The New Yorker - August 22, 2022

78 Pages·2022·42.3 MB·English

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AUGUST 22, 2022
4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
11 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Elizabeth Kolbert on climate change and partisanship;
stylishly succinct; riding round the reservoir;
eco-friendly fashion; Atlantic City’s monster organ.
LETTER FROM RWANDA
Nicola Twilley 16 The Cold Rush
The promise—and the challenges—of refrigeration.
SKETCHBOOK
Barry Blitt 21 “Saul Goodman Takes On His Sleaziest Client Yet”
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Megan Amram 23 The Tesla Body
PERSONAL HISTORY
Hua Hsu 24 My Dad and Kurt Cobain
Faxes from Taiwan on math and music.
A REPORTER AT LARGE
Adam Entous 30 The Biden Inheritance
Uncovering the history of the President’s father.
PROFILES
Rebecca Mead 42 Goop
How the sculptor Anish Kapoor shapes his vision.
FICTION
Alejandro Zambra 54 “Skyscrapers”
THE CRITICS
BOOKS
Rachel Syme 60 Nora Ephron’s evolution.
63 Briefly Noted
A CRITIC AT LARGE
Louis Menand 65 The state of America’s undemocratic democracy.
ON TELEVISION
Doreen St. Félix 70 Mysterious convolutions abound in “The Resort.”
POEMS
Sandra Cisneros 36 “Tea Dance, Provincetown, 1982”
José Antonio Rodríguez 51 “Tender”
COVER
Nicole Rifkin “Sun-Dappled”
DRAWINGS Pia Guerra and Ian Boothby, P. C. Vey, Suerynn Lee, Drew Dernavich, Carolita Johnson, Michael Maslin, Roz Chast,
Barbara Smaller, Liana Finck, Frank Cotham, Colin Tom, Zachary Kanin, David Borchart SPOTS Sarah Letteney
CONTRIBUTORS
Adam Entous (“The Biden Inheritance,” Rebecca Mead (“Goop,” p. 42) has been
p. 30), a staff writer, was a member of a staff writer since 1997. She is the au-
a team at the Washington Post that thor of, most recently, “Home/Land.”
won the Pulitzer Prize for national
reporting in 2018. Hua Hsu (“My Dad and Kurt Cobain,”
p. 24), a staff writer, will publish the
Nicola Twilley (“The Cold Rush,” p. 16), memoir “Stay True” in September.
a frequent contributor to the magazine,
co-hosts the podcast “Gastropod.” She Sandra Cisneros (Poem, p. 36) received
is working on a book about refrigera- the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for
tion’s transformative power. Achievement in International Litera-
ture. Her new poetry collection, “Woman
José Antonio Rodríguez (Poem, p. 51) is Without Shame,” will come out in
a poet, a memoirist, and a translator. His September.
latest book is “This American Autopsy.”
Louis Menand (A Critic at Large, p. 65)
Nicole Rifkin (Cover), a cartoonist and is a staff writer and a Harvard profes-
an illustrator, is based in Brooklyn. sor. His most recent book is “The Free
World.”
Alejandro Zambra (Fiction, p. 54) is the
author of several books, including “My Doreen St. Félix (On Television, p. 70),
Documents” and “Chilean Poet.” His The New Yorker’s television critic, has
novel “Bonsai,” translated, from the been a staff writer since 2017.
Spanish, by Megan McDowell, was
published in English this month. Barry Blitt (Sketchbook, p. 21) won the
2020 Pulitzer Prize for editorial car-
Rachel Syme (Books, p. 60), a staff writer, tooning for work that appeared in this
has covered Hollywood, style, and cul- magazine. His latest book, “Blitt,” is a
ture for The New Yorker since 2012. collection of his illustrations.
