Last Week’s New Yorker, week of January 12

“Children, a class whom the poet Mary Karr once described as ‘three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate,’“

Must-Read:

“Yes, And?” (A Critic at Large) - S.C. Cornell returns to consenter. Almost impossible not to err with a topic this touchy, but I’ll still point out that Cornell’s assertion that “roughly four out of every five people who are convicted of statutory rape are Native American” appears to be highly misleading, relying on federal-court statistics that refer to a small handful (about 40) cases total, and are due to the intricacies of Tribal reservation law. (In most other cases, state courts handle statutory rape.) Very surprised that made it through a fact check. With that out of the way… this is a very astute literature review, which happily decides to tell us, halfway through, which book is the best one out there on the topic, and pivot to mostly praising and unpacking it. The piece is very short, given its impossibly wide remit, as is evident when Cornell tries to gloss feminist history (I am not defending Andrea Dworkin when I say I think Cornell slightly misses her point); far better are the sections concerning ideas, and the case studies that neatly unveil them. (Is consent too permissive? Consider consensual cannibalism! Is it too punitive? Consider collegiate paranoia and/or drunkenness!) Cornell eventually arrives at Quill Kukla’s book, which focuses on striving for ‘good sex’ as a more meaningful aim than the anxious avoidance of bad sex. As my language suggests there, Kukla, by framing things this way, correctly hints that insecure attachments, at their most pathological, are a major contributor to rape culture; in other words, that communication cannot entirely or even largely be reduced to a matter of mastery of banked codes. It’s an imperfect model, but it’s better than the one we have, and Cornell’s cogent introduction to Kukla’s frame is itself enough to make this worth your time.

Window-Shop:

“A Plan Made in Hiding” (Letter from San Bernardino) - Jordan Salama gets ICEd out. In some sense lower-stakes than other immigration stories by Salama, and other coverage of the deportation crisis in the magazine, has been. These are Mexican Americans with many privileges, including wealth; some of them are even Republicans. In theory, one of those privileges ought to stem from their Americanness: the children are citizens, the parents have lived here almost their whole lives. The sickening thing is how little all this matters; the parents are reduced to a self-imposed house arrest for a year while their daughter graduates high school, after which time they will self-deport. One can see, in this story, how the Garcías will manage, despite these circumstances; that an injustice is sweeping, even unthinkable, does not require that it destroy every life it touches. Perhaps Salama was drawn to this story because it is, horribly, not news; because it feels, in a sickening way, normal. It does not represent the extremes of our immigration policy – the situations most tailored to provoke outrage in all who encounter them – but something like the middle. The piece is essayistic without aiming for lyric poetry; its politics are largely a psychological politics. Injustice is not merely a matter of bodies, it is also a matter of minds; this is where storytelling like Salama’s serves its role.

🗣️ “Where We Are” (Comment) - Adam Gopnik is on a map quest. A model for what Comment more often ought to be: a wide-ranging, discursive commentary on broad subjects in the news (here: maps and their politics), instead of specific, recappy takes on individual incidents. Are redistricting fights actually that connected to NYC’s policy change and to the depersonalization of daily life? I dunno, really, but Gopnik isn’t exactly drawing a straight line from one to the next, he’s simply proposing the map as a metaphor. It’s far more compelling than This Week In Trump, which one can get anywhere.

“Baby Blues” (The Current Cinema) - Justin Chang goes from here to maternity. A soft-spoken take on a soft-spoken film; Chang doesn’t bring many jokes or hot takes, and his appreciation for the Dardennes’ long project is subdued though apparent. This probably should have run online-only, especially because Chang was so riveted by Resurrection. (Yes, that film came out before Christmas; it’s still running, though, and also: so what?) Chang’s holiday-season prolific streak has helped him keep up with awards season but it doesn’t quite match the magazine’s slightly delayed schedule at the end of the year. Still, this issue is so skinny they ought to have just published seven or eight of his reviews back-to-back. Call it a marathon!

“The American Pope” (Profiles) - Paul Elie previews Prevost. Don’t expect hot takes; this is cool as communion wine. Elie gives Leo’s backstory, which is heavy on service (“he hosted pancake breakfasts in a cathedral refectory”) and has many direct connections to liberation theology; he comes across as serious-minded and even-handed as a person, but this doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll pivot back from Francis’ more radical pushes – he’s already working to complete the dismantling of Opus Dei – so much as that his Midwestern-nice presence may make that movement seem less like the work of one singular pope than the new normal for Catholicism – a very good thing, even if it is, obviously, still Catholicism. (I don’t want Tim Kaine to lead the Democratic party, but I’d take him as Pope.) Elie does a very good job disambiguating the intricacies of South American Catholicism in particular. Elie is a Vatican City correspondent, though, so he’s less able to take a wide view of where, and how much, the Pope matters to global politics. That may end up being the prompt to pray on.

