PRICE $7.

99 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

MY OLD FLAME
RACHEL KUSHNER 59 THE ADOLESCENTS
JOSHUA FERRIS 69 GOOD LEGS
COLM TIBN 72 STORIES
MIRANDA JULY 78 TV
TOBIAS WOLFF 84 BEAUTIFUL GIRL

SKETCHBOOKS
Alison Bechdel 88 GRADUAL IMPACT
CHRIS Ware 90 POSSESSION

THE CRITICS
BOOKS
HEART BOOK PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE

CHRISTINE Smallwood 102 The Shelf: From LEQ to LES.

107 Briey Noted

ON TELEVISION
EMILY Nussbaum 108 High Maintenance, My Mad Fat Diary.

THE CURRENT CINEMA

ANTHONY Lane 110 Malecent, A Million Ways to Die in the West.

Continued on page 8
4 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
 POEM
JAMES RICHARDSON 52 Essay on Wood

joost swarte 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 nd 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 lmmaker 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 col-
lections 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 EW 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, Daily news analysis Readings by David Gilbert reads
David Gilbert, and from Hendrik Joshua Ferris, Rachel his new story.
Karen Russell on Hertzberg, Sarah Kushner, Miranda July,
their stories. Stillman, and others. and Tobias Wol.

PAGE TURNER PODCASTS POETRY

On the Fiction Sasha Weiss talks to Joshua Rothman and James Richardson
Podcast, Miranda Cressida Leyshon about Karl Ove reads his new
July reads a story Knausgaard. Plus, David Remnick and poem.
by Janet Frame. Ryan Lizza on the Political Scene podcast.

ARCHIVE HUMOR VIDEO CARTOONS

Our complete A Daily Cartoon Emily Nussbaum A gallery of bonus
collection of issues, drawn by Mick on the Web humor from the
back to 1925. Stevens, and series High archive.
Shouts & Murmurs. Maintenance.

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 Jeersonian 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 Ameri-
cans. He was the foremost agent of eco-
nomic modernity against the slavocracy
of the South. When he founded Pater-
son, New Jersey, he espoused open im-
migration against the forces of nativism.
Even as his Jeersonian opponents agi-
tated 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 rst 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
vilied for higher taxes and increased
government spendingscarcely the
1
forerunner of modern-day Republican-
ism, in either its Tea Party or establish-
ment incarnations.
Ron Chernow
Brooklyn, N.Y.
FEAR AND REMEMBERING
Michael Specters article about the neu-
roscience 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 unscientic
in his methods and conclusions, but, in
recent years, state-of-the-art neuroscien-
tic 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 subse-
quent experiences can alter both the con-
tent and the psychological import of pre-
vious 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 pro-
cesses. It is time that we recognize Freud
as the scientist he was.
Dimitri Mellos
New York City
Daniela Schillers research, demonstrat-
ing that traumatic memories can be-
come less painful or even be extin-
guished, reinforces observations made
long ago by psychotherapists. But the
discussion about the treatment of trau-
matic memories should not be limited
to cognitive behavioral methods. Ex-
posure therapy is but new wine in old
bottles. For decades, therapists have
been helping patients suering 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 re-
quires the construction of new meaning
within the context of a relational expe-
riencea fact well appreciated by psy-
choanalytic theory. Survivors of trauma
frequently put themselves in situations
that remind them of the trauma they
suered, and this typically has the eect
of solidifying the pain associated with
these memories. As the psychoanalyst
Hans Loewald wrote in 1960, it is by re-
membering and internalizing new w expe-
riences 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
 GOI G O
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No matter how popular Governors Island becomes, it always feels like a getaway. To arrive by ferry THE THEATRE
from lower Manhattan or Brooklyn Bridge Parkis to retrace the watery journey of the Spanish, Italian,
art | classical music
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 FOOD & DRINK | DANCE
streets, or play on the mini-golf course created by local artists. There are plans to make Governors Island movies | ABOVE & BEYOND
accessible year-round, but for now it remains a seasonal pleasure, ending on Labor Day. NIGHT LIFE

photogr a p h by Da n ie l A r n ol d

T TEATRE
Shakespeare in the Park begins its season with Much Ado About Nothing.
Marriage material
Lily Rabe once again nds love at the Delacorte.
shakespeares women, harold bloom has 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 o 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 nd.
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 lm, 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 nding herself in Central Park, falling in love with
some dopey guy by moonlight.
Michael Schulman
16 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
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 sandwich-
maker meets a pair off sisters. Carolyn Cantor
directs. In previews. Opens June 11. (416 W. 42nd
St. 212-279-4200.)
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
 convene at their high-school reunion centuries after the early 1980s, tells a fully directed by Randy Sharp) is
and hatch a plan to rescue a friend dull, jokey story about a totalitarian beautifuland enthralling in its
Also Notable
Act One
who was kidnapped by a radical po- state thats battled by a rebel army undisguised but never tedious self-
Vivian Beaumont. litical group. Anne Kau man directs. o forest fugitives. The songs, by absorption, in its command o the
Through June 15. Previews begin June 14. (Bank Street Jonnie Rockwell and Erik Ransom, spoken word, and in its demand for
After Midnight
Theatre, 155 Bank St. 212-513-1080.) are lyrically tortured and melodi- love. Its a love story about moments
Brooks Atkinson cally challenged. The performers, and sensations: Oliver rhapsodizes
Aladdin
Our New Girl who include Jason Gotay (Spider- about rain and darkness and the sun
New Amsterdam Gaye Taylor Upchurch directs the Man), Jenna Leigh Green (Sabrina, and the soul music that he hears at
U.S. premire o a play by Nancy the Teenage Witch), Remy Zaken a McDonalds where he sometimes
All the Way
Neil Simon
Harris, about a London woman with (Spring Awakening), and Randy goes to write. He ends his medita-
a problematic son who receives a Jones (the Village People), have been tion with a scene o shared human
American Hero mysterious visit from a professional encouraged to emote with wide, emotion: one evening, as he is leaving
McGinn/Cazale.
Through June 15.
nanny. Mary McCann stars. In pre- mindless smiles and melodramatic Prospect Park, a young black man
views. Opens June 10. (Atlantic Stage scowls, but their enthusiasm is not suggests that they get together. Oliver
BeautifulThe Carole 2, at 330 W. 16th St. 866-811-4111.) contagious. (Lynn Redgrave Theatre, has felt invisible for much o his
King Musical
Stephen Sondheim 45 Bleecker St. 866-811-4111.) life, an invisibility that he relished:
The Village Bike it freed him to feel more like an
Bullets Over Broadway
St. James
MCC presents this play by Penelope Chalk Farm element than like a person. But now,
Skinner, starring Greta Gerwig, Jason This topical two-hander, part o Brits in the park, he has been noticed, as
Cabaret Butler Harner, and Scott Shepherd, O Broadway, is a crme brle a man. (Reviewed in our issue o
Studio 54
about a pregnant woman who takes o a playcrackling surface, gooey 6/2/14.) (Axis Theatre, 1 Sheridan
Casa Valentina her desires into her own hands when center. Set amid the London riots Sq. 212-352-3101. Through June 7.)
Samuel J. Friedman she buys a used bike. Sam Gold in the summer o 2011, it concerns
The City of Conversation directs. In previews. Opens June 10. Maggie (Julia Taudevin) and Jamie The Killer
Mitzi E. Newhouse (Lucille Lortel, 121 Christopher St. (Thomas Dennis), a mother and her Michael Shannon stars in this 1959
The Cripple of Inishmaan 212-352-3101.) adolescent son. When the burning and parable play by Eugene Ionesco,
Cort looting kick o , Jamie inds himsel translated by Michael Feingold,
Early Shaker Spirituals When January Feels Like drawn out into the streets, to this about a serial killer on the loose in
Performing Garage. Summer huge crack in the world. The writers, an otherwise utopian city. Darko
Through June 15. Cori Thomas wrote this play, about Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin, delve Tresnjak directs the Theatre for a
A Gentlemans Guide to the e ect that ive Harlem residents into Jamies disenfranchisement and New Audience production. (Polonsky
Love and Murder have on one another and the world Maggies class-consciousness, while the Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland
Walter Kerr around them. Daniella Topol directs director, Neil Bettles, o ThickSkin, Pl., Brooklyn. 866-811-4111.)
Heathers: The Musical the Ensemble Studio Theatre and Page keeps the sets ifteen screens lickering
New World Stages 73 co-production. In previews. Opens and the sound design shuddering, the Nomads
Hedwig and the Angry June 5. (Ensemble Studio Theatre, better to foment anxiety and unease. Julia Jarcho wrote this play, inspired
Inch 549 W. 52nd St. 866-811-4111.) Unfortunately, the script devolves into by the work o Jane Bowles, about
Belasco a syrupy encomium to maternal love two American women in the nineteen-
Here Lies Love When We Were Young and and sacri ice. And yet a little o the thirties who take separate paths.
Public Unafraid disquiet lingers in the inal lines, as Alice Reagan directs, for Incubator
If/Then Cherry Jones, Zoe Kazan, Cherise Jamie considers the consequences o Arts Project. (St. Marks Church
Richard Rodgers Boothe, Patch Darragh, and Morgan his actions. I would do it again, he In-the-Bowery, Second Ave. at 10th
Just Jim Dale Saylor star in a new play by Sarah muses. Why not? Best fucking day St. 212-352-3101. Through June 15.)
Laura Pels Treem, in which a woman running a o my life. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th St.
Lady Day at Emersons
womens shelter takes issue with the 212-279-4200. Through June 8.) Sawbones / The Diamond
Bar & Grill in luence that one o the residents Eater
Circle in the Square has over her teen-age daughter. Pam The Essential Straight & A peculiar exercise in narrative
Matilda the Musical MacKinnon directs the Manhattan Narrow medicine. The celebrated costume
Shubert Theatre Club production. In previews. The main action o this surreal com- designer Carrie Robbins has adapted
Les Misrables
Opens June 17. (City Center Stage I, edy, co-written by the theatre group two o her late husbands short
Imperial 131 W. 55th St. 212-581-1212.) the Mad Ones and directed by Lila stories for the stage. The irst
Mothers and Sons
Neugebauer, takes place in a motel concerns a Civil War-era doctor
Golden The Who & the What room in New Mexico in the nineteen- and his African-American protg as
LCT3 presents a new play by Ayad seventies, where three members o they amputate the legs o wounded
Motown: the Musical
Lunt-Fontanne
Akhtar, in which a young woman an L.A.-based country-music band soldiers, Union and Confederate.
clashes with her Muslim family over (Joe Curnutte, Stephanie Wright The second relates an ostensibly
Of Mice and Men the book she has written about women Thompson, and Michael Dalto) are true story o surgical ingenuity at
Longacre
and Islam. Kimberly Senior directs. hanging out with a local drag queen a Second World War concentration

3
Once In previews. Opens June 16. (Claire
Jacobs Tow, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200.)
A Raisin in the Sun
Ethel Barrymore.
Through June 15. Now Playing
The Realistic Joneses The Anthem
Lyceum Theres plenty o talent among
Rocky the thirteen cast members in this
Winter Garden unrelentingly high-camp adaptation
Too Much Sun o the 1938 Ayn Rand novella. As
Vineyard directed, choreographed, and de-
Violet signed by Rachel Klein, the musical
American Airlines Theatre employs techno-rock singing, break
Wicked
dancing, acrobatics, gymnastics, and
Gershwin roller skating, among other theatri-
cal disciplinessome o it pretty
impressivebut to what end? The
book, by Gary Morgenstein, which
is set, the program stipulates, many
(Marc Bovino) and working through
un inished 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 irst 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-
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 o medical men. I
only they could doctor plays, too.
(HERE, 145 Sixth Ave., near Spring
St. 212-352-3101. Through June 7.)

18 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

 RT
Cold-pressed Conceptualism: Josh Klines sculpture Skittles (2014) satirizes the juice-cleanse craze, life-style brands, and aspirational marketing.
Parklife
Playing hide-and-seek at a sculpture show on the High Line.
, damn trac today, the late nineteen-sixties to describe inert minimalism in corporate
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, teen-
agers held up handwritten signs advertising free hugs and yelled,
Its emotional Tuesday! Performance art? No, students from the
neighborhoods Fashion Industries high school, blowing o 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, ve salvaged railroad
switches (they allow trains to change tracks), installed vertically.
Below Twenty-fth 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
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 eect is
Louise Nevelson lite. Gavin Kenyons gray, fur-ecked blob on a
polychrome base, at Thirtieth Street, is ironically titled Realism
Marching Triumphantly Into the City, and seems aimed at
deating the grandiosity of classical monuments. A bulls-eye its not.
In the shade of a magnolia tree near Twenty-sixth Street, a
esh-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.
TIMOTHY SCHNECK/FRIENDS OF THE HIGH LINE
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
avorsWilliamsburg, 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

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. sitter is unknown, but shes de initely
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 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
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 o 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 Forgot- Mark Cohen
ten 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 o posters
and publications add to the shows
gritty texture and savvy feel for
the histories o Latin America.
Through Sept. 7.
Frick Collection
The Poetry of Parmigianinos
Schiava Turca
Not a single American museum has
a portrait by the greatest Manner-
ist, so roll out the bunting for this
painting o a mysterious woman, on
loan from the Galleria Nazionale
di Parma: her cheeks are ruddy,
her shoulders are sloped, and her
elongated ingers daintily curve
around an ostrich-feather fan. The
to lyrical, subtly kinetic sculptures
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
a ixed a gold ornament depicting
Pegasus, the classical symbol o
poetic inspiration. (The fan may
o er 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 o Correggio.) The painting
hangs alongside another, lesser Par-
migianino, from a private collection,
augmented by a few portraits from
the Fricks stash, including Titians
3
depiction o the Venetian satirist
Pietro Aretino. Through July 20.
GalleriesUptown
Anna Maria Maiolino
After emigrating to Brazil during
the years o military dictatorship,
the Italian-born sculptor and drafts-
woman found her voice in intricate,
almost obsessive geometric abstrac-
tions. Now a woman whom the
dictatorship tortured is President,
and Maiolino, at seventy-two, is
doing the most visceral work o
her career. Small metal towers with
suspended ceramic forms, some still
bearing her ingerprints, are as elegiac
as anything by Louise Bourgeois;
gouged slabs o meringue-like plaster
or eroded blocks o cement translate
bodily processes or environmental
destruction into volatile form. Some
unexpectedly punk videos, featur-
ing extreme closeups o Maiolino,
complete the portrait o an artist at
once private and con ident. Through
3
June 21. (Hauser & Wirth, 32 E. 69th
St. 212-794-4970.)
GalleriesChelsea
each other across the room. But
Working on the streets o his
coal-blackened home town, Wilkes-
Barre, Pennsylvania, Cohen makes
rude, alarming, and often hilarious
photographs that could almost be
mistaken for drunken snapshots.
The pictures are radically cropped,
lopping o heads and feet and
zeroing in on grimy knees, gestur-
ing hands, and a bare midri . The
hectic mood o this terri ic show o
color and black-and-white images
is broken only by a few back-alley
landscapes and still-lifes o debris on
the ground, including a gum wrapper
that has the uncanny presence o
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 exten-
sions, but lately Horn has turned
re lection o daylight illuminates
that mix natural and mechanical
materials. They incorporate branches
and volcanic stone and only slowly
reveal their motorized elements,
such as a pair o little gold sticks
that move up and down like a
praying mantis. Marcel Duchamps
Montgol ire, one o the best works
here, replicates one o the masters
spinning squiggles with two rotating
mirrors. As they turn, the light they
re lect 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 Berlin-
based artists intricate, large-scale
drawings seem at irst to have
some scienti ic signi icance. On
closer inspection, however, the
drawings resolve into a hermetic,
highly personal disquisition on the
history o love in Western Europe,
with annotations borrowed from
the writings o the proli ic Ger-
man sociologist Niklas Luhmann.
Peculiar, sometimes breathtaking
forms, from a gold-and-red double
helix to loating clouds and virus-like
spiky balls, are ringed by obsessive
glosses on what Voigt, following
Luhmann, calls the codi ication
o intimacy. You wont make out
every detail, but her superb draw-
ings are far more than the sum o
their sometimes inscrutable parts.
3
Through June 21. (Nolan, 527 W. 29th
St. 212-925-6190.)
GalleriesDowntown
Liz Deschenes
Conceptually elegant and rigorously
minimal, Descheness new instal-
lation frames the gallerys empty
space with what appear to be two
pairs o V-shaped steel bars, facing
what looks like smudged, striated
metal is actually the glossy surface
o a seven-foot-high silver-toned
photogram, which was exposed
to moonlight in the course o a
night. There are no images here,
only phenomenafugitive traces o
atmosphere brushing up against a
sensitive surface. Balancing subtleties
o 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 stu ed the gallerys bay win-
dows with re lective 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
the loor, but only just. Jenkins
wittily recycles emblems o sixties
art history (the foil is a Warhol
motif, the duct borrowed from the
minimalist Charlotte Posenenske)
for his act o institutional critique.
But the point seems to be that his
jerry-rigged apparatus is unreliable,
as i 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 stand-
out in group shows at the Swiss
Institute and Artists Space, seduces
with three monochrome canvases
covered with thermal grease in
lieu o paint: the surfaces are a
sunlight-gobbling black. There
are also three readymades o
heat-emitting carbon ilm, curved
into sculptures, and hal a dozen
chunks o 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 o unorthodox materials feels
necessary rather than tentative.
Through June 29. (Essex Street,
114 Eldridge St. 917-263-1001.)
 cLASSical
Opera
Opera Orchestra of New York:
Roberto Devereux
The indomitable Eve Queler re-
turns to Carnegie Hall to lead a
concert performance o Donizettis
bel-canto scorcher, loosely based on
SIC
chamber version, sensitively made by
the conductor Murry Sidlin, in 1987.
Chelsea, one o the citys essential
new companies, now takes it on,
with Joanie Brittingham in the role
o Laurie; Samuel McCoy conducts.
(St. Peters Episcopal Church, 346
the right way, with a series that
incorporates pieces by two superb
young American composers (each
a bene iciary o the Marie-Jose
Kravis Prize for New Music) into
concerts featuring the commanding
Ye im Bronfman. The center o the

culture desk
Michael Schulman recaps the
best and the worst of the Tony
Awards, hosted by Hugh Jackman on
the supposed, ill-starred love a air
between Queen Elizabeth I and her
favorite courtier, the Earl o 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.)
3
W. 20th St. chelseaopera.org. June
13 at 7 and June 14 at 4.)
Orchestras and Choruses
Riverside Symphony
To close its thirty-third season,
irst program belongs to Anthony
Cheung, who will enjoy the world
premire o his work Lyra; it is
bookended by Bronfmans perfor-
mances o Beethovens Concer-
tos No. 1 in C Major and No. 4 in
G Major. (Avery Fisher Hall. 212-

June 8. Plus, read reviews of Tony-
nominated shows.
Opera Cabal: ATTHIS
New Yorks always impressive Ameri-
can Contemporary Music Ensemble
joins the Chicago-based group in a
visit to an iconic Gotham venue,
the Kitchen; the main subject is
the music o Georg Friedrich Haas,
the admired Austrian modernist
composer, whose irst season as a
Columbia professor is capped by a
performance o this work, a mono-
drama 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. 212-
255-5793. June 12-13 at 8.)
Chelsea Opera:
The Tender Land
Coplands a ecting opera o 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 world-
premire 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.)
George Rothmans intrepid orchestra
o ers a program infused with the
spirit o elegant classicismmusic
by Nielsen, Proko iev (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 o Alan Gilberts
inaugural festival are packed with
high-pro ile events. Gilbert himsel
conducts the irst o two programs
with the orchestra, which welcomes
the violinist Midori as its guest;
shell be out front in the New York
premire o DoReMi, a concerto Prism Quartet:
by the distinguished Hungarian
composer-conductor Peter Etvs.
The concerts conclude with the
world-premire performances o 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
o six works by the Philharmonic
on June 3. (June 5 at 7:30 and June
7 at 8.)The Philharmonics inal 95th St. symphonyspace.org. June
concert begins with another piece
selected through the orchestras June
3 readings, and continues with two
eminent New York premires. The
irst is Instances, one o the last
works by the late Elliott Carter; the
second is Re lections 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 o events, see
nyphil.org.)
The Beethoven Piano
Concertos: A Philharmonic
Festival
Alan Gilbert and the Philharmonic
are wrapping up their season in
3
875-5656. June 11-12 at 7:30 and
June 13-14 at 8.)
Recitals
Transvocality: Music by
Mario Davidovsky
The music o this enduring Argentin-
ean-American composer, ferociously
modernist but slyly expressive, is the
focus o the latest concert by the
excellent group Counter)Induction;
its musicians (including the violin-
ist 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.)
Heritage/Evolution
Prism, one o Americas inest saxo-
phone quartets for three decades,
has been collaborating lately with
several renowned guest players in
a series o concerts in New York
and Philadelphia. In the inal pro-
gram, the group is joined by the
jazz saxophonists Dave Liebman
and Greg Osby in world-premire
performances o their own music.
(Symphony Space, Broadway at
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, o ers a
week o performances (most o which
are free) by ensembles both small
and large, each making a jubilant
sound. One o the irst 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 o
St. Jean Baptiste. (Lexington Ave.
at 76th St. emfnyc.org. June 13 at
7:30. Through June 19.)