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STORIES AS MEDICINE THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM
As a founder of the discipline of narra- Louis Menand, in his review of Hugh
tive medicine, I thank Jerome Groop- Eakin’s book about modern art’s arrival
man for his piece about doctors and in the U.S., recounts John Quinn’s im-
storytelling (Books, July 25th). Narra- portant, if sometimes blinkered and
tive medicine applies the skills that one self-serving, advocacy of modernist art
acquires from analyzing literature to the and literature (Books, July 4th). I was
practice of medicine; it not only makes surprised that he did not mention Quinn’s
room for the sharing of war stories but relationship with James Joyce, especially
also provides literary, philosophical, and in connection with the legal barriers to
psychological training that allows med- publication that “Ulysses” faced in the
ical professionals to perceive and inter- U.S. (which Menand alludes to). Quinn
The Little Review
pret what goes on in the care of the sick. defended , the Amer-
As Groopman learned, complex narra- ican magazine that had run several epi-
tive abilities are needed to comprehend sodes from the novel, before a court in
patients’ experiences of illness, and to 1921. His defense—that “Ulysses” was in-
represent with fidelity what one has wit- comprehensible and therefore incapable
nessed. When practiced rigorously, nar- of corrupting readers—was nonsensical
rative medicine can lead to the activism and ineffectual. Even so, he is owed some
and advocacy necessary to critique— credit for preparing the ground for the
and fix—our health-care system. landmark decision, in 1933, that “Ulysses”
Rita Charon
was not pornographic or obscene and
Division of Narrative Medicine
thus was publishable.
1
Columbia University Charles Loughhead
New York City New York City
HONORING A TEACHER
Groopman’s description of his struggle
to balance his medical education with
his authorial voice brought to mind the I was delighted to see Peter Schjeldahl’s
philosopher Walter Kaufmann’s neolo- article about Oscar Howe’s retrospective
gism “humbition.” In his book “The Faith at a branch of the Smithsonian’s National
of a Heretic,” published in 1959, Kaufmann Museum of the American Indian (The
proposed four virtues for the modern Art World, July 11th & 18th). In 1952,
age: love, courage, honesty, and humbi- Howe was my eighth-grade art teacher;
tion, which he defined as keen ambition I recall him patiently explaining the dif-
grounded in genuine humility. In order ferences among the classical orders of
“to acknowledge [their] capacity for cat- Greek columns. At the time, I knew noth-
astrophic error,” as Groopman suggests, ing about his work. I would later attend
both physicians and writers would ben- South Dakota State University, where I
efit from an allegiance to this virtue. saw some of Howe’s pieces displayed on
Marty Krasney
campus. I was impressed with his use of
Sausalito, Calif.
color and his flair for modernism, and
the variety of Native topics he addressed.
As a doctor, I’ve observed that narra- Thank you for writing about him.
Karen DeAntoni
tives can help patients as much as they
Centennial, Colo.
do physicians. In my thirty-five years of
counselling people with cancer, I have
•
seen my patients’ illness stories evolve
over time. The more conscientiously Letters should be sent with the writer’s name,
address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
they listen to themselves, the more sen-
[email protected]. Letters may be edited
sitively they respond to their situations.
for length and clarity, and may be published in
Jeff Kane
any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
Nevada City, Calif. of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
AUGUST 17 – 23, 2022
GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
Leon Bridges
The Texas singer emerged, in 2015, as a convincing throwback, with everything from
the shoes on his feet to the croon on his lips paying homage to a faded era of classic soul. In his more
recent work, including last year’s down-tempo LP, “Gold-Diggers Sound,” the singer effectively reset
his time machine to the present, covering a breadth of soul music in the process. On Aug. 18, Bridges
headlines at Forest Hills Stadium, with an opening set from the Swedish electro-pop band Little Dragon.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BRYAN SCHUTMAAT
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As ever, it’s advisable to check in advance caping the clunky dialogue, but it’s relieved tion of Brown’s sparely conceptual early works,
to confirm engagements. by a chorus of three actors, who voice the which transfer well to outdoor spaces—should
thoughts of Kevin—who’s struggling to turn be right at home on the shore. A restaging of
his recollections into a book—and variously Brown’s “Opal Loop,” a complex and slippery
incarnate Rembrandt, van Gogh, Anne Frank, piece, from 1980, that originally made use of
THE THEATRE and ludicrous tourists. The production’s coup a fog machine, promises a more substantive
is staging the action behind a sheer screen, transformation. With surf spray playing the
over which glide Nicholas Hussong’s projec- role of mist, how will this dance of chaos and
Into the Woods
tions—silhouettes of Amsterdam’s skyline, pattern change at the beach?—Brian Seibert
Lear deBessonet directs this delectable revival closeups of Sammy, a van Gogh painting in (Beach 97th Street; Aug. 20.)
