The New Yorker - November 7, 2016
The New Yorker - November 7, 2016
The New Yorker - November 7, 2016
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NOV. 7, 2016
NOVEMBER 7, 2016
Dianne Belfrey
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Adrift
A Brooklyn love story.
Megan Amram
27
Jiayang Fan
28
Kelefa Sanneh
34
Barry Blitt
44
Rebecca Mead
46
Lost Time
When Kenneth Lonergan took on Hollywood.
T. Coraghessan Boyle
56
ANNALS OF RELIGION
SKETCHBOOK
FICTION
THE CRITICS
ON TELEVISION
Emily Nussbaum
64
Caleb Crain
Joshua Rothman
67
71
72
Alex Ross
76
Peter Schjeldahl
78
Hilton Als
80
Anthony Lane
82
Ocean Vuong
Adrienne Su
51
61
BOOKS
MUSICAL EVENTS
THE THEATRE
POEMS
Scavengers
The Lazy Susan
COVER
Bruce McCall
Glass Houses
DRAWINGS Paul Noth, Edward Steed, John Klossner, Will McPhail, Seth Fleishman,
Drew Dernavich, Ken Krimstein, Harry Bliss, Tom Toro, Peter Kuper, P. C. Vey, Roz
Chast, Tom Cheney, David Sipress, William Haefeli, Michael Crawford, Jack Ziegler
SPOTS Christoph Abbrederis
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 7, 2016
CONTRIBUTORS
Kelefa Sanneh (The Moral Minority,
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THE MAIL
AMERICAN UTOPIAS
NOVEMBER 2 8, 2016
The love that the sensational Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga share as Richard and Mildred Loving, in the
director Jef Nicholss astonishing Loving, is palpable, and it frames the landmark 1967 case that nullied
laws banning interracial marriage. This intimate movie, like the current lm Moonlight, paves the way
for a new kind of American cinemaserious but not ideological, and reective of the diversity that has
always gone into the making of that complicated character otherwise known as America.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GRAEME MITCHELL
NIGHT LIFE
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New and Improved
Beach House
The surprise album drop, having become a standard of popular music, is taken one step further
by some more ambitious camps, such as the Baltimore dream-pop mainstays Beach House. Last
year, the duo unveiled their beguiling fifth album,
Depression Cherry, and, less than two months
later, followed it with another winsome collection of songs, titled Thank Your Lucky Stars.
Dont let the groups rapid-fire release schedule
fool you, howeverthey spend ample time finetuning the harmonious interplay between twinkling guitars, synthesizer-driven soundscapes, and
Victoria Legrands spine-tingling vocals, never
dictating too strictly where a song may go next.
Trance is a big part of our thing, the multiinstrumentalist Alex Scally told Pitchfork last
year. A trance-y energy is how we write, and its
not a drug thing. Well repeat a part for three
hours while we wait for the next piece to fall into
place. At this Kings Theatre performance, audiences will be entranced by a career-spanning
set of the pairs beloved cuts. (1027 Flatbush Ave.,
Brooklyn. 800-745-3000. Nov. 3.)
Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival
The irony of an electronic-music festival in Brooklyn addressing gentrification is ripe for parody.
The New York native Frankie Bones brought rave
culture to the boroughs in 1991, when he held his
first Storm Rave in Flatbush; the neighborhood
remained more or less the same after the party was
over, up to around nine years ago. If the panels
billed alongside this two-weekend festivalnow
in its ninth yearallow for self-reflection, they
might include a discussion of how such scenes of
leisure have altered the working-class communities theyve infiltrated. But if dancings more your
thing its as good a chance as any to hear Benji B,
FaltyDL, Silent Servant, Chino Amobi, and others
play excellent club sets. (Various locations. brooklynemf.com. Nov. 4-13.)
Forma
One of the more urbane groups to emerge from
the Brooklyn underground, this analog synth act
has traditionally crafted minimal kraut instrumentals that could pass for the soundtrack to a vintage episode of Nova. But on their new album,
Physicalist, presented as a sumptuous double
LP by the Chicago label Kranky, the trio veers between classic krautrock and sonic territory generally associated with the New Age movement.
The first half of the record features the buttery
arpeggiated synthesizers and pulsing drum machines that Forma is known for, but as the record
advances listeners are treated to soothing psychedelic drones and a piano composition reminiscent of the early-twentieth-century spiritualist and composer G. I. Gurdjieff. Thats no reason
to be intimidated; this is perhaps the most dinnerparty-friendly electronic music released all year,
and youd be smart to join Forma this week as they
support the longtime New York psychedelic elec-
tronic group Silver Apples. (Good Room, 98 Meserole Ave., Brooklyn. 718-349-2373. Nov. 2.)
Porches
In New York, theres a form of depression that may
be cured only by a long sulk around town. These
aimless strolls demand a soundtrack by someone
whos walked the same pavementsay, Arthur Russells outsider melancholia on World of Echo, or
the more dejected corners of Lou Reeds solo oeuvre. Porches, the brainchild of Aaron Maine, has
joined this storied lineage. The depths of introspection in his downcast pop are softened by occasional nods to New York dance music; you can
almost hear Maine swatting away the stray hand
claps and disco cowbells on a new song, Mood,
with his morose lyrics, I dont know what Id do,
but I dont want to be here. He performs at this
wooden-walled venue attached to the Greenpoint
Polish National Home. (Warsaw, 261 Driggs Ave.,
Brooklyn. 718-387-0505. Nov. 3.)
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JAZZ AND STANDARDS
Ann Hampton Callaway
Her acclaimed 2014 album, From Sassy to Divine: The Sarah Vaughan Project, paid tribute to
a major influence, but the veteran vocalist is resolutely her own woman. Getting a jump start on the
holidays, Callaway has just released The Hope
of Christmas, which includes examples of her
original songwriting, another personal passion.
(Birdland, 315 W. 44th St. 212-581-3080. Nov. 1-5.)
Chick Corea
Coreas Three Quartets band harks back to his 1981
classical-jazz-fusion recording of the same name,
which featured the saxophonist Michael Brecker,
who died in 2007. His replacement is Ben Solomon, but the original rhythm team of the drummer Steve Gadd and the bassist Eddie Gomez is
still intact. The week concludes with Coreas Leprechaun band, which expands the earlier quartet
with the inclusion of additional horns and Coreas
wife, Gayle Moran, on vocals. (Blue Note, 131
W. 3rd St. 212-475-8592. Nov. 2-5.)
Charlie Haden Jazz Liberation Orchestra
Haden, the master bassist and openhearted jazz
spirit, died in 2014, but his Jazz Liberation Orchestra lives on under the direction of his invaluable
collaborator, the composer, arranger, conductor,
and pianist Carla Bley. The bands deeply expressive new album, Time/Life (featuring two live
recordings with Haden in tow), showcases the exhilarating soloists who strengthen the core of this
still vital ensemble. (Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
212-576-2232. Nov. 3-6.)
Renee Rosnes
As demonstrated on her current Written on the
Rocks recording, composition has become as important as instrumental invention for Rosnes, a
gifted pianist, who, after paying dues with such titanic modernists as Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson, has stepped firmly into the role of assured
bandleader. Shes joined by such key collaborators as the vibraphonist Steve Nelson and the
bassist Peter Washington. (Village Vanguard, 178
Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037. Nov. 1-6.)
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 7, 2016
ART
Labor Intensive
The art of work, at the Queens Museum.
near the top of the list of inspired
manifestosFuturism, Dada, De Stijl
is Mierle Laderman Ukeless littleknown Maintenance Art. As a rsttime mother in 1969, she grew frustrated by the schism between her
domestic life, with its boredoms and
joys, and her identity as a New York
artist. (She later said, I learned that
Jackson [Pollock], Marcel [Duchamp]
and Mark [Rothko] didnt change diapers.) She channelled her feelings in
four typewritten pages, pointing out a
double standard; namely, that repetition
and systems were considered rigorous
in the context of the avant-garde, but
dismissed as drudgery when it came to
maintenance workers or housewives.
One choice excerpt: After the revolution, whos going to pick up the garbage
on Monday morning?
The manifesto is currently framed on
a wall at the Queens Museum, where it
introduces a revelatory survey of Ukeless
ve-decade career. (Also on view are
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Mierle Laderman Ukeles, with two unidentified workers, in Touch Sanitation Performance, which took eleven months, beginning in July, 1979.
ART
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MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
Morgan Library & Museum
Charlotte Bront: An Independent Will
The English writers personal effects, correspondence, and original manuscripts take on the significance of religious relics in this beautiful exhibition, mounted two centuries after her birth. The
show commemorates more than Bronts enormous
talent as the author of the enduring Jane Eyre,
first published in 1847it celebrates her unprecedented success at a time when opportunities for
women were sharply constrained. (Charlotte and
her equally brilliant sisters, Emily and Anne, initially published under male noms de plume.) The
Victorian diminishment of female intellect is dramatized by one of the authors tiny dresses, with
its cinched waist and demure blue floral print, stationed near the gallerys entrance. Smallness is a
recurring theme: magnifying glasses are provided
to read the microscopic script of Bronts early
writings, such as a doll-size illustrated storybook
she made when she was twelve for the younger
Anne. This concise show strikes a balance between
indulging fans with Brontana (Charlottes compact paint box and portable writing desk are also
on view) and charting the evolution of an isolated
writers imagination, from early satirical tales
of mythic lands to the keenly observed and uncorseted prose of her mature work. Through Jan. 2.