24 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014

FOOD &
DRI K
BAR TAB bohemian hall & beer
garden
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
26 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
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-a-
half-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 owers, birds, and butteries. 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 rst-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 o 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 cauliower, appeared on many tables, calling to mind the Disneyland
turkey legtting, 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
ILLUSTRATION BY MATTHEW HOLLISTER
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 Goldeld
Open weekdays for lunch and dinner and weekends for brunch and dinner. Entres $24-$56.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TRUJILLOPAUMIER

D CE
New York City Ballet
George Balanchines A Midsummer
Nights Dream (1962), the perfect
prologue to summer, returns in the
companys inal week at Lincoln Cen-
ter. What makes thisBalanchines
irst wholly original story ballet, set
to Mendelssohns witty scoresuch
GOINGS ON, ONLINE a delight? Could it be the swarms o
See our Web site for details children from the company school
about Bill Frisell, who is leading swirling across the stage as gossamer-
an exploration of the electric winged ire lies, or the quicksilver
guitar in America, and an scherzo for Oberon, king o the fairies,
appearance by the saxophone- in which his feet seem to barely touch
heavy Microscopic Septet. the ground? (This solo was created
for Edward Villella, who had two o
the fastest feet around.) Then, there
is the ballets tight construction,
with its compressed irst act, which
leaves room in the second hal for a
series o divertissements, including
FRONT ROW one o Balanchines most limpid pas
Richard Brody surveys MOMAs de deux. (David H. Koch, Lincoln
retrospective of films made by Center. 212-496-0600. June 4-5 at
the studio MK2 and its founder, 7:30, June 6 at 8, June 7 at 2 and 8,
Marin Karmitz. and June 8 at 3.)
American Ballet Theatre
This season, the company replaces
its intermittently compelling produc-
tion o Cinderella with Frederick
Ashtons gem, created in 1948 for the
Royal Ballet. Ashton responded to
Proko ievs sweeping and occasionally
prickly score by creating a ballet that
is both riotously funnythe ugly
stepsisters are played, pantomime
style, by menand an example o the
highest classical re inement. Some o
the ballets most striking moments
are the simplest, as when the heroine
enters the ballroom, slowly loating
down a long staircase on pointe.
Ashtons Cinderella receives its 12-14 at 8.)
company premire on June 9, with
the delicate Hee Seo in the role o
Cinderella and the tall, elegant Cory
Stearns as her prince. Another prom-
ising 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 St. 212-924-0077. June 11-13 at 7:30
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 o Kenneth Mac-
Millans Manon, a real bodice-ripper,
set to a compilation o 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 o them. So its re-
grettable that the brilliant jazz pianist
Jason Moran, who composed music
for this premire, o ered a suite,
Browns go-to form. The subject o
The Subtle One, the manifestation
o spiritual grace, is also well-trod
ground for him. But Browns repeti-
tions 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 o an Image, the centerpiece
o 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 o 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
ZviDance
The veteran choreographer Zvi Got-
heiner can make vigorous, charged
dances that get under your skin. But
hes also fond o the-way-we-live-now
gimmicks. In Zoom, from 2010,
he invited the audience to e-mail
suggestions for choreography dur-
ing the show and to take pictures
with their phones. His new piece,
Surveillance, features live video
o dancers and spectators, and Scott
Killians sound design incorporates
recorded conversations between
audience members captured dur-
ing the show. Watch what you say.
(New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th
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 o new works
by the hottest names in European
contemporary dance. Adjectives
like full-throttle, edgy, and in-
defatigable apply. (I some o the
repertory tends to blend together,
that says more about the state o
contemporary ballet than about the
company.) To mark its irst decade,
the troupe appears at BAM for the
irst time, with three programs o
recent hits. On Program A, Orbo
Novo, by the Belgian choreogra-
pher Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, is an
evening-length exploration, through
dance and text, o Jill Bolte Taylors
surprising account o her sensations
while su ering 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 o
the lot, Crystal Pites Grace Engine
(on Program C), is constructed
as a series o 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 in-
stitution: 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 o three works
by Feld: his clever Stair Dance,
based on a series o 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 twen-
tieth anniversary, Pascal Rioult,
whose established choreographic
skills certainly include borrow-
ing, owns up to his in luences by
programming works by some o his
mentors. Thus, Martha Grahams
El Penitente (1940) and May
ODonnells Suspension (1943),
though theyre in an antiquated style
thats di icult for contemporary
dancers to pull o , have a chance
to overshadow his bland Views o
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.
the centenaryy 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 unlled
on his birth certicate, 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. Late but loyal, Film Forum is running recalls it all too well, not least Guinnesss
Nonetheless, as though by accident, a Guinness series, from June 13 to July 3. attitude toward the author: Alec, a very
Guinness grew into a heroor, rather, Most of the obvious candidates are there, literary man, was not only patiently tactful
into one of lifes supporting players who including Kind Hearts and Coronets, but treated her with all the skill of a slightly
had heroism thrust upon him, whether of which nobody could tire, and the six edgy psychiatrist soothing a potential
he liked it or not. He oozed or scampered movies that he made with David Lean. werewolf at dusk.
through one Ealing comedy after another, (So fair and fresh does he seem as Herbert Certainly, few actors have been more
making The Lavender Hill Mob and Pocket, in Leans Great Expectations, expert at the smoothing of feathers, or had
The Man in the White Suit in a single from 1946, that its hard to remember more of a knack for the mot juste. Invited
year, 1951, and British moviegoers, that Guinness was already over thirty, and to comment on a seedy German night
canvassed for their favorites, kept putting that he had commanded a Royal Navy club, in the miniseries Smileys People,
Guinness on the list. Cool at times, landing craft in the invasion of Sicily. He Guinness replies, It was very artistic,
even remote, he gave them something was tougher and more seasoned than he with the faintest of pauses before the nal
to warm to. Shifting shape, he remained looked.) Embedded in the retrospective are word. Gather all the trades and talents
unmistakable; who knew that chameleons semiprecious gems: The Mudlark (1950), that he displayed onscreen, and you end
possessed so robust a soul? Where Peter in which Guinness, relishing the role of up with the most curious of amalgams:
Sellerswho worshipped Guinness, and Disraeli, holds the House of Commons in prince, priest, bank clerk, shrink, dictator,
scrutinized him avidly when they worked his practiced palm, and The Scapegoat Jedi, vacuum-cleaner salesman, thinker,
on The Ladykillers (1955)would (1959), adapted by Gore Vidal from a sailor, soldier, spy. Much was revealed
spend himself in a fury of impersonation, Daphne du Maurier story. Guinness fails in the serious games that Alec Guinness
Guinness gave no hint of a hollow core. to mention the lm in his memoir, but played. More remains unknown.
He found a still point in the turning world. Vidal, in his own memoir, Palimpsest, Anthony Lane

30 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 ILLUSTRATION BY EDWARD KINSELLA
 On Sale Tuesday
New from the New York Times
bestselling author of the Child 44 trilogy

Im not mad. I dont need a doctor.

I need the police.
Everything your father has told you is a lie.

WHO WOULD YOU BELIEVE?

A page-turner....
A remarkable achievement.
Jeffery Deaver, author of The Skin Collector

Soon to be a
major motion picture

TomRobSmith.com

Available in hardcover, audio,

large print, and ebook formats
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 hal cousins,
Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon)
and Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu
Mbatha-Raw), live together as lov-
ing friends under the protection o
their uncle, Lord Mans ield (Tom
Wilkinson), the Chie Justice o
England. Dido, who is the daughter
o a British sea captain and his
African slave mistress, becomes an
heiress. In di erent circumstances,
this elegant young woman might
have been someone elses property,
but shes now capable o conferring
property o her own on cash-poor
aristocratic suitors. Not much is
known about the historical Dido,
and the British ilmmakersthe
director, Amma Asante, and the
screenwriter, Misan Sagayconcoct
a liberationist iction in which Dido
becomes conscious o hersel as a
black woman after listening to the
iery anti-slavery rhetoric o a parsons
son (Sam Reid), who falls in love
with her. Dido goes on to in luence
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 con ident
lines with tremulous emotion and,
inally, radiant authority.David
Denby (Reviewed in our issue o
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 o 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 sta members engage in
the sort o obsequious glad-handing,
often involving song and dance, that
harks back to grotesquely racist ste-
reotypes, which pass unquestioned
and seemingly unnoticed. (The many
nonwhite patrons o the resort are
just part o the dcor.) For that mat-
ter, the plot, with Sandler playing
sports dad to an athletically frustrated
boy and Barrymore restyling one
o the motherless girls, rests on
equally retrograde gender models.
These blundering dogmas come
o , doubtless unintentionally, as an
incisive critique o the heart-catching
sentiment o family life. Directed
by Frank Coraci.Richard Brody (In
wide release.)
Cold in July
Strictly for connoisseurs o 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 ind himsel
caught up in a miasma o revenge,
police corruption, Ma ia-made snu
ilms, and vigilantism. The story,
an adaptation by the director, Jim
Mickle, and the co-writer, Nick
Damici, o a cult novel by Joe R.
Lansdale, isnt credible for a min-
ute, but Mickle has an undeniable
talent for sustained and terrifying
scenes o stalking and violence. The
blood lows 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 o
looming paranoia and characters
walking down endless corridors,
accompanied by vague howls. Yet its
worth seeing for Jesse Eisenbergs
amusing dual portrayal o a weak-
willed o ice worker, Simon James,
and his malicious doppelgnger,
James Simon, who shows up at the
o ice (some kind o 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.)
Elena
This personal documentary by the
Brazilian ilmmaker Petra Costa
unfolds a story o grie 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 o Belo Hori-
zonte, 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 o Elena in performance,
home videos shot by Elena herself,
and interviews with family members
and others, Costa restores her sister
to the world o art, to the scene o
her love and torment. Their parents
backstoryfusing cultural and political
ambition with the currents o his-
torybrings the action to the present
day; Costas ritual o mourning, on
both sides o the camera, ful ills Opening
the familys cinematic dreams with Burning Bush
a self-dramatizing lair.R.B. (In A miniseries, directed by
limited release.) Agnieszka Holland, about
the aftermath of the
Soviet Unions invasion of
Godzilla Czechoslovakia, in 1968. In
The beast is back. Contractually Czech. Opening June 11.
obliged to rise from the waves at (Film Forum.)
irregular intervals, and with no Edge of Tomorrow
visible improvement to either his Tom Cruise stars in this
temper or his complexion, he surfaces science-fiction thriller, as a
once more in Gareth Edwardss soldier who is caught in a
movie. The story ranges from 1999 time loop on the day of his
to the present day, and from the death. Directed by Doug
Philippines to San Francisco, with Liman; co-starring Emily
Blunt. Opening June 6. (In
enjoyably manic excursions to Japan, wide release.)
Hawaii, Las Vegas, and other centers
o interest along the way. In case The Fault in Our Stars
A drama, based on the
the monster gets lonely or bored, novel by John Green, about
Edwards provides him with rival two teen-agers (Shailene
behemoths, one o whom even sports Woodley and Ansel Elgort)
a pair o ponderous wings, like the who begin a romance after
worlds most inelegant dragon ly. meeting in a cancer support
In terms o geopolitical fallout, the group. Directed by Josh
ilm gives o a weaker signal than Boone; co-starring Nat Wolff,
Edwardss Monsters (2010), which Laura Dern, and Willem
Dafoe. Opening June 6. (In
was in initely cheaper, more patient, wide release.)
and more febrile with anxiety. Still, as
the skies darken, in the second half, Heli
Amat Escalante directed
the action acquires a grim grandeur, this drama, about a Mexican
and Edwards seems happiest in the factory worker whose placid
company o the inhuman, with all the family life is disrupted by
little people brushed aside.Anthony drug dealers. In Spanish.
Lane (5/26/14) (In wide release.) Opening June 13. (In limited
release.)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn Hellion
This elegiac 2003 comedy, by the A drama, directed by Kat
Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang, Candler, about a troubled
is a requiem for a movie theatre. Texas teen-ager who hopes
He dramatizes the closing o Taipeis to reunite with his father.
Opening June 13. (In limited
cavernous Fu-Ho Grand Theatre release.)
and its inal screening, o King Hus
martial-arts classic Dragon Inn. Obvious Child
Reviewed in Now Playing.
The show attracts only a handful o Opening June 6. (In limited
patrons, including a puckish Japanese release.)
tourist (Mitamura Kiyonobu) whose
command o his bewildered gaze
could be borrowed from Jacques
of note The Best Years of Our Lives
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
 Tati, and several men who seem (involving the formation o a small on Kickstarter.D.D. (In limited
interested solely in homosexual private army). With his evocative release.)
One Day Pina Asked . . .
Reviewed in Now Playing. pickups (a long single-take scene archival footage and his scathing,
Opening June 6. (Film Society at a long row o urinals is a mas- self-deprecating reminiscences, Little Caesar
of Lincoln Center.) terwork o understated, exquisitely Goupil rescues historys secret Edward G. Robinsons performance
Ping Pong Summer
choreographed humor). The petty fault lines and secret heroes from in this 1931 crime drama, as Caesar
Reviewed in Now Playing. disturbances that beset the traveller oblivion.R.B. (MOMA; June 6.) Enrico Bandello, a small-time hood
Opening June 6. (In limited during his cinematic pilgrimage are who dreams o the big time and
release.) matched by the laborious rounds The Immigrant crashes the Chicago rackets, sets
The Rover o the theatres manager (Chen James Grays dramatization o an the tone for the vulgar preening
A post-apocalyptic thriller, Shiang-chyi), a disabled woman obscure corner o Americas im- and sneering pugnacity o the
about a combat veteran who who trudges through corridors and migration story is a revelation o tough-talking Hollywood mobster,
hunts a car thief across the back rooms to ful ill her mundane lost time. Ewa Cybulska (Marion and Mervyn LeRoys cold, e icient
Australian outback. Directed by duties. Her attention is absorbed by Cotillard), arriving from Poland, directionless a result o his own
David Michd; starring Robert a strange cinematic objecta pink in 1921, falls into the hands o one artistry than o the constraints o
Pattinson, Guy Pearce, and steamed bunbut shes the focus o Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix), a the irst years o sound recording
Scoot McNairy. Opening June
13. (In limited release.) a mercurial scene o virtuoso editing, Lower East Side entrepreneur who imposes a static rigor on the action
when she makes her way behind the puts on tawdry burlesque shows and and the diction which rises to the
22 Jump Street
screen and is seemingly irradiated by pimps out the women performers grandeur o a sculptural, granitic
A comedy sequel, starring
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill the heroic images that are on their on the side. Alternating between force. The terse, epigrammatic
as police officers who conduct way out. A scene in which two aged politeness and menace, and adding narrative o ers every hardboiled
an investigation in the guise patrons are revealed to be two o the an odd kind o strangled adoration, clich in its nave, original form,
of college students. Directed martial-arts stars has the intimate he forces Ewa into prostitution. from the gangster who falls in
by Phil Lord and Christopher grandeur o a grizzled Wild West The physical look o the movie is love (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) and
Miller; co-starring Dave Franco fadeout. In Mandarin.R.B. (BAM astonishing. The great cinematogra- wants to go straight and the Mob
and Peter Stormare. Opening Cinmatek; June 14.) pher Darius Khondji shoots Brunos boss (Stanley Fields) who goes soft
June 13. (In wide release.) apartment, the streets, the theatre, (Sam, you can dish it out, but
Half a Life the women in a bathhouse or Central youre gettin so you cant take it
Revivals and Festivals
This fascinating irst-person essay Park with a subdued color palette. no more!) to the laconically sar-
Titles in bold are reviewed.
ilm, from 1982, illuminates Frances The undernourished tones suggest castic Irish police o icer (Thomas
Anthology Film Archives political upheavals in the late sixties the desperate yearning for status Jackson), the prodigal gangland
The films of Charlie Chaplin. and measures their bitter impact that remains always out o reach. banquet, and the operatic death
June 14 at 2: Program 1,
including Easy Street on the private lives o the most The heart o the movie is Brunos throes. The psychosexual subtexts
 ( & 9d]T #Pc")#$) committed activists. The director, tormented pursuit o Ewas love. o later gangster movies are there,
Program 2, including Shoulder Romain Goupil, was one o those Phoenix, who has a gift for playing too, as when Little Caesar draws
0a\b ( ' 9d]T #Pc activists, a leader o recruitment in confounded men, caught between his slight, furtive cohort Otero
$)#$)?a^VaP\"X]R[dSX]V high schools for the Trotskyist group aggression and chagrin, gives per- (George E. Stone) onto his bed
CWT?X[VaX\ (!" 9d]T Revolutionary Communist Youth. haps the largest performance o his for a meaningful tte--tte.R.B.
$Pc#)")CWT6^[SAdbW The son o a ilm technician, Goupil career; the beautiful Cotillard is less (IFC Center; June 6-8.)
 (!$ (#! 9d]T $Pc%) $) was also an adolescent ilmmaker interesting, hampered by Grays
The Circus (1928).
who, with his friends, made exuberant conception o Ewa as a superior Night Moves
BAM Cinmatek and playful movies that increasingly victim, a woman who sleeps with men Three conspirators (Jesse Eisenberg,
The films of King Hu. June 7 took on a political toneas Goupil for money but remains spiritually Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard)
at 2 and 7: The Love Eterne
 (%";X7P]WbXP]V 9d]T&Pc says, When I wasnt addressing the immaculate. With Jeremy Renner as living in a valley in southern Oregon
#)#P]S()#)9^W]]h6dXcPa crowd, I would ilm it. Central to a magiciana lightweight charmer decide to blow up a local dam as a
 ($#=XRW^[PbAPh 9d]T' his autobiographical sketch is the who tries to attract Ewa. The late protest against the use o water for
Pc#)")2^\T3aX]ZfXcW<T story o his best friend, Michel Ric Menello worked with Gray on such luxuries as gol courses and
 (%% 9d]T Pc')?PX]cTS Recanati, a gifted and bold fellow- the screenplay.D.D. (5/19/14) (In the disruption o salmon life for
BZX] ((" 9d]T Pc')0[[ activist, who killed himsel in 1978, limited release.) the production o electricity. The
cWT:X]Vb<T] ('" 9d]T at the age o thirty, after tracing a director, Kelly Reichardt, who wrote
13 at 7: The Valiant Ones path similar to Goupils ownfrom Korengal the screenplay with Jon Raymond,
the limitless hopes o May 68 to Sebastian Junger has made a kind hasnt worked out how sentiment
 (&$ 9d]T #Pc#)"P]S
()")Goodbye, Dragon
Inn. 9d]T #Pc&)3aPV^] their frustrating aftermath, and from o addendum and sequel to Re- leads to terrorism, and its a hole in
Inn (1966). street skirmishes and mass rallies strepo, his 2010 documentary the movie, which is glumly objective
to violent revolutionary schemes about an Army infantry platoon in tone. Were meant simply to ac-
assigned to the Korengal Valley, in cept the trio as American outlaws,
of note We Are the Best! a remote and mountainous corner resentful, half-educated, nihilistic,
There just arent enough films about teen-age girl punk bands o Afghanistan, in 2007 and 2008. and in way over their heads. What
made by left-wing feminist Swedish Christian males. All the As in the earlier ilm, terror and interests Reichardt is the physical
boredom ill the mens days. Junger realization o how the act is done;
more reason, therefore, to welcome this new contribution from and his ilmmaking partner, the late her feeling for the weight and the
Lukas Moodysson. Adapted from the graphic novel by his wife, Tim Hetherington, go out on patrol palpability o the world, and for
Coco Moodysson, and set in Stockholm, in 1982, the film tells with the soldiers, experiencing live continuity within sequences, has
the tale of Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and her friend Klara (Mira ire again and again; they catch the become masterly. Oregons natural
Grosin), who feel cut adrift from their contemporaries and their fear and exhilaration o battle, as magni icence (photographed with
elders alike. With nothing better to do, they start a two-woman well as the mens vagueness about sombre beauty by Chris Blauvelt)
what, exactly, they are doing in adds to our ambivalence toward the
band, which soon swells to three with the arrival of Hedvig Afghanistan. As a record o the war, threethey are both protectors and
(Liv LeMoyne)devout and square, but the only one of them the two ilms are imperishable. A violators o the environment, both
who can actually play an instrument. Moodysson returns to number o the soldiers, interviewed righteous and criminal.D.D. (6/2/14)
the zone that he plotted so acutely in Show Me Love (1998) after their deployment is over, say (In limited release.)
P]SC^VTcWTa!*cWXb\^eXTXb\^aTaPdR^dbQdcWXb that no relationship at home could
ability to chart the pressures and pleasures of young lives as equal the devotion that they felt to Obvious Child
one another, and that they would Obvious is the word. The comic
they approach the limits of childhood is as fresh as ever. His gladly go back to Afghanistan for actress Jenny Slate soldiers through
rebels may not have much of a cause, let alone talent, but their the adrenaline high o combat. the super icial and mechanical tale
haircuts speak louder than words. In Swedish.Anthony Lane The ilm was self- inanced; Junger o Donna Stern, a young comedian
(In limited release.) raised money for its distribution who sinks into a sluggish downward