of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s progress—keeping viewers, like Kevin, at a
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musical from 1987, which braids several classic slight, wistful remove.—Dan Stahl (59E59;
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
fairy tales into a two-act piece that begins as through Sept. 4.)
farce and then takes a turn toward the tragic. For the first time in twenty years, the Cleo
Everyone starts out wishing for something: Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble makes the
Cinderella (Phillipa Soo) to go to a festival trip to the Berkshires festival from Denver,
at the palace; the overgrown boy Jack (Cole DANCE where it has been preserving and extending
Thompson) to coax his beloved cow, Milky- the lineage of Black modern dance since
White (skillfully manipulated by the actor 1970. The program buttresses newer works
“Beach Sessions”
Kennedy Kanagawa), to produce some milk with some lesser-known gems by canonical
for his family; Little Red Riding Hood (Julia This year, the late-summer dance series at choreographers: Katherine Dunham’s “Rag-
Lester) to buy a loaf of bread to take to her Rockaway Beach features the Trisha Brown time,” Donald McKayle’s “Crossing the Ru-
granny; the Baker (Brian d’Arcy James), who Dance Company. A site-specific version of the bicon,” and Robinson’s own “Mary Don’t You
sells her the loaf, to have a child. Too bad—he company’s “In Plain Site” program—a selec- Weep.”—B.S. (Becket, Mass.; Aug. 17-21.)
and his wife (Sara Bareilles) are barren, thanks
to a curse placed on them by the Witch (the
ravishing Patina Miller). In Act II come the
PODCAST DEPT.
consequences of so much wish fulfillment, and
Sondheim’s personal-favorite theme, the jour-
ney from innocence to knowledge. Lester’s
maximally sassified Little Red is a highlight;
the duo of vain princes, played by Gavin Creel
and Joshua Henry, pull off “Agony” to preen-
ing perfection. Even when the giant starts
stomping around and the cast goes boom-
squish, you still find reasons to laugh. It’s a
tonic.—Alexandra Schwartz (Reviewed in our
issue of 8/8/22.) (St. James; through Oct. 16.)
The Nosebleed
Every death snips a line of communication.
The result, often—particularly when the
relationship wasn’t so good—is a bitter run
of questions about language: What should
I have said back then? What would I say,
given the chance, today? Aya Ogawa’s raw,
hurting, artfully ironic, ragefully brilliant
play “The Nosebleed”—up at Lincoln Center
Theatre—attempts to answer this question,
in a séance-like theatrical spectacle. The play
re-creates Ogawa’s father, who is dead, in a
series of short, funny scenes, and shouts the
playwright’s final message across the final
gulf. There’s an interesting inversion at work:
Most conversational podcasts have a time-tested—if increasingly tired—
Ogawa, who also directs, plays their own fa-
ther, as well as their own son (the victim of formula: two or three hosts gab at length about a given subject, be it soccer,
the titular nosebleed), and leaves the role silent films, skin-care products, or snack foods. (Or, in the case of certain
of Aya to a humming, cohesive ensemble—
celebrity-led podcasts, the hosts just kibbitz with their famous friends.) If you
Drae Campbell, Ashil Lee, Saori Tsukada, and
KailiY. Turner. See it, especially if you’ve got are into a topic, no matter how obscure, the odds are good that there are pod-
some daddy trouble to work through.—Vinson casters out there chatting about it. Still, despite the glut of talky pods, it can be
Cunningham (Claire Tow; through Aug. 28.)