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GALLERIESCHELSEA
Tetsumi Kudo
More than twenty of the Japanese sculptors
busy, candy-colored birdcages are arranged
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GALLERIESDOWNTOWN
Ree Morton
Three very different solo shows inaugurate
the gallerys spacious new Tribeca location,
but the idiosyncratic post-minimalist Ree
Morton, who died at age forty in 1977, takes
center stage. Her hybrid handmade works
painting and sculpture are one and the same
herefill the ground floor with restless energy. For Kate, produced in 1976, bursts from
a corner, its cavalierly painted streamers and
roses evoking a festive trifecta: embroidery,
valentines, and a birthday cake. Mortons incorporation of girlish crafts into her decidedly
THE THEATRE
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OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS
A Bronx Tale
Robert De Niro and Jerry Zaks co-direct a musical adaptation of Chazz Palminteris semiautobiographical one-man show, set in his native
borough in the sixties and featuring a doo-wop
score by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater. (Longacre, 220 W. 48th St. 212-239-6200. Previews begin
Nov. 3.)
Dead Poets Society
Jason Sudeikis plays a nonconformist teacher at
an all-boys school, in Tom Schulmans adaptation of his screenplay for the 1989 film, directed
by John Doyle. (Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th
St. 866-811-4111. In previews.)
Finians Rainbow
Melissa Errico stars in the 1947 musical, about
an Irish father and daughter who escape to the
Jim Crow South after stealing a pot of gold from
a leprechaun. (Irish Repertory, 132 W. 22nd St. 212727-2737. In previews. Opens Nov. 6.)
Homos, or Everyone in America
Robin De Jess and Michael Urie portray a couple
whose life is complicated by a violent crime in Jordan Seaveys play, directed by Mike Donahue for
Labyrinth Theatre Company. (Bank Street Theatre,
155 Bank St. 212-513-1080. In previews. Opens Nov. 6.)
Kings of War
At the Next Wave Festival, Ivo van Hove (The Crucible) stages a mashup of Shakespeares Henry V,
Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3, and Richard III, set in
a modern war room and performed in Dutch, with English supertitles. (BAMs Howard Gilman Opera House,
30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. Nov. 3-6.)
Master Harold . . . and the Boys
Athol Fugard directs his 1982 drama, set in a tea
shop in South Africa in 1950, where two black men
and a white boy face the cruelties of apartheid.
(Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St.
212-244-7529. In previews. Opens Nov. 7.)
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
Josh Groban and Dene Benton star in Dave Malloys electro-pop adaptation of a section of War
and Peace. Rachel Chavkin directs the immersive
production, which originated at Ars Nova. (Imperial, 249 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200. In previews.)
Notes from the Field
Anna Deavere Smiths new solo work, based on
more than two hundred and fifty interviews, examines issues of education, inequality, and criminal justice. (Second Stage, 305 W. 43rd St. 212-2464422. Opens Nov. 2.)
Party People
The Universes ensemble stages this piece about the
Black Panther Party and the Young Lords, based
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GALLERIESBROOKLYN
Evan Whale
Making his New York solo dbut in an artistrun space in the garden level of a Clinton Hill
brownstone thats only open to the public on
Saturdays, the young photographer pairs jittery
abstractions with pictures he took while hiking
near earthquake-monitoring points in L.A.
and later manipulated, using razor blades
and wire brushes. (The resulting lines evoke
seismograph readings.) His technique may owe
a debt to Marco Breuer, but Whale achieves
elegant effects, particularly in his abstract
images, which suggest veils of fabric and
slivers of agate. Where Breuer is principally
concerned with formal innovation, Whale dives
deeper. The shows title, I Heard, As It Were,
the Noise of Thunder, is taken from the Book
of Revelation, suggesting natures sublime
indifference to our fate. Through Nov. 5. (321
Gallery, 321 Washington Ave. 718-930-0493.)
on interviews with veterans of the revolutionary
groups and directed by Liesl Tommy. (Public, 425
Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. In previews.)
THE THEATRE
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NOW PLAYING
The Harvest
Tom (Gideon Glick), a fervent young Christian
about to leave his raggedy church basement in Idaho
to spread the word in the Middle East, is the son
of a pastor named Chuck (Scott Jaeck), who loves
the Lord because He sets you free from your body.
His friend Josh (Peter Mark Kendall) would like
nothing more than to be freefrom his desire for
Tom, from his history, and from his sister, Michaela
(Leah Karpel), a former junkie and nonbeliever who
wants to love him but isnt trustworthy. Joshs family of church-basement apostles is the only one he
can cling to, and his and Toms repressed love is the
only kind he has ever known. Directed with clarity by Davis McCallum, Samuel D. Hunters play
(at LCT3) is a strange and powerful one, illustrating the eros underlying belief and the way that repression can work on the mind and cripple the soul.
(Claire Tow, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200.)
Plenty
The real problem with this revival of David Hares
1978 play, directed by David Leveaux, is the play itself. The bright, beautiful, and risk-taking star Rachel Weisz plays Susan Traherne, a woman who
cant get over her past as a British freedom fighter
during the Second World War or reconcile herself to
postwar doldrums and conventionality. Weisz is in
every scene, and she charges all her moments with a
combination of madness and hope. As her husband,
Raymond, a diplomat who tries to fight the chaos
his wife insists on, Corey Stoll is very sexy, but the
rest of the cast feels diminished by his power, and
Weiszs. One wonders how much of the politics that
concerned Hare in 1978 even matter to an American
audience now. (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.)
Two Class Acts
A. R. Gurneys new one-act plays, presented separately under an umbrella name, give the Socra-
Vietgone
This gleefully salacious quasi-musical could be seen
as a fascinating companion piece to the novel The
Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, which won
this years Pulitzer Prize. Each begins with the fall
of Saigon and follows its Vietnamese protagonists
to refugee limbo in America, and each feels like
a decades-overdue corrective of American obliviousness to Vietnamese people in particular and a
purge of American horseshit about Asian people in
general. But only this play boasts an eye-popping
comic-book aesthetic, a physics-defying five-way
fistfight, and several foulmouthed rap ballads.
The playwright Qui Nguyen based his delightfully gonzo script on the true story of his parents
escape from Vietnam, and its hard to think of an
instance where a writer has tackled his parents
courtship more vividly, outrageously, and hilariously. The whole Manhattan Theatre Club production, from its outstanding ensemble to its resourceful director, May Adrales, is in perfect synch with
Nguyens deranged yet heartfelt vision. (City Center Stage I, 131 W. 55th St. 212-581-1212.)
CLASSICAL MUSIC
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OPERA
Metropolitan Opera
If the punishing role of Arnold is the No. 1 reason
that opera companies avoid Rossinis magnum opus,
Guillaume Tell, then they no longer have an excuse, thanks to the American tenor Bryan Hymel,
whose trumpetlike sound cuts through the orchestra
with jaw-dropping brilliance. The rest of the cast
Gerald Finley (an eloquent Tell), Marina Rebeka
(an exquisitely shaded Mathilde), Janai Brugger
(a pure Jemmy), and John Relyea (an inky-voiced
Gesler)maintain Hymels high level. Fabio Luisis conducting is vibrant and dramatically alert,
and Pierre Audis production stays safely out of the
way, with cleverly minimalist settings, pretty backdrops, and stylish costumes. Nov. 2 at 6:30 and Nov. 5
at 7. Also playing: During the Mets Joseph Volpe
era, Karita Mattila was a leading prima donna, racking up a string of successes in some of the most challenging repertory for sopranos, including the title
role of Janeks searing drama Jenfa. Now she
takes on the scene-stealing role of Jenfas intimidating stepmother, the Kostelnika, in a cast that
also includes Joseph Kaiser, Daniel Brenna, and Oksana Dyka, as Jenfa; David Robertson conducts.
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Wilderness
Following up on Basetrack Live, the 2014 multimedia production that marked its re-formation,
the company En Garde Arts presents another
projection-heavy documentary show, this one exploring the experiences of six deeply troubled teenagers whose parents have enrolled them, in most
cases against their will, in a months-long outdoor
therapy program in the Utah desert. All six characters are based on actual participants in such a program, and, while their scenes are dramatized, the
show makes frequent use of real Skype calls with the
kids parents, which weave fluidly into the action.
The result will be particularly meaningful, and possibly revelatory, to parents who have struggled with
a child in crisis. But as theatre it feels too smoothed
over, too uncritical of the program it describes, and
too suffused with therapy talk to convey these kids
awful inner battles in their full rawness and pain.
(Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St. 212-352-3101.)