“Let It Bleed” (The Art World) - Zachary Fine sticks with Frankenthaler through thick and thin paint. White smoke is rising, which means the magazine has found a new young white guy with a chiseled jaw and thick brows to replace the previous one. (Fine’s had a few reviews on the website, but this is his first magazine piece.) Judging by this opening swing, he’s certainly enthusiastic! And I love Frankenthaler almost as much as he does, so I’m willing to go with him. Some of the language here borders on manic – one painting is “sixteen feet long, around the length of two adult water buffaloes”; Clement Greenberg “didn’t snip Frankenthaler out of the daisy chain of modern art” – a style Peter Schjeldahl was often accused of, but generally earned. Elevating Frankenthaler is in line with the current consensus, though, so Fine ought not to press the point as hard as he does: His enthusiasm overeggs things. Still a decent letter of recommendation, for a show small enough that it might have otherwise passed without critical notice despite its very central location. (MOMA’s atrium is, in a way, the most trafficked gallery in the city.) I especially appreciate his making note of the installed benches and how they changed visitors’ behavior. Art criticism could use more anthropology.

Skip Without Guilt:

“Pour One Out” (The Control of Nature) - Nicola Twilley doesn’t sip her cigar, but she smokes her wine. Undercuts itself at both beginning and end by explicitly pointing out that an extraordinary number of lives are being harmed and lost by smoke inhalation, thereby making the expensive experimentation being done here – which, to be clear, merely promises to someday help wine taste less smokey again; there is “relatively limited practical application” so far – seem even more trivial and corporate than it actually is. (In a previous political era, the U.S.D.A’s seven-and-a-half-million-dollar grant would be called pork-barrel spending, which has me imagining a smoky, meaty, barrel-aged red.) Unfortunately, Twilley relies on us finding the science here interesting, but even if you aren’t vaguely disturbed by high-tech alcohol restoration, there isn’t enough surprise or romance in these treatments, just lots of chemical analysis. (The closest we get is an apparent breakthrough prompted by charred leek tip water.) Tilley’s eventual conclusion seemed self-evident from the start: If this is what Cali wine tastes like now, we may as well embrace it. Smoky grapes are the yeast of our problems.

“Notorious M.T.G.” (The Political Scene) - Charles Bethea looks Greene around the gills. There is not much difference, as it turns out, between someone who believes in anything and someone who believes in nothing. But you probably already knew that, and you probably already knew exactly who Marjorie Taylor Greene really was. Her supposed shift away from Trump, whether it's a political play or just a retreat, is as reactionary as her every other move, and Bethea has absolutely nothing new to add.

Petrusich on Grannan (Takes) - I guess these anniversary Takes are continuing into the new year? That, or they really needed to fill a page in this rather thin issue, because Petrusich’s entirely unrevealing encapsulation of the Swift phenomenon – a topic she repeats herself on here, despite seeming neither expert nor interested – was, from the looks of it, written in about five minutes.

Letters:

Michael B. shares some of his favorite pieces from the last year, “divided into some rough categories”; all his words below:

Fun Reads:

What's a Fact, Anyway?: By far the best of the many, many, many articles on the magazine's history this year, although I'm sad they didn't print my letter to the editor about this. [This sounds like it’s referring to the Zach Helfand piece published in the magazine as ‘Vaunted’, though there was a different Weekend Essay with the title Michael lists.]

The Airport-Lounge Wars [also by Zach Helfand]: The perfect deep dive on a fun topic, something I feel there's been less of than usual in the past year or two in this magazine. So good it made the also amusing feature on stadiums [by John Seabrook] in the next issue a bit redundant.

Fact Dumps:

The Phish one [by Amanda Petrusich, called ‘The Portal Opens’ in the magazine]: The article with the greatest number of "wow, I didn't know that" highlights, although maybe this is because I'm coming to this subject with a low knowledge base. I'd probably feel that way about the Mexican dental industry one if I hadn't read a different essay on it a few years ago.

The Aesthetic Empire of Alma Mahler-Werfel [by Alex Ross, called ‘Femme Vitale’ in the magazine]: Runner up in this regard. I know the basics of her life but Ross really enriched my perspective.

Great Reporting:

The End of Children [by Gideon Lewis-Kraus]: The deep reporting on South Korea provided richness I didn't get from the many other essays I've read on this topic.

The Runaway Monkeys Upending the Animal Rights Movement [by Ava Kofman, called ‘Cage Match’ in the magazine]: Same deal. A subject I've superficially heard a lot about that brought a new level of depth.

The deportation one [by Sarah Stillman, called ‘Disappeared’ in the magazine]: Agreed this was some of the best straight political reporting in the magazine this year.

The Engines and Empires of New York City Gambling [by Adam Gopnik, called ‘City of Luck’ in the magazine]: I've read a lot on gambling and lottery history but this one managed to surface plenty of things I'd never heard of before.

Local Reporting:

The parking [‘Circling the Block’, Zach Helfand] and pigeon [‘Pigeon Toes’, Ian Frazier] features from the New York anniversary issue: More please. Always love an "only in New York" feature in this magazine. 

Other:

Most of the pieces from the 100th anniversary issue, especially the ones on marching bands [‘Stepping Out’, Burkhard Bilger], Gary [‘Company Town’, Paige Williams], and teaching the ibis to migrate [‘Helicopter Parents’, Nick Paumgarten]: This issue in general really did exemplify some of the best of the magazine's different types of features... I'll also throw in that I watched the first 30 minutes of the Netflix doc at least partly tied to this issue and found it pretty lacking.

A great resource! I second nearly every one of these recommendations.

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