difficult to find one that has real verve. What elevates a show is an undeniable
“Celebrity Book Club with Steven & Lily”
chemistry between the hosts, and
On That Day in Amsterdam
is dripping with good chemistry. The show’s subject matter—revisiting the
Clarence Coo’s memory play retraces the ram-
memoirs of the rich and famous—is fertile terrain, but it’s the giddy, urbane,
ble of two young men, following a one-night
S
BB stand, through the Dutch capital. Sammy and downright delectable patter between Steven Phillips-Horst and Lily
N GI (Ahmad Maksoud) is a Middle Eastern Marotta, who have been friends since they were teen-agers, that makes
O refugee bound for London; Kevin (Glenn
S “C.B.C.” such an addictive listen. Start with their episode on Peggy Gug-
K Morizio), from whose perspective the story
C
JA unfurls, is a backpacking American college genheim, where they perform deranged heiress impersonations, or a recent,
Y
B student. If the circumstances sound suspi- riotous episode on Tina Brown’s “Vanity Fair Diaries,” featuring the come-
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O ciously meet-cute, they are—yet the show,
ATI presented by Primary Stages, makes a virtue dian John Early. Phillips-Horst and Marotta know exactly how to skewer
TR of its artifice, thanks largely to the director starry self-importance with fresh jokes without falling into cynicism or easy
S
LU Zi Alikhan’s inventiveness. There’s no es- punch lines; this is a podcast that earns your entertainment.—Rachel Syme
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THE NEW YORKER, AUGUST 22, 2022 5
version of “Finding Your Roots,” in which
IN THE MUSEUMS
experts in house and hip-hop explore connec-
tions with jazz musicians and a d.j.—to a free
show in Harlem. Also on the program is Omar
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Edwards, a wild man of tap.—B.S. (Marcus
Garvey Park; Aug. 18.)
ART
“Neelon Crawford, Filmmaker”
In 1973, Crawford began to travel from his
home, in San Francisco, to South America,
seeking new subjects for his short, non-narra-
tive 16-mm. films—“moving paintings,” he calls
them—resulting in the nine newly restored
works in this surprisingly heartrending show.
During his trips, Crawford witnessed the di-
sastrous effects of deforestation and drilling, as
well as the toll that banana farming took on the
land and its workers alike. Using a Bolex cam-
era, he captured his experiences of the terrain,
with an eye for lush abstraction; his forms of
image disintegration resonate with the climate
grief of today. The mesmerizing, super-satu-
rated footage of isolated cylinders and gears in
“Laredo Sugar Mill,” from 1976, is an outlier—a
The Cooper Hewitt’s “Selects” series—in which the museum invites a machine-age modernist throwback. (It’s worth
noting that the artist’s father was the precision-
celebrated aesthete to delve into its collection and curate a show—con-
ist painter Ralston Crawford.) By contrast, the
tinues its winning streak with a constellation of objects chosen by the
environment in Crawford’s tropical landscapes
Nigerian-born British fashion designer Duro Olowu (on view through appears in grainy sweeps and contemplative
detail. On a formal level, his film “Lago Agrio
Aug. 28). Given his career, it comes as no surprise that Olowu emphasizes
Gas Burn,” from 1977, is a magnetic study of
textiles (although not exclusively) with his signature mix of bold patterns,
fire, but it also accrues a terrible power as a
textures, and culturally specific motifs. Repetition emerges as a curatorial view of a long-unfolding catastrophe in Ec-
uador, instigated by Texaco, which devastated
strategy. One striking arrangement, an array of printed cotton hanging in
the country’s Indigenous population. Think
staggered layers, offers enough cross-cultural insights for an exhibition
of the roiling flare that Crawford captured on
of its own. The juxtaposition of two mid-twentieth-century fabrics, one camera as a synecdoche for the poisoning of
Lago Agrio—and, perhaps, for the fate of the
camouflage and the other Polynesian-themed, illuminates how the U.S.