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ALSO NOTABLE
Chris Gethard: Career Suicide Lynn Redgrave. Coriolanus Barrow Street Theatre. Duat
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RECITALS
CLASSICAL MUSIC
timeless melodies (from South Pacific, Oklahoma!,
and other works), his daughter Marys exuberant irreverence (Once Upon a Mattress), and his grandson Adam Guettels sensitive, searching style (The
Light in the Piazza). Nov. 1 and Nov. 3 at 8. (Merkin Concert Hall, 129 W. 67th St. 212-501-3330.) On
Wednesday evening, the noted composer Gabriela
Lena Frank curates a globally inflected program for
the companys contemporary-music series, NYFOS
Next, which also features pieces by Avner Dorman
and Derek Bermel. Nov. 2 at 7. (National Sawdust, 80
N. 6th St., Brooklyn. nationalsawdust.org.)
MOVIES
Hans-Jrgen Syberbergs portrait of Romy Schneider gives the actress the role of a lifetime: herself.
MOVIES
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OPENING
Doctor Strange Reviewed in Now Playing. Opening Nov. 4. (In wide release.) Hacksaw Ridge Re-
viewed this week in The Current Cinema. Opening Nov. 2. (In wide release.) Loving Reviewed
this week in The Current Cinema. Opening Nov. 4.
(In limited release.) Peter and the Farm A documentary, directed by Tony Stone, about Peter
Dunning, a farmer in Vermont. Opening Nov. 4.
(In limited release.)
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NOW PLAYING
American Pastoral
In his directorial dbut, Ewan McGregor catches
the elegiac grandeur of Philip Roths 1997 novel
but filters out its bitter irony, historical sweep,
and psychological complexity. He also miscasts
himself in the lead role of Seymour (the Swede)
Levov, a successful businessman living comfortably in a rustic corner of New Jersey, whose settled existence is overturned by the nineteensixties. The Swedeso nicknamed, as a star
athlete in high school, for his pale skin and blond
hair, rare in his milieu of Newark Jewsis married to Dawn (Jennifer Connelly), a Catholic of
Irish descent. Their teen-age daughter, Merry
(Hannah Nordberg), consumed by political activism during the Vietnam War, bombs a local post
office, killing the postmaster, and vanishes from
home. The earnest modesty of McGregors direction keeps the capable cast (including Dakota
Fanning, Uzo Aduba, and Peter Riegert) in restrained balance, but McGregor himself doesnt
capture the Swedes heroism; rather, he reduces
the drama from tragedy to misfortune.Richard Brody (In wide release.)
Certain Women
The three sections of Kelly Reichardts new
filmset in Montana and adapted from stories by Maile Meloyare consistent in their
restrained tone but divergent in their impact.
The first two episodes offer little besides moderately engaging plots, but the third packs an
overwhelming power of mood, observation, and
longing. In the first, Laura Dern plays Laura, a
lawyer whose affair with a married man named
Ryan (James Le Gros) is ending just as a client
(Jared Harris), a disabled construction worker,
comes unhinged. In the second, Ryan and his
wife, Gina (Michelle Williams), who is also
his boss, visit an elderly acquaintance, Albert
(Ren Auberjonois), to buy stone for their country house. The third story features Lily Gladstone as Jamie, a young caretaker at a horse farm
who drops in on an adult-education class and
strikes up a tense and tenuous friendship with
the teacher, a young lawyer named Beth (Kristen Stewart). Here, Reichardt infuses slender
details with breathtaking emotion. The fervent
attention to light and movementas in a scene
of a quietly frenzied nocturnal pursuitseems
to expand cinematic time and fill it with inner
life.R.B. (In limited release.)
Doctor Strange
Scott Derricksons adaptation of this exotic entry
in the Marvel canon lives up to its title, in mostly
good ways. Steven Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a deft, brilliant, and ambitious New
York neurosurgeon who loses the use of his hands
in a car accident. When medical science gives
up on him, he seeks occult help, travelling to a
compound in Nepal thats run by the Ancient
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The Handmaiden
Park Chan-wooks new film is his most delectable to date. Illicitly suave, it takes pleasure, over
nearly two and a half hours, in fooling with the
intricate plans of the characters and, for good
measure, with the minds of the audience. The action is set in the nineteen-thirties, in Korea, and
liberally adapted from Sarah Waterss novel Fingersmith, a no less tasty tale of Victorian London. Kim Tae-ri plays Sook-Hee, a young woman
bred in the low niceties of crime, who becomes a
maidservant to the high-ranking Hideko (Kim
Min-hee), herself no stranger to stratagems.
Its hard to find a single person onscreen whose
title or demeanor is a reliable match for his or
her true nature; for instance, neither the youthful count who arrives to pay court to Hideko nor
her bibliomaniacal guardian is to be trusted an
inch. Just to ensnare us more tightly, Park replays some of the episodes with a twist, from a
different viewpoint, yet the marvel of the movie
is that, far from seeming like mere trickery, it
feels drenched in longing and desire. The cinematographer, gravely surveying these shenanigans, is Chung Chung-Hoon. In Korean and
Japanese.Anthony Lane (Reviewed in our issue
of 10/24/16.) (In limited release.)
Michael Moore in TrumpLand
Doing a one-man show on the stage of a vintage
theatre in a predominantly white and Republican
town in Ohio, Michael Moore converts his celebrity into a political weapon with robust humor and
rhetorical ingenuity on behalf of Hillary Clinton. His jibes at Donald Trump and his supporters are inevitable and obvious, but brief. Then,
Moore delivers an eloquently empathetic paean
to white working-class citizens who, raging at an
establishment that has shafted them, lend their
support to a rich demagogue who despises their
actual interests. Sketching the course of Clintons
career, from her college years as a young feminist
to a First Lady who stayed out of the kitchen and
fought for universal health care, Moore deflects
criticisms of her from right and left alike and
concludes that the lifetime of insults and humiliations shes endured has left her mad as hell and
ready to fight the establishment with efficacy
and fury. An extra twist, regarding the Rosie the
Riveter generation of independent women, posits Clintons ideals as deep American traditions.
Moores concluding showmanshipa promise to
run for President himself in 2020 if Clinton disappoints himdoesnt spoil his incisive and fervent preaching.R.B. (In wide release.)
Moonlight
Miami heat and light weigh heavily on the furious lives and moods realized by the director
Barry Jenkins. The grand yet finespun drama
depicts three eras in the life of a young black
man: as a bullied schoolboy called Little (Alex
Hibbert), who is neglected by his crack-addicted
mother (Naomie Harris) and sheltered and mentored by a drug dealer (Mahershala Ali) and his
girlfriend (Janelle Mone); as a teen-ager with
his given name of Chiron (Ashton Sanders),
whose friendship with a classmate named Kevin
(Jharrel Jerome) veers toward romantic intimacy
and leads to violence; and as a grown man nicknamed Black (Trevante Rhodes), who faces adult
responsibilities with terse determination and reconnects with Kevin (Andr Holland). Adapting a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jenkins
burrows deep into his characters pain-seared
memories, creating ferociously restrained performances and confrontational yet tender images that seem wrenched from his very core.
Even the title is no mere nature reference but
an evocation of skin color; subtly alluding to
wider societal conflicts, Jenkins looks closely at
the hard intimacies of people whose very identities are forged under relentless pressure.R.B.
(In limited release.)
Out of the Blue
Dennis Hopper directed and stars in this raw and
vehement melodrama, from 1980, playing Don,
a truck driver who is awaiting his release from
prison, where he served time after drunkenly
smashing his rig into a school bus. But Hopper
yields the spotlight to Linda Manz, who plays
Cebe, Dons teen-age daughter, a punk rocker,
a social outcast, and an heir to his wild ways.
While Don is locked up, his wife (Sharon Farrell), a waitress at a diner, takes up with her boss
(Eric Allen) and, in the company of Dons best
friend (Don Gordon), starts shooting up. Cebe,
in despair, runs away from home and ends up on
probation under the care of a sympathetic psychiatrist (Raymond Burr), who can do little in
the face of her open revolt. Upon her fathers return, she joins in the familys degradation, torment, and guilt in scenes of derelict exaltation
and proud insolence. Hoppers characters are in
the realm of the irreparable; if the fervent acting occasionally overheats, the reckless emotions
nonetheless convey the authentic struggle of personal experience.R.B. (Metrograph; Nov. 5.)
Pickpocket
The nimble crime that the title suggests, perfected by a fiercely philosophical outlaw (Martin
LaSalle), is itself a work of art, and Robert Bresson, in his 1959 film, reveals it, in all of its varieties, to be a furtive street ballet. The story begins with money changing hands, and throughout
the film, Bresson burns into memory the clink
of coins and the crumple of billswhich comes
off as the damning sound of evil made matter.
The movie is modelled on Crime and Punishment: the criminal, Michel, jousts verbally (in
phrases borrowed from the novel) with a cagey
police inspector to assert his own superiority to
the law, and crosses paths with a drunkards toiling, spiritual daughter, Jeanne (Marika Green).
Bresson, filming nonactors in austerely precise
images, also evokes Dostoyevskian emotional extremes: torment and exaltation, nihilistic fury
and religious passion. But the movie is above all
a story about the miracle of redemptive love and
its price in humility and unconditional surrender.
In French.R.B. (BAM Cinmatek; Nov. 4-6.)
DANCE
The puppet-makers of War Horse take on Monteverdis opera Return of Ulysses, from 1640.
