realized that a new invention was going
to get ripped off by China, you might not invest the time and
money needed to come up with it in the first place. On the other
hand, patents and trade secrets limit the diffusion of new technologyand sometimes slow down technological progresswhile copying accelerates it. Samsung, for instance, is known
for being a fast follower in its consumer
business, which really means that its
adept at copying other companies good
ideas. Thats not the same as theft, but evidence from its recent patent trials with
Apple shows that Samsungs response to
the iPhone was, in large part, simply to do
it like the iPhone. This was bad for Apples bottom line, but it meant that many
more people ended up enjoying the
benefits of Apples concepts.
Patents and trade secrets also limit the
kind of innovation that comes from putting a new spin on existing technologies.
In Silicon Valley, engineers historically
migrated with ease from company to company, in part because California prohibits most non-compete
provisions. And, as they moved, they inevitably carried pieces of
their old companies intellectual property with them. A good
thing, too. As the Berkeley scholar AnnaLee Saxenian has convincingly argued, this practice was one reason the Valley became
so innovative. Or take the case of Francis Cabot Lowell. He
didnt just copy plans for the Cartwright loom; he improved it,
and then he made it part of the first integrated textile factory in
America. Lowell was a genuine innovator. But, had he not copied the loom, his factories would never have had a chance to work.
Thats not to say that the U.S. should turn a blind eye to Chinas piracythe Justice Department is supposed to look after
the interests of American citizens. But, just as in a loom factory,
the pattern repeats: engaging in economic espionage is something developing countries do. When youre not yet generating
a lot of intellectual property on your own, you imitate. These
days, China is going to try to steal, and the West is going to try
to stop it. But the tactic of using piracy to leapfrog ahead? That
looks like an idea it stole from us.
James Surowiecki

CHRISTOPH NIEMANN

THE FINANCIAL PAGE


SPY VS. SPY

FICTION

t ends with his right hand gripping her


left, the curve of her knuckles the
pulling yoke. The plane is on its final approach. Greater Cincinnati lies ahead.
Outside, its dark, snowing lightly. Every
window seems to have concluded its
broadcast day, though in houses down
below people idle in front of The Man
from U.N.C.L.E. and The Lucy
Show. Whatever might happen above is
not their concern. The landing gear is set.
In two miles, the runway. Flaps 50. Altimeters cross-checked on zero seven. Inside the cabin, he squeezes her hand
harder. The flight manifest lists them as
Theodore Harris Martin (9B) and
Emma Callahan Brady (6A), both from
Los Angeles, specifically Studio City.
The date is November 20th and the year

46

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

is 1967 and the time is 8:57 P.M. Its a


Monday. In three days, it will be Thanksgiving. That is what we know.

e also know that seven weeks earlier


the Los Angeles Dodgers played
their final game of the season, at home
against the New York Mets. It was a Sunday afternoon, October 1st. The weather
was warm, the sky cloudlessa perfect day
for baseball, Vin Scully proclaimed to his
radio audience. The stadium was half full,
which even the most optimistic fan, looking around, would consider almost empty.
No surprise. It was a meaningless game. A
year ago, these Dodgers had been in the
World Series, but now, without Koufax,
they were third from last, last being these
lowly Mets. The players seemed embar-

rassed to be there, like men pretending to


be boys pretending to be men. Only Don
Drysdale appeared at ease. The Big D
signed autographs during batting practice,
his veteran smile holding forth on reminiscences of broken-down buses and secondrate hotels, hours spent packed in ice, all
those hero-to-bum ratios.
Ted Martin, thirty-five, stood near
the third-base rail, sheepish among the
children, his left arm reaching forward, in
his hand a baseball. He and Don shared
a Van Nuys pedigree, only a few grades
separating them in high school, though
Don would retire soon, while Ted would
remain a lawyer with fugitive dreams.
You cant pin all your hopes on just one
thing, thats what Teds wife said. You
need options. Like an actual career. Then
again, Carol was a practical woman who
distrusted too much encouragement, except when it came to her singing in
church. Here you go, kid. Drysdale
placed the baseball back into Teds hand,
and Ted wondered if kid was tongue in
cheek, a jab between middle-aged men,
or merely a function of the bottom line,
pupils focussed on the endgame of ink.
Were we all kids here? Ted lingered for a
moment in the chorus before returning to
his seat, and as he climbed toward his row
he found himself wavering between feeling very young and feeling very old. His
plan was to lord the baseball over his
daughters, evidence of what they had
missed: contact with a bona-fide AllStar, a future Hall of Famer, Don Drysdale in the flesh. Yesterday, the girls had
begged him to let them skip the game
Please, please, please, Dadso they could
work on some Sunflower Girl project,
and Ted had given in and last minute had
to corral other people, which reminded
him of his limited supply of friends, all of
them busy today, the seats starting to signify a greater failure, until Renshaw from
the office said yeah, sure, and asked if he
could bring his twelve-year-old son, Renshaw Jr., the two of them visible up ahead.
Hot-dog guy came, Renshaw said.
Peanuts, too, Renshaw Jr. added.
This information was self-evident
and rather explicit on their faces.
Ted stood there, delaying the kneeto-knee proximity.
Over the stadium P.A., Im a Believer played as a message for the fans
next year.
Teds oldest daughter loved Davy
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE

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SMART MEDICINE
PART 3: INTEGRATIVE CANCER CARE
By Jessica Wapner

What is Integrative Oncology?


For individuals coping with a cancer diagnosis, care comes
in many varieties. Medical treatment is always the first priority.
Halting the growth and spread of tumors generally requires
some combination of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and
targeted drugs aimed at specific molecular pathways. But with
patient-centered care, the goal is to treat the whole person,
not just the disease. Achieving this goal means broadening
the scope of therapeutic options.
Integrative oncology encompasses therapies designed to
benefit patients during and following cancer treatment. With
practices rooted in traditional medicine and current clinical
research, integrative oncology is structured to give patients
options that complement their treatment and recovery
regimens, helping them maintain their quality of life while
undergoing treatment.
NUTRITION THERAPY
Many cancer drugs produce side effects such as loss of
appetite, weakness, and compromised immunity. Dietary

changes can help address these issues. Nutrition therapy can


help maintain the immune system, promote healing, and help
with inflammation, says Holly Edwards, Clinical Oncology
Dietitian at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA).
At the cellular level, the number of free radicals resulting
from smoking, radiation, or a poor diet can be reduced by
diets high in antioxidants and phytochemicals.

Everything we do is, and always will be,


centered around the patient.
Kathryn Doran
Manager of Oncology Rehabilitation, CTCA

Under a registered dietitians care, some patients may benefit


from switching to several small meals daily to stimulate
appetite; others may need nutritional supplements to ensure a
proper caloric intake. This is particularly true for patients
who feel lethargic or have a poor appetite. Adding probiotics
can help maintain a healthy digestive tract for optimal
absorption of vital nutrients. Nutrition therapy is about
using food as medicine, says Edwards.

MIND-BODY THERAPY

PAIN MANAGEMENT

MENTAL

NUTRITIONAL THERAPY
MEDITATION

CHEMOTHERAPY

SPIRITUAL SUPPORT
RADIATION THERAPY

ACUPUNCTURE
PET THERAPY

HOMEOPATHIC

NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE

PHYSIOLOGICAL
ADVANCED GENOMIC
TESTING

SURGERY

DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING

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SMART MEDICINE
NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE
Naturopathic medicine incorporates natural therapies designed
to complement cancer treatmentfrom the supportive use
of herbal extracts and teas, to dietary supplements, exercise,
physical therapy, acupuncture, and other noninvasive interventions. Importantly, addressing one symptom through
naturopathic care may, in turn, alleviate another, as side
effects such as pain, nausea, insomnia, and depression often
occur as clusters.

Quality survivorship is the end goal


of integrative care.
Kathryn Doran
Manager of Oncology Rehabilitation, CTCA

Working with a trained naturopathic oncology provider is


crucial. Many patients may self-medicate with supplements
and other therapies not understanding the full spectrum of
their illness or its treatment. They may also be unaware of
potentially harmful interactions with certain cancer drugs.
Naturopathic oncology providers bring years of training to bear
on their recommendations, which are tailored to each patients
cancer type and treatment plan. Naturopathic providers work
closely with oncologists and guide patients to appropriate
treatments, says Katherine Anderson, National Director of
Naturopathic Medicine at CTCA.

Integrative therapies help improve the


overall quality of life for patients.
Katherine Anderson
National Director of Naturopathic Medicine, CTCA

PAIN MANAGEMENT
Within the context of integrative cancer care, pain is addressed
as a condition requiring careful diagnosis and treatment.
Working closely with a skilled provider can help patients
ease or eliminate acute discomfort through medication and
other therapies. Relaxation techniques that patients can
practice on their own, and hands-on methods such as massage
therapy, can also soothe sore muscles and ease pains that
are associated with their particular diagnosis.
ONCOLOGY REHABILITATION
Cancer and its treatment can be physically debilitating. Muscle
atrophy from weakness and fatigue can make even routine
activities like showering and dressing arduous. Some treatments
impact speech and swallowing; others affect cognition. Swelling
may occur as a result of fluid collecting in tissue, leading to
pain and reduced mobility. Many chemotherapy drugs can
cause numbness or tingling in the hands and feet, a side effect
known as peripheral neuropathy.
Oncology rehabilitation is a comprehensive approach to
addressing these conditions and can encompass a broad
spectrum of options. An individualized exercise program

supervised by a physical therapist can build strength and


increase endurance, while an occupational therapist can
focus on specific day-to-day tasks like managing stairs or
entering and exiting a car. A speech and language pathologist
can assist with speech rehabilitation and oversee cognition
exercises. And chiropractic care uses hands-on adjustments
to relieve back pain, neck pain, sciatica, and other nerve and
muscle issues.
Advanced rehabilitation techniques are expanding the
spectrum of cancer care. With auriculotherapy, the external
ear is stimulated in a way that reduces pain, nausea, and
fatigue. A therapy known as ReBuilder uses electronic
stimulation to increase tactile awareness. Comprehensive
rehabilitation also continues to provide support after treatment
has been completed.

A collaborative team approach benefits


patients because they have access to all
integrative clinicians.
Katherine Anderson
National Director of Naturopathic Medicine, CTCA

Oncology clinicians increasingly recognize the importance of


pre-habilitationservices provided before surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation. Kathryn Doran, Manager of Oncology
Rehabilitation at CTCA, emphasizes the focus on life after
treatment. Everything we do is about driving quality of life
forward throughout the entire survivorship journey, she says.

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MIND-BODY MEDICINE
Cancer diagnoses can be emotionally as well as physically taxing.
Depression and anxiety may become evident during the course of
therapy. Many patients experience severe mood swings that can impact
their sense of self and relationships with family.
Mind-body medicine draws from a wide field of research and clinical
practice to address how psychological and emotional well-being are
integrated into treatment and recovery. Trained mental health professionals employ a multitude of approaches, such as counseling and
relaxation techniques, to give patients and families the help they need.
For many patients, especially those with an advanced-stage diagnosis,
treatment may increase the need for support of all kinds. Integrative care
addresses the whole person, and spiritual support can provide added
solace and comfort for those who seek and value it. Having a counselor
within reach can make all the difference for patients during this tumultuous
time. Connecting with a faith-based support network may also provide
patients with strength that may be difficult to find on their own.

With integrative care, everything works in


concert for the patients benefit.
Holly Edwards
Clinical Oncology Dietitian, CTCA

PATIENT-CENTERED CARE
At CTCA, every patient works with a Patient-Empowered Care (PEC)
team. Clinicians from various therapeutic disciplines work together to
create a care plan and provide recommendations. We take a wholeperson approach that delivers evidence-based multidisciplinary treatment, says Anderson. All of our recommendations are tailored to
meet each patients individual needs.
The PEC team includes oncologists focused on medicine, surgery,
and radiation; a dietitian; a naturopathic oncology provider; and other
integrative therapy clinicians. Acupuncture, massage, mind-body therapy,
physical therapy, chiropractic care, spiritual support, and other services
are provided as part of each patients treatment. Caregivers are also
encouraged to seek out the support they may need.
The goal of the PEC team is to facilitate implementation of the treatment plan, reduce the risk of treatment delays, and improve overall
quality of life, says Doran. Everything we do is, and always will be,
centered around the patient.

Nutrition and Naturopathic


Medicine in Cancer Care
Nutritionists often recommend dietary changes
to help patients tolerate cancer treatment and
speed recovery. Naturopathic medicine focuses
on vitamins, supplements, herbal extracts, and
hands-on interventions such as acupuncture
and massage. These approaches aim to support
the medical plan, reduce the risk of treatment
delays, and improve quality of life during and
following treatment.

Reducing Pain
Studies have found that acupuncture
can diminish cancer-related pain along
with other treatment-related side effects
such as nausea and insomnia.

Promoting Appetite
High-fiber foods and smaller, more
frequent meals can stimulate the
appetite and diminish gastrointestinal
issues. Ginger is also recommended
for its digestive benefits.

Bolstering Immune Function


Ginseng, protein supplements like
CoQ10, yogurt, and fermented products
high in probiotics have helped
many patients keep their immunity
up during treatment.

Numbness
Neuropathynumbness or tingling in the
extremitiesis a common side effect of
cancer treatment, which acupuncture and
supplements of L-glutamine can help relieve.

Improving Taste and Smell


Lemon drops, mints, and pumpkin seeds
can help reduce or eliminate the metallic
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2014 Rising Tide

Atlanta Chicago Philadelphia Phoenix Tulsa

Jones; he could hear her shriek in his


head.
You get anyone? Renshaw asked.
Ted showed him the ball as if it had
been baptized and now possessed a soul.
Whos that?
Drysdale.
Renshaw nudged Renshaw Jr. This
father-and-son combo reminded Ted of
those before-and-after panels glimpsed in
magazines, in this case advertising the
effects of adolescence, of alcohol and age,
of a hundred-pound weakling swelling
into a thick vindictive bully, which gave
Ted brief guilt since he had been the
golden boy in high school, with enviable
skin and a natural physique, a poor representative of the awkward teen-age years.
And all for what, he wondered. To grow
up and play the role of lawyerlike Robert Redford, another Van Nuys graduate,
except his character in Barefoot in the
Park married a free spirit and lived in
New York City, in Greenwich Village, no
less, and there was no church and there
were no daughters and no Fluffy the goddam cat. There was only sexsex and the
most innocent and lovely of misunderstandings. You should go, Renshaw said
to Renshaw Jr.
Huh?
Go and get Drysdales autograph.
Renshaw Jr. stopped chewing his
peanuts. Got no pen, he said.
Drysdale will have a pen.
And gothe swallowednothing
for him to sign.
Use your program, nitwit.
Disarmed of excuses, Renshaw Jr.
began clearing his lap of half-eaten
food, no easy chore, and in the process
knocked from his knee a box of popcorn
that tumbled to the ground and shattered into its affiliated parts. The boy
froze, perhaps hoping that this pose
might suspend the ramifications of the
spill.
Jesus Christ, Renshaw said.
You would have thought a prized
vase had been broken.
Renshaw turned to Ted. Count
yourself lucky you only have girls.
Well Ted started.
No, believe me. Brainless doesnt
begin to do him justice.
The boy glanced up from the mess,
his hands still maintaining the spiritual
weight of what was lost. Ted had no desire to witness any further humiliations

en route to Drysdale, so he hitched deliverance to a smile, in the mode of athletes


and actors who squint at the light that
glows from withinin this case, of Ted
Martin, benevolent adult. Here you go,
kid, and with that he tossed the baseball,
well advertised in advance, something his
middle daughter could have caught and
she was easily the least cordinated of his
girls, but maybe the sun was in Renshaw
Jr.s eyes, or he was distracted by the
fallen popcorn; either way, the ball
slipped through his hands, hit the concrete, and rolled into the gutter under the
seats in front of them. Renshaw Jr. panicked, practically upending himself in the
retrieval.
Hopeless, Renshaw said.

round noon that day, people raised


their hands in nearby Elysian
Park and sought the return of the Great
Spirit. It was the second love-in of the
year, an unofficial follow-up to the first,
which had been held on Easter and was
still talked about in certain tuned-in
circles. At least four thousand people
had attended. A beautiful gathering of
the tribes. And the Diggers had really
outdone themselves with the food, in
particular those psychedelic watermelons. The Flamin Groovies had played,
as had the Peanut Butter Conspiracy

and the Rainy Daze and a few other


bands only half-remembered. Oh, and
Barry McGuire had made an appearance, dressed as Adam, and someone
later spotted him destroying some Eve
under a Navajo blanket. It had been a
magical day, though the Los Angeles
Times had dubbed it a camp-out of the
camp, a rejoicing of the rejected. This
time around, there was no reporter on
the scene, and there was no formal
stage, no Chet Helms giving his blessing on behalf of the humans of the
Haight; this Sunday roughly a thousand people came together in the hope
of re-creating the past, and, as with
many copies, the sharpness was blurred
around the edges, its unique and special
vibe desaturated, giving the proceedings an aura of forced joyfulness. Every
smile insisted on another smile in return. Not that Emma Brady, thirtythree, noticed. She stood on the periphery and smiled, because this was all
new to her, this roller-coaster ride of
people. Hello, she said, whenever
someone dipped into her line of sight,
unsure if she really belonged here. Was
she the sacrificial square? The parental
mirror? Emma was only fifteen, ten,
maybe as little as five years older than
most of the assembled crowd, yet they
all seemed so young compared with

I hear he turned water into wine, but it was a rather


poor-quality Mesopotamian Cabernet.

her state of affairs: more than a decade


married, the mother of three boys, the
youngest, six years old, by her side.
What are they doing, Mommy? he
asked.
Praying, I think.
To God?
Well, to a god.
Bobby thought about this and then
said, Like Sandy Koufax?
No, more like Pete Rose, Emma
teased, since she was a Cincinnati Reds
fan while the men under her roof bled
Dodger blue. This weekend, the older
boys and her husband were camping at
Lake Casitas, and there had been pressure for her to go, to have the whole
family together. Cmon, Em, well fish
and canoe and have a grand old time, or
so her husband had said. Please. Join us.
No, honey, not today. Not this weekend. Sorry. She was exhausted and in no
mood to act as pioneer woman in gingham and kerchief. Two nights, thats all,
honey. Just like Mike to keep pushing,
to treat her like the sullen daughter who
was being difficult for the sake of being
difficult. His enthusiasm always had the
quality of a concealed weapon. And of
course little Bobby had insisted on staying with her, his brown eyes like rising
water and she his only means of escape,
and this had really rucked Mike, though
he would save the outburst for easier
game, like the boys. Or the dog. Poor
Tiger bore much residual blame.
Who are they? Bobby asked.
Hippies, or most of them, Emma
said, though she could see other curious
tourists like herself who had waded into
this patchwork of sude and macram,
beads and exposed skin.
The drums grew louder, and a more
unified om vibrated the air. There was
a main circle of people, a handful of
committed participants at its center,
many of them dancing with some kind
of prop, while others gestured in ways
that seemed to reference a greater mystical force. An array of musical instruments joined the fray, not necessarily in
order or in tune: a guitar, a tambourine,
a flute and a violin, their harmony
squirming through the narrowest of
openings.
This is weird, Bobby said.
Outside the main circle, smaller circles turned like human-size gears.
Yeah, Emma agreed, and she won52

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

ESSAY ON WOOD

At dawn when rowboats drum on the dock


and every door in the breathing house bumps softly
as if someone were leaving quietly, I wonder
if something in us is made of wood,
maybe not quite the heart, knocking softly,
or maybe not made of it, but made for its call.
Of all the elements, it is happiest in our houses.
It will sit with us, eat with us, lie down
and hold our books (themselves a rustling woods),
bearing our floors and roofs without weariness,
for unlike us it does not resent its faithfulness
or question why, for what, how long?
Its branchings have slowed the invisible feelings of light
into vortices smooth for our hands,
so that every fine-grained handle and page and beam
is a wood-word, a standing wave:
years that never pass, vastness never empty,
speed so great it cannot be told from peace.
nJames Richardson
dered if this was like EasterOn Easter, of all days, Mike had complained
when he saw the coverage on the local
news. Who are these people, to do this
on Easter? Im trying very hard to understand. He certainly hadnt looked to
Emma for an explanation.
A large man in a tuxedo and a top hat
wandered by holding a dozen yellow balloons, each stencilled with the word
LOVE, the sentiment seeming in opposition to his face, which was painted a
ghoulish white. He spotted Bobby and
stopped. You wanna balloon?
Emma wondered if he was a struggling actor, an unemployed mime. Were
all these people out-of-work artists?
Sure, Bobby said.
The man handed him one. What
are you going to give me in return?
Um.
Emma reached for her pocketbook.
No money, the man said. Something else. An exchange of goods.
I dont think I have anything that
you would want, Emma tried to explain.
Sorry, the man said, Im talking to
the boy.
Bobby patted his pockets, produced
a rabbits foot. Ive got this.

The man raised the fur toward the


sun. Is it lucky? he asked.
Never done me any good.
Before this remark could fully sink
in, of her son and his feelings of doom,
of being jinxed, of always losing stuff
and getting injured, of being too short,
too dumb, totally talentless compared to
his popular older brothers, and his father
no help, eitherStop moping around
before Emma could glimpse her own
self-doubt in those words, the man in
the tuxedo and top hat had handed
Bobby two more balloons. Heres your
change, he said.

risella was pitching for the Mets, Foster for the Dodgers, and after six innings New York was winning, 10, with
Moock scoring in the second on Boschs
base hit to left. L.A. had managed only
five scattered singles and was looking listless in the fieldthe diamond might as
well have been a classroom clock on the
last day of school. Ted maintained an orderly box score, something his father
had taught him to do when they went to
see the old Hollywood Stars at Gilmore
Field, back when the Pacific Coast
League was the only game in town. He
enjoyed transcribing the action into the

shorthand of LOBs and IBBs, the forward or backward K, the almost algebraic
equations of SAC 8 and F 9 and DP
1-6-3. Here, human position was expressed in pencil, fate as a form of filling
in the blanks. FC 4-6.
What are you doing? Renshaw Jr.
asked.
The boy had recovered the ball, his
sweaty palms rendering Drysdales signature a blur.
Keeping score, Ted said.
Thats more than just the score.
This is whats behind the score, Ted
explained. Like with the last inning,
heres Davis and his fly ball to right, and
Ferraras single to center, and Roseboro,
remember he had a pop fly to third, and
then Fairly grounded to firstits all right
here.
Seems like homework, Renshaw Jr.
said.
Not really. It just keeps you involved, Ted said. I like knowing what
happened when Swoboda was last
uphe grounded out, but before that
he had a single, and maybe Foster
will pitch him differently this inning,
maybe not, but I have that information
right here, the whole story. Its like Im
a necessary witness.
Renshaw snorted before finishing his
fourth beer.
What? Ted asked.
Cant we just watch the lousy game?
Your boy was curious.
No, he was just asking a stupid
question.
Well, I was giving him an answer.
That wasnt an answer,
that wasI dont know
what the hell that was.
Ted heard a hint of his
wife in the tone, an impatience that bordered on outright scorn, as though his
brand of parenting interfered
with the actual business of
raising children, Carol constantly hovering nearby, an
impresario reminding him to wrap things
up, like at bedtimeespecially at bedtime, and his habit of tucking in the girls
and reciting from memory The Childrens Hour, by Longfellow:
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

Ted would insert his daughters names


and sort of perform the poem, and maybe
it was a bit long, and corny, too, but it was
something he enjoyed doing, and something he thought the girls enjoyed hearing, and it was certainly better than the
Monkees, and maybe they would remember a few stanzas and recall those
moments with Dad and how he gave
them a love for old-fashioned poetry regardless of any mutterings that it was getting late and the girls needed their sleep
and instead of Longfellow how about a
nice haiku? Carol always paused after one
of her clever lines, anticipating laughter
from an audience, it seemed.
Was he pedantic and sentimental?
Was there a worse combination?
Swoboda grounded to short.
How would he score his own existence?
Hey, necessary witness, you get
that? Renshaw cracked.
Ted gave him a middle-finger grin.
Im going to the bathroom, he said.
We shall try not to bear false witness
in your absence. Then Renshaw cupped
his hands around his mouth and shouted
toward home, Moock, you stink!

n Elysian Park, a growing line of people held hands and weaved through
the crowd as fast as they could, the leader
the needle guiding the thread. Bobby was
somewhere in the middle. It had been too
tempting for him to let pass without joining, and he had handed his mother the
three balloons and jumped onto the end,
holding this position briefly until others
grabbed on and the line grew
longer, its stitching more intricate. Emma watched from
a distance. Every now and
then, Bobby swung into view
and she smiled and waved,
feeling glad to be here, the
strangest of Sunday picnics.
A group nearby smoked
marijuana from a peace pipe,
just as she imagined they
would, and she wondered about LSD,
having seen that recent Dragnet episode with the sugar cubes and the acid
freaks, the crazed blue boy. Detective
Sergeant Joe Friday gave her husband yet
another reason for his strict parenting.
These stories are true, Emma. These are
simply the facts. Mike could relate to
Joe. After all, every father carries a kind of

badge. And Emma just nodded along.