32 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014


Film Forum
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:
:X]S7TPacbP]S2^a^]Tcb
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15 at 1:40, 4, 6:20, and 8:45:
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9d]T &Pc !)$$) 
P]S()#)CWT<dS[PaZ ($
9TP]=TVd[TbR^
9d]T &Pc
"P]S&)")CWT2PaS ($!
Ronald Neame).
French Institute Alliance
Franaise
In revival. June 10 at 4 and
&)")BcTPZ!&@dT]cX]
3d_XTdg
9d]T &Pc#P]S
&)")B_^acST5X[[Tb! 
?PcaXRXP<Pidh documenting several months o Pina
IFC Center
>aXVX]P[6P]VbcTab9d]T%'
at 11 : Little Caesar.
Museum of Modern Art
0caXQdcTc^<:!P]ScWT
_a^SdRTa<PaX]:Pa\Xci
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Farm (2013, Xavier Dolan),
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P]S:Pa\Xci 9d]T%Pc#)"
P]S9d]T(Pc')1[^fU^a
1[^f (&!:Pa\Xci 9d]T%
at 8: Half a Life. 9d]T 
Pc')CWT1TTZTT_Ta ('%
CWT^0]VT[^_^d[^b 9d]T
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?PaP]^XS?PaZ!&6dbEP]
BP]c 9d]T $Pc$)")2[PXaT
3^[P] ((';^SVT:TaaXVP] choreography no longer existed, Ak-
Museum of the Moving
Image
CWTUX[\b^U:T]YX<Xi^VdRWX
June 6 at 7: Princess Yang
Kwei-fei. 9d]T&Pc$)
CWT;PSh^U<dbPbWX]^
 ($  9d]T&Pc&)CWT
F^\P]^UcWTAd\^a
 ($# 9d]T'Pc!)CP[Tb^U
cWTCPXaP2[P] ($$ Ping Pong Summer
DVD OF THE WEEK
A video discussion of Peter
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 o nobility. The director and
screenwriter, Gillian Robespierre,
brings no substance to the chitchat
and no complexity to the charac-
ters, the plot, the issues, the New
York settings, or the images. Even
the engagingly idiosyncratic Gaby
Ho mann, as Donnas best friend,
is limited to an amiable blandness.
The entire production exudes self-
congratulatory complacency with
its blue-state high- iving.R.B. (In
limited release.)
One Day Pina Asked . . .
Starting from the modest premise o
Bauschs performances and rehearsals
in the summer o 1983, the director
Chantal Akerman realized one o the
greatest o all syntheses o dance and
cinema. She ilms 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 ilms Bauschs dancers as
she ilms 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 o Bauschs company are
echoed in their dancing. I Bauschs
ermans ilms could be excerpted to
convey something o its essenceand
Bausch herself, serenely avowing her
poetic aspirations, becomes one o
Akermans characters. In German
and French.R.B. (Film Society
o Lincoln Center.)
The director Michael Tullys wan
and sentimental period drama, set
in Ocean City, Maryland, in the
summer o 1985, feels like a hard-
edged ilmmakers self-conscious
embrace o his gentler side. The
story concerns Rad Miracle (Marcello
Conte), a thirteen-year-old suburban
boy, nave and geeky, whose seaside
family vacation is illed with promise
and menace. Theres a new friend, a
similarly callow boy from Baltimore; a
lirtatious and relatively sophisticated
girl; and two big, arrogant, and ag-
gressive rich kids who make Rads
life miserable. The center o the
no whiz, challenges one o 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
illed with yearning for the happy
side to the story and dwells leet-
ingly 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 o his own making.R.B. (In
limited release.)
Princess Yang Kwei-fei
The Japanese director Kenji Mizo-
guchis 1955 adaptation o a ninth-
century Chinese poem, about a
Tang-dynasty emperor who sacri iced
his reign for the love o a woman
who was forced to sacri ice her life,
is a grand pageant o tragic con lict
between three kinds o powererotic,
artistic, and political. At the start, the
emperor, a musician and composer,
an e ete connoisseur o nature and
culture, is in inconsolable mourn-
ing for his late wife and rejects all
feminine attentions. But an ambi-
tious general, hoping to curry favor
with the ruler, inds and grooms an
attractive young kitchen servant and
presents her to the emperor as the
noblewoman o the title. A star is
born: the emperor is enticed by her
simple, graceful spontaneity, but
the sumptuous re inements with
which he soon surrounds her and
her family spark an uprising by the
tax-burdened populace. Mizoguchis
incisive sense o historical analysis
is equalled by his exaltation o love
and his recognition o the dispro-
portionate 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 o
the most jubilantly derisive end-
ings in the history o cinema. In
Japanese.R.B. (Museum o 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 ilm 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 ilms
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 Hol-
lywood directors tweaked the Hays
Codehis realism packs symbols to
in sly touches worthy o Lubitsch
and Hawks, alluding to the o icial
abuse o religion and the natural
force o desire; when a cynical elderly
married woman refers to her night
work, it becomes clear why the
entire ilm 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 o
playtime. In Farsi and Kurdish.R.B.
(IFC Center.)
Words and Pictures
Clive Owen, looking scru y and
wearing a terrible pair o 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
o language; she, for the glory and
truthfulness o painting. Their rivalry,
which emerges in public as well as
in classrooms, lifts their students
out o 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 ilm in this unkillable
franchise combines apocalyptic doom,
the usual advocacy for people who
are di erent, and a fair amount o
wit. As Earth lies in ruins, Logan
(Hugh Jackman) goes back to the
Nixon era to prevent the evil profes-
sor Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage)
from developing the superweapons
that have destroyed almost all
mutants and taken a lot o humans
down with them. Logan encounters
the younger selves o Professor X
(James McAvoy), who needs a good
talking-to; the inexorable Magneto
(Michael Fassbender); and the
hotheaded Mystique (Jennifer Law-
rence, who looks awesome in blue).
At one point, Lawrence takes over
Richard Nixons body, improving
his appearance somewhat. Theres
much laming annihilation, but
the 3-D e ects are mostly playful:
people ly 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,
4E4A4CC

Bogdanovichs Daisy Miller, action is a game room; the game o express the forbidden. Kiarostamis and Halle Berry. Directed by Bryan
from 1974, in our digital edition. choice is Ping-Pong; and Rad, whos main subject is sex, which he evokes Singer.D.D. (In wide release.)

34 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014


AB VE
B YO D
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 ifty
ilms 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 o
the neighborhood. (northsidefestival.
com. June 12-19.)
Auctions and Antiques
Fifty years after the British Invasion, a
cache o 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 o 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 o the prominent
British publisher Tom Maschler, who
went on to create the Booker Prize.
Sturdy sales o antiquities and Old
Masters follow, along with a small
Contemporary Curated o ering on
June 12, which draws from two private
collections o contemporary art. The
most valuable lot o 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 star lot is a genre scene by the Dutch
purchased by a count, sold o to help master Caspar Netscher, Woman
pay Germanys war reparations, and
eventually acquired by John du Pont
(a reclusive heir who died in prison
Feeding a Parrot. The houses sale
o antiquities (June 5) features works
from ancient Rome and Greece, as well
after murdering an Olympic wrestler), as from Egypt and the Near East; the
whose estate is now putting it up for sale is followed by one o furniture and
auction. (York Ave. at 72nd St. 212- bric-a-brac (June 9), containing ornate
606-7000.)In its inal push before the French and Italian pieces, and one o
summer lull, Christies holds a lurry jewelry (June 10), o ering the usual
o sales, beginning with an auction o diamond parures. (20 Rockefeller Plaza,
Old Master paintings (June 4) whose 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 o the English translation o the third book in his My
Struggle series at McNally Jackson Books, where James Wood will moder-
ate a dialogue between him and Zadie Smith. (52 Prince St. 212-274-1160.)
On June 6 at 7, he sits down with the novelist Je rey Eugenides at the New
York Public Library. (Fifth Ave. at 42nd St. nypl.org/live.)
Lunch Poems
Frank OHaras famed collection was irst published in 1964, and, to mark
the iftieth anniversary, City Lights is printing a special edition. At the
Poetry Project, Justin Vivian Bond, Hettie Jones, Edmund Berrigan, and
dozens o other writers will read all o the poems. (St. Marks Church
In-the-Bowery, Second Ave. at 10th St. poetryproject.org. June 11 at 8.)
Dan Barber
The che discusses his new book, The Third Plate: Field Notes on the
Future o 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
The Governors Ball Music Festival brings OutKast and dozens of other acts to Randalls Island.
36 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
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-the-
radar 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 cre-
ative 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
3
studio recording off the funny and catchy song. (Hill
Country Live, 30 W. 26th St. 212-255-4544. June 5.)
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 bene it
for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, at the
Kaye Playhouse. June 12: The Jamaican pianist
Monty Alexander celebrates his seventieth birth-
day 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 o 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 o the nineteen- ifties, the saxo-
phonist, composer, and visionary Ornette Coleman
brought free jazz into our midst, and in the ensuing
years his notions o unfettered musical expression
have signi icantly touched artists o many stripes.
The great man himsel 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 o Ornettes bands,
and a host o 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 personi ies the multicultural and
pan-stylistic eclecticism that are hallmarks o the
contemporary-jazz scene: she is comfortable litting
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, o the Bad Plus, the bassist Ben Street,
and the accomplished saxophonist Mark Turner
have collaborated on one o the most persuasive
recordings o the year so far, One Is the Other,
which shows that the foursome, which has played
together for the better part o 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 o 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 i
the last ninety years had never happened (judging
by the attire o some attendees, you might believe
it), present a Gatsby-era gathering on Governors
Island. There will be dance lessons, a Charleston
contest, a display o 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 seventy-
ive-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
U 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 suciently graphic to spark symptoms of
post-traumatic-stress disorder.
The term seems to have originated in online feminist fo-
rums, where trigger warnings have for some years been used to
ag 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 oense that a work of literature might cause. Huck-
leberry 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 class-
room as a safe space for students.
Online discussion of trigger warnings
has sometimes been guardedly sympa-
ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL
thetic, sometimes critical. Jessica Valenti
has noted on The Nations Web site that
potential triggers for trauma are so man-
ifold as to be beyond the possibility of
cataloguing: There is no trigger warn-
ing for living your life. Some have sug-
gested 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 seek-
ing to protect the vulnerable, run the risk of disempowering
them instead. Bending the world to accommodate our per-
sonal 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 signicant prog-
ress. 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 descrip-
tions 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 con-
tent. The student hoped to spare others the possibility of
experiencing a post-traumatic-stress reaction.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, the University of Cali-
fornia, Santa Barbara, was back in the headlines, in an unfold-
ing story that grotesquely echoed the
language of that resolution. Six mem-
bers of its undergraduate bodytwo
women and four menwere slaugh-
tered by Elliot Rodger, aged twenty-
two, who then reportedly turned one
of his weapons, a semi-automatic hand-
gun, 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 em-
braced instead. He had also written
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 39
what he referred to as a manifesto, more than a hundred thou-
sand words long, which outlined an intention to commit atroc-
ities far beyond those he actually accomplished.
Rodgers free-oating loathing was not limited to women
racist hatred also runs through the manifestoand his utter-
ances make it clear that he had lost all grip on reality. None-
theless, 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 vehi-
cle 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 oered, 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 pop-
ular consciousness as a center of dubious cultural progress
a convenient representative of the latest frontier in socio-
political activism, just as Antioch College, with its sexual-
consent code, was twenty years agothe university, in the
aftermath of its own violent trauma, now holds the unsought
honor of being the origin site of what is indubitably a pow-
erful 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 partic-
ipated 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 es-
oteric; but both it and #YesAllWomen express a larger cul-
tural preoccupation with achieving safety, and a fear of living
in its absence. The hope that safety might be found, as in a
therapists oce, 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 dicult and
discomting ideas, and thereby to enlarge the readers ex-
perience and comprehension. The classroom can never be an
entirely safe space, nor, probably, should it be. But its dicult
to fault those who hope that it might be, when the outside
world constantly proves itself pervasively hostile, as well as,
on occasion, horrically violent.
Rebecca Mead

MINYA POSTCARD by two men with bushy beards, prayer
ELECTION DAY bruises, and clean hands. Today, that was
another markerevery voter had his
nger stained with purple ink. We voted
ve 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
onment, but little evidence was put for-
ward, and most of the accused were not
even present at the trials.
Minya is often described as a Brother-
hood town. In truth, many residents
seem to have shifted their loyalties to Sisi,
in the hope of stability. Even the Is-
lamists, while united in opposition to the