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DANCE
Divertimento Brillante), unusual pairings (mingling the upper ranks of New York City Ballet and
American Ballet Theatre), and star turns (especially
by the Memphis jookin marvel Lil Buck). The best
and most distinctive program might be Up Close, on
Sunday afternoon, an informal lecture-demonstration
about footwork featuring some of the most eloquent
feet in the business. (City Center, 131 W. 55th St. 212581-1212. Nov. 3-6.)
1
AUCTIONS AND ANTIQUES
These are the quiet days before the avalanche of Impressionist and contemporary auctions comes down,
in mid-November. Christies is holding an offering
of prints and multiples (Nov. 1-2), led by a set of
Warhol screen prints of Mao and by a color lithograph by Toulouse-Lautrec, of two women dancing together (La Danse au Moulin Rouge). (20
Rockefeller Plaza, at 49th St. 212-636-2000.) Swanns
sale of prints (Nov. 3) is weighted toward Old Masters and nineteenth-century works, such as a Drer
1
READINGS AND TALKS
#FerranteNightFever
This aptly titled series celebrates the publication of
the enigmatic Italian authors latest works, Frantumaglia and The Beach at Night, with five literary
events at bookstores throughout the New York City
area. The translator of the books, the New Yorker editor Ann Goldstein, and champions of Elena Ferrantes novels, including the actor John Turturro and
the novelists Roxana Robinson and Elissa Schappell, appear in conversation. (For venues and times,
visit europaeditions.com/event/2501/ferrantenightfeverin-new-york-city. Nov. 1-5.)
Albertine
As part of the 2016 Festival Albertine, a panel moderated by Ta-Nehisi Coates examines the varying
constructions of identity in the United States and
France, and how they may continue to be reflected
in political developments to come. This forwardlooking prompt asks whether a culturally transcendent election, such as Barack Obamas in 2008, is
possible in present-day France, and how a similar
campaign might unfold. Drawing on both U.S. and
French history, the journalists Iris Deroeux and Jelani
Cobb (a contributor to this magazine), as well as the
historians Pap Ndiaye and Benjamin Stora, parse how
minority representation in politics may manifest
worldwide. (972 Fifth Ave. 212-650-0070. Nov. 2.)
FD & DRINK
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID WILLIAMS FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE
1
BAR TAB
Belle Shoals
10 Hope St., Brooklyn (718-218-6027)
In Williamsburg, around the corner from a shop
selling Western Inspired Goods, there is a bar
that is set in the imaginary Southern town of
Belle Shoals. No further geographical specifics
are offeredcountry bacon is served alongside
mescal and aquavit. Embedded in a bookcase, in
pride of place, is a Wurlitzer jukebox, accepting
coins in exchange for the yearning voices of Ella
Fitzgerald and James Brown. Theres an antique
birdcage and a mellow oak bar, and cocktails like
the Sunday Tea (peach moonshine, bourbon,
sweet tea, lemon), which might lull you into a
generic dream of the South. Nonetheless, Belle
Shoals feels more Urban Outfitters flannel than
Flannery OConnor, who once wrote, Anything
that comes out of the South is going to be called
grotesque by the Northern reader. A man in
tortoiseshell specs plans out his next tattoo.
Self-deprecation is frustrating to me, a blonde
dressed head to toe in athleisure says. Out on
the veranda, there are basil plants in window
boxes whose leaves breathe scent through the
air, a faint echo of New Orleans jasmine, and the
tables are separated by elegant white trellises.
But the trailing wisteria strung up on wire is
made of plastic, and the October winds pull at
sleeves and napkins, signals of Northeastern
autumn. Back in the bar, under chandeliers, a
Ukrainian woman with black hair orders hush
puppies, flattening the vowels to hash pappies;
they are light and hot and threaded with jalapeo
and onion. Neat in a paper tray, like consolation
prizes, flaky biscuits come with bourbon butter
and a cup of honey, perfect to pair with a glass
of Cabernet.Talia Lavin
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 7, 2016
13
15
Presidential run. In the end, Hillary didnt go, but Bill and
Chelsea did, and stayed in one of the Kings palaces.
Similarly, its irrelevant that, in late 2011, Doug Band, who
for years was one of Bill Clintons closest aides, said that Chelsea acted like a spoiled brat. But it is relevant that he did so
in the context of a ght over what Chelsea saw as Bands eforts
to trade on her fathers name through his consulting company,
Teneo. She accused Band of hustling for business at foundation events. In a memo for lawyers brought in by Chelsea, Band
argues that any hustling was for the Clintons personal benet,
far more than for his own, garnering Bill Clinton alone some
fty million dollars. Band says that, for example, he leaned on
charitable donors to give the former President speaking engagements and consulting contracts, in a nexus that he refers
to as Bill Clinton, Inc. In other e-mails, Band complains that
he is the only one being asked to avoid conicts of interest, of
which, he says, Bill, Chelsea, and other senior gures at the
foundation have plenty: Everyone takes, everyone.The extent to which all of this is not normal can be measured by the
response of those charged with getting Clinton elected. We
really need to shut Morocco and these paid speeches down,
Mook writes to Podesta in February, 2015.
Nowhere is the dismay more evident than in the case of
Clintons e-mail setup.Neera Tanden, who runs the Center
BEDFELLOWS DEPT.
HINDUS FOR TRUMP
1
THE PICTURES
APOLOGIZER
ies of The Catcher in the Rye. Her davening torso and probing hands made her
resemble a praying mantis. This was the
book, when I was fourteen, that made me
love books, she said. Before that, I mostly
read scripts. The actress, the daughter of
Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, appeared
in Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore at
the age of seven, rode her bike to acting
classes at nine, and, at fteen, sued her
parents for emancipation so that she could
continue acting. Her best teacher, she said,
was the director David Lynch: Without
him, I would not have made the acting
choices Ive made, because he required me
to play the girl next door (in Blue Velvet), to be completely untamed (in Wild
at Heart), and to have no narrative at
all (in Inland Empire).
In her bracing new lm, Certain
Women, written and directed by Kelly
Reichardt, Dern, now forty-nine, stars
with Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart, and Lily Gladstone as women living
in and around Livingston, Montana.
Theyre all ghting how the boys have
arranged the system, and are ill-tting
in their lives, Dern explained. Her character, Laura Wells, is a mopey lawyer
whose client, a carpenter, wont accept
that his workplace-accident lawsuit is
hopeless until he hears it from a man.
After the carpenter takes a hostage, the
cops ask Wells to put on a bulletproof
vest and go in. Her face, as she grasps
that her life has somehow been leading
to this, is a study in misgiving.
Dern canted herself over the counter
and waited to catch the attention of a
bearded clerk. She inquired about You
Will Not Have My Hate, a memoir by
Antoine Leiris, whose wife was killed in
the Paris attacks last fall. Not in stock,
he said. She apologetically withdrew.
Laura Dern
In the rare-book room, Dern picked
up a rst edition of Tennessee Williamss Camino Real. He was my
moms second cousin, she said. She did
his play Orpheus Descending in New
York, and the actor opposite her got strep
throat or something, and she had to go
on with his understudy. And that understudy was Bruce Dern. She smiled
down at the book, then noted that her
parents divorced when she was two. Dern
and the father of her children, the musician Ben Harper, are also divorced.
She roamed around, stroking books
by Arthur Rackham and Judy Blume. She
opened Langston Hughess Black Misery, vignettes about growing up black in
a white world. Oh, my God! she said,
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 7, 2016
17
turning the pages. Stricken, she read,
Misery is when you go / To the Department Store / Before Christmas and nd
out / That Santa is a white man. She almost ran to the register with the book.
On her way out, Dern trailed her ngers
over a Gabriel Garca Mrquez novel and
said, Now I just want to read everything
he ever wrote. But, as a child, instead of
trusting Mrquez and his ights of fancy
I trusted movie directors, who told me
that things would not be all that magical.
I watched A Clockwork Orange by myself at thirteen, I saw Raging Bull fourteen times, and The Omen and The Exorcist messed me up. Her hands framed
a huge screen. It started with Walt Disney, actually, with Dumbo and Bambi
somebodys going to die, innocence will
be taken, and you will be left alone.
Tad Friend
1
PARIS POSTCARD
SHELTERING
rst oicial refugee shelter. With the destruction of the jungle camp at Calais
last week, this shelter is likely to become
even more vital. On July 15th, Julien Beller got a call from the Mayors oice.
Beller, an architect who has thrown festivals in brownelds and installed toilets
in shantytowns, seeks to work for a just
city, built with pleasure, where each person makes his place. His mission: to
turn a disused railroad depot in the Eighteenth Arrondissement into a habitat
for four hundred people, in short order.
He cancelled a vacation to Finland.
Beller had only a week to come up
with a design. One recent afternoon, he
was tramping around the grounds, overseeing some nishing toucheswhich
is to say, some fundamentals. Dressed in
black, with a glinting nose stud and a
terse yet thoughtful manner, he suggested less a Libeskind or a Piano than
someone who might chain himself to a
fence at a work site. The depot was covered in graiti and was missing windows. In front, a bulldozer buzzed back
and forth. Here were going to have a
huge inatable structure to serve as a
kind of information booth, Beller said.
