Innholdsfortegnelse for December 24-31, 2018 i The New Yorker

Ben Taub (“Shallow Graves,” p. 54) is a staff writer. This piece was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Jianying Zha (“Tourist Trap,” p. 38) has published “China Pop,” “Tide Players,” and five books in Chinese. She lives in Beijing and New York. Jeffrey Toobin (“Trump’s Red Line,” p. 30), a staff writer, is the author of “American Heiress,” “The Oath,” and “The Nine,” among other books. Mary Gaitskill (Fiction, p. 72) has written three novels and three short-story collections. Her most recent book is “Somebody with a Little Hammer,” a collection of essays. Dylan Kerr (The Talk of the Town, p. 28) is a member of The New Yorker’s editorial staff. Ian Frazier (Poem, p. 77) has contributed to the magazine since 1974, and has written…

In 2010, Daniel Stiepleman attended the funeral of his uncle Martin Ginsburg, a tax attorney. In one of the eulogies, a family friend told the story of Charles E. Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, from 1972, the only case that Ginsburg argued alongside his wife. Their client was an unmarried salesman taking care of his elderly mother, but the tax code prohibited him from deducting caregiving expenses, because he was a man. The attorneys, working with the A.C.L.U., thought that a male plaintiff would be the perfect vehicle for a gender-discrimination case. They were right: the Tenth Circuit ruled in their favor. “I thought, Wow, that would be a great movie,” Stiepleman said recently. After sitting on the idea for more than a year, he asked his aunt for…

President Trump said some time ago that he believes his personal finances should be off limits to investigators. In an interview with the Times in July, 2017, he asserted that if Robert Mueller, the special counsel, sought to investigate the Trump family’s business dealings he would be crossing a “red line.” When, later that year, several news reports suggested that Mueller had subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for records relating to Trump’s businesses, the President reportedly told members of his staff that he wanted to fire Mueller in response. It was never confirmed whether Mueller had actually subpoenaed Deutsche Bank, but the President’s aversion to the scrutiny of his business interests caught the attention of Representative Adam Schiff, who will become the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence next…

This past July, on the final day of the NATO summit in Brussels, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, proposed a closed-door emergency meeting. The emergency was Donald Trump. Minutes earlier, the President had arrived late to a session where the Presidents of Ukraine and Georgia were making their case to join NATO. Trump interrupted their presentation and unleashed a verbal assault on the members of the alliance, calling them deadbeats and free riders on American power. Trump threatened to go his “own way” if they didn’t immediately pay more for their own defense. His barrage centered on Merkel, Europe’s longest-serving democratic leader. “You, Angela,” Trump chided Merkel. Most of NATO’s members had failed to fulfill the goal of spending two per cent of G.D.P. for defense, but Trump focussed on…

In the twenty-fourth book of Homer’s Odyssey the souls of the suitors all go down to Hades. Hermes leads them, gibbering like bats, past various underworld landmarks, the white rock of Leukas, etc., and on their way they pass the δῆμον ὀνείρων, which Homer leaves undescribed and unexplained. Δῆμον means “people, population or country.” Όνείρων means “dream.” A demographic of dreams. My friend Stanley Lombardo, translator, translates it “the dream deme.” But so how would this work? Is it a big file catalogue with all the dreams waiting in alphabetical order to go appear inside some head at night? Or standing around easy with drinks and anecdotes? Or so bored with signifying they’re lying on the ground in heaps? Do they have a gift shop? Does it sell books by…

Shachar Pinsker’s “A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture” (New York University) might seem, at a glance, like one of those “Bagels of Our Fathers” books that a Leo Rosten could have written back when Jewishness, as a cultural subject, still struck Americans as fresh and mostly funny. The cover shows an appealing pastel of a sunny, amazingly high-ceilinged and arch-filled café in Berlin—a lost Eden of conviviality and conversation. And the book itself is hugely entertaining and intimidatingly well researched, with scarcely a café in which a Jewish writer raised a cup of coffee from Warsaw to New York left undocumented. Yet it’s really a close empirical study of an abstract political theory. The theory, associated with the eminent German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas, is that…

It took two minutes of Season 2 before someone said the words: “Gosh, you’re amazing.” The speaker was one of Miriam (Midge) Maisel’s colleagues at the B. Altman switchboard, but, really, it might have been anyone: a genius painter at the Cedar Inn, who says, “It’s like Vermeer painted you! Or you swallowed a light bulb”; a Johnny Mathis-esque crooner at a telethon; Lenny Bruce; Jane Jacobs; Midge’s estranged husband, Joel, who is still stuck on her; her boyfriend, a choosy doctor who prefers Midge to the vapid gold-diggers in the Catskills; her devoted agent, Susie; or even some Parisian drag queens, who dub her Miss America. Is there anyone who doesn’t love Midge? Me, as it happens. Last year, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was a boffo hit for Amazon…