I n Egypt, where physical markers

often tell you something about a per-
sons beliefs, an outsider inevitably en-
gages in the act of proling through ap-
pearance. 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 rst 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
the results of those votes were thrown in
the garbage. So why do it again?
This was Egypts rst national election
since July 3rd of last year, when Mo-
hamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood
leader who had been democratically
elected as President, was forcibly re-
moved 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 peo-
ple 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-
new regime, are not entirely supportive of
the Brothers. At the shop, the older of the
bearded men said that he had been reluc-
tant to vote for Morsi in 2012, when his
opponent had been Ahmed Shaq, a for-
mer 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 arro-
gant and exclude others.
He was a former member of the
Gamaa al-Islamiyya, an Islamist organi-
zation that engaged in terrorism until
1997; a few years later, it renounced vio-
lence. The group is inuential 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 peo-
ple 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 some-
thing 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 dierent later.
When we saw the repercussions, we real-
ized that the target wasnt achieved. He
explained that Sadats successor, Hosni
Mubarak, had been just as repressive.
With Sisi coming into oce, he believed
that the only solution was patience. Peo-
ple 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 sur-
prisingly 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 govern-
ment 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 boy-
cotting 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
I aint cookin nuthinthats my pork-and-
beans-scented candle you smell.
a situation, or hosted somebody who was
going to do something.
1
Was it wrong to use violence?
Theres a dierence between wrong
and useless, he said, with a smile. The
violence was simply useless.
Peter Hessler
THE ARTISTIC LIFE
FATHERS AND SONS
W 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. Book-
ended 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 con-
dent, t companions to the images from
Ingres, Poussin, Courbet, and Delacroix
that his father had tacked up for inspira-
tion. To me, hes a great artist, he said.
He nodded at a melancholy pastel, Girl
with Red Turban: Such color, simplic-
ity, and the girl has something. . . . I wish
I had listened more to my father so I
week, coinciding with a catalogue of
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? Pos-
sibly, he said, staring it down. Possibly.
His father, a dead ringer for his son
in all but erceness of prole, 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 conded
to his journals, but not to the world, that
he was gay.) His mother, Virginia Ad-
miral, 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 won-
derful 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 dead-
pan contemplation of popular culture,
he became increasingly gurative, bit-
ter, 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 ve 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, nancially, and I put his
paintings in the Tribeca Grill, Locanda
Verde, Nobu, Nobu in Japan, the Green-
wich Hotelhis business ventures. My
father did the menu for the Tribeca Grill,
and the coasters for the Greenwich
Hotel, and he hung the paintings him-
selfhe was very particular. And Ive
never changed it.
De Niro helped make a documen-
tary, Remembering the Artist, Robert
De Niro, Sr., that will air on HBO next
his fathers work and a gallery show in
Chelsea, with prices ranging up to two
hundred and fty thousand dollars. The
more expensive they are, the better theyre
going to be protected, because they be-
come 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 temporiz-
ing 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 aect his reputa-
tion, which is about timing, luck, the pe-
culiar taste of the art world. And then you
must also have talent. De Niro checked
1
the nearest canvas, a canary-yellow farm-
house lit by the sun, and seemed reas-
sured. In any case, this is all here, and its
great, and its not going anywhere.
Tad Friend
THE BOARDS
HUMPTY DUMPTY
A mong the trends on Broadway this
season: musicals about sixties girl
rockers (Janis Joplin, Carole King); bra-
vura 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, Mi-
chelle Williams, as Sally Bowles, mixes
them with Worcestershire saucea
prairie oysterand drinks them for
breakfast. And then theres The Crip-
ple of Inishmaan, Martin McDonaghs
black comedy about life in the Aran Is-
lands in 1934. The play, starring Daniel
Radclie, has been nominated for six
Tony awards, but it also holds the record
for Most Eggs Sacriced 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. Radclie, who
plays a disgured 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 ap-
peared in the plays West End incar-
nation. 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 wor-
ried aloud that they looked out of period.
We arent going to have white eggs, are MacNeill. That was good egg tech-
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 under-
studies: 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 aected with sal-
monella, outraging farmers and causing
a nosedive in British egg sales. I think
weve become slightly obsessed as a na-
tion 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 Hol-
lywood.) 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 En-
gland versus Ireland.
HELEN: Stand here and close your eyes.
Youll be Ireland.
With that, Greene smashed three
more eggs on MacNeills head. Mac-
Neill 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 mal-
let. Instead, Grandage subbed in Ces-
pedes, the understudy. You just have to
follow through with it, Greene advised
her. Once your hand is at on his head,
then you move on to the next one.
Cespedes ran through the scene with
nique, Grandage said, as stagehands
towelled o MacNeill and sent him to
the bathroom with a bottle of shampoo.
Its really satisfying! Cespedes said.
Greene scrubbed the oor with tow-
els 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 sop-
ping hair and asked Grandage a charac-
ter 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 oor 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
THE FINANCIAL PAGE
SPY VS. SPY
L 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 sabo-
tage foreign competitors and propel its own companies to suc-
cess in the international marketplace. The United States should
know. Thats pretty much how we got our start as a manufactur-
ing power, too.
The United States emerged as the worlds industrial leader
by illicitly appropriating mechanical and scientic innovations
from Europe, the historian Doron Ben-Atar observes in his
book Trade Secrets. Throughout the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen-
turies, American industrial spies roamed
the British Isles, seeking not just new ma-
chines but skilled workers who could run
and maintain those machines. One of
these artisans was Samuel Slater, often
called the father of the American indus-
trial revolution. He emigrated here in
1789, posing as a farmhand and bringing
with him an intimate knowledge of the
Arkwright spinning frames that had trans-
formed textile production in England, and
he set up the rst 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 re-
turned 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 improve-
ments and secrets of extraordinary value from elsewhere. State
governments nanced 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 outed the ban could
lose their property and be convicted of treason. The eorts of
Thomas Digges, Americas most eective industrial spy, got him
repeatedly jailed by the Britsand praised by George Washing-
ton 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 rst 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 nine-
teenth 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 in-
tellectual-property rules, which it insists are necessary for eco-
nomic 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 peo-
ple to innovate. If you realized that a new invention was going
to get ripped o by China, you might not invest the time and
money needed to come up with it in the rst place. On the other
hand, patents and trade secrets limit the diusion of new tech-
nologyand sometimes slow down tech-
nological progresswhile copying accel-
erates 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 ev-
idence 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 Ap-
ples bottom line, but it meant that many
more people ended up enjoying the
benets of Apples concepts.
Patents and trade secrets also limit the
kind of innovation that comes from put-
ting a new spin on existing technologies.
In Silicon Valley, engineers historically
migrated with ease from company to com-
pany, 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 con-
vincingly 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 rst integrated textile factory in
America. Lowell was a genuine innovator. But, had he not cop-
ied 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 Chi-
nas 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 some-
thing developing countries do. When youre not yet generating
a lot of intellectual property on your own, you imitate. These
CHRISTOPH NIEMANN
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

FICTION
I t ends with his right hand gripping her
left, the curve of her knuckles the
pulling yoke. The plane is on its nal ap-
proach. 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. Al-
timeters cross-checked on zero seven. In-
side the cabin, he squeezes her hand
harder. The ight manifest lists them as
Theodore Harris Martin (9B) and
Emma Callahan Brady (6A), both from
Los Angeles, specically 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 Thanks-
giving. That is what we know.
W e also know that seven weeks earlier
the Los Angeles Dodgers played
their nal game of the season, at home
against the New York Mets. It was a Sun-
day 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, look-
ing 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 reminis-
cences of broken-down buses and second-
rate hotels, hours spent packed in ice, all
those hero-to-bum ratios.
Ted Martin, thirty-ve, 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, ex-
cept 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 feel-
ing 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-de All-
Star, a future Hall of Famer, Don Drys-
dale in the esh. Yesterday, the girls had
begged him to let them skip the game
Please, please, please, Dadso they could
work on some Sunower 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 sig-
nify a greater failure, until Renshaw from
the oce said yeah, sure, and asked if he
could bring his twelve-year-old son, Ren-
shaw 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 knee-
to-knee proximity.
Over the stadium P.A., Im a Be-
liever played as a message for the fans
next year.
Teds oldest daughter loved Davy
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE
 Special Advertising Section

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 rst priority.
Halting the growth and spread of tumors generally requires
some combination of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and
targeted drugs aimed at specic 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
benet 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 inammation, 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 benet
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.

PAIN MANAGEMENT MIND BODY THERAPY

NUTRITIONAL THERAPY MENTAL CHEMOTHERAPY

MEDITATION SPIRITUAL SUPPORT
ACUPUNCTURE RADIATION THERAPY

PET THERAPY HOMEOPATHIC PHYSIOLOGICAL SURGERY

NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE ADVANCED GENOMIC DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING

TESTING
Special Advertising Section

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 inter-
ventions. 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.
supervised by a physical therapist can build strength and
increase endurance, while an occupational therapist can
focus on specic 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.

ONCOLOGY REHABILITATION A collaborative team approach benets

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 uid 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
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, chemo-
therapy, 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.
 Special Advertising Section

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 eld of research and clinical
practice to address how psychological and emotional well-being are
integrated into treatment and recovery. Trained mental health profes-
sionals 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 nd on their own.
With integrative care, everything works in
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.

concert for the patients benet.

Holly Edwards
Clinical Oncology Dietitian, CTCA Promoting Appetite
High-ber foods and smaller, more
PATIENT CENTERED CARE frequent meals can stimulate the
At CTCA, every patient works with a Patient-Empowered Care (PEC) appetite and diminish gastrointestinal
issues. Ginger is also recommended
team. Clinicians from various therapeutic disciplines work together to for its digestive benets.
create a care plan and provide recommendations. We take a whole-
person approach that delivers evidence-based multidisciplinary treat-
ment, says Anderson. All of our recommendations are tailored to
meet each patients individual needs. Bolstering Immune Function
Ginseng, protein supplements like
The PEC team includes oncologists focused on medicine, surgery, CoQ10, yogurt, and fermented products
high in probiotics have helped
and radiation; a dietitian; a naturopathic oncology provider; and other many patients keep their immunity
integrative therapy clinicians. Acupuncture, massage, mind-body therapy, up during treatment.

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.
Numbness
Neuropathynumbness or tingling in the
The goal of the PEC team is to facilitate implementation of the treat- extremitiesis a common side effect of
ment plan, reduce the risk of treatment delays, and improve overall cancer treatment, which acupuncture and
supplements of L-glutamine can help relieve.
quality of life, says Doran. Everything we do is, and always will be,
centered around the patient.

Improving Taste and Smell

Lemon drops, mints, and pumpkin seeds
can help reduce or eliminate the metallic
taste caused by some cancer drugs.
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No case is typical. You should not expect to experience these results. Atlanta Chicago Philadelphia Phoenix Tulsa

2014 Rising Tide

Jones; he could hear her shriek in his en route to Drysdale, so he hitched deliv- and the Rainy Daze and a few other
head. erance to a smile, in the mode of athletes bands only half-remembered. Oh, and
You get anyone? Renshaw asked. and actors who squint at the light that Barry McGuire had made an appear-
Ted showed him the ball as if it had glows from withinin this case, of Ted ance, dressed as Adam, and someone
been baptized and now possessed a soul. Martin, benevolent adult. Here you go, later spotted him destroying some Eve
Whos that? kid, and with that he tossed the baseball, under a Navajo blanket. It had been a
Drysdale. well advertised in advance, something his magical day, though the Los Angeles
Renshaw nudged Renshaw Jr. This middle daughter could have caught and Times had dubbed it a camp-out of the
father-and-son combo reminded Ted of she was easily the least cordinated of his camp, a rejoicing of the rejected. This
those before-and-after panels glimpsed in girls, but maybe the sun was in Renshaw time around, there was no reporter on
magazines, in this case advertising the Jr.s eyes, or he was distracted by the the scene, and there was no formal
eects of adolescence, of alcohol and age, fallen popcorn; either way, the ball stage, no Chet Helms giving his bless-
of a hundred-pound weakling swelling slipped through his hands, hit the con- ing on behalf of the humans of the
into a thick vindictive bully, which gave crete, and rolled into the gutter under the Haight; this Sunday roughly a thou-
Ted brief guilt since he had been the seats in front of them. Renshaw Jr. pan- sand people came together in the hope
golden boy in high school, with enviable icked, practically upending himself in the of re-creating the past, and, as with
skin and a natural physique, a poor repre- retrieval. many copies, the sharpness was blurred
sentative of the awkward teen-age years. Hopeless, Renshaw said. around the edges, its unique and special
And all for what, he wondered. To grow vibe desaturated, giving the proceed-
up and play the role of lawyerlike Rob-
ert Redford, another Van Nuys graduate,
except his character in Barefoot in the
A round noon that day, people raised
their hands in nearby Elysian
Park and sought the return of the Great
ings an aura of forced joyfulness. Every
smile insisted on another smile in re-
turn. Not that Emma Brady, thirty-
Park married a free spirit and lived in Spirit. It was the second love-in of the three, noticed. She stood on the pe-
New York City, in Greenwich Village, no year, an unocial follow-up to the rst, riphery and smiled, because this was all
less, and there was no church and there which had been held on Easter and was new to her, this roller-coaster ride of
were no daughters and no Fluy the god- still talked about in certain tuned-in people. Hello, she said, whenever
dam cat. There was only sexsex and the circles. At least four thousand people someone dipped into her line of sight,
most innocent and lovely of misunder- had attended. A beautiful gathering of unsure if she really belonged here. Was
standings. You should go, Renshaw said the tribes. And the Diggers had really she the sacricial square? The parental
to Renshaw Jr. outdone themselves with the food, in mirror? Emma was only fteen, ten,
Huh? particular those psychedelic watermel- maybe as little as ve years older than
Go and get Drysdales autograph. ons. The Flamin Groovies had played, most of the assembled crowd, yet they
Renshaw Jr. stopped chewing his as had the Peanut Butter Conspiracy all seemed so young compared with
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 shat-
tered into its aliated parts. The boy
froze, perhaps hoping that this pose
might suspend the ramications 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 de- I hear he turned water into wine, but it was a rather
sire to witness any further humiliations poor-quality Mesopotamian Cabernet.
her state of aairs: 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 pres-
sure for her to go, to have the whole
family together. Cmon, Em, well sh
and canoe and have a grand old time, or
so her husband had said. Please. Join us.
No, honey, not today. Not this week-
end. Sorry. She was exhausted and in no
mood to act as pioneer woman in ging-
ham and kerchief. Two nights, thats all,
honey. Just like Mike to keep pushing,
to treat her like the sullen daughter who
was being dicult for the sake of being
dicult. His enthusiasm always had the
quality of a concealed weapon. And of
course little Bobby had insisted on stay-
ing 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
unied om vibrated the air. There was gling actor, an unemployed mime. Were
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 mys-
tical force. An array of musical instru-
ments joined the fray, not necessarily in
order or in tune: a guitar, a tambourine,
a ute and a violin, their harmony
squirming through the narrowest of
openings.
This is weird, Bobby said.
Outside the main circle, smaller cir-
cles turned like human-size gears.
Yeah, Emma agreed, and she won-
52 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 oors 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 ne-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.
James Richardson
dered if this was like EasterOn Eas- The man raised the fur toward the
ter, of all days, Mike had complained sun. Is it lucky? he asked.
when he saw the coverage on the local Never done me any good.
news. Who are these people, to do this Before this remark could fully sink
on Easter? Im trying very hard to un- in, of her son and his feelings of doom,
derstand. He certainly hadnt looked to of being jinxed, of always losing stu
Emma for an explanation. and getting injured, of being too short,
A large man in a tuxedo and a top hat too dumb, totally talentless compared to
wandered by holding a dozen yellow bal- his popular older brothers, and his father
loons, each stencilled with the word no help, eitherStop moping around
LOVE, the sentiment seeming in oppo- before Emma could glimpse her own
sition to his face, which was painted a self-doubt in those words, the man in
ghoulish white. He spotted Bobby and the tuxedo and top hat had handed
stopped. You wanna balloon? Bobby two more balloons. Heres your
Emma wondered if he was a strug- change, he said.
all these people out-of-work artists?
Sure, Bobby said.
The man handed him one. What
F risella was pitching for the Mets, Fos-
ter for the Dodgers, and after six in-
nings New York was winning, 10, with
are you going to give me in return? Moock scoring in the second on Boschs
Um. base hit to left. L.A. had managed only
Emma reached for her pocketbook. ve scattered singles and was looking list-
No money, the man said. Some- less in the eldthe diamond might as
thing else. An exchange of goods. well have been a classroom clock on the
I dont think I have anything that last day of school. Ted maintained an or-
you would want, Emma tried to ex- derly box score, something his father
plain. had taught him to do when they went to
Sorry, the man said, Im talking to see the old Hollywood Stars at Gilmore
the boy. Field, back when the Pacic Coast
Bobby patted his pockets, produced League was the only game in town. He
a rabbits foot. Ive got this. enjoyed transcribing the action into the
shorthand of LOBs and IBBs, the for-
ward or backward K, the almost algebraic
equations of SAC 8 and F 9 and DP
1-6-3. Here, human position was ex-
pressed in pencil, fate as a form of lling
in the blanks. FC 4-6.
What are you doing? Renshaw Jr.
asked.
The boy had recovered the ball, his
sweaty palms rendering Drysdales sig-
nature 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 y ball to right, and
Ferraras single to center, and Roseboro,
remember he had a pop y to third, and
then Fairly grounded to rstits all right
here.
Seems like homework, Renshaw Jr.
said.
Not really. It just keeps you in-
volved, 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 dierently this inning,
maybe not, but I have that information
right here, the whole story. Its like Im
a necessary witness.
Renshaw snorted before nishing 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 impa-
tience that bordered on out-
right scorn, as though his
brand of parenting interfered
with the actual business of
raising children, Carol con-
stantly hovering nearby, an
impresario reminding him to wrap things
up, like at bedtimeespecially at bed-
time, and his habit of tucking in the girls
and reciting from memory The Chil-
drens 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 some-
thing he thought the girls enjoyed hear-
ing, and it was certainly better than the
Monkees, and maybe they would re-
member a few stanzas and recall those
moments with Dad and how he gave
them a love for old-fashioned poetry re-
gardless of any mutterings that it was get-
ting 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 exis-
tence?
Hey, necessary witness, you get
that? Renshaw cracked.
Ted gave him a middle-nger 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!
I n Elysian Park, a growing line of peo-
ple 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 join-
ing, and he had handed his mother the
three balloons and jumped onto the end,
holding this position briey until others
grabbed on and the line grew
longer, its stitching more in-
tricate. 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 epi-
sode 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-owing
aection. She spotted Bobby again. They
would have to keep this afternoon a se-
cret. 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 light-
ness could somehow lift her up from the
ground and oat her above the trees, no
one around here would have noticed,
or, in noticing, would have thought any-
thing peculiar.
T 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 un-
able to commit to any purchase, and
he soon found himself corkscrewing
down the pedestrian ramp. The sensa-
tion 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 des-
tiny seemed more like a gun pressed
into his back leading him to who knows
where. Just walk. And no funny business.
Sometimes he gured 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 Ely-
sian Park. A single word hung in his
headavocados. He would bring av-
ocados to the girls.
Ted walked through the parking lot
quilted with cars, and then fewer cars,
until nally 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 photo-
graph in the citys scrapbook. An image
of Teds father arose: the times he had
taken him into the park to watch the
lming of another Ken Maynard West-
ern, with the horseplay and the shoot-
inghis dad had been an accountant for
Republic Picturesand afterward they
54 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
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-ve 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 nally found them, he
struggled up the trunks in search of hid-
den fruit, it being late in the season. His
wife hated avocados, something about
the mushy texture reminding her of rot-
ten esh, 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 avoca-
dos in the Martin back yard. This sce-
nario played in Teds imagination as he
searched the picked-over trees, dirtying
his slacks and splitting a seam on his
shirt, but on the fth tree he spotted a
runt, hanging high, its existence, once
noted, hijacking the scene, like a dan-
gling grenade. It took some atavistic
climbing for Ted to reach that gnarled
and hardly worth the eort 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 beat-
ing beyond the beating of his own heart,
a beating of drums, like that of Indians
of old, as if The Fiddlin Buckaroo who loitered in West Hollywood and
were being shot in a nearby eld. 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.
W 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 with-
out them, went to Elysian Park, where
there was a whole mess of people, some
barely in clothes, like happieshap-
pies? you mean hippiesyeah, yeah,
hippies, and they had chanted and
played games and he had traded his rab-
bits foot for these balloons, and his fa-
ther, probably still in that annel shirt
and cartoonish shing hat, would but-
tress 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 cer-
tainly had a creative side, but so often
that looseness snapped back into sanc-
timony, 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 ngers 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.
I nstead of Ken Maynard riding his
white stallion, Tarzan, the eld
below oered up an odder scene, as if
the police had gathered all the kids
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 becom-
ing an unexpected yet essential detail:
man holding avocado, in torn shirt and
grubby slacks. His presence was as ap-
propriate as the people breathing re
or juggling or running in a circle half-
naked: regardless of realms of being, all
and sundry were turned toward a rap-
turous, if uncertain, center.
Hello, friend, someone said.
Hello, Ted answered, and then
Hello again, and again, until he started
oering up his own greeting without
cue, like this was the rst day of school,
and every one of his hellos was met with
equal enthusiasm, a great big sloppy
welcome. He could hear Carol mutter-
ing something about the smell and what
these people were smoking and could
you somehow be aected as well be-
cause she had heard stories and in this
day and age you had to hold tight to rea-
son 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, dening himself in
opposition to her attitude.
Hello.
Sh-h-h.
Halfway around the circle, Ted noticed
something, someone, a ash of the famil-
iar 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 t 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 par-
ticular slyness that seemed to set her apart
from the other mothers, a tilt of the head
that sized up the world, a divot of suspi-
cion 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 pull-
ing Ted forward. Oh, thats right, she
said, smiling with tactile consequences.
Her front teeth were somewhat bucked,
which only added to her over-all abun-
dance. 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
conrm his role as a father instead of as
punch line for the girls and youll-never-
understand and let-me-handle-this from
Carol, his non-member status essential for
Sexy deep-sea divers not a thing.
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 for-
ward, if pushed even slightly.
Who was pitching for the Dodg-
ers? Bobby asked.
Alan Foster.
Who?
Exactly.
They both laughed, man to boy.
T 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 ela-
borately knotted scarves; Ted Martin,
her husband, the man who sat by her
side during those school plays and re-
citals, those all-parent functions, his
leg often tapping and his wife still-
ing him with a touch and a grin that
was more public apology; Ted Mar-
tin, his attention shifting from the
stage and toward the rafters, as if
spotting something up there; Ted Mar-
tin, Emma christened in retrospect,
the golden husband with the golden
wife and the golden daughters, the
golden couple of Clinton Elemen-
tary, of Studio City, and how he had
once caught her looking up as well,
 hoping to see whatever circled over-
head; 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, point-
ing 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 ipped the avo-
cado 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 obvi-
ous 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 shoul-
der, the skin beneath a streak of sun
Three.