Itll be yellow and white, a sort of art
work. The idea is to welcome people
generously.
Inspired by hotel lobbiesan imperfect model, he admittedhe had
decided to install a store just inside the
CHRISTOPH NIEMANN
thirty years ago, but things have accelerated since the turn of
the century. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002, required
greater disclosure to investors, and increased the independence
of corporate boards. In the old days, boards were often loyal
to the C.E.O., Charles Elson, a corporate-governance expert at the University of Delaware, told me. Today, theyre
more loyal to the company. The rise of activist investors
who campaign aggressively for change when theyre not satised
with performancehas exacerbated the trend. One study
found that when activist investors succeed in winning seats
on the board of directors the probability that the C.E.O. will
be gone within a year doubles.
The information revolution has created other dangers for
C.E.O.s. In the social-media era, damaging stories travel fast,
and boards take public relations very seriously. P.R. disasters
have sealed the fate of top executives at no fewer than ve advertising companies this year. (The most notorious debacle
was at Saatchi & Saatchi: the chairman resigned after telling
a reporter that he didnt think gender inequality in the industry was a problem.)
The predicament of modern C.E.O.s
may seem surprising, given their prominence and lavish compensation. Top executives everywhere are paid more than
they used to be, and the U.S. has led the
way; American C.E.O.s earn, on average, two to four times as much as European ones and ve times as much as Japanese ones. Yet its precisely these factors
that make C.E.O.s vulnerable, because
the expectations for their performance
are higher. If youre paid tremendous
amounts of money to make things go
right, people naturally feel that you should
be held accountable when things go
wrong, Elson says. In that sense, the increasing willingness of boards to re the
C.E.O. is actually the ip side of a fetishization of the position that began in the eighties. In Ralph Cordiners day (and
in Japan maybe still), belief in a C.E.O.s power to transform
a company was limited. But todays cult of the C.E.O. is
founded on the belief that having the right person at the top
is the key to successfrom which it follows that a failing
company should show its boss the door.
C.E.O.s themselves dont seem to have fully internalized
this new regime. Some C.E.O.s have a very lofty opinion
of themselves, and when theyre told they have to go theyre
almost always shocked, Elson says. (Americas most famous
corporate executive may learn this lesson on Election Day.)
But this is really poetic justice at work. In the past thirty
years, C.E.O.s have remade American companies as lean,
mean machines that put shareholder value above all else. To
do that, theyve insisted on greater accountability for performance and have broken implicit social contracts, such as the
promise of lifetime employment. Its only tting that theyre
victims of the same logic.
James Surowiecki
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 7, 2016
19
PERSONAL HISTORY
ADRIFT
How I lost my way in love.
BY DIANNE BELFREY
a month into this routine, William arrived not from the playground but from
his oice, on Wall Street; when he
wasnt sculpting or painting, he wrote
code for an international bank. He was
wearing a good shirt and jacket and a
long, black cashmere coat. A man
dressed for the business of adult life.
Like a conqueror, I thought.
He carried an elegant shopping bag,
and pulled from it a box containing a
set of Wsthof knives. He said that he
could no longer stand by and watch me
try to cut shallots with what amounted
to a butter knife. I insisted that I couldnt
accept so extravagant a gift. He frowned
and said that he believed in the right
tool for the task. He added that, if the
knives ever got dull, he could sharpen
them in his studio. Hey, by the way, he
asked, whats your e-mail address?
The rst e-mail he sent, the following morning, lled the computer screen.
During the next few days, he wrote, in
dense but eloquent sentences, that it had
been years since hed met someone he
so much wanted to know. I read the
e-mails at the oice, whispering Im in
such trouble so loudly that a colleague
later asked what I was in trouble about.
William and I began writing to each
other daily. Once, after I had mentioned
that the weight of quarters made me feel
denly dying, in California, and I was rushing to get out the door to catch a plane.
An e-mail to William was open on an
ancient desktop computer that I shared
with Mark. He happened to be at home,
and saw it. He was still staring at it when
the car-service driver honked outside.
See you later, I murmured, although I
didnt, because, after I left for the airport,
Mark read dozens of our messages. A
few days later, I sat on a corner of my
mothers hospital bed, speaking to him
on the phone. He said that the e-mails
were well written, even beautiful, in parts.
I thanked him.Dont push it, he said.
You and I will be great friends one day,
I replied. Not just yet, he said. I suggested that, no matter what, he should
keep the studio. Wives had a tendency
to come and go; cheap studios in Park
Slope did not. Mark said that, in the end,
he supposed I hadnt been all that great
a wife. Keep the studio, I said.
I moved to an apartment at the other
end of Park Slope, and William, according to my wishes, kept a discreet
distance. I had upended all of our lives,
and my main concern then was for my
son. But, after a year, William stepped
back in, renewing his courtship with an
emphasis on gifts. I needed a new dining table, and he built me one that could
seat twelve, out of maple salvaged from
a horse barn in Maine. There were more
Wsthof knives and, when my speakers
23
eyes went of was the best explanation I could ofer her. She said that she
had no idea what that meant. She
needed specics, because William was
the most adult man Id ever been involved with. He was an extremely good
person, she reminded me.
My sister was right, so I calmed
down. Later that night, I went to see
William, to tell him that I thought we
could work past the thing that had happened earlier. The thing? he asked.
The way you yelled, I replied. The way
I ran. He said that we both knew the
degree to which I panicked at change,
and kissed my head.
Later, I would return to this moment again and again in my mind.
When a man devotes a lot of time to
wooing a woman and she tells him that
she might be leaving, its reasonable
that some outsized emotions might be
expressed. Still, I couldnt get the episode to t with the gentle person who
could charm any group of guests at a
dinner table, someone so erudite and
original that friends of mine (and all
the friends I introduced William to
were impressed) had called him a Renaissance man. Is there anything he
cant do? they asked.
e moved in, and when I brought
people did. It was Dickensian, to live
with rats and without heat, in the heart
of Park Slope. I found an electrician
on Craigslist and asked him to stop by
when William was at work. He appeared slightly stunned by the situation, and said there wasnt much he
could do without an extensive renovation. As he left, he told me to be sure
to take care.
Whether William was in the loft,
writing code, or downstairs, making
art, he was always happy to see me and
to talk, as long as we stayed on subjects
that interested him. But household concerns, bills, furniture soaked by the re
hoses, which now sat swollen behind
the house, so that the neighbors young
children could no longer play in the
yard: none of that could be addressed
without risk of inciting Williams anger,
which I still didnt understand and had
a stake in pretending wasnt there.
hen I encountered other people,
who were in situations that eerily paralleled my own. The women were as
disoriented as I was, as oddly alone in
their eforts at home. Once theyd ceased
being objects of obsession, their lives
had sailed of the gridsomething that
they were unable to easily explain to
25
TRUMPS AMERICAN
GIRL DOLLS
BY MEGAN AMRAM
LUCI GUTIRREZ
27
Liu Yiqians museums house the largest private art collection in the country.
nice to come home to ShangI ts
hai, the Chinese billionaire Liu
29
31
West. (UNESCO estimates that 1.6 million Chinese artifacts left the country
illegally in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.) The government has become active in petitioning for restitution, and many Chinese collectors regard
it as their patriotic duty to bring back
important items. Lius purchases t this
trend, but, as on other subjects, he is
careful not to express resentment about
the loss of heritage. When we are
young, we are indoctrinated to believe
that the foreigners stole from us, but
maybe its out of context, he told me.
Whatever of ours they stole, we can
always snatch it back one day. The laws
of the market always rule.
Many collectors keep their purchases
anonymous, but Liu broadcasts his acquisitions, something that even some of
his close friends initially found ofputting. Zhu Shaoliang, a prominent collector of Chinese antiquities, told me
that when he met Liu, in 2009, at an
auction, he thought he was aggressively
boastful. Zhu went on, He was making these wild claims about ancient
Chinese art, and it made me so angry. I
thought, This person is just so uneducated! But Zhu and Liu eventually became friends, and, over the years, Zhu
has advised Liu on purchases; in 2014,
he vouched for the authenticity of an
ancient scroll in Lius collection that was
suspected of being a forgery. It takes a
while to get to know him, but Liu learns
fast, and he is both decisive and bold,
Zhu told me. In some ways, he buys art
the way he conducts business.
Lius attitude toward running a museum is unconventional, and it troubles
many people in the art world. The security arrangements are widely held to
be inadequate for such a valuable collection, and other operations that are
vital in most museums, such as P.R., are
all but nonexistent. They dont spring
for that kind of thing, because they think
its unnecessary, Jia Wei, a former auctioneer, who used to work with Wang
Wei, Lius wife, told me. They both
want to do everything themselves.
Alexandra Munroe, the head of Asian
Art at the Guggenheim Museum, has
visited the Long Museum on a number
of occasions and has been shocked by
what she sees as insuicient professionalism. They are lacking in the absolute
fundamentals of how to handle art, she
told me. Walking through the antiquities section of the Long Museum West,
she noted, with dismay, that fabric cords,
which are attached to scrolls for the purpose of tying them when they are rolled
up for storage, were left dangling in front
of the art. Its the equivalent of walking
into a museum here and seeing a van
Gogh hung upside down, she said. Its
about custodianship. Just because you
own the art and the museum doesnt
mean that you get to disrespect it.