Anthropocene, too.—Johanna Fateman (Museum
military presence in the South Pacific influenced American decorative
of Modern Art; through Oct. 10.)
trends. “Golden Harvest,” an expressively drawn orange textile design,
from the late fifties, by the Trinidadian-British designer Althea McNish,
“One Hundred Years of
provides a backdrop for a geometric seafoam-and-silver print, which
James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ ”
was inspired by (and marketed to) Africa but produced in Manchester,
If we think of suffering as being linked to
England, in the early nineteen-hundreds. Elsewhere, an Afghan war rug,
deprivation, James Joyce didn’t suffer much.
made by an unknown weaver circa 1990-2000, features images of grenades
For years, while the Irish author was at work
and helicopters, bluntly inscribing contemporary geopolitics into a cen- on his landmark novel “Ulysses,” he was finan-
cially and emotionally supported by a number
turies-old decorative form. And tassels exude unexpected charisma when
of queer women—and some forward-thinking
a half-dozen knotted—and oddly biomorphic—Italian linen examples,
men—who not only believed in his genius but
from the seventeenth century, are installed below the fringe of a beautiful understood his desire to be beautifully turned
—Johanna Fateman out as he wrote all those beautiful sentences.
Mexican wool poncho, made two centuries later.
In this elegant exhibition, manuscript pages
from Joyce’s major works are accompanied by
photographs of Margaret Anderson and Jane
spired by Walton’s hillside pool, on the island Heap, the co-editors of The Little Review (and,
The Sarasota Ballet
of Ischia, in Italy.) Along with another Ashton for a time, lovers, too), who encouraged Joyce
The Joyce closes out its summer offerings with work, “Birthday Offering,” the company is by excerpting “Ulysses,” between 1918 and
a visit from the Sarasota Ballet, a company bringing something new, a ballet by Jessica 1920. Two years later, Sylvia Beach published
based on Florida’s Gulf Coast, which has made Lang, with designs by the contemporary artist the novel in its entirety, under the aegis of her N
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a name for itself by becoming one of the top Roxane Revon.—Marina Harss (Joyce Theatre; legendary Parisian bookstore, Shakespeare and TI
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repositories of works by George Balanchine’s Aug. 16-21.) Company—despite the fact that Joyce’s writing T
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British counterpart, Frederick Ashton. Ash- was banned in several countries.—Hilton Als NS
ton’s ballets are challenging for the dancers and (Morgan Library & Museum; through Oct. 2.) N I
SummerStage A
full of choreographic felicities—musicality, NI
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complexity, wit. The latter quality is much When LaTasha Barnes is in motion, she S
“Stuff” H
in evidence in “Varii Capricci,” a late, seldom bridges seemingly disparate eras so effort- T
MI
performed Ashton piece, choreographed in lessly that the continuity of the African dias- A portrait of Fran Lebowitz taken by Peter S
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1983, set in a world of jet-setters lounging pora in American dance becomes comically Hujar, in 1974, in her childhood bedroom, S
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poolside. (The music is by William Walton, self-evident. On Aug. 18, she brings excerpts where it looks as if she just woke up, opens this RT
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who died that same year; the setting was in- of “The Jazz Continuum”—a kind of dance disarmingly wonderful, description-defying O
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6 THE NEW YORKER, AUGUST 22, 2022
exhibition. The sculptor Arlene Shechet, who the band’s brisk initial run of studio albums moniously alongside Finley’s warm singing.
recently proved her curatorial chops in a sim- is accompanied by recordings both obscure The piece justifies this approach: a babbling
ilarly free-associative show at the Drawing and heretofore unearthed. Salvaged from the brook figures prominently in the text and in
Center, has corralled more than five dozen upstate barn of Harry’s co-chair, Chris Stein, the keyboard writing, and the final two songs
pieces by almost as many artists, spanning the early sketches map out the stylistic maze are sung from its perspective. The performers
nine decades. (The earliest work on view is the band would navigate; the beloved albums barrel through the opening songs, all robus-
a Man Ray photo, from 1934-35, of a weird hitch youthful ardor and intellectual ambition tious and happy-go-lucky, as the narrator, a
mathematical model; the newest is a starkly to beats with world-conquering panache. At miller, follows a stream to the maid he loves.