A fter that day in the park, Ted Mar-

tin and Emma Brady each re-
sumed their regularly scheduled exis-
tence 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 conclu-
sion, 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 every-
day questions, neither fully understand-
ing the repercussions of this chance
meeting, those glimpses from Elysian
Park which seemed to conrm 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 at-
traction, its melodramatic possibility,
and shifting instead to the silly fantasy
of a school-yard crush on a fellow-
parent, my goodness, as absurd as those
hippies on stilts. By the time the Cardi-
nals beat the Red Sox in the World Se-
ries, Ted Martin and Emma Brady had
mostly forgotten one another and what
endured was resignation: this is my life
and it is a perfectly ne life.
T 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 ew east,
on the twenty-second, with their father.
When Mike heard this plan, he gave
Emma his patented look, blue eyes nar-
rowing 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 Cin-
cinnati, early and alone.
I really wish we were going to-
gether, 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 enumerat-
ing nger. 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 na-
tive maize; Ted Martin, reformed in her
mind; Ted Martin, sharper than before.
I should check in, Emma said, open-
ing 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 al-
ways 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 preg-
nant 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 Bos-
ton, Massachusetts, with stops in
Cincinnati, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Penn-
sylvania, was departing at 5:37 P. M.
from Gate 39. Ted Martin was behind
schedule, a combination of bad trac
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 ying; 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
ve minutes to spare, the ight 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 an-
other touchdown for U.S.C. When he
got to Gate 39, he ashed 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 half-
expecting the passengers to greet him
with applause.
T he plane was a Convair 880 and had
seventy-ve passengers with an-
other 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 reca-
libration of the world within that con-
ned 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 rst 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 dan-
ger: 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, dier-
ent from the bouant of seven weeks
ago, while Emma could feel the force of
Teds green-gray eyes peering from be-
hindlike sea glass, she recalled from
that day in the park, a surprising piece of
treasure. Tray tables were raised, smok-
ing materials extinguished, and they
both thought, We are alone.
T 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 ow of what lay ahead.
After the plane reached a cruising alti-
tude of twenty-ve 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 al-
most expectant smile, as if she had been
reverently waiting for this request.
Thank you so much, Ted said, set-
tling her into 9B.
Enjoy the ight, 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 ew, over Utah and Colo-
rado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and In-
diana, the distance gained bringing them
closer together, as they both had screw-
drivers, and white wine with their
chicken fricassee, then more drinks, the
two of them talking about their lives
without ever mentioning spouses or chil-
dren, their lives before they became what
they became, as if up here they could
begin again, begin again as the same peo-
ple in dierent livesin Paris, in New
York, in Londonand they smiled and
seemed to recognize themselves in the
others reection, 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 con-
nected, 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 rst mention of them.
The truth is, I see only two people
here, Ted said.
These words, they seemed scripted.
A 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 nal approach
to Runway 18 of the Greater Cincinnati
Airport. Light snow is visible through
the windows. As the landing gear low-
ers, Ted Martin reaches for Emma
Bradys hand. This is their rst 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, nally, the
ground, T.W.A. Flight 128 comes to
rest 6,878 feet from the runway. There
it bursts into ames. The people in the
few nearby houses hear nothing un-
usual, 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 ashed
on their respective families, onto Mar-
cia, 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 unforgot-
ten hearts gripped by the fall. From the
voice recorder, we know the captains
nal 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
one MET.
many worlds.
The exhibition is made possible by Charles James Ball Gowns, 1948. Photograph (detail) by Cecil Beaton, metmuseum.org
Beaton / Vogue / Cond Nast Archive. Copyright Cond Nast.
Additional support is provided by
 GATSBY 2014 Spring Season s Metropolitan Opera House

TO
GARP Manon
This Week Only!
MODERN MASTERPIECES
FROM THE CARTER June 2 7
BURDEN COLLECTION

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

The entire family will have

a ball at this rags-to-riches
fairy tale, while Ashtons
beloved choreography and
Prokoevs sumptuous
A short walk from score are a perfect t!
Grand Central
and Penn Station
Madison Ave. at 36th St. Next Week: June 9 - 13 at 7:30pm
themorgan.org June 11, 14 at 2pm; June 14 at 8pm
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
Met Box Ofce: 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
I n the beginning was B, who looked like an angel. He
asked to carry my books up the hill. It was the rst day of
sixth grade at my new school, in a new city, San Francisco. It
began to rain. A tough and intimidating eighth grader ap-
proached. (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 some-
thing 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 freck-
les, 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 o. 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 shy-
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
ness, 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 irted 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 ve-layer,
feathered eect.
Moving forward here, Chad was my rst 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 para-
dise: 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 o. (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 skate-
boarders 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 gured 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 ght 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 nd 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
I n late 2006, the writer John Green
came up with the idea of communi-
cating with his brother, Hank, for a year
solely through videos posted to You-
Tube. The project wasnt quite as ex-
treme 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 tech-
nology. John was living on the Upper
West Side while his wife, Sarah Urist
Green, completed a graduate degree in
Green wanted to write an unsentimental cancer novel that oered some basis for hope.
60 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
art history at Columbia. He had pub-
lished two young-adult novels, Looking
for Alaska, in 2005, and An Abun-
dance of Katherines, in 2006, and was
working on a third. Like the best realis-
tic Y.A. books, and like The Catcher in
the Ryea novel that today would al-
most certainly be marketed as Y.A.
Greens books were narrated in a clever,
conding voice. His protagonists were
sweetly intellectual teen-age boys smitten
with complicated, charismatic girls. Al-
though 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?
peers. The YouTube project was, in part,
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 underesti-
mate the emotional depth of adolescents.
Green told me, I love the intensity teen-
agers bring not just to rst love but also
to the rst time youre grappling with
grief, at least as a sovereign beingthe
rst time youre taking on why people
suer 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 mat-
ters for adults, too, but weve almost
taken too much power away from our-
selves. 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 inter-
ested in spiritual matters, with one ex-
ception: 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 ca-
maraderie that hed always had with his
ILLUSTRATION BY BARTOSZ KOSOWSKI
an attempt to ll 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 dra-
matic. 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 mem-
orize 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 perfor-
mance art staged in somebodys base-
ment. 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 impor-
tance 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 All-
Star in Our Heartsbut mainly they
exchanged ideas. The brothers had sig-
nature preoccupations, which they dis-
cussed 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
undignied happy dance; Hank wrote
and performed songs, many of them
about Harry Potter. The tone of their
monologues ranged from gooly infor-
mative (how giraes have sex) to wonk-
ish (Why Are American Health-Care
Costs So High?). Many posts dispensed
adult wisdom, but in a reassuringly mod-
ern way. In a post advising boys on how
to charm a girl, John jokingly said, Be-
come a puppy. A kitten would also be ac-
ceptable 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 kiss-
ing and/or salvation.
The Greens vlogs were lled with in-
jokes and code words that rewarded ded-
icated viewing. D.F.T.B.A. stood for
Dont Forget to Be Awesome, and
John referred to his wife as the Yeti, be-
cause 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 lon-
ger than four minutes, the other brother
could impose a punishment. Hank once
had to spend fteen consecutive hours in
a Target; John had to eat a generous
helping of slobber carrots. (His tod-
dler, 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 Nerd-
ghters, and later, in a video, he started
ring: what if Nerdghters 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
ghting! And the English nerd would
be, like, Hmm, I know a lot of Shake-
speare 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 Im-
manuel Kant, an Aristotle, a Jane Aus-
ten, a Bill Gates, a Mahatma Gandhi, a
Nelson Mandela, and all four Beatles.
We win.
Fans loved the term nerdghter and
started using it to identify themselves.
Initially, Green talked about nerdghters
with a hostile edge: they stood against
the popular people. But the word soon
took on a more celebratory, inclusive
cast. Nerdghters werent against any-
thing; they were simply proud to im-
merse themselves in interests that others
might nd geeky or arcane. Indeed, the
nerdghter community is strikingly civil
and constructive for an Internet subcul-
ture. Through an annual charity event,
the Project for Awesome, nerdghters
have raised hundreds of thousands of
dollars for one anothers favorite causes.
Their comment sections, on YouTube
and elsewhere, are lled 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 pio-
neering nerdghter, recalls the moment
the concept caught on. It was like the
formation of a nation, she told me.
Only we werent ghting anybody to
do it.
O n June 6th, Twentieth Century
Fox releases The Fault in Our
Stars, the movie version of John Greens
wildly successful 2012 novel about teen-
agers 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 consecu-
tive 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 suc-
cessful books as if they were lightning
strikes, but the popularity of The Fault
in Our Stars was no accident. Nerd-
ghters, who by then numbered in the
millions, were evangelical about it, tuck-
ing notes into copies of the book and en-
couraging readers to join their move-
ment. In fact, The Fault in Our Stars
reached the No. 1 position on Amazon
six months before it was published, when
Oh, and Happy Fathers Day.
Green announced its title online. Many
authors do pre-publication publicity,
but Green did extra credit: he signed the
entire rst printinga hundred and
fty 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 over-
state. 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 Shake-
speare, 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 lms script, but he was an
informal consultant, and it was impor-
tant to him that the lm retain this de-
tail: It ies 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 sti wind; he often
rakes his hands through it, causing ran-
dom clumps to stand up straight. He has
the charm of the middle-school teacher
you secretly thought was cute, but he is
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 rst time Id ever
heard heckling about the nature of au-
thorship. One questioner, who had to
apologize for hyperventilating as she
spoke, asked the ve 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 nose-
blowing, or stied snies, 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 can-
cer novel. A story about dying teen-
agers would be too wrenching, he de-
cided, if it werent also romantic, and
funny in a way that oered some basis
for hope. Much of the novels vibrancy
comes from the rst-person voice of
Hazel, which is irreverent but never ni-
hilistic. After she reads online tributes to
a girl whos died of cancer, Hazel ob-
serves 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-fulllment version of me.
The result, he once said, was like a terri-
ble Greys Anatomy. Then, in 2007, he
became aware of a girl from Quincy, Mas-
sachusetts, named Esther Grace Earl,
who was one of the earliest nerdghters.
Esther had thyroid cancer, as Hazel does
in the book, and was dependent on an ox-
ygen 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, ap-
preciatively, of how much Greens cre-
ation 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 denitely
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 intro-
duction by him.)
When Green nished the manuscript
of Stars, he and his editor, Julie Strauss-
Gabel, felt that they had something spe-
cial. Most Y.A. readers are girls, but be-
cause Green is male and his rst 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 domi-
nates, and the background is blue.
The stripped-down cover also meant
that adults could read it on the subway
without embarrassment. Adults have be-
come big consumers of Y.A. ction, and
Green treats his grownup characters with
unusual empathy. Hazel worries a good
deal about how her death will aect 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 tem-
perament but a sense of humor; she
watches Americas Next Top Model
with her daughter and takes her to Am-
sterdam to meet her favorite author, Peter
Van Houten. Greens books seem cali-
brated for an era in which parentsvigi-
lant and eager not to seem out of touch
often read the books that their children
are reading.
Lizzie Skurnick, who runs a publish-
ing 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 par-
ents 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 fth graders best
friend dies alone in the woods after falling
from a rope swing, and there is little con-
solation 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.
I n April, I visited Green in India-
napolis. He has lived there since
2007, when Sarah took a curatorial posi-
tion 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, say-
ing, The main thing is, tell either Elea-
nor 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 oce and video-produc-
tion studio, in the Broad Ripple neigh-
borhood. 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 coeehouses tucked into
bright-painted wooden buildings and
brewpubs in older brick ones. Greens
oce occupies the third oor 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 him-
self 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 inward-
focussed 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 emo-
tions 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 ac-
companiments. John handles the hu-
manities, 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 some-
times 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 oce are cov-
ered with framed nerdghter-themed
art work, most of which has been thrust
into his hands at book signings. In one
corner is an Aero Fighters arcade con-
sole, 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 nerdghter salute, a ges-
ture in which the hands are crossed at
the wrists in a way that makes actual
ghting impossible.
A video blog may not sound like an
intimate medium, but it has brought
John and Hank closer. After the rst 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 collabora-
tion 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 per-
sonal stu. They say I love you once a
yearon Esther Day, which is a holiday
that Esther Earl asked nerdghters 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 sanc-
tum, 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 far-
ther from the center of our
house, he observed. In
New York, it was dead in
the middle of the apart-
ment. A bookshelf held
translated editions of his
books. The Norwegian
edition of Stars is called
Fuck Fate. Green laughed. That is, ar-
guably, 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 Vlog-
brothers 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 tele-
prompter he added jokes and asides. The
video was being lmed 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 ob-
vious questions. In the guise of this alter
ego, Green slouched in a chair and said
into the camera, Like, do you think Be-
loved 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 lming 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 nding the least interest-
ing question? Can I say that, or is it too
dismissive of a large body of scholar-
ship? 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.
Nerdghters have a term for assessing
the heights that Greens
hair achieves when he wor-
riedly tugs on itpu lev-
elsand this morning they
were rising. Fuck, its liter-
ally 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 dehuman-
ization, buried memory, and love thats
too thick. He then described the mo-
ment when Sethe, caught by her slave-
owner, 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 hun-
dred thousand.
A fterward, in Greens oce, 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, Syd-
ney, stayed home with John and Hank
when they were little, then worked for a
local nonprot called the Healthy Com-
munity 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-ve
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 fteen,
his parents sent him to Indian Springs, a
boarding school outside Birmingham, Al-
abama. 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 Cha-
bon, and found other people who liked to
talk about books. Indian Springs oered
the kind of verdant, self-contained setting
where one could have a premptively nos-
talgic coming-of-age. You could almost
feel yourself missing it while you were still
there. Green captures this delicious mel-
ancholy in Looking for Alaska, which
tells a story of friendship, rst love, and
intellectual questing at a school very much
like Indian Springs.
Green was much happier in Ala-
bama, but he remained a genuinely
poor student. He told me, I had al-
ways been told I was smart and had po-
tential, but I had never shown the abil-
ity 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 dierent 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 in-
stance, 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 en-
rolled 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
catsh-farming family. Once there,
they spent, like, a week writing oblique
and inscrutable messages on construc-
tion paper and planting them in public
places, like the manicured lawns of
branch banks.
At Indian Springs, Green also be-
came friends with boarders who staged
brazen pranks. In one infamous episode,
someone invited a woman who was sup-
posedly an academic expert on teen sex-
uality to speak at an assembly; in fact, she
was a stripper, and started disrobing in
response to the urging of a guy in the au-
dience. In Looking for Alaska, a simi-
lar 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 ac-
cident. 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, Innite sets
are a dicult 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 ado-
lescents. 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 Alar-
cn said that John exag-
gerates his haplessness with women,
adding, This is just speculation, but if
your fans are a lot of thirteen-to-fteen-
year-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 depart-
ment, remembers him as one of these
really huge personalities who was al-
ways 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 Chris-
tian thinkers who were very open-
minded, 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 Re-
membered, Things Forgotten, and he
said, Green, you dont get to title your
stories anymore. When Green was not
accepted into the advanced creative-
writing course at Kenyon, it was crush-
ing, 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 remem-
bered most about Green was not his
writing but his spoken energy. He was
so rapid-re, he said. Also decent, self-
deprecating, and funny.
In class one evening, Green read
aloud a story with a sex scene in it. When
he was done, the other students oered
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 vir-
ginity, which for a long time was noth-
ing new to report.
Upon graduating, he moved to Chi-
cago, where he eventually ended up at
Booklist. He was hired to do data entry,
but he found mentors in the editor-in-
chief, Bill Ott, and Ilene Cooper, a sta
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 free-
lancers. He was smoking but trying to
quit, so he was chewing tobacco, which
was kind of gross. But he was so engag-
ing, 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 Werther-
like downturn after a girlfriend dumped
him; Green told me that Ott ordered
him to watch the profoundly silly 1950
lm Harvey, which both lifted his spir-
its 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 Look-
ing 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 wear-
ing red lipstick, black boots, and tor-
toiseshell 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 mu-
seum last fall, and now works with Green
on a Web series called The Art Assign-
ment, in which she showcases contem-
porary artists who then assign viewers
to make a specic work of art. Sarah
told me that she had an intellectual inter-
est in fandoms like her husbands, but
found them dicult 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 al-
ways wondering, How much could you
really love all of these things?
O ne of the themes of The Fault in
Our Stars is the relationship be-
tween authors and readers. Hazel says,
Sometimes, you read a book and it lls
you with this weird evangelical zeal, and
you become convinced that the shattered
world will never be put back together un-
less and until all living humans read the
book. And then there are books like
An Imperial Aiction 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 aection
feels like a betrayal.
In a dierent era, The Fault in Our
Stars could have been that kind of cult-
ish 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 read-
ers, collaborating with them on proj-
ects, writing fan ction. In our con-
nected age, even books have become
interactive phenomena.
Green, for his part, seems to feel that
it is a betrayal not to advertise your
aections. Every day, he gives his fans a
live stream of his stream of conscious-
ness. In addition to posting on You-
Tube, 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 gure 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 t into. And
thats a tough role.
Greens online projects keep prolifer-
ating 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 vaca-
tion with his family, in a Tennessee
farmhouse devoid of electronic devices.
One wonders, however, when hell actu-
ally nd the hours to recline in the La-Z-
Boy. 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.
O n my second day in Indianapolis,
Green woke up early to record a
Vlogbrothers video called Understand-
ing the Central African Republic. He
supplied a staccato history of the recent
conict, which, he lamented, had re-
ceived little international attention, be-
cause people are drawn to simpler narra-
tives, such as Harry versus Voldemort.
Nevertheless, he concluded, we have to
make room in our stories for the world as
we nd it. He lmed the video at home,
in the basement, which doubles as a guest
room, and edited it at the oce while
stockpiling segments of yet another on-
line series, in which he plays a soccer
video game while giving unrehearsed an-
swers to such questions as What ve
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 com-
ments, typing rapidly and talking at the
same time.
Four or ve times a month, Green
talks on the phone with kids who have
cancer, some of whom have requested
the conversations through the Make-
A-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 lled 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 dis-
tance that can arise between the healthy
and the dying. Green said that people
sometimes built a wall between them-
selves and those with chronic illnesses, be-
cause 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 nished, 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 dierent end-
ing for The Fault in Our Stars.
The rst ending I wrote was so epi-
cally 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 at-
tempt to avoid the inevitable conclusion.
In the discarded version, Hazel and Peter
Van Houten go on a road trip in an at-
tempt to honor Augustuss idea of an ex-
traordinary life; they end up in Mexico,
where they unsuccessfully try to inltrate
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 cancer-
support group was participating in the
Hangout. Your book was frustrating to
me, she told Green, sounding polite but
urgent. I want to knowwhat hap-
pened 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 in-
troduced herself: Hi, Im Brittany. Im
fteen 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 amaz-
ing 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 Aiction. 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
M y old ame 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 base-
ment meant almost nothing to us. Then my old ame grad-
uated early and was gone. There were rumors of a new boy-
friend and a life in Ireland. I didnt miss her. By then, I was in
this terrible on-o thing with Sisyphus, who kept dragging
me up a pretty blond hill and hurtling me down.
A few years later, my old ame 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 condi-
tions. I wanted re 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 dierent.
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
She continued to make love to other men, which was pro-
vocative. We ate by candlelight on a balcony in Anderson-
ville, and every Monday tutored a family of Sudanese. The
Mighty Blue Kings played on at the Green Mill.
Then my old ame 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 ame 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 ame 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 re escape. I liked to wan-
der 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 dierent
people. How had that happened? We woke up one morn-
ing 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 ame 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 ame 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 nat-
ural. That sealed the deal for me, although I still appreci-
ated 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. Even-
tually, as the boy grew, she decided to leave herself, yet
again, for another woman. I didnt mind.
I dont know who my old ame is and never will. All
other candidates are xed 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 me-
dieval scholar, the assistant to the director of the founda-
tion, the law student, the clerk for the district judge, the dis-
covery drone at the law rm, the good mother, the happy
cook, the wit with an idea. Who will she be next? Whatever
she wants, I hope. Burn on, old ame.