Lius treatment of some of his most
precious art works has enhanced an impression of cavalier ignorance. In 2014,
he spent more than thirty-six million
dollars on a fteenth-century porcelain
cup decorated with a chicken motif,
which had been owned, in the eighteenth century, by the famous Qingdynasty emperor Qianlong. Liu publicly
sipped tea from the artifactscandalizing the art world and cementing his
reputation as a cheeky eccentric. Emperor Qianlong has used it; now Ive
used it, he explained afterward. I
wanted to channel his spirit. The next
year, in a hotel suite in New York, he
celebrated the purchase, for ve million
dollars, of a twelfth-century Tibetan
bronze of a seated yogi by stripping down
to his underwear, mimicking the statues lotus pose, and circulating pictures
of the yogi and himself on social media.
n my last night in Shanghai, I
33
ANNALS OF RELIGION
34
Moore says Christians must accept that they are a marginalized community, in an increasingly hostile secular culture.
ILLUSTRATION BY BEN WISEMAN
35
mixture of error. And both view abortion as the dening atrocity of our age.
Although Moore strains to avoid partisan appeals, his political views are
generally conservative, which is to say,
generally in harmony with those of the
mainly white and thoroughly evangelical worshippers whom he servesand
who, through donations to their local
churches, pay his salary. But this year
Moore has found himself at odds with
his ock over the candidacy of Donald Trump. Moore has been relentless
in his criticism: in June, on CBSs Face
the Nation, he said that Trump, no
less than Hillary Clinton, represented
the very kind of moral and cultural
decadence that conservatives have been
saying, for a long time, is the problem.
Trump responded, inevitably, on
Twitter, calling Moore a nasty guy with
no heart! On CNN, hours later, Anderson Cooper asked Moore to continue the dialogue, and Moore ashed
a crickety smile. Its one of the few
things that I can agree with Donald
Trump on, he said. I am a nasty guy
with no heartwe sing worse things
about ourselves in our hymns, on Sunday mornings. He added, Thats the
reason why I need forgiveness from God,
through Jesus Christ. He had found a
way to mock an insult with a prayer.
There were signs, during the primary
season, that Trumps crude manner, ad-
mittedly chaotic personal life, and shrugging indiference to questions of religious faithall unprecedented traits
among modern major Presidential candidateswere repelling many of the
Christians who typically vote Republican. But more recent polls suggest that
white evangelicals overwhelmingly support Trump, and that they have grown
more tolerant of politicians who behave
badly. One measure of the so-called
Trump efect: in October, seventy-two
per cent of white evangelicals agreed
that an elected oicial who commits
an immoral act in private could nevertheless behave ethically in public; ve
years earlier, only thirty per cent agreed
with the statement. Robert Jefress, the
pastor of First Baptist Church, in Dallas, a agship S.B.C. congregation, was
probably speaking for many if not most
Southern Baptists when he suggested
that Trump was justied in responding
to Moores vitriolic attacks. In Jefresss
view, Trump is precisely the kind of protector whom Christians should support;
he has said that, when it comes to defending America from Islamic terrorism and other threats, I want the meanest, toughest son-of-a-you-know-what
I can nd.
Moore is allergic to this kind of talk.
The Babylon Bee, which is essentially
the Onion for evangelicals, ran a headline mocking Moores perceived dis-
which is the name of the S.B.C.s publishing arm. But LifeWay takes up less
than half the oor space, and last year
the building was sold to a California
real-estate company. Moores oice is
across the street, in the sleek S.B.C. headquarters, where the E.R.L.C. occupies
the fth oor. A couple of key staf members came with Moore from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in
Louisville; Moore was a popular professor there and the dean of the theology school. Members of his Kentucky
crew can be identied by the personalized Louisville Slugger baseball bats in
their oices, which underscore the impression that they arrived in Nashville
to clean house.
In person, Moore is a cheerful but
self-commanded presence, with big
brown eyes and a radio-ready tenor
that always sounds slightly hoarse, possibly because he has been talking about
Christianity, more or less nonstop, since
the nineteen-eighties. In his oice, an
American ag and a Christian ag are
prominently displayed, and so is his
collection of bobblehead dolls: Thomas
Jeferson and Teddy Roosevelt and
Harry Truman, along with the preacher
Charles Spurgeon, the evangelist Billy
Graham, and the country singer Hank
Williams. Friends sometimes mention
Moores passion for country music as
if it were a quirk, which may reveal
less about him than about the buttoned-down culture of the S.B.C.
there may be no other oice building
in Nashville where such a predilection
would be considered noteworthy.
At eight oclock on a recent morning, Moore was on his second cup of
cofee, preparing for a full day of talking
to young Southern Baptist pastors, none
of whom would be under any obligation to listen to him. The S.B.C. is devoted to the principle of congregational
autonomy, which means that churches
can choose (and dismiss) their own pastors, and can decide how much money
to send to the national Cooperative Program, which funds most S.B.C. activities. There is an eighteen-part statement
of belief, the Baptist Faith & Message,
but for Southern Baptists the only words
that bind are those in the Bible. Jefress,
the Dallas pastor, says that he doesnt
spend much time worrying about his
denominational identity. The national
37
lished in Amsterdam, in the early seventeenth century, by two English expatriates, John Smyth and Thomas
Helwys. They believed, as Baptists do
today, that baptism was properly accomplished only by immersing a mindful believer in water, in accordance with
the Gospel of Mark, which records
John the Baptist immersing Jesus in
the River Jordan. For Baptists, the act
of baptism by sprinkling water on a
babys head is so far removed from the
Biblical model as to be undeserving
of the term. Over time, the upstart
movement formed a religious establishment of its own, and in the South
the S.B.C. became a permanent feature of the landscape, known less for
its baptism practices than for its downhome culturesweet tea and Southern accents. Generations of the faithful grew up absorbed in church life,
spending summers at Baptist camps
and pleasant evenings at Baptist suppers. The denomination was sometimes
described as Southern culture at
prayer.
Moore was reared in Biloxi, on the
Gulf Coast, a part of Mississippi that
can feel like part of greater New Orleans. Half the people in his area were
Catholic, and so was his mother, until
she married into a Southern Baptist
family: her new father-in-law was the
pastor of the local church. Moore was
a sociable but serious boy, and today
he remembers the decadence of Mardi
See how virtual reality makes it feel like youre actually falling.
39
dant in mainline Protestant denominations. One graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary reported
hearing his professor begin class with
an anti-patriarchal prayer: Our Mother,
who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy
name. Land remembers studying under
professors who rejected central tenets
of Christian faith, like the existence of
Hell, or the reality of Christs resurrection. Youd have preachers who wouldnt
talk about homosexuality, Land says.
Said that Jesus never mentioned it, so
it couldnt be that important. Americas rst Southern Baptist President
Jimmy Carter, elected in 1976was a
liberal.
Even as many S.B.C. leaders celebrated Carters election, a backlash was
growing among everyday Southern
Baptistswho also happened to be the
people whose tithes funded the seminaries. Land was one of the leaders of
the movement: a conservative resurgence, he called it, although its opponents preferred the term fundamentalist takeover. The movement had the
feeling of a populist revolt, aimed at
41
43
44
45
LOST TIME
After years spent battling Hollywood producers, Kenneth Lonergan returns with Manchester by the Sea.
BY REBECCA MEAD
46
Lonergans new lm challenges the notion that personal growth can be wrested from even the most terrible sufering.
ILLUSTRATION BY JEFF STBERG
47
exterior of a handsome Art Deco apartment building. In the movie, this is the
address of Emily Morrison, a woman
in her early fties who becomes Lisa
Cohens condante, and is played by
Jeannie Berlin. (The perpetually astonishing Emilya wholly original, unexpected, essential creation, Tony Kushner calls her, in his introduction to the
published edition of the screenplay.)
The building, which is on Central Park
him. Lonergans mother and stepfather eventually had a son together, and
they informally adopted a girl who
was a friend of the stepfathers children. Lonergan also had two stepsisters in California, from his fathers
second marriage, which ended in divorce. Stephen Porder, Lonergans half
brother, who is nine years his junior
and an environmental scientist at
Brown University, told me, There
were always people staying with us for
a few months at a timeso-and-sos
grandkid, looking for a job. The door
was also open to more eeting visitors. I dont remember a time in my
childhood when somebody or other
wasnt in our living room, pouring out
their heart to my parents and trying
to get help.
Lonergan was educated a few blocks
from his home, at the Walden School,
a private institution that has since
closed. In Margaret, Lisa Cohen
attends the ctional Ralph Waldo
Emerson School, which is based on
Walden. Matthew Broderick, who went
to high school with Lonergan and is
his closest friend, told me that the lms
classroom scenes, with their excruciatingly progressive exchanges between
students and teachers, are taken more
SCAVENGERS
51
53
paid to write a draft. It took Lonergan more than two years to nish one,
but when he did, Damon says, It was
long, and it was meandering, and it was
fucking incredible. Lonergan revised
the script and showed it again to
Damon, who says, I called him and I
said, Kenny, you are the only person
who can direct thisthis is completely
a Kenny Lonergan movie. He put up
a little ght, but those characters really had their claws into him.