elegant sculpture, made this year by Arthur these summer shows, Blondie—accompanied Newly awakened to his feelings, Finley’s miller
Jafa.) The tone is intimate, and so is the scale by Glen Matlock, the former bassist of the Sex sounds exuberant, vulnerable, and unprepared
of most of what’s here; one towering exception Pistols, but temporarily minus Stein—revisits for the heartbreak to come. Drake weaves his
is a dirty joke in lamp form, by the irrepressible its improbable handmade disco and satiny parts crisply, as if they were a counterpoint
Lynda Benglis. Claes Oldenburg, who died in punk.—Jay Ruttenberg (The Rooftop at Pier 17; by Bach—whose name, incidentally, means
July and is best known for gargantuan public Aug. 17-18.) “brook” in German.—Oussama Zahr (Available
monuments to the everyday, is represented for digital or physical purchase.)
by “Ghost Fan,” a two-foot-wide soft sculp-
Boyz II Them
ture from 1967. “Stuff” is not for those craving
Gil Evans Project 
N.F.T.-adjacent tech innovation (for that, go During the past year, the dance-
ELECTRONIC
downstairs, where John Gerrard has a concur- music d.j.s Russell E. L. Butler and ADAB The arranger Gil Evans spent his career
JAZZ
rent exhibit of portentous digital simulations). have been performing back-to-back sets under hidden in plain sight; his most conspicuous
If Shechet’s show has a manifesto, Oldenburg the moniker Boyz II Them—surely this era’s achievements were the titanic albums that
wrote it, in 1961: “I am for an art that takes its best new group name. Their sets together, as he made in collaboration with Miles Davis,
form from the lines of life itself, that twists heard on an appearance last year on Brooklyn’s including the record-collection perennial
and extends and accumulates and spits and the Lot Radio, are heavy on glinting minimal- “Sketches of Spain.” Yet Evans was an inspired
drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and ism. It’s machine music with a loose spaciness, and questing musician in his own right, and
sweet and stupid as life itself.”—Andrea K. Scott which builds gradually and purposefully—at an orchestrator who left his fingerprint on
(Pace; through Aug. 19.) one point in the Lot Radio set, the beat gives any piece of music that he chose to interpret.
way to pulsating electronics, fraying at the The arranger and bandleader Ryan Truesdell
edge. The groove bubbles rather than burns. has made it his mission to keep Evans’s work
“Women at War”
At this Brooklyn club date, the duo plays from alive by way of the Gil Evans Project, a vibrant
I wish everyone could see this astounding open to close.—Michaelangelo Matos (Public ensemble that digs deep into its namesake’s
show of works by a dozen Ukrainian artists, all Records; Aug. 20.) œuvre—often unearthing obscure charts that
women, many of them young. Apart from one display the Master’s singular genius.—Steve
historical piece—a linocut portrait from 1963 Futterman (Birdland; Aug. 17-20.)
of the poet Ivan Svitlychny, by Alla Horska, an Gerald Finley:
artist and activist who was murdered, reputedly
“Die Schöne Müllerin” Scuba
by the K.G.B., in 1970—the drawings, paint-
ings, photos, and videos on view postdate the To hear the pianist Julius Drake play Paul Rose, the British d.j. who
CLASSICAL ELECTRONIC
Russian seizure of Crimea, in 2014. These are “Die Schöne Müllerin” is to ponder whether works as Scuba, has been a key architect of
tough-minded creators whose moral fibre should Schubert’s work is actually a song cycle for dance music’s past two decades. Credit Rose’s
humble those of us who are cozily remote from piano with vocal accompaniment, instead of ear as a tastemaker: he spent several years as
a cataclysm that adapts repertoires of interna- the inverse. On a new recording with the Ca- an anchor of the Berlin techno club Berghain,
tional art to the lived truths of a convulsed, ac- nadian baritone Gerald Finley, Drake doesn’t and his label, Hotflush, has issued defining
tual place. The most unsettling works, by Dana pull focus from the vocalist so much as he d.j. anthems by Joy Orbison and Dense &
Kavelina, are deliberately crude pencil drawings pursues independent ideas that flow har- Pika. Hotflush is also the home of Rose’s own
executed on crumpled white paper punctuated
by internal rips colored blood-red. A number
of them allude to rape. But the versatile Kave- INDIE ROCK
lina, a rising star in her late twenties, has also
created an elegiac, desperately moving video
projection, titled “Letter to a Turtledove,” which
During the past decade, Sharon Van
montages archival film footage of coal miners
in the Donbas with expressive women’s faces Etten, Angel Olsen, and Julien Baker have
and hypnotically stylized, almost meditative, each amassed the talismanic resonance
fiery explosions. The piece engulfs the viewer
of indie-rock patron saints, honoring
in a minor-key visual cadenza that sounds the
heart and very soul of a nation that has come to piercing details and outsized feeling while
awareness of itself—past, present, unknowable tempering emotional turbulence with
1
future—under unspeakable conditions.—Peter
grace. (Also, they have all covered Bruce
Schjeldahl (Fridman; through Aug. 26.)
