Last Week's New Yorker Review: April 21
Last Week’s New Yorker, week of April 21
“the relieved, the vengeful, the doubtful, and the desperate-for-a-byline”
Must-Reads:
“Starved In Jail” (A Reporter at Large) - Sarah Stillman is unfed up with privatized jail care. Stillman’s articles, which inevitably double as team-driven site launches, increasingly border on activism – campaigning for solutions at the same time they reveal the issues. I think that’s not only alright but probably morally necessary; to tell these stories without proposing changes would be nihilistic. I take more issue with Stillman’s chosen structure, though, which delves into extreme detail on one particular case and cursorily examines a load of others. Frankly, the moral weight of the subject matter is so obvious that the attempt to give a single human face to the issue feels condescending; I wonder if an approach that balanced a few narratives more evenly would have felt less like an attempt to strategically litigate the issue with the tightest case available. (This feeling isn’t helped by the constant references to the law firm that takes on many of the cases Stillman covers.) If the piece doesn’t feel well-balanced, that hardly matters; Stillman’s argument has such force and moral clarity it needs no “face” to persuade, only the facts. Dysfunction and death are baked into our jail system; private companies latch onto the system like leeches and extract their profit. (The way corporate personhood shields executives from liability for starving people to death is horrific and fascistic, and Stillman rightfully links it directly to the story of Anne Frank and the concentration camps.) Stillman does a phenomenal job balancing moral force with nuance – some of these companies are significantly better than others, it’s clear; still, the system is fundamentally inhumane. The last paragraphs suggest hope in U.B.I, then, maybe realizing how far away that dream seems right now, pivot to Bible study. Look around: What is this if not the valley of the shadow of death?
“Gone Girl” (Books) - Casey Cep says evangelist, faith heal thyself. McPherson’s story is seriously astonishing, and while I knew some of the characters based on her (Reno Sweeney, Sharon Falconer) the facts are so much stranger than fiction they could be a parable. Cep spends a while on McPherson’s familial and romantic history, which could feel needless but is instead the best thing here – it gives a fuller sense of what it required, and what it cost, to be a powerful woman at the time. Cep is incredibly dismissive of McPherson’s kidnapping story, and largely seems to credit the L.A. police account. As is usually the case with L.A. cops, even when they’re right they’re wrong, and Cep has to look past gobs of misconduct and contradiction, none of which she brings up, to buy their tale. But weighing in on a crime narrative based on the biased framing of a Wikipedia page is a terrible idea, and I’d guess Cep has better reason to distrust McPherson than I do to basically buy her story. (Obviously, if your job is literally faith healer, it’s only natural that nobody would trust you about anything.) This is a riveting tale; whatever you think you see in McPherson, you’ll have to look again.
Window-Shop:
“The Portal Opens” (Profiles) - Amanda Petrusich goes to Phish for compliments. The appeal of Phish doesn’t require as much explaining as Petrusich thinks; it’s art that maxes out on awe at the expense of everything else, and if this means the lyrics are comically terrible, well… James Turrell’s titles are cheesy too; nobody cares about the text of a thing that makes them transcend. I tend more toward Floating Points as far as being transported by rhythm and groove and “synchronicity”, but I can appreciate the analog Phish style; they don’t fake the funk, though they do have to work awfully hard at it. I mostly associate the band with Harris Whittels’ podcast, and I knew much of the backstory Petrusich gives from listening to that show (although it’s from over a decade ago, yowch.) But Petrusich adds her wide-eyed routine, something that works well here because the music is all about being wide-eyed; someone more acid-tongued (not, you know, acid-tongued) would spoil the vibe completely. In interviews, the Phish quartet blend together; they’re all variations on the same committed professional groover, at this point. They’re not sad dads, they’re friendly funky fathers. No detail here is sharp enough to really surprise, but neither does anything harsh the vibe. That’s the Phish way!