But the people in Elysian Park seemed
to be having a wonderful time, no bum
trips in evidence, just a warm-flowing
affection. She spotted Bobby again. They
would have to keep this afternoon a secret. Once more she smiled and waved,
and a palpable lightness came over her,
possibly thanks to the balloons and the
roving psychedelia, and even if this lightness could somehow lift her up from the
ground and float her above the trees, no
one around here would have noticed,
or, in noticing, would have thought anything peculiar.

hunted for avocados, Ted in charge of


climbing ever higher, his father directing
from below. Where else can you get
free fruit in this town? he would say.
Twenty-five years later, Ted was
back on the hunt. His shoes were all
wrong for the task, the soles nothing but
slip, and he grew winded from hiking
the switchbacks to the top. He tried to
remember where the avocado trees were,
and when he finally found them, he
struggled up the trunks in search of hid-

ed had no desire to return to the


Renshaws; instead, he wandered
around the concourse, thinking he
should buy something for the girls, a
pennant, maybe, but his mind was unable to commit to any purchase, and
he soon found himself corkscrewing
down the pedestrian ramp. The sensation of clandestine escape thrilled him,
as though he had been called to action by
a higher power, his wristwatch synched
for some secret plan. Leave. Ted often
thought about his destiny, about why
he was here and for what purposeto
take out the trash, Carol would have
crackedand though there was a touch
of narcissism in these meditations, a
certain kind of hubris, in the end destiny seemed more like a gun pressed
into his back leading him to who knows
where. Just walk. And no funny business.
Sometimes he figured the only question
was where he would drop. Right now
the snub-nosed barrel pushed him clear
of Dodger Stadium and the Renshaws,
and once outside prodded him away
from his station wagon and toward Elysian Park. A single word hung in his
headavocados. He would bring avocados to the girls.
Ted walked through the parking lot
quilted with cars, and then fewer cars,
until finally the empty gray plain ended
on an accumulation of hills and trees and
grass. The tint was more sepia than
green, as if nature were an old photograph in the citys scrapbook. An image
of Teds father arose: the times he had
taken him into the park to watch the
filming of another Ken Maynard Western, with the horseplay and the shootinghis dad had been an accountant for
Republic Picturesand afterward they
54

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

den fruit, it being late in the season. His


wife hated avocados, something about
the mushy texture reminding her of rotten flesh, as if she were on intimate
terms with decay, and no doubt the girls
would follow suit, but maybe he could
show them the pleasures of the pit, how
you could cut around the middle and
twist and the halves would come apart
around a hard center, a world hidden
within a worldCarol would roll her
eyes hereand how you could remove
the pit and poke in a few toothpicks and
rest this Sputnik half submerged in a
glass of water, and in a few weeks youd
have the beginnings of a tree right there
on the windowsill and some day avocados in the Martin back yard. This scenario played in Teds imagination as he
searched the picked-over trees, dirtying
his slacks and splitting a seam on his
shirt, but on the fifth tree he spotted a
runt, hanging high, its existence, once
noted, hijacking the scene, like a dangling grenade. It took some atavistic
climbing for Ted to reach that gnarled
and hardly worth the effort avocado. But
he had it. In his hand. It was ridiculous,
but it was his. He paused for a moment,
wedged between the branches, and from
this peaceful vantage he could hear beating beyond the beating of his own heart,
a beating of drums, like that of Indians
of old, as if The Fiddlin Buckaroo
were being shot in a nearby field. It was
coming from over that hill, beyond that
line of trees. Boom. Boom. Boom. Then

Ted saw three balloons rising like a


smoke signal, yellow balloons, neck and
neck in the midday sky, and he thought
of his daughters, though this thought
was mostly buried and what emerged
was an unexpected feeling of sadness,
watching those three balloons disappear,
as if the earth had been let go from
someones hand.

here are the balloons? Bobby


asked when he returned.
Emma had a sense that he would
want to bring them home and show his
brothers and possibly brag about how
he and Mom had had a swell time without them, went to Elysian Park, where
there was a whole mess of people, some
barely in clothes, like happieshappies? you mean hippiesyeah, yeah,
hippies, and they had chanted and
played games and he had traded his rabbits foot for these balloons, and his father, probably still in that flannel shirt
and cartoonish fishing hat, would buttress his hands against his waist and
give Emma the look that seemed his
birthright, a look she feared seeing in
her own boys, though in fairness Mike
could also be loving, and fun, and certainly had a creative side, but so often
that looseness snapped back into sanctimony, and the person she had loved
without children, with children, she
loved less. He had become nothing but
father. The balloons would require an
explanation and would garner that look,
and Emma was unsure how many more
of those looks she could survive.
They just blew away, she told
Bobby.
Oh.
A big breeze suddenly came and
Emma opened her fingers as illustration.
Oh.
Im sorry.
Its O.K., Bobby said, taking her
hand.
And this was what she always forgot:
how Bobby made her failures his own.

nstead of Ken Maynard riding his


white stallion, Tarzan, the field
below offered up an odder scene, as if
the police had gathered all the kids
who loitered in West Hollywood and
Venice Beach, the stragglers glimpsed
from passing cars, who were sometimes
in the news, as in the recent rumors of

a Haight-Ashbury outbreak in Beverly


Hills, and deposited them here, in
these few acres, all the freaks of L.A.
It resembled a seasonal convocation,
like one of those paintings by Bruegel
which Ted loved, and as he walked
downhill he could feel himself becoming an unexpected yet essential detail:
man holding avocado, in torn shirt and
grubby slacks. His presence was as appropriate as the people breathing fire
or juggling or running in a circle halfnaked: regardless of realms of being, all
and sundry were turned toward a rapturous, if uncertain, center.
Hello, friend, someone said.
Hello, Ted answered, and then
Hello again, and again, until he started
offering up his own greeting without
cue, like this was the first day of school,
and every one of his hellos was met with
equal enthusiasm, a great big sloppy
welcome. He could hear Carol muttering something about the smell and what
these people were smoking and could
you somehow be affected as well because she had heard stories and in this
day and age you had to hold tight to reason and if need be rely on tranquillizers
for a decent nights sleep, and Ted, please
stop saying hellomuch of the pleasure
of being here was walking with the
spectre of his wife, defining himself in
opposition to her attitude.
Hello.
Sh-h-h.
Halfway around the circle, Ted noticed
something, someone, a flash of the familiar among the unfamiliar. The woman had
no name, only a shape that slotted within
Clinton Elementary, the child on her arm
the youngest of three boys, a mirror to his
own three girls, who fit between them like
rungs on a ladder. He had seen her at the
school before, and, though they had never
exchanged words, he remembered a particular slyness that seemed to set her apart
from the other mothers, a tilt of the head
that sized up the world, a divot of suspicion across her brow. Ted stared at her in
the hope of becoming visible, as if she
alone had the ability to see him, and when
that failed he went over and said hello.
Hi, she said back.
No, I know you, he said. Or, I
mean, I know you without knowing you,
I mean, sorry, let me begin again: I think
we have children at the same school.
The polite veil lifted and her eyes

sharpened, the sudden focus almost pulling Ted forward. Oh, thats right, she
said, smiling with tactile consequences.
Her front teeth were somewhat bucked,
which only added to her over-all abundance. You have girls, she said.
And you have boys.
Almost the same age.
Almost the same age.
They practically sang this like a lyric.
And heres my youngest, she said.
Bobby, say hi.
Hi, Mister.
Martin, Ted said. Ted Martin.
Emma Brady.
The thought of shaking hands passed
between them, their indecision almost
blush-worthy, until too much time
had elapsed and the introductions fell to
their feet.
Quite a circus? Ted said.
Bobby and I were just Emma was
explaining when Bobby interrupted.
There are, like, four guys on stilts,
he said, and a monkey, too.
Yeah, I was at the Dodger game
Really? from Bobby.
Uh-huh.
They win?
Still going on but losing when I
They stink.
They sure do, Ted said, wishing he
had a son who might settle him, might
confirm his role as a father instead of as
punch line for the girls and youll-neverunderstand and let-me-handle-this from
Carol, his non-member status essential for

their exclusive clubthe clueless dad, the


hopeless husband. The women in his life
assumed his eternal collaboration, never as
the star but as the supporting player, none
of them realizing how quickly this could
change, how suddenly he could step forward, if pushed even slightly.
Who was pitching for the Dodgers? Bobby asked.
Alan Foster.
Who?
Exactly.
They both laughed, man to boy.

ed Martin, Emma repeated to


herself, because she was bad with
names and had been told repetition
helped; Ted Martin, who had a wife
who was blond and pretty but with a
ridiculous hairdo, more like a silken
shower cap, and who wore these elaborately knotted scarves; Ted Martin,
her husband, the man who sat by her
side during those school plays and recitals, those all-parent functions, his
leg often tapping and his wife stilling him with a touch and a grin that
was more public apology; Ted Martin, his attention shifting from the
stage and toward the rafters, as if
spotting something up there; Ted Martin, Emma christened in retrospect,
the golden husband with the golden
wife and the golden daughters, the
golden couple of Clinton Elementary, of Studio City, and how he had
once caught her looking up as well,

Sexy deep-sea divers not a thing.

hoping to see whatever circled overhead; Ted Martin, here in Elysian


Park, laughing with her son, striking
a pitchers pose, a small green ball in
his hand. They sorely miss Koufax,
he said.
Whats that? Bobby asked, pointing toward his hand.
An avocado, and not a particularly
good one, but its late in the season
and all the trees around here have
been pretty well scavenged. Did you
know there were avocado trees here?
A lot of them. All kinds of fruit trees.
It used to be something I did with my
dad. Ted Martin flipped the avocado to himself. Hey, if I threw this,
you think you could catch it, Willie
Mays?
Bobby nodded.
You sure?
Yep.
Cause Im going to toss it high, like
above-the-trees high.
Bobby backed up, giddy at this adult
challenge.
And you better catch it. I dont want
a bruise on this piece of free fruit.
But not too high, Bobby said.
O.K., not too high, Ted agreed.
You sure youre ready?
Bobby nodded again.
On the count of three, then. One.
In preparation, Ted Martin cranked
his arm back, his torso angled toward
the sky, and Emma smiled at the obvious exaggerationYou sure youre
ready now?the full metre of his
name having sunk inTwo. Better
not drop it, kidso that every breath
seemed to scan him, seemed to rise
and fall over the architecture of a
Ted Martin homeYou sure youre
ready?Emma noticing the split
seam on his shirt, along the left shoulder, the skin beneath a streak of sun
Three.

fter that day in the park, Ted Martin and Emma Brady each resumed their regularly scheduled existence as father and mother, husband
and wife, though there were moments
that still interrupted, all very innocent,
like that easy toss and the game of catch,
the dog that stole the avocado and the
ensuing chase, a total of thirty minutes
spent together before the clock turned
toward the deeper meaning of an hour

56

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

and they both came to the same conclusion, that they should go, it was getting
late, so goodbye and maybe see you
around school. Once back at home and
restablished in their routine, they
found their moods tightening, their ears
sick of the everyday complaints, their
mouths barely able to answer the everyday questions, neither fully understanding the repercussions of this chance
meeting, those glimpses from Elysian
Park which seemed to confirm their
fate: they were trapped.
It was one of those small things that
could breed a tremendous amount of
discontent, but soon the groove sank
into the larger rut of days, and weeks,
and months, the memory losing its attraction, its melodramatic possibility,
and shifting instead to the silly fantasy
of a school-yard crush on a fellowparent, my goodness, as absurd as those
hippies on stilts. By the time the Cardinals beat the Red Sox in the World Series, Ted Martin and Emma Brady had
mostly forgotten one another and what
endured was resignation: this is my life
and it is a perfectly fine life.

hanksgiving was on November


23rd that year. Emma Brady was
going to Cincinnati the Monday before,
so that she could help her overwhelmed
parents get ready for the onslaught of
family. The new live-in housekeeper
would handle the boys and cook their
meals until the three of them flew east,
on the twenty-second, with their father.
When Mike heard this plan, he gave
Emma his patented look, blue eyes narrowing as though her faulty logic were
blinding, as though his gift to the world
were reason, practically in his hands,
right here, Emma, reason, take it, but
Emma no longer cared about these
looks, having negotiated her own terms
from the above resignation, like hiring a
live-in housekeeper, and going to Cincinnati, early and alone.
I really wish we were going together, Mike said, as he pulled up to
the curb for departures. Makes so
much more sense. Your parents have
done Thanksgiving before. They can
cook a turkey.
Ill call when I get to their house,
Emma said.
And youre missing Pete being a
Pilgrim, a minor Pilgrim but a Pilgrim.

Hes disappointed. We all are. Mike


seemed to tick these points from the
roof of his mouth, as if he maintained a
list up there, his tongue the enumerating finger. Its not too late, he said.
Emma was barely listening; instead,
she was imagining Ted Martin in the
audience at the school play, sitting with
his wife, his daughters probably Indian
princesses, their hair the promise of native maize; Ted Martin, reformed in her
mind; Ted Martin, sharper than before.
I should check in, Emma said, opening the car door.
I can help with your bag.
You should go. A gesture brought
a skycap. Ill call.
I dont like this, Mike said. I dont
like being separated like this. I really
think you should stay. His habit of always trying to win an argument, even
when there was no argument to win,
softened, and his eyes reverted to a
warmer memory, of South Sea waters
and a honeymoon that got Emma pregnant before she truly understood the
meaning of sex.
Ill see you soon. Emma leaned
back into the car and kissed him on the
cheek.

T.

W.A. Flight 128, en route to Boston, Massachusetts, with stops in


Cincinnati, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was departing at 5:37 P. M.
from Gate 39. Ted Martin was behind
schedule, a combination of bad traffic
and his propensity for misgauging time,
his internal clock always optimistic, as if
he were the hero destined to arrive before
the countdown reached zero. His wife
hated this quality. Carol insisted on
being early, waiting and checking her
watch, her punctuality a lit fuse. But
Carol was home, getting dinner ready for
6 P.M. sharp, while Ted was heading to
Boston for a meeting on Tuesday. It was
a job that no one else had wanted, since
it was so close to Thanksgiving, but Ted
enjoyed travelling, in particular flying; as
a boy he would go to the Burbank airport
with his dad and watch the Douglas
DC-3s take to the air. Still amazes me,
his father would say. Every time they lift
up seems a small miracle. So Ted had
volunteered for the mission and was now
rushing through the terminal with only
five minutes to spare, the flight already
boarding on the tarmac. He weaved
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

57

between people and warned them by way


of premptive apology, his smile natural
and broad, like the Juice chalking up another touchdown for U.S.C. When he
got to Gate 39, he flashed his ticket at the
attendant and she practically cheered
him on throughGo, Ted Martin, go
and he maintained his speed right up the
stairs, stepping into the cabin and halfexpecting the passengers to greet him
with applause.

he plane was a Convair 880 and had


seventy-five passengers with another seven in crew. Of course, nobody
on board was aware of the particular
story, of the sudden change in personal
dynamics when Ted Martin and Emma
Brady locked eyes, of the absolute recalibration of the world within that confined space. They both startled without
moving, Ted in the aisle, Emma in her
seat. What had been forgotten now
came speeding back: Elysian Park on
that beautiful fall day, the drums, the
dancing. Ted was the first to smile.
Hi, he said.
Hi, she said back.
Going to Boston?
Cincinnati.
Before anything else could be said,
the stewardess prompted Ted to his seat.
Three rows separated them, and as
the cabin crew went through the safety
procedures Ted and Emma seemed to
experience every version of possible danger: the turbulence, the sudden loss of
oxygen, even the remote possibility of
a water landing. Ted could glimpse the
back of Emmas head, a shag cut, different from the bouffant of seven weeks
ago, while Emma could feel the force of
Teds green-gray eyes peering from behindlike sea glass, she recalled from
that day in the park, a surprising piece of
treasure. Tray tables were raised, smoking materials extinguished, and they
both thought, We are alone.

he airplane rose over Los Angeles


and then headed east, the lowering
sun like its counterweight, a reminder
of what was being left behind, and in its
place the lift and flow of what lay ahead.
After the plane reached a cruising altitude of twenty-five thousand feet, the
Fasten Seat Belt and No Smoking
signs dimmed, and Ted rose without
internal debate. He solicited all the
58

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

powers of his charm and asked the older


woman sitting next to Emma if she
might possibly change seats with him so
that he could talk with his friend and
God bless hershe agreed, with an almost expectant smile, as if she had been
reverently waiting for this request.
Thank you so much, Ted said, settling her into 9B.
Enjoy the flight, she told him.
And here they were, after seven
weeks, seven weeks of leaving behind
that day in Elysian Park, not even a day
but thirty minutes, almost two days
passing for every minute they had spent
together, a minuscule percentage, and
even less when measured against the
length of a marriage.
Good to see you again, Ted said.
You, too, Emma said.
I like your hair.
Really? No one else does.
Well, I do.
Thanks, she said. I needed a
change, you know, even if its silly.
And this was the beginning. Over
Nevada they flew, over Utah and Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, the distance gained bringing them
closer together, as they both had screwdrivers, and white wine with their
chicken fricassee, then more drinks, the
two of them talking about their lives
without ever mentioning spouses or children, their lives before they became what
they became, as if up here they could
begin again, begin again as the same people in different livesin Paris, in New
York, in Londonand they smiled and
seemed to recognize themselves in the
others reflection, this attraction between
strangers slowly growing into a passion
between co-conspirators who could blow
up the world in order to start another.
What seemed impossible alone, together
seemed possible.
Maybe I should stay in Cincinnati,
Ted said.
Ill be with my parents, Emma said.
Well, Im due in Boston.
So
We could both get delayed, make our
phone calls, head to the nearest hotel.
Ted had never been so bold, Emma
so accommodating.
A hotel, she said, head tilting.
Yes.
The two of us, she said, in a hotel.
We can be Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Ted leaned in closer. Since I met you,


youve been a pulse in my head. Its like
we are meant to be, like were connected, you know, like the universe is
insisting on us being together. Maybe
that sounds silly, as silly as your haircut.
And our families? Emma asked.
That was the first mention of them.
The truth is, I see only two people
here, Ted said.
These words, they seemed scripted.

nd here we are again, back to the


beginning, which is the end. All
the passengers have buckled their seat
belts. The plane is on its final approach
to Runway 18 of the Greater Cincinnati
Airport. Light snow is visible through
the windows. As the landing gear lowers, Ted Martin reaches for Emma
Bradys hand. This is their first touch
of skin. We know from transcripts
that the pilot and co-pilot reported
no issues from the cockpit. Altimeters
set and cross-checked on zero seven.
Yaw damper, check. All is good. Ted
squeezes Emma a bit harder, his thumb
rubbing her thumb. They both hate
landings. At 8:57 P.M., the airplane clips
a few tree branches at an elevation of
875 feet m.s.l., approximately 9,357 feet
short of the runway. After several more
impacts with trees and, finally, the
ground, T.W.A. Flight 128 comes to
rest 6,878 feet from the runway. There
it bursts into flames. The people in the
few nearby houses hear nothing unusual, though minutes later they will
hear the sirens and then imagine having
heard a boom, taking possession of the
disaster. As the airplane tumbled, Ted
Martin and Emma Brady both flashed
on their respective families, onto Marcia, Jan, and Cindy, onto Greg, Peter,
and Bobby, onto Carol, onto Mike, a
single all-encompassing thought that
contained a world within a world where
the two of them were forever missing.
But that quickly passed. For now, in
this world, they were alone, staring at
each other, almost calm, their unforgotten hearts gripped by the fall. From the
voice recorder, we know the captains
final words: Come on, you, he said,
trying to strain his arms into wings.

nyr.kr/thisweekinfiction
David Gilbert on Heres the Story.

CH A R LES JA MES
Beyond Fashion
Through August 10

Outstanding . . .
a tour de force of masterworks
New York Times

The exhibition is made possible by


Additional support is provided by

one MET.
many worlds.
Charles James Ball Gowns, 1948. Photograph (detail) by Cecil Beaton,
Beaton / Vogue / Cond Nast Archive. Copyright Cond Nast.

metmuseum.org

GATSBY
TO
GARP
MODERN MASTERPIECES
FROM THE CARTER
BURDEN COLLECTION

2014 Spring Season s Metropolitan Opera House

Manon
This Week Only!
June 2 7

NOW THROUGH
SEPT 7

From Parisian salons


to mysterious Louisiana
bayous, Kenneth MacMillans
masterwork soars to searing
heights as Manon chooses
between wealth and true love.

This Week: June 2 - 6 at 7:30pm


June 4, 7 at 2pm; June 7 at 8pm

Cinderella
ABT PREMIERE
June 9 14

A short walk from


Grand Central
and Penn Station
Madison Ave. at 36th St.
themorgan.org
This exhibition is made possible by lead funding from Karen H. Bechtel.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940), The Great Gatsby, New York: Charles Scribners Sons,
1925, Collection of the Estate of Carter Burden

The entire family will have


a ball at this rags-to-riches
fairy tale, while Ashtons
beloved choreography and
Prokofievs sumptuous
score are a perfect fit!

Next Week: June 9 - 13 at 7:30pm


June 11, 14 at 2pm; June 14 at 8pm

Met Box Office: Broadway at 64th St. | 212.362.6000 | abt.org


Polina Semionova and Roberto Bolle in Manon. Hee Seo in Cinderella. Photos by Fabrizio Ferri.
No refunds or exchanges. Casts, prices and programs are subject to change.

MY OLD FLAME BY RACHEL KUSHNER

CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN

n the beginning was B, who looked like an angel. He


asked to carry my books up the hill. It was the first day of
sixth grade at my new school, in a new city, San Francisco. It
began to rain. A tough and intimidating eighth grader approached. (She and her friends looked like adults to me, and,
as I soon discovered, they had adult problems, like pregnancy
and drug addiction.) She took my umbrella and said something unrepeatable about Bs race. He was black, and she was
stridently white. Many things were new to me that day. B and
I never reconnected.
All the girls in my grade liked D, who was a natural leader
with a demonic personality. (Ive given these people random
initials.) D made fun of me for being smart and having freckles, which was considered a form of ugliness. He once stole
the lever at the top of the stairs in my apartment building,
which you pulled to unlatch the front door without making
the long descent. My parents, science postdocs who were
often at the lab and were unversed in the delinquent world of
the Sunset District, were upset about the lever, since we
rented. It was brass and heavy, and D, who was white, said he
planned to use it to bash peoples heads in. For a few days that
year they closed my school, where white kids and black kids,
bused in from the Fillmore District, had declared war.
The race thing was complicated: some of us were friendly,
but others faced off. When M, who was black, called me on
the phone to ask me to go with him, I said yes. Going with
him meant talking on the phone and then hiding, out of shyness, when I saw him at schoolalthough I once kissed M,
and I can still summon the particular warmth of his lips
against mine.
R, in retrospect, would have been a better match for me,
though we merely flirted on the playground. R had dyed-red

hair that was conked like James Browns. He wore beautiful


shimmering tracksuits and, despite being in eighth grade,
was somehow old enough to drive and had a car. R treated
me like a sexy woman, although we both knew I was a dork
and a child of eleven. Whereas the premier white Adonis at
my middle school, an eighth grader named J, said loudly that
the only good thing about me was my hairwhich I spent
hours curling with an iron, in sections, for the five-layer,
feathered effect.
Moving forward here, Chad was my first actual date, the
summer after sixth grade. He gets a name because who knows
what happened to Chad. Chad, are you there? See? Thought
not. Chad lived at a boys foster home that was close to my
middle school and an afternoon destination. Place was paradise: video games in the living room, and the den father
bought us Bacardi 151. Chad looked like Leif Garrett, blond
and reptilian. We took Muni to the beach and struggled to
keep a joint lit in the wind. Abruptly, he said he had to go.
Later, he told everyone he changed his mind when I took my
jacket off. (No breasts yet.)
Then there was N, a king among bad boys, who once
ran me over on his moped, and another time dumped a
bucket of water from our front windows onto a colleague
of my fathers.
The very coolest boys in my neighborhood and even in the
whole city, the brothers V and V, were actually sort of nice.
They were dropouts who lived in a garage around the corner
and were already on their way to becoming famous skateboarders and punk icons. Through them, I became obsessed
with the Adolescents, who sang Kids of the Black Hole,
which was our anthem. I fell in love with the drummer based
on his picture. I went to a show and the drummer signed my
hand and invited me to a party, but I didnt go. I was a virgin
who had not yet entered puberty and figured this would be
unsatisfactory.
Next came T, who was dark and lovely in the uniform
they all woreDerby jacket, Ben Davis jeans. I had a secret
crush on him until he tried to unclothe me when I was too
sick from drinking to stop him.
For a brief period, I liked A, whom I barely knew, but who
had a beautiful face. Later, I understood from multiple friends
that A was a violent misogynist, who took from girls what
could not be taken back. And much later, after Id abandoned
that world for college, A and my friend K got into a fight with
some guys, one of whom ended up stabbed. K took the rap
alone and went to prison. A, the handsome misogynist, had
become a cop. K eventually died, and I dont want to know
the circumstances, although I could easily find out if I asked
the right people. But I could also, easily, or somewhat easily,
pretend that none of this ever happened, that I never knew
any of these people, that they were not the dream boys of my
universe, even as they were, they absolutely were.

PROFILES

THE TEEN WHISPERER


How the author of The Fault in Our Stars built an ardent army of fans.
BY MARGARET TALBOT

n late 2006, the writer John Green


came up with the idea of communicating with his brother, Hank, for a year
solely through videos posted to YouTube. The project wasnt quite as extreme as it sounds. John, who was then
twenty-nine, and Hank, who was three
years younger, saw each other about once
a year, at their parents house, and they
typically went several years between
phone calls. They communicated mainly
through instant messaging.
Hank was living in Missoula, where
hed started a Web site about green technology. John was living on the Upper
West Side while his wife, Sarah Urist
Green, completed a graduate degree in

art history at Columbia. He had published two young-adult novels, Looking


for Alaska, in 2005, and An Abundance of Katherines, in 2006, and was
working on a third. Like the best realistic Y.A. books, and like The Catcher in
the Ryea novel that today would almost certainly be marketed as Y.A.
Greens books were narrated in a clever,
confiding voice. His protagonists were
sweetly intellectual teen-age boys smitten
with complicated, charismatic girls. Although the books were funny, their story
lines propelled by spontaneous road trips
and outrageous pranks, they displayed a
youthfully insatiable appetite for big
questions: What is an honorable life?

Green wanted to write an unsentimental cancer novel that offered some basis for hope.
60

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

How do we wrest meaning from the


unexpected death of someone close to
us? What do we do when we realize
that were not as special as we thought
we were?
Green was more forgiving toward
adults than Salinger was, but he shared
Salingers conviction that they underestimate the emotional depth of adolescents.
Green told me, I love the intensity teenagers bring not just to first love but also
to the first time youre grappling with
grief, at least as a sovereign beingthe
first time youre taking on why people
suffer and whether theres meaning in
life, and whether meaning is constructed
or derived. Teen-agers feel that what you
conclude about those questions is going
to matter. And theyre dead right. It matters for adults, too, but weve almost
taken too much power away from ourselves. We dont acknowledge on a daily
basis how much it matters.
Y.A. novels are peculiarly well suited
to consideration of ethical matters. It
seems natural when a high schooler like
Miles Halter, of Looking for Alaska, is
depicted struggling to write essays on
topics like What is the most important
question human beings must answer?
Miles is equally preoccupied with girls
and with collecting the dying words of
famous people. (His favorite: Rabelaiss
I go to seek a Great Perhaps.) Though
Looking for Alaska sold modestly, it
won the Michael L. Printz Award, the
American Library Associations honor
for best Y.A. book of the year. At the
time, Green was living in Chicago,
working at the associations magazine,
Booklist, where he had reviewed books
in a peculiar constellation of subjects:
conjoined twins, boxing, and theology.
Upon graduating from Kenyon College,
in 2000, Green had thought of going to
divinity school, and he worked for six
months as an apprentice chaplain at a
childrens hospital in Columbus. He
found the experience almost too sad to
bear, and decided that such a life was not
for him. Still, he remained deeply interested in spiritual matters, with one exception: Is there a God? struck him as
one of the least interesting questions.
After Alaska won the prize, Green
quit his day job. He got more writing
done, but he missed the intellectual camaraderie that hed always had with his
peers. The YouTube project was, in part,
ILLUSTRATION BY BARTOSZ KOSOWSKI

an attempt to fill that void. (It was also a


smart marketing stunt, though Green
could not have predicted how smart.)
Hank had reservations about becoming
the repository for Johns excess energy.
He told me, I found John exciting and
smart and interesting but also a little dramatic. He gets frustrated easily. Hes
anxious. Hypochondriacal. At the same
time, he said, John, for me, has always
been the baseline of what was cool and
valuable and important. If he liked a
band, Id buy all of their CDs and memorize them and become a bigger fan than
he ever was.
In 2006, YouTube was entering its
second year, and people were starting to
post video diaries, which, in their more
theatrical moments, looked like performance art staged in somebodys basement. John Green was a fan of several
such series, especially The Show with
Zefrank, which enlisted viewers in
quirky projects, such as dressing up their
vacuum cleaners as people. Hank shared
Johns enthusiasm for these experiments,
and it trumped any hesitations that he
had. We really believed in the importance of online video as a cultural form,
Hank said.
The Greens started posting videos
several times a week, under the name
the Vlogbrothers. The project was less
a conversation than an extended form
of parallel play. They shared personal
storiesJohn confessed that the only
sports trophy he ever got was made by his
parents, and bore the inscription AllStar in Our Heartsbut mainly they
exchanged ideas. The brothers had signature preoccupations, which they discussed with excitable urgency, talking
into the camera at tremendous speed.
John discussed books, existential anxiety,
and pizza; Hank was into science, math,
and corn dogs. John invented a highly
undignified happy dance; Hank wrote
and performed songs, many of them
about Harry Potter. The tone of their
monologues ranged from goofily informative (how giraffes have sex) to wonkish (Why Are American Health-Care
Costs So High?). Many posts dispensed
adult wisdom, but in a reassuringly modern way. In a post advising boys on how
to charm a girl, John jokingly said, Become a puppy. A kitten would also be acceptable or, possibly, a sneezy panda
an allusion to a popular clip on YouTube.