Damon promised Lonergan that he
would star in the movie. Scheduling
conicts ultimately prevented him from
doing so, but he remained involved as
a producer. Damon recalls, I told
Kenny, Look, its not going to be anything like Margaret. Its going to be
easy, and its going to be fun. Kenny
saidDamon switched to an impersonation I dont believe you can have
fun making movies.
onergans tendency to be late
55
FICTION
56
57
facial tics, and all the rest. Not that I
didnt like themit was just that they
always seemed to manage to get in
the way at crunch time. Or maybe I
didnt like themmaybe that was it.
At any rate, after the little contretemps with the girl and her dog, I
went back in the house, smeared an
antibiotic ointment on my forearm,
took my tea and a handful of protein
wafers to my desk, and sat down at
the computer. If I gave the dead pig
a thought, it was only in relation to
Allison, whod want to see the corpse,
I supposed, which brought up the
question of what to do with itlet it
lie where it was or stuf it in a trash
bag and refrigerate it till she got home
from the oice? I thought of calling
my wifeConnie was regional manager of Bank U.S.A., by necessity a
master of interpersonal relations, and
she would know what to dobut in
the end I did nothing.
It was past three by the time I
thought to take a lunch break, and,
because it was such a ne day, I took
my sandwich and a glass of iced tea
out onto the front porch. By this juncture, Id forgotten all about the pig,
the dog, and the grief that was brewing for Allison, but as soon as I stepped
out the door it all came back to me:
the trees were alive with crowparrots
58
edge of the T-shirt and expose the eyeless head of the pig, and that was all it
took. Allison let out a gasp, and the
dogthat crimson freakjerked the
leash out of the girls hand and went
right for it.
hen Connie came home, I was
59
60
61
aquarium sh, seahorses that incorporated gold dust in their cells, rabbits
that glowed green under a black light,
the beefed-up supercow, the micropig,
the dogcat, and all the rest. The Chinese were the rst to renounce any sort
of regulatory control and upgrade the
human genome, and, as if they werent
brilliant enough already, they became
still more brilliant as the rst edited
children began to appear, and of course
we had to keep up. . . .
In a room at GenLab, Connie and
I were presented with an exhaustive
menu of just how our chromosomes
could be made to match up. We chose
to have a daughter. We selected emerald eyes for hernot iridescent,
not freakishly bright, but enhanced
for color so that she could grow up
wearing mint, olive, Kelly green, and
let her eyes talk for her. We chose
height, too, as just about everybody
does. And musical abilitywe both
love music. Intellect, of course. And
ner features, like a subtly cleft chin
and breasts that were not too big but
not as small as Connies, either. It
63
THE CRITICS
ON TELEVISION
Ostensibly, there are two Fox divisions: news journalists and pure ideologues. For a viewer, the border can seem porous.
ILLUSTRATION BY BEN KIRCHNER
65
66
but Kelly cut in, reading damning excerpts. Mr. Trump has denied this,
Pierson said. I take him at his word for
this. Well, why dont you take him at
his word on the bus, where he said he
does do this? Kelly asked.
But, really, the segment was about
Kellys face, and her brutal serenity, as
Pierson attempted to switch the topic to
Hurricane Matthew. When interviewees go loud, Kelly goes soft. She never
made a face at Piersononly Anderson
Cooper, on CNN, rivals her arctic deadpanbut her eyes lowered slightly, the
corners of her mouth rose, and her suspicion became visible, glimmering under
the surface. It was hard even to remember to look at Pierson.
Yes, I know. Kelly has her own record.
A colleague begged me, Please dont let
her of the hookand I do realize that
Im hardly the rst nave liberal to make
Kelly into the Lucy Van Pelt to our Charlie Brown, holding out the football of fair
journalism. Kelly was behind the New
Black Panthers nonsense; she touted the
War on Christmas. She employs the
same gotchas as her peers: one night, she
framed a WikiLeaks exchange about Catholicism, in which Catholic Democrats
talked critically about the faith, as a primo
scandal, then shouted down a liberal
talking head who tried to point out that
their skeptical perspective was shared by
many American Catholics. But Kellys air
of mischief is disarming. She ended that
ugly segment, sorority style, with a shouted
goodbye to her guest: Love ya! Mean it.
The night of the third debate, Kelly
was aglow. Like her colleagues, she suggested that Trump hadnt done too badly.
But then she destroyed his weakling advocate Jason Miller. She pivoted left and
surgically interrogated Donna Brazile
about WikiLeaks, leaving even this
biased liberal wanting an actual answer.
I looked into Kellys eyes and tried to
read them like tarot cards, discerning her
contractual options. Would she hop to
CNN? Or was she the future of Fox?
Could Hannity follow Trump into the
upside-down and leave Kelly as the dominant cable force, rewriting Ailess legacy in her feminine imagethe ultimate
revenge? Maybe its karma that President Hillary Clinton might yet be savaged by a female Fox journalist who survived a boss battle with Donald Trump.
Sisterhood is powerful.
BOOKS
and is on a diet; sometimes he goes in for physical training; at other times, hes idle and neglects
everything; and sometimes he even occupies himself with what he takes to be philosophy.
67
therefore we should entrust our government to pixies. If I cant really say how
well identify the pixies or harness their
sagacity, and if I also disclose evidence
that pixies may be just as error-prone as
hobbits and hooligans, youd be justied
in having doubts.
While were on the subject of vulcans and pixies, we might as well mention that theres an elephant in the room.
Knowledge about politics, Brennan reports, is higher in people who have more
education and higher income, live in the
West, belong to the Republican Party,
and are middle-aged; its lower among
blacks and women. Most poor black
women, as of right now at least, would
fail even a mild voter qualication exam,
he admits, but hes undeterred, insisting that their disenfranchisement would
be merely incidental to his epistocratic
plana completely diferent matter, he
maintains, from the literacy tests of
Americas past, which were administered with the intention of disenfranchising blacks and ethnic whites.
Thats an awfully ne distinction. Bear
in mind that, during the current Presidential race, it looks as though the votes
of blacks and women will serve as a bulwark against the most reckless demagogue in living memory, whom white
men with a college degree have been fa-
69
in the center. Unfortunately, voter ignorance does seem to have a shape. The political scientist Scott Althaus has calculated that a voter with more knowledge
of politics will, on balance, be less eager
to go to war, less punitive about crime,
more tolerant on social issues, less accepting of government control of the
economy, and more willing to accept
taxes in order to reduce the federal decit.
And Caplan calculates that a voter ignorant of economics will tend to be more
pessimistic, more suspicious of market
competition and of rises in productivity, and more wary of foreign trade and
immigration.
Its possible, though, that democracy
works even though political scientists
have failed to nd a tidy equation to explain it. It could be that voters take a
cognitive shortcut, letting broad-brush
markers like party ailiation stand in for
a close study of candidates qualications
and policy stances. Brennan doubts that
voters understand party stereotypes well
enough to do even this, but surely a shortcut neednt be perfect to be helpful. Voters may also rely on the simple heuristic of throwing out incumbents who
have made them unhappy, a technique
that in political science goes by the polite name of retrospective voting. Brennan argues that voters dont know enough
to do this, either. To impose full accountability, he writes, voters would need to
seem persuasive, in part because it dilutes the meaning of civic virtue too much,
and in part because it implies that a businessman who sells a cheeseburger to J. Edgar Hoover is committing civic evil.
More than once, Brennan compares
uninformed voting to air pollution. Its
a compelling analogy: in both cases, the
conscientiousness of the enlightened few
is no match for the negligence of the
many, and the cost of shirking duty is
spread too widely to keep any one malefactor in line. Your commute by bicycle probably isnt going to make the citys
air any cleaner, and even if you read up
on candidates for civil-court judge on
Patch.com, it may still be the crook who
gets elected. But though the incentive
for duty may be weakened, its not clear
that the duty itself is lightened.The whole
point of democracy is that the number
of people who participate in an election
is proportional to the number of people
who will have to live intimately with an
elections outcome. Its worth noting, too,
that if judicious voting is like clean air
then it cant also be like farming. Clean
air is a commons, an instance of market
failure, dependent on government protection for its existence; farming is part
of a market.
But maybe voting is neither commons
nor market. Perhaps, instead, its combat. Relatively gentle, of course. Rather
than ries and bayonets, essentially theres
just a show of hands. But the nature of
the duty may be similar, because what
Brennans model omits is that sometimes,
in an election, democracy itself is in danger. If a soldier were to calculate his personal value to the campaign that his army
is engaged in, he could easily conclude
that the cost of showing up at the front
isnt worth it, even if he factors in the
chance of being caught and punished for
desertion. The trouble is that its impossible to know in advance of a battle which
side will prevail, let alone by how great
a margin, especially if morale itself is a
variable. The lack of certainty about the
future makes a hash of merely prudential calculation. Its said that most soldiers worry more about letting down the
fellow-soldiers in their unit than about
allegiance to an entity as abstract as the
nation, and maybe voters, too, feel their
duty most acutely toward friends and
family who share their idea of where the
country needs to go.