FICTION
Y 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 con-
cise 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 nee-
dle 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 atten-
tion is to send a photo of themselves hold-
ing suggestive Popsicles, their sts cov-
ered in red melt. Girls in wheelchairs, girls
who work professionally at the Renais-
sance Faire.
You could choose other men: men
who like to think about feet, men who
have thick back hair, men whose great-
est pride is the time they ew 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. Every-
one 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 rst rust comes out.
Tell the ladies a little more about yourself !
Whats your own unique story?
The rst generation of Cyclops were
forgers. The next generation, my genera-
tion, 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 volca-
noes, 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 volca-
noes. 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 prole. Maybe
theres time to get braver, to embrace my
own unique beauty. I subscribe to the
magazines that tell me we are all beauti-
ful, if only we can learn to tap into our po-
tential; 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 some-
where in one of the worlds oceans my fa-
ther is striking the surface of the abyss
with swords of re.
Do you smoke? Do you drink? How
often do you exercise? Do you support char-
ities 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 rst date picking blueberries in
the whitest, cleanest sunlight, tin pails.
Ill bring sandwiches and chilled Char-
donnay 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. Pretty-
karen98 was generous. Prettykaren98
looked into my eye when we chatted on-
line 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 relation-
ship 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 ame.
I cant ski. I should be better at bas-
ketball 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 t in the chair, and I
wish I could forget lying on my back on
the oor 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 nished creating a mag-
netic online-dating prole 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 some-
times. 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
oered 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 is-
sues. Imagine the inverse: I have the soft-
est 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 pin-
kie when it was rst born.
If I came to your house tonight, where
would I nd 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 god-
dess 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
MY OLD FLAME BY COLM TIBN
O ne day in June, 1978, when I was twenty-three and
living in Barcelona, a friend mentioned that a char-
ter ight that weekend was oering 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 ction. (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 nd 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 nally 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 ne-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 tell-
ing 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 o 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 ction you are
writing, he said. And the old smile came back, more am-
biguous now, wiser. Maybe he felt that I had used him in
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
enough stories, or he thought that it was none of my busi-
ness after all these years. Or maybe the story itself had sim-
ply 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.
 FICTION

74 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE
A s far as I know, the only person ever
to put Japanese lyrics to the Bea-
tles 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 nish, though, Kitarus
lyrics were almost meaningless, non-
sense 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 o, but I
also read a kind of hidden import in it.
I rst met Kitaru at a coee shop
near the main gate of Waseda Univer-
sity, 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 attend-
ing 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
eort 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 lan-
guage? 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 coun-
try-boy-bumbles-his-way-around-the-
big-city story.
As a kid, I was a huge Hanshin Ti-
gers 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 dia-
lect nobody wanted to have anything to
do with me. Couldnt be part of the
community, yknow? So I gured, 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 dia-
lects near perfect, dont you think?
Absolutely. I was positive you were
from Kansai, I said.
If Id put as much eort into study-
ing 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 o. My dad worked for
a pharmaceutical company and my
mom was a librarian. Our house was
small and our car a cream-colored Co-
rolla. 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 ad-
dress. 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.
U 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 uent 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 ac-
tually from Kansai.
Another reason I stopped using
Kansai dialect was that I wanted to be-
come a totally dierent person.
When I moved from Kansai to Tokyo
to start college, I spent the whole bul-
let-train ride mentally reviewing my
eighteen years and realized that almost
everything that had happened to me
was pretty embarrassing. Im not exag-
gerating. 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 shame-
ful, 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 stu it away in some drawer. Or
else light it on re 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 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 per-
son. Jettisoning Kansai dialect was a
practical (as well as symbolic) method
of accomplishing this. Because, in the
nal 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 em-
barrassing? 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 Co-
rolla? 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
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.
T he rst time I heard Kitaru sing
Yesterday with those crazy lyrics
he was in the bath at his house in
Denenchofu (which, despite his de-
scription, 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 re-
cent model). Whenever Kitaru came
home, he immediately dropped every-
thing 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 mak-
ing 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 copy-
right, 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 bathwa-
ter 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 Yes-
terday?
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 sion that he was lacking in personality naturally became a couple, and every-
says exactly the same thing. Arent you or was wishy-washy. But the moment body around us approved. Our friends,
a little young to be, like, the voice of he opened his mouth this over-all pos- our parents, our teachers. A tight little
wisdom or something? itive eect collapsed like a sandcastle couple, always together.
But youve been cramming for two under an exuberant Labrador retriever. Kitaru clasped his hands to illustrate.
years. Arent you getting tired of it? People were dismayed by his Kansai di- If wed both gone straight into col-
For sure. Of course I wanna be in alect, which he delivered, as if that lege, our lives wouldve been all warm
college as soon as I can. werent enough, in a slightly piercing, and fuzzy, but I blew the entrance exam
Then why not study harder? high-pitched voice. The mismatch with big time, and here we are. Im not sure
Yeahwell, he said, drawing the his looks was overwhelming; even for why, exactly, but things kept on getting
words out. If I could do that, Id be me it was, at rst, a little too much to worse. Im not blaming anyone for
doing it already. handle. thatits all my fault.
College is a drag, I said. I was to- Hey, Tanimura, arent you lonely I listened to him in silence.
tally disappointed once I got in. But not without a girlfriend? Kitaru asked me So I kinda split myself in two,
getting in would be even more of a the next day. Kitaru said. He pulled his hands apart.
drag. I dont deny it, I told him. How so? I asked.
Fair enough, Kitaru said. I got no Then how about you go out with He stared at his palms for a moment
comeback for that. my girl? and then spoke. What I mean is part
So why dont you study? I couldnt understand what he meant. of mes, like, worried, yknow? I mean,
Lack of motivation, he said. What do you meango out with her? Im going to some fricking cram school,
Motivation? I said. Shouldnt Shes a great girl. Pretty, honest, studying for the fricking entrance exams,
being able to go out on dates with your smart like all getout. You go out with while Erikas having a ball in college.
girlfriend be good motivation? her, you wont regret it. I guarantee it. Playing tennis, doing whatever. Shes
There was a girl Kitaru had known Im sure I wouldnt, I said. But got new friends, is probably dating
since they were in elementary school why would I go out with your girl- some new guy, for all I know. When I
together. A childhood girlfriend, you friend? It doesnt make sense. think of all that, I feel left behind. Like
could say. Theyd been in the same Cause youre a good guy, Kitaru my minds in a fog. You know what I
grade in school, but unlike him she had said. Otherwise I wouldnt suggest mean?
got into Sophia University straight out it. Erika and I have spent almost our I guess so, I said.
of high school. She was now majoring whole lives together so far. We sort of But another part of me is, like
in French literature and had joined the
tennis club. Hed shown me a photo-
graph of her, and she was stunning. A
beautiful gure 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 meet-
ings were more like interviews than
regular dates. Theyd have tea and
catch up on what theyd each been
doing. Theyd hold hands and ex-
change a brief kiss, but that was as far
as it went.
Kitaru wasnt what youd call hand-
some, 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, well-
brought-up city boy. His only possible
defect was that his face, a bit too slen-
der and delicate, could give the impres-
MY OLD FLAME BY MIRANDA JULY
O 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 Port-
land all the time that summer. Were
they young or old? Couldnt tell.
Were they from the present, or an-
other 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
nger pointing thataway. I began to
hang around. Not comfortably or with
any panacheI just couldnt seem to
stay away from the nger, 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, Gil-
bert Blythe in Anne of Green Ga-
bles. I had searched for these boys in
real life, but they always turned out to
be assholes. Here, nally, was one who
really understood the magic of boyish-
ness, from a girls point of view: snub-
nosed, gallant, and full of aw shucks.
She also had a kind of enormous
Mists 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 oppy barrel.
Are you scamming on my girl-
friend? she asked atly.
My face turned red; I felt slapped.
And awakened. They were girl-
friends. 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 min-
utes 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-ve minutes, I very, very,
VERY slowly sent my hand on the long
trek across the sheets. My ngers
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
sted her. I did. I sted her as if I
sted 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 under-
standing 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 Christ-
mas, I had dropped out and was liv-
ing 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 house-
mate, 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 disbe-
lief. 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
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
of her, tears streaming, before walk-
ing 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,

and now she was abandoning me, be-
fore I even knew how to walk or care
for myself.
Meanwhile, Carla and I were hav-
ing trouble paying our rent. As far as
we could see, the only solution was
for one of us to go downtown im-
mediately, 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 o
for money didnt really solve any-
thing, 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 apart-
ment. 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, trem-
bling.
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 day-
light now. So I lay in bed, high on sto-
len 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 nally moved
out and I stumbled into the beautiful,
vacant corner apartment, there were
just three objects left behind: two wine-
glasses and a bamboo cane. I threw
them in a dumpster. It was my apart-
ment now. I traced the entire perime-
ter of my new home with one nger
while chanting the lyrics to what would
become my rst 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 col-
lege, get married, were this wonder-
ful 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 com-
fortable. It might be better to go our
separate ways for a while, and if we
nd 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 gure, if shes gonna go out with
other guys, its better if its you. Cause I
know you. And you can gimme, like,
updates and stu.
That didnt make any sense to me,
though I admit I was interested in the
idea of meeting Erika. I also wanted to
nd out why a beautiful girl like her
would want to go out with a weird char-
acter like Kitaru. Ive always been a lit-
tle 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 o, fondle her, touch her,
whatever. If it were some other girl, I
dont think Id have a problem, but put-
ting 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 o, you pic-
ture 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 mas-
turbation 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.
T he three of usme, Kitaru, and his
girlfriend, whose full name was
Erika Kuritanimet on a Sunday af-
ternoon in a coee shop near Denen-
chofu 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 up-
town 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 eortless 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 rst
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 per-
son 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 dis-
crimination, Kitaru said. Cultures are
all equal, yknow. Tokyo dialects no
better than Kansai.
Maybe they are equal, Erika
said, but since the Meiji Restora-
tion the way people speak in Tokyo
has been the standard for spoken Jap-
anese. I mean, has anyone ever trans-
THE 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 Ku-
ritani changed the subject.
Theres a girl in my tennis club
whos from Ashiya, too, she said, turn-
ing to me. Eiko Sakurai. Do you hap-
pen to know her?
I do, I said. Eiko Sakurai was a
tall, gangly girl, whose parents operated
a large golf course. Stuck-up, at-
chested, with a funny-looking nose and
a none too wonderful personality. Ten-
nis 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 terri-
ble 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 see-
ing. Finally, she spoke. So youre say-
ing its O.K. for me to go out with an-
other 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 coee spoon in my hand, studying
the design on it, like a museum curator
scrutinizing an artifact from an Egyp-
tian tomb.
Cultural exchange? Whats that sup-
posed to mean? she asked Kitaru.
Like, bringing in another viewpoint
might not be so bad for us . . .
Thats your idea of cultural ex-
change?
Yeah, what I mean is . . .
All right, Erika Kuritani said
rmly. 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 recom-
mended we do this, Tanimura-kun,
lets go on a date. Sounds like fun.
When are you free?
I couldnt speak. Not being able to
nd 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 lms, but, other than that, any-
things ne.
Shes really a scaredy-cat, Kitaru
said to me. When we were kids and
went to the haunted house at Kor-
akuen, she had to hold my hand and
After the movie lets have a nice
meal together, Erika said, cutting him
o. 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 coee 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 nish 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 coee on the
table and stood up. Its an important
report, I explained, so I really cant put
it o. 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 coee 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.
T hat Saturday, Erika and I met in
Shibuya and saw a Woody Allen
lm 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, mod-
erately priced restaurant. Subdued
lighting, candles on the tables. (Most
Italian restaurants at the time had can-
dles 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
rst date to have (assuming you could
actually call this a date). The movie
wed just seen, our college life, hob-
bies. 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 girl-
friend 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: peo-
ple 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 some-
where, but he has his heart set on
Waseda. He doesnt listen to me, or to
his parents. Its become like an obses-
sion 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 ele-
mentary 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
o 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 rst try.
Maybe luck had been on my side.
Im very fond of Aki-kun, she con-
tinued. 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 re-
ally dont. At rst I thought it was a
joke, but it isnt. Hes dead serious.
I think he wants to have a dierent
personality, to be somebody dierent
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 o a piece the size of a large postage
stamp. She chewed it thoughtfully be-
fore she spoke.
Tanimura-kun, Im asking this be-
cause 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 nally. People have dierent ways
of getting what they want. Kitaru likes
you a lotthats a givenbut your re-
lationship 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? O.K.lets get our stories straight, and our
I shook my head. To tell the truth, characters sympathetic and well drawn.
I dont really understand it. Ive never
experienced it myself. Im just saying t t
that could be one possibility.
Sometimes it feels like he doesnt
have any sexual desire for me. sides Aki-kun, she said. A boy in my that Im going out with someone else?
Im sure he does. But it might be a tennis club whos a year ahead of me. I imagine hell understand how you
little embarrassing for him to admit it. It was my turn to remain silent. feel, I said.
But were twenty, adults already. I truly love Aki-kun, and I dont You think so?
Old enough not to be embarrassed. think I could ever feel the same way I do, I said.
Some people might mature a little about anybody else. Whenever Im I gured that Kitaru would under-
faster than others, I said. away from him I get this terrible ache in stand her confusion, because he was
Erika thought about this. She my chest, always in the same spot. Its feeling the same thing. In that sense,
seemed to be the type who always tack- true. Theres a place in my heart re- they really were on the same wave-
les things head on. served just for him. But at the same length. Still, I wasnt entirely condent
I think Kitaru is honestly seeking time I have this strong urge inside me to that he would calmly accept what she
something, I went on. In his own try something else, to come into contact was actually doing (or might be doing).
way, at his own pace. Its just that I with all kinds of people. Call it curios- He didnt seem that strong a person to
dont think hes grasped yet what it is. ity, a thirst to know more. Its a natural me. But it would be even harder for him
Thats why he cant make any progress. emotion and I cant suppress it, no if she kept a secret from him or lied to
If you dont know what youre looking matter how much I try. him.
for, its not easy to look for it. I pictured a healthy plant outgrow- Erika stared at the candle ame ick-
Erika raised her head and stared me ing the pot it had been planted in. ering in the breeze from the A.C. I often
right in the eye. The candle ame was When I say Im confused, thats have the same dream, she said. Aki-kun
reected in her dark eyes, a small, bril- what I mean, Erika said. and I are on a ship. A long journey on a
liant point of light. It was so beautiful I Then you should tell Kitaru exactly large ship. Were together in a small
had to look away. how you feel, I said. If you hide it from cabin, its late at night, and through the
Of course, you know him much him that youre seeing someone else, porthole we can see the full moon. But
better than I do, I averred. and he happens to nd out anyway, itll that moon is made of pure, transparent
She sighed again. hurt him. You dont want that. ice. And the bottom half of it is sunk
Actually, Im seeing another guy be- But can he accept that? The fact in the sea. That looks like the moon,
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 83
MY OLD FLAME BY TOBIAS WOLFF
W hen I was fteen, I cut o the last joint of my left
ring nger 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 ngernail, 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 Se-
attle, 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 with-
out exchanging a word, while Terry did the same with Pat-
tys 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 nally got there, we found girls, all
right, but the pretty ones in our class got picked o by ju-
niors and seniors, and the older ones wouldnt look at us.
That was the situation as I woke one afternoon with
two-thirds of a nger and a bandage as big as a boxing glove
to nd 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 oating on a mor-
phine 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 ve others on the ward, all men. Joelle sat on
my bed and oered 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 o the road. The day was
warm and she wore cuto 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 be-
hind the house, and sat on a fallen tree. She was quiet now,
for the rst time, facing me. I understood that she was wait-
ing. 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, ask-
ing 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 trac 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.
CHRISTIAN GRALINGEN
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 o his own nger?
And I didnt really look like Dr. Kildare.
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 reap-
pear. 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.
I answered all his questions about
the date. About the Woody Allen lm
(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 under-
wear she wore (how would I know
that?), what we talked about. I said
nothing about her going out with an-
other 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 nally. Ive been
seeing a therapist since the end of junior
high. My parents and teachers, they all
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 Kan-
sai dialect, then you should. Go for it.
You dont want to study for the en-
trance 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 some-
thing, 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 per-
sonality. Thats what Im tryin to say.
But Erika is a great girl, I said.
She really cares about you. Whatever