But he also said, If you can, see girls as,


like, people, instead of pathways to kissing and/or salvation.
The Greens vlogs were filled with injokes and code words that rewarded dedicated viewing. D.F.T.B.A. stood for
Dont Forget to Be Awesome, and
John referred to his wife as the Yeti, because she was much talked about but
by her choicenever seen on camera.
When a brother broke a rule that theyd
established, such as posting a video longer than four minutes, the other brother
could impose a punishment. Hank once
had to spend fifteen consecutive hours in
a Target; John had to eat a generous
helping of slobber carrots. (His toddler, Henry, provided the slobber.)
In February, 2007, John was stuck at
the Savannah airport, and he spotted an
arcade game called Aero Fighters. He
initially misread the name as Nerdfighters, and later, in a video, he started
riffing: what if Nerdfighters were a real
game? As he put it, The band geek
would be, like, I will destroy your ears
with my tuba! And the theatre guy
would be, like, I am an expert at sword
fighting! And the English nerd would
be, like, Hmm, I know a lot of Shakespeare quotes! Why did people still pick
on nerds, anyway? Who did the popular
guys have on their sideGeorge W.
Bush and Tom Brady? Green declared,
I raise you an Abraham Lincoln and a
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and . . . an
Isaac Newton, a William Shakespeare, a
Blaise Pascal, an Albert Einstein, an Immanuel Kant, an Aristotle, a Jane Austen, a Bill Gates, a Mahatma Gandhi, a
Nelson Mandela, and all four Beatles.
We win.
Fans loved the term nerdfighter and
started using it to identify themselves.
Initially, Green talked about nerdfighters
with a hostile edge: they stood against
the popular people. But the word soon
took on a more celebratory, inclusive
cast. Nerdfighters werent against anything; they were simply proud to immerse themselves in interests that others
might find geeky or arcane. Indeed, the
nerdfighter community is strikingly civil
and constructive for an Internet subculture. Through an annual charity event,
the Project for Awesome, nerdfighters
have raised hundreds of thousands of
dollars for one anothers favorite causes.
Their comment sections, on YouTube

and elsewhere, are filled with earnest


suggestions for further reading and mock
complaints that Green has made them
care about a distant war that theyd been
ignoring. Rosianna Halse Rojas, a pioneering nerdfighter, recalls the moment
the concept caught on. It was like the
formation of a nation, she told me.
Only we werent fighting anybody to
do it.

n June 6th, Twentieth Century


Fox releases The Fault in Our
Stars, the movie version of John Greens
wildly successful 2012 novel about teenagers with cancer. T.F.I.O.S., as fans
call it, has been on a Times best-seller list
for a hundred and twenty-four consecutive weeks, and has spent forty-three
weeks as the No. 1 Y.A. book. The trailer
for the movie, which stars Shailene
Woodley and Ansel Elgort, has been
viewed nearly twenty million times.
Publishing executives talk about successful books as if they were lightning
strikes, but the popularity of The Fault
in Our Stars was no accident. Nerdfighters, who by then numbered in the
millions, were evangelical about it, tucking notes into copies of the book and encouraging readers to join their movement. In fact, The Fault in Our Stars
reached the No. 1 position on Amazon
six months before it was published, when

Green announced its title online. Many


authors do pre-publication publicity,
but Green did extra credit: he signed the
entire first printinga hundred and
fifty thousand copieswhich took ten
weeks and necessitated physical therapy
for his shoulder.
In recent years, whenever Green has
appeared at a book signing he has been
greeted by hundreds, often thousands,
of screaming fans, mostly teen-age girls.
The weirdness of this is hard to overstate. Green is a writer, and his books
are not about sexy vampires. Stars is a
novel about young people with a deadly
disease; its title is taken from Shakespeare, and it has an uncompromising
ending. In the movie, as in the book, the
lead character, Hazel Lancaster, wears
an oxygen tube in her nose. Green did
not write the films script, but he was an
informal consultant, and it was important to him that the film retain this detail: It flies in the face of the notion that
romance, particularly about teen-agers,
has to be straightforwardly aspirational,
as they always say.
Green, now thirty-six, is thin and tall,
with light-brown hair that shifts around
like a haystack in a stiff wind; he often
rakes his hands through it, causing random clumps to stand up straight. He has
the charm of the middle-school teacher
you secretly thought was cute, but he is

Oh, and Happy Fathers Day.

no match for Elgort, the twenty-year-old


who plays Hazels romantic interest,
Augustus Waters. I attended a preview
of the movie in Manhattan this spring.
Thousands of fans had lined up for free
tickets, and, after the screening, they
screamed when Elgort strode down the
aisle for a Q. & A. But they screamed
louder for Green. We love you, John!
they called out. When Green told the
crowd that, though he was proud of the
movie, it wasnt his movie, someone
shouted, But its your plot, John!
which marked the first time Id ever
heard heckling about the nature of authorship. One questioner, who had to
apologize for hyperventilating as she
spoke, asked the five actors onstage to
name their favorite lines from the book.
Woodley was partial to I fell in love the
way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all
at once; Elgort cited The world is not
a wish-granting factory. I had never
watched a movie in a theatre where there
was mass cryingnot discreet noseblowing, or stifled sniffles, but wracking
sobs. (I was not immune.)
Green told me that he had loved and
hated Erich Segals Love Story when
he read it in high school, and that he had
wanted to write an unsentimental cancer novel. A story about dying teenagers would be too wrenching, he decided, if it werent also romantic, and
funny in a way that offered some basis
for hope. Much of the novels vibrancy
comes from the first-person voice of
Hazel, which is irreverent but never nihilistic. After she reads online tributes to
a girl whos died of cancer, Hazel observes that the girl seemed to be mostly
a professional sick person, like me, which
made me worry that when I died theyd
have nothing to say about me except that
I fought heroically, as if the only thing Id
ever done was Have Cancer.
When Green initially tried to write
about kids with cancer, he centered the
narrative on a young chaplainthe worst
kind of wish-fulfillment version of me.
The result, he once said, was like a terrible Greys Anatomy. Then, in 2007, he
became aware of a girl from Quincy, Massachusetts, named Esther Grace Earl,
who was one of the earliest nerdfighters.
Esther had thyroid cancer, as Hazel does
in the book, and was dependent on an oxygen tank. Green got to be friends with
her online, and later visited her in person.

Green is careful to say that Hazelwhose


middle name is Graceis not Esther, but
Esthers father and sister have spoken, appreciatively, of how much Greens creation reminds them of her. Esther died in
2010, at the age of sixteen. I could not
have written it without her friendship,
Green said, adding that there is definitely
something weird about her not being here
to give her blessing or not. (This Star
Wont Go Out, a collection of writing
drawn from Esthers journals, letters, and
blog posts, came out in January from
Greens publisher, Dutton, with an introduction by him.)
When Green finished the manuscript
of Stars, he and his editor, Julie StraussGabel, felt that they had something special. Most Y.A. readers are girls, but because Green is male and his first books
featured boys as protagonists his new
novel seemed capable of reaching both
genders. Stars is a love story, but
Strauss-Gabel successfully pushed for a
cover that did not look like a traditional
Y.A. romance: no pink, no photograph
of a pretty girl. Instead, the title dominates, and the background is blue.
The stripped-down cover also meant
that adults could read it on the subway
without embarrassment. Adults have become big consumers of Y.A. fiction, and
Green treats his grownup characters with
unusual empathy. Hazel worries a good
deal about how her death will affect her
parents: There is only one thing in this
world shittier than biting it from cancer
when youre sixteen, and thats having a
kid who bites it from cancer. Green gives
Hazels mother not only a devoted temperament but a sense of humor; she
watches Americas Next Top Model
with her daughter and takes her to Amsterdam to meet her favorite author, Peter
Van Houten. Greens books seem calibrated for an era in which parentsvigilant and eager not to seem out of touch
often read the books that their children
are reading.
Lizzie Skurnick, who runs a publishing imprint that reissues Y.A. literature
from the past, told me that Green writes
books that are appropriate for teen-agers
and for the adults who want books to be
appropriate for teen-agers. Such parents may be pleased that their child is
touched enough by a book to cry over
it, but they dont want the experience to
be too unsettling. Skurnick feels that
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

63

Greens approach is a bit tamer than that


of Y.A. authors from earlier eras: Judy
Blume, Lois Lowry, Richard Peck. In
Katherine Patersons beloved 1977 book,
Bridge to Terabithia, a fifth graders best
friend dies alone in the woods after falling
from a rope swing, and there is little consolation in the form of either teachable
ideas or romantic spark. John Greens
books all have a point and a lesson,
Skurnick said. Theyre sophisticated
points, but theyre there.

n April, I visited Green in Indianapolis. He has lived there since


2007, when Sarah took a curatorial position at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
In the Midwest, the Greens added to
their household, in this order: Willy, a
West Highland terrier; Henry, their now
four-year-old son; and Alice, their
daughter, who just turned one. When
Sarah was pregnant with Alice, the
Greens did a Google Hangout with
Barack Obama, during which they asked
him which name he preferred: Eleanor
or Alice. The President demurred, saying, The main thing is, tell either Eleanor or Alice not to forget to be awesome.
I was staying downtown, and Green
picked me up in his car, a Chevy Volt, to
take me to his office and video-production studio, in the Broad Ripple neighborhood. He was wearing a checked
shirt, jeans, and Adidas sneakers with
green-and-turquoise Argyle socks. At
one point, he told me, I dont see why
anyone would ever wear socks that are
not Argyle.
Broad Ripple is as cute as its name.
There are coffeehouses tucked into
bright-painted wooden buildings and
brewpubs in older brick ones. Greens
office occupies the third floor of a
solid, Midwestern-looking building.
Nearby, theres an encampment of
youngish homeless people, known locally
as the Bridge Kids, and a weekly farmers
market that makes an appearance in
Stars.
At work, Green has surrounded himself with people who are approximately
as smart as he is, but a lot calmer. When
I asked Sarah how anxious John was, she
laughed and said, The word very comes
to mind. But, she said, its part of his
identity and the way he experiences the
world, and its not a wholly inwardfocussed anxiety. It also helps him to be

empathetic. Green told me that he had


been prone to obsessive thought spirals
for as long as I could rememberbut
hed had good therapy, starting when he
was a teen-ager, and felt that his emotions were fairly well managed. Besides,
from a novelists perspective, the ability
to cycle through all the possibilities and
choose the worst is very helpful.
Vlogbrothers, which has more than
two million subscribers, has become the
anchor of an online empire. In 2011,
after YouTube approached the Greens
about doing additional series, they
launched Crash Course videosshort
educational lectures with animation accompaniments. John handles the humanities, Hank the sciences. The videos,
which have the jump-cut aesthetic and
speedy delivery of the Vlogbrothers
posts, are the pedagogical equivalent of
Red Bull shots, and if you watched them
all youd know a lot, but youd also think
you knew more than you did. Raoul
Meyer, a history teacher who taught
John Green in high school, and who now
writes scripts for Crash Course, is sometimes bothered when people say that
John is the best teacher theyve ever had,
because in real life teachers tell you when
youre wrong. This is delivery of content
and we do a really good job of it, but
thats just one part of teaching, he said.
The walls of Greens office are covered with framed nerdfighter-themed
art work, most of which has been thrust
into his hands at book signings. In one
corner is an Aero Fighters arcade console, a birthday gift from Hank to John.
Another gift from Hank hangs on a
nearby wall: a photographic mosaic,
amassed from hundreds of images of
fans, of the nerdfighter salute, a gesture in which the hands are crossed at
the wrists in a way that makes actual
fighting impossible.
A video blog may not sound like an
intimate medium, but it has brought
John and Hank closer. After the first year
of Vlogbrothers, they resumed other
forms of communication; John told me
that they now talk on the phone every
day. If anything, we talk to each other
too often, he said. Now our collaboration is so deep, and our work together
feels so intertwined, that I cant imagine
we were ever so distant. But we still need
projects. We still dont talk about personal stuff. They say I love you once a

yearon Esther Day, which is a holiday


that Esther Earl asked nerdfighters to
observe on her birthday. Her idea was
that it could become a celebration of
non-romantic lovea day when youd
say I love you to people who dont often
hear it from you.
John walked me into his inner sanctum, where a grubby, oatmeal-colored
La-Z-Boy hulked in a corner. I know
its not a physically beautiful item, he
said. But his mother gave it to him for his
twenty-second birthday,
and he has written parts
of all his books in it. It
has moved successively farther from the center of our
house, he observed. In
New York, it was dead in
the middle of the apartment. A bookshelf held
translated editions of his
books. The Norwegian
edition of Stars is called
Fuck Fate. Green laughed. That is, arguably, a better title than The Fault in
Our Stars, he said. Youve got to love
Norwayyou can put fuck on the cover
of a young-adult book!
That morning, Green was making a
Crash Course video about Beloved, the
Toni Morrison novel. Unlike his Vlogbrothers posts, Greens Crash Course
videos are written not by him but by
hired experts. He revises them, however,
and as he read the script on a teleprompter he added jokes and asides. The
video was being filmed by Stan Muller, a
tall, broad-shouldered guy who answered
a Craigslist ad placed by Green three
years ago. Muller adopted the role of
fond, soothing parent. Green reveres
Beloved, but its harrowingSethe, a
runaway slave, kills her babyand he
was worried about getting the tone right.
In Crash Course videos, Green often
performs as Me from the Past, a jaded
younger version of himself who asks obvious questions. In the guise of this alter
ego, Green slouched in a chair and said
into the camera, Like, do you think Beloved is a ghost or not?
As his current self, he complained,
Youre ruining it, Me from the Past. We
were having a moment there.
They stopped filming for a second,
and Green said, hopefully, That was
kind of a joke. It was almost a joke. Its
about to get really unfunny, though.

One of his knees was jiggling. Oh,


man! How about if I add, You have a
special gift for finding the least interesting question? Can I say that, or is it too
dismissive of a large body of scholarship? I dont careI think its funny.
Stan, do you like it?
I do, Muller said.
It is the least interesting question you
can ask.
I agree.
Nerdfighters have a term for assessing
the heights that Greens
hair achieves when he worriedly tugs on itpuff levelsand this morning they
were rising. Fuck, its literally haunting, this book, he
said. Like theres a ghost
in the room. It was a little
surprising to hear Green
use fuck so often, because
he is careful not to do so
in his videos or his books.
He continued reading the script,
evoking the books themes of dehumanization, buried memory, and love thats
too thick. He then described the moment when Sethe, caught by her slaveowner, takes her kids out back to the
woodshed to kill them all before he can
take them. In an unusually slow voice,
he noted, She only manages to kill one,
sawing through its neck.
Afterward, he worried some more:
Gaaaaah. This is going to get, like, the
least views of any Crash Course video
ever made.
Nah, Muller replied. Itll get a hundred thousand.

fterward, in Greens office, we talked


about the years of his life that
might be chronicled in a Y.A. novel. He
grew up in Orlando, Florida, where his
father, Mike, was the state director of the
Nature Conservancy; his mother, Sydney, stayed home with John and Hank
when they were little, then worked for a
local nonprofit called the Healthy Community Initiative. Greens parents now
live near Asheville, North Carolina.
They have goats and chickens and a
vegetable garden and make goats-milk
soap, Green said. I was so worried about
them leaving their home of twenty-five
years and, like, an hour after they arrived
they were the happiest theyd ever been.
In middle school, Green said, he was
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

65

a regrettable combination: a nerd who


was not a good student. He was also
bullied and unhappy. When he was fifteen,
his parents sent him to Indian Springs, a
boarding school outside Birmingham, Alabama. It was an excellent move. Green
had always loved to readhe had a soft
spot for girl books, like the Baby-Sitters
Club seriesbut in high school he read
Salinger, Vonnegut, Morrison, and Chabon, and found other people who liked to
talk about books. Indian Springs offered
the kind of verdant, self-contained setting
where one could have a premptively nostalgic coming-of-age. You could almost
feel yourself missing it while you were still
there. Green captures this delicious melancholy in Looking for Alaska, which
tells a story of friendship, first love, and
intellectual questing at a school very much
like Indian Springs.
Green was much happier in Alabama, but he remained a genuinely
poor student. He told me, I had always been told I was smart and had potential, but I had never shown the ability to deliver on it. Its a bit clich to say,
but I think I actually was scared I wasnt
smart. (After a beat: I was actively bad
at math. And languages.) Raoul Meyer,
then a young teacher at Indian Springs,
has a different take. He told me, John
was very vocal about his relationships
with his friends being more important
than his schoolwork. He broke a lot of
ruleshe smoked very visibly, for instance, and frequently got caught. You
had the impression that
if hed wanted to be an
A student he could have
been, but that wasnt the
identity he wanted.
The writer Daniel
Alarcn was in Greens
class, and remembers that
they both wanted to be
writers then, and shared a
seriousness about it that
wasnt exactly normal for
adolescents. Not until Alarcn enrolled in the M.F.A. program at Iowa
was he again around people who, like
Green, talked about literature the way
other people talked about sports, and
who could break down a story over
beer and not think of it as pretentious
or boring. Alarcn recalled a road trip
to Orlando that he took with Green
and Townsend Kyser, the scion of a
66

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

catfish-farming family. Once there,


they spent, like, a week writing oblique
and inscrutable messages on construction paper and planting them in public
places, like the manicured lawns of
branch banks.
At Indian Springs, Green also became friends with boarders who staged
brazen pranks. In one infamous episode,
someone invited a woman who was supposedly an academic expert on teen sexuality to speak at an assembly; in fact, she
was a stripper, and started disrobing in
response to the urging of a guy in the audience. In Looking for Alaska, a similar incident occurs, but the stripper is a
man, the student in the audience is a
young woman, and the whole stunt is an
homage to a troubled girl who has died
in a car accidentall of which makes it
far more palatable.
When Green was at Indian Springs,
a girl at the school was killed in a car accident. She wasnt a close friend, but it
was a small school, and, as he said, its so
hard to get your head around that when
youre a kid. He went on, Infinite sets
are a difficult thing to get your head
around generally, but the forever of itI
just felt so bad for her. I still feel so bad
for her.
Although Green often suggests that
he was a sad-sack dork as a teen-ager,
his old friends dont remember him that
way. Alarcn said, At our school, we
didnt really have jocks. It was a pretty
high-achieving school. Im not saying it
was paradise. Plenty of kids
are socially awkward, and
theres nothing that will
save them from other adolescents. But John wasnt
like that at all. John was
funny and charming, and
people looked up to him.
Green was sensitive, and he
fell hard for the girls he
had crushes on, but Alarcn said that John exaggerates his haplessness with women,
adding, This is just speculation, but if
your fans are a lot of thirteen-to-fifteenyear-old girls, it seems kind of smarmy if
you come across like a ladies man.
Green enrolled in Kenyon in 1995.
He chose a double major in religion and
literature. His friend Kathy Hickner,
who also hung out in the religion department, remembers him as one of these

really huge personalities who was always talking, but also as the person she
could count on to go to church with me
and discuss the sermon. She added, We
were both into this whole layer of Christian thinkers who were very openminded, scholarly types.
Green continued to pursue writing,
particularly in an evening seminar that
he took with the novelist P. F. Kluge,
who was, Green recalled, encouraging
of my work but also very, very critical of
itI once titled a story Things Remembered, Things Forgotten, and he
said, Green, you dont get to title your
stories anymore. When Green was not
accepted into the advanced creativewriting course at Kenyon, it was crushing, he recalled. Kluge took me to his
house and poured me a drink and said,
I think you should have gotten into the
class. But your writing isnt that great. I
think he called it a solid B-plus. But, he
said, the stories that you tell during the
smoke breakif you could write the
way you told those stories, then you
would write well.
Kluge told me that what he remembered most about Green was not his
writing but his spoken energy. He was
so rapid-fire, he said. Also decent, selfdeprecating, and funny.
In class one evening, Green read
aloud a story with a sex scene in it. When
he was done, the other students offered
polite critiques. Kluge then said, Green,
youve never had sex before, have you?
Green said no. In subsequent classes, he
provided updates on the status of his virginity, which for a long time was nothing new to report.
Upon graduating, he moved to Chicago, where he eventually ended up at
Booklist. He was hired to do data entry,
but he found mentors in the editor-inchief, Bill Ott, and Ilene Cooper, a staff
editor who also wrote childrens and
young-adult books. Cooper said of
Green, He was a horrible slob, and he
didnt do his job all that well, recalling
that he failed to send out checks to freelancers. He was smoking but trying to
quit, so he was chewing tobacco, which
was kind of gross. But he was so engaging, and he would want to talk about
things like our place in the universe.
Greens older colleagues chided him for
what Ott called some of his outrageous
young-person pronouncements, such as

the claim that black-and-white movies


are a waste of time. Ott said that he and
Cooper, who are now married, saw him
through a Sorrows of Young Wertherlike downturn after a girlfriend dumped
him; Green told me that Ott ordered
him to watch the profoundly silly 1950
film Harvey, which both lifted his spirits and cured him of his antipathy toward
black-and-white. Eventually, Ott started
assigning Green reviews, and Cooper did
several edits on the manuscript of Looking for Alaska, which she passed along
to her publisher, Dutton.
When Green was twenty-six, he met
Sarah Urist, who was managing an art
gallery in Chicago. She had been three
years behind him at Indian Springs, and
they became reacquainted through the
woman Green was then datingSarahs
sparring partner at a boxing gym. After
Green and the girlfriend broke up, he
and Sarah started a friendship with a
large epistolary component. We e-mailed
back and forth for a year and talked about
everything, Green said. It was one of
the most invigorating conversations I can
remember having.
When I met Sarah, she was wearing red lipstick, black boots, and tortoiseshell glasses; she is at once hipper
than Greenshes grounded in theory
and cutting-edge artand steadier, with
a quieter, more skeptical sense of humor.
She left her job at the Indianapolis museum last fall, and now works with Green
on a Web series called The Art Assignment, in which she showcases contemporary artists who then assign viewers
to make a specific work of art. Sarah
told me that she had an intellectual interest in fandoms like her husbands, but
found them difficult to identify with. Its
a bias I have to get over, because being a
fan is so much a part of young life now,
she said. But theres part of me thats always wondering, How much could you
really love all of these things?

ne of the themes of The Fault in


Our Stars is the relationship between authors and readers. Hazel says,
Sometimes, you read a book and it fills
you with this weird evangelical zeal, and
you become convinced that the shattered
world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the
book. And then there are books like
An Imperial Affliction Peter Van
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

67

Houtens novelwhich you cant tell


people about, books so special and rare
and yours that advertising your affection
feels like a betrayal.
In a different era, The Fault in Our
Stars could have been that kind of cultish book. For many young people today,
however, reading is not an act of private
communion with an author whom they
imagine vaguely, if at all, but a prelude
to a social experiencefollowing the
author on Twitter, meeting other readers, collaborating with them on projects, writing fan fiction. In our connected age, even books have become
interactive phenomena.
Green, for his part, seems to feel that
it is a betrayal not to advertise your
affections. Every day, he gives his fans a
live stream of his stream of consciousness. In addition to posting on YouTube, Green contributes indefatigably
to Tumblr and Twitter. Even when hes
feeling anxious, hes willing to chat with
people who approach him in public. As
his fame has grown, he has discovered
the need for a few limits: he doesnt like
it when fans show up at his house or
make Tumblrs about his kids.
Greens boyishness and his energy
make a lot of what he does look easy. But
its hard for him to channel the emotional
kid inside while remaining an analytical
adultto embrace simultaneously the
voluble aesthetic of the Internet and the
contemplative sensibility of the novelist.
Raoul Meyer, the history teacher, told
me, John strikes me in some ways as the
same teen-ager he once was, just trying
to figure out his place in the world. Only
now the world is changing much faster
and hes an agent of that change, creating
the world hes trying to fit into. And
thats a tough role.
Greens online projects keep proliferating along with his fans, and he seems
determined to keep up with them all. He
told me that he has sketched out some
scenes for a new novel, about two male
best friends who live less privileged lives
in a world of privilege, and that he hopes
to work on it after the movie junkets are
over and he has taken a few days of vacation with his family, in a Tennessee
farmhouse devoid of electronic devices.
One wonders, however, when hell actually find the hours to recline in the La-ZBoy. E. Lockhart, an acclaimed Y.A.
novelist, is an old friend of Greens. She
68

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

said, Most of us look at what John does


and say Thats awesome, but wed rather
be in our pajamas writing.

n my second day in Indianapolis,


Green woke up early to record a
Vlogbrothers video called Understanding the Central African Republic. He
supplied a staccato history of the recent
conflict, which, he lamented, had received little international attention, because people are drawn to simpler narratives, such as Harry versus Voldemort.
Nevertheless, he concluded, we have to
make room in our stories for the world as
we find it. He filmed the video at home,
in the basement, which doubles as a guest
room, and edited it at the office while
stockpiling segments of yet another online series, in which he plays a soccer
video game while giving unrehearsed answers to such questions as What five
books would you take to a desert island?
At about 6 P.M., he posted the Central
African Republic video and went home.
Sarah was at the park with Henry and
Alice, so Green opened his laptop and
checked out the immediate response to
the video. Noticing two dislikes on
YouTube, he said, How can they dislike
it already? He responded to several comments, typing rapidly and talking at the
same time.
Four or five times a month, Green
talks on the phone with kids who have
cancer, some of whom have requested
the conversations through the MakeA-Wish Foundation. Once every few
months, he Skypes with sick teens. That
evening, he had a Google Hangout
scheduled with young fans from upstate
New Yorksome from a high school
and some from a support group called
Teens Living with Cancer. We went
downstairs, and he set his laptop on the
bed, positioning his chair close to it. His
screen soon filled with an image of a
dozen teen-agers, most of whom held
copies of The Fault in Our Stars.
A boy named Brendan appeared, and
posed a delicate question about the distance that can arise between the healthy
and the dying. Green said that people
sometimes built a wall between themselves and those with chronic illnesses, because it was easier for them to think of
sick people as other. He continued, But
if you are alive you are as alive as anybody
else. And the full breadth of human exis-

tence is available to you. The wall is a lie.


When he finished, he said, Does that
seem like a reasonable answer?
Its a great answer, Brendan said.
After some nervous giggling about
who was going next, a boy asked Green
if he had ever considered a different ending for The Fault in Our Stars.
The first ending I wrote was so epically terrible that I dont even want to tell
you about it, Green said. But I will. I
mean, you seem like nice people. Green
had told me about this ending, and it was
indeed a very bad ideaa Hail Mary attempt to avoid the inevitable conclusion.
In the discarded version, Hazel and Peter
Van Houten go on a road trip in an attempt to honor Augustuss idea of an extraordinary life; they end up in Mexico,
where they unsuccessfully try to infiltrate
a narcoterrorist organization.
When Green recounted this to the
group, everybody laughed. Shut up! he
said, laughing himself. Thats not nice!
It was a mistake!
The mother of a kid in the cancersupport group was participating in the
Hangout. Your book was frustrating to
me, she told Green, sounding polite but
urgent. I want to knowwhat happened to Hazels parents?
Green dipped his head. Youre going
to be so mad at me, he said. But I dont
have an answer for that. I hope I left them
in a place where its possible to go on.
From knowing Esther Earls parents, he
could say that loss does not end love in
your life. He added, I genuinely believe
that love is stronger than death. Several
people clapped, but the mother looked
unhappy, and Green apologized to her.
Its O.K., she said.
A smiling girl in a bright-pink shirt introduced herself: Hi, Im Brittany. Im
fifteen and I had the same kind of cancer
Gus has, osteosarcoma. John reached out
his arms to give her a virtual hug. Brittany
reached back and said, You did an amazing job of capturing the fear, the humor,
and the real pain of being a teen-ager with
cancer. Her words echoed something
that Hazel writes to Van Houten: As a
three-year survivor of Stage IV cancer, I
can tell you that you got everything right
in An Imperial Affliction. Or at least
you got me right. Afterward, a teacher
wrapped the session up, and everybody
waved. The screen went blank. Green put
his head down on his arms and cried.