“Berlin to Broadway” (Musical Events) - Alex Ross commits two Weill acts. Ross is always a treat, and for once I’ve actually seen the art he’s reviewing! I’m not sure “sly” is the right descriptor for Love Life’s satire – it’s pretty pointed, and even sometimes thudding – and if it’s “more political” than Threepenny, something is wrong with your Threepenny I think. (Sure, “facile cynicism” isn’t far off for that show, but that’s still a politics; Ross says Love Life “hints at a way out” but I think it mostly hints at a way back in. Probably Lerner’s fault, but still the case.) Ross doesn’t have much to say about Weill in general – he says Weill was always “sui generis”, so no overarching conclusion can be drawn. But he’s in for Threepenny, so he’s in for a pound.
“Unsparing” (Talk of the Town) - Bruce Handy eats and leaves no Crumb. Every observation astute!
“The Personhood Principle” (Books) - Margaret Talbot finds no I in embryo. Fetal personhood has always been the Xenu of the anti-abortion movement – the obviously impossible-to-believe thing that must ultimately be either believed or ignored to make sense of all the otherwise contradictory parts of the movement. The book under review here centers the anti-abortion movement around this idea – correctly – but also, according to Talbot, grants it a power that it may not actually have. The anti-abortion big tent does not actually cohere ideologically, and it’s probably stronger for it; bigot misogynists and religious wackjobs can find common cause without having to actually talk to each other. Talbot’s cursory recap of abortion politics post-Roe is skippable; her careful consideration of Ziegler’s book is more compelling.
Martin on Brickman (Takes) - I knew of Marshall Brickman as a comedian and writer, but I didn’t realize that he, like Martin, was a banjo player – and an influential one, to boot. Sometimes inspiration is pretty damn direct. I don’t find the written piece Martin is praising to be even a little bit funny; oh well. I can certainly dig the twangy song he cites.
“Burial Plots” (The Current Cinema) - Justin Chang has no grave doubts. Some stinky puns in the mostly baffling plot synopsis, but worth reading just for the way Chang sums up Cronenberg’s project: “...one way or another, the body must react and adapt to its own irrational desires, and to the seeping, churning influences of its environment.” The new film’s story sounds incoherent in its machinations and its politics, frankly, but what’s a mind virus to a dead body?
Skip Without Guilt:
“Luddite Lessons” (Dept. of Labor) - John Cassidy looms large. A pretty cursory and conventional history of the Luddites, which makes sense when you realize this is merely one little case study in a whole book discussing the history of opposition to capitalism. Light stuff! The next-to-last section here, at least, is excellent; Cassidy provides, in just a few paragraphs, a tighter and more balanced consideration of A.I. than plenty of longer pieces – in short, the tech could work wonders, but it isn’t going to because it’s privately owned, and will thus be used to make quick profits by any means necessary. In shorter: The problem isn’t A.I., it’s capitalism. Cassidy’s book sounds riveting; this piece just seems to be the most accessible, and thus least compelling, chunk.
“The Pluralism Pivot” (Annals of Higher Education) - Emma Green thinks backlash is a plural noun. Green’s belief in pluralism as in any way a meaningful term, let alone as the “more lasting and widespread” change coming to colleges in place of “stand-offs with the administration” is totally frustrating and idiotic, but there are enough other voices in this article to make it sort of worthwhile anyway. The section explaining the actual impact of the dismantling of D.E.I, which is, obviously, that the afflicted are afflicted and the comfortable are comforted (“‘I don’t know how erasing someone’s identity is getting you closer to collaboration… How could this be harming you, that kids have a way of belonging?’”) is wrenching, and Green ends on a suitably cynical note. But there’s far too much leeway given to cowardly administrators – the choice to focus on Brigham Young University, of all places, and to frame the school’s refocusing to cater to Mormons as in some way a reflection of religious freedom, is egregious – and Green never articulates directly what the intent of abolishing D.E.I. actually is, e.g. that it’s a deliberate strategy to stifle political speech on campus, and that it goes hand in hand with the state terrorist attacks on antiwar activism. Green keeps her blinders on tight; only by completely avoiding context can this corporate-speak arm of the broader attack on campus freedom be seen as probably legal and potentially even righteous. It takes more courage to speak context to power.
Letters:
Barely gave you a chance, did I, pushing this out so I’d be (finally!) caught up? Well, there’s always next week.
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