W hen I saw Kitaru at the coee

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 rst 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 nally.
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.
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 throw-
ing 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 think-
ing. 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 denitely not normal, I
said.
Like what?
Like your Kansai dialect.
You could be right, Kitaru admit-
ted. 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.
you do, dont let her go. Youll never
nd such a great girl again.
I know. You dont gotta tell me,
Kitaru said. But just knowing isnt
gonna help.
A bout two weeks later, Kitaru quit
working at the coee shop. I say
quit, but he just suddenly stopped
showing up. He didnt get in touch,
didnt mention anything about taking
time o. And this was during our busi-
est 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 o so com-
pletely like that. I didnt have any other
friends in Tokyo.
The last two days before he disap-
peared, 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 some-
how I couldnt bring myself to. I gured
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
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 85
reason I kept thinking about my ex-
girlfriend. 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.
I 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, ani-
mated 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
He looks so natural.
black-tie event, and I had put on a dark
suit and tie for the occasion. She was a
rep for the advertising rm 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 attering me.
But what Id said was neither a lie
nor attery. She was too gorgeous for
me to be seriously interested in her.
Back then, and even now.
I called that coee 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 briey 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 mar-
ried 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 mar-
ried. She was the rst 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, accord-
ing 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 o. 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 sud-
denly announced that hed had it with
studying for the entrance exams and he
went o 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 res-
taurant 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 her-
self together. We saw a Woody Allen
movie. Which one was it again?
I told her.
That was a great movie.
 I agreed. It was denitely 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 oended.
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 oended. 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 pi-
anist 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 rst time
you slept with him was soon after we
had our date in Shibuya?
She turned a page in her mental re-
cord book. I think so. About a week
after that. I remember that whole time
pretty well. It was the rst time for me.
And Kitaru was pretty quick on the
uptake, I said, gazing into her eyes.
She looked down and ngered the
pearls on her necklace one by one, as if
making sure that they were all still
there. She gave a small sigh, perhaps re-
membering 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 sure if these are actually what Kitaru
long way around. I always take a round- sang. As time passes, memory, inevita-
about way. bly, reconstitutes itself.
Thats what we all do: endlessly take When I was twenty or so, I tried sev-
the long way around. I wanted to tell her eral times to keep a diary, but I just
this, but kept silent. Blurting out apho- couldnt do it. So many things were
risms like that was another one of my happening around me back then that I
problems. could barely keep up with them, let
Is Kitaru married? alone stand still and write them all
As far as I know, hes still single, down in a notebook. And most of these
Erika said. At least, he hasnt told me things werent the kind that made me
that he got married. Maybe the two of 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 Yester-
day scenes and conversations with him
well up in my mind. The two of us talk-
ing while he soaked in the bath at his
us are the type who never make a go of home in Denenchofu. Talking about
marriage. the Hanshin Tigers batting order, how
Or maybe youre just taking a troublesome certain aspects of sex could
roundabout way of getting there. be, how mind-numbingly boring it was to
Perhaps. study for the entrance exams, how emo-
Do you still dream about the moon tionally rich Kansai dialect was. And I re-
made of ice? I asked. member the strange date with Erika Ku-
Her head snapped up and she stared ritani. And what Erikaover the candlelit
at me. Very calmly, slowly, a smile table at the Italian restaurantconfessed.
spread across her face. A completely It feels as though these things happened
natural, open smile. just yesterday. Music has that power to re-
You remember my dream? she vive memories, sometimes so intensely
asked. that they hurt.
For some reason, I do. But when I look back at myself at
Even though its someone elses age twenty what I remember most is
dream? being alone and lonely. I had no girl-
Dreams are the kind of things you friend to warm my body or my soul, no
can borrow and lend out, I said. friends I could open up to. No clue
Thats a wonderful idea, she said. what I should do every day, no vision
Someone called her name from be- for the future. For the most part, I re-
hind me. It was time for her to get back mained hidden away, deep within my-
to work. self. Sometimes Id go a week without
I dont have that dream anymore, talking to anybody. That kind of life
she said in parting. But I still remem- continued for a year. A long, long year.
ber every detail. What I saw, the way I Whether this period was a cold winter
felt. I cant forget it. I probably never that left valuable growth rings inside
will. me, I cant really say. At the time I felt
as if every night I, too, were gazing out
W hen Im driving and the Beatles
song Yesterday comes on the
radio, I cant help but hear those crazy
a porthole at a moon made of ice. A
transparent, eight-inch-thick, frozen
moon. But I watched that moon alone,
lyrics Kitaru crooned in the bath. And unable to share its cold beauty with
I regret not writing them down. The anyone.
lyrics were so weird that I remembered Yesterday
them for a while, but gradually my Is two days before tomorrow,
memory started to fade until nally I The day after two days ago.
had nearly forgotten them. All I recall (Translated, from the Japanese,
now are fragments, and Im not even by Philip Gabriel.)
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 87
88 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 89
90 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 91
 FICTION

92 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MARCELLE
I. GERMINATION
T he land looked attened, as if by a
rolling pin. All aspects, all direc-
tions. On either side of Highway 62, the
sand cast up visions of evaporated civi-
lizations, dissolved castles that lay bur-
ied 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 ume
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
rst 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 re-
move a pebble from his shoe, a phantom
that he repeatedly failed to nd. Neither
disclosed these private discomforts.
Each wanted the other to have the illu-
sion 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 re-
pair, or the span of the sky, a cheerfully
vacant blue dome, the deserts hallucina-
tory choreography achieved through
stillness, brightness, darkness, dis-
tanceand 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 dehy-
dration six miles from where they were
standing. They congratulated them-
selves 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 al-
ready 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
unxed, a line from Melville, was worlds burst hourglass spilled its con-
scraped in red ink across the veins of his
arm. The girl, Angie, was three years
sober and still struggling to nd her
mooring on dry land. On their rst date
they had decided to run away together.
Andy bought a stupidly huge knife;
Angie had a tiny magenta ashlight sus-
pended 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 begin-
ning. 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 fty dollars
left now. Less, less, less. At each rest
stop, Angie uncapped the ballpoint, did
some nauseating accounting. Every-
thing was going pretty fast. By the time
they reached Nevada, they had spent
more than eight hundred dollars on
gasoline.
N 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 be-
hind a barbecue restaurant and slept in-
side a cloud of meat smells. The experi-
ence still has the sizzle of a recent hell in
Angies memory. Will they do this every
night? She wants to believe her boy-
friend when he tells her they are gypsies,
two moths drunk on light, darting from
the ower of one red sunset to the next;
but several times shes dozed o in the
passenger seat and awakened from trai-
torous dreams of her old bedroom, soft
pillows.
After dinner, Andy drives drowsily,
weaving slightly. Sand, sand, sandall
that pulverized time. Aeons ago, the
tents 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 im-
plied question. Thirteen-foot saguaro
cacti look like enormous roadside hitch-
hikers, comical and menacing. Andy is
drifting o, 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, re-
duced immediately into memory. The
radio blares songs about other humans
doomed or lost loves, or their bombas-
tic 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 unex-
pected 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 fty-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. Joshuas is in bloom right now. You
The sign reads Entering Joshua
Tree National Park.
Quietly, they roll under the insub-
stantial archway of the rainbow. Andy
slows the Charger. He wants to record
this transition, which feels important.
Usually, you can only catch the Sas-
quatch blur of your own legendary mo-
ments 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 Eng-
lish 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 sup-
port two lovers in hot pursuit of each
other, this is the place; everywhere
you look, youll nd monuments to fe-
vered longing. Craters beg for rain all
year long. Moths haunt the succulents,
winging sticky pollen from ower to
ower.
Near the campground entrance, they
are met by a blue-eyed man of indeter-
minate 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 red-
den with pleasure.
Up close, the ranger has the unnerv-
ingly direct gaze and polished bristle-
cone skin of so many outdoorsmen. A
large bee lifts o a cactus, walks the rim
of his hat, and he doesnt ick it o, a
show of tolerance that is surely for their
benet.
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
Warren Peak. Now Joshua woodland
think youre in love? The moths are
smitten. In all my years, Ive seen noth-
ing to rival it. Its a goddam orgy in the
canyon.
It turns out that their visit has coin-
cided with a tremendous blossoming,
one that is occurring all over the South-
west. Highly erotic, the ranger says,
with his creepy bachelor smile. A record
number of greenish-white owers have
erupted out of the Joshuas. Pineapple-
huge, 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. gury. Shes thinking: Dr. Seuss. Timo-
Dire? the girl asks. And learns
from the ranger that the Joshua trees
may be on the brink of extinction. Bot-
anists believe they are witnessing a cor-
dinated 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 owers 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 rst vows and get married? looks exotic next to the etiolated grasses.
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
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 hilar-
iously alien. Like Satans telephone
poles. Theyre primitive, irregularly
limbed, their branches swooning up and
down, sparsely covered with syringe-
thin 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 au-
thy 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 informa-
tion to share on the ghostly Leap. So
he could not warn her about the real
danger posed to humans by the pulsat-
ing 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 fantas-
tic sum of itself.
Angie feels dizzy. As she leans out to
steady herself against a nearby Joshua
tree, her nger is pricked by something
sharp. One of the plants daggerlike
spines. Bewildered, she stares at the spot
of red on her nger. Running blood
Angie Gonzalez, wild child from
Nestor, Pennsylvania, pricks her nger
on a desert dagger and becomes an en-
tirely 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 pu-
pils, a tarantula watches Angies skin
drink in the danger: the pollen from the
Joshua mixes with the red blood on her
nger. 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, inter-
kingdom 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 con-
sciousness, where it lives on, intertwined
with its host.
Instinct guides its passage now,
through the engulng darkness of An-
gies mind. Programmed with the ur-
gent need to plug itself into some earth,
the plants spirit goes searching for terra
rma.
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, daz-
zling 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 solder-
ing iron, an acute and narrowly focussed
heat climbs her spine.
At rst, 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 eye-
stalks, peers out:
Standing there, in the mirror of the
desert, are a hundred versions of itself.
Here is its home: a six-armed hulk,
brous 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 oats throughout the alien
form. It concentrates itself behind An-
gies 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, ares
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 frag-
ile tenancy is threatened: Angie sneezes,
rubs at her temple. Unaware that this is
an immunologic reex, 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, lled with
anarchic wildowers and bordered by
Pennsylvania hemlock.
Then the pain dismantles the mem-
ory; she holds her head in her hand,
cries for Andy.
This is the plant, ghting back.
The girl moans.
Andy, you dont have any medicine?
Advil . . . something?
The vegetable invader feels the hor-
ror of its imprisonment. Its new host is
walking away from the Joshua-tree for-
est, 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 conscious-
ness, the tree begins to grow.
Andy has no clue that he is now
party to a love triangle. What he per-
ceives is that his girlfriend is acting very
strangely.
Do you need some water? Want to
sit and rest awhile?
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 rst. The green headache.
Psychosis, at 4 A . M ., when its
power over her crests and she lies awake
terried. Torpor or sluggishness
when it ebbs.
Had you told her, The invader is
sinking its roots throughout you, tether-
ing itself to you with a thousand spectral
feelerswho knows what she would
have done?
T 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 Mo-
rongo 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 stuI
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.
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 under-
wear 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 dis-
tance northwest of Yucca Valley they
would have reached the on-ramp to
I-15 North and, beyond that, the pin-
ball magic of the tollbooths, that multi-
verse of possible futures connected by
Americas interstate system.
For the next two hours, they ght in-
side the car.
Round clusters of leaves shake loose
in front of her eyes, greeny-white blos-
soms. 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 Penn-
sylvania, 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 con-
veyance, get it back to Pennsylvania.
Indenitely, the boy hears himself
say. Her word, for what she claims to
want.
They decide to pay the weekly rate

A 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 ghts him
o. Her movements seem to him bal-
letic, unusually nimble; yet, walking
across the room, she pauses at the odd-
est 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, star-
ing not at the motel TV but at her.
Lets turn it o?
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 ung open
96 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
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 talk-
ing about?
The boy scowls down at his arm,
ipped 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 re-
reads his own tattoo: Ever unxed.
For some reason, he nds that he can-
not quite blame the girl for ruining
things. Its the plan he hates, their excel-
lent 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
at the motel. They go for walks. They
go for drives. Her favorite thing seems
to be sitting in a dry wreck of a tur-
quoise Jacuzzi they discover on the
edge of town, some luckless home-
steaders abandoned pleasure tub. And
he likes this too, actuallysitting in
the tub, he nds it easy to pretend that
they arent trapped in a tourist town,
that they are sailing toward an else-
where. And he loves what happens to
her face right at sunset over the innite
desert. Moonlight, however, aects her
in a way that he nds indescribably
frightening. The change is in the eyes,
he thinks.
II. EMERGENCE
T 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 chaueured 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, co-
inciding with the Joshua trees dor-
mancy inside of Angie, which lasts from
April to mid-May. In the park, the
Joshuas blossoms have all dropped o,
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 stfuls of I wont lie. It doesnt look good.
tourist cash, reeking of Fireball and Pine
Sol. O.K., he thinks. Oh, thank God. t t
Were getting back to normal.
Then one day, after a spectacular
freak thundershower, Angie tells him times she feels a lump in her throat that nia. Its a liberating, terrifying feeling.
that he needs to go home. Or away. she cant swallow, and its easy to pre- If she leaves himif he leaves her
Elsewhere, a bedroom other than the tend that this is a vestige of who she what then?
motel. used to be, her Pennsylvania history,
She feels terrible, she doesnt know
what she is saying.
Get me out of it, the plant keeps
now compacted into a hard ball she can-
not access or dissolve; for Andys sake,
she wishes she could be that girl again.
N ow the plant is catching on to
something.
In its three months of incubation, it
throbbing like a muscle in Angies mind. Dimly she is aware that she used to grows exponentially in its capacity for
A rustling sound in her inner ear, the crave travel, adventure. She can remem- thought. Gradually, the plant learns to
plants footsteps. A throaty appetite ber the pressure of Andys legs tangled think blue, to smell rain through a nose.
makes her imagine stung herself with around her, but not what she held in her Unfurling its languorous intelli-
hot mouthfuls of desert sand. Once mind. The world has grown unwieldy, gence, it looks out through her eyes,
Andy leaves her, shell have a chance to and there are days now when the only hunting for meaning the way it used to
inspect her interior, gure out whats thing that appeals to her is pulling up seek out deep sun, jade dew, hunting
gone haywire. her T-shirt and going belly at on the now for the means of imagining its own
Lets go to Reno, Andy says. He burning pink sand beyond the motel life, comprehending what it has become
feels quite desperate now, spinning the walkway. inside the girl.
radio dial through seas of static. His One night, Angie turns to face the The Joshua tree discovers that it loves
great success this week at work was for- wall. Golf-ball-size orange-and-yellow church! Plugging ones knees into the
malizing, via generous pours of straight owers pattern their wallpaper. Plus purple risers, lifting to enter a song. The
gin, a new friendship with Jerry the water stains from ancient leaks. She has apple-red agony painted onto the
Mailman, who has given him access to never noticed this before. Under the cheeks of the sallow man. All the light
his boxy truck. inuence of the Joshua, she sees these that lls the church drifts dreamily over
Go to Reno. Win big. Ill be right water stains as beautiful. That Ror- the Joshua tree, which stretches to its
here. I dont want to leave the desert. schach is more interesting than TV. fullest extension inside the girl during
Why doesnt she? The girl grows What do you see? she asks the boy. the slow-crawling time of the service. It
hysterical whenever Andy drives toward Im not in the mood, he says, hav- approves of this place, which resembles
the freeway that might carry them away ing at last been granted the opportunity a massive seed hull. Deeply, extrapolat-
from the Mojave. She feels best when to have a mood, after days and hours ing from its forays into the earth, it un-
they are close to Warren Peak and the spent trying to rekindle her appetite for derstands the architecture and the im-
Black Rock Canyon campground. pleasure, for danger. He realizes that he pulse. Craving stillness, these humans
For the next two weeks, she keeps has cut all ties for her, that he has noth- have evolved this stronghold.
encouraging Andy to leave her. Some- ing he wants to return to in Pennsylva- How was it? Andy asks, picking
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 97
her up. He refused to go with her. Sun-
days are his day o. Delicious God-
bread? 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
oers. 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.
S 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; some-
times they are twin vacuums. This is al-
Im so sorry, I never meant for you to nd out this way.
ready pretty scary. But tonight, when he
looks over, he sees the bad light ooding
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-year-
old 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 Bab-
son feels punctured, seen.
Jane! Timmy screams for his
mother, calling for her by her rst name
for the rst time. Jane, Jane! Its look-
ing at me again!
waiting for a signal from the root
O n her good days, Angie tries to
battle the invader. She thinks
shes ghting against lethargy. She
does jumping jacks in the motel court-
yard, calls her best friend in Juneau
from the motel pay phone and anx-
iously tries to reminisce about their
shitty high-school band. They sing an
old song together, and she feels almost
normal.
But, increasingly, she nds herself
powerless to resist the warmth that
spreads through her chest, the midday
paralysis, the hunger for something
slow and deep and unnameable. Some
winking emptily at the nearby Joshuas.
maid has drawn the blackout curtains.
One light bulb dangles. The dark re-
minds Angie of packed earth, moisture.
What she interprets as sprawling emo-
tion is the Joshua tree. Here was its
birth, in the sands of Black Rock Can-
yon. 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 bres. She
stands in the quiet womb of the room,
brain, the ancient network from which
the invader has been exiled. She lifts
her arms until they are fully extended,
her ngers 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.
H ow old such stories must be, leg-
ends 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 Pana-
mint 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 pol-
len, 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,
 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 dicult to nd the mur-
derer, since a girl was huddled a few feet
from the warm body, sobbing quietly.
A crime of passion, the young
ocer, who tended to take a romantic
view of motives, murmured. The griz-
zled 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 eshy chest of her lover, feeling
deeper and deeper for moisture.
T he Joshua trees greatest victory
over the couple comes four months
into their stay: they sign a lease. A bun-
galow on the outskirts of the national
park, with a fence to keep out the coy-
otes 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 aord this, he tells the head feels green and her bones begin
girl, speaking less to her than to the
quiet trees, wanting some court stenog-
rapher in the larger cosmos to record his
protest.
The landlord, who is a native of
Yucca Valley, is taking the young cou-
ple through the calendar. His name is
Desert John, and he oers 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 rat-
tlesnakes. He tells Angie to hydrate ag-
gressively, especially if shes trying to
get pregnant. (Angie starshes a hand
over her belly button and blanches; no-
body 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: ve 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 sur-
vival strategies, in a country hostile to
growth? These desert plants, so osten-
tatiously alive in the Mojave, have got
zero on Andy.
III. ESTABLISHMENT
O nce, and only once, the three of
them achieve a perfect union.
It takes some doing, but Andy
nally 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 fron-
tier-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 im-
mensity of the Mojave. Through sur-
veying 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
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
oor. 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 An-
dys attention to the claret cup of the
moon. It looks red, she says. And it
does. Sitting on a strang-
ers 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 press-
ing 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 dis-
lodge the ghostly tree. So it renews its
purchase on the girl, roots into her
memory.
Remember our rst 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 phe-
nomenon. It is the success of the invad-
100 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
ing plant, which seeks only to anchor it-
self in the past. Why move forward?
Why move at all?
I
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 rst, when the girl suggested that
they drive out to the park, he felt an-
noyed, 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 or-
ganized itself into a series
of surprises, the rst of
which was his own sharp
joy; now he nds 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 rst hike to Warren Peak. For our
anniversary, she says coolly, although
this rationale rings hollow, reminds
Andy of his own bullshit justications
for taking out a lease on a desert bun-
galow. 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 owering
throughout her in the densest multipli-
cation 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 diculty navigating
down the dark path; the little ash-
light around her neck is bouncing like
a leashed green sun. Her smile, when
she turns to nd Andy, is so huge that
he wonders if he wasnt the one to
suggest this night hike to her. Some-
thing 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
nger 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 oc-
topuses, ailing their spastic arms, when
the girl catches his wrist in her ngers.
Can we?
Why not?
Why didnt they, Andy wonders,
back then? The rst time they walked
this loop, they were preparing to do
plenty. Andy unzips his jeans, shakes the
caked-black denim o like solid dust.
Angie is wearing a dress. Their naked
legs tangle together in a pale, eshy echo
of the static contortionists that surround
their blanket. Now the Joshua tree loves
her. It grows and it owers.
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 des-
ert is wrinkling and owing 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 un-
aware 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 st 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.
W 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 over-
come by a ood of memories.
Hey, Angie? he asks, stroking the
ne dark hairs along her arm. Remem-
ber how we met?
One of the extraordinary adaptive
powers of our species is its ability to
transmute a stray encounter into a rst
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 sponta-
neously altered.
He remembers the song that was
playing. He remembers ordering an-
other round he could not aorda
freezing Yuengling for himself, ginger
ale for her. They were sitting on the
same wooden stools, battered tripods,
that had supported the plans and com-
mitments of the young in that town for
generations.
The Joshua tree exes its roots. Des-
perately, it tries to x its life to her life.
In the human mind, a Joshuas spirit can
be destroyed by the wind and radiation
uxes 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 ngers 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 rst 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 get-
away 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 com-
plex crystals that have formed over millen-
nia in the desert sky. Few of these camp-
ers 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 re
pit. Shag covers the ve-foot cactus be-
hind him, which makes it look like a gi-
ants mummied 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 ames, 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, get-
ting back on the endlessly branching in-
terstate. 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 own? 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, squint-
ing through the windshield. He is wait-
ing for the girl to emerge from the shad-
ows, 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 relight. Those roots go deep.
I wouldnt count a tree like that out.
nyr.kr/thisweekinfiction
Karen Russell on The Bad Graft.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 101

