The New Yorker - July 04, 2022

82 Pages·2022·33.5 MB·English

PRICE $8.99 JULY 4, 2022

JULY 4, 2022
8 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
15 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Jia Tolentino on the Supreme Court’s decision
to overturn Roe v. Wade and end abortion rights;
right-wing headlines; directing in miniature.
ANNALS OF NATURE
Annie Proulx 20 Swamped
Why our wetlands matter.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Mike O’Brien 27 Missed Connections, 1/7/21
ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS
Anna Wiener 28 Noise Makers
The sound of movies.
LETTER FROM BUDAPEST
Andrew Marantz 36 The Illiberal Order
What do American conservatives see in Hungary?
PROFILES
David Remnick 48 Keeping Faith
The legendary career of the gospel singer Mavis Staples.
SKETCHBOOK
Edward Steed 55 “Delegates”
FICTION
Lauren Groff 58 “To Sunland”
THE CRITICS
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Anthony Lane 65 “Elvis.”
BOOKS
67 Briefly Noted
Louis Menand 68 The creation of the modern-art market.
MUSICAL EVENTS
Alex Ross 72 The Ojai Music Festival.
THE THEATRE
Vinson Cunningham 74 “Corsicana,” “Epiphany.”
POEMS
Nell Wright 42 “Fracture Story”
Mary Jo Bang 61 “The Bread, the Butter, the Orange Marmalade”
COVER
Chris Ware “House Divided”
DRAWINGS Paul Noth, Suerynn Lee, Lonnie Millsap, Sarah Kempa, Zachary Kanin, Navied Mahdavian, Kim Warp,
Roz Chast, Lars Kenseth, George Booth, Edward Koren, Julia Suits, Will McPhail SPOTS Nishant Choksi