MY OLD FLAME BY JOSHUA FERRIS

CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN

y old flame and I met in the hallway of a dorm in


Iowa City. I didnt think much of her, but I was sure
she had never seen anyone quite so handsome. That was the
year the weather never cleared of hand-rolled smoke and a
mild hangover. I was arrogant with the ignorance of all that I
didnt know. She was dating the Philosopher, a theoretical
proponent of free love who disapproved of her seeing other
men. The onetime incident behind the pool table in her basement meant almost nothing to us. Then my old flame graduated early and was gone. There were rumors of a new boyfriend and a life in Ireland. I didnt miss her. By then, I was in
this terrible on-off thing with Sisyphus, who kept dragging
me up a pretty blond hill and hurtling me down.
A few years later, my old flame and I caught up with
each other in Chicago. She was a whole new person. Her
interest in medieval theory had given way to Scotch on the
rocks. Everyone had a little pocket money. We drank in a
hotel bar and ate fried chicken in the suburbs. She had
moved on to the Writer, but she still wore the same weird
pants. We had a brief thing in front of the television. The
Writer moved out. What a poisoned letter he wrote! Then
I insulted her at a Tom Waits concert. It was Rabbits to
you! after that, at least for a while.
I realized one night that I loved her, but with conditions. I wanted fire to hover over my lovers head. Could
she do that? My heart was a cathedral. Did she expect me
to give her every last key? And those pants had to go. I was
looking for someone exactly like her but totally different.
She continued to make love to other men, which was provocative. We ate by candlelight on a balcony in Andersonville, and every Monday tutored a family of Sudanese. The
Mighty Blue Kings played on at the Green Mill.
Then my old flame moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She became another new person altogether. She spent her


nights eating Indian and studying the law with blue bloods who
had names like Turner Buford deSalles Jackson IV. I hardly
recognized her until she made me pancakes in her pajamas
during a weekend visit. And, in bed, those same good legs. Still,
long distance is doom, and my old flame resumed making
love to other men while I went after a former heroin addict
who danced alone to Etta James in Orange County, California.
Im not sure exactly how we patched things up. I know
that punching the sand at the beach in Naples helped.
There were letters. Other peoples weddings. Rom-coms.
We drove a Penske to Brooklyn and unpacked during
the blackout. My old flame dressed in a power suit and
began spending her days at Federal Plaza, eating Peking
duck for lunch. She was going places. I was the same old
me: reading Bellow out on the fire escape. I liked to wander our Carroll Gardens neighborhood before the gates
came up in the morning. For Thanksgiving that year, she
made eight courses for just the two of us.
Later, for a time, we were married to entirely different
people. How had that happened? We woke up one morning and introduced ourselves. My God! It was us after all,
only no longer impossibly young. We were out of joint,
better friends to our phones, though we still made love once
a year whether we needed to or not.
How about taking up tennis together? we asked. How
about starting a family?
The bank let us buy a house. The exterminators rid it of
mice. My old flame grew round-wombed. It was a boy.
One night, as we lay in bed, my hand on her belly, she said,
You know whats strange? Im growing a penis. It was
hard to argue with. We brought the baby home from the
hospital and the tennis rackets gathered dust.
My old flame was now a mom. What an apotheosis!
Nothing had prepared her: not the long nights with the
law, not years of her husbands tantrums. But she was a natural. That sealed the deal for me, although I still appreciated women who smoked in Berlin bars. Part of me still
wanted to die wrapped around a tree. We spent seven years
in that house, going out Saturday mornings and bringing
back half the farmers market and a few more books. Eventually, as the boy grew, she decided to leave herself, yet
again, for another woman. I didnt mind.
I dont know who my old flame is and never will. All
other candidates are fixed in amber. They tell a static story
of heartache and failure. This one keeps evolving. Shes the
violin player, the precocious bowler, the shy nerd, the medieval scholar, the assistant to the director of the foundation, the law student, the clerk for the district judge, the discovery drone at the law firm, the good mother, the happy
cook, the wit with an idea. Who will she be next? Whatever
she wants, I hope. Burn on, old flame.

FICTION

ing suggestive Popsicles, their fists covered in red melt. Girls in wheelchairs, girls
who work professionally at the Renaissance Faire.
You could choose other men: men
who like to think about feet, men who
have thick back hair, men whose greatest pride is the time they flew to a nearby
nation and tried to deplete its stores of
alcohol and slept on the beach one
nightwasnt that so fun?and when
they woke up everything had been stolen
or lost and they had to walk back to the
pastel-yellow hotel naked in the early
heat of another day in paradise. Everyone has had good times. Everyone has a
picture of himself in front of a pinkening
sunset with a glass of white wine. Choose
them, if you want to. Choose me if you
want someone to hold you above his
head in the moonlight, bite your wrist
until the first rust comes out.
Tell the ladies a little more about yourself !
Whats your own unique story?

ou are lonely, but you dont have to be.


You have so many great qualities! Just
think of all the single ladies out there who are
waiting to hear from you. Whether you are
looking for lasting love or just a little fun,
this is the only guide to online dating youll
ever need. Within the hour, youll be on your
way to eternal happiness!
Lets get started. When creating your
username keep in mind that it should be concise and easy to remember. Make it personal.
If youre a dancer maybe try: hipdancer21.
Find me at cyclops15. Cyclops 1-14
were taken.
Now choose a tagline that will attract the
woman you want. Secret: Do what no one
else is doing.
70

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

Im eight feet tall and I have one


giant eye.
What are your interests? Be honest but
enticing.
I handsew my own shoes using a needle made from the fang of a wolf. I sleep
hot. I want nothing more than a sheet on
my bed, even in winter, even in a cave.
Know who your target is. Where does she
live? What does she look like? What hobbies
does she have?
I like fat girls, old girls, tall girls, tired
girls. Girls who lack adequate clothing,
girls whose best idea for getting my attention is to send a photo of themselves hold-

The first generation of Cyclops were


forgers. The next generation, my generation, was a band of thuggish shepherds
living in the grasslands of Sicily. We
trapped so-called heroes in our caves, we
bit into the warm butter of a human leg,
but the only one who got famous for it
was my brother. We still live under volcanoes, hacking at iron, trying to revive the
old tradition. I left hometoo hot, too
oldand live in Washington State. I like
the fog, I like the rain. My volcano is more
famous than any of my brothers volcanoes. I never hear from them. Theyre not
on e-mail.
I teach online English classes, not to
get paid but because I like to feel smarter
than someone else. I teach all the classic
books, except the Odyssey.
My photos are taken in profile. Maybe
theres time to get braver, to embrace my
own unique beauty. I subscribe to the
magazines that tell me we are all beautiful, if only we can learn to tap into our potential; I am me and no one else is me, and
that is a miracle. I am a miracle.
The downside: my mother has been
dead for some hundreds of years, so youll
never meet her. The upside: my father is
the god of the sea, so we can guarantee
good weather on our honeymoon cruise.
Hes shitty at love, my dad. He smells like
an overcleaned wound, and he wont quit
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE

working. Every day and every night somewhere in one of the worlds oceans my father is striking the surface of the abyss
with swords of fire.
Do you smoke? Do you drink? How
often do you exercise? Do you support charities that help animals? With an unexpected
bonus would you (a) donate to a cause you
really believe in? (b) save half and spend the
rest? (c) celebrate with your friends and
margaritas?
If you want me to set a trap, Ill set a
trap. A first date picking blueberries in
the whitest, cleanest sunlight, tin pails.
Ill bring sandwiches and chilled Chardonnay and tell you that we are already
the good people we wanted to become.
Maybe youll be generous and keep up
the conversation all afternoon. Prettykaren98 was generous. Prettykaren98
looked into my eye when we chatted online and laughed at my jokes. But she
never answered my messages after our
date even though her status was still
marked Single.
Dont mention your previous relationship history! Leave your emotional baggage
packed and in the closet. You are on the
market because you are awesome!
Sorry. Lets try that again. My actual
perfect day? Descending belowground
early, full of milk and blood and meat, to
forge iron. There is no such thing as day
or night in the volcano, and any sense of
time comes from watching the metal
change shape. From ore to spear. From
ore to trident. From ore to thunderbolt. If
I am strong that day, the mountains will
shake with the strike of my hammer, the
heat of my flame.
I cant ski. I should be better at basketball than I am. I dont eat vegetables.
But my eye is blue, and its pale and its
beautiful.
My vision is good, though not great,
but understand this: I will never again visit
an ophthalmologist or an optometrist or
anyone else who claims to be an expert of
my organ. I do not fit in the chair, and I
wish I could forget lying on my back on
the floor of that darkened room while a
small man climbed onto my chest with
that sharp point of light. Im not sorry for
what I did to him. Now he can see for
himself what its like to have one eye.

You have almost finished creating a magnetic online-dating profile that will attract
more women than you ever thought possible!
What else do you want the ladies to know?
Remember: be yourself !
I do remember the old feeling sometimes. A maiden washes up on my island,
tailed or otherwise. The cave is sweating
and there are mineral stalks growing from
the ceiling. I have no idea what time it is,
ever. All my wrist and ankle shackles are
homemade, struck from iron I myself dug
from the earth. The maidens were not as
beautiful as the stories tell youtheir hair
was salt-stringy and their faces were
pruned. Too long in seawater can unmake
any loveliness. Yet I meant to love them.
I meant to tend to their wounds. When I
pounded the shackles with my hammer,
the person I imagined chaining was my
father. I imagined slipping the disks
around his watery arms. Not to hurt him,
but to keep him. But my father never
offered himself up on my rocky beach. Id
see his big hand out there sometimes,
swilling the surface of the sea, but he
never came close. Maybe he was the one
who threw the maidens to me, his dear
son, his wifeless boy, wanting an heir.
I will not shackle your slender wrists to
the cold walls or gnaw your nails down to
the quick with my remaining teeth. I will
not leave you hungry while I eat a roast
goat at your feet. Ive dealt with those issues. Imagine the inverse: I have the softest mattress in the world, made of the
combed fur of fawns; choose me and youll
be choosing warm oil on your hands and
cold water in your glass, meat on your
plate from a lamb that suckled on my pinkie when it was first born.
If I came to your house tonight, where
would I find you? The living room? The
kitchen? Waiting at the door? Ill call you
Aphrodite and smell the sea in your hair
and shuck oysters for you from the depths.
Ill tell you that Ive never seen a real goddess until now. Come with me and be
adored, deep below the earth. While you
sleep, I will strike a huge sheet of metal
until the shape of your body comes into
relief. You never have to take me to meet
your friends; you never have to take me
anywhere. You never even have to see me
in the light.
Your grandmother will tell you that all
the good men are gone, but then here I
am, and Im ready for you.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

71

ne day in June, 1978, when I was twenty-three and


living in Barcelona, a friend mentioned that a charter flight that weekend was offering very cheap one-way
seats to Dublin. In that second, it came into my head that
I might gopack up my apartment, leave for good. Three
days later, I was back home in Ireland.
In the years that followed, I often wondered what might
have happened had I stayed in Barcelona that summer and
spent the days on one of the nearby beaches with a guy I
was seeing then and the nights at his apartment in the city,
had I stayed into the winter and then into the following
year. Its possible that I might never have gone home.
After I left, I wrote to the guy, and he wrote back. There
were postcards. Then I changed my address. We lost
touch. He became what might have been. All I had was a
sharp memory of the time we spent together, of things he
said, of his way of smiling as he spokeeverything amused
himand of the apartments where we had been, and the
nights. I adapted some of these things in my fiction. (I have
changed some identifying details here, as well.)
In 2008, on the wall of a bar in Barcelona, I spotted a
poster for a group show in a gallery. His name was listed
toward the bottom. It was as if his sweet shadow, thirty
years older, had come back for a second. I saw that the
show was already over, but I noted down the name of the
gallery, which, once I went home to Ireland, I mislaid.
But I knew, at least, that he was still alive, that he had sur-

vived. Sometime when I was in Spain again, I thought,


I would try to find him, or just leave one of my books at
his gallery.
One night, two years ago, I found an e-mail address for
him online, and I sent him a message. A few days later, I
got a reply. After some more e-mails, we arranged to meet
the next time I was in Barcelona. And finally we set a date
for it, and a placea bar that used to be fashionable but is
now too close to the tourist trail.
He had aged and grown thinner; he needed to wear
glasses, but he had all his hair, which was more than I could
say. He was more serious than before, more of a reader, and
wanted to talk about novels and poetry. He had read some
of my books in translation. The next day, we went to look
at some of his paintings in a public gallery. His work, like
him, had become more pure and austere.
When we saw each other a second time, not long ago, I
asked him to retell a story that I had been dining out on for
years. When he was called up for military service, in 1974,
he and his mother went to see a psychiatrist, who gave
them very precise instructions about the body language and
general pathology of a mother and son who could not be
separated under any circumstances. I remember his mother;
she was a fine-boned, good-humored woman, who was
taller and bigger than my friend. They rehearsed what they
would do for the military doctors. They were to behave
normally and answer all questions as though there were no
problem at all, until the moment when the mother stood
up to go. And then the son was to make a mad rush at her.
He was to scream hysterically. He was to drool and shake
as she fondly embraced him and comforted him. They did
this so well that they were instantly dismissed, and this
meant that my friend did not have to do military service.
I have been thinking about this story for years, and telling it to people. I am sure that it happened. I was there
when they came home. Or maybe I was there the next day.
But I was there.
My friend looked puzzled when I asked him about this.
He had no idea what I was talking about. It was asthma,
he said. The military doctors let him off because of asthma.
And his mother was, in any case, not taller than he was, and
also she was never in Barcelona back then. I could not have
met her.
I assured him that it had happened. I swore.
He sipped his drink. It must be all that fiction you are
writing, he said. And the old smile came back, more ambiguous now, wiser. Maybe he felt that I had used him in
enough stories, or he thought that it was none of my business after all these years. Or maybe the story itself had simply improved the more I told it, had got better and less true
as time went on. If only I hadnt seen him again, I would
be more sure.

CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN

MY OLD FLAME BY COLM TIBN

FICTION

74

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE

s far as I know, the only person ever


to put Japanese lyrics to the Beatles song Yesterday (and to do so in
the distinctive Kansai dialect, no less)
was a guy named Kitaru. He used to
belt out his own version when he was
taking a bath.
Yesterday
Is two days before tomorrow,
The day after two days ago.

This is how it began, as I recall, but


I havent heard it for a long time and
Im not positive thats how it went.
From start to finish, though, Kitarus
lyrics were almost meaningless, nonsense that had nothing to do with the
original words. That familiar lovely,
melancholy melody paired with the
breezy Kansai dialectwhich you
might call the opposite of pathos
made for a strange combination, a bold
denial of anything constructive. At
least, thats how it sounded to me. At
the time, I just listened and shook my
head. I was able to laugh it off, but I
also read a kind of hidden import in it.
I first met Kitaru at a coffee shop
near the main gate of Waseda University, where we worked part time, I in
the kitchen and Kitaru as a waiter. We
used to talk a lot during downtime at
the shop. We were both twenty, our
birthdays only a week apart.
Kitaru is an unusual last name, I
said one day.
Yeah, for sure, Kitaru replied in his
heavy Kansai accent.
The Lotte baseball team had a
pitcher with the same name.
The two of us arent related. Not
so common a name, though, so who
knows? Maybe theres a connection
somewhere.
I was a sophomore at Waseda then,
in the literature department. Kitaru had
failed the entrance exam and was attending a prep course to cram for the retake.
Hed failed the exam twice, actually, but
you wouldnt have guessed it by the way
he acted. He didnt seem to put much
effort into studying. When he was free,
he read a lot, but nothing related to the
exama biography of Jimi Hendrix,
books of shogi problems, Where Did
the Universe Come From?, and the
like. He told me that he commuted to
the cram school from his parents place
in Ota Ward, in Tokyo.

Ota Ward? I asked, astonished.


But I was sure you were from Kansai.
No way. Denenchofu, born and
bred.
This really threw me.
Then how come you speak Kansai
dialect? I asked.
I acquired it. Just made up my mind
to learn it.
Acquired it?
Yeah, I studied hard, see? Verbs,
nouns, accentthe whole nine yards.
Same as studying English or French.
Went to Kansai for training, even.
So there were people who studied
Kansai dialect as if it were a foreign language? That was news to me. It made
me realize all over again how huge
Tokyo was, and how many things there
were that I didnt know. Reminded me
of the novel Sanshiro, a typical country-boy-bumbles-his-way-around-thebig-city story.
As a kid, I was a huge Hanshin Tigers fan, Kitaru explained. Went to
their games whenever they played in
Tokyo. But if I sat in the Hanshin
bleachers and spoke with a Tokyo dialect nobody wanted to have anything to
do with me. Couldnt be part of the
community, yknow? So I figured, I
gotta learn Kansai dialect, and I worked
like a dog to do just that.
That was your motivation? I could
hardly believe it.
Right. Thats how much the Tigers
mean to me, Kitaru said. Now Kansai
dialects all I speakat school, at home,
even when I talk in my sleep. My dialects near perfect, dont you think?
Absolutely. I was positive you were
from Kansai, I said.
If Id put as much effort into studying for the entrance exams as I did into
studying Kansai dialect, I wouldnt be a
two-time loser like I am now.
He had a point. Even his self-directed
putdown was kind of Kansai-like.
So wherere you from? he asked.
Kansai. Near Kobe, I said.
Near Kobe? Where?
Ashiya, I replied.
Wow, nice place. Why didnt you
say so from the start?
I explained. When people asked me
where I was from and I said Ashiya,
they always assumed that my family
was wealthy. But there were all types in
Ashiya. My family, for one, wasnt par-

ticularly well off. My dad worked for


a pharmaceutical company and my
mom was a librarian. Our house was
small and our car a cream-colored Corolla. So when people asked me where
I was from I always said near Kobe,
so they didnt get any preconceived
ideas about me.
Man, sounds like you and me are
the same, Kitaru said. My address is
Den enchofua pretty high-class
placebut my house is in the shabbiest
part of town. Shabby house as well. You
should come over sometime. Youll be,
like, Wha? This is Denenchofu? No way!
But worrying about something like that
makes no sense, yeah? Its just an address. I do the oppositehit em right
up front with the fact that Im from
Den-en-cho-fu. Like, how dyou like
that, huh?
I was impressed. And after this we
became friends.

ntil I graduated from high school,


I spoke nothing but Kansai dialect.
But all it took was a month in Tokyo
for me to become completely fluent in
Tokyo standard. I was kind of surprised
that I could adapt so quickly. Maybe I
have a chameleon type of personality.
Or maybe my sense of language is more
advanced than most peoples. Either
way, no one believed now that I was actually from Kansai.
Another reason I stopped using
Kansai dialect was that I wanted to become a totally different person.
When I moved from Kansai to Tokyo
to start college, I spent the whole bullet-train ride mentally reviewing my
eighteen years and realized that almost
everything that had happened to me
was pretty embarrassing. Im not exaggerating. I didnt want to remember
any of itit was so pathetic. The more
I thought about my life up to then, the
more I hated myself. It wasnt that I
didnt have a few good memoriesI
did. A handful of happy experiences.
But, if you added them up, the shameful, painful memories far outnumbered
the others. When I thought of how Id
been living, how Id been approaching
life, it was all so trite, so miserably
pointless. Unimaginative middle-class
rubbish, and I wanted to gather it all up
and stuff it away in some drawer. Or
else light it on fire and watch it go up in
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

75

Theres a life lesson here, kid. Not all bad guys look like
bad guys, and not all good guys look like good guys.

t
smoke (though what kind of smoke it
would emit I had no idea). Anyway, I
wanted to get rid of it all and start a
new life in Tokyo as a brand-new person. Jettisoning Kansai dialect was a
practical (as well as symbolic) method
of accomplishing this. Because, in the
final analysis, the language we speak
constitutes who we are as people. At
least thats the way it seemed to me at
eighteen.
Embarrassing? What was so embarrassing? Kitaru asked me.
You name it.
Didnt get along with your folks?
We get along O.K., I said. But it
was still embarrassing. Just being with
them made me feel embarrassed.
Youre weird, yknow that? Kitaru
said. Whats so embarrassing about
being with your folks? I have a good
time with mine.
I couldnt really explain it. Whats so
bad about having a cream-colored Corolla? I couldnt say. My parents werent
interested in spending money for the
sake of appearances, thats all.
My parents are on my case all the
time cause I dont study enough. I hate
it, but whaddaya gonna do? Thats their
job. You gotta look past that, yknow?
Youre pretty easygoing, arent
you? I said.
You got a girl? Kitaru asked.
Not right now.
But you had one before?
Until a little while ago.
76

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

t
You guys broke up?
Thats right, I said.
Whyd you break up?
Its a long story. I dont want to get
into it.
She let you go all the way?
I shook my head. No, not all the
way.
Thats why you broke up?
I thought about it. Thats part of it.
But she let you get to third base?
Rounding third base.
How fard you go, exactly?
I dont want to talk about it, I said.
Is that one of those embarrassing
things you mentioned?
Yeah, I said.
Man, complicated life you got there,
Kitaru said.

he first time I heard Kitaru sing


Yesterday with those crazy lyrics
he was in the bath at his house in
Denenchofu (which, despite his description, was not a shabby house in a
shabby neighborhood but an ordinary
house in an ordinary neighborhood,
an older house, but bigger than my
house in Ashiya, not a standout in any
wayand, incidentally, the car in the
driveway was a navy-blue Golf, a recent model). Whenever Kitaru came
home, he immediately dropped everything and jumped in the bath. And,
once he was in the tub, he stayed there
forever. So I would often lug a little
round stool to the adjacent changing

room and sit there, talking to him


through the sliding door that was open
an inch or so. That was the only way
to avoid listening to his mother drone
on and on (mostly complaints about
her weird son and how he needed to
study more).
Those lyrics dont make any sense,
I told him. It just sounds like youre
making fun of the song Yesterday.
Dont be a smart-ass. Im not making fun of it. Even if I was, you gotta
remember that John loved nonsense
and word games. Right?
But Pauls the one who wrote the
words and music for Yesterday.
You sure about that?
Absolutely, I declared. Paul wrote
the song and recorded it by himself in
the studio with a guitar. A string quartet
was added later, but the other Beatles
werent involved at all. They thought it
was too wimpy for a Beatles song.
Really? Im not up on that kind of
privileged information.
Its not privileged information. Its
a well-known fact, I said.
Who cares? Those are just details,
Kitarus voice said calmly from a cloud
of steam. Im singing in the bath in my
own house. Not putting out a record or
anything. Im not violating any copyright, or bothering a soul. Youve got no
right to complain.
And he launched into the chorus,
his voice carrying loud and clear. He hit
the high notes especially well. I could
hear him lightly splashing the bathwater as an accompaniment. I probably
should have sung along to encourage
him, but I just couldnt bring myself to.
Sitting there, talking through a glass
door to keep him company while he
soaked in the tub for an hour wasnt all
that much fun.
But how can you spend so long
soaking in the bath? I asked. Doesnt
your body get all swollen?
When I soak in a bath for a long
time, all kinds of good ideas come to
me, Kitaru said.
You mean like those lyrics to Yesterday?
Well, thatd be one of them, Kitaru
said.
Instead of spending so much time
thinking up ideas in the bath, shouldnt
you be studying for the entrance exam?
I asked.

Jeez, arent you a downer. My mom


says exactly the same thing. Arent you
a little young to be, like, the voice of
wisdom or something?
But youve been cramming for two
years. Arent you getting tired of it?
For sure. Of course I wanna be in
college as soon as I can.
Then why not study harder?
Yeahwell, he said, drawing the
words out. If I could do that, Id be
doing it already.
College is a drag, I said. I was totally disappointed once I got in. But not
getting in would be even more of a
drag.
Fair enough, Kitaru said. I got no
comeback for that.
So why dont you study?
Lack of motivation, he said.
Motivation? I said. Shouldnt
being able to go out on dates with your
girlfriend be good motivation?
There was a girl Kitaru had known
since they were in elementary school
together. A childhood girlfriend, you
could say. Theyd been in the same
grade in school, but unlike him she had
got into Sophia University straight out
of high school. She was now majoring
in French literature and had joined the
tennis club. Hed shown me a photograph of her, and she was stunning. A
beautiful figure and a lively expression.
But the two of them werent seeing
each other much these days. Theyd
talked it over and decided that it was
better not to date until Kitaru had
passed the entrance exams, so that he
could focus on his studies. Kitaru had
been the one who suggested this. O.K.,
shed said, if thats what you want.
They talked on the phone a lot but met
at most once a week, and those meetings were more like interviews than
regular dates. Theyd have tea and
catch up on what theyd each been
doing. Theyd hold hands and exchange a brief kiss, but that was as far
as it went.
Kitaru wasnt what youd call handsome, but he was pleasant-looking
enough. He was slim, and his hair
and clothes were simple and stylish.
As long as he didnt say anything,
youd assume he was a sensitive, wellbrought-up city boy. His only possible
defect was that his face, a bit too slender and delicate, could give the impres-

sion that he was lacking in personality


or was wishy-washy. But the moment
he opened his mouth this over-all positive effect collapsed like a sandcastle
under an exuberant Labrador retriever.
People were dismayed by his Kansai dialect, which he delivered, as if that
werent enough, in a slightly piercing,
high-pitched voice. The mismatch with
his looks was overwhelming; even for
me it was, at first, a little too much to
handle.
Hey, Tanimura, arent you lonely
without a girlfriend? Kitaru asked me
the next day.
I dont deny it, I told him.
Then how about you go out with
my girl?
I couldnt understand what he meant.
What do you meango out with her?
Shes a great girl. Pretty, honest,
smart like all getout. You go out with
her, you wont regret it. I guarantee it.
Im sure I wouldnt, I said. But
why would I go out with your girlfriend? It doesnt make sense.
Cause youre a good guy, Kitaru
said. Otherwise I wouldnt suggest
it. Erika and I have spent almost our
whole lives together so far. We sort of

naturally became a couple, and everybody around us approved. Our friends,


our parents, our teachers. A tight little
couple, always together.
Kitaru clasped his hands to illustrate.
If wed both gone straight into college, our lives wouldve been all warm
and fuzzy, but I blew the entrance exam
big time, and here we are. Im not sure
why, exactly, but things kept on getting
worse. Im not blaming anyone for
thatits all my fault.
I listened to him in silence.
So I kinda split myself in two,
Kitaru said. He pulled his hands apart.
How so? I asked.
He stared at his palms for a moment
and then spoke. What I mean is part
of mes, like, worried, yknow? I mean,
Im going to some fricking cram school,
studying for the fricking entrance exams,
while Erikas having a ball in college.
Playing tennis, doing whatever. Shes
got new friends, is probably dating
some new guy, for all I know. When I
think of all that, I feel left behind. Like
my minds in a fog. You know what I
mean?
I guess so, I said.
But another part of me is, like

ne looked like a woman but was


too tall, or maybe it was just
that the other one was so small, like a
little boy. I saw them around Portland all the time that summer. Were
they young or old? Couldnt tell.
Were they from the present, or another era; i.e., time-travellers? Wasnt
sure. They were in black and white,
neckties and knickers. A little dirty.
Always leaning on each other.
Their house was the one with the
big wooden sign on the porcha blue
finger pointing thataway. I began to
hang around. Not comfortably or with
any panacheI just couldnt seem to
stay away from the finger, and those
strange people, especially the little
one, TV. She, if she was a she, was
every boy from every childhood book:
Christopher Robin, Huck Finn, Gilbert Blythe in Anne of Green Gables. I had searched for these boys in
real life, but they always turned out to
be assholes. Here, finally, was one who
really understood the magic of boyishness, from a girls point of view: snubnosed, gallant, and full of aw shucks.
She also had a kind of enormous
Misfits tattoo on her arm.
Usually I just sat on their porch
swing, hoping the right one would
come out. One evening, the taller one
sat down and looked me over, her
whiskery face narrowing. I was wear-

ing the swimsuit of an obese lady


from the twenties; it hung from my
shoulders like a floppy barrel.
Are you scamming on my girlfriend? she asked flatly.
My face turned red; I felt slapped.
And awakened. They were girlfriends. And I could be, too. My lust
was catalyzed with a silent boom.
No, I whispered.
My college break ended; I went
back to California and pined for TV,
day in, day out. A full year passed.
Then one night Bikini Kill came
through townand guess who their
roadie was? She was single now.
When the band rolled on, TV
stayedin a grand apartment. Shed
been hired to paint the living room
yellow; another girl and I volunteered
to help. I still have pictures from that
night, from the hours and then minutes before our consummation. Im
wearing a drum-majorette uniform;
TV looks like a newsie. The friend is
too cute; I was worried about that.
But, in the end, the cute friend slept
on the couch and it was I who shared
the queen bed with TV. We lay like
chaste logs, apart and awake. After
about forty-five minutes, I very, very,
VERY slowly sent my hand on the long
trek across the sheets. My fingers
grazed her arm. In an instant she
whipped around and pulled me to her.