BRIEFLY NOTED
Substitute, by Nicholson Baker (Blue Rider). In 2014, the au-
71
BOOKS
As Election Day looms, were enraged by neighbors weve grown to like and trust.
72
Scouts reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley, leaves gifts for herchewing gum,
twine, Indian-head penniesin the
hollow of a tree; she feels guilty for
never giving him anything in return.
But Scouts regular presence, Rosenblum writes, was itself a gift: she and
her friends made Boos life more interesting just by being kids.
This nebulous give-and-take contributes to the delicacy of neighbor
relations. So does the fact that neighbors stick around. We may encounter
our neighbors in spontaneous situations, but we cant react to them spontaneously. Instead, we have to consider the long-term consequences of
our actions. If a couple ghting in the
next apartment is keeping us awake,
we might want to bang on the wall.
But, because they are neighbors, we
think about the future. We wonder if
it will be awkward to run into them
in the elevator tomorrow. In the face
of too much information, we cultivate
a studied ignorance. Throughout
American history, Rosenblum nds,
the word we have used to describe our
neighbors is decent: good neighbors
are decent folk. Decency, here, is a
circumspect sort of virtue. Being decent doesnt necessarily mean being
good. It means accepting the aws in
others and returning, despite disruptions and disappointments, to the predictable rhythms of reciprocity. And
that often requires the setting aside
of principlesthe adoption of an attitude of live and let live. When we
praise the decency of our neighbors,
Rosenblum writes, we are making a
moral judgmentbut a limited one.
73
kindness arent, strictly speaking, political. In fact, they are anti-political. They
come about because neighbors insist
on relating to one another as individuals, rather than as members of parties
or groups; they ow from the neighborly principle of one good turn for another, rather than from a political principle such as the universal rights of man.
All the same, its tempting to see this
kind of neighborliness as a potential
cure for our political ills. Call it the
unied theory of democratic life: good
neighbors make for good citizens, and
vice versa. A version of this popular notion lies behind the town hall meetings staged by campaigns and news
networks, which aim to smooth the
rough edges of political disagreement
by invoking a mood of open-minded
neighborliness. It also serves as a consoling touchstone in political speeches.
74
For all our blind spots and shortcomings, President Obama said, in last
years State of the Union address, we
are a people with the strength and generosity of spirit to bridge divides, to
unite in common efort, to help our
neighbors, whether down the street or
on the other side of the world. This
summer, speaking about the ve police
oicers slain by a gunman in Dallas,
Obama said that America is not as divided as some have suggested. He cited
Americans unity in recognizing that
this is not how we want our communities to operate. In both cases, the implication was that, by tapping into a reservoir of neighborly good will, we might
arrest the slide into polarized dysfunction. This is a comforting idea. As individual voters, we can do very little to
reform our broken political system, or
to change the apocalyptic tenor of todays political campaigns. But, as neighbors and friends, we can redeem politics through ordinary human decency.
Rosenblum is skeptical of this theory. She describes it as a species of
social and political holism. Instead,
she argues, American life is characterized by pluralism. That word usually
connotes something like multiculturalisme pluribus unumbut Rosenblum uses it to describe individuals,
rather than society as a whole. As individuals, she writes, we are manysided, if not protean, personalities, and
we each inhabit many diferentiated
spheres with their own identiable norms
and institutions. We are, simultaneously, citizens, workers, neighbors, parents, lovers, and souls; in each of these
spheres, we observe and uphold diferent rules and values. Sometimes these
values are in conict with one another.
But preservation of multiple spheres
is the great promise and charge of liberal democracy, Rosenblum maintains.
Good Neighbors is one of several
recent books that, at a moment when
politics feels all-pervasive, aim to reclaim some space for apolitical life. Earlier this year, in On Friendship (Basic),
the philosopher Alexander Nehamas
traced a route similar to Rosenblums:
quoting C. S. Lewis, he argued that
friendship is a sort of secession, even
a rebellion, from our lives as citizens.
Civic and professional life force us into
socioeconomic, racial, and political cat-
posed neighborliness, it was all just regressive housewifely bullshit, one neighbor complains. In short, the unied
theory of democratic life can be applied
in reverse. If someones a bad citizen,
then she must be a bad neighbor, too.
Its easy to apply this logic in 2016.
Pluralism provides a bulwark against
it. It urges us to remember that our
neighbors arent bad people all the
timejust when they think about politics. The reverse is true, too, of course.
Our good political beliefs dont make
us good people all the time. Some of
us could probably stand to be a little
more pluralist about ourselves.
his summer, after our village
75
MUSICAL EVENTS
A SUDDEN SHADOW
The Met highlights the darkness in Rossinis William Tell.
BY ALEX ROSS
I decided that I had something better to do, which was to remain silent.
The last scene of Tell is, not by accident, colossal and sublime. The titular hero has helped the cantons of
Switzerland rise up against Hapsburg
oppression and, in the process, won the
famous archery contest involving an
apple balanced on his sons head. As the
sun breaks through the clouds, revealing ice-capped peaks, Tell exclaims,
Everything here changes and grows in
grandeur! His son, Jemmy, adds, In
the distance, what an immense horizon! The change of weather is mirrored in the music. Over glistening harp
arpeggios, other instruments enter one
by onehorns, clarinets, oboes, utes
1
Social Notes from All Over
From the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune.
Havre, July 21: A woman wanted to speak
to an officer about another woman who was
badmouthing her.
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 7, 2016
77
78
THE THEATRE
SHOWOFFS
Gay relections on the stage.
BY HILTON ALS
Adam Bocks A Life, with David Hyde Pierce, looks at the loneliness of lost love.
80
to be. Jomama is just one of the performers in Duat (a Soho Rep production, at
the Connelly), a play that tries to show
us who Daniel Alexander Jones is behind
the wigs and the makeup, by telling
the story of his youth in Massachusetts
in the eighties and how culturein the
form of Zora Neale Hurston, Diana
Ross, and othershelped shape him.
Duat is a complicated piece whose
ideas are too big to work onstage. One
gets the sense that Jones and his director, Will Davis, didnt want to leave anything out of this overstufed production,
for fear that Jones would never have another chance to recount his past. First,
were in Daniels bedroom, with the performer and two versions of his younger
self, played especially well by Jacques
Colimon (a sexy, knowing scamp) and
Tenzin Gund-Morrow. We hear about
Joness multiracial background, his rst
gay love afair, and how he started to
make art. Thats all ne, but when Jones
stages a pageant of his favorite Egyptian deitiesas a way of illustrating the
inspiration for his spangled diva, Jomama?
I couldnt saythe piece derails. Jones
calls his work Afromysticism, and he
has a scholars love of black art, but everything gets further confused in the
second part of the show, where Jomama
appears as a version of a schoolteacher
who was nice to Jones when he was a
boy. Now his two younger selves will be
part of a talent show at, I believe, the
school Jones attended, where Colimons
character falls in love with a man who
looks not unlike the man with whom
Jones had his rst sexual experience,
andwell, on and on. In a program note,
Jones writes that Duat marks the rst
time that the two halves of his performing selfDaniel and Jomamahave
come together, but wouldnt the nearly
two-and-a-half-hour spectacle have been
more accessible if hed limited his story
to one person? In Duat, Jones is dramaturgically at war with his most inspired creation, one that benets from
the freedom of his imagination, not from
the limitations of his truth.
he fifty-four-year-old play-
81
GOOD FIGHTS
Hacksaw Ridge and Loving.
BY ANTHONY LANE
Mel Gibsons new film tells of a conscientious objector in the Second World War.
rom the Blue Ridge Mountains
ton Csokas). Richard points to the marriage license on the wall. Thats no
good here, the sherif says. The Lovings are temporarily jailed, and are freed
on condition that they quit Virginia
and stay away for twenty-ve years. So
its back to Washington, and a cramped
existence that neither of them enjoys.
Indeed, the emotional undertow of the
lm suggests that the rift between town
and country folk runs as deep as any
racial segregation. That is why, in
deance of the ruling, the Lovings return to Caroline County, initially for
the birth of their rst child (Richards
mother is a midwife), and then permanently, because they cannot accept their
exile. And so the legal strife grinds on,
all the way to the Supreme Court, which
in 1967, in Loving v. Virginia, nds
in their favor. The law of the land is
changed.
The quiet joke of the lm is that
you could scarcely meet two less revolutionary souls. You need to get you
some civil rights, Mildred is told, but
the only marching we see is on television, and her boldest act is to write to
Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, who passes her case on to the
A.C.L.U. The Lovings strength is that
of undemonstrative stoics; if they are
allowed back into the state, Richard
says, we wont bother anybody. In
tribute to that composure, the movie
is restrained to a degree that will strike
some viewers as exasperating, or even
perverse, and that others will deem
properly heroic. A drunken provocation in a bar stops before it can burst
into a brawl; Richards mother greets
him, when he comes home for the
childs birth, with nothing but an order
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Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose
three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this weeks cartoon, by P. C. Vey, must be
received by Sunday, November 6th. The finalists in the October 24th contest appear below. We will announce the
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THIS WEEKS CONTEST
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THE FINALISTS