Last Week's New Yorker Review: October 27
Last Week’s New Yorker, week of October 27
“(The authors suggest that one might save money while prioritizing the mental-health benefits of exercise by asking one’s personal trainer for a discount.)”
Must-Read:
“On the Market” (Books) - Katy Waldman brings her down-the-rabbithole self to work. The targets may be pillow-soft, but this is so much fun I don’t care. The freakish result of a corporate culture that has absorbed feminism without understanding it is a parade of books that purport to teach women how to turn themselves into perfect professionals. Thus: combat “‘imposing syndrome’” and “‘presence dysmorphia’” by manifesting a self-image of successfulness; emerge from being fired with a stronger personal brand (a “vision of collectivism” as “a faux sisterhood of similarly branded selves”); and achieve financial independence by, uh, finding inspiration in some lady’s delusional stories about being pandered to by female service workers. The same thing is wrong with all three of these books; each “portrays the self as a stock to be invested in, grown, and used to generate wealth”, captured by a “financialized society”. But the examples Waldman finds are so laughably overt that they can serve as a negative example; something to dissect at your next consciousness-raising group. You’re still going every week, right?
Window-Shop:
“Work the Room” (Onward and Upward with the Arts) - Alexandra Schwartz makes some hard-decor porn with apartment stager Jason Saft. Saft is surprisingly charming; Martha Stewart is a very high bar as a brand, but when it gets mentioned as a possible destination for Saft, I didn’t disbelieve. He’s a queer Madonna lover, but also a plainspoken optimist who loved working at McDonalds and says “there’s something really good” about his apartment’s previous owner dying there after sixty-four years: “They were content here.” Dressing very expensive real-estate that hasn’t been selling also seems more moral than constructing new very expensive real-estate; we should at least use every part of the brownstone buffalo, and if it takes a thirty thousand dollar set decoration routine to render a space temporarily charming, that’s still better than a shoddy kitchen reno. Schwartz keeps things breezy, and includes plenty of lush description of interiors, with an emphasis on the doo-dads Saft favors, which give interiors a lived-in feeling. That there are no pictures of the apartments being discussed is still something of a fatal flaw; it helps a little – but not quite enough – if one peruses the before-and-after case studies on Saft’s site while reading. (The StreetEasy page for the 860 Fifth Avenue apartment is also a required illustrative tab.) Perhaps because Saft is an outsider to luxury, he sees it clearly; he can take it apart and put it together. We’re living in a material world, and he is a material girl.
“Open Table” (On and Off the Menu) - Hannah Goldfield pays it forward thinking. Ah, a breath of fresh air to have Goldfield briefly back in the city. The last section devolves into pure people-watching, as if this is Bar Tab; I suppose that’s her histamine reaction to these streets. Before that, this is an excellent brief look at a heroic experiment in well-funded nonprofit dining, as well as a quick peek at HAGS, an East Village spot known for pay-what-you-can brunch. (No mention of the food there, unfortunately; maybe she couldn’t make it out.) Goldfield is definitely overly overawed at the “racially diverse, eclectically dressed” crowd at Mark Bittman’s experimental spot; she should try waiting in line for NY Dosas, which is also incredibly affordable yet perfectly replicates another in-demand city experience: Queuing for a very long time to receive something that is essentially ordinary.
Grann on McKelway (Takes) - Even in a few brief paragraphs discussing someone else’s work, Grann’s authorial voice – commanding, fervent – comes through. And McKelway, though not totally obscure, is a deeper cut than many of these Takes have featured, which I appreciate. Last line presses the point too hard; we got it.
🗣️ “A Soho Walkabout” (Time Travel Dept.) - Michael Schulman pans and zooms across the city with Ken Burns. Like any experimental documentarian worth their salt, I feel complicated about Burns’ influence on the art, but he lands every punchline he tries here, and if there’s a better guy to guide your historical walking tour of the city, I can’t imagine who. I should have realized: he’s a world-class writer of narration; of course he can tell a story.
“Acting Up” (A Critic at Large) - Adam Gopnik gives us a prodigy in the ribs. If you were hoping this article about child stars would be mostly about their sexualization, well then – what’s wrong with you? But this is what Gopnik has delivered, and he does basically pull it off. I’m not sure why he’s so deeply familiar with Disney Channel sitcom actresses – or, even weirder, is affecting such a thing – but I suppose it’s better than dismissing out of hand the Jennette McCurdy memoir with the startling title, which has instantly become a weird intellectual totem for Gen Z. Her family background is similar to Shirley Temple’s, and both were sacrificed early: Where Temple began as a toddler in shorts “enacting adult romances complete with cocktails, kisses, and French lingerie”, McCurdy developed an eating disorder with very explicit help from her mother. Gopnik’s usual arch tone is not a good fit for this stomach-turning material, and he makes too much, metaphorically, of a childhood stint where he played dead. His philosophizing is a mixed bag; the ending doesn’t land, but a paradox he points out is more resonant, that “the ego needed to overcome shyness and stage fright collides with the endless rejection that defines the profession”. Will the child star inevitably feel that the love they receive is partial, and conditional on their success pretending to be someone they are not? Gopnik mostly avoids the overtly Jungian shtick I periodically lapse into, but if there’s a psyche that needs analyzing, I guess it’s never too soon to start.