Im pretty sure I overcompensated


for my lack of experience. I may have
fisted her. I did. I fisted her as if I
fisted vaginas every day of the week
and twice on Sundays. It was probably
awful for her. We kissed a lot. In the
morning I awoke with a new understanding of life. Pain and loneliness
were in the past now: I had someone.
I tried to go back to collegebut
why? Why do something that makes
you miserable when you could have
exquisite joy every second? By Christmas, I had dropped out and was living with TV in Portland.
It wasnt an easy life. We didnt
have money or health insurance, and I
had problems with my eyes. Also, TV
and her friends never let me forget
how sexist, classist, and racist I was. It
was inherent, and anything I might
say in my defense only proved my
guilt. I cried a lot and made sure to lob
the same accusations at my parents.
Every relationship dynamic was
brand-new to me; when TV needed
some alone time, I had to try really
hard not to die of sadness. When I
needed alone time, I questioned her
value as a human. Maybe I had been
brainwashed, maybe everyone in a
couple is brainwashedis it better to
resist or to give in and perhaps lose
your soul? That kind of thing. But we
would always be together, obviously.
We were part of a feminist revolution.
We were in a band with our housemate, Carla. We had built a recording
studio in our basement. We were on
the cusp of radicalizing everything.
TV broke up with me in a van,
right before we stepped into a party. I
was crying too hard to go in, so I just
stayed there, incoherent with disbelief. She moved back in with her
grandparents, who had brought her
up. I took three buses to get to their
house, only to stand silently in front
of her, tears streaming, before walking back to the bus stop. The idea of
playing it cool had simply not been
introduced to me at this juncture. TV
had conceived me, given birth to me,

CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN

MY OLD FLAME BY MIRANDA JULY

and now she was abandoning me, before I even knew how to walk or care
for myself.
Meanwhile, Carla and I were having trouble paying our rent. As far as
we could see, the only solution was
for one of us to go downtown immediately, strip, and come back with
some cash.
It cant be me, because I wear
glasses, Carla said, pointing to her
face. It was true, I had never seen a
stripper with glasses. Or a stripper,
for that matter. Taking my clothes off
for money didnt really solve anything, but it gave me some external
obstacles that passed the time. I
moved into a tiny studio and Carla
moved next door, into a much bigger
and more wonderful corner apartment. I was jealous of my friend, but
the worst was yet to come.
I want to fuck Heather was how
she put it. Not TV, but my true loves
real name. (Ive changed the names
here.)
Do you love her? I asked, trembling.
Not yet.
But love was coming. Before long,
TV moved in with Carla, and we
shared a wall. My eye condition had
worsened; I couldnt go outside in daylight now. So I lay in bed, high on stolen Vicodin, Portishead throbbing in
my Walkman. It was never loud
enough to block out their inconceivably
loud sex. It sounded as though they
were hitting each other with a stick.
And in fact, when they finally moved
out and I stumbled into the beautiful,
vacant corner apartment, there were
just three objects left behind: two wineglasses and a bamboo cane. I threw
them in a dumpster. It was my apartment now. I traced the entire perimeter of my new home with one finger
while chanting the lyrics to what would
become my first album. It was a spell of
self-protection; this space was just for
me and the furious, jaw-dropping,
vengeful art I planned to make in it.
Now I was ready to begin.

relieved? If wed just kept going like we


were, with no problems or anything, a
nice couple smoothly sailing through
life, its like . . . we graduate from college, get married, were this wonderful married couple everybodys happy
about, we have the typical two kids,
put em in the good old Denenchofu
elementary school, go out to the Tama
River banks on Sundays, Ob-la-di,
Ob-la-da . . . Im not saying that kinda
lifes bad. But I wonder, yknow, if life
should really be that easy, that comfortable. It might be better to go our
separate ways for a while, and if we
find out that we really cant get along
without each other, then we get back
together.
So youre saying that things being
smooth and comfortable is a problem.
Is that it?
Yeah, thats about the size of it.
But why do I have to go out with
your girlfriend? I asked.
I figure, if shes gonna go out with
other guys, its better if its you. Cause I
know you. And you can gimme, like,
updates and stuff.
That didnt make any sense to me,
though I admit I was interested in the
idea of meeting Erika. I also wanted to
find out why a beautiful girl like her
would want to go out with a weird character like Kitaru. Ive always been a little shy around new people, but I never
lack curiosity.
How far have you gone with her?
I asked.
You mean sex? Kitaru said.
Yeah. Have you gone all the way?
Kitaru shook his head. I just couldnt,
see? Ive known her since she was a kid,
and its kinda embarrassing, yknow, to
act like were just starting out, and take
her clothes off, fondle her, touch her,
whatever. If it were some other girl, I
dont think Id have a problem, but putting my hand in her underpants, even
just thinking about doing it with
herI dunnoit just seems wrong.
You know?
I didnt.
I cant explain it well, Kitaru said.
Like, when youre jerking off, you picture some actual girl, yeah?
I suppose, I said.
But I cant picture Erika. Its like
doing thats wrong, yknow? So when I
do it I think about some other girl.

Somebody I dont really like that much.


Whaddya think?
I thought it over but couldnt reach
any conclusion. Other peoples masturbation habits were beyond me. There
were things about my own that I
couldnt fathom.
Anyway, lets all get together once,
the three of us, Kitaru said. Then you
can think it over.

he three of usme, Kitaru, and his


girlfriend, whose full name was
Erika Kuritanimet on a Sunday afternoon in a coffee shop near Denenchofu Station. She was almost as tall as
Kitaru, nicely tanned, and decked out in
a neatly ironed short-sleeved white
blouse and navy-blue miniskirt. Like
the perfect model of a respectable uptown college girl. She was as attractive
as in her photograph, but what really
drew me in person was less her looks
than the kind of effortless vitality that
seemed to radiate from her. She was the
opposite of Kitaru, who paled a bit in
comparison.
Im really happy that Aki-kun has a
friend, Erika told me. Kitarus first
name was Akiyoshi. She was the only
person in the world who called him
Aki-kun.
Dont exaggerate. I got tons of
friends, Kitaru said.
No, you dont, Erika said. A person like you cant make friends. You
were born in Tokyo, yet all you speak is
Kansai dialect, and every time you open
your mouth its one annoying thing
after another about the Hanshin Tigers
or shogi moves. Theres no way a weird
person like you can get along well with
normal people.
Well, if youre gonna get into that,
this guys pretty weird, too. Kitaru
pointed at me. Hes from Ashiya but
only speaks Tokyo dialect.
Thats much more common, Erika
said. At least more common than the
opposite.
Hold on, nowthats cultural discrimination, Kitaru said. Cultures are
all equal, yknow. Tokyo dialects no
better than Kansai.
Maybe they are equal, Erika
said, but since the Meiji Restoration the way people speak in Tokyo
has been the standard for spoken Japanese. I mean, has anyone ever transTHE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

79

lated Franny and Zooey into Kansai


dialect?
If they did, Id buy it, for sure,
Kitaru said.
I probably would, too, I thought, but
kept quiet.
Wisely, instead of being dragged
deeper into that discussion, Erika Kuritani changed the subject.
Theres a girl in my tennis club
whos from Ashiya, too, she said, turning to me. Eiko Sakurai. Do you happen to know her?
I do, I said. Eiko Sakurai was a
tall, gangly girl, whose parents operated
a large golf course. Stuck-up, flatchested, with a funny-looking nose and
a none too wonderful personality. Tennis was the one thing shed always been
good at. If I never saw her again, it
would be too soon for me.
Hes a nice guy, and he hasnt got
a girlfriend right now, Kitaru said to
Erika. His looks are O.K., he has
good manners, and he knows all kinds
of things. Hes neat and clean, as you
can see, and doesnt have any terrible diseases. A promising young man,
Id say.
All right, Erika said. There are
some really cute new members of
our club Id be happy to introduce
him to.
Nah, thats not what I mean,
Kitaru said. Could you go out with
him? Im not in college yet and I
cant go out with you the way Id like to.
Instead of me, you could go out with
him. And then I wouldnt have to
worry.
What do you mean, you wouldnt
have to worry? Erika asked.
I mean, like, I know both of you,
and Id feel better if you went out with
him instead of some guy Ive never laid
eyes on.
Erika stared at Kitaru as if she
couldnt quite believe what she was seeing. Finally, she spoke. So youre saying its O.K. for me to go out with another guy if its Tanimura-kun here?
Youre seriously suggesting we go out,
on a date?
Hey, its not such a terrible idea, is
it? Or are you already going out with
some other guy?
No, theres no one else, Erika said
in a quiet voice.
Then why not go out with him?
80

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

It can be a kinda cultural exchange.


Cultural exchange, Erika repeated.
She looked at me.
It didnt seem as though anything I
said would help, so I kept silent. I held
my coffee spoon in my hand, studying
the design on it, like a museum curator
scrutinizing an artifact from an Egyptian tomb.
Cultural exchange? Whats that supposed to mean? she asked Kitaru.
Like, bringing in another viewpoint
might not be so bad for us . . .
Thats your idea of cultural exchange?
Yeah, what I mean is . . .
All right, Erika Kuritani said
firmly. If there had been a pencil nearby,
I might have picked it up and snapped
it in two. If you think we should do it,
Aki-kun, then O.K. Lets do a cultural
exchange.
She took a sip of tea, returned the
cup to the saucer, turned to me, and
smiled. Since Aki-kun has recommended we do this, Tanimura-kun,
lets go on a date. Sounds like fun.
When are you free?
I couldnt speak. Not being able to
find the right words at crucial times is
one of my many problems.
Erika took a red leather planner
from her bag, opened it, and checked
her schedule. How is this Saturday?
she asked.
I have no plans, I said.
Saturday it is, then. Where shall
we go?
He likes movies, Kitaru told her.
His dream is to write screenplays
someday.
Then lets go see a movie. What
kind of movie should we see? Ill let you
decide that, Tanimura-kun. I dont like
horror films, but, other than that, anythings fine.
Shes really a scaredy-cat, Kitaru
said to me. When we were kids and
went to the haunted house at Korakuen, she had to hold my hand and
After the movie lets have a nice
meal together, Erika said, cutting him
off. She wrote her phone number down
on a sheet from her notebook and
passed it to me. When you decide the
time and place, could you give me a
call?
I didnt have a phone back then (this
was long before cell phones were even a

Maya Angelou, the poet,

POSTSCRIPT

memoirist, calypso singer, actress, civil-rights activist, and teacher, photographed at the Algonquin Hotel, in 1987.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIGITTE LACOMBE

glimmer on the horizon), so I gave her


the number for the coffee shop where
Kitaru and I worked. I glanced at my
watch.
Im sorry but Ive got to get going,
I said, as cheerfully as I could manage.
I have this report I have to finish up by
tomorrow.
Cant it wait? Kitaru said. We
only just got here. Why dont you stay
so we can talk some more? Theres a
great noodle shop right around the
corner.
Erika didnt express an opinion. I
put the money for my coffee on the
table and stood up. Its an important
report, I explained, so I really cant put
it off. Actually, it didnt matter all that
much.
Ill call you tomorrow or the day
after, I told Erika.
Ill be looking forward to it, she
said, a wonderful smile rising to her
lips. A smile that, to me at least, seemed
a little too good to be true.
I left the coffee shop and as I walked
to the station I wondered what the hell
I was doing. Brooding over how things
had turned outafter everything had
already been decidedwas another of
my chronic problems.

hat Saturday, Erika and I met in


Shibuya and saw a Woody Allen
film set in New York. Somehow Id got
the sense that she might be fond of
Woody Allen movies. And I was pretty
sure that Kitaru had never taken her to
see one. Luckily, it was a good movie,
and we were both feeling cheerful when
we left the theatre.
We strolled around the twilight
streets for a while, then went to a small
Italian place in Sakuragaoka and had
pizza and Chianti. It was a casual, moderately priced restaurant. Subdued
lighting, candles on the tables. (Most
Italian restaurants at the time had candles on the tables and checked gingham
tablecloths.) We talked about all kinds
of things, the sort of conversation youd
expect two college sophomores on a
first date to have (assuming you could
actually call this a date). The movie
wed just seen, our college life, hobbies. We enjoyed talking more than Id
expected, and she even laughed out
loud a couple of times. I dont want to
sound like Im bragging, but I seem to

82

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

have a knack for getting girls to laugh.


I heard from Aki-kun that you
broke up with your high-school girlfriend not long ago? Erika asked me.
Yeah, I replied. We went out for
almost three years, but it didnt work
out. Unfortunately.
Aki-kun said things didnt work
out with her because of sex. That she
didnthow should I put it?give you
what you wanted?
That was part of it. But not all. If Id
really loved her, I think I could have
been patient. If Id been sure that I
loved her, I mean. But I wasnt.
Erika nodded.
Even if wed gone all the way,
things most likely would have ended
up the same, I said. I think it was
inevitable.
Is it hard on you? she asked.
Is what hard?
Suddenly being on your own after
being a couple.
Sometimes, I said honestly.
But maybe going through that kind
of tough, lonely experience is necessary
when youre young? Part of the process
of growing up?
You think so?
The way surviving hard winters
makes a tree grow stronger, the growth
rings inside it tighter.
I tried to imagine growth rings inside
me. But the only thing I could picture
was a leftover slice of Baumkuchen cake,
the kind with treelike rings inside it.

I agree that people need that sort


of period in their lives, I said. Its
even better if they know that itll end
someday.
She smiled. Dont worry. I know
youll meet somebody nice soon.
I hope so, I said.
Erika mulled over something while
I helped myself to the pizza.
Tanimura-kun, I wanted to ask
your advice on something. Is it O.K.?
Sure, I said. This was another

problem I often had to deal with: people Id just met wanting my advice
about something important. And I was
pretty sure that what Erika wanted my
advice about wasnt very pleasant.
Im confused, she began.
Her eyes shifted back and forth, like
those of a cat in search of something.
Im sure you know this already, but
though Aki-kuns in his second year of
cramming for the entrance exams, he
barely studies. He skips exam-prep
school a lot, too. So Im sure hell fail
again next year. If he aimed for a
lower-tier school, he could get in somewhere, but he has his heart set on
Waseda. He doesnt listen to me, or to
his parents. Its become like an obsession for him. . . . But if he really feels that
way he should study hard so that he can
pass the Waseda exam, and he doesnt.
Why doesnt he study more?
He truly believes that hell pass the
entrance exam if luck is on his side,
Erika said. That studying is a waste of
time. She sighed and went on, In elementary school he was always at the top
of his class academically. But once he
got to junior high his grades started to
slide. He was a bit of a child prodigy
his personality just isnt suited to the
daily grind of studying. Hed rather go
off and do crazy things on his own. Im
the exact opposite. Im not all that
bright, but I always buckle down and
get the job done.
I hadnt studied very hard myself and
had got into college on the first try.
Maybe luck had been on my side.
Im very fond of Aki-kun, she continued. Hes got a lot of wonderful
qualities. But sometimes its hard for
me to go along with his extreme way of
thinking. Take this thing with Kansai
dialect. Why does somebody who was
born and raised in Tokyo go to the
trouble of learning Kansai dialect and
speak it all the time? I dont get it, I really dont. At first I thought it was a
joke, but it isnt. Hes dead serious.
I think he wants to have a different
personality, to be somebody different
from who hes been up till now, I said.
Thats why he only speaks Kansai
dialect?
I agree with you that its a radical
way of dealing with it.
Erika picked up a slice of pizza and
bit off a piece the size of a large postage

stamp. She chewed it thoughtfully before she spoke.


Tanimura-kun, Im asking this because I dont have anyone else to ask.
You dont mind?
Of course not, I said. What else
could I say?
As a general rule, she said, when
a guy and a girl go out for a long time
and get to know each other really well,
the guy has a physical interest in the
girl, right?
As a general rule, Id say so, yes.
If they kiss, hell want to go further?
Normally, sure.
You feel that way, too?
Of course, I said.
But Aki-kun doesnt. When were
alone, he doesnt want to go any further.
It took a while for me to choose the
right words. Thats a personal thing, I
said finally. People have different ways
of getting what they want. Kitaru likes
you a lotthats a givenbut your relationship is so close and comfortable
he may not be able to take things to the
next level, the way most people do.
You really think so?
I shook my head. To tell the truth,
I dont really understand it. Ive never
experienced it myself. Im just saying
that could be one possibility.
Sometimes it feels like he doesnt
have any sexual desire for me.
Im sure he does. But it might be a
little embarrassing for him to admit it.
But were twenty, adults already.
Old enough not to be embarrassed.
Some people might mature a little
faster than others, I said.
Erika thought about this. She
seemed to be the type who always tackles things head on.
I think Kitaru is honestly seeking
something, I went on. In his own
way, at his own pace. Its just that I
dont think hes grasped yet what it is.
Thats why he cant make any progress.
If you dont know what youre looking
for, its not easy to look for it.
Erika raised her head and stared me
right in the eye. The candle flame was
reflected in her dark eyes, a small, brilliant point of light. It was so beautiful I
had to look away.
Of course, you know him much
better than I do, I averred.
She sighed again.
Actually, Im seeing another guy be-

O.K.lets get our stories straight, and our


characters sympathetic and well drawn.

t
sides Aki-kun, she said. A boy in my
tennis club whos a year ahead of me.
It was my turn to remain silent.
I truly love Aki-kun, and I dont
think I could ever feel the same way
about anybody else. Whenever Im
away from him I get this terrible ache in
my chest, always in the same spot. Its
true. Theres a place in my heart reserved just for him. But at the same
time I have this strong urge inside me to
try something else, to come into contact
with all kinds of people. Call it curiosity, a thirst to know more. Its a natural
emotion and I cant suppress it, no
matter how much I try.
I pictured a healthy plant outgrowing the pot it had been planted in.
When I say Im confused, thats
what I mean, Erika said.
Then you should tell Kitaru exactly
how you feel, I said. If you hide it from
him that youre seeing someone else,
and he happens to find out anyway, itll
hurt him. You dont want that.
But can he accept that? The fact

t
that Im going out with someone else?
I imagine hell understand how you
feel, I said.
You think so?
I do, I said.
I figured that Kitaru would understand her confusion, because he was
feeling the same thing. In that sense,
they really were on the same wavelength. Still, I wasnt entirely confident
that he would calmly accept what she
was actually doing (or might be doing).
He didnt seem that strong a person to
me. But it would be even harder for him
if she kept a secret from him or lied to
him.
Erika stared at the candle flame flickering in the breeze from the A.C. I often
have the same dream, she said. Aki-kun
and I are on a ship. A long journey on a
large ship. Were together in a small
cabin, its late at night, and through the
porthole we can see the full moon. But
that moon is made of pure, transparent
ice. And the bottom half of it is sunk
in the sea. That looks like the moon,
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

83

hen I was fifteen, I cut off the last joint of my left


ring finger during a woodshop class. I was laughing
at a joke while cutting a board on a table saw. The bite of
the blade sent a great shock through me, and I didnt dare
look down, but the bleached faces of the other boys told me
just how bad it was.
They didnt reassemble bodies in those days. Later, I
heard that one of the guys in the class had picked up the
joint, complete with dirty fingernail, and scared some girls
with it. No surprise, no hard feelings; it was the kind of
thing I wouldve done, and not only because I was a jackass.
The girls around me were coming into glorious bloom, and
my way of pretending not to be in awe of them was to act
as if we were still kidsto tease and provoke them.
Id never had a girlfriend, not really. In sixth grade, in Seattle, my friend Terry and I used to meet his cousin Patty
and another girl at the Admiral Theatre on Saturday nights.
Patty and I sat in the back and made out for two hours without exchanging a word, while Terry did the same with Pattys friend. After the movie, Terry and I left by the side exit
so his aunt wouldnt see him when she picked the girls up.
Never a dance, never a soda with two straws.
That winter, I moved to a village in the Cascades. The
elementary school had four rooms, where four teachers
taught the eight grades. Of the ten kids in my class, nine
were boys. Nevy drove us crazy, favoring this one, then that
one. I had her attention for a while when I was new, and
never again. Anyway, she was into horses, not boys.
The high school was in Concrete, thirty-two miles
downriver. When we finally got there, we found girls, all
right, but the pretty ones in our class got picked off by juniors and seniors, and the older ones wouldnt look at us.
That was the situation as I woke one afternoon with
two-thirds of a finger and a bandage as big as a boxing glove
to find a beautiful girl smiling down at me from the foot of
my bed. By then, Id been in the Mount Vernon Hospital

for almost a week, because my stump had got infected and


there was a danger of gangrene. I was floating on a morphine cloud and could only stare. Hi, she said. See,
Daddyjust like Dr. Kildare!
Thats my girl, Joelle, the man in the next bed said.
There were five others on the ward, all men. Joelle sat on
my bed and offered me a candy bar. She said that I looked
exactly like Dr. Kildare. I didnt speak, just listened to her
husky voice. She had dark-red hair held back from her high
brow by pink barrettes. Her skin was pale, pearly, with a few
freckles across her cheeks. Her eyes were green, her lips red
with lipstick. The other men watched us with amusement.
They must have seen that I was in love.
When she came back the next day, she sat beside me
again and talked and talked. An unfair grade. An argument
with another girl. Before she left, she wrote her telephone
number in the book I was reading. I felt embarrassed that
she had done this in front of her father, but I neednt have
been. When I was discharged and was saying goodbye, her
father said, You call Joelle, now, hear?
I called Joelle every day. She talked and I agreed, and
sympathized, and waxed indignant as required. She wanted
me to come visit, and one Saturday I hitchhiked the many
miles to her house. She was waiting for me on the front
steps of a small white house just off the road. The day was
warm and she wore cutoff shorts and a sleeveless blouse.
Her whiteness was dazzling. She led me inside to say hello
to her father, who was lying on the couch in his bathrobe,
watching TV, then she announced that we were going for
a walk.
She took my hand, and we climbed the grassy hill behind the house, and sat on a fallen tree. She was quiet now,
for the first time, facing me. I understood that she was waiting. That I had come to the moment Id dreamed of, alone
with a girl I liked, a beautiful girl, who liked me, and wanted
me to kiss her. And I didnt. Couldnt. Instead, I started
talking. Id been mute before, but now I was babbling, asking her questions about school, her parents, which TV
shows she liked. Here she was, with her beautiful green eyes
and beautiful red mouth that she wanted me to kiss, and I
could only make noise. I was in despair. Finally, she turned
away and watched the traffic on the road below. I wish I
had a car, she said.
We walked down the hill, Joelle well ahead of me. She
stood by the back door and said, Bye. Nice to see you.
I called her the next day. I had to do all the talking.
When I asked her questions, she said, Yes, No, I guess.
Later, it all seemed like something Id dreamed up. Why
would a beautiful girl give me her number, and hold my
hand, and want me to kiss her? Mea boy without a car,
who cut off his own finger?
And I didnt really look like Dr. Kildare.

CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN

MY OLD FLAME BY TOBIAS WOLFF

Aki-kun tells me, but its really made of


ice and is only about eight inches thick. So
when the sun comes out in the morning it
all melts. You should get a good look at it
now, while you have the chance. Ive had
this dream so many times. Its a beautiful
dream. Always the same moon. Always
eight inches thick. Im leaning against
Aki-kun, its just the two of us, the waves
lapping gently outside. But every time I
wake up I feel unbearably sad.
Erika Kuritani was silent for a time.
Then she spoke again. I think how
wonderful it would be if Aki-kun and I
could continue on that voyage forever.
Every night wed snuggle close and gaze
out the porthole at that moon made of
ice. Come morning the moon would
melt away, and at night it would reappear. But maybe thats not the case.
Maybe one night the moon wouldnt be
there. It scares me to think that. I get so
frightened its like I can actually feel my
body shrinking.

hen I saw Kitaru at the coffee


shop the next day, he asked me
how the date had gone.
You kiss her?
No way, I said.
Dont worryIm not gonna freak
if you did, he said.
I didnt do anything like that.
Didnt hold her hand?
No, I didnt hold her hand.
So whatd you do?
We went to see a movie, took a
walk, had dinner, and talked, I said.
Thats it?
Usually you dont try to move too
fast on a first date.
Really? Kitaru said. I never been
out on a regular date, so I dont know.
But I enjoyed being with her. If she
were my girlfriend, Id never let her out
of my sight.
Kitaru considered this. He was about
to say something but thought better of
it. So whatd you eat? he asked finally.
I told him about the pizza and the
Chianti.
Pizza and Chianti? He sounded
surprised. I never knew she liked pizza.
Weve only been to, like, noodle shops
and cheap diners. Wine? I didnt even
know she could drink.
Kitaru never touched liquor himself.
There are probably quite a few
things you dont know about her, I said.

I answered all his questions about


the date. About the Woody Allen film
(at his insistence I reviewed the whole
plot), the meal (how much the bill
came to, whether we split it or not),
what she had on (white cotton dress,
hair pinned up), what kind of underwear she wore (how would I know
that?), what we talked about. I said
nothing about her going out with another guy. Nor did I mention her
dreams of an icy moon.
You guys decide when youll have a
second date?
No, we didnt, I said.
Why not? You liked her, didnt
you?
Shes great. But we cant go on like
this. I mean, shes your girlfriend, right?
You say its O.K. to kiss her, but theres
no way I can do that.
More pondering by Kitaru. Yknow
something? he said finally. Ive been
seeing a therapist since the end of junior
high. My parents and teachers, they all
said to go to one. Cause I used to do
things at school from time to time.
Yknownot normal kinda things. But
going to a therapist hasnt helped, far as
I can see. It sounds good in theory, but
therapists dont give a crap. They look
at you like they know whats going on,
then make you talk on and on and just
listen. Man, I could do that.
Youre still seeing a therapist?
Yeah. Twice a month. Like throwing your money away, if you ask me.
Erika didnt tell you about it?
I shook my head.
Tell you the truth, I dont know
whats so weird about my way of thinking. To me, it seems like Im just doing
ordinary things in an ordinary way. But
people tell me that almost everything I
do is weird.
Well, there are some things about
you that are definitely not normal, I
said.
Like what?
Like your Kansai dialect.
You could be right, Kitaru admitted. That is a little out of the ordinary.
Normal people wouldnt take things
that far.
Yeah, youre probably right.
But, as far as I can tell, even if what
you do isnt normal, its not bothering
anybody.
Not right now.

So whats wrong with that? I said.


I might have been a little upset then (at
what or whom I couldnt say). I could
feel my tone getting rough around the
edges. If youre not bothering anybody,
then so what? You want to speak Kansai dialect, then you should. Go for it.
You dont want to study for the entrance exam? Then dont. Dont feel
like sticking your hand inside Erika
Kuritanis panties? Whos saying you
have to? Its your life. You should do
what you want and forget about what
other people think.
Kitaru, mouth slightly open, stared
at me in amazement. You know something, Tanimura? Youre a good guy.
Though sometimes a little too normal,
yknow?
Whatre you gonna do? I said. You
cant just change your personality.
Exactly. You cant change your personality. Thats what Im tryin to say.
But Erika is a great girl, I said.
She really cares about you. Whatever
you do, dont let her go. Youll never
find such a great girl again.
I know. You dont gotta tell me,
Kitaru said. But just knowing isnt
gonna help.

bout two weeks later, Kitaru quit


working at the coffee shop. I say
quit, but he just suddenly stopped
showing up. He didnt get in touch,
didnt mention anything about taking
time off. And this was during our busiest season, so the owner was pretty
pissed. Kitaru was owed a weeks pay,
but he didnt come to pick it up. He
simply vanished. I have to say it hurt
me. Id thought we were good friends,
and it was tough to be cut off so completely like that. I didnt have any other
friends in Tokyo.
The last two days before he disappeared, Kitaru was unusually quiet. He
wouldnt say much when I talked to
him. And then he went and vanished. I
could have called Erika Kuritani to
check on his whereabouts, but somehow I couldnt bring myself to. I figured
that what went on between the two of
them was their business, and that it
wasnt a healthy thing for me to get any
more involved than I was. Somehow I
had to get by in the narrow little world
I belonged to.
After all this happened, for some
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85

reason I kept thinking about my exgirlfriend. Probably Id felt something,


seeing Kitaru and Erika together. I
wrote her a long letter apologizing for
how Id behaved. I could have been a
whole lot kinder to her. But I never got
a reply.

recognized Erika Kuritani right


away. Id only seen her twice, and
sixteen years had passed since then. But
there was no mistaking her. She was
still lovely, with the same lively, animated expression. She was wearing a
black lace dress, with black high heels
and two strands of pearls around her
slim neck. She remembered me right
away, too. We were at a wine-tasting
party at a hotel in Akasaka. It was a

black-tie event, and I had put on a dark


suit and tie for the occasion. She was a
rep for the advertising firm that was
sponsoring the event, and was clearly
doing a great job of handling it. Itd take
too long to get into the reasons that I
was there.
Tanimura-kun, how come you never
got in touch with me after that night we
went out? she asked. I was hoping we
could talk some more.
You were a little too beautiful for
me, I said.
She smiled. Thats nice to hear,
even if youre just flattering me.
But what Id said was neither a lie
nor flattery. She was too gorgeous for
me to be seriously interested in her.
Back then, and even now.