CONTRIBUTORS
Andrew Marantz (“The Illiberal Order,” Anna Wiener (“Noise Makers,” p. 28) is
p. 36), a staff writer, published “Anti- a contributing writer for the magazine
social: Online Extremists, Techno- and the author of “Uncanny Valley.”
Utopians, and the Hijacking of the
American Conversation” in 2019. Chris Ware (Cover) has contributed
graphic fiction and covers to The New
Annie Proulx (“Swamped,” p. 20) is the Yorker since 1999. A retrospective of his
author of “Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short work is on display at the Centre Pom-
History of Peatland Destruction and pidou, in Paris, through October 10th.
Its Role in the Climate Crisis,” which
is due out in September. Mary Jo Bang (Poem, p. 61) published
a translation of Dante’s Purgatorio last
Edward Steed (Sketchbook, p. 55) began year. “Colonies of Paradise,” which
contributing cartoons to the magazine collects her translations of poems by
in 2013. Matthias Göritz, will be out in October.
Nell Wright (Poem, p. 42), a poet and Louis Menand (Books, p. 68), a staff
a visual artist, is at work on her first writer, is the author of, most recently,
book. “The Free World.”
Bill Adair (The Talk of the Town, p. 18) Lauren Groff (Fiction, p. 58) received
is a professor of journalism and public the 2018-19 Story Prize for the short-
policy at Duke University. He is the story collection “Florida.” Her latest
founder of the Web site PolitiFact. novel is “Matrix.”
Jia Tolentino (Comment, p. 15) became Vinson Cunningham (The Theatre,
a staff writer in 2016. Her first book, p. 74) is a theatre critic for the maga-
the essay collection “Trick Mirror,” zine. His début novel is forthcoming
came out in 2019. next year.
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FLIGHT ATTENDANCE FREEWHEELERS
Jennifer Gonnerman, in her reporting In Jill Lepore’s essay about her life (and
on flight attendants fighting for better near-deaths) on a bike, she remarks that,
treatment, mentions that my sister, historically, cycling’s sense of freedom
Sandie Hendrix, a stewardess at United, has been especially meaningful to women
was fired, in 1972, after weighing in at (Books, May 30th). Indeed, the cycling
a hundred and twenty-seven pounds craze of the eighteen-nineties, especially
(“Highflier,” May 30th). It’s worth not- in the U.K. and the U.S., coincided with
ing what happened afterward, too. the New Woman movement, in which
Sandie played a pivotal role in a law- many middle-class women questioned
suit against United, and she eventually marriage, sought sexual autonomy, and
got her job back, with back pay and se- found work outside the home. In 1894,
niority restored, as if she had never left. in Boston, a twenty-three-year-old Jew-
Unfortunately, the other flight atten- ish Latvian immigrant, Annie Kopchov-
dants were none too welcoming upon sky, a mother of three, left home to be-
Sandie’s return; they resented that she come the first woman to bicycle the
had kept pace in seniority (which de- globe. Dubbed Annie Londonderry, she
termined flight schedules and home was sponsored by a New Hampshire
bases) without, as they saw it, having water company, and regaled crowds with
worked for it. Sandie and her fellow- tall tales. (Her circumnavigation—which
returnees were ever after called the she later framed as a New Woman’s ex-
“wide-bodies.” ploit—may itself have been something
1
Linda Hendrix McPharlin of a fiction.) She died in obscurity, but
San Francisco, Calif. her story rolls on—in, among other it-
erations, the musical “Spin”—as proof
GREAT DEEDS, GREAT DANGER
that the cycling revolution remains
deeply meaningful to many girls and
William Finnegan perfectly captures the women, generations down the road.
1
peculiar world of big-wave surfing, and Brian Gibson
rightly crowns Kai Lenny the undisputed Annapolis Royal, N.S.
king (“Big Breaks,” May 30th). A quib-
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE
ble: there is no discussion in the article
about the correlation between big-wave
wipeouts and concussions. The La Jolla Lauren Collins’s article on the predi- 2022–23 SEASON
local Derek Dunfee hung it up, some lection of the French for “taking the TICKETS ON
time after winning the Monster Paddle waters” omits any mention of Belgium,
SALE NOW
Award, in 2009, owing to cumulative even though the town of Spa, in the
brain injuries, the prevention of which Ardennes, was an important early des-
is a cause that he has since championed. tination for water cures (“Soaking It Sondra Radvanovsky stars
In the piece, Finnegan quotes an essay In,” May 30th). It’s not the first time in the chilling title role of
that compares Lenny to Reinhold Mess- that Belgium has been overlooked in Cherubini’s Medea
ner, who climbed fourteen peaks above favor of France. Although this small
eight thousand metres without supple- country has much to offer, it doesn’t
Be part of the Met’s extraordinary new
mental oxygen. Those feats, though cel- often feature on the Anglo-Saxon radar.
season, featuring seven thrilling new
ebrated by mountaineers, risked hypoxic Richard Lewis
productions and three momentous
brain injury. For imitators of Messner Tervuren, Belgium
Met premieres—including Kevin Puts’s
and Lenny, the damage itself might prove
• The Hours, starring Renée Fleming,
intoxicating: impairment of the frontal
lobe may well contribute to lessened in- Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, Joyce DiDonato, and Kelli O’Hara.
address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
hibition, and, in turn, to further amaz-
metopera.org 212.362.6000
[email protected]. Letters may be edited
ing deeds—and harm.
for length and clarity, and may be published in Tickets start at $25
Glenn Vanstrum any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
La Jolla, Calif. of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
PAOLA KUDACKI / MET OPERA
JUNE 29 – JULY 5, 2022
GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
Asia Society
In 1998, the introduced Americans to a new art scene emerging from China in the seminal
show “Inside/Out.” Through Aug. 14, the museum presents a sequel of sorts: “Mirror Image: A Trans-
formation of Chinese Identity.” Its curator, Barbara Pollack, presents works by seven artists, all born after
1976, for whom the binary of East versus West is essentially moot. Pixy Liao—whose gender-norm-defying
photograph “Shoulder,” from 2021, is seen here—grew up in Shanghai and is now based in Brooklyn.