THE CRITICS
BOOKS
GHOSTS IN THE STACKS
Finding the forgotten books.
BY CHRISTINE SMALLWOOD
I 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 overidentied with, the en-
terprise. Alongside the tote bags you can
nd T-shirts, magnets, and buttons em-
blazoned 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-in-
spired paint-chip colors (a charcoal Fu-
neral Suit for The Loser; a mossy Gra-
ham Greene). The merchandising of
reading has a curiously undierentiated
avor, as if what you read mattered less
than that you read. In this climate of em-
battled bibliophilia, a new subgenre of
books about books has emerged, a mix of
literary criticism, autobiography, self-help,
and immersion journalism: authors under-
take reading stunts to prove that read-
inganythingstill matters.
I thought of my adventure as O-
Road or Extreme Reading, Phyllis Rose
writes in The Shelf: From LEQ to
LES, the latest stunt book, in which she
102 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 pil-
low, 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 rst writer to set o 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 suered seri-
ous illness and had a death in the fam-
ily. In Howards End Is on the Land-
ing (2010), Susan Hill limited herself
to reading only the books that she al-
ready owned. Such extreme reading
requires special personal traits: grit, stam-
ina, a penchant for self-improvement,
and a dash of perversity.
Rose ts the bill. A retired English
professor, she is the author of popular bi-
ographies of Virginia Woolf and Jose-
phine Baker, as well as The Year of
Reading Proust (1997), a memoir of her
family life and the manners and mores of
the Key West literary scene. Her best
book is Parallel Lives (1983), a group
biography of ve Victorian marriages.
(It is lled 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 Ee Gray for so long that
she sues for divorce.) Rose is consistently
generous, knowledgeable, and chatty,
with a knack for connecting specic
incidents to large social trends. Unlike
many biblio-memoirists, she loves net-
work television and is refreshingly un-
nostalgic about print; in The Shelf she
says that she prefers her e-reader to cer-
tain 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 interchange-
able. It is, on the contrary, irreplaceable.
T he way most of us choose our read-
ing today is simple. Someone posts a
link, and we click on it. We set out to buy
one book, and Amazon suggests that we ABOVE: VASCO MOURO; OPPOSITE: PHOTOGRAPH BY GRANT CORNETT
might like another. Friends and retailers
know our preferences, and urge recom-
mendations 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
oer not only immediate access to books
but strange juxtapositions. Arbitrary
classication breeds surprisesNikolai
Gogol next to William Golding, Clarice
Lispector next to Penelope Lively. The
alphabet has no rationale, agenda, or
preference.
Rose rst gets the idea for The
Shelf while browsing the stacks of
the New York Society Library, on the
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 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 in-
cluded George Washington, Herman
Melville, and Willa Cather, and though
the reference room is open to the pub-
lic, to borrow books you must pay a
yearly membership fee of two hundred
and twenty-ve dollars.) Rose has gone
to the library to get the book Hurri-
cane, by Charles Nordho and James
Norman Hall (of Mutiny on the
Bounty fame), recommended by friends
who were on their own mission to be-
come Nordho and Hall completists.
But when she nds the book she realizes
that she does not want to read it after all.
Looking around idly, she sees dozens of
Nordho 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 lled the shelves? Did they nd
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 can-
not contain any work by a person she
knows. She surveys some two hundred
shelves, and eventually settles on LEQ-
LES. It holds twenty-three books by
eleven authors, including A Hero of Our
104 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
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 ti-
tles, and she will read them in whatever
order fancy suggests. The Shelf reviews
facts about each authors life and summa-
rizes 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 dicult to
escape into the story. Shes on the look-
out for spontaneity, inclusiveness, and
uniquenessthree things that she prizes
in ction, and three of the elements driv-
ing her project, too.
R 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 ca-
nonical to ubiquitous, as has been the
case with Virginia Woolf. (In many En-
glish 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 schol-
ars read have been closely aligned with
changes in how they read.
Close reading established itself as a
practice in the rst half of the twentieth
century, and was a brilliant tool for get-
ting to the heart of lyric poetry; when
professors started assigning dicult
modernist novels, it was good for that,
too. In its purest form, close reading de-
nied that anything outside the words
on the page was relevant. The text of
the day could be everyones common
ground, no matter how dierent the
backgrounds and the experiences of the
students weresomething that had par-
ticular appeal after the G.I. Bill. It also
contributed to the sanctication of the
canon by treating literature like Scrip-
ture, 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 nine-
ties, more books than ever
before were being read se-
riously, 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 Lit-
erature, 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 ig-
nore the fact that his conclusions were
based on only a handful of examples.
The canon of nineteenth-century Brit-
ish 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 as-
sortment, 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 specic mo-
tifs, and mapping and graphing what he
found. In 2010, he stopped reading like
a machine and started using machines.
He and his colleagues undertook dis-
tant reading, feeding thousands of nov-
els into computers and scanning the
texts for patterns. How long are the ti-
tles of the novels written in the eigh-
teen-twenties? Does the word the ap-
pear 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 hex-
agonal 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 innity approachable.
By Morettian standards, The Shelf is a
slaughterhouse by a dierent 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 vis-
ible. Instead of decoding, it
describes. One prominent practitioner,
Sharon Marcus, advocates just read-
ing. 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 ex-
ample, that hermeneuts obsessed with
repressive hypotheses have neglected
the relationships between women in
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 105
Great Expectations.) Sometimes sur-
face readers dont read at all; they might
study how books were recycled for
paper, or examine them for food stains,
or sni 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 some-
one 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.
T o Roses frustration, she doesnt
nd contentment in reading just
any book. The voyage nearly breaks
down with the very rst 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 dog psychic and hasnt read Paley at all.
fact, shes a super-booster. When she
comes across something that she cant
boost, she starts fantasizing that some-
one else will boost it instead. Does some
future literary critic exist who can resur-
rect these books? she asks, hoping
against hope. She feels proud that, by
taking Lerouxs bad books out of the li-
brary, she has made it possible for fu-
ture critics to enjoy them. (Circulation
is one of the best ways to guarantee that
volumes arent deaccessioned in the
winnowing that every library must con-
tinually do.)
Rose comes to appreciate Leroux
when she nds a YouTube clip of his fu-
neral, 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 owers 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 dierent. She
wants to read everything that she can, be-
cause, for her, reading is a way of encoun-
106 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 mem-
oir Fierce Attachments. The rst Ler-
man 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 com-
pared 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 ac-
tually a futurist feminist who has hired a
from small presses, even Web sites that
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, nei-
ther of them is love at rst 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 be-
fore shes satised. (Shackleton, for what
its worth, died on his fourth trip to Ant-
arctica.) She has a hard time settling on
an edition. The rst 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 transpar-
ent pane of glass and the old transla-
tion, which carries her away. But she still
doesnt get Pechorinthe fashionable,
bored ocer who seduces women only to
discard them, and kills his friend in a
duel. So she buys the newest translation
she can nd, a used Modern Library pa-
perback. Its cover designa stock image
of a young man in sunglassesproves
more arresting than the text, perhaps be-
cause the daft notes left behind by the
previous reader become as distracting as
Nabokovs footnotes. Back to the e-ver-
sion she goes. Thats when her son, his
wife, and their new baby come to visit.
Something clicks. Suddenly I under-
stood 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 nds 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, any-
thing, will disappear. We now have the
tools to archive every photograph, docu-
ment every event, and record every chat.
There is a brisk trade in artifacts of
all kindslost singer-songwriters and
B-sides, cult lms, paperback reissues
collect old Web sites. Rose, at least, is
aware that the project to recover every-
thing 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 use-
lessand wonderfully so. There is some-
thing freeing in that uselessness, particu-
larly 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 lled 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 ar-
bitrary as ones own past choices. Read-
ing 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 ex-
amine 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 con-
trol. There are also surprising moments of lightnessthe pro-
tagonists dark humor, the authors unsentimental reverence
for the natural world.

THE ANATOMY LESSON, by Nina Siegal (Nan A. Talese/Double-

day). Painted in 1632, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes
Tulp was Rembrandts rst 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 mod-
ern 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.

THE NOBLE HUSTLE, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday). 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 nds a
coach, works on his sitting muscles with a personal trainer,
and makes midweek bus pilgrimages to Atlantic City, look-
ing for games. Whitehead is modest about his poker ambi-
tions 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 surpris-
ingly 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 IMPOSSIBLE EXILE, 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 ed the Nazisand asks, What
makes the good exile? While Prochniks family was able to
start anew, Zweig, unable to stop looking back over his shoul-
der, was too acutely aware of what hed lost. But, as Prochnik
shows, even those who were able to begin again found the pre-
dicaments of exile harrowing.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014 107

ON TELEVISION
TASTERS CHOICE
High Maintenance and My Mad Fat Diary.
BY EMILY NUSSBAUM
E 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 half-
baked and amateurishmore audi-
tion tapes than real productions. When
I heard about High Maintenance, a
Web series about a pot dealer in New
York City, my expectations were cali-
brated low. Then I watched it. And I
thought, Finally, nally, nally.
Each episode of High Mainte-
nance is between six and fteen min-
utes 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. Al-
though all the current installments
The online series High Maintenance features Ben Sinclair as a shaggy pot dealer.
108 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
episodes are coarsely funnysuch as
were mostly funded by the shows cre-
ators, the actor Ben Sinclair and his
wife, the casting director Katja Blich-
feld, Vimeo has just announced that
the Web site will provide nancial
backing for upcoming ones, as part of a
move into a Netix-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 home-
less-dude roles on Law & Order, plays
the nameless dealer. (Most of his cus-
tomers call him the guy, as in Should
I call the guy?) Sometimes he smokes
with the customers; other times, he
makes a brief drop-o, then leaves.
Thats it, as far as a formula goes. A few
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 compas-
sion, and an O. Henry air of surprise.
In Jonathan, Hannibal Buress
plays a touring comedian negotiating
an on-and-o relationship with his
chucklefucker girlfriend. At rst, 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
diculty of recovering from trauma. In
Rachel, Dan Stevens is a procrastinat-
ing 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 writers-
block funk. Gradually, we realize hes
putting on womens clothing and ex-
ploring cross-dressing sites online. In
the eerie, propulsive Qasim, an iso-
lated life hacker performs a set of ritu-
als that only slowly develop a pattern. In
Trixie, two Airbnb hosts smoke up to
relieve the stress of their awful Euro-
trash guests. These stories have a peep-
hole intensity, a willingness to take
detours and then stay still when the
moment counts, using economically
edited montages to build characters in
a ash. Theres a patient respect for or-
dinary behavior that suggests Frances
Ha or movies by the Duplass broth-
ersand call me Netix, 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 owered 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 oce, 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 appoint-
ment for treatment. When a friend or-
ders pot to spike her appetite, the epi-
sode 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 Mainte-
nance, 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 nal shot of her, without
any of the melodramatic underlining
of conventional TV, brought tears to
my eyes.
Its risky for a critic to compare any-
thing to a short storythe comparison
inevitably makes the thing sound twee
and smugbut the best episodes of
High Maintenance do t the bill:
theyre compressed but condent.
Theyre part of a movement in modern
television which violates simple divi-
sions between comedy and drama,
spearheaded by auteurist series like
Louie, Girls, and the late, lamented
Enlightened. But because High
Maintenance has no obligation to fol-
low any one character, or make a sea-
son-long arc pay o, it can take dierent
risks. Gradually, the episodes build up
a detailed and empathetic image of
a specic 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 play-
ing, sning around corners like a nosy
neighbor.
A few weeks ago, an episode of
Louie featured Sarah Baker as a
fat waitress. Warm and pugnacious, she
irted 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. Be-
cause this was Louie, the episode had
its share of sharp moments, including
some dark bits about Louies own issues
with foodand Baker was terric. But,
despite the actresss best eorts, her
monologue came o as sti and polem-
ical, 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 explor-
ing these themesfrom Roseanne
onand youd run out of fat ngers
ticking o 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 cut-
short season, on ABC Familyo 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 but-
ter, literally. Its also probably no coinci-
dence that a signicant proportion of
them involve teen-age girls, whose bod-
ies 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 nineteen-
eighties, when she was an obese teen-
age Smiths fan, briey institutionalized
in a mental hospital. With morbid, salty
vigorand plenty of side scribbles and
cartoonsEarl described ghts 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 orig-
inal, as well as its frank and funny treat-
ment 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 Pro-
fessor of Horn, Archie, and her hand-
some 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 conicted 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 conrm 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 esh to a garbage can, then
lights it on re. The show doesnt steer
away from these contradictions, or from
Raes streaks of grandiosity and self-
pity, 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 famil-
iar, if youve watched similar teen-cen-
tered dramas: the crushed-on boy who
turns out to be gay, the hot-girl fren-
emy, the diary that is someday going to
be read. The boy who loves Rae is a bit
of a unicorn gure: hes t enough
that girls want him, but hes remarkably
unaected by the opinions of others.
Still, the shows wit keeps the series
fresh, with great visual jokes like a mo-
ment when Rae, alienated in her rst
year of college, walks through a hall of
students wearing Blur T-shirts; her
own shirt reads Oasis. The clever aes-
thetic style replicates a journal: scrib-
bles 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 dierence between
snacking and bingeing, Rae says repeat-
edly. 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
Malecent 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.
F 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 avored 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 lm 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
Malecent: something of a giveaway, you
might think, although the other charac-
ters 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 Tiany
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 com-
mandeered the story. But does she need
a movie to herself ?
110 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 9 & 16, 2014
in a charity smile-a-thon. The contribu-
There is only one reason to see
Malecent, 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,
deance, and ennui, and perhaps reect-
ing 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 over-
tones 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; nding them plucked
o one morning, she gives an over-
whelming howl of loss and grief. More
resilient are the curving horns on her
head; at the screening I attended, the au-
dience was oered 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 Sleep-
ing Beauty, never easy, goes to Elle Fan-
ning, whose expression, tirelessly se-
raphic, suggests that she is raising funds
tor who matters most, though, is Rick
Baker. He was the presiding genius of
movie makeup in pre-digital days, win-
ning seven Oscars, and anybody who
saw Michael Jackson groove with the un-
dead in Thriller was looking at Bakers
handiwork. Jolies cheekbones, which I
thought were designed by Ferrari or
Lockheed, turn out to be Bakers inven-
tion, and you feel them slicing through
the softness of the lm. Try stroking
Malecent on the face, and youd wind
up with bloody ngers. Children will not
forget her in a hurry.
Would that the rest of the movie fol-
lowed suit. The rule is that Disney car-
toons are mettlesome and taut, whereas
Disney live-action projects are a mean-
dering mess; who would honestly choose
Oz the Great and Powerful over Tan-
gled or Frozen? The director of
Malecent 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 prob-
lem, 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 Malecent 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 suer
next to Tchaikovsky, whose ballet score
was so unblushingly pinched by Disney,
in 1959. The result was orchestra-pow-
ered, 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 Won-
derland, in 2010, and Malecents for-
est lair, which should be a haven of om-
inous quietude, is a pulsating trac 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: Malecent, far from being arrested
for stalking a minor, begins to think bet-
ter 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 transforma-
tion would, of course, be wholly in line
with the tender niceties on which, unlike
the Brothers Grimm, we pride ourselves,
and Malecent is hardly alone in its re-
visionist urge. I would wager that it
sprang from a night at the theatre, when
a row of movie executives noted the
crowds ocking 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 Dis-
neys latest version of Cinderella, al-
ready 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
hus and pus? 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.
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 Silver-
man). Also present are Liam Neeson,
as a black-hearted gunslinger called
Clinch, and Charlize Theron, who
plays Anna, his long-suering wife. So,
the cast is in ne 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 o
with a big, generous pastiche of an old-
school Western theme. As it fades, at
the end of the opening credits, the
scene is set.
Then the lm happens. Here are
some of the subjects with which it grap-
ples: death by atulence, the pains of
anal sex (Im going to rest my ass-
hole), and a hatful of diarrhea. Do you
notice a common theme? Picture an en-
tire movie spawned by the campre
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 co-
wrote and co-produced the lm, as well
as starring in ithas joys in store for
those of more cultivated tastes. There
daring us to be disgusted; and, should
we inch, 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 fteen clients a day; the joke
keeps coming back, however, growing
less amusing with each repeat. Thats
the thing about running gags: eventu-
ally, they stagger and collapse. The same
goes for the historical observationsthe
fact that nobody smiled in nineteenth-
century photographs, or Annas admis-
sion that she was a child bride because
I just didnt want to end up like one of
those fteen-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 lm
is not the low strike rate of its zingers, or
what Freudians will diagnose as its anal
xation, 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 Mac-
Farlane think that he is the rst to no-
tice how grim conditions were in the

S et in Arizona, in 1882, A Million

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

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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 nalists,
and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this weeks cartoon, by P. C. Vey, must be received by Sunday,
June 15th. The nalists in the May 26th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the nalists 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 Homan, Los Gatos, Calif.

The good news is we got the piano

Lets hope for some nut allergies. through the doorway.
Nipali Bharani, Seattle, Wash. Leah Yae, Silver Spring, Md.

He says he wont go back in the original packaging.

Sam Reisman, Brooklyn, N.Y.

THIS WEEKS CONTEST