“The Shutdown Artist” (Letter from Washington) - Andy Kroll casts a Vought against democracy. Importantly, this is not just another “here’s-what-these-fucks-have-been-up-to” story – even if Vought’s role has been underestimated, the stuff he’s been doing has been widely publicized, if often credited to Elon Musk. But Kroll got his mitts on a massive batch of recordings of Vought talking to his supporters, and these form the skeleton of a piece exposing the views of this open Christian nationalist who helped keep MAGA alive in D.C. through the Biden years, and is now helping lead the dismantling of the federal workforce throughout the second Trump term. Kroll makes a bit too much of Vought; he is by no means the “shadow president” Kroll calls him in a ProPublica video restating this article’s points. The image of a single figure ‘behind’ a leader is almost always mythical; there are inevitably multiple factions helmed by a number of people who jockey for influence. (Trumpians aren’t actually against bureaucracy, they just want to leverage its power exclusively in service of authoritarian nationalism, something the current national bureaucracy resists – or, at least, should.) The unassuming Vought is a compelling figure to imagine behind the curtain, and it’s important to remember that Trump’s street-smart-moron persona is, though not exactly an affect, certainly used as a shield by cannier operators. It’s not the whole story, but it’s a big story.
Skip Without Guilt:
“Exit Strategy” (Books) - Cal Revely-Calder says Paul Kingsnorth has turned so dark green he’s jaded. See, when Waldman aims at soft targets she has fun. Revely-Calder tries to pull the worthwhile climate cynicism out of Kingsnorth’s new, overtly right-wing-crybaby-coded eco rant, which is apparently “Against the Machine” but favors “fist-shaking” and offers no solution; the attempt ends up being a bummer. (And given Revely-Calder works for a Conservative rag, I’m not sure how much I trust his seemingly even-keeled assessment.) Sure, it’s true that “public life has been overtaken by a narrow fixation on data and measurement”, but that’s not an especially original point, and just as North delivers it with some light White Christian nationalism, many preachers spreading the message have also dropped a few questionable bombs.
“The Irishman” (A Reporter at Large) - Ed Caesar Dubais low, sells highs. A weird one, almost non-narrative and sort of pointless. Maybe I’m cynical, but it neither surprises nor entices me to learn that a semi-major player in boxing is also a notable drug kingpin. The sport is practically synonymous with P.E.D. usage, and cocaine isn’t unpopular either. If you’re already in the drug game, it seems a natural extension. Caesar seems incredulous that Kinahan has gotten away with things for so long, but really it’s only been maybe a decade of his Dubai operation, and as Caesar points out, many of the criminals involved have been caught due to the remarkable EncroChat leaks, already covered at greater length and to more interesting effect by Caesar a few years ago. Kinahan was canny or lucky and avoided these chats, therefore, for now, he’s slipped through the cracks. So what? Why am I reading about sanctions and schmoozing; where are the gangster/spy theatrics? I don’t want a win on points, give me a knockout.
“Go Big and Go Home” (Annals of Business) - Molly Fischer is a Costco guy: Of course she’s going to recount the business’ history, and its future. Fun in theory, frustrating in practice. Fischer massively overpromises in the first section, acting like she’s setting up for big reveals of how the company is changing; she waits till the next-to-last section then mostly reiterates the point that it matters whether the company changes (duh!), with extremely little evidence – Reddit threads are cited – as to whether it actually is changing or not. Before then, this is a luxuriously thorough corporate history, which may appeal – especially if you don’t expect the other shoe to drop. My eyes glazed over; I already knew the self-written Costco mythos, and – a rarity – it really does seem pretty true (or else, Fischer hasn’t found evidence to counter it). Combining efficiency and loyalty is a winning, even viral, combo. I wanted less on what the company is and more on what it means; I am only invested in its future insofar as that future reflects America. I can take or leave the liter cartons of coconut water. (I will take them. But I could leave them!)
“With a Bang” (The Current Cinema) - Richard Brody spots a revisionary artist. Possibly the most incoherent Brody plot synopsis I can remember, and that’s saying something. (“Meanwhile, a debonair and nonchalant judge, Roland Brack…who has arranged George’s loan for the expensive property, is also dallying with Hedda and plots to use his influence —his power, rather — to tighten their extramarital bond.” What’s the point of that set-off phrase, and also, why are you talking like that?) He’s also not the most compelling assessor of performances, lauding Tessa Thompson, who does rock, but focusing on the Oscars’ injustice toward her for no reason and then comparing her to Barbara Stanwyck, a gratuitously random pull. There’s one very good paragraph here, exploring how the director, Nia DaCosta, has re-set the whole play at a party, thus “stretching but preserving the unity of space.” Otherwise very disposable.
“Obsession” (Pop Music) - Amanda Petrusich says music has charms to Tame Impala. Man, what is the point of this?! Instead of running a review of the new Tame Impala album, someone has decided Petrusich should conduct a rambling, unrevealing interview with him and then write it up with very little added. They’ve gone to this well a few times before, never with very strong results, but it’s particularly egregious here because the new album is an astonishing misfire, a bizarro diversion into cod House music that is aggressively shallow and relentlessly unpleasant, the sort of spectacularly bad album that requires a fundamental misconception on the part of the artist. What is that misconception, though? You may get a sense from Sam Goldner’s excellent bad review at Pitchfork (“a daisy-chain of shaky half-measures that doesn’t even feel particularly committed to being depressing”), Shaad D’Souza’s excellent bad review at Resident Advisor (“[simplifies] dance motifs like tech house kicks and Balearic pastiche to attain unaffecting catharsis”) or even – as much as it pains me – Anthony Fantano’s half-decent bad review at The Needle Drop. (“It sounds like I'm listening to some weird, bad, electronic prog rock band performed for the first time at a local bar.” Uh… sure.) You won’t find any answers here, though; this may as well be a press release. If Petrusich really did like the album – which one might infer, though she doesn’t quite state it – she could at least have the decency to tell us why (god, why?)
Letters:
M. says: “I'm a big admirer of Emily Nussbaum's work, but that Keri Russell piece was the least essential celebrity Profile I've read in some time. I also think The Americans is overrated.”
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