He looks so natural.

I called that coffee shop you used to


work at, but they said you didnt work
there anymore, she said.
After Kitaru left, the job became a
total bore, and I quit two weeks later.
Erika and I briefly reviewed the lives
wed led over the past sixteen years.
After college, I was hired by a small
publisher, but quit after three years and
had been a writer ever since. I got married at twenty-seven but didnt have
any children yet. Erika was still single.
They drive me so hard at work, she
joked, that I have no time to get married. She was the first one to bring up
the topic of Kitaru.
Aki-kun is working as a sushi chef
in Denver now, she said.
Denver?
Denver, Colorado. At least, according to the postcard he sent me a couple
of months ago.
Why Denver?
I dont know, Erika said. The
postcard before that was from Seattle.
He was a sushi chef there, too. That
was about a year ago. He sends me
postcards sporadically. Always some
silly card with just a couple of lines
dashed off. Sometimes he doesnt even
write his return address.
A sushi chef, I mused. So he never
did go to college?
She shook her head. At the end of
that summer, I think it was, he suddenly announced that hed had it with
studying for the entrance exams and he
went off to a cooking school in Osaka.
Said he really wanted to learn Kansai
cuisine and go to games at Koshien
Stadium, the Hanshin Tigers stadium.
Of course, I asked him, How can you
decide something so important without
even asking me? What about me?
And what did he say to that?
She didnt respond. She just held
her lips tight, as if shed break into tears
if she tried to speak. I quickly changed
the subject.
When we went to that Italian restaurant in Shibuya, I remember we had
cheap Chianti. Now look at us, tasting
premium Napa wines. Kind of a strange
twist of fate.
I remember, she said, pulling herself together. We saw a Woody Allen
movie. Which one was it again?
I told her.
That was a great movie.

I agreed. It was definitely one of


Woody Allens masterpieces.
Did things work out with that guy
in your tennis club you were seeing? I
asked.
She shook her head. No. We just
didnt connect the way I thought we
would. We went out for six months and
then broke up.
Can I ask a question? I said. Its
very personal, though.
Of course.
I dont want you to be offended.
Ill do my best.
You slept with that guy, right?
Erika looked at me in surprise, her
cheeks reddening.
Why are you bringing that up now?
Good question, I said. Its just
been on my mind for a long time. But
that was a weird thing to ask. Im
sorry.
Erika shook her head slightly. No,
its O.K. Im not offended. I just wasnt
expecting it. It was all so long ago.
I looked around the room. People in
formal wear were scattered about.
Corks popped one after another from
expensive bottles of wine. A female pianist was playing Like Someone in
Love.
The answer is yes, Erika said. I
had sex with him a number of times.
Curiosity, a thirst to know more,
I said.
She gave a hint of a smile. Thats
right. Curiosity, a thirst to know more.
Thats how we develop our growth
rings.
If you say so, she said.
And Im guessing that the first time
you slept with him was soon after we
had our date in Shibuya?
She turned a page in her mental record book. I think so. About a week
after that. I remember that whole time
pretty well. It was the first time for me.
And Kitaru was pretty quick on the
uptake, I said, gazing into her eyes.
She looked down and fingered the
pearls on her necklace one by one, as if
making sure that they were all still
there. She gave a small sigh, perhaps remembering something. Yes, youre
right about that. Aki-kun had a very
strong sense of intuition.
But it didnt work out with the
other man.
She nodded. Unfortunately, Im

just not that smart. I needed to take the


long way around. I always take a roundabout way.
Thats what we all do: endlessly take
the long way around. I wanted to tell her
this, but kept silent. Blurting out aphorisms like that was another one of my
problems.
Is Kitaru married?
As far as I know, hes still single,
Erika said. At least, he hasnt told me
that he got married. Maybe the two of

us are the type who never make a go of


marriage.
Or maybe youre just taking a
roundabout way of getting there.
Perhaps.
Do you still dream about the moon
made of ice? I asked.
Her head snapped up and she stared
at me. Very calmly, slowly, a smile
spread across her face. A completely
natural, open smile.
You remember my dream? she
asked.
For some reason, I do.
Even though its someone elses
dream?
Dreams are the kind of things you
can borrow and lend out, I said.
Thats a wonderful idea, she said.
Someone called her name from behind me. It was time for her to get back
to work.
I dont have that dream anymore,
she said in parting. But I still remember every detail. What I saw, the way I
felt. I cant forget it. I probably never
will.

hen Im driving and the Beatles


song Yesterday comes on the
radio, I cant help but hear those crazy
lyrics Kitaru crooned in the bath. And
I regret not writing them down. The
lyrics were so weird that I remembered
them for a while, but gradually my
memory started to fade until finally I
had nearly forgotten them. All I recall
now are fragments, and Im not even

sure if these are actually what Kitaru


sang. As time passes, memory, inevitably, reconstitutes itself.
When I was twenty or so, I tried several times to keep a diary, but I just
couldnt do it. So many things were
happening around me back then that I
could barely keep up with them, let
alone stand still and write them all
down in a notebook. And most of these
things werent the kind that made me
think, Oh, Ive got to write this down.
It was all I could do to open my eyes in
the strong headwind, catch my breath,
and forge ahead.
But, oddly enough, I remember Kitaru
so well. We were friends for just a few
months, yet every time I hear Yesterday scenes and conversations with him
well up in my mind. The two of us talking while he soaked in the bath at his
home in Denenchofu. Talking about
the Hanshin Tigers batting order, how
troublesome certain aspects of sex could
be, how mind-numbingly boring it was to
study for the entrance exams, how emotionally rich Kansai dialect was. And I remember the strange date with Erika Kuritani. And what Erikaover the candlelit
table at the Italian restaurantconfessed.
It feels as though these things happened
just yesterday. Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely
that they hurt.
But when I look back at myself at
age twenty what I remember most is
being alone and lonely. I had no girlfriend to warm my body or my soul, no
friends I could open up to. No clue
what I should do every day, no vision
for the future. For the most part, I remained hidden away, deep within myself. Sometimes Id go a week without
talking to anybody. That kind of life
continued for a year. A long, long year.
Whether this period was a cold winter
that left valuable growth rings inside
me, I cant really say. At the time I felt
as if every night I, too, were gazing out
a porthole at a moon made of ice. A
transparent, eight-inch-thick, frozen
moon. But I watched that moon alone,
unable to share its cold beauty with
anyone.
Yesterday
Is two days before tomorrow,
The day after two days ago.

(Translated, from the Japanese,


by Philip Gabriel.)
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87

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THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

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90

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

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FICTION

92

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE

I. GERMINATION

he land looked flattened, as if by a


rolling pin. All aspects, all directions. On either side of Highway 62, the
sand cast up visions of evaporated civilizations, dissolved castles that lay buried under the desert. Any human eye,
goggled by a cars windshield, can graft
such fantasies onto the great Mojave.
And the girl and the boy in the Dodge
Charger were exceptionally farsighted.
Mirages rose from the boulders, a flume
of dream attached to real rock.
And hadnt their trip unfolded like a
fairy tale? the couple later quizzed each
other, recalling that strange day, their
first in California, hiking among the
enormous apricot boulders of Joshua
Tree National Park. The girl had got
her period a week early and was feeling
woozy; the boy kept bending over to remove a pebble from his shoe, a phantom
that he repeatedly failed to find. Neither
disclosed these private discomforts.
Each wanted the other to have the illusion that they might pause, anywhere, at
any moment, and make love. And while
both thought this was highly unlikely
not in this heat, not at this hourthe
possibility kept bubbling up, every place
they touched. This was the only true
protection theyd brought with them as
they walked deeper into the blue-gold
Mojave.
On the day they arrived in Joshua
Tree, it was a hundred and six degrees.
They had never been to the desert. The
boy could scarcely believe the size of the
boulders, clustered under the enormous
sun like dead red rockets awaiting repair, or the span of the sky, a cheerfully
vacant blue dome, the deserts hallucinatory choreography achieved through
stillness, brightness, darkness, distanceand all of this before noon. It
was a big day, they agreed. It was a day
so huge, in fact, that its real scale would
always elude them. Neither understood
that a single hour in the desert could
mutate their entire future as a couple. In
a sense, they will never escape this trail
loop near Black Rock Canyon. They
had prepared for the hike well, they
thought, with granola bars, water, and
an anti-UV sunscreen so powerful that
its S.P.F. seemed antagonistic. Albino
spring break, the boy said, rubbing the
cream onto her nose. Theyd heard

about the couple who had died of dehydration six miles from where they were
standing. They congratulated themselves on being unusually responsible
and believed themselves to be at the
start of a long journey, weightless spores
blowing west.
The trip was a kind of honeymoon.
The boy and girl were eloping. They
werent married, however, and had already agreed that they never would be
they werent that kind of couple. The
boy, Andy, was a reader; he said that
they were seafarers, wanderers. Ever
unfixed, a line from Melville, was
scraped in red ink across the veins of his
arm. The girl, Angie, was three years
sober and still struggling to find her
mooring on dry land. On their first date
they had decided to run away together.
Andy bought a stupidly huge knife;
Angie had a tiny magenta flashlight suspended on a gold chain, which she wore
around her throat. He was twenty-two,
she had just turned twenty-six. Kids
were for later, maybe. They could still
see the children they had been: their
own Popsicle-red smiles haunting them.
Still, theyd wanted to celebrate a beginning. And the Mojave was a good place
to launch into exile together; already
they felt their past lives in Pennsylvania
dissolving into rumor, sucked up by the
hot sun of California and the perfectly
blue solvent of the sky.
Theyd been driving for three days;
almost nobody knew yet that they were
gone. Theyd cashed old checks. Theyd
quit their jobs. Nothing was planned.
The rental Dodge Charger had been
a real steal, because the boys cousin
Sewell was a manager at the Zero to
Sixty franchise, and because it smelled
like decades of cigarettes. Between them
they had nine hundred and fifty dollars
left now. Less, less, less. At each rest
stop, Angie uncapped the ballpoint, did
some nauseating accounting. Everything was going pretty fast. By the time
they reached Nevada, they had spent
more than eight hundred dollars on
gasoline.

ear Palm Springs, they stop to eat


at a no-name diner and nearly get
sick from the shock of oxygen outside
the stale sedan. The night before, just
outside Albuquerque, they parked behind a barbecue restaurant and slept in-

side a cloud of meat smells. The experience still has the sizzle of a recent hell in
Angies memory. Will they do this every
night? She wants to believe her boyfriend when he tells her they are gypsies,
two moths drunk on light, darting from
the flower of one red sunset to the next;
but several times shes dozed off in the
passenger seat and awakened from traitorous dreams of her old bedroom, soft
pillows.
After dinner, Andy drives drowsily,
weaving slightly. Sand, sand, sandall
that pulverized time. Aeons ago, the
worlds burst hourglass spilled its contents here; now the years pile and spin,
waiting with inhuman patience to be
swept into some future ocean. Sand
washes right up to the paved road,
washes over to the other side in a solid
orange current, illuminated by their
headlights.
Who lives way out like that? Angie
says, pointing through the window at
a line of trailer homes. Why is the implied question. Thirteen-foot saguaro
cacti look like enormous roadside hitchhikers, comical and menacing. Andy is
drifting off, his hand on Angies bare
thigh, when a streak of color crosses
the road.
Jesus! What was that?
A parade of horned beasts. Just
sheep, Angie notes with relief.
Andy watches each animal go from
sheep to cloud in the side mirror, reduced immediately into memory. The
radio blares songs about other humans
doomed or lost loves, or their bombastic lusts in progress. Andy watches his
girlfriends red lips move, mouthing the
lyrics to a song Andy didnt realize he
knew. My wifes lips, he thinks, and feels
frightened by the onslaught of an unexpected happiness. Were they serious,
coming out here? Were they kidding
around? Are they getting more serious?
Less? Perhaps theyll sort it all out at the
next rest stop.
That night, they stay in a fifty-dollar
motel. By dawn, they are back on the
highway. They dont try to account for
their urgency to be gone. Both feel it;
neither can resist it.
At 10 A.M., Angie lifts her arm to
point at the western sky. There is a pale
rainbow arcing over the desert. It looks
as if God had made a bad laundry error,
mixed his colors with his whites. How
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

93

could even the rainbow be faded? she


wonders.
Look! she blurts. Were here.
The sign reads Entering Joshua
Tree National Park.
Quietly, they roll under the insubstantial archway of the rainbow. Andy
slows the Charger. He wants to record
this transition, which feels important.
Usually, you can only catch the Sasquatch blur of your own legendary moments in the side mirrors.
More and more slowly, they drive
into the park. Sand burns outside their
windows in every direction. Compass
needles spin in their twinned minds:
everywhere they look, they are greeted
by horizon, deep gulps of blue. People
think of the green pastoral when they
think of lovers in nature. Those English poets used the vales and streams
to douse their lusts into verse. But the
desert oers something that no forest
brook or valley ever can: distance. A
cloudless roominghouse for couples.
Skies that will host any visitors dreams
with the bald hospitality of pure space.
In terms of an ecology that can support two lovers in hot pursuit of each
other, this is the place; everywhere
you look, youll find monuments to fevered longing. Craters beg for rain all
year long. Moths haunt the succulents,
winging sticky pollen from flower to
flower.
Near the campground entrance, they
are met by a blue-eyed man of indeterminate age, a park employee, who comes
lunging out of the infernal brightness
with whiskery urgency. His feet are so
huge that he looks like a jackrabbit, even
in boots.
Where did you folks wash up from?
he asks.
Their answer elicits a grunt.
First-timers to the park?
The boy explains that they are on
their honeymoon, watches the girl redden with pleasure.
Up close, the ranger has the unnervingly direct gaze and polished bristlecone skin of so many outdoorsmen. A
large bee lifts o a cactus, walks the rim
of his hat, and he doesnt flick it o, a
show of tolerance that is surely for their
benefit.
Do Warren Peak. Go see the Joshua
trees. Watch the yucca moths do their
magic. Youre in luckyouve come
94

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

smack in the middle of a pulse event. As


far as we can tell, the entire range of
Joshuas is in bloom right now. You
think youre in love? The moths are
smitten. In all my years, Ive seen nothing to rival it. Its a goddam orgy in the
canyon.
It turns out that their visit has coincided with a tremendous blossoming,
one that is occurring all over the Southwest. Highly erotic, the ranger says,
with his creepy bachelor smile. A record

number of greenish-white flowers have


erupted out of the Joshuas. Pineapplehuge, they crown every branch.
Now, theres an education for a
couple, huh? Charles Darwin agrees
with me. Says its the most remarkable
pollination system in nature. There is
no romance more dire and pure than
that of the desert moth and the Joshua.
Dire? the girl asks. And learns
from the ranger that the Joshua trees
may be on the brink of extinction. Botanists believe they are witnessing a cordinated response to crisis. Perhaps a
drought, legible in the plants purplish
leaves, has resulted in this push. Seeds
in abundance. The ancient species Hail
Mary pass. Yucca moths, attracted by
the flowers penetrating odor, are their
heroic spouses, equally dependent,
equally endangered; their larval children
feast on yucca seeds.
Its an obligate relationship. Each
species future depends entirely on the
other, the ranger says, and then grins
hugely at them. The boy is thinking
that the math sounds about right: two
species, one fate. The girl wonders,
of their own elopement: Who is more
dependent on whom? What toast might
Charles Darwin make were they to
break their first vows and get married?
So they obey the ranger, drive the
Charger another quarter mile, park at
the deserted base of Warren Peak.
Angie says she has to pee, and Andy
sits on the hood and watches her.

They set o along the trail, which


begins to ascend the ridgeline east of
Warren Peak. Now Joshua woodland
sprawls around them.
This is where the bad graft occurs.
For the rest of her life, she will be
driven to return to the park, searching
for the origin of the feeling that chooses
this day to invade her and make its
home under her skin.
Before starting the ascent, each pauses
to admire the plant that is the parks
namesake. The Joshua trees look hilariously alien. Like Satans telephone
poles. Theyre primitive, irregularly
limbed, their branches swooning up and
down, sparsely covered with syringethin leavesmore like spines, Angie
notes. Some mature trees have held
their insane poses for a thousand years;
they look as if they were on drugs and
hallucinating themselves.
The ranger told them that the plant
was named in the nineteenth century
by a caravan of Mormons, passing
through what they perceived to be a
wasteland. They saw a forest of hands,
which recalled to them the prayers of
the prophet Joshua. But the girl cant
see these plants as any kind of holy augury. Shes thinking: Dr. Seuss. Timothy Leary.
See the moths, Angie?
No wonder they call it a pulse
eventwings are beating everywhere.
Unfortunately for Angie, the ranger
they encountered had zero information to share on the ghostly Leap. So
he could not warn her about the real
danger posed to humans by the pulsating Joshuas. Between February and
April, the yucca moths arrive like living
winds, swirling through Black Rock
Canyon. Blossoms detonate. Pollen
heaves up.
Then the Joshua tree sheds a fantastic sum of itself.
Angie feels dizzy. As she leans out to
steady herself against a nearby Joshua
tree, her finger is pricked by something
sharp. One of the plants daggerlike
spines. Bewildered, she stares at the spot
of red on her finger. Running blood
looks exotic next to the etiolated grasses.
Angie Gonzalez, wild child from
Nestor, Pennsylvania, pricks her finger
on a desert dagger and becomes an entirely new creature.
When the Leap occurs, Angie does

not register any change whatsoever. She


has no idea what has just added its store
of life to hers.
But other creatures of the desert do
seem to apprehend what is happening.
Through the crosshairs of its huge pupils, a tarantula watches Angies skin
drink in the danger: the pollen from the
Joshua mixes with the red blood on her
finger. On a fuchsia ledge of limestone,
a dozen lizards witness the Leap. They
shut their gluey eyes as one, sealing their
lucent bodies from contagion, interkingdom corruption.
During a season of wild ferment, a
kind of atmospheric accident can occur:
the extraordinary moisture stored in
the mind of a passing animal or hiker
can compel the spirit of a Joshua to
Leap through its own membranes. The
change is metaphysical: the trees spirit
is absorbed into the migrating consciousness, where it lives on, intertwined
with its host.
Instinct guides its passage now,
through the engulfing darkness of An-

gies mind. Programmed with the urgent need to plug itself into some earth,
the plants spirit goes searching for terra
firma.
Andy unzips his backpack, produces
Fiji water and a Snoopy Band-Aid.
Your nose got burned, he says, and
smiles at her.
And, at this juncture, she can smile
back.
He kisses the nose.
Cmon, lets get out of here.
Then something explodes behind
her eyelids into a radial green fan, dazzling her with pain. Her neck aches, her
abdomen. The pain moves lower. It
feels as if an umbrella were opening
below her navel. Menstrual cramps, she
thinks. Seconds later, as with a soldering iron, an acute and narrowly focussed
heat climbs her spine.
At first, the Joshua tree is elated
to discover that its alive: I survived
my Leap. I was not annihilated. Whatever
I was.
Grafted to the girls consciousness,

the plant becomes aware of itself. It


dreams its green way up into her eyestalks, peers out:
Standing there, in the mirror of the
desert, are a hundred versions of itself.
Here is its home: a six-armed hulk,
fibrous and fruiting obscenely under a
noon sun. Here is the locus that recently
contained this tree spirit. For a tree, this
is a dreadful experience. Its uprooted
awareness floats throughout the alien
form. It concentrates itself behind Angies eyeballs, where there is moisture.
This insoluble spirit, this refugee from
the Joshua tree, understands itself to
have leapt into Hell. The wrong place,
the wrong vessel. It pulses outward in a
fuzzy frenzy of investigation, flares
greener, sends out feelers. Compared
with the warm and expansive desert soil,
the human body is a cul-de-sac.
This newborn ghost has only just
begun to apprehend itself when its fragile tenancy is threatened: Angie sneezes,
rubs at her temple. Unaware that this is
an immunologic reflex, she is convulsed

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

95

by waves of nostalgia for earlier selves,


remote homes. Here, for some reason,
is her childhood back yard, filled with
anarchic wildflowers and bordered by
Pennsylvania hemlock.
Then the pain dismantles the memory; she holds her head in her hand,
cries for Andy.
This is the plant, fighting back.
The girl moans.
Andy, you dont have any medicine?
Advil . . . something?
The vegetable invader feels the horror of its imprisonment. Its new host is
walking away from the Joshua-tree forest, following Andy. What can this kind
of survival mean?
Although they dont know it, escape
is now impossible for our vagabonding
couple. Andy opens the sedan door,
Angie climbs in, and in the side mirrors
the hundreds of Joshuas shrink away
into hobgoblin shapes.
Angie? You got so quiet.
Its the sun. My head is killing me,
honey.
Dispersed throughout her consciousness, the tree begins to grow.
Andy has no clue that he is now
party to a love triangle. What he perceives is that his girlfriend is acting very
strangely.
Do you need some water? Want to
sit and rest awhile?

t the motel, the girl makes straight


for the bathroom faucet. She
washes down the water with more
water, doesnt want to eat dinner. When
Andy tries to undress her, she fights him
off. Her movements seem to him balletic, unusually nimble; yet, walking
across the room, she pauses at the oddest moments. That night, she basks in
the glow of their TV as if it were the
sun. Yellow is such a relief.
I hate this show, the boy says, staring not at the motel TV but at her.
Lets turn it off?
Who are you? he does not bother
to ask.
Calmly, he becomes aware that the girl
he loves has exited the room. Usually,
when this sensation comes over him, it
means shes fallen asleep. Tonight she is
sitting up in bed, eyes bright, very wide
awake. Her eyes in most lighting are
hazel; tonight they are the brightest green.
As if great doors had been flung open
96

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

onto an empty and electrically lit room.


The Joshua tree thinks in covert
bursts of activity:
Oh, I have made a terrible mistake.
Oh, please get me out of it, get me out of
it, send me home.
The headache, she calls the odd
pressure at first. The green headache.
Psychosis, at 4 A . M ., when its
power over her crests and she lies awake
terrified. Torpor or sluggishness
when it ebbs.
Had you told her, The invader is
sinking its roots throughout you, tethering itself to you with a thousand spectral
feelerswho knows what she would
have done?

he next day, they wake at dawn, as


per their original plan: to start every
day at sunup and navigate by whim.
They go north on 247, with vague plans
to stop in Barstow for gas. The girls
eyes are aching. Partway across the Morongo Basin, she starts to cry so hard
that the boy is forced to pull over.
Forget it, she says.
Forget what?
It. All of it. The seafaring stuffI
cant do it anymore.
The boy blinks at her.
Its been four days.
But her lips look blue, and she wont
be reasonable.
Leave me here.
You dont have any money.
Ill work. Theyre hiring everywhere
in town, did you notice that? A job
sounds unaccountably blissful to the
girl. Drinking water in the afternoon.
Sitting at a desk.
What? What the hell are you talking about?
The boy scowls down at his arm,
flipped outward against the steering
wheel. She keeps talking to him in a
new, low monotone, telling him that
she loves the desert, she loves the Joshua
trees, she wants to stay. Dumbly, he rereads his own tattoo: Ever unfixed.
For some reason, he finds that he cannot quite blame the girl for ruining
things. Its the plan he hates, their excellent plan, for capsizing on them.
The crumbly truth: the boy imagined
that hed be the one to betray the girl.
Andy, Im sorry. But I know that I
belong here.
O.K., just to be clear: When you

say here, you mean this parking lot?