THE UNREAL WORLD One category of authorial deception to add to Louis Menand’s survey of literary hoaxes is the false-memory narrative (A Critic at Large, December 10th). In 1995, Binjamin Wilkomirski, a musician living in Switzerland, published “Fragments: Memories of a Childhood,” an account of his experience as a Latvian Jewish child imprisoned in a Polish concentration camp. Literary critics hailed the book’s authenticity, and it won the National Jewish Book Award. Several years later, a Swiss journalist, the son of a Holocaust survivor, accused Wilkomirski of fabricating his identity and his story. Wilkomirski’s literary agency then commissioned an investigation from a Swiss historian, who reached the same conclusion. (Wilkomirski denied the claims.) These revelations were complicated, however, by the possibility that Wilkomirski might have sincerely believed his own…

For the past several weeks, New Yorkers have been abuzz over a mysterious visitor. A mandarin duck, an intricately colored waterfowl native to East Asia, has taken up residence alongside the mallards in the Central Park Pond, drawing crowds and inspiring memes, dog costumes, and a Twitter account (bio: “I’m not from around here”). Pundits have argued that the frenzy betrays a desire for good news. But perhaps, the Mexico City-born designer Rebeca Méndez suggested the other day, something deeper is at play. “In our own normal life, we have patterns that we are so used to. When something”—an anatine interloper, say—“comes in and breaks that, it’s incredibly exciting,” she said. “The world suddenly collapses—it’s like a wormhole from fareast Asia to Manhattan.” Méndez recently curated an exhibition of avian…

Mueller Rushed to Hospital with“Nerve-Agent-Like” Symptoms Trump, Shrugging, Suggests:“Probably Something He Ate” Kellyanne Conway AttributesMueller Collapse to MSG Centers for Disease Control IdentifySource of Mueller Coma as Novichok,Nerve Agent Used in AssassinationAttempt on Former Russian Spy Giuliani Sees “Zero Ground” forF.B.I. to Investigate “So-Called Attack”;MSG and Novichok “Often Confused” Oval Office Log Reveals Visit byHead of Russian Germ-Warfare UnitJust Prior to Mueller Poisoning Trump Says Timing of Meeting withRussian Germ-Warfare Czar a“Completely Total Coincidence”:Topic Was “Russian Adoptions” CNN Reporter Collapses After BeingTouched by White House AideWearing Face Mask and Latex Gloves;Trump Wishes Jim Acosta “Good Luck”as Paramedics Rush Him fromEast Room Press Conference Trump Denounces “Out of Control”Cost of Mueller Medical Treatment;Calls Coma “Preëxisting Condition” Democrats Denounce Trump Moveto Shut Bethesda Naval Hospital,Leaving Mueller “Out on the Street” Trump Tweets:…

If only once, if ever you have the chance,You should climb a volcano.The hermitage at base camp, the glasses of brandy—That’s the past.Who wants to think about the past? You want to push forward, climb higher, while all around you,Inches beneath your feet,Earth is seething, a river of liquid rock. Will you make it to the summit—The flying slag, the potholesRed as an open wound?Of course you will, it’s easy; everybody does. So little behind you,So much ahead— Once, walking up BroadwayLate at night,Both of us a little drunk, flurries in the air, Christmas treesLining the sidewalk, block after block— At every cornerYou kissed me.Then the light would change.…

Carol had just come to her new sort-of home in a town called Rhinehorn. She had driven five hours from her former home in Duchess County and arrived with stunned, hunted relief. She had come to Rhinehorn for a six-month job as an admin assistant in the dean of students’ office at a private college. The job had come through a Facebook friend, an acquaintance from high school, who was also friends with the admin assistant for whom Carol was standing in; thanks to their vague connection, this total stranger had wrangled furnished accommodations for Carol on the ground that she was recently divorced and “struggling.” Technically, Carol was not divorced, but, yes, she was struggling, and so, except for what she could fit in her car, she had put…

A Mind Unraveled, by Kurt Eichenwald (Ballantine). This account of the author’s struggle with epileptic seizures as a young man merges elements of medical drama, anti-discrimination fable, and coming-of-age memoir. Eichenwald, an investigative journalist, uses official records, letters, diaries, and interviews with friends and family to reconstruct events beginning forty years ago. The result is both poignant and infuriating: a cavalcade of desperate loved ones, inept doctors, and college administrators who try to kick him out because of his seizures. Most vivid are the descriptions of near-fatal injuries and emotional ravages he sustained. Of awakening from a seizure, Eichenwald writes, “It was as if I had fallen from the sky, with no memory of where I had been or how I had returned.” A Writer of Our Time, by…