Springsteen.) When, last year, Olsen
and Van Etten teamed up for the Before
Times anthem “Like I Used To,” it felt
MUSIC
the Wild Hearts Tour,
like a gift; now, with
they bring their union onstage, and add
Blondie
Baker. At Central Park’s SummerStage,
Through its golden years, Blondie spun
ROCK
S an unusual fantasy: gaze into this band and Aug. 20-21, the musicians perform sets
B
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C you shall find whatever your heart desires. that spotlight their recent records, newest
A
J Here was an artistically ablaze punk band mas-
A among them Olsen’s pop-country-crooner
LI querading as a blithe pop act—or was it vice
CE versa?—brilliantly fronted by Debbie Harry, turn, “Big Time.” A tote bag at the merch
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B an ironic downtown bombshell. Blondie’s booth reads “I Went to ‘The Wild Hearts
N
O songs glued together incongruous musical Emotional
ATI worlds; Harry even rapped (it made sense Tour’ and All I Got Was ,” but
TR at the time). On “Blondie: Against the Odds audiences can also expect soul-strength-
S
LU 1974-1982,” a new every-last-scrap boxed set, ening camaraderie.—Jenn Pelly
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THE NEW YORKER, AUGUST 22, 2022 7
work as both Scuba and SCB. Over the years, and the Wolf (Bad Bunny). Blood is copiously private lives come to light, with enormous (and
both projects have leaned toward slate-gray shed, and twists abound, as do special effects, sometimes devastating) results. Cukor creates
techno, but Scuba’s d.j. sets still manage to uncertain accents, worse wigs, and running—or, a furiously expressive palette of flashy colors,
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maintain a catlike nimbleness.—M.M. (Good at any rate, stumbling—gags. The director is deep shadows, bold contrasts, and scathing sun-
Room; Aug. 19.) David Leitch, who was, in movies past, em- shine, and he spotlights a set of performances
ployed as Pitt’s stunt double; Pitt himself, of to match, conjuring what goes on behind the
course, took just such a role in “Once Upon a closed doors where women living in prefabri-
Time in ... Hollywood.” Any hopes that Leitch cated houses are forced into prefabricated lives.
MOVIES might rival Tarantino in the height of his jinks They struggle, both inwardly and outwardly, to
are swiftly dashed.—Anthony Lane (Reviewed in forge an identity in their man-made confines;
our issue of 8/15/22.) (In theatrical release.) one woman survives rape, another abuses alco-
Bullet Train
hol, and all are maneuvered into dark depths of
In this new star vehicle for Brad Pitt, the vehicle self-loathing. It’s a powerful story, directed with
The Chapman Report
in question is a high-speed train whisking its seething rage at a world of outward order and
passengers from Tokyo to Kyoto. (A surpris- The Kinsey Reports, with their revelations about inner agony.—Richard Brody (Playing Aug.19 on
ing proportion of them are Western, and the the intimate lives of thousands of interview TCM and streaming on Prime Video, Google Play,
whole film shows scandalously little interest subjects, were fictionalized in George Cukor’s and other services.)