The sedan is parked outside Cojos
Army Surplus and Fro-Yo; its a place
where you can purchase camo underwear and also a cup of unlicensed
T.C.B.Y. swirl. Or do you mean this?
He waves his arms around to indicate
the desert.
Had they continued, just a short distance northwest of Yucca Valley they
would have reached the on-ramp to
I-15 North and, beyond that, the pinball magic of the tollbooths, that multiverse of possible futures connected by
Americas interstate system.
For the next two hours, they fight inside the car.
Round clusters of leaves shake loose
in front of her eyes, greeny-white blossoms. If she could only show him the
desert in her imagination, Angie thinks,
the way she sees it.
When it becomes clear that shes
not joking, the boy turns the car
around. Calls Cousin Sewell in Pennsylvania, explains their situation. We
want to stay awhile, he says. We like
it here.
Sewell needs to know how long.
Theyll have to put the car on some conveyance, get it back to Pennsylvania.
Indefinitely, the boy hears himself
say. Her word, for what she claims to
want.
They decide to pay the weekly rate
at the motel. They go for walks. They
go for drives. Her favorite thing seems
to be sitting in a dry wreck of a turquoise Jacuzzi they discover on the
edge of town, some luckless homesteaders abandoned pleasure tub. And
he likes this too, actuallysitting in
the tub, he finds it easy to pretend that
they arent trapped in a tourist town,
that they are sailing toward an elsewhere. And he loves what happens to
her face right at sunset over the infinite
desert. Moonlight, however, affects her
in a way that he finds indescribably
frightening. The change is in the eyes,
he thinks.
II. EMERGENCE

wo weeks later, in late April, their


money runs out. Theyve spent the
days outside, Angie doing stretches in
the motel courtyard, Andy reading his
stolen library books from back east,

waiting for the bad enchantment to


break. Andy tells Angie he is leaving
her. They have no vehicle, the rental
Dodge having been chauffeured east by
a genial grifter pal of Sewells. Angie
nods, staring out the window of their
room as the rain sweeps over the desert.
All the muddy colors of the sky touch
the earth.
Did you hear me? I said Im leaving,
Angie.
That afternoon, Andy gets a job at
the Joshua Tree Saloon.
Then there is a period of peace, coinciding with the Joshua trees dormancy inside of Angie, which lasts from
April to mid-May. In the park, the
Joshuas blossoms have all dropped off,
leaving dried stalks. Andy does not
even suggest moving on anymore, so
thrilled is he to laugh with Angie again.
He comes home with green fistfuls of
tourist cash, reeking of Fireball and Pine
Sol. O.K., he thinks. Oh, thank God.
Were getting back to normal.
Then one day, after a spectacular
freak thundershower, Angie tells him
that he needs to go home. Or away.
Elsewhere, a bedroom other than the
motel.
She feels terrible, she doesnt know
what she is saying.
Get me out of it, the plant keeps
throbbing like a muscle in Angies mind.
A rustling sound in her inner ear, the
plants footsteps. A throaty appetite
makes her imagine stuffing herself with
hot mouthfuls of desert sand. Once
Andy leaves her, shell have a chance to
inspect her interior, figure out whats
gone haywire.
Lets go to Reno, Andy says. He
feels quite desperate now, spinning the
radio dial through seas of static. His
great success this week at work was formalizing, via generous pours of straight
gin, a new friendship with Jerry the
Mailman, who has given him access to
his boxy truck.
Go to Reno. Win big. Ill be right
here. I dont want to leave the desert.
Why doesnt she? The girl grows
hysterical whenever Andy drives toward
the freeway that might carry them away
from the Mojave. She feels best when
they are close to Warren Peak and the
Black Rock Canyon campground.
For the next two weeks, she keeps
encouraging Andy to leave her. Some-

I wont lie. It doesnt look good.

t
times she feels a lump in her throat that
she cant swallow, and its easy to pretend that this is a vestige of who she
used to be, her Pennsylvania history,
now compacted into a hard ball she cannot access or dissolve; for Andys sake,
she wishes she could be that girl again.
Dimly she is aware that she used to
crave travel, adventure. She can remember the pressure of Andys legs tangled
around her, but not what she held in her
mind. The world has grown unwieldy,
and there are days now when the only
thing that appeals to her is pulling up
her T-shirt and going belly flat on the
burning pink sand beyond the motel
walkway.
One night, Angie turns to face the
wall. Golf-ball-size orange-and-yellow
flowers pattern their wallpaper. Plus
water stains from ancient leaks. She has
never noticed this before. Under the
influence of the Joshua, she sees these
water stains as beautiful. That Rorschach is more interesting than TV.
What do you see? she asks the boy.
Im not in the mood, he says, having at last been granted the opportunity
to have a mood, after days and hours
spent trying to rekindle her appetite for
pleasure, for danger. He realizes that he
has cut all ties for her, that he has nothing he wants to return to in Pennsylva-

t
nia. Its a liberating, terrifying feeling.
If she leaves himif he leaves her
what then?

ow the plant is catching on to


something.
In its three months of incubation, it
grows exponentially in its capacity for
thought. Gradually, the plant learns to
think blue, to smell rain through a nose.
Unfurling its languorous intelligence, it looks out through her eyes,
hunting for meaning the way it used to
seek out deep sun, jade dew, hunting
now for the means of imagining its own
life, comprehending what it has become
inside the girl.
The Joshua tree discovers that it loves
church! Plugging ones knees into the
purple risers, lifting to enter a song. The
apple-red agony painted onto the
cheeks of the sallow man. All the light
that fills the church drifts dreamily over
the Joshua tree, which stretches to its
fullest extension inside the girl during
the slow-crawling time of the service. It
approves of this place, which resembles
a massive seed hull. Deeply, extrapolating from its forays into the earth, it understands the architecture and the impulse. Craving stillness, these humans
have evolved this stronghold.
How was it? Andy asks, picking
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

97

her up. He refused to go with her. Sundays are his day off. Delicious Godbread? Lots of songs?
It was nice. What are you so jealous
about?
Angie, you never said.
Mmm?
I didnt know you were religious.
Her head bobs on the long stem of
her neck, as if they were agreeing on a
fascinating point.
Yes. Theres plenty we dont know
about each other.
I can still get out of this, he thinks.
Without understanding exactly how
the trap got sprung, he can feel its teeth
in him.
You should come in next time, she
offers. Youd like the windows.
I can see the windows right now.
Youd like being on our side of
them.
Seed hull, the girl thinks, for no
reason.

ometimes, to earn extra money, she


watches kids who are staying at the
motel. Six dollars an hour, four dollars
for each additional kid. She is good at it,
mostly.
Timmy Babson hates the babysitter.
Sometimes her eyes are a dull, friendly
brown and as kind as his sisters; sometimes they are twin vacuums. This is al-

ready pretty scary. But tonight, when he


looks over, he sees the bad light flooding
into them. Not yellow, not green. An
older color, which Timmy recognizes
on sight but cannot name. And this is
much worse.
His own eyes prickle wetly. His
blond hair darkens with sweat; pearls of
water stand out on his smooth six-yearold forehead. The longer he stares back,
the wider the gaze seems to get, like a
grin. Her eyes radiate hard spines of
heat, which drill into him. Timmy Babson feels punctured, seen.
Jane! Timmy screams for his
mother, calling for her by her first name
for the first time. Jane, Jane! Its looking at me again!

n her good days, Angie tries to


battle the invader. She thinks
shes fighting against lethargy. She
does jumping jacks in the motel courtyard, calls her best friend in Juneau
from the motel pay phone and anxiously tries to reminisce about their
shitty high-school band. They sing an
old song together, and she feels almost
normal.
But, increasingly, she finds herself
powerless to resist the warmth that
spreads through her chest, the midday
paralysis, the hunger for something
slow and deep and unnameable. Some

Im so sorry, I never meant for you to find out this way.

maid has drawn the blackout curtains.


One light bulb dangles. The dark reminds Angie of packed earth, moisture.
What she interprets as sprawling emotion is the Joshua tree. Here was its
birth, in the sands of Black Rock Canyon. Here was its death, and its rebirth
as a ghostly presence in the human.
Couldnt it perhaps Leap back into that
older organism?
The light bulb pulses in time with
Angies headache. It acquires a fetal
glow, otherworldly.
Home, home, home.
Down, down, down.
Her heels grind uselessly into the
carpet. Her toes curl at the fibres. She
stands in the quiet womb of the room,
waiting for a signal from the root
brain, the ancient network from which
the invader has been exiled. She lifts
her arms until they are fully extended,
her fingers turned outward. Her ears
prick up like sharp leaves, alert for
moisture.
She is still standing like that when
Andy comes home with groceries at
10 P.M., her palms facing the droning
light bulb, so perfectly still that he yelps
when he spots her.

ow old such stories must be, legends of the bad romance between
wandering humans and plants! How
often these bad grafts must occur, and
few people ever the wiser!
In 1852, the Mormon settlers who
gave the Joshua tree its name reported
every variety of disturbance among their
party after hikes through the sparse and
fragrant forests of Death Valley. One
elder sat on a rock at the forests edge
and refused to move.
1873, in the lawless town of Panamint City. Darwin in 1874; Modoc in
1875. During the silver boom dozens of
miners went missing. Many leapt to
their deaths down the shafts. The silver
rush coincided with a pulse event: the
trees blossomed unstoppably, wept pollen, and Leapt, eclipsing the minds of
these poor humans, who stood no
chance against the vegetables ancient
spirit. Dying is one symptom of a bad
graft. The invasive species coiled green
around the silver miners brains.
1879: All towns abandoned. Sorted
ore sat in wheelbarrows aboveground,
winking emptily at the nearby Joshuas.

In 1922, in what is now the southern


region of the park, near the abandoned
iron mines of Eagle Mountain, a man
was killed by the human host of a Joshua
tree. It was not difficult to find the murderer, since a girl was huddled a few feet
from the warm body, sobbing quietly.
A crime of passion, the young
officer, who tended to take a romantic
view of motives, murmured. The grizzled elder on the call with him had less
to say about what drove anyone to do
anything.
All the girl could remember was the
terrible, irremediable tension between
wanting to be somewhere and wanting
to be nowhere. And the plant, crazed by
its proximity to rich familiar soil, tried
repeatedly to Leap out of her. This
caused her hand to lift, holding a long
knife, and plummet earthward, rooting
into the fleshy chest of her lover, feeling
deeper and deeper for moisture.

he Joshua trees greatest victory


over the couple comes four months
into their stay: they sign a lease. A bungalow on the outskirts of the national
park, with a fence to keep out the coyotes and an outdoor shower.
When the shower water gets into
their mouths, it tastes like poison.
Strange reptiles hug the fence posts, like
colorful olives on toothpicks. Andy
squeezes Angies hand and returns the
gaze of these tiny monsters; he feels
strangely bashful as they bugle their
throats at him. Four months into his
desert sojourn, and he still doesnt know
the name of anything. Up close, the
bungalow looks a lot like a shed. The
bloated vowels of his signature on the
landlords papers make him think of a
large hand blurring underwater.
Three Joshua trees grow right in
their new back yard.
Rent, before utilities, is four hundred
dollars.
We cant afford this, he tells the
girl, speaking less to her than to the
quiet trees, wanting some court stenographer in the larger cosmos to record his
protest.
The landlord, who is a native of
Yucca Valley, is taking the young couple through the calendar. His name is
Desert John, and he offers these Eastern
kids what he calls Desert Johns Survival
Tips. With laconic glee, he advises

Andy to cut back the chaparral in their


back yard to waist height in summer, to
avoid the minimal danger of baby rattlesnakes. He tells Angie to hydrate aggressively, especially if shes trying to
get pregnant. (Angie starfishes a hand
over her belly button and blanches; nobody has said anything to suggest this.)
With polite horror, the couple nod
along to stories of their predecessors,
former tenants who collapsed from heat
exhaustion, were bitten by every kind of
snake and spider: Fanged in the ankle
and ass, I shit you not, kids. Beware the
desert hammock.
Average annual rainfall: five inches.
Eight-degree nights in December,
one-hundred-and-twelve-degree July
days. Andy is thinking of Angies face
on the motel pillow. He calculates
theyve slept together maybe fourteen
times in four months. In terms of survival strategies, in a country hostile to
growth? These desert plants, so ostentatiously alive in the Mojave, have got
zero on Andy.
III. ESTABLISHMENT

nce, and only once, the three of


them achieve a perfect union.
It takes some doing, but Andy
finally succeeds in getting her out of the
house.
Its our anniversary, he lies, since
they never really picked a day.
Hes taking Angie to Pappy and
Harriets Pioneertown Palace, a frontier-themed dance hall frequented by
bikers and artists and other jolly modern
species of degenerates. Its only six miles
northeast of their new home and burns
like a Roman candle against the immensity of the Mojave. Through surveying expeditions made in Jerrys truck,
Andy has delimited the boundary lines
of Angies tolerance; once they move
beyond a certain radius, she says that her
head feels green and her bones begin
to ache. Pain holds her herethats
their shared impression. So when Andy
parks the truck they are both relieved to
discover that she is smiling.
The Joshua tree discovers that it loves
to dance! Better even than church is
the soft glow of the hexagonal dance
floor. Swung around in strangers arms,
Andy and Angie let themselves dance
until they are sick, at the edge of the
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

99

universe. Andy lets Angie buy him three


shots of rum. A weather seizes them
and blows them arounda weather you
can order for a quarter, the jukebox
song.
It is a good night. Outside the dance
hall, the parking lot is full of cars and
trucks, empty of humans. The wind
pushes into them, as hot as the blasts of
air from a hand dryer. Angie draws Andys attention to the claret cup of the
moon. It looks red, she says. And it
does. Sitting on a strangers fender, listening to the
dying strains of a pop song
they both despise, Andy
asks her softly, Whats
changed, Angie?
And when she doesnt
or cant answer he asks,
Whats changing now?
A question they like
better, because at least its
tense sounds more hopeful.
The Joshua tree leafs out in her
mind. Heat blankets her; for a moment
she is sure she will faint. Her vision
clears. Bamboleo plays inside the
dance hall. Through the illuminated
squares of its windows, they can see the
waving wheat of the dancers upper
bodies. Mouths gape in angry shock
behind the frosted glass; they are only
singing along to the music, Angie
knows. Outside, the boy presses his
mouth against hers. Now he is pressing every part of himself against the
girl; inside her, his competitor presses
back.
Lets go. Lets go. Lets get the fuck
out of here.
Lets go back inside.
In the end, the three of them settle
on a compromise: they dance in the
empty parking lot, under stars that
shoot eastward like lateral rain.
For a second, the Joshua tree can
feel its grip on the host weakening.
The present threatens its existence: the
couples roaring happiness might dislodge the ghostly tree. So it renews its
purchase on the girl, roots into her
memory.
Remember our first day, Andy? The
hike through Joshua Tree?
Compared with that, Angie thinks,
what is there for us in the present?
Nostalgia, we are apt to label this phenomenon. It is the success of the invad100

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

ing plant, which seeks only to anchor itself in the past. Why move forward?
Why move at all?

s this the spot? Are you sure?


Andy spreads out the blanket. A
soft aura surrounds the low moon, as if
the moon itself were dreaming. The red
halo reminds him of a miners carbide
lantern.
At first, when the girl suggested that
they drive out to the park, he felt annoyed, then scared; the
light was in her eyes again,
eclipsing the girl shed
been only seconds earlier.
But once hed yielded to
her plan the night had organized itself into a series
of surprises, the first of
which was his own sharp
joy; now he finds hes
thrilled to be back inside
the Black Rock Canyon
campground with her. (The Joshua is
also pleased, smiling up through Angies
eyes.) It is her idea to retrace the steps of
their first hike to Warren Peak. For our
anniversary, she says coolly, although
this rationale rings hollow, reminds
Andy of his own bullshit justifications
for taking out a lease on a desert bungalow. He does not guess the truth, of
course, which is that, slyly, the Joshua
tree is proliferating inside Angie, each
of its six arms forking and flowering
throughout her in the densest multiplication of desire. Leap, Leap, Leap. For
months it has been trying to drive the
couple back to this spot. Its vast root
brain awaits it, forty feet below the soil.
Angie has no difficulty navigating
down the dark path; the little flashlight around her neck is bouncing like
a leashed green sun. Her smile, when
she turns to find Andy, is so huge that
he wonders if he wasnt the one to
suggest this night hike to her. Something unexpected happens then, for all
of them: they renter the romance of
the past.
Why didnt we then . . . all three
think as one.
Quickly that sentiment jumps tenses,
becomes:
Why dont we now . . .
When they reach the water tank,
which is two hundred yards from the
site of the Leap, Angie asks Andy to

shake out the blanket. She sucks on the


finger she pricked.
Around the blanket, tree branches
divide and braid. They look mutinous in
their stillness. Andy can see the movie
scene: Bruce Willis attacking an army of
Joshuas. He is imagining this, the trees
swimming across the land like sand octopuses, flailing their spastic arms, when
the girl catches his wrist in her fingers.
Can we?
Why not?
Why didnt they, Andy wonders,
back then? The first time they walked
this loop, they were preparing to do
plenty. Andy unzips his jeans, shakes the
caked-black denim off like solid dust.
Angie is wearing a dress. Their naked
legs tangle together in a pale, fleshy echo
of the static contortionists that surround
their blanket. Now the Joshua tree loves
her. It grows and it flowers.
Angie will later wonder how exactly
she came to be in possession of Andys
knife. Its bare blade holds the red moon
inside it. She watches it glimmer there,
poised just above Andys right shoulder.
The ground underneath the blanket
seems to undulate; the fabric of the desert is wrinkling and flowing all around
them. Even the Joshua trees, sham dead,
now begin to move; or so it seems to the
girl, whose blinded eyes keep stuttering.
The boys mouth is at the hollow of
the girls throat, then lower; she moans
as the invaders leaves and roots go
spearing through her, and still he is unaware that hes in any danger.
I can Leap back, the plant thinks.
Angie can no longer see what she is
doing. Her eyes are shut, her thoughts
have stopped. One small hand rests on
Andys neck; the other fist withdraws
until the knife points earthward. Down,
down, down, the invader demands.
Something sighs sharply, and it might
be Andy or it might be the entire forest.
Leap, Leap, Leap, the Joshua implores.

hat saves the boy is such a simple


thing. Andy props himself up on
an elbow, pausing to steady his breath.
He missed the moment when she slid
the knife from the crumpled heap of his
clothing; he has no idea that its blade is
sparkling inches from his neck. Staring
at Angies waxy, serious face, he is overcome by a flood of memories.
Hey, Angie? he asks, stroking the

fine dark hairs along her arm. Remember how we met?


One of the extraordinary adaptive
powers of our species is its ability to
transmute a stray encounter into a first
chapter.
Angie has never had sticking power.
She dropped out of high school; she
walked out of the G.E.D. exam. Her
longest relationship, prior to falling for
Andy, was seven months. But then
theyd met (no epic tale therethe
game was on at a home-town bar), and
something in her character was spontaneously altered.
He remembers the song that was
playing. He remembers ordering another round he could not afforda
freezing Yuengling for himself, ginger
ale for her. They were sitting on the
same wooden stools, battered tripods,
that had supported the plans and commitments of the young in that town for
generations.
The Joshua tree flexes its roots. Desperately, it tries to fix its life to her life.
In the human mind, a Joshuas spirit can
be destroyed by the wind and radiation
fluxes of memory. Casting its spectral
roots around, the plant furiously reddens
with a very human feeling: humiliation.
What a thing to be undone by
golden hops and gingerroot, the clay
shales of Pennsylvania!
It loses its grip on her arm; the
strength runs out of her tensed biceps.
The girls fingers loosen; the knife
falls, unnoticed, to the sand.
The green invader is displaced by the
swelling heat of their earliest happiness.
Banished to the outermost reaches of
Angies consciousness, the Joshua tree
now hovers in agony, half forgotten,
half dissolving, losing its purchase on
her awareness and so on its own reality.
What a perfect night! the couple
agree.
Angie stands and brushes sand from
her skirt. Andy frowns at the knife,
picks it up.
Happy anniversary, he says.
It is not their anniversary, but doesnt
it make sense for them to celebrate the
beginning here? This desert hike marked
the last point in space where theyd both
wanted the same future. What they are
nostalgic for is the old plan, the first one.
Their antique horizon.
Down the trail, up and down through

time, the couple walk back toward the


campground parking lot. Making plans
again, each of them babbling excitedly
over the other. Maybe Reno. Maybe
Juneau.
Andy jogs ahead to their loaner getaway vehicle.
The Black Rock Canyon campground
is one of the few places in the park where
visitors can sleep amid the Joshua trees,
soaking up the starlight from those complex crystals that have formed over millennia in the desert sky. Few of these campers are still outside their tents and R.V.s,
but there is one familiar silhouette: its the
ranger, who is warming his enormous
feet, bony and perfectly white, by the fire
pit. Shag covers the five-foot cactus behind him, which makes it look like a giants mummified thumb.
You lovebirds again! he crows,
waving them over.
Reluctantly, Andy doubles back.
Angie is pleased, and frightened, that he
remembers them.
Ha! Guess you liked the hike.
For a few surreal minutes, standing
before the leaping flames, they talk
about the hike, the moths, the Joshua
woodland. Andy is itching to be gone;
already he is imagining giving notice at
the saloon, packing up their house, getting back on the endlessly branching interstate. But Angie is curious. Andy is a
little embarrassed, in fact, by the urgent
tone of her questions. She wants to hear
more about the marriage of the yucca
moth and the Joshuais theirs a
doomed romance? Cant the two species
untwine, separate their fortunes?
Andy leaves to get the truck.
And the pulse event? Have the
moths all flown? Will the Joshua tree
die out, go extinct in the park?
A key turns in the ignition. At the
entrance to Black Rock Canyon, Andy
leans forward against the wheel, squinting through the windshield. He is waiting for the girl to emerge from the shadows, certain that she will do so; and then
a little less sure.
Oh, its a hardy species, the ranger
says. His whiskers are clear tubes that hold
the red firelight. Those roots go deep.
I wouldnt count a tree like that out.

nyr.kr/thisweekinfiction
Karen Russell on The Bad Graft.
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101

BOOKS

GHOSTS IN THE STACKS


Finding the forgotten books.
BY CHRISTINE SMALLWOOD

n the nineteen-nineties, when you


bought a book at Barnes & Noble
the cashier slipped it into a plastic bag
bearing a black-and-white illustration of
an authors faceMark Twain, Oscar
Wilde, Edith Wharton. Recently, I was
poking around a bookstore in Manhattan
and noticed a canvas tote for sale. In a
simple red heart, the word books was
spelled out in white letters. This tale of
two bags is the story of decades of change
in the publishing industry. Books,
O.K.but which ones?
The number of Americans who read
books has been declining for thirty years,
and those who do read have become proud
of, even a bit overidentified with, the enterprise. Alongside the tote bags you can
find T-shirts, magnets, and buttons emblazoned with covers of classic novels; the
Web site Etsy sells tights printed with
poems by Emily Dickinson. A spread in
The Paris Review featured literature-inspired paint-chip colors (a charcoal Funeral Suit for The Loser; a mossy Graham Greene). The merchandising of
reading has a curiously undifferentiated
flavor, as if what you read mattered less
than that you read. In this climate of embattled bibliophilia, a new subgenre of
books about books has emerged, a mix of
literary criticism, autobiography, self-help,
and immersion journalism: authors undertake reading stunts to prove that readinganythingstill matters.
I thought of my adventure as OffRoad or Extreme Reading, Phyllis Rose
writes in The Shelf: From LEQ to
LES, the latest stunt book, in which she
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THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

reads through a more or less random shelf


of library books. She compares her voyage
to Ernest Shackletons explorations in the
Antarctic. However, I like to sleep under
a quilt with my head on a goose down pillow, she writes. So I would read my way
into the unknowninto the pathless
wastes, into thin air, with no reviews, no
best-seller lists, no college curricula, no
National Book Awards or Pulitzer Prizes,
no ads, no publicity, not even word of
mouth to guide me.
She is not the first writer to set off on
an armchair expedition. A. J. Jacobs, a
self-described human guinea pig,
spent a year reading the encyclopedia
for The Know-It-All: One Mans
Humble Quest to Become the Smartest
Person in the World (2004). Ammon
Shea read all of the Oxford English
Dictionary for his book Reading the
OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730
Pages (2008). In The Whole Five
Feet (2010), Christopher Beha made
his way through the Harvard Classics
during a year in which he suffered serious illness and had a death in the family. In Howards End Is on the Landing (2010), Susan Hill limited herself
to reading only the books that she already owned. Such extreme reading
requires special personal traits: grit, stamina, a penchant for self-improvement,
and a dash of perversity.
Rose fits the bill. A retired English
professor, she is the author of popular biographies of Virginia Woolf and Josephine Baker, as well as The Year of
Reading Proust (1997), a memoir of her

he way most of us choose our reading today is simple. Someone posts a


link, and we click on it. We set out to buy
one book, and Amazon suggests that we
might like another. Friends and retailers
know our preferences, and urge recommendations on us. The bookstore and the
library are curated, toothe people who
work there may even know you and track
your habitsbut they are organized in an
impersonal way. Shelves and open stacks
offer not only immediate access to books
but strange juxtapositions. Arbitrary
classification breeds surprisesNikolai
Gogol next to William Golding, Clarice
Lispector next to Penelope Lively. The
alphabet has no rationale, agenda, or
preference.
Rose first gets the idea for The
Shelf while browsing the stacks of
the New York Society Library, on the

ABOVE: VASCO MOURO; OPPOSITE: PHOTOGRAPH BY GRANT CORNETT

THE CRITICS

family life and the manners and mores of


the Key West literary scene. Her best
book is Parallel Lives (1983), a group
biography of five Victorian marriages.
(It is filled with marvellous details and
set pieces, like the one in which John
Ruskin, reared on hairless sculptures of
female nudes, defers consummating his
marriage to Effie Gray for so long that
she sues for divorce.) Rose is consistently
generous, knowledgeable, and chatty,
with a knack for connecting specific
incidents to large social trends. Unlike
many biblio-memoirists, she loves network television and is refreshingly unnostalgic about print; in The Shelf she
says that she prefers her e-reader to certain moldy paperbacks.
She is clear-eyed about what awaits
her on LEQ-LES. I had no reason to
believe that the books would be worth
the time I would spend on them, she
writes. They could be dull, even lethally
so. She stops short of claiming that the
whole of a mediocrity is worth more than
the sum of its parts; it is the uniqueness
of her whole that excites. I was certain,
however, that no one in the history of
the world had read exactly this series of
novels. Roses paean to arbitrariness is
telling. She brings an element of chaos
to a reading culture that is otherwise
corralled by algorithms. She could read
this shelf or that shelf or that other shelf
over there. For her, arbitrariness doesnt
mean that her experience is interchangeable. It is, on the contrary, irreplaceable.

In a climate of embattled bibliophilia, authors have been undertaking reading stunts to prove that readinganythingmatters.
CONSTRUCTION BY STEPHEN DOYLE

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

103

t
Upper East Side. Founded in 1754, it
is the oldest library in the city, a place
where a grandfather clock keeps time
and the dcor runs to marble, murals,
and mahogany. (Its patrons have included George Washington, Herman
Melville, and Willa Cather, and though
the reference room is open to the public, to borrow books you must pay a
yearly membership fee of two hundred
and twenty-five dollars.) Rose has gone
to the library to get the book Hurricane, by Charles Nordhoff and James
Norman Hall (of Mutiny on the
Bounty fame), recommended by friends
who were on their own mission to become Nordhoff and Hall completists.
But when she finds the book she realizes
that she does not want to read it after all.
Looking around idly, she sees dozens of
Nordhoff and Hall titles, and she has
never heard of any of them. What were
the other books like? she wonders.
Who were all these scribblers whose
work filled the shelves? Did they find
their lives as writers rewarding? Who
reads their work now? Are we missing
out? It is a decidedly contemporary
feeling, this FOMO, this fear of missing
out. She will conquer it.
Her shelf, she decides, must have a
combination of new and older works by
several authors, both men and women,
and one book has to be a classic that she
has always wanted to read. The shelf cannot contain any work by a person she
knows. She surveys some two hundred
shelves, and eventually settles on LEQLES. It holds twenty-three books by
eleven authors, including A Hero of Our
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THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

t
Time, by Mikhail Lermontov; Gaston
Lerouxs The Phantom of the Opera;
novels by Rhoda Lerman, Margaret
Leroy, and Lisa Lerner; and Alain-Ren
Lesages Gil Blas. (There are only three
female authors in her sample, a fact that
she analyzes at length, though she does
not comment on its racial monotony.)
She has never before read any of these titles, and she will read them in whatever
order fancy suggests. The Shelf reviews
facts about each authors life and summarizes the plots of the novels, but, always,
the real focus is on Rose herself: what she
likes and dislikes, how she feels while
reading, whether it is easy or difficult to
escape into the story. Shes on the lookout for spontaneity, inclusiveness, and
uniquenessthree things that she prizes
in fiction, and three of the elements driving her project, too.

ose has two fears: that there are


worthy books out there that she
hasnt read, and that there are worthy
books out there that no one is reading,
that have been forgotten, and fallen
into the great unknown. As a professor,
she knows that the best way to make
sure somebody reads a book, even if
that person is only you, is to get it on
a syllabus. Tastes change, of course.
Twenty years ago, Jamaica Kincaids
novels were a mainstay of undergraduate
syllabi; today, W. G. Sebald is favored.
Sometimes an author moves from canonical to ubiquitous, as has been the
case with Virginia Woolf. (In many English departments, it seems that you cant
earn a degree without having mastered

Mrs. Dalloway.) But Roses stunt also


points to a problem more subtle than
that of curriculum design. For the past
hundred years, the shifts in what scholars read have been closely aligned with
changes in how they read.
Close reading established itself as a
practice in the first half of the twentieth
century, and was a brilliant tool for getting to the heart of lyric poetry; when
professors started assigning difficult
modernist novels, it was good for that,
too. In its purest form, close reading denied that anything outside the words
on the page was relevant. The text of
the day could be everyones common
ground, no matter how different the
backgrounds and the experiences of the
students weresomething that had particular appeal after the G.I. Bill. It also
contributed to the sanctification of the
canon by treating literature like Scripture, whose every word could be parsed
and illuminated. Arguments over what
deserved this special treatment were
brutal. But, even as the canon was
wrenched open to include books by
women and people of color, scholars
didnt relax how they readthey read
even more closely. The introduction of
theory meant that you could read for a
lot of things apart from imagery and
metre: for history, politics, ideology,
power. Deconstruction meant that you
could write a long essay teasing apart
two words. The passion for Marx and
Freud yielded symptomatic reading,
in which closely reading the words that
werent on the page became
as important as reading the
ones that were.
By the end of the nineties, more books than ever
before were being read seriously, but the ways of
reading were increasingly
laborious. This created the
worry that something was
being lost. In 2000, Franco
Moretti, then a professor at Columbia,
published The Slaughterhouse of Literature, an article that revealed his own
fear of missing out. Moretti had always
been interested in the history of literary
form, but he found himself more and
more uncomfortable making any claims
about it, because he could no longer ignore the fact that his conclusions were
based on only a handful of examples.