Nobody, even at this relatively late date in the history of forced or free American race-mixing, knows exactly what to do with the idea—or, worse, the reality—of a black body and a white body coming together. The problem is a superfluity of meaning. Sex between the races means rape and reconciliation, repression and release, assimilation and radical rejection, inculcation into one faulty set of values and freedom from another. Its participants are revolutionaries or self-haters, or both, and they are evidence of an old stain but also hints of a world to come. “Slave Play,” written by Jeremy O. Harris and directed by Robert O’Hara, at New York Theatre Workshop, takes this multivalent theme by the neck—also the waist; often the crotch—and never stops squeezing. The show’s disorienting first moments…

Last month, the distinguished trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and his quintet (with a lift from his daughter) ushered in the Christmas spirit with a swinging recording of “Winter Wonderland.” Now Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, along with the promising vocalists Vuyo Sotashe and Veronica Swift, offer “Big Band Holidays,” a program brimming with seasonal confections, both classic and reimagined. The series arrives on Dec. 19, with dollops of carefree nostalgia and abundant cheer, like all good traditions. ART “Andy Warhol” Whitney Museum Almost everything on display in this splendid, though inevitably too small, retrospective, organized by the museum’s senior curator, Donna De Salvo, feels, even now, definitively new. The show hits the most famous points—the Marilyns and the Elvises, the Jackies and the Maos—and some that are…

On a recent morning, Elizabeth Chan, America’s most successful, and perhaps only, full-time Christmas-song singer-slash-composer, was waiting in a dingy back corridor of Macy’s to meet Santa. Ahead of her in line, children whined and shopping bags rustled. A tinny karaoke version of “Deck the Halls” piped through the department-store speakers. Chan groaned. “It’s really generic,” she said, of the song. But Santa was Santa, and Chan thought it would be nice for her eighteen-month-old-daughter, Noelle, to meet him. “Everybody has the luxury of dealing with Santa for only a month,” Chan said. She wore a black knit cap and a burgundy coat, and pushed Noelle in a stroller. But, she said, in her household it’s “a year-round issue.” In 2012, Chan quit her job as an executive at Condé…

The other day, Connie Britton, the actress, found herself at an indooroutdoor furniture market in Malibu, shopping for items to fill a Spanish Colonial home that she had recently purchased. “I’m going to try to do a lot of vintage stuff from that period, but I love Art Deco and mid-century modern, too,” she said. She wore jeans and an olive-green sweater, and held a can of lime-flavored LaCroix. “I do think of interior design as an art form,” she said. Therefore, she had hired a professional. But comfortable seating defies outsourcing: Britton said she would test the chairs herself. Britton stars in the Bravo television drama “Dirty John,” based on a true-crime podcast about Debra Newell, an interior designer who gets duped by a handsome, sociopathic grifter. Britton plays…

Recently, the Beijing police took my brother sightseeing again. Nine days, two guards, chauffeured tours through a national park that’s a World Heritage site, visits to Taoist temples and to the Three Gorges, expenses fully covered, all courtesy of the Ministry of Public Security. The point was to get him out of town during the 2018 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, held in early September. The capital had to be in a state of perfect order; no trace of trouble was permissible. And Zha Jianguo, a veteran democracy activist, is considered a professional troublemaker. While President Xi Jinping played host to African dignitaries in the Great Hall of the People, the police played host to my big brother at various scenic spots in the province of Hubei, about a thousand kilometres…

The planet wobbles on its pins;Once more the joyous time begins,When sleigh bells dance and snowflakes ringAnd choirs leap and reindeer sing.Don’t waste a moment, make the choice:Come party with us and rejoice!In snow-blurred buildings lights are warmAnd calm and bright against the storm;The brightest window’s ours, we bet,And if you haven’t found us yetOur doorman, Edwin, will direct you(Or let our Escalade collect you).What shout now rises from below?It’s Jenny Slate, and Marshmello!How fabulous that they are here!And close behind them, bearing beer,Are Boomer, James, Nate, Phil, and Bill:Those “NFL Today” guys willElate us with their Christmas spirit.Tonight we’re truly getting near it—Yes, it’s Offset and Cardi B,With baby Kulture—purest glee!Now make some extra-special spaceFor Doug E. Fresh and Topher Grace,Penélope (the lovely Cruz),And Linda Stasi, of the News;While…

The final masterpiece of twentieth-century music had its première last month, at La Scala, in Milan. “Samuel Beckett: Fin de Partie,” an operatic version of Beckett’s “Endgame” by the Hungarian composer György Kurtág, is nominally a product of our time: Kurtág began writing it in 2010 and finished it last year, at the age of ninety-one. Yet the score harks back to the heyday of modernism in the arts, when a figure like Beckett could hold a cultured public tensely in thrall as he tested the extremes. Such authority hardly exists any longer: the age of the dark male genius is past. Given how much brilliant music is being made by new and different voices, the retreat of that cult is not greatly to be mourned. Still, Kurtág’s achievement is…