in its cultural surroundings. Japan is largely flamboyantly scalding melodrama, from 1962,
represented by anime characters and an amus- in which a pair of male sociologists (Efrem
Daisies
ing toilet flush.) Pitt plays a professional killer Zimbalist, Jr., and Andrew Duggan) visit a Los
named Ladybug, who is joined on the trip by Angeles suburb to interview women there about The Czech director Věra Chytilová’s second fea-
other assassins, including Tangerine (Aaron Tay- sex. The story is centered on four residents ture, from 1966, is one of the great outpourings
lor-Johnson), Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry), the (played by Jane Fonda, Claire Bloom, Shelley of cinematic invention—and its very subject is
Hornet (Zazie Beetz), the Prince (Joey King), Winters, and Glynis Johns) whose tormented the revolutionary power of imagination. Jitka
Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová star as young
women, both named Marie, whose surrealistic
ON THE BIG SCREEN and capricious exploits taunt Soviet-dominated
authority, as does Chytilová’s exuberant, free-
wheeling way of filming them. The Maries romp
through city and country, pulling pranks along
the way—making playthings of older men, en-
joying their largesse in fancy restaurants and
then ditching them. With a dazzling catalogue
of visual and sonic effects, Chytilová’s depiction
of the women’s uninhibited behavior (performed
with antic gestures and diction) celebrates phys-
ical pleasure as a mode of liberation. Yet she
also captures the ambient paranoia of a police
state, as in a frolic in a milk bath, where the two
women treat a Kafkaesque nightmare as political
deliverance: the possibility that their existence
is unrecorded.—R.B. (Opening Aug. 19 at IFC
Center and streaming on the Criterion Channel,
HBO Max, and other services.)
Jeff, Who Lives at Home
Jeff (Jason Segel) is thirty, he lives with his
widowed mother (Susan Sarandon), and he
does little but inhale from a bong and dispense
pop-derived musings. He’s a lonely idler who
can’t get started—but once he does get started,
by chasing a silly whim (based on a chain of
coincidences launched by a wrong number), he
doesn’t stop. Jeff finally finds some drama in
Before the age of digital video, independent filmmaking meant shooting
his flatlining existence thanks to his brother,
on film, which required Hollywood-grade industrial infrastructure on a Pat (Ed Helms), a preening middle manager
shoestring. For more than half a century, the New York film laboratory and nerdy lout. When Pat wrecks his marriage
to Linda (Judy Greer)—by buying a Porsche
DuArt—under the leadership of Irwin Young, who died in January, at the
with savings meant for a down payment on a
age of ninety-four—provided such services, often on generous terms. In house—Jeff’s wayward adventure fuses with
the nineteen-sixties and beyond, Young was an accomplice to a cinematic Pat’s quest to repair the relationship. The di-
rectors, the brothers Jay and Mark Duplass,
revolution that’s showcased in the Metrograph series “The Process,” which
see misunderstandings and humiliations as
is devoted to him and to his brother Robert, an independent filmmaker. the human condition; their New Age credo
The program features modern classics made possible by DuArt’s pa- of guided self-reliance gets emotional weight
“Girlfriends,” from their view of impending old age. From the
tronage, including Claudia Weill’s richly textured drama
first shot—a closeup that uncomfortably reveals
from 1978 (screening Aug. 17, Aug. 19, and Aug. 21). It stars Melanie Segel’s aging-adolescent complexion—the film
Mayron as Susan Weinblatt, a photographer living on the Upper West gets sweatily close to the actors, poignantly
highlighting the characters’ self-centered con-
Side, not long out of college, whose artistic ambitions require solitude
fusion and quietly frantic urgency. Released
1
that conflicts with her romantic longings. Susan’s drive for independence in 2012.—R.B. (Streaming on HBO Max, Para- Y
M
contrasts with the struggle of her married best friend, a writer named mount+, Prime Video, and other services.) A
L
A
Annie (Anita Skinner), to find time to work. The intimate tale of young /
2
women’s effervescent socializing and melancholy uncertainty reflects O 1
For more reviews, visit T
public policy in a subplot involving the right to abortion.—Richard Brody newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town HO
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8 THE NEW YORKER, AUGUST 22, 2022