The canon of nineteenth-century British novels, he pointed out, consists of, at


most, two hundred workshalf of one
per cent of what was published in the
period. How could anyone pretend to
say what the novel is or does based on a
sample size that small?
Rose is content with a random assortment, but for Moretti one shelf
would never be enough. He didnt
merely want to study more books; he
wanted to study all of them, or as many
as he could. He began by reading in a
targeted way, searching for specific motifs, and mapping and graphing what he
found. In 2010, he stopped reading like
a machine and started using machines.
He and his colleagues undertook distant reading, feeding thousands of novels into computers and scanning the
texts for patterns. How long are the titles of the novels written in the eighteen-twenties? Does the word the appear more often in gothic novels than in
bildungsromans? What does the plot of
Hamlet look like as a diagram of the
verbal exchanges between its characters?
Moretti is trying to solve the problem
that Borges imagined in his story The
Library of Babel, in which stacks in hexagonal rooms contain every piece of
knowledge about everything, but no one
can sort through whats there. If only
Borgess librarians had written code, one
cant help thinking, they could have made
the senselessness of infinity approachable.
By Morettian standards, The Shelf is a
slaughterhouse by a different name
fallible, incompleteeven
though Rose is reaching in
the same direction.
Another new style of
reading, one that has drawn
both devotion and rancor
in the academy, is surface
reading. Instead of talking
about whats hidden, it
points to whats plainly visible. Instead of decoding, it
describes. One prominent practitioner,
Sharon Marcus, advocates just reading. The idea is that you will notice
more surprising and interesting things
if you stick to what is manifest in a text
rather than dwelling on what is obscure
and absent. (Marcus has argued, for example, that hermeneuts obsessed with
repressive hypotheses have neglected
the relationships between women in
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105

Great Expectations.) Sometimes surface readers dont read at all; they might
study how books were recycled for
paper, or examine them for food stains,
or sniff the pages for signs of certain
chemicals. (The book historian Leah
Price calls this forensic reading.) Rose
herself glides along the surfacemuch
of her analysis is plot summarythough
that may be because shes keeping an eye
on the clock. I hope I can inspire someone to explore these standardshow do
we make aesthetic judgments?but I
have to move along with the reading
of my shelf, she writes. Roses style of
reading, however, is neither close nor
distant nor on the surface. It turns out
that she has her own school.

o Roses frustration, she doesnt


find contentment in reading just
any book. The voyage nearly breaks
down with the very first author she
grabs, the Afrikaner allegorist Etienne
Leroux. He is so artsy, self-conscious,
pretentious that after forcing herself
through one of his detective novels she
skims the next, and cant bring herself to
open a third. This doesnt mean that
Rose isnt an I Books! boosterin
fact, shes a super-booster. When she
comes across something that she cant
boost, she starts fantasizing that someone else will boost it instead. Does some
future literary critic exist who can resurrect these books? she asks, hoping
against hope. She feels proud that, by
taking Lerouxs bad books out of the library, she has made it possible for future critics to enjoy them. (Circulation
is one of the best ways to guarantee that
volumes arent deaccessioned in the
winnowing that every library must continually do.)
Rose comes to appreciate Leroux
when she finds a YouTube clip of his funeral, in 1990, which was broadcast on
South African television. The events
begin with a crowd arriving at a church
and end on a hill, where family and
friends throw flowers into the grave.
Though she has no intention of ever
again opening one of Lerouxs books, she
watches the clip repeatedly, on the edge
of tears. Shes driven by the same fear of
missing out as Moretti, but what Rose
fears missing is entirely different. She
wants to read everything that she can, because, for her, reading is a way of encoun106

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

tering other people. Shes a social reader.


I met eleven people, none of whom I had
known at all before, she writes. Two of
them she actually seeks out: Lerner, who
quit writing novels to write for television,
and Lerman, who quit publishing novels
to raise Newfoundlands.
Lerman is one of three authors who
redeem the experiment for Rose, making
it onto her inner shelf, alongside dozens
of other titles, including Middlemarch,
Pale Fire, and Vivian Gornicks memoir Fierce Attachments. The first Lerman she reads is Call Me Ishtar (1973),
a comic novel about a goddess incarnated
as a housewife which culminates at a bar
mitzvah where Ishtar makes the boy into
a man, right on the temple altar. (One
contemporary reviewer favorably compared Lerman to Philip Roth.) The next
one is good enough, but Rose really falls
in love with Gods Ear, an absurd story
about a Hasidic community thats been
transplanted from Far Rockaway to the
Colorado desert. She convinces herself
that Lerman is a funny feminist, a Grace
Paley who never broke out. When they
meet, Rose discovers that Lerman is actually a futurist feminist who has hired a
dog psychic and hasnt read Paley at all.
They bond anyway. Rose remembers
what Paley said: Theres a lot more to do
in life than just writing.
Lesages fat, early-eighteenth-century
picaresque novel Gil Blas, in which the
heros fortunes turn and turn again, and
Lermontovs A Hero of Our Time are
the other books that Rose is happy to
have found. But, unlike Gods Ear, neither of them is love at first sight. Rose
starts Gil Blas four times before she
makes it to the third chapter. Four is
some kind of magic number for her; she
also returns to Lermontov four times before shes satisfied. (Shackleton, for what
its worth, died on his fourth trip to Antarctica.) She has a hard time settling on
an edition. The first translation she tries,
by Nabokov, is laden with distracting
footnotes; it has a wonderful Edward
Gorey cover, but the pages are crumbly
and greasy, with tiny type. Next, she tries
an e-reader, and likes both the transparent pane of glass and the old translation, which carries her away. But she still
doesnt get Pechorinthe fashionable,
bored officer who seduces women only to
discard them, and kills his friend in a
duel. So she buys the newest translation

she can find, a used Modern Library paperback. Its cover designa stock image
of a young man in sunglassesproves
more arresting than the text, perhaps because the daft notes left behind by the
previous reader become as distracting as
Nabokovs footnotes. Back to the e-version she goes. Thats when her son, his
wife, and their new baby come to visit.
Something clicks. Suddenly I understood Pechorin as an embodiment of
masculine ego at a certain stage of life,
she writes. This Pechorin is a young
man ready to be a father.
Roses fear of missing out functions
like a sixth sense. She knows that there is
something in A Hero of Our Time, and
she keeps reading it until she finds it. Like
dredging up the unread, rereading is a
way of recovering what is lost, and of
making what is hidden come to light.
FOMO has special urgency in a digital age
ruled by anxiety that something, anything, will disappear. We now have the
tools to archive every photograph, document every event, and record every chat.
There is a brisk trade in artifacts of
all kindslost singer-songwriters and
B-sides, cult films, paperback reissues
from small presses, even Web sites that
collect old Web sites. Rose, at least, is
aware that the project to recover everything is always doomed to fail:We like to
think that merit is eventually recognized,
that a great book will make its way, but
we know only the success stories. . . .
How many works from past centuries
never got published or, published, were
never read? If you take that seriously, you
must conclude that Roses stunt is uselessand wonderfully so. There is something freeing in that uselessness, particularly at this moment, when so many act as
though reading were a civic duty, good
only for its power to teach empathy or
improve job performance.
And what about the books right in
front of you that were published, even
purchased, but, for all you know, might
as well never have existed? My own
bookshelves are filled with books I
havent read, and books I read so long ago
that they look at me like strangers. Can
you have FOMO about your own life?
Palace Walk, Love in a Fallen City,
The Idiot, The Waves. The alphabet
is great, but there is nothing quite as arbitrary as ones own past choices. Reading more books begins at home.

BRIEFLY NOTED
ALL THE BIRDS, SINGING, by Evie Wyld (Pantheon). Violence
takes many forms in this suspenseful and melancholy novel.
Sheep die mysteriously on a farm on a lonely British island; in
Australia, a school bullys nails leave scars. The protagonist,
Jake Whyte, lives alone, tending to the animals on her farm
and spurning all human companionship. A stranger arrives at
her door, and the mystery of his appearance leads Jake to examine a traumatic past and to confront whoever or whatever
is attacking her sheep. In alternating chapters, the story moves
forward and backward in timea narrative architecture that
might seem gimmicky were it not for Wylds masterful control. There are also surprising moments of lightnessthe protagonists dark humor, the authors unsentimental reverence
for the natural world.
THE ANATOMY LESSON, by Nina Siegal (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). Painted in 1632, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes
Tulp was Rembrandts first masterpiece. This novel in turn
anatomizes the paintings creation. Characters include Aris the
Kid, an executed thief whose body is sold to science; Tulp, who
performs the dissection; Ren Descartes, who is skeptical of
Tulps work; Flora, a heartbroken woman pregnant with Ariss
baby; Rembrandt himself, who turns it all into art; and a modern conservator whose examination of the canvas provides the
hard facts on which the novel is based. Although the writing
can seem heavy-handed at times, Siegal succeeds in the task she
has set herselfto transmute her material into a work of art.

In this
grimly funny account of playing in the World Series of Poker,
Whitehead writes, I have a good poker face because I am
half dead inside. Preparing for the tournament, he finds a
coach, works on his sitting muscles with a personal trainer,
and makes midweek bus pilgrimages to Atlantic City, looking for games. Whitehead is modest about his poker ambitions but not about his unhappiness: The part of the brain
these guys used for cards, I used to keep meticulous account
of my regrets. Yet gambling and despair make for a surprisingly buoyant narrative, and Whitehead is a companionable
if misanthropic guide to the Vegas strip, where there are so
many more disappointments to savor before dawn.
THE NOBLE HUSTLE, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday).

by George Prochnik (Other Press). In


1942, the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, driven to despair after
almost eight years of exile, committed suicide in Brazil with
his wife, Lotte. This poignant, insightful book focusses on
Zweigs tortured emigrationstracing his steps in Brazil,
London, Bath, and New York. Part biography, part memoir,
the book draws on the experiences of Prochniks familylike
Zweig, Viennese Jews who fled the Nazisand asks, What
makes the good exile? While Prochniks family was able to
start anew, Zweig, unable to stop looking back over his shoulder, was too acutely aware of what hed lost. But, as Prochnik
shows, even those who were able to begin again found the predicaments of exile harrowing.
THE IMPOSSIBLE EXILE,

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

107

ON TELEVISION

TASTERS CHOICE
High Maintenance and My Mad Fat Diary.
BY EMILY NUSSBAUM

very few months, I spelunk into the


world of online indie television. Its
nearly always a disappointment: most
series, even those which have managed
to Kickstart up some hype, are halfbaked and amateurishmore audition tapes than real productions. When
I heard about High Maintenance, a
Web series about a pot dealer in New
York City, my expectations were calibrated low. Then I watched it. And I
thought, Finally, finally, finally.
Each episode of High Maintenance is between six and fifteen minutes long, and the episodes are released
in sets of three, every few months.
Then the show streams for free on the
indie video-sharing site Vimeo. Although all the current installments

were mostly funded by the shows creators, the actor Ben Sinclair and his
wife, the casting director Katja Blichfeld, Vimeo has just announced that
the Web site will provide financial
backing for upcoming ones, as part of a
move into a Netflix-style production
model. Yet despite its D.I.Y. origins
High Maintenance doesnt feel like
a self-indulgent pet projectinstead,
its more like a shoebox that opens
into Narnia. Freed of the constraints of
thirty-minute or one-hour formulas,
the episodes are luxurious and twisty
and humane, radiating new ideas about
storytelling.
In each episode, Sinclair, a shaggy
guy who tends to get cast in crazy homeless-dude roles on Law & Order, plays

The online series High Maintenance features Ben Sinclair as a shaggy pot dealer.
108

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

the nameless dealer. (Most of his customers call him the guy, as in Should
I call the guy?) Sometimes he smokes
with the customers; other times, he
makes a brief drop-off, then leaves.
Thats it, as far as a formula goes. A few
episodes are coarsely funnysuch as
one dirty farce involving a Passover
Seder and a double hand jobbut most
are meditative, dreamy invasions into
the lives of creative-class New Yorkers,
with smart dialogue, seams of compassion, and an O. Henry air of surprise.
In Jonathan, Hannibal Buress
plays a touring comedian negotiating
an on-and-off relationship with his
chucklefucker girlfriend. At first, it
seems like a character portrait of a guy
on the road, but then suddenly theres
an act of violenceand the episode
turns into something else, about the
difficulty of recovering from trauma. In
Rachel, Dan Stevens is a procrastinating screenwriter and a stay-at-home
dad. He wanders around his fancy
apartmenttheres an Emmy, a set of
mallard-head bookends, a huge portrait
of Queen Elizabethin a writersblock funk. Gradually, we realize hes
putting on womens clothing and exploring cross-dressing sites online. In
the eerie, propulsive Qasim, an isolated life hacker performs a set of rituals that only slowly develop a pattern. In
Trixie, two Airbnb hosts smoke up to
relieve the stress of their awful Eurotrash guests. These stories have a peephole intensity, a willingness to take
detours and then stay still when the
moment counts, using economically
edited montages to build characters in
a flash. Theres a patient respect for ordinary behavior that suggests Frances
Ha or movies by the Duplass brothersand call me Netflix, but, if you like
those, youll like these.
My favorite installment, Brad Pitts,
starts out as a sedate character portrait
of a bird-watcher in her forties, played
by Birgit Huppuch. Pretty but worn
down, she has something on her mind,
but its not clear what it is. She picks up
a dowdy flowered bag and joins fellow
bird-watchers in Central Park, a crowd
that includes an older man smoking a
joint. (Theres no fuzz out this early,
he says, when someone complains.) At
her office, she handles administrative
tasks, waters plants, then spoons her
ILLUSTRATION BY MR. BINGO

yogurt into the sink. Only later does it


become apparent that the woman has
cancer and is waiting for an appointment for treatment. When a friend orders pot to spike her appetite, the episode swerves into a comic sequence
involving a panic attack. Theres plenty
of drug humor on modern TV, often in
zany comedies like Broad City and
Workaholics, but High Maintenance, despite its subject matter, isnt
really in it for the dope jokes: its more
of a nonjudgmental study of the many
reasons that humans get high, from
numbness to adventure. In Brad Pitts,
the protagonist barely does anything,
and yet the final shot of her, without
any of the melodramatic underlining
of conventional TV, brought tears to
my eyes.
Its risky for a critic to compare anything to a short storythe comparison
inevitably makes the thing sound twee
and smugbut the best episodes of
High Maintenance do fit the bill:
theyre compressed but confident.
Theyre part of a movement in modern
television which violates simple divisions between comedy and drama,
spearheaded by auteurist series like
Louie, Girls, and the late, lamented
Enlightened. But because High
Maintenance has no obligation to follow any one character, or make a season-long arc pay off, it can take different
risks. Gradually, the episodes build up
a detailed and empathetic image of
a specific demographic slice of New
York, one cramped apartment at a time.
Though its scripts are witty, High
Maintenance is often at its best when
its at its quietest: jumping from image
to image with nothing but music playing, sniffing around corners like a nosy
neighbor.

few weeks ago, an episode of


Louie featured Sarah Baker as a
fat waitress. Warm and pugnacious, she
flirted with Louie non-stop, until she
guilted him into a date. It ended with a
monologue in which her character
talked about how it felt to be a fat chick,
sexually rejected even by fat guys. Because this was Louie, the episode had
its share of sharp moments, including
some dark bits about Louies own issues
with foodand Baker was terrific. But,
despite the actresss best efforts, her

monologue came off as stiff and polemical, like edutainment in shaky-cam


drag. Still, it got plenty of praise, much
of it giving Louie credit for breaking a
supposed TV taboo against discussing
womens experiences of love, sex, and
being fat.
Of course, this is nuts. For decades,
theres been plenty of television exploring these themesfrom Roseanne
onand youd run out of fat fingers
ticking off current plots on Girls, The
Mindy Project, New Girl, Drop
Dead Diva, Glee, Mike and Molly,
Awkward, even Switched at Birth.
Some years back, the fantastic fat-camp
show Huge ran for one tragically cutshort season, on ABC Familyoff the
radar, without many prominent think
pieces raving about its profundity. All
these shows are centrally concerned
with womens love lives, which means
that body image is their bread and butter, literally. Its also probably no coincidence that a significant proportion of
them involve teen-age girls, whose bodies are endlessly judged and displayed,
but who are also the types of characters
frustratingly sidelined in discussions of
quality TV.
Among the most potent of these
shows is a current teen drama, a British
series called My Mad Fat Diary,
which has run for two seasons on the
E4 channel. (In the U.S., the episodes
can be found on YouTube.) The show
is an adaptation of a book by the radio
host Rae Earl, which was a reprint of
her diaries from the late nineteeneighties, when she was an obese teenage Smiths fan, briefly institutionalized
in a mental hospital. With morbid, salty
vigorand plenty of side scribbles and
cartoonsEarl described fights with
her single mom, rampant horniness,
eating disorders, and the O.C.D. and
self-harm that landed her in treatment.
The TV show updates her story, and
her soundtrack, to the mid-nineties, but
it maintains the aggression of the original, as well as its frank and funny treatment of Raes sexuality. We see Raes
initiation into masturbation and her
lust for men, ranging from her doctor
Dr. Nick Kassar, expert moistener of
lady-gardensto the bookish Professor of Horn, Archie, and her handsome love interest, Finn, about whom
she explains, I dont want him as a

friend. I want him to go down on me


for so long that he has to evolve gills.
For all her blunt talk, however, Rae
is a far more conflicted individual in
private. Shes disgusted by her chubby
motheranother blob with a gob, in
her viewwho sleeps with a younger
man. Rae cant eat in public; she has
regular panic attacks. And rather than
risk being naked she rejects the boy who
cares for her, killing time instead with
men who confirm her self-loathing: a
creepy fetishist, who sneers that she
should be grateful, and another mental
patient, who suggests they keep their
clothes on, because neither of us are oil
paintings. In one of the shows most
poignant early sequences, Rae literally
unzips her fat body, steps out of it,
drags the flesh to a garbage can, then
lights it on fire. The show doesnt steer
away from these contradictions, or from
Raes streaks of grandiosity and selfpity, but, by putting her at the shows
center, it makes her plight human and
resonant, not a side-trip in someone
elses journey.
Some of the shows plots are familiar, if youve watched similar teen-centered dramas: the crushed-on boy who
turns out to be gay, the hot-girl frenemy, the diary that is someday going to
be read. The boy who loves Rae is a bit
of a unicorn figure: hes fit enough
that girls want him, but hes remarkably
unaffected by the opinions of others.
Still, the shows wit keeps the series
fresh, with great visual jokes like a moment when Rae, alienated in her first
year of college, walks through a hall of
students wearing Blur T-shirts; her
own shirt reads Oasis. The clever aesthetic style replicates a journal: scribbles cover the screen, including arrows
and doodles, framing everything from
Raes perspectivewhen she panics,
black scrawls close around her head like
a vortex.
Its a motif that captures something
not all that dissimilar to the themes of
Louie, in which physical appetite is both
a promise and a trap, impossible to easily
resolve. There is a difference between
snacking and bingeing, Rae says repeatedly. And I dont binge anymore. Its a
wishful mantra that her middle-aged soul
matewho once said, The meal isnt
over when Im full. The meal is over when
I hate myself might understand.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

109

THE CURRENT CINEMA

TALES RETOLD
Maleficent and A Million Ways to Die in the West.
BY ANTHONY LANE

Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning in the latest version of the Sleeping Beauty story.

or centuries, the myth of Sleeping


Beauty has tossed and turned. In
Charles Perraults version of 1697, the
happy ending was not an ending at all; it
led to an aftermath flavored with serial
cannibalism, writhing vipers, and slit
throats. Italo Calvino, collecting Italian
folktales, dug up an old Calabrian variant
in which the prince does not wake the
heroine but rapes and impregnates her in
her sleep. For some reason, none of this
made it into the Disney film of 1959.
As for the fairy villain, Perrault did not
name her; nor did the Brothers Grimm,
in Little Briar-Rose, their retelling of
1812. Disney, however, which never lost
money by spelling things out, called her
Maleficent: something of a giveaway, you
might think, although the other characters seemed taken aback when she rolled
up to the christening of the princess and
started raging about spinning wheels and
death, instead of handing over a Tiffany
feeding spoon and a couple of bibs from
Bonpoint. No surprise, then, that, like
the Queen in Snow White, or Cruella
De Vil in 101 Dalmatians, she commandeered the story. But does she need
a movie to herself ?
110

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

There is only one reason to see


Maleficent, but it is a very good reason
indeed, and that is Angelina Jolie. She
takes the title role and plays with it
teasing out every strand of sadism,
defiance, and ennui, and perhaps reflecting on what further strands might have
been available, within a claws reach, were
this not another Disney production. Her
speech is brisk and British, with overtones of Kristin Scott Thomas, and the
icy abruptness with which she says,
Oh, upon learning of the babys birth
would not have disgraced the pages of
Evelyn Waugh. On her back is a pair of
enormous wings; finding them plucked
off one morning, she gives an overwhelming howl of loss and grief. More
resilient are the curving horns on her
head; at the screening I attended, the audience was offered the plastic equivalent,
which I regretfully declined, so as not to
block the view of the person behind me.
And they work only when teamed with
satanically red lipstick, which I didnt
have on me at the time. Plus, you need
the cheekbones.
Jolie has many co-stars. Sam Riley is
her sidekick, who can adopt the form

of a dragon, a raven, or a wolf; Sharlto


Copley is her nemesis, the king of a
neighboring land; and the part of Sleeping Beauty, never easy, goes to Elle Fanning, whose expression, tirelessly seraphic, suggests that she is raising funds
in a charity smile-a-thon. The contributor who matters most, though, is Rick
Baker. He was the presiding genius of
movie makeup in pre-digital days, winning seven Oscars, and anybody who
saw Michael Jackson groove with the undead in Thriller was looking at Bakers
handiwork. Jolies cheekbones, which I
thought were designed by Ferrari or
Lockheed, turn out to be Bakers invention, and you feel them slicing through
the softness of the film. Try stroking
Maleficent on the face, and youd wind
up with bloody fingers. Children will not
forget her in a hurry.
Would that the rest of the movie followed suit. The rule is that Disney cartoons are mettlesome and taut, whereas
Disney live-action projects are a meandering mess; who would honestly choose
Oz the Great and Powerful over Tangled or Frozen? The director of
Maleficent is Robert Stromberg, and
the screenplay is by Linda Woolverton,
who wrought her narrative magic on
Beauty and the Beast and The Lion
King; but, having started the new movie
at a trot, they reach the baptismal curse
and come to a juddering halt. The problem, as with so many fairy tales, is the
weight of time. If you are Perrault, or the
Grimms, you merely say, Years passed,
and leap to the next enchanted event,
but Maleficent takes the risky decision
to hang around for those years, waiting
for the princess to grow up, and padding
out numerous scenes with the doings of
farcical fairies. The music, by James
Newton Howard, gives little propulsion,
but then any composer is going to suffer
next to Tchaikovsky, whose ballet score
was so unblushingly pinched by Disney,
in 1959. The result was orchestra-powered, aided by the heraldic simplicity of
the animation. The design of the new
movie, by contrast, has that over-busy,
cram-every-corner relentlessness that
infected Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland, in 2010, and Maleficents forest lair, which should be a haven of ominous quietude, is a pulsating traffic jam
of tree monsters and trolls. Again, it is
Jolie who saves the day, and brings on
ILLUSTRATION BY VICTOR MELAMED

the night. There are wonderful shots of


her emerald eyes, gazing at the princess
from the shadows, all the creepier for
being so calm.
But why is she gazing? What has the
movie done to her, and to the armored
gleam of her wickedness? The news is
bleak: Maleficent, far from being arrested
for stalking a minor, begins to think better of her plans. Why, she even takes a
fancy to the noble little brat! She might
as well go the whole hog and change her
name to Benevolent. Such a transformation would, of course, be wholly in line
with the tender niceties on which, unlike
the Brothers Grimm, we pride ourselves,
and Maleficent is hardly alone in its revisionist urge. I would wager that it
sprang from a night at the theatre, when
a row of movie executives noted the
crowds flocking to Wickeda musical
about the good heart that beat inside the
bad witch, from The Wizard of Oz
and dreamed of similar gold. Where this
maddened hunt for backstories will lead,
I dread to think. Will the sisters in Disneys latest version of Cinderella, already pencilled in for next year, stay ugly
to the end? Will the wolf help the three
little pigs to build a communal living
space, eco-friendly and resistant to both
huffs and puffs? The notion that evil can
and should be redeemed, not punished,
smacks of moral progress; but kids, who
like their villains to be vanquished, may
have other ideas.

et in Arizona, in 1882, A Million


Ways to Die in the West stars
Seth MacFarlane as Albert Stark. Albert is a poor sheep farmer with a yellow belly and limited prospects, so its

no surprise when his sweetheart Louise


(Amanda Seyfried) leaves him for Foy
(Neil Patrick Harris), a dandy with cash
and a rococo mustache. Albert has a
best friend, Edward (Giovanni Ribisi),
a God-fearing type who is betrothed to
a prostitute named Ruth (Sarah Silverman). Also present are Liam Neeson,
as a black-hearted gunslinger called
Clinch, and Charlize Theron, who
plays Anna, his long-suffering wife. So,
the cast is in fine shape; the grandeur
of the landscapes is well caught by the
cinematographer, Michael Barrett,
with many a nod to John Ford; and the
soundtrack, by Joel McNeely, kicks off
with a big, generous pastiche of an oldschool Western theme. As it fades, at
the end of the opening credits, the
scene is set.
Then the film happens. Here are
some of the subjects with which it grapples: death by flatulence, the pains of
anal sex (Im going to rest my asshole), and a hatful of diarrhea. Do you
notice a common theme? Picture an entire movie spawned by the campfire
scene from Blazing Saddles, and
youre almost there. All this will speak
to your soul, no doubt, if you are a
twelve-year-old boy who believes the
bathroom to be the funniest place on
earth, but what about the rest of us?
Fear not, for MacFarlanewho cowrote and co-produced the film, as well
as starring in ithas joys in store for
those of more cultivated tastes. There
are gags about retarded sheep, Chinese
immigrants, the halitosis that follows a
blow job, and the precise appearance of
the pudenda after a spell in the sex
trade. As is his wont, MacFarlane is

daring us to be disgusted; and, should


we flinch, his movie will mock us for
being primthe worst of all crimes, in
his scabrous world. But what if were
just bored?
Stuck in the foul mire are a few good
scenes. I liked the idea that Edward and
Ruth are chaste with each other, saving
themselves for marriage, even while she
is servicing fifteen clients a day; the joke
keeps coming back, however, growing
less amusing with each repeat. Thats
the thing about running gags: eventually, they stagger and collapse. The same
goes for the historical observationsthe
fact that nobody smiled in nineteenthcentury photographs, or Annas admission that she was a child bride because
I just didnt want to end up like one of
those fifteen-year-old spinsters. Here
we approach the nub of MacFarlanes
argument: his bold contention that, in
Annas words, the West fucking sucks,
with its army of diseases, its wretched
life expectancy, and what Albert calls its
general depressing awfulness. Yet
what is most depressing about the film
is not the low strike rate of its zingers, or
what Freudians will diagnose as its anal
fixation, so typical of the infant mind,
but the comic complacency. Albert may
be spineless, but that is nothing new; it
is more than sixty years since Bob Hope
put a coward among the cowboys, in
The Paleface. And does Seth MacFarlane think that he is the first to notice how grim conditions were in the
great drive westward, that he alone can
puncture the myth of that adventure,
or that his gang of neer-do-wells is
the wildest bunch of all? Tell it to
Sam Peckinpah.

THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT 2014 COND NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
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THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

111

CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three finalists,
and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this weeks cartoon, by P. C. Vey, must be received by Sunday,
June 15th. The finalists in the May 26th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this weeks
contest, in the June 30th issue. The winner receives a signed print of the cartoon. Any resident of the United States,
Canada (except Quebec), Australia, the United Kingdom, or the Republic of Ireland age eighteen or over can
enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit newyorker.com/captioncontest.
THE WINNING CAPTION

THE FINALISTS

He only plays when Im on hold.


Ken Hoffman, Los Gatos, Calif.
The good news is we got the piano
through the doorway.
Leah Yaffe, Silver Spring, Md.

Lets hope for some nut allergies.


Nipali Bharani, Seattle, Wash.

He says he wont go back in the original packaging.


Sam Reisman, Brooklyn, N.Y.
THIS WEEKS CONTEST

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