JOURNALISM
You know what journalists do? They take the shit out of your mouth and they throw it in your face.
—Willem de Kooning
portrait by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
In this week’s New Yorker:
February 9, 2023
As usual, the New Yorker’s anniversary issue (cover art by John W. Tomac) is stuffed with extra-good material:
- Rebecca Mead on Lady Glenconner, intimate friend of the late Queen Elizabeth and author of a cheeky memoir called Lady in Waiting;
- Leslie Jamison’s “Why Everybody Feels Like They’re Faking It,” on how the experience of “impostor phenomenon” — first studied by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes at Oberlin College — got pathologized as “impostor syndrome”;
- Lawrence Wright’s long, excellent reported essay on “The Astonishing Transformation of Austin,” which shines a spotlight on several inspiring individuals fighting the good fight in Texas (such as Alan Graham, a former real-estate developer whose Community First! Village has built micro-homes for Austin’s burgeoning unhoused population); and
- David Remnick’s up-close-and-personal profile of Salman Rushdie.
The issue gets off with a bang: the ever-straight-shooting Washington correspondent Amy Davidson Sorkin’s commentary “The New G.O.P. Takes the Country Hostage with the Debt Ceiling.” We’ve been reading a lot on this subject, but rarely with as succinct and astute a paragraph as this:
What’s remarkable, given that the Republicans are basically brainstorming a ransom letter, is how often they insert notes of fiscal sanctimony. “The debt ceiling is literally the nation’s credit card—it’s got a maximum,” Representative Steve Scalise said. It is literally not the nation’s credit card. When a card is maxed out, you can’t keep ordering goods and services, but Congress can, and does. The Treasury is not exceeding the debt limit because it has gone on a rogue shopping spree; it is trying to cover the spending that Congress has already approved. A better analogy would be someone who, faced with financial commitments—utilities, rent, child support—simply decides not to pay.
- David Remnick’s up-close-and-personal profile of Salman Rushdie.
Quote of the day: MULTITASKING
February 9, 2023We used to multitask, and then research came out and said you can’t literally multitask. Your brain can’t have your inbox open next to the memo you’re writing while you’re also on the phone. So everyone, in the first decade of the 2000s, said: I turned off my notifications. I do one thing at a time. But what we didn’t realize is that even when you jump over to check the inbox and come right back, it can be just as damaging as multitasking. When you looked at that email inbox for 15 seconds, you initiated a cascade of cognitive changes. Research has shown that people who work on multiple things concurrently are less able to filter out irrelevancy, have poorer memory and are more easily distracted. So if you have to work on something that’s cognitively demanding, the rule has to be zero context shifts during that period. Treat it like a dentist appointment. You can’t check your email when you’re having a cavity filled. You have to see it that way.
–Cal Newport, interviewed by David Marchese for the New York Times Magazine
photo by Mamadi Doumbouya
CHANGE
January 8, 2023CHANGE
“Into the Racism Workshop”
For Alma Banda Goddard
my cynical feet ambled
prepared for indigestion
& blank faces of outrageous innocence
knowing I’d have to walk over years of media
declaring we’re vanished or savage or pitiful or noble
My toes twitched when I saw so few brown faces
but really when one eats racism every time one goes out one’s door
the appeal of talking about it is minuscule
I sat with my back to the wall facing the door
after I changed the chairs to a circle
This doesn’t really protect me
but I con myself into believing it does
One of the first speakers piped up
I’m only here because my friend is Black & wanted
me to do this with her
I’ve already done
300 too many racism workshops
Let it be entered into the Book of Stars
that I did not kill her or shoot a scathing reply from the hip
I let it pass because I could tell she was very interested in taking
up all the space with herself & would do it if I said a word
They all said something that I could turn into a poem
but I got tired & went to sleep behind my interested eyes
I’ve learned that the most important part of these tortures
is for them to speak about racism at all
Even showing up is heresy
because as we all know racism is some vague thing that really doesn’t
exist or is only the skinheads on a bad day or isn’t really a crucial problem
not as important certainly as queers being able to marry
or get insurance for each other
When they turned to me as resident expert on the subject
which quite honestly I can’t for the life of me understand
or make any sense out of
I spoke from my feet
things I didn’t know I knew
of our connections
of the deadly poison that racism is for all of us
Maybe some of them were touched
but my bitch voice jumps in to say
NOT MUCH!
I heard back that someone thought I was brilliant
Does that mean that I speak well
Or that she was changed
It’s only her change
I need
–Chrystos
Chrystos, a writer and artist, identifies with her father’s Native American ancestry, a background that is an essential part of her writing. The other dominant aspect of her work is her identity as a lesbian. Works by Chrystos include Not Vanishing (1988), Dream On (1991), In Her I Am (1993), Fugitive Colors (1995), and Fire Power (1995). She is also co-editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 1999. Her poems have appeared in a number of anthologies and she was the winner of the Audre Lorde International Poetry Competition in 1994 and the Sappho Award of Distinction from the Astraea National Lesbian Action Foundation in 1995.
Culture Vulture: The Year in Review
December 31, 2022THEATER I LOVED (no particular order)
Company – Marianne Elliott’s gender-reversed staging of the Sondheim musical won me over, with terrific performances especially by Patti Lupone and Claybourne Elder in his underpants
Into the Woods – Lear de Bessonet’s star-studded revival leapt from Encores! to Broadway where it instigated an unusually, and justifiably, ecstatic response from the audience
Merrily We Roll Along — Let it never be said this Sondheim show “doesn’t work.” Maria Friedman’s production at New York Theater Workshop nails it by remaining extremely attentive to George Furth’s book as a smart, emotionally perceptive drama with exquisite songs by Sondheim, performed by a spectacular cast (Jonathan Groff first and foremost, closely followed by Lindsay Mendez, Daniel Radcliffe, Krystal Joy Brown, and Reg Rogers).
Fat Ham – This year’s unlikely Pulitzer winner rocked the Public Theater with its witty queer take on Hamlet
As You Like It – Shaina Taub’s musical version returned to Shakespeare in the Park as a magnificent community event beautifully staged by Laurie Woolery
Funny Girl – We held out to see Lea Michele and it was worth the wait
The Gold Room – This tiny two-hander, slyly written by Jacob Perkins and bravely performed by Scott Parkinson and Robert Stanton under Gus Heagerty’s shrewd direction, stuck with me
Kimberly Akimbo – David Lindsay-Abaire joined forces with the great Jeanine Tesori for this musical adaptation of his poignant play with fetching performances by Victoria Clark, Bonnie Milligan, Justin Cooley, and Steven Boyer
Some Like It Hot – The classic screwball/drag film comedy rethought for 2022 by song-and-dance masters Casey Nicholaw (director-choreographer), Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (score) and Christian Borle (triple-threat performer) joined by new Broadway talent Matthew López and Amber Ruffin (book) and their new stars Adrianna Hicks and J. Harrison Ghee
Underneath the Skin — One of John Kelly’s best pieces ever was a beautiful, sexy, instructive biographical portrait in words, images, movement, and music of Samuel Steward, the writer, educator, tattooist, and diehard fellationist who intersected with a curious array of fascinating figures from the 20th century (Thornton Wilder, Alfred Kinsey, Gertrude Stein, represented on video by the great Lola Pashalinski).
I also liked Shhh, written and directed by Clare Barron; Scot Elliott’s production of Tariq Trotter’s musical Black No More; Aleshea Harris’s On Sugarland; Rashaad Newsome’s mind-blowing multi-disciplinary spectacle Assembly at the Park Avenue Armory (above); the girl-group pop musical Six; Lileana Blain-Cruz’s production of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, on Adam Rigg’s dazzling set at Lincoln Center Theater (below);
Tracy Letts’s spooky play The Minutes; Mary Wiseman in Bryna Turner’s At the Wedding; Martha Clarke’s God’s Fool with a lovely lead performance by Patrick Andrews as St. Francis of Assisi; the Broadway transfer of Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop (shout-out to Kyle Ramar Freeman, the understudy whom I saw play the lead); Tyshawn Sorey’s somber Monochromatic Light (afterlife) at the Park Avenue Armory; JoAnne Akalaitis’s staging of Maria Irene Fornes’s Mud/Drowning for Mabou Mines; Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt; David Greenspan’s one-man version of Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts; Suzan-Lori Parks’s Plays for the Plague Year at Joe’s Pub; Mike Birbiglia’s The Old Man and the Pool; Jordan Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’ with its exceptional ensemble of quick-change comic performers, most notably Crystal Lucas-Perry.
LIVE MUSIC:
This was the year I invested time, energy, and resources in checking out EDM concerts at Avant-Gardner (Bonobo), the Knockdown Center (Fatboy Slim, Honey Dijon), and Forest Hills Tennis Stadium (Odesza –pictured above – with Sylvan Esso, Jamie XX/Four Tet/Floating Points). But three concerts topped my concertgoing year – first and foremost, Khruangbin at Radio City Music Hall; Arooj Aftab at the Metropolitan Museum’s Temple of Dendur; and Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupul, touring behind their wonderful album Topical Dancer at the Bowery Ballroom (below).
MOVIES I LOVED:
(no particular order) Pedro Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers; Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero; Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car; Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary Flee; Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once; Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaboration with Tilda Swinton, Memoria; Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Romanian comedy-drama film written and directed by Radu Jude; Brett Morgen’s filmic essay on David Bowie, Moonage Daydream; Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s trippy Afro-futurist fantasia Neptune Frost (pictured below); Martine Syms’s The African Desperate, with its riveting star performance by Diamond Stingily; and Martin McDonough’s The Banshees of Inisherin.
Also: Jordan Peele’s Nope; Mahamat Saleh Haroun’s Lingui –The Sacred Bonds; Francois Ozon’s homage to Fassbinder, Peter von Kant; Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom’s documentary Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill; Scott Cooper’s spooky murder mystery The Pale Blue Eye; and Billy Eichner’s Bros.
TELEVISION I LOVED:
The Andy Warhol Diaries; Atlanta; Better Things; How to Change Your Mind; The White Lotus season 2; January 6 Committee Hearings